way off topic political stuff

Ok, so if you don't care at all about politics, don't bother reading this. Just wanted to find out what other people thought about this.

My parents ask me who I'm gong to vote for for president and I tell them without hesitation that I'll be voting for Ralph Nader on the green ticket. My father's response was "You're really going to waste your vote like that?". My father, being a somewhat informed person, doesn't like either of the candidates that much, but still says something like that. This annoyed me beyond anything. People don't seem to realize that if people don't vote for alternative parties, they won't get the press or recognition that they all deserve. If people just vote for either the republicans or the democrats even though they don't like them just because they figure that the odds of an alternative party winning are nill, then the system will stay the same and the bureaucrats will remain in power. We all talk about campaign finance reform, environmentalism, minority inclusion, the fight against racism, sexism, etc..., but when they don't find these qualities in the major parties they just figure that because no one else can win, they may as well choose the lesser of two evils. There is a party for everyone. Whether it's the greens, the reforms, the libertarians, the socialists, or whoever, people need to break out of this one track mind set that says that only the big parties count.

"Jon Reiss" wrote in message news:[email]...

No vote is wasted, as far as I'm concerned, if the candidate is a serious-minded person who is sincere about running and trying to make the nation a better place.

If you're writing in "none of the above" (since we don't have *that* option) or writing in your own name or "Mickey Mouse" or someone who's running as a joke, that is a wasted vote.

That said, I'm voting Democratic all the way. It's too important to keep George "Duh-bya" Bush and the Republicans out of office.

Jeg7777 wrote:

I *want* to vote Democrat, but Gore pretty much shot himself in the foot for me for the remarks he made about Texas. Especially considering his home state is claimed to be Tennessee. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I *don't* want the horrible Bush/Cheney ticket (*shudder*) to get in. And I *don't* want to support a party that attracts a majority of people whom I despise (like the Green Party and the hippies...my ideal radical movement involves PUNK, thankyouverymuch). So...I'm stuck. I'm stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck. And it SUCKS.

LI (grrrr...*sigh*)

Have you consitered "Voting With You're Feet?"

I agree with you completely on this, which absolutly horrifies me,

Look at it this way, George "Dubya" Bush has failed misseribly at just about everything he has ever attempted, The only reason he is Govonor of Texas is that the Democrats in Texas have a track record in recent years for fielding absolute losers. Hey, What is Anne Richards up to these days?

I suspect Gore will probably loose the election, However in the long run Bush winning is probably better for the democrats, Bush is going to do for the Republicans what Jimmy Carter did for the democrats, And even in Gore does lose the democrats will probably reclaim the house and probably manage to keep Bush from doing anything especailly retarded. Ala Privatise Social Security or Sceed control of the Department of Education to the Heritage Foundation or sinking trillions of dollars into some absurd legomaniac Anti-Missle system.

This is exactly what I see happening, a repeat of '94, except in the opposite. Bush will be elected and there voters will see him do a bunch of dumb things and figure the best way to keep him from completely collapsing the whole country would be to vote for the dems in 2002.

Mike Quinn [email]

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MIchael J. Quinn said:

I heard all this before. In 1980.

You may be underestimating Dubya.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

in

What happened in 1982 (I'm not old enough to remember)? G.W. could still be president for eight years, but he'll probably end up with the same problems with congress that Clinton had (when people realized all the dumb things *he* was going to do and got as many GOPers as possible in there).

If anyone is being underestimated it is Bush's aides, they have done a marvelous job. I think the real test for Bush may be in any debate that may take place, if he can get through a debate (or even a series of debates) relatively unscathed, then that would probably all but lock up this election for him, considering the lead he has right now.

Mike Quinn [email]

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Michael J. Quinn said:

Reagan lost control of the Senate, but was still able to get major elements of his program adopted, because he was charismatic and politically skilled.

Dubya won't be burdened with as many scandals as Clinton was. Unless he _works_ at it :)

Bush _picked_ his aides. Selecting competent assistants is an important executive skill. To be a competent President, one has to know how to delegate responsibility effectively. This is where Reagan, for instance, had Carter beat hands down.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

Maybe not, but he might be a lot better at hiding them than Bubba was :)

I didn't mean to imply otherwise, he did a good job of it (seeing how well he's doing).

Of course, because as some people forget (and this isn't directed at anyone here), the president doesn't have the time or energy to personally address every problem. And while he or she would be the "leader" or "representative" of the U.S. government, the president is no dictator (or at least shouldn't be one).

Obviously, it's good thing too, because of what I do remember of the end of Reagan's second term is that he didn't seem to be all there all the time (at least in my perception at the time).

Mike Quinn [email]

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Please don't tell me you are comparing Baby Bush to Ronald Reagan, Hell Ronald Reagans son said the following about Dubya. And for the record I dispise Gore every bit as much as Bushie "What is his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?" he quipped to the paper - a reference to Bush's decision to his quit his life as a boozy party boy and find Jesus.

Young Ron also turned his two-shooter on Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, for voting for "plastic guns and cop-killer bullets."

Now I may just be a spoiled Liberal brat, but that speaks volumes.

Let's take a look at what Dubya has done with his life. After a lackluster college career and a short time in the National Guard flying the long obsolete F-102 that was at that time as likely to see combat as Bill Klintoon, he started Arbusto Oil Despite several sweetheart deals and bailout from his dads cronies, he managed to run this company into the ground in a matter of months. He then went to work running another oil company . Again, despite several great deals and bailouts from his daddy's friends he managed to drive this company into the ground too.

Then he went to work for Spectrum Seven Oil. The board, gave him a cool title but absolutly no decision making authority so they could benefit from his name but not end up in a crater. Several weeks before Spectrum 7 announced it's latest low earnings report and the stock got flushed . Bush sold all his stock in the company.

Bush's handlers, who've always had political aspirations for the kid, saw the need to develop a businessman persona for their fledgling drunk. So, they got the Texas Rangers to give him 10% of the team after he managed to put up the money for less than 2% from his fraudulent stock trading and you guessed it, His daddies cronies

The Rangers club then suckered the taxpayers of Texas to buy them a new world class stadium and put some nearly criminal clauses in the contract so the team owners could buy the stadium after 5 years for a fraction of what the Taxpagers of Texas paid for it.

They then sold the team and the stadium raking in massive profits for all team owners.

Boy, With this guy at the helm the United States will probably join the leauges of non-states such as Albania, Indonesia, and Liberia

Can I take your lack of a responce as confirmation you can't dispute anything I said?

Quite a man that George Dubya is.

"The Contentious Objector" wrote in message news:i6Wj5.136173$[email]...

from

you

so

The Contentious Objector wrote:

And the scary part is, this is the least of the really idiotic pranks this man has pulled on the state of Texas. Ann Richards, our former governor, tried as hard as she could to help modernize and liberalize Texas, and she at least got my respect. Dubya has done tons of scary things to Texas that have almost completely erased all the progress that Governor Richards had made during her term of office. He's even tried to pull some fast ones on us, like the school voucher program that would've penalized all public school districts in the state for the actions of some. I mean, I've been a Catholic school student all my life so I have no real idea what goes on in public school, but if Bush intends to destroy the public school system, he'll get nothing but a lot of angry, overworked, and underpaid private school instructors against him. And I hate how he brought in the stupid rule about parental notification. Texas was one of the decent pro-choice states before this idiotic piece of legislation came into our borders. Oh, and speaking of borders...Bush has been one of the most unfriendly governors when it comes to the Texas-Mexico border. I think if he had the chance he would build a wall not unlike the Berlin wall between Texas and Mexico. I really think he would. And I could go on and on and on and...

*sigh* Could you guys help me keep him out of the Oval Office? I don't want him screwing up the rest of the U.S. like he has this state.

LI

There is no way you are a Canadian,

I so have you found out!

Incredible,

You have finally got something right,

I AM NOT A CANADIAN,

Uh, you mean you're not aware that none other than Jello Biafra was running for the Green Party nomination a while back? You know, the founder of the Dead Kennedys, the first band to ever go on trial over a record album ("Frankenchrist")? He seems rather PUNK to me. Not that it matters much, really. And don't take this the wrong way, but I've been reading your posts for quite a while and enjoying them, and my heart sank when I read that and realized you're basing your vote on something about as arbitrary as someone's hairstyle. "You have some interesting and practical solutions to many problems facing our country, but I can't possibly vote for you because you wear tie-dye and Birkenstocks and I only vote for people with green hair who wear leather"? Hell, why do you think Black Flag grew their hair long back in the day? It's what each candidate and their party stands for, not what the people who vote for them look like. You probably meant something completely different anyway and I'm probably being insultingly condescending, but I just felt I had to speak up and say something. You can go ahead and tell me I've got my head up my ass now. :)

Michael Pierry of @Home Network writes:

Assuming the hairstyle comment refers to Punk, I think the Punk movement probably mutated in crossing the Atlantic. In the UK where it originated it was a nihilistic movement, basically a 1970's rerun of Dadaism.

-Shez.

[email] (Shez) wrote in :

Now you mention Punk, I ended up buying "Never Mind The Bollocks" the other day, strangely enough whilst sheltering from the rain, a week ago saturday :) I also ended up buying a Black Sabbath album as well, what a mixture :)

Phill.

Have you been reading too much Greil Marcus or something? Far as I can tell the Sex Pistols were a scam (yeah, they were so nihilistic that "Nevermind The Bollocks" had better production values than a Green Day CD). "The real fans never bought the album." Yeah, sure. And the Clash don't seem to have been nihilists, but I could be wrong. That's just two examples so maybe I'm missing a major piece of the puzzle, but I've never been able to have a conversation with ANYONE about punk that wasn't contentious anyway. Everyone seems to have a completely different idea of what it was and what it is (and indeed, whether it still IS anything at all or if it died years ago).

Michael Pierry of @Home Network writes:

I've never heard of him.

If Malcolm McLaren's film The Great Rock and Roll Swindle is to be believed then yes they were. But that doesn't contradict the notion that they were a rerun of Dada, in fact it fits in perfectly, as they did to the music industry what Dada did to the Art world, which is take it for a ride to show that the people who run the business are basically incapable of telling art from non-art, they're just poseurs looking for trends to exploit.

And featured a singer who couldn't sing and musicians who couldn't play. I don't have any of their albums so I don't know what the production was like but I have seen footage of their live performances and they're even worse than the Spice Girls. But unlike the Spice Girls the Sex Pistols were deliberately bad, the idea was not to be musical at all.

Who said that?

Well there were probably hundreds of punk bands. The one that sticks in my mind is John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett performing "Beware Of The Flowers Cos I'm Sure They're Going To Get You, Yeah" live on Top of the Pops, jumping around and smashing their PA. I can't remember many of the bands but The Stranglers were big, also Souxsie and the Banshees, though both bands later went mainstream.

At the Rock/Punk fringe there was the Boomtown Rats, though I don't think they were really regarded as punk as they could hold a tune. They did produce some classic hits though, such as "I Don't Like Mondays", about a US High School shooting where some girl killed her teacher (or possibly a whole bunch of people at her school) for the above reason, which I guess counts as an exposition of nihilism. (I'm surprised they don't re-release the song each year, since the subject matter is always topical.)

I thought it died out well over a decade ago actually. I'm sure people had moved on to other things by the time I left school. I was never really into it in the first place anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with wearing a bin liner and torn clothes but stuff like sticking safety pins through your cheek was not quite "me" somehow. I'm sure Alli would have been a punk though.... of course not all punks were into self mutilation but quite a lot were. (Of course these days the line between piercing and self mutilation has become rather blurred.)

-Shez.

my boyfriend and i had a huge fucking argument about punk in the middle of soho the other week. he (claims that he) used to be a punk, although i can't really see the fat balding git making a very good punk. :D i'm so nice, aren't i? :)

i would be today but it's not worth the effort of dyeing my hair (which doesn't seem to like being dyed as it stalwartly (sp? is it even a word??) refuses to change colour). :)

Alli said:

• He probably was skinnier and had more hair when he was younger.

2) I wasn't aware that being a "punk" was a position with difficult entrance requirements.

3) You do realize that by insulting him, you are insulting yourself by implication, right?

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

indeed.

i was being facetious. :p

Shez said:

"That's not how you spell 'uvula'" :)

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

there were other punk bands, you know.

Of course, but you conveniently snipped the part of my post that acknowledges this. What's up with that?

Hey, I love punk rock and consider myself to be part of that scene, but the punk idealists I know usually lean towards anarchists. Any good punk who is truly political and looks at things from a realist perspective realizes that anarchy doesn't do anyone any good, and that what we need is real liberal reform to remove the corporate aspect from our government. That way it will truly be ruled by the people.

Jon Reiss AIM: NukeBuddha http://www.j51.com/~improv Ralph Nader for Prez!

On Sun, 06 Aug 2000 03:52:08 GMT, Lady Interference wrote:

I betcha I'm the only person on this board or even in this country torn between Nader and....Bush.

I love Nader's social platform, but Bush is still closer to my moral values (although I could live with some more gay rights in there somewhere...).

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

"Kyle" wrote in message news:8ml0jm$2er$[email]...

keep

Where the hell have you been? There are a number of individuals who are waiting to get fished! :-)

As for moral values, I have no idea what Ralph Nader's values are. He seems to be keeping them to himself.

On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 23:30:18 -0400, "Jeg7777" wrote:

That's funny. I tend to vote for a president that's able to do the job as outlined in the Constitution. When did that requirement suddenly become unimportant, or else shoved to the bottom of the list in favor of "moral values"? Guess I missed that part in my high school civics lessons.

The day we elect a total incompetent to office solely because his/her "moral values" are the right ones -- a direction that, sadly, we seem to be racing at warp speed in, no thanks to the Religious Right and their hate-spewing ilk -- is the day I officially declare the United States to be beyond redemption.

Martin
(send all e-mail to "[email]")
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On Mon, 07 Aug 2000 01:06:38 -0400, Martin J. Pollard wrote:

I'm pretty sure"moral character" is in there somewhere.

Perhaps I misspoke. A LOT of social issues are decided by moral values, like it or not. Such as abortion. And that right there is where Bush will probably get my vote.

Are you telling me Bush's very hard line on gay rights doesn't effect your opinion of him? That's a moral value.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

Nader is pro-choice, and advocates the legalization of same-sex marriage, as well as many other gay rights issues. You can get more info at http://www.votenader.org/

"Jon Reiss" wrote in message news:[email]...

seems

as

I sort of figured as much. My point was that I don't think he's trying to push morality on others the way some right-wingers try to do.

On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 23:30:18 -0400, "Jeg7777" wrote:

I'm getting *really* bored with the show.

I saw him on Meet the Press yesterday. He's pro-kill-...er, I mean pro-choice. Condemned Bush for his gay rights stances, that's all I remember off the top of my head.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

who are

are. He seems

And that's the way it should be, imho. A president does not have the constitutional right of imposing his moral values on America. That's what I don't like about either candidates...they are way too concerned with moralizing everyone and they are not paying attention to the important issues of the day. The last thing I want is to have an anti-abortion right-wing Christian Conservatice in office. I do not feel that kind of candidate will be able to represent my issues or even respect my own moral decisions. That's why I'm Pro-Nader...or at least getting Nader in the Televised debates...

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On Wed, 09 Aug 2000 12:12:35 -0700, DejaVu wrote:

If you think moral views have nothing to do with one's social views, you are kidding yourself.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

This is true, but the key is having a political leader who respects other moral values that are not the same as his or her own. This is why the Government has no right to make abortion illegal and why it should legalize same-sex marriage. These are personal choices based on your personal values. The government has no right to dictate what is right and wrong in these situations.

On Wed, 09 Aug 2000 17:05:57 -0400, Jon Reiss wrote:

Same-sex marriages I agree with. They aren't hurting anybody but themselves, and not even that in the short-run.

Abortion is not a personal moral issue. That is a social issue, because like it or not a lot of us see it as not just hurting someone, but killing them. Murder is a social issue.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

<<If you think moral views have nothing to do with one's social views, you are kidding yourself.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs >> When did I ever say that I thought that? Of course moral values have to do with social views and issues, but the president does not have a right to impose his own dogma and morals on anyone else.

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On Wed, 09 Aug 2000 14:55:36 -0700, DejaVu wrote:

But he will. It's unavoidable. Any social decision you make is effected by your own moral judgements.

Kyle The Jeff Huson of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

What you need is a transferable vote system, then a vote for a minority party isn't wasted as it will be transferred to your second preference if your first choice gets eliminated. It also means two people of similar political allegiances can stand without splitting the vote, thus giving people more choices between particular policies or personalities. (In practice most political parties try to avoid this situation arising though, I expect they don't like the idea of the electorate having too much power in deciding precisely who will represent them).

-Shez.

I'm thinking you are talking about a preference voting system, which is actually included in the Green platform for 2000. You assign a preference value to each candidate and the last place candidate is eliminated. Eventually you work your way up to one candidate. I think this is definetly the best way to go cause it gets rid of the factors like people thinking it's more important to keep one person out of office than to vote for their favorite candidate.

It's really cool to see so many like-minded people on this. Right on folks. A lot of you guys would probably be interested in the radio show I do for WRPI Troy. We talk about this stuff all the time. I"ll be back on the air when I return to school at the end of august. I'll be sure to let you guys know what the new time slot will be when I find out.

count me in. i'm voting green, unless i oversleep and miss the election again.

Oh my god!!! I thought I was the only one voting Green this year. Both Bore and Dubya are so unappealing that Nader is the only way for me to vote and sleep with a clear conscience. Maybe its up to people our age to take the "big" parties down a couple of pegs. You are so not wasting your vote. you're doing the right thing by not falling into that mindless blind loyalty trap that so many voters fall into. My poly-sci prof. thought that I was idiot and was wasting my vote when I said I would consider voting for an alternative party if I liked the platform they ran on. Anyways, that's enough ranting.

Nickey suddenly feeling very crunchy and looking for her Birkenstocks

In article ,

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In my internship this summer, I was lucky enough to go to a National Press Club luncheon where Nader was speaking. My vote's been with him ever since. I know of at least one other peron who's voting for him. (Three now...)

Meanwhile, one of my work colleagues said "Nader would make a great president, but if he ever got in, the Washington Establishment would tear him to pieces." Even if we got a Green party president, Congress would probably be another story.

I'll vote Nader nonetheless.

Well, this is true, but I would be willing to bet that before we ever got a Green president, we'd probably get a few Green congressman and senators. Either way, if he did get in, at least he'd be in position to veto any bills that don't fit the Green platform and take on the special interests.

On another note, the message below my signature was sent by someone to a sleater-kinney newsgroup I belong to.

Jon Reiss AIM: NukeBuddha http://www.j51.com/~improv Ralph Nader for Prez!

===================================== "If everyone would vote for Ralph Nader the world would be a better place." -- Eddie Vedder ... 8/3/00

Subject: Voting Things...

Hey everyone,

Usually I don't participate in this forum, and usually I don't vote. But hell, I'm feeling adventurous...

But it is entirely possible that Bush is going to win the presidency. While

this usually just meant a little bit more boring speeches and some war of some kind, this year it's a little bit different....

There are many sick and old supreme court justices that aren't going to last

four and definitely not eight years. This means the next president will appoint many justices in his term.....

He already made Cheney his Vice Presidential nominee and he's an extreme right winger who opposes abortion even in the instances of rape and incest.

So to make a long story short--DON'T VOTE THIRD PARTY!!!!!!

Republicans always have a greater voter turnout than democrats, and I personally think Al Gore is a dork, but he'll at least appoint moderate justices, including more women and minorities.

If you vote third party in a long established two party system you are effectively not voting at all and giving the republicans even more of an edge since most major third parties are more liberal, splitting up the liberal vote and making Bush's job of pillaging the world much, much easier.

Thanks, Dave

this made me very happy :) Saerah "Are we going to the same place? if so, can I come?" ~ Eddie Vedder "The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."~Stephen (from Braveheart) "Practice deliberate acts of kindness and purposeful acts of beauty"

In article ,

Bore and

sleep

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you're doing

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they ran

In my internship this summer, I was lucky enough to go to a National Press Club luncheon where Nader was speaking. My vote's been with him ever since. I know of at least one other peron who's voting for him. (Three now...)

Meanwhile, one of my work colleagues said "Nader would make a great president, but if he ever got in, the Washington Establishment would tear him to pieces." Even if we got a Green party president, Congress would probably be another story.

Damn straight I'm voting for Ralph Nader. Your poly-sci prof. is the idiot. He thinks just because things are the way they are in the U.S. that they always have to be that way. He's basically telling you you can't possibly change anything so don't bother trying, shut up and be a drone, keep your mouth shut and do what you're told. Nader probably won't win but each election brings us a tiny step closer to having a real shot at getting a third-party candidate elected. Eventually we'll get there.

on another note, if you really want things to change you have to work at it. people act as if they can sit around drink bud and watch cable and everything will work out. but it wont. democracy is something that only works if people actually get involved. if not, you end up with what we have now. its fucking feudalism. Saerah "Are we going to the same place? if so, can I come?" ~ Eddie Vedder "The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."~Stephen (from Braveheart) "Practice deliberate acts of kindness and purposeful acts of beauty"

You should vote for whomever you feel best represents your veiw on the issues that are most important to you and you should remember that voting for a third party isn't throwing away your vote. You're not trying to pick a winner, you're trying to pick who best represents yourself.

And, I think someone else mentionad this somewhere else in this thread, but if the biggest issue for you is the horror at the thought of Bush assigning very conservative justices - then you shouldn't vote for him.

Mike Quinn [email]

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It is really hard to say,

I guess you have to ask what is more appealing, Standing up for what you believe in, and vote for Nader accepting that you are helping George W. Bush, Or you could hold you nose and vote for Al Gore, The fact is with the exception of Abortion and Guns there is really no difference between the two parties,

both parties are controlled by special interest groups, and in many cases the exact same groups.

There is only democracy if you can afford to kick back $10,000,000 to each party. that is why campaign finance reform is of such extreme importance, Look at Bush, he bought the Republican nomination, with the exception of Gary Bauer, he was by far the least qualified. He was drunk until he was 40, he has run two companies into the ground, he has a pathetic baseball team. Really, He isn't even govonor of Texas, He is about as Relevent to Texas as the Queen is to England and the Colonies, The state is ran by a man by the name of Karl Rove. If he wasn't George Bush, rather George Clark, he would be passed out in an ally somewhere in his own vomit.

Ahh, America, What a shining pilar or democracy.

Its really quite sad, at a time when there are such great pools of talent to draw from in both parties they picked the two biggest losers in the respective parties,

John McCain and Richard Gephart would have been much better alternitives.

You could always vote Libertarian or Communist Workers.

"Jon Reiss" wrote in message news:[email]...

The Contentious Objector said:

I'm going to vote for George W. Bush in full and conscious knowledge of what I'm doing. Nyah :P

There's defense and foreign policy issues. Which is what we have a President _for_, actually.

Actually, no. When they hold the election, the candidate who gets the most votes is going to become President. (Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but do you really want me to delve into the Electoral College and suchlike?)

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

In a technical sense you are right, but we are also supposed to be able to chose what candidate is nominated for president as well, and the candidates are supposed to be on a level playing field. No matter how smart Joe Schmoe from wisconsin is, if he isn't rich he doesn't have a chance. There is no doubt in my mind that Bush truly bought the Republican Nomination. His endless sources of money enabled him to campaign more than any of his competitors. If you don't have money, you can't get the word out, thus the special interests who are donating millions to campaigns have more of a say in the election than our votes in the end. Why do you think Nader hasn't started campaigning seriously yet? He doesn't have the warchest to campaign fully from here to November and the major parties do.

Jon Reiss said:

The two main parties are _private_ organizations, not governmental ones. If the two main parties nominate unpopular candidates, the party which consistently nominates the most unpopular ones is greasing the skids on its slide to minor-party status.

This is in practice avoided through a democratic primary system, which means that instead the most unpopular _factions_ within the major parties lose influence. The minor parties wind up affecting the major parties in that a successful minor party (such as the pre-WWI Populists) will see elements of its program adopted by a major party (in the case of the Populists, _both_ major parties adopted elements of their platform).

Why is this even an _implicit_ requirement?

We don't select the "smartest" guy to be President. We select the most _popular_ one. Now, you can disagree with this on principle, but that's the inevitable principle in any democracy.

Actually, I think that _who his FATHER was_ helped him more than raw money. Steve Forbes had deeper pockets than George W. Bush did, but this didn't win Forbes the nomination.

There's a lot of nostalgia for George Bush (the elder) after 8 years of Clinton.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

Thank you. This is my main criterion for voting for president: <DeMartino> Which candidate UNDERSTANDS what the real JOB of the PRESIDENT *IS*?! (Both eyes bulge on that last one) </DeMartino>

Clinton didn't have a clue in '92. Still doesn't. Celebrity babe magnet? Now why can't I find that in Article II? So, did Gore learn from his example? Negative example? So far, I'm not convinved. George H. knew the job, and did it well. Did George W. learn from his example? So far, I'm not convinced. Nader scares me. From everything I've heard him say, he understands the role of president as national nanny, not as the executive officer of a nation of free citizens ruled by law. And Buchanan... I can't even *think* about what happened there, not right now.

(And why I'm I even getting involved in this thread? Vacation time can truly be dangerous.)

Peace Kevin

when you vote your concience, you CANT waste your vote. Saerah "Are we going to the same place? if so, can I come?" ~ Eddie Vedder "The Almighty thinks he can get me out of this, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."~Stephen (from Braveheart) "Practice deliberate acts of kindness and purposeful acts of beauty"

Mike, I love that quote, mind if I steal it? At my school, they do have people that hand out cards, but when I asked, they said that you couldn't sign up for any third party, which is legally and morally wrong for them to say. And for fallowing campaigns, I think you should if only for the comedy that it provides, I.E GWB's asshole comment. Personally, I wish he had said a racial epitaph, just so I can see him try to explain that.