Politics of Friends

Does anyone know the political persuasion of the Friends. Have any of them publicly declared which candidate they intend voting for in the coming presidential election.

Just curious...

Anthony

Hellooooo!!! After getting drunk in Vegas, Anthony Cleary doodled cat whiskers on his/her face and miaowed this little lot at a statue...

I doubt they'd be allowed to - certainly they couldn't in the show because it'd be seen as freebie political advertising, and the network/producers would probably get fined for it, and any of the actors announcing who they were voting for would lead to a similar form of association.

Tina wrote:

I can understand why they wouldn't be allowed to express political opinions on the show but surely they'd be allowed to comment if, for example, they were asked a direct question by a reporter. It's possible their contracts forbid it but unlikely.

Anthony

During the Democratic National Convention in L.A. this summer, it was reported that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt attended some of the related parties. I believe someone asked them if they were Democrats and they said that they were.

Most entertainers (actors/actresses/singers, etc.) are Democrats. That's that. I don't know quite why that's the case but it is. I'd assume they'd all vote Democrat (given that MP has Canadian AND US citizenship, which he almost ceratinly does).

nbcz (who wants Geo.W too win, even though he can't vote because he's underage and Canadian)

In article ,

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Well..Hollywood is liberal, and democrats are associated with being liberals. Democrats are seen as more artist friendly .

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2 a : limited to a small circle

EsotericGrrrl wrote:

What would be ultimately interesting would be if Gore won, how Lieberman (his VP candidate, and a practicing Jew) would respond to the liberal Hollywood attitude.

There was an interesting political cartoon a while back, it showed Gore deep in his overly exaggerated, wet, sloppy kiss of his wife on stage at the DNC, and Lieberman standing next to them saying "This is exactly the sort of egregious sex you won't see if you elect us. . . "

:-)

I read one in the Canadian National Post a few days ago:

An aide is talking to Al Gore.

Mr. Gore I have good news and bad news.

GORE: What is the good news?

AIDE: A dead democrat is leading the polls in Missouri

GORE: Great! Now what's the bad news?

AIDE: It isn't you.

nbcz

In article ,

liberals.

Lieberman (his VP

Hollywood attitude.

Gore deep in

DNC, and

egregious sex

nbc101 wrote:

That's hilarious =)

In article , nbc101 wrote:

The democrat actually won, and his republican opponent is claiming that the dead man is no longer a citizen of the USA.

Tennant (I'm not joking)

That is false. Earlier today, Ashcroft announced he would respect the results of the election, and he would not approve any legal action taken by other Missouri Republicans.

--Doc

Greetings!

results

Isn't that the guy, whose widow will take over the job now? That's only possible in the US, if you ask me ;-) While we're at it, hopefully you guys will now re-consider, that your election system is not up-to-date anymore and should be changed. Otherwise, how could one win the popular vote but may lose the presidency? Just a thought. No offense!

Didi

In article , "Didi" wrote:

Otherwise,

---

Didi...

I couldn't agree more. I love my country, BUT... given that this is the third presidential election in which we have had some real response to a third party candidate, I think it's time that we seriously consider Proportional Representation, like you have there in Germany.

However:

Problem #1 is that it would require a Constitutional Amendment, which requires agreement from both chambers and a certain majority of state legislatures. We can seldom get any of the above to agree on when to recess let alone agree on a Constitutional Amendment of this magnitude.

Problem #2 is that Americans will need to think "party" more than "person". Don't know if they're ready for that. We're a "personality"-oriented culture. (Just think of the newsgroup we're on. There you go!)

Problem #3 is that Proportional Representation brings with it coalition governments. As you know, that can be quite dicey as the nation starts dealing with two agendas simultaneously because party A must compromise part of its platform in order to keep party B in the coalition, and vice-versa, in order for both A and B to stay in government. (And, sometimes it's a coalition of three parties.)

and

Problem #4 is that if there is repeated differences between the coalition government, the government may dissolve, and two or more other parties may form the next coalition - between actual elections. It is my understanding that the average coalition government survives 18 months (unless one is in Italy, then it's a great deal fewer :-) ).

So, what it boils down to is everyone will bitch about how it should be changed but we will nonetheless continue with the 200+ year old system of elections because we Americans generally mistrust any kind of change.

There you go!

All the best,

Sue

Hi!

I guess this is probably the main problem.

Well. I can only compare to Germany, since I don't have that many other references. When chancelor Kohl was voted out of his job and Schr�der became new chancelor, this was definetely a 'person' vote. I'll get back to that later. As far as I remember, this is pretty much the same reason, why ex-prime-minister Major had to go, and Blair moved in 10, Downing St. 3 years ago. I mean look at those two guys. Who would have voted for Major?

I know. But sometimes compromises bring the better results. Just an example: If an architect builds a house on his own, it's crap. If a civil engineer builds one on his own, it's also crap. If they both work together, and try to get over differences, the result is usually quite nice. Okay, that might have been a weak comparison, but you know what I mean. :-)

Not necessarily. The coalition between the CDU and the FDP lasted 16 years, until the voters got sick of them (especially of that fat dumbass Kohl, who couldn't even speak English). I think, this would do the US also good. I mean, a democrat does not necessarily have the same ideas, as much as two two republicans. They might as well could form a new party. Also, it's a pity, that you can say, all the people who voted for Nader might as well could have dropped their vote into a trashcan. A good thing in the US is the limitation of 8 years at a time for someone to be president, though. Actually Schr�der suggested to introduce this in Germany as well, plus expanding a period to 5 years instead of 4 to give a government more time. That seemed to me like a good idea, but it didn't pass...

Well, I guess you're right. It probably won't change, or very, very slowly. You're also right about the Americans' mistrust to any kind of change. I can't explain, why you guys still haven't fully introduced the metric system (I know, they have done that in science and military). Please, no offense, I think your Imperial system endearing (it makes vacation to your country even more fun). The metric system would just make more sense sometimes (especially when it comes to 3/16 inches and such, hehehe. Or is there a smaller unit for lengths than inch?).

Regards, Didi

On Thu, 09 Nov 2000 11:59:13 GMT, [email] wrote:

But how about the fact that so few Americans actually use their right to vote? I find this disturbing, although it's a tendency we have over here as well. Wouldn't people be more interested in politics if they had several parties to choose from and not just two men who spend millions of dollars on election campaigns?

However, I guess it's a universal thing that when the country has few domestic problems, people don't really care about the election.

And as for that Nader-bloke... He tells people he wants to fight for the environment, yet he practically lets G. Bush win. It seems to me that he was just after the fundings and doesn't really care about the political aspect of his campaign.

Thanks for the interesting facts! :)

Marita wrote:

Yes. Many people want more than a 2-party system, myself included.

I'm not sure what you mean by "let G Bush win". There wasn't much he could do about it. I'm sure if given the choice, he would have opted to win. The problem is/was that he was receiving pressure from the Gore campaign to withdraw and endorse Gore, since it was pretty well established that the Nader voters would vote for Gore if Nader weren't an option. And since this was a razor-close race, Gore needed all the votes he could get.

In order to get "on the radar" in the American public's eye, a candidate needs to achieve the 5% voter returns rate, so that they qualify for federally funding for their election. Nader was trying to get to the 5% rate this time, so that NEXT election, his "Green Party" would get federal dollars to help his election, and thereby be able to afford advertisements, mailing, rallys, etc etc etc. This, in turn, would allow for a viable 3-rd party candidate.

I *think* Ross Perot was able to get past the 5% rate and qualify for federal dollars 4 years ago. In some states, he got 20% of the votes. That's pretty good. . . Even if every time I hear the name "Ross Perot" I think of Dana Carvey. . . =)

On Fri, 10 Nov 2000 10:08:00 -0700, Randy Hinds wrote:

It's interesting that the USA is almost the only country who still has this system. I guess some people claim that having two parties fighting for power will make a more stable democracy since one of the parties will have the majority, but European political systems with several parties are just as stable if you ask me.

I'm not against Nader, in fact I think it's great that people are starting to protest and fight against the two giant parties. But the sad thing is that Gore is probably more willing to work for the environment than Bush is, so when Nader got so many votes, he probably took them away from Gore.

We have a similar arrangement over here as well. You need to have at least 4% of the votes to become a member of the parliament. However, if your party gets a lot of votes in just one county, you can win a seat by getting a so-called equalization mandate from that particular county.

What I think is weird about the electoral system in the USA is the fact that if your party gets the majority in a state you automatically get *all* the electoral votes from that county.

I'm glad we have election by the method of proportional representation

here, because I think that makes the political system more fair.

In article , [email] (Marita) wrote:

I basically agree with your post Marita, but it's up to each state how their members of the Electoral College vote for the president. IIRC, two states (possibly Maine & Nebraska) vote in proportion to the popular vote.

Tennant

On Sat, 11 Nov 2000 01:45:17 GMT, Tennant Stuart wrote:

Ok, I didn't know that. :)

BTW, yesterday I read in the newspaper that they were afraid of how the republican electoral votes would turn out since Al Gore won the popular vote. They feared that people wouldn't be loyal to their own party. I'd think that the chance of this happening is slim, but I still believe G Bush will have to face some difficulties because of the election fiasco if he indeed becomes the next president.

PS. Aren't you Brits worried about your voting system? It seems to be really unfair for the Liberals.

In article , [email] (Marita) wrote:

Yep. We need Proportional Representation. Currently PR is used for all of our elections to large bodies *except* for the main parliament.

Tennant

In article ,

two

vote.
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Actually, NO STATES vote in proportion to the popular vote. It's a "winner take all" system.

Sue

In article , [email] wrote:

My friend, (she is a whiz at research), took less than 10 minutes to find this information, most of that was actually getting her computer on & connected to the Internet. Many thanks to her...

http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/faq.html

What is the difference between the winner-takes-all rule and proportional voting, and which states follow which rule?

There are 48 states that have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these states, whichever candidate receives a majority of the vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50% but more than any other candidate) takes all of the state's electoral votes.

Only two states, Nebraska & Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those states, there could be a split of electoral votes among candidates through the state's system for proportional allocation of votes. For example, Maine has four electoral votes & two Congressional districts. It awards one electoral vote per Congressional district & two by the state-wide, "at-large" vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district & receive one electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district & receive one electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first & second districts, to win the two at-large electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually occurred in recent elections.

Tennant

Well, I'll be damned... And me with years in politics, too... Hmmm... Learn something new every day...

Tennant, thankee much...

Love,

Sue --- In article ,

how

IIRC,

In article , [email] wrote:

You're very welcome, Sue. :)

I was just trying to remember what Shirley Williams said on NewsNight.

Tennant

[email] wrote:

No, Tennant has it right. Maine and Nebraska are different, where two Electors are chosen by statewide popular vote and the remainder by the popular vote within each Congressional district.

Sooo, even if someone "wins" Nebraska with a majority of it's electoral college votes, some of the remaining electoral college votes may/probably will go to the other guy.

This, to a larger extent, is the problem we're running into with Florida. Each state can conduct it's OWN election for the president, subject to differing rules. There is not a federal law that mandates each state must vote for the president using the same procedure. For instance, some states have deadlines to request recounts earlier than other states, etc etc etc.

Didi wrote:

Well, there is a valid legal claim against that, but the challenger was persuaded to drop the lawsuit because it would do more harm than good. "Harassing a grieving widow" in this way would upset so many people there that 2 years from now, the remaining Republican senator would be voted out in a heartbeat.

It all comes back to politics.

Actually, the reason for the electoral college is so that states with a small population will not completely lose their identity in an election.

A newspaper article put it this way: If we didn't have an electoral college, then a candidate could campaign in California, Florida, Texas, New York, and 1 or 2 states near the Great Lakes and win. The other 54 states would be peanuts in terms of population, but would be the vast majority of the land mass of the US -- where all the natural resources would be.

It also has a moderating effect on the trends of people in certain areas of the country, so that the people of a few states wouldn't get to control the country based on attitudes and beliefs present only in that particular state.

And I don't think it's "outdated". Simply voting and counting up who has the most is the most primitive form of an election. Anything beyond that is going to involve some advanced concepts. . .

I think it's a good thing, regardless of who wins. .

"Randy Hinds" wrote:

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Well, I'm not complaining about the EVs. I'm not saying that every state has to lose it's idendity. What I find disturbing is, that if a candidates wins a state by only one vote, (s)he gets to pick all EVs. It would be much fairer, if each candidate got to pick the percentual amount of EVs according to the percentual amount of votes (s)he got from the voters.

Just my 0.02c

Didi

Randy Hinds wrote:

Uhh. That should be 44 states. Well, 45, since Washington DC counts as a "state" in this case. . .

In article , [email] (DocDoc2222) wrote:

Thanks for the correction.

Tennant

his wifes taking over on that isn't she?

Yeah

That's an interesting question, because a week ago Entertainment Tonight was doing a story about celebs and their political affiliations, and they mentioned that some memebers of the cast were doing some Public Service announcements. I missed part of it so i'm not sure if they are related to politcs, but after they made the PSA announcement, they interviewed some celebs about their candidate of choice.

====== es*o*ter*ic b : of or relating to knowledge that is restricted to a small group

2 a : limited to a small circle

That's one of the reasons why I asked the question. I'd like to know if any of the cast have been politically active during the election, campaigning, banner waving, whatever. I've been hearing Dudya & Gore are running about even in the polls so I'd imagine both candidates would welcome declarations of support from popular celebs.

Anthony

That's one of the reasons I asked the question. I was wondering if any of the cast had been politically active during the election, campaigning, banner waving, whatever. Since the polls have Dubya & Gore so close I'd imagine both candidates would welcome the backing of popular celebs.

In article ,

Found this article. None of the Friends are listed, but...

By CAITLIN O'TOOLE November 02, 2000 Election 2000: Celebs Take Sides

Cher, 54, Whoopi Goldberg, 50, and Ben Affleck, 28, are just a few of the many celebrities coming out of the woodwork to voice their support for their favorite presidential candidates, reports the Associated Press. Cher voiced her support for Democratic candidate Al Gore, 52, and stayed at a rally in L.A. on Tuesday until the wee hours. Martin Sheen, 60, who plays the President on "The West Wing," also stuck by Gore and worked the rally alongside the Vice President. Sheen and a slew of other celebrities -- Affleck, Goldberg, Christine Lahti, 50, Melissa Etheridge, 39, and Jewel, 26 -- are following Gore on his last sweep of the country before the big day on Tuesday. Rock idol Jon Bon Jovi, 38, also lent a hand during Gore's bus tours in Michigan in Wisconsin. "I wrote 'Livin' on a Prayer' during the Reagan era trickle- down economics," he told Gore supporters in Michigan, according to the Associated Press. "I don't want to go back." Meanwhile, on the other side of the political fence, Chuck Norris, 60, was with Republican candidate George W. Bush, 54, at a rally in Fresno, Calif., earlier this week, and actress Bo Derek -- who campaigned with Bob Dole on his 1996 Republican campaign trail -- is also expected to lend a hand.

http://people.aol.com/people/daily/story/0,5247,59379,00.html

I have a feeling that most of them voted for Gore because he is for unions, and seeming as though they all belong to SAG, which is a union, they probably voted for him.