2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

A giggle erupted in my throat at the prospect, Snood!

snood, You should know before even asking that question that a debate between those two will never happen. c.i.

No, but I'd like to hear what Buffet has to say. Got friends in the north of Spain who say they're betting on Kerry, which I find inteeresting.

Hey, T, it's always for sale. That's realpolitik. And no, we're not even technically a democracy - we're a republic. We have TV. And I am convinced that CNN runs a school for its commentators, in which they are all taught to speak in a portentious tone, and breathlessly and rapidly.

One of the things that's made Bush's talk about Turkey so interesting has to do precisely with that - democracy. Prattle from Bush is that he wants to create a democratic state in Iraq (that's the latest pitch, I believe) so that it will spread to other places in the area. And then come the complaints about ungrateful Turkey. Turkey is a democracy, with democratically elected leaders - who said, in their last vote on aid to America - that their people were 90% against going to war with Iraq, and that they felt they should listen to the voice of the people. Here, in our own little corner of the world, the word is that the voice of the people doesn't matter, that the people don't understand, and that it is up to the leaders to defend the country. This sounds eeerily like what we say about Iraq.

Tartarin,
It's hard not to be depressed at the current state of events.
The most disconcerting thing to me, is the poll that indicates that 50% of Americans attribute 9/11 to Hussein. It is pretty well known that 9/11 was planned, financed, manned, and effected mostly by Saudis.

Depressing? Yes, but. Think of the other 50%. In spite of the media's incessant, unremitting, hyper, repetitive propoganda, 50% of Americans have not been brainwashed. I think that is an amazinng percentage. It gives me hope that those citizens will be discerninng in their choice of the next president.

In all this discussion about, which party has the most money to spend on elections and how they got it everyone seems to forget one important point. It is an uninformed, lazy, and whatever other adjectives you care to use that does the voting. We have seen the enemy and it is us.

Again, I agree, Au1929. It's that the money has gripped us too. Would you give up your "life-style" if it would facilitate a return to democracy?

I generally do point out what my source is each time I share a piece of information that's likely to be challenged, and I certainly don't get all bent out of shape if someone asks me where I got some factoid for which I have not once provided an attribution.

Tartarin
The money in the coffers of the RNC and DNC should have nothing to do with the way people vote. The problem arises that with enough money they had flood the airways and news media with a constant stream of lies and propaganda. If the public was not so gullible [stupid] they would see through the propaganda. It's almost like fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Perhaps effective campaign reform might then center on efforts to police the accuracy and veracity of statements made in campaign ads?

Willie Horton comes to mind

Tres
The only way to police a politician is through the vote. What amazes me people obviously enjoy being lied to as evidenced by the fact that they reelect these paragons of virtue.

That ad may have crossed a line, but my recollection is that the points it expressed were factually accurate. I'm not defending the ad, but while I am willing to try to slap down campaign ads that put forth falsehoods and slander an opponent, I am not willing to suppress free political speech just because I find it distasteful.

Willie Horton crossed a line? It did more than that. It set new lows in deliberate personal attack and slander. It is one thing to present facts; it is quite another to twist them into something else. This was a selective choosing of words and facts so as to destroy the person it was directed against. Partial facts, careful words. Freedom of speech doesn't enter into this at all.

That ad was the braichild of Lee Atwater, among whose disciples are Roger Ailes and Karl Rove.

Today, there is much in print trying to link Edwards with lawyers as a group, and there is emphasis upon tort reform, all designed to coat a candidate in bad colors. The cases Edwards was involved in, the reasons, the people he represented - these are not the facts brought out. I suspect the mud will get slimier and slimier as time goes on.

au - we are generations brought up on the power of advertising, and so much of it is what isn't said; how it's said. All of it then expensively packaged and presented. This has been a big part of public education. And there have been many who wantd to bring TV (complete with ads) into classrooms, under the guise of aiding education. The latest scheme was that of Neil Bush, who had a package ready for the Florida and Texas school system.

Maybe the determined teaching of government and civics in the lower grades would help educate a public. I don't know.

But all the peace marches, petitions, public notices and ads may accomplish some awareness. Some of the public seems to be waking up.

mama - Okay, if you are so incensed about Willie Horton, how do you feel about the NAACP's anti-Bush campaign ad, featuring grainy, black-and-white footage of a pickup truck, chains dragging from the back to solicit an image of the terrible dragging-death of James Byrd. Was that appropriate? What exactly did the terrible death of that black man have to do with the presidential election? Answer: NOTHING. What did Bush do to directly or indirectly cause this horrible crime? Answer: NOTHING. What did Bush have to do with the murder of James Byrd? Answer: NOTHING.

Contrast that with the "Willie Horton" ad. Here are the facts:

* In 1976 Dukakis had vetoed a bill that would have made Horton ineligible for furlough from prison.

* On June 6, 1986, convicted murderer Willie Horton was released from the Northeastern Correctional Center in Concord. Under state law, he had become eligible for an unguarded, 48-hour furlough. He never came back.

* Horton showed up in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on April 3, 1987. Clifford Barnes, 28, heard footsteps in his house and thought his fiancée had returned early from a wedding party. Suddenly Willie Horton stepped out of the shadows with a gun. For the next seven hours, Horton punched, pistol-whipped, and kicked Barnes - and also cut him 22 times across his midsection.

* When Barnes' fiancée Angela returned that evening, Horton gagged her and savagely raped her twice. Horton then stole Barnes' car, and was later chased by police until captured.

The facts of the ad you find so abhorent happen to be true and directly attributable to the action Dukakis took to allow men like Horton a chance to victimize the public again after the legal system had tried to prevent it. Whether or not it was "sporting" or "cricket" to bring it up, the information was factually accurate as presented.

So, if you want to talk about "setting new lows" you don't need to go back to Willie Horton, nor do you need to look outside your the Democrat party.

Google Search: "Willie Horton"

Now, I believe my comment was that we might want to try to police the accuracy and veracity of campaign ads.

It is easy enough to disprove the statement. You may have heard it but either you mis-heard or the person who said it was simply wrong.

"Plan for Bush's '04 campaign quietly begins
Resolving possible war president's top priority
By Mike Allen and Dan Balz, Washington Post, 3/3/2003

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has postponed his reelection campaign until after a war with Iraq, but White House and Republican Party strategists have begun planning for a contest in which they envision raising as much as $250 million to wage a battle designed to break the political stalemate of the 1990s and make the GOP the country's majority party."

(empasis added by myself)

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/062/nation/Plan_for_Bush_s_04_campaign_quietly_begins+.shtml

There is NO $250,000,000.00 Bush warchest other than in someone's dreams.

fishin - Thanks for helping settle that and for showing why it is so important to either check our "facts" before offering them or at least qualify the statements. This shows how easily someone with the best of intentions can mislead a whole bunch of people with information they believe is true, but is not.

We'll see, Fishin' -- we'll see!!

There is a convenience, even a comfort, to accepting opinion or allegation complimentary to one's own position. Folks being what they are, comfort gets more play than critical thought. The risk to comfort is that it easily may engender predjudice.



timber

My goodness you fellas take yourselves awfully seriously!