Newsweek column on Kerry and Bush, some interesting (and occasionally unexpected) sceptical observations on both:
Quote:[..] Most Americans know nothing about Kerry, so Bush is trying to draw on the blank slate first. His argument is that Kerry is both a predictable liberal and a flip-flopper. (Which seems like a contradiction in terms, but never mind.) The GOP's Elephant Echo Chamber will repeat endlessly that Kerry was for and against the No Child Left Behind bill, for and against the Patriot Act, for and against the Iraq war. Because the details are complex, Kerry does not yet have a good argument to blunt that attack. [..]
I'm not sure the whole flip-flopper bit works for either side. In 1932, Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt was widely derided as an unprincipled "corkscrew candidate" who thought the shortest line between two points was a dozen twists and turns. [..] Of course Kerry lacks Roosevelt's buoyant spirit, and he hasn't yet learned the "Fireside Chat" lesson of conversing with the American people instead of orating to them.
Worse, Kerry's background is mostly that of a critic. But if critics won votes, Paul Krugman would be president. Undecided voters don't dislike Bush or what he has done. They just want to know if Kerry can do better for them on job loss and at least as well as Bush on security. That requires fresh, positive ideas about outsourcing and Iraq condensed into a message so clear and compelling that it compensates for the messenger's long face. Even in the primaries, Kerry's message was fuzzy.
The president is also working at cross-purposes with his own personality. His new ads try an uplifting message, but the subtext of his campaign is clear: we should be afraid, very afraid, for our physical safety should he lose the White House. Will this play in, say, the suburbs of Cincinnati? The risk is that his fear theme will cut into his likability. Who wants to have a beer (or an O'Doul's) with someone who is scaring them, or, worse, exploiting 9/11? Beyond the firefighters and family members of victims who cried foul last week when Bush's new ads showed footage from the sacred terrain of Ground Zero, other voters might just be tired of being reminded of their old fears.
Once politicized, the whole issue could cut against the president, on Iraq, homeland security and even the war on Al Qaeda. Between 1993 and 2001, Al Qaeda was responsible for five major bombing attacks, including 9/11. In the two and a half years since, there have been 17 Qaeda bombings, most recently in Turkey. Bush backers fret that even the capture of Osama bin Laden might yield only short-term political benefits because it is now expected. [..]
The biggest problem with the American electorate is that they have forgotton that GWBush said he would not use 9-11 in his political campaign, and that's exactly what he's doing.
The biggest problem with the American electorate is that they voted the guy in, heh.
I agree 100%, but we can't undo what has already happened.
nimh
Quote:The biggest problem with the American electorate is that they voted the guy in, heh.
I would just like to remind you the Bush was not as you say voted in. He lost the popular vote and won Florida's electoral vote by virtue of a poorly designed "Butterfly " ballot.
Your system doesnt do proportional representation, so winning the popular vote doesnt mean scat in your system.
If you want to vote in your President of choice, you've got to get him the majority of valid votes in enough states to carry the EC.
You (Americans) do that every four years - and in 2000, you did it for George W Bush. Sad but true.
nimh
I am well aware of the fact that winning the popular vote does not a president make. However, this president won the electoral vote by a fluke or if you will a poorly designed ballot. The votes that went to Buchanon were clearly meant for Gore. Had that not happened one could only imagine what world events would look like today.
You mean it was Buchanon and not Nader that swung the election to Bush?
C.I.
Nader or no Nader, Gore would have taken Fla. if the votes that went to Buchanon went to Gore as intended. The confusion was caused by a poorly constructed "Butterfly" ballot. Buchanon himself laughed about it saying in essence those people would never vote for me. Just think about it Bush is president by virtue of a "Butterfly"
au, Are you familiar with "Madam Butterfly?"
C.I.
In a way his presidency bares some similarity to a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Opinion from abroad (heh)
Quote:American elections
In a speech to Republican governors, American president Bush has officially started his counteroffensive against the Democrats. Suppose the two candidates in the upcoming elections will be: Bush (Republican) and Kerry (Democrat).
Who do you hope will win?
Bush 11%
Kerry 73%
Don't know / no answer 16%
(That's from a Dutch poll ... :wink: )
We need more immigration from the Netherlands to the US - before November.
nimh wrote:Opinion from abroad (heh)
From "Free Republic"
Quote:BUSH NEEDS YOUR HELP - AGAIN!
And here's how it works:
Go to this page and click "1" or "2" and then "ABSTIMMEN" in the lower right field. You can't vote twice since SPIEGEL ONLINE installs cookies on your computer...
Unfortunately, we had to close the comment section of this posting, since the SPIEGEL ONLINE visitors to this site are so excited about our action that they keep sending us nice files...
And thank you so much for your help! LET'S ROLL!
BTW - for the Bush-haters, here's how to vote: "5" or "6" if you dislike him and love Michael Moore and Jane Fonda.
Spiegel was running since some days a poll, asking similar to that nimh quoted above.
After 'Free Republic' run that, Bush got a huge support from Germany.
And after 'Spiegel-online' found the reason for that, you can find on the Free Republic website:
Quote:This thread has been pulled.
Pulled on 03/08/2004 12:16:47 PM PST by Jim Robinson, reason:
No thanks
Interesting California Primary results:
California has a "modified" open Primary system, which permits those who refuse to state a party preference to vote for a person of their choice in a primary. If they are registered as a party member, they can only get a ballot for their party's candidate. Of course, when there is only one candidate running, most voters don't bother to take the time to vote. On Tuesday with 100% of the precincts reporting, the actual winner of the Primary race turned out to be Bush. Bush received 1,949,761 votes to John Kerry's 1,764,446 votes. Bush received 185,315 more votes than John Kerry received in his "landslide victory."
California has an electorate that is 45% registered Democrat and 34% registered Republicans.
Presidential Primary: Statewide results
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PRESIDENT - DEMOCRAT
(21,796 of 21,796 precincts - 100 pct)
John Kerry
1,764,224
64 pct
John Edwards
539,093
20 pct
Dennis Kucinich
125,690
5 pct
Howard Dean
116,244
4 pct
Al Sharpton
51,902
2 pct
Joe Lieberman
46,918
2 pct
Wesley Clark
46,125
2 pct
Carol Moseley Braun
21,470
1 pct
Dick Gephardt
17,390
1 pct
Lyndon LaRouche
7,111
0 pct
PRESIDENT - REPUBLICAN
(21,796 of 21,796 precincts - 100 pct)
George W. Bush (i)
1,949,746
100 pct
If Kerry could get 100% of the democratic vote in November, he'll get 2.7 million votes to Bush's 1.9 million. We gotta keep hoping.
Brand X wrote:Of course, when there is only one candidate running, most voters don't bother to take the time to vote.
Well, of course (sadly enough), by Super Tuesday
both races were generally considered to be a done deal, so the difference between the two races there wasn't half as great anymore as it was back in Wisconsin.
I must admit I'm always surprised by the sheer number of voters who still come out to vote in a primary when there isn't much of a race to be decided anymore - and all the more in the case where a candidate doesn't even have any competitors, like with Bush. Yeh, impressive, that.
Nevertheless, when I add up the numbers you cite, I still end up with some 2,735,000 Democrats and 1,950,000 Republicans in total. That's pretty much proportionate to the number of registered Democrats and Republicans in the state that you cite. Nothing really surprising there.
cicerone imposter wrote:The biggest problem with the American electorate is that they have forgotton that GWBush said he would not use 9-11 in his political campaign, and that's exactly what he's doing.
It is also forgotten that Bush referred in many a partisan speech that he had "hit the trifecta" - to a chorus of rowdy laughter...........
This, to me, shows what and who he really is
BillW wrote:cicerone imposter wrote:The biggest problem with the American electorate is that they have forgotton that GWBush said he would not use 9-11 in his political campaign, and that's exactly what he's doing.
It is also forgotten that Bush referred in many a partisan speech that he had "hit the trifecta" - to a chorus of rowdy laughter...........
This, to me, shows what and who he really is
Got a citation for this quote? (Surely if he said it in "many a partisan speech", you can come up with one citation from a legitimate news source.) Care to tell us what you are implying it meant? Sight unseen I'm confident that if he said it he meant nothing near what you believe he meant.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Bush+trifecta&sa=N&tab=wn
There's a Google News search, which turned up NOTHING on any major news source. In fact, the only site that seemed to claim he'd made any statement such as you pretend to knowledge of is "Buzzflash", and I'm more than happy to trump that with NO mention at CNN.com, NO mention by Reuters, NO mention by the BBC...)
But please, prove me wrong.
He certainly did hit the trifecta. What would he have to hang his hat on without it?
His gain was the nations and the worlds loss.
