Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

GWBush has done a yeoman's job of making the US the boogy man of this new century, and he's done absolutely nothing for our economy, ecology, affirmative action, "don't leave any child behind" (just another Bush rhetoric), the middle class or the poor. He created anger amongst many of our middle eastern, Asian, and European friends by his international policies. He's created more hate against Americans in two years than any president. He can't seem to hear the pleadings of millions of people for a peaceful resolution of Iraq. He gives most of his tax breaks to the rich; and the greatest insult is he's so obvious about it. Exemptions on dividends, and tax breaks for buyers of SUV's. He's dangerous not only to Iraq, but to world peace and the environment. We need to start planning on how to replace this dangerous cowboy in 2004. Any suggestions? c.i.

Ralph Nader, the independent candidate accused by Democrats of threatening to wreck their chances of beating George Bush in November's election, has said there are no circumstances in which he will drop out of the contest.

Throwing down the gauntlet to Democrats who have pleaded with him to stand down, Mr Nader said to do so now would be an insult to his supporters and make people even more cynical about politics.

He said it was damaging to democracy that voters should have a choice between two parties that he claimed were controlled by lobbyists and corporate interests. In an interview with The Independent, Mr Nader, said: "Under no circumstances would we drop out ... [That would be an insult] to all the people who have sweated their hearts out for us and add to the cynicism of the public."

Mr Nader also said that in the unlikely circumstances that John Kerry offered him a position in a future government he would not accept it.

The comments from Mr Nader, 70, will add to the fury with which many Democrats anticipate his participation in the election. Party activists still blame Mr Nader for taking crucial support from the Democrats in the 2000 election, which saw Mr Bush assume the presidency despite having lost the popular vote. The anger directed at Mr Nader often appears to have a sharper edge than the emotions directed at Mr Bush.

Polls suggest this year's election will be equally close and that the outcome will be decided by a sliver of undecided voters in a dozen battleground states. Latest figures show that in many of these places Mr Kerry is leading Mr Bush by a small margin, but the pollster John Zogby said Mr Nader was "the difference in virtually every battleground state".

When Mr Nader ran in 2000, obtaining 2.74 per cent of the total vote, he was the official candidate of the Green Party. This time he and his running mate Peter Camejo are standing as independents and their attempt to get on the ballot has not been easy. Mr Nader accused the Democrats of running a sordid "dirty tricks campaign", doing everything they can to undermine his efforts. In addition, an umbrella group called United Progressives for Victory has initiated a series of measures to counter Mr Nader state by state. As a result of lawsuits filed by Democratic supporters, Mr Nader has so far only managed to get on to the ballot in 11 states.

"Once you accept the 'anybody-but-Bush' position, the brain really does close down," said Mr Nader. The veteran consumer rights advocate said he was the only candidate running on a truly populist platform: a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, healthcare for everyone, a living minimum wage and environmental protection. He said that while he expected Mr Bush to lose the election and Mr Kerry to become the next president, he was running to try to "pull the other way" and ensure that certain issues were debated.

"I said to Kerry months ago that we should take on Bush together - the Democrats in their way and us in ours," said Mr Nader, who said his offer of a tactical pact was ignored. The Democrats have highlighted how in certain states Republicans are fighting to get Mr Nader on the ballot - helping to collect signatures and even organising donations - in an effort to split the anti-Bush vote. It was recently revealed that one in 10 people who donated more than $1,000 to Mr Nader is a long-time contributor to the Republicans.

Mr Kerry, meanwhile, has stepped up his demands that President Bush "stand up and stop" personal attacks that have been made by a group of Vietnam veterans questioning his claims about his military record.

At a fund-raiser on Saturday night Mr Kerry said the attacks by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group - closely linked to senior Republicans - had intensified "because in the last months they have seen me climbing in America's understanding that I know how to fight a smarter and more effective war" against terrorists.

Ralph Nader holds a unique position in American politics. Hated by Democrats, adored by his hardcore supporters and now championed by trouble-making Republicans, the 70-year-old consumer rights candidate represents many different things to different people.

The situation of the independent presidential candidate is also odd, because many progressives and those on the left who strongly agree with his politics - indeed, many of those who have long supported him - are adamantly and angrily opposed to him running. In some cases that ire - evidenced by a string of special websites as well as an orchestrated campaign against him by the Democrats - boils over into fury.

Nader does not seem to care. It may simply be a thick skin, or a huge ego, as his detractors claim, that protects him, but he says he has no regrets. "[If George Bush were re-elected] the blame would go to the Democrats," he says. "If Bush wins, the blame would go to the number two party, that lost. That is where the responsibility lies; they started with 40 per cent of the vote."

Such comments infuriate Democrats who blame Mr Nader for Al Gore's defeat in 2000 and say his presence in this year's contest threatens to condemn the US to a second, and potentially more radical, Bush term. This has led to all manner of people, among them the Democratic Party's chairman, Terry McAuliffe, pleading with Mr Nader not to run. A few weeks ago on national television, the film maker Michael Moore - who supported Mr Nader in 2000 - and the comedian Bill Maher got down on bended knee in front of the candidate and pleaded with him to drop out.

Their argument is straightforward: in 2000, though Nader won only 2.7 per cent of the vote, in key states such as Florida and New Hampshire, his presence on the ballot and the votes he took from the Democrats proved fatal to Mr Gore. In Florida, his critics argue, if just 1 per cent of Nader's 97,488 supporters had voted for Gore, he would have been president. In New Hampshire Nader took 22,198 votes, and Bush won the state by only 7,211 votes.

This time the election is shaping up to be as close. Mr Nader's opponents say that no matter how unsatisfactory a candidate one might consider John Kerry to be, he is still many times preferable to Bush; and that Mr Nader should find himself being supported in some states by Republicans working to get him on the ballot to split the anti-Bush vote should be a warning sign. He is, say his critics, nothing more than a spoiler, driven by ego and self-indulgence. Mr Nader dismisses such talk. First, he says the Democrats can blame only themselves for allowing Mr Bush to steal an election he did not win. Second, he says, exit polls showed that up to 25 per cent of those who voted for him in 2000 would have otherwise voted for Bush, up to 41 per cent for Gore but that the rest would not have bothered to vote at all.

He adds: "The other thing is that 10 times more Democrats voted for Bush than voted for Nader." Democrats never want to discuss the matter he says. "Once you accept the anybody-but-Bush position the brain really does close. They don't want to hear anything."

But however he may wish to frame it, Mr Nader's argument boils down to a choice between incremental change in November or more radical change over a longer period. For Mr Nader there is little practical difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, and the real challenge is to try to establish a third party in US politics,something, he says, the Democrats bitterly oppose.

"The corporations have won this election. They have been winning these elections for years ... If there is a difference [between the parties] it is rhetoric. Why is Kerry identical to Bush on Iraq? I evaluate the Democrats on defence as well as offence ... Why did they not stop Bush? They [say] they were against the tax cuts for the wealthy but they did not stop it even when they controlled the Senate."

He says that at a congressional level, for many Americans it is not even a choice between two parties. In a majority of seats, districts are either totally Democrat or totally Republican, an arrangement party leaders have agreed to. "The gift that they have given us is one-party choice," Mr Nader says. "There is no real choice ... It isn't even choice, it's selection ... These are strange times we live in."

Many of Mr Nader's outspoken critics say that while they support his views and may have supported him in 2000, President Bush has shown himself to be so dangerously right wing that those on the left cannot risk giving him a second term. The circumstances of this election are unique, they say, and it is not the time for experiments in breaking the two-party system.

Mr Nader's tactic, they say, should have been to run in the Democratic primaries or else to now throw the weight of the radical left behind the Kerry campaign and work for a more progressive party after the election.

Theodore Lowi, a professor of government at Cornell University, said: "[The election in 2000 came] before the true identity of George Bush had been revealed. Nader knows as well as the rest of us that, despite Kerry's lacklustre leadership, there is now a radical difference between the two major parties. Moreover, Nader is running as a bullet candidate without any party affiliation; he is a mere spoiler with no future."

Again Mr Nader is again quick to dismiss such claims. He is fond of quoting the 19th-century Indiana socialist Eugene Debs, "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it". He concedes that if someone is adamantly of the anyone-but-Bush mindset they should not vote for him but Kerry, "if your expectations levels are so low".

Mr Nader says he is trying to transform the political landscape rather than tweak it. Again turning his focus to the corporations, multinationals and lobbyists, he says: "They have shut us out from everything. You cannot get anything done. For-sale signs are up everywhere."

He has long been pushing against closed doors. Born in Winsted, Connecticut, to Lebanese immigrants who ran a bakery, Mr Nader studied at Harvard and edited the Harvard Law Review before graduating and setting up a small practice.

Mr Nader soon started speaking out against the abuse of corporate power, making headlines with his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, in which he condemned the car industry for producing unsafe vehicles. Nader's status soared when executives of General Motors hired private detectives to harass him and were then forced to apologise publicly before a nationally televised Senate committee hearing.

Backed by a group of young activist lawyers known as Nader's Raiders, he went on to produce exposés of industrial hazards, pollution, unsafe products, and governmental neglect of consumer safety laws. He is credited with a key role in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

In this latest fight, Mr Nader knows he has no chance of winning more than a few per cent of voters. He remains in the election campaign, he says, to draw attention to issues that are not being discussed, and to try to force the Democrats to move to the left to attract those people considering voting for him.

He says he is amazed that the Democrats do not campaign on more populist issues; why they do not try to appeal to the millions of Americans outside the political system who do not bother vote. "Ask yourself why Kerry does not bring up these issues," Mr Nader says. "Forty-seven million Americans make under $10 an hour. Millions work for five-and-half, six dollars. You cannot live on that."

The Democrats, he says, have lost sight of what they were supposed to be fighting for. "It's all about money, who has raised the most. It becomes the end itself. When you ask the members of the House and Senate why they lost [seats] in the 2002 election they say they did not have enough money."

THE CV

Born 1934

Education Gilbert School; Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs at Princeton University; Harvard Law School

1959 US Army

1959 Lawyer, Connecticut

1961-63 Lecturer, University of Hartford.

1967-68: Lecturer, Princeton University

1969-1990: Founded centres for research and published books on consumer protection

1996 & 2000 Green Party presidential candidate

2004 Independent presidential candidate

Retired colonel quits Bush's campaign

Monday, August 23, 2004 - Page A9

Washington -- The debate over U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's record in the Vietnam War continued yesterday after the resignation of a veteran working to help re-elect George W. Bush.

Retired colonel Ken Cordier left the Bush campaign on Saturday after appearing in an ad by a group legally barred from co-ordinating its activities with the campaign.

"Col. Cordier was a supporter of the President during the 2000 election and served as a member of the President's veterans' steering committee during this election," campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt acknowledged. AFP

Blatham it looks as if George W thinks you are going to slip across the border.

Refer to the following link:


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/national/21border.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=


ft :wink: :wink: nudge nudge

A propos of nothing, really, isn't this, like, the weirdest picture? I cant put my finger on what it is, but it just seems ... strange, in myriad ways.

Matt Damon, star of the Bourne Supremacy, Lost in Translation actress Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities are donating their talents to an online effort to unseat George W Bush, the US president.
The internet political group www.MoveOn.org today premieres 10 new anti-Bush ads created by award-winning directors and starring Hollywood actors.
An independent group formed in 1998 and not connected directly to Democratic candidate John Kerry, MoveOn has promised an unconventional approach to the election.
"It makes a real difference when performers and visual artists can use their talent as an attraction," said Marty Kaplan, a scholar of politics and pop culture at the University of Southern California. MoveOn's campaign is a clever way of leveraging star power to get people to pay attention to the message in the ad."
John Sayles, writer-director of Sunshine State and Eight Men Out, teams with actor Martin Sheen for one ad. Doug Liman, who directed Swingers and The Bourne Identity, reunites with Damon for another MoveOn spot.
Rob Reiner, director of When Harry Met Sally and The American President, uses Bush's own words to form the core of his 30-second ad. They come from an April news conference in which Bush struggled to answer whether he'd made mistakes as president.
Despite their star wattage, only voter reaction will decide if the ads get airtime.-AP.
Matt Damon, star of the Bourne Supremacy, Lost in Translation actress Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities are donating their talents to an online effort to unseat George W Bush, the US president.

Presidents aren't supposed to go wobbly, even in the worst of times. "There is always a crisis just around the corner," said Harry Truman, "and I have to do something about it, but the next day that crisis is passed, and it's just like yesterday's newspapers. That's the way we must face those things." Added Richard Nixon: "What determines success or failure in handling a crisis is the ability to keep coldly objective when emotions are running high."
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Web Extras

Laura Bush on how her husband copes with difficulties

Teresa Heinz Kerry's view of her husband

Strength, steadiness, and sang-froid are essential traits for a president, who must handle tough choices on a routine basis and brutal choices more often than anyone would like. George W. Bush and John Kerry, so different in many ways, do share this crucial attribute: Crisis seems to bring out the best in them. Neither shows any tendency to get panicky or weak-kneed when things go wrong, and once they set a course they can be extraordinarily tenacious in pursuing it. In their most celebrated moments, Kerry displayed coolness under fire as a combat officer in Vietnam, and Bush demonstrated a steely resolve after 9/11. Each quickly focused on what had to be done and took decisive action, with Kerry at one point saving the life of a crewman on the boat he commanded and Bush rallying the country behind his offensive against al Qaeda, starting with the quick invasion of Afghanistan.

Each man has displayed similar focus and resolve throughout political and private lives that, while mostly charmed, have put them to the test on several occasions. After suffering personal tragedy and political defeat--from losing early congressional races to enduring setbacks on the road to the White House--they bounced back in different ways. And their distinctly personal approaches to adversity reveal a lot about how each man might run the country over the next four years.

Bush, 58, is intuitive and willing to gamble on big, bold ideas. Kerry, 60, is deliberative and prefers cautious incrementalism. Bush lacks intellectual curiosity. Kerry is endlessly inquisitive. Where Bush sees moral choices in black and white, Kerry recognizes shades of gray. Bush makes up his mind on the best evidence available, takes a stand, then refuses to second-guess himself. Kerry is always eager to ask one more question and ponder one more nuance, taking as much time as he can before choosing a course, which he frequently revisits later. Bush strives for simplicity. Kerry embraces complexity. Bush would seem most at home in a boardroom; Kerry, in a classroom.

KERRY'S WAY

One little-noticed curiosity is how much Kerry's approach to adversity resembles that of Bush's father. George Herbert Walker Bush was also deliberative and cautious, deeply suspicious of acting hastily in a crisis. Both Kerry and the elder Bush were shaped by New England's Brahmin traditions, which infused them with a strong sense of honor and duty, a disdain for swagger, and a belief in propriety. Kerry's mother told her children to "shrink it down" --to deflate their egos--in a remarkable parallel to the admonition of George H. W. Bush's mother to beware "The Great I Am."

It is all true.

God Bless America

Pocono Summit, PA. It was here, in the parking lot of Cramer's building supply, only 15 miles from a Nascar racetrack, in a pivotal battleground state, on the back of a battered work van, that we saw the first one. "Somewhere in Texas," the bumper sticker said, "a village is missing its idiot." The next Bush-is-thick sticker showed up at Home Depot on the back of an equally battered pick-up driven by a tough-looking kid dressed for construction work. It said:

BUSH

LIKE A ROCK

ONLY DUMBER

These are signs of the fierce conviction of some voters - and the secret fear of a quieter and perhaps larger group - that George Bush is not smart enough to continue as president. Indeed, if an unscientific survey of bumper stickers, graffiti and letters to the editor in this conservative mountain region of eastern Pennsylvania is an indicator, doubts are spreading, and probably not in a way helpful to the Republicans.

Yet the subject is seldom taken head on by the mainstream newspapers and network news. The discourse about presidential intelligence appears mainly on the internet, in the partisan press, among television comics and at the level of backyard jokes and arguments. The White House has shown a devious brilliance in keeping a contrived debate on John Kerry's "fitness" to be commander-in-chief in the headlines, at the expense of any prolonged journalistic examination of the far more important question of Bush's mental capacity. That uncomfortable question will surely be glossed over when the Republican national convention starts next week in New York.

After four decades of newspapering, including coverage of the "dumb" Ronald Reagan and the "smart" Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, I am not unsympathetic to the problems of reporters and editors trying to inform the public on this touchiest of competency issues. As Richard Reeves commented memorably in a 1976 article comparing Gerald Ford to Bozo the Clown, the rules of conventional journalism make it almost impossible to report that a presidential candidate "had nothing to say and said it badly to a stunned crowd". Big news organisations are captives of our own rules of fairness. Voters are doubly disadvantaged - by a paucity of information in the campaign coverage and by the elusive nature of the evidence about the kinds of intelligence that matter in our leaders.

For example, my generation of White House correspondents was accused of covering up Ronald Reagan's supposed stupidity and his reliance on fictional "facts" derived from Errol Flynn movies and the John Birch Society, the rightwing organisation founded in 1958 to combat the perceived infiltration of communism. In 1981, Clark Clifford, the Democratic "wise man", entertained Georgetown dinner parties with the killer line that Reagan was "an amiable dunce". Twenty years later, we know that Clifford got indicted for bank fraud and the dunce ended the cold war and the entire Soviet era.

Yesterday, the administration made a move to close the gap between the candidates on environmental issues. After Bush himself dismissed earlier warnings about greenhouse gases as something "put out by the bureaucracy," the administration now says that emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from smoke stacks and tailpipes are the only likely explanation for global warming.

Census: Poverty rose by million

And under the heading of "Oh shucks, yup, the economy is spurtin out good things like a geyser on cocaine"

Quote:

Census: Poverty rose by million

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-26-census-poverty_x.htm