Starrfall on 10/9/2008 at 00:58
Quote Posted by heretic
My man is out of the race.
As things stand now, I may write him (Ron Paul) in or I may begrudgingly vote Mccain, I'm not sure yet.
Why not Bob Barr, out of curiosity?
Also I can tell you from painful experience that voting for a candidate you don't really like sucks a LOT, especially if they end up losing. THANKS JOHN KERRY
heretic on 10/9/2008 at 01:33
Quote Posted by Starrfall
Why not Bob Barr, out of curiosity?
Although I admire Barr's stance on privacy issues, civil liberties and gun rights he has bounced between being a reactionary and a pseudo-libertine in so many ways that I really can't tell where the rubber hits the road.
Barr has actively worked to ban pagan religion from military recognition, and played a very large role in support of the war on drugs. For example, Barr actually authored his own amendment which made it next to impossible to lower penalties for marijuana usage, or even to remove marijuana from schedule 1 classification.
At the end of the day I don't really think any of these positions are really represenatative of him
now, but the guy has actively worked against core Libertarian ideals with a high degree of success. He did
a lot of damage IMO, and that's hard for me to let go of.
To be fair, Barr has come a long way since 2000, but he reeks of the 'Johnny come lately' Libertarians that forgot to check their Republican baggage at the door when they were running from Bush and the neocon policy in general.
Maybe I'll be one of the lonely few who vote his way come election time, but if I'm going that route I may as well just write Paul in you know?
Quote Posted by Starrfall
Also I can tell you from painful experience that voting for a candidate you don't really like sucks a LOT, especially if they end up losing. THANKS JOHN KERRY
Been there done that, burned the t-shirt.
Sypha Nadon on 10/9/2008 at 03:39
Yeah, I swallowed my pride and voted Kerry also. Not like it mattered!
SD on 10/9/2008 at 07:28
Why didn't people like Kerry? The guy had gravitas and experience, he was intelligent, a bona fide war hero... what did you want, to be able to put another movie star in the White House?
Aja on 10/9/2008 at 07:32
um, maybe a guy who can CATCH a football? :rolleyes:
heretic on 10/9/2008 at 07:34
Quote Posted by Aja
um, maybe a guy who can CATCH a football? :rolleyes:
Or a guy who can bowl?
:joke:
Gryzemuis on 10/9/2008 at 13:29
Quote Posted by SD
Why didn't people like Kerry? The guy had gravitas and experience, he was intelligent, a bona fide war hero... what did you want, to be able to put another movie star in the White House?
Nope. The American people want a MILF in the White House.
paloalto90 on 10/9/2008 at 13:32
Quote:
Or a guy who can bowl?
Someone who can dress a moose.
Kerry:Can I get me a huntin license here?
Starrfall on 10/9/2008 at 15:03
Quote Posted by SD
what did you want
Someone who could win an election he should have won!
I think mostly it's frustration from people who are quite sure he would have been much better than four more of Bush, if only he had run an effective campaign and hadn't been out-maneuvered by grade-school tactics.
Quote Posted by heretic
Maybe I'll be one of the lonely few who vote his way come election time, but if I'm going that route I may as well just write Paul in you know?
I think if a third party gets votes as opposed to just a write in candidate, it sends more of a message to the main parties. I was probably going to vote libertarian if Hillary won the nom - Barr won't win so he can't do any harm, and (in theory) if the libertarians get more votes as a party then maybe the other two will realize that they need to make some changes.
In real life they probably don't notice much though, and I suppose Ron Paul practically IS his own party at this point. Paul getting even 1% of the vote would probably send more of a message to the republican party than the libertarians getting more than in 2004.
heywood on 10/9/2008 at 15:30
I really don't like Kerry. I lived in Massachusetts for 9 years and thought he was an awful Senator who was out of touch with the state and accomplished very little considering how long he's been there. Before that, he was a Lieutenant Governor (do-nothing job). And before that he was a DA who had to resign after abusing his office to go after a Republican Senator, who happened to be the first black Senator. In his first campaign for the House, his brother and campaign director were arrested because they were supposedly trying to cut the phone lines of his opponent's campaign HQ. And before that, he was a leader of the anti-war movement and made associations and statements that bother me. Back in the 1980s, he supported the Sandinistas, which bothers me too. He is the quintessential blue blood Northeast liberal elitist who had opportunity in life, gained power and squandered it.
I don't understand what was so wrong with Howard Dean. The party suddenly decided he was unelectable and ran away from him in a big hurry. Kerry just happened to be the guy in the right place at the right time with Vietnam vet on his resume. He had a big lead before the nation knew anything about him. I still think Dean was more electable than Kerry, and so were Clark and Gephardt. Which reminds me of another Presidential candidate from Massachusetts, Mike Dukakis. Hart was the front-runner until the Donna Rice story broke. When he withdrew, the party could have gone with Gore or Gephardt. But instead, people flocked to Dukakis, who had near zero appeal nationally.
It seems to me that the Republicans are better at winning Presidential elections because they are smart enough to pick electable candidates. When I look back at some of the Democratic candidates, I wonder what the party was thinking: McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry.
