Our Next Prez?

Yes, worrisome.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38626

 

Well, I'm not a big Kerry supporter, but, at least he wore the suit because he was required to--not to make himself look good...ie. Bush in the flight suit and Dukakis the Red Baron.

 

It's a silly-looking suit, and it would look silly on either Bush or Kerry, but it's regulation. Unless we're saying Bush is such a moron that he'd jeopardize damaging millions of dollars worth of sensitive equipment for a better photo-op, I think we're reaching to say this is going to have a Snoopy effect on Kerry. The thing with Dukakis and the tank is that we all knew that Bush 41 would look good in the tank--he was a WWII vet--and it reinforced Dukakis' status as liberal pussycat. The photo looked like Dukakis, as many Americans saw him--somebody in way over his head, desperately trying to look macho and self-assured.

<non sequitur rant>

I firmly believe that Dukakis could have won, Snoopy photo and all, if he'd run a better campaign.

When I look at the presidential campaigns that took place during my lifetime, the only one that really jumps out at me as a case where the winner definitively won by running a really good campaign was Reagan-Mondale '84. In every other case I can think of, the deciding factor was either a third-party candidate (Perot in '92 and Nader in '00) and/or an incumbent's unpopularity (Bush in '92 and Carter in '80) and/or a really ineffective campaign by the losing party (Dukakis '88, Dole '96, and Gore '00).

Incidentally, the last president to win reelection on a 50% approval rating or lower this late in the game was Harry Truman; if Bush gets a second term, he'll make history. Bush was, IMHO, never a particularly good candidate; it was Gore's poor showing in 2000, coupled with the Nader factor, that gave him the White House. I've pretty much decided that if Kerry wins, it'll probably fall into category #2--unpopular incumbent, probably decided by a razor-thin margin--which means that he'll have a serious challenge in '08 if the Republicans run somebody solid like McCain.

</non sequitur rant>


Cheers,

 

Don't worry about your rants. I got called a fascist by a clerk at a Barnes and Noble the other day for looking at Nader's new book. This whole election season is one big goddamn non sequitur rant.
Would that St. Henry of Baltimore were living at this hour!

 

The same day Kerry dawned his "bubbleBoy" suit Bush fell off his bicycle AGAIN !!!! Oh Boy- what a pair !! God help us, we need it.
It seems that with every election we are presented with lesser qualified candidates than the previous election. Is this the dumbing down of American politics ?

 

Mencken

Unc, could you be referring to the great "Sage of Baltimore", H.[Henry]L. Mencken ?

He was such a keen observer of human nature. Some of his quotes:
_____________________________

Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Nature abhors a moron.

Courtroom - A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.

Lawyer - One who protects us from robbers by taking away the temptation.

Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.

Dachshund - A half-a-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long.

A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phase makes it, feminine intuition.

No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
Notes on journalism, Chicago Tribune, [19 September 1926]

He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.

A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.

Suicide is a belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives.

Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.

Misogynist - A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone may be looking.

Puritanism - The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

I believe it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than to be ignorant.

All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
______________________________________

His book
The American Language - An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States is on the web.

 

IMO, Dukakis lost the election when Bernie Shaw asked him the question about the death penalty if someone raped & killed his wife. His deadpan response shocked a lot of people, and revealed him for what he was.

 

Strange as it feels to be typing this, I agree completely; I think that was the most frighteningly bad answer I have ever seen in any presidential debate. That man had no business getting the nomination.


Cheers,

 

I hereby predict Bush will win with 54% of the vote. You heard it here!

 

I wouldn't dare make a prediction this early in the game, especially since all of the poll indicators are shaking up after Kerry's speech (and will probably shake up again after Bush turns it up a notch). I obviously hope Kerry will win, and he's certainly in the lead at the moment, but a really good convention and solid debate performances by Bush, or a serious Kerry scandal, or a dramatic surge in the economy, or the capture of Osama bin Laden, etc. could change everything. But it would certainly take a lot to give Bush 54% of the popular vote when he's been trailing in the polls for close to six months.


Cheers,

 

All true but remember, Mondale, Dukakis, and Carter ('80) were all ahead by double digits at one time during their respective campaigns.

 

I predict a win with 49% of the vote .
Seriously though, although my vote matters little (I live in UT), I am leaning toward voting the Kerry/Edwards ticket. ...but not without reservations.


A question for voters who have a bit of a Libertarian streak. Do you ignore the wrong-headed direction the Bush administration seems to be leading us. e.g. The Patriot Act. The apparently over-large rebirth of the power of pull.) Or do you ignore the wrong-headed direction the presumptive Kerry administration seems want to go. e.g. Protectionism gussied up with words that sound "fair". Or do you ignore any and all who don't agree with you?

Tony

 

Mondale was the only one of the three who ran against an incumbent, and his lead was pretty short-lived (he was at his strongest during the early primary season, when John Glenn was also polling a double-digit lead). Carter was the incumbent, so of course he had the advantage of name recognition. In any case, none of the three candidates you've cited held a double-digit lead in six of the final nine months of the campaign, as Kerry has done. And as I've mentioned before in this thread, the last incumbent to be elected after polling a 50 percent approval rating or below in April, never mind August, was Harry Truman. Bush might very well win, but he has his work cut out for him.


Cheers,

 

I was just thinking the other day about what a horrible election this must be for libertarians. On the Republican side, you have a wire-tapping theocrat; on the Democratic side, you have a regulation-happy protectionist. There's a charismatic Libertarian nominee in the running, but he's polling so low he makes Nader look like a major-party candidate. I don't know what I'd tell a libertarian (except what I tell everybody else, e.g., as the wonderful campaign button puts it: "put some Johns in the White House and stop using the Bushes").


Cheers,

 

And just think, we still have three and a half more months of rants to come!!

Rich Hartel

 

The Patriot Act is also a part of the Democrat Party Platform. Either way, you still have the Patriot Act. In fact, much of the Democrat Platform is almost identical to what George Bush has already instituted. I doubt that most democrats even know this.

I personally could never vote for Kerry because of his stand on abortion. Anyone who is pro-death has already proven he/she has so low of an ethical standard that they are automatically disqualified in my book.

BLD

 

I don't think Kerry ever held a double digit lead over Bush.

 

Badnarik, "charismatic"? You must have watched a different LP National Convention than I did. Badnarik is a horrible speaker!

If you want charisma in the LP, look at Carla Howell! As I said on a post some month's ago, the LP hasn't had a decent candidate since Ed Clark in 1980. Harry Browne came close in 1996 and 2000 but still no Ed Clark.

 

I've yet to see a poll where Kerry or Bush held a lead outside the margin of error.

BLD