BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?

Subject: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 06:48 AM

I'm starting this thread in response to a recent series of letters between a friend and myself where we were discussing trying to remember the last election when we were really enthusiastic about the person we were going to vote for.

For me, it hadn't happened in decades, which was more than sad, but really telling about my feelings on the up-coming elections, and my dread of having to vote at all, just to keep a person OUT of the White House.

At any rate, I'd be really interested in hearing who was the last person you felt really positively about. It doesn't have to be for the office of President, it could be any person running for any office in any country you happen to live.

I'll check in later with my own story about this.

Thanks!..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 07:06 AM

IMHO hardly anybody votes for the candidate, and they merely follow party loyalties. Unfortunately this leads to the party with the biggest following getting elected no matter what their manifest does, or doesn't contain. [See New Labour and Fox Hunting]
It seemed to be easy for us to become a blame culture, never taking resposibility for our actions, and sueing other people for our own carelessness. However what seems hard for us to learn is to question our loyalties to political parties, many of which are based on our social standing, or how our parents voted. For instance, although the labour party has changed its name to new labour, and has patently moved so far to the right as to be invisible to the working class they claim to represent. However people still think of them as a socialist party.
All I ask is that people use their vote and use it wisely, putting a lot of thought into it when they do. I don't care who you vote for as long as you think about it.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 07:18 AM

I vote whenever I have the chance but rarely vote for anyone. Sadly it is often what I view as damage limitation rather than voting for somone.

I've gone on about this before but I think the last person I would have voted FOR in a UK General Election was John Smith who died in 1994.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 07:19 AM

Last time I voted FOR a candidate was last election. I voted for a party with good policies, and the other parties were playing such racist games that there was no choice. I voted Green, as did everyone in my family.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 09:44 AM

At the local level you can vote for whomever you please. If you blunder, no real harm's done. At the national level in the US it's been a generation since a conscious voter could follow his heart and mind; not since JFK; who, IMHO was overated.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 11:51 AM

Because I do vote for the candidate, not the party (I've been a political independent my whole life), I ALWAYS vote for the candidate I want, or I don't cast a vote in a race where there is no good choice.

I voted for someone I was proud to vote for in 2002 (Walter Mondale for US Senate, and I'd have voted for Wellstone for the third time if he hadn't been killed). Although I was disgruntled with some of the things Wellstone had done since 1998 (when he first seriously started thinking about a run for president in 2000), I still would have cast my vote for him in 2002.

In 2000, I am still very proud to say that I voted for Nader. I am very, very proud of that vote. I have never voted for a "lesser evil" candidate for president.

This year, I will proudly vote for Betty McCollum, my House rep seeking re-election (she is a Dem). I will vote Green for president--David Cobb, in an effort to keep the Green Party in the running for matching funds in Minnesota for the next election, and because I could NEVER bring myself to totally depressing point where I believed so little in our democracy, that I would vote for one of the lesser of two evils Republicrats. There are differences between Kerry and Bush, but not enough differences to vote for Kerry. He is a lousy candidate, and IMO, will make a lousy president. As lousy as Bush? Hard to say. A wholly ineffectual Democratic president following Bush, may not even be able to succeed in damage control, and stopping the runaway train.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:10 PM

Hell, Kerry is SO BAD as a candidate, even the party's leadership is cringing and wringing their hands over how bad he has been. And this is the guy that the party's grassroots were bamboozled into believing was "the most electable" candidate in what had been a pretty strong field for the Democrats, by the party's media sycophants.

Bush/Cheney may be guilty of squandering the good will towards the US after 9/11, but the Democratic party is all the more guilty--of squandering the biggest, most powerful surge in Dem party grassroots activism, and the rank and files' ill will for the Bush/Cheney administration, by putting out the biggest loser candidate they could find.

Why so many of you keep voting for the Dem party is beyond me. I put it down to essentially what John Giok said above. You vote for the Democrat, so you don't have to think about your vote, and how you are wasting it, election after election, by voting for your party, which you uncritically have adopted as your lesser of two evils party. All I have to say is, try and overcome your cynicism about democracy, will you, and take a fucking stand for once. Don't vote Dem or Rep. If you aren't willing to vote green or socialist, just don't vote in the presidential race, and vote for in all your other local races.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:30 PM

Oh, give it a break, Nameless.

I know you're wrought up about it but there are some people who simply disagree with you.

Get used to it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:31 PM

I've never been a partisan voter. I only vote my conscience. The first time I ever voted for a candidate, was Bill Clinton. I voted for him twice. If I had to do it over, knowing what I do now, I have no idea whether or not I would vote for him. In the last election, I seriously considered voting for John McCain in the event that he became the Republican candidate. If I knew then what I know now about him, I don't know if I would have still considered voting for him. I ended up voting against Bush in the last election, but not for anyone. There's a fairly good chance that I will be writing in a vote for Kucinich this time around.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:50 PM

Pierre Elliot Trudeau. He embodied a spirit of 'youthfulness' and brought a sense of optimism to Canada and young Canadians. Had I been allowed to vote in American elections, the last candidate to get my vote because I respected and admired his political past and intended future would have been Senator Eugene McCarthy. I did however work for him during the primaries. Not a vote, but the next best thing to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:52 PM

PS

This is a very clever thread because it asks a really important question and requires a self-examination that was just a bit uncomfortable there for a second. It's been a long time since I thought this way. Good on yer, Ellenpoly.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:09 PM

Oh don't worry, Amos. I AM used to the Democrats running worthless candidates for president, the US Senate, and the House of Representatives, and so is the rest of the nation.

Which is why they can't stay in power, after nearly a century of having an iron grip on Washington, and control of the Congress and the White House. Why can't they stay in power? Because they abandoned their base, to cozy up with the money men.

Everyone in the world knows this, except apparently, you party loyalists, Amos.

We know you disagree with people like me. We also know, it is the Democratic party loyalists like you, who are to blame for Bush being in the White House and the radical right running Congress and the judicial branch of government, because 1) you and your party didn't give us any decent candidates to vote for, and 2) you refuse to do the hard work of taking back your party from the crooks that are running it, like the Clintons, the Gores, the Liebermans, the Daschles, the Kerrys, the Gephardts, the Pelosis, the Democratic Leadership Council, the Move-on.orgs, the Soros cabal, etc etc ad nauseum.

So here is what I have to say to all you Democratic party "Anybody But..." lesser of two evils loyalists: read this and this and this and...

And Amos and all you other Dem party "Anybody But..." lesser of two evil loyalists--those are the editorialists on YOUR side.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:10 PM

As a true independent, I do not vote for a party. I vote for a candidate. I did vote for candidate Barack Obama in the democratic primary for U.S. Senator because he was the best candidate running in both parties. Screw you usual moaners who have called me racist. I would have voted for him if he was an Arab, also. The man is compelling, extremely intelligent, and thoughtful.

I will not pull any straight ticket lever.

ESPECIALLY Democratic.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:21 PM

I would like to add, the moderate wing of the Republican party is every bit as bad, and just as big sell-outs, as the Democrats.

They just took the money, and rolled over rather than fight for their party's principles and agenda. They let the money men take over, just like the Democrats.

Hell, the problem may not even be the two party system.

But the American/British/Canadian/Australian global corporate elite system (all derivatives of the Anglo/UK model, lest we forget) has been corrupted and taken over by the global Anglo/Aussie/Canadian/ American corporate mafia.

Not a hair's breadth of difference between those country's ruling elites. Capiche?

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:31 PM

Hey, pal, the organization to which you make reference don't exist. Lei capisce?

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:34 PM

Oh, and one more thing. Kerry isn't just trailing in the Gallup poll. The CBS/New York Times poll published Friday night also shows Kerry trailing Bush by 8 points--which is twice the margin of error.

Last spring, I simply didn't believe it was possible for Kerry to lose. The economy sucked, jobs weren't coming back, people are losing health insurance in droves because they can't afford the premiums anymore, the war on Iraq and Afghanistan not only goes from bad to worse, but the entire region is now profoundly destabilized in a way it wasn't prior to the US invasion....

And Kerry is trailing in the polls. So let me ask you this, Kerry voters. If Kerry is this bad and ineffectual as a candidate (which I would argue he also was as a US Senator), what the hell makes you think he is going to be any better than this as president?

Not only will he not even try to stop this runaway train, he can't even succeed at damage control.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:38 PM

There doesn't have to be an "organization" brucie. The Anglo/American/Canadian/Australian mulit-nationals ARE the ruling elite. They transcend national borders and control the governments in their countries because they have all the money. In our systems of governance, the people with all the money have all the power.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Nerd
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:51 PM

This would have been a good thread, but predictably GUEST had to post five times to bask Kerry, after answering the actual question in his first post. "Oh, and you know who I don't like? John Kerry." ZZZZ.

I was pretty happy voting for Gore. I think he was a bad CANDIDATE, in the sense that he tried to hide who he really was in order to appeal to the middle, in the sense that he distanced himself from Clinton which was a blunder, and in the sense that he never fought back against the weird smears and slurs about him having made grandiose claims about the internet, etc; all his claims were true, and none were as gandiose as the right-wing attack poodles tried to make them sound.

But Gore was a good VP and would have been a good president---MUCH better than Bush.

Ralph Nader knew this, but chose to lie through his teeth in order to get votes. So much for the principled choice!

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Nerd
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:52 PM

Uh, that should have BASH kerry, of course...

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 03:07 PM

The last presidential candidate for whom I enthusiastically voted was Adlai Stephenson, in his first campaign, in--I guess it would be 1952. In his second campaign he had watered down who he was to suit the lowest common denominator of votes. I voted for him, but without the hero worship or enthusiasm.

For those who say they vote "for the man, not the party", I would say that no significant public officer is an individual! The named man or woman is the focus of a team (staff, party, movement), and cannot (in the case of a high official like the president) even make individual judgments on important public issues (because one human being can't know enough), let alone by himself carry through the official actions implied by his judgments, if he could make them individually. What's more, to get to that high level a candidate is bound by hundreds--nay, thousands!--of commitments which he or those guiding him or representing him have made in order to get votes.

With all the problems there are with partisan politics, movements, parties, political clubs, pressure groups are there and necessary, and there is no way to avoid their presence. One must pick the team which seems likeliest to move the world in what the individual voter thinks is a good direction.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 03:23 PM

"There doesn't have to be an "organization" brucie. The Anglo/American/Canadian/Australian mulit-nationals ARE the ruling elite. They transcend national borders and control the governments in their countries because they have all the money. In our systems of governance, the people with all the money have all the power."

This is true, but maybe it deserves a thread of its own so as not to detract from the intended course of this thread. (I agree with you 100% by the way.)

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 03:24 PM

I agree with that last paragraph of yours Dave. But I also agree with John Giok. Most people vote for a presidential candidate because of their party affiliation, so they don't have to be troubled with learning the candidates' positions on the issues, or even which issues deserve the higher priority in any given year.

That is the deepest, most serious flaw in the thinking of the "Anybody But Bush" Democrats this year. Believing that voting for the Democrat matters more than anything else, including standing by one's own principles. We keep getting these lame reasons to vote for Kerry, like he is better on abortion or the environment, as if those issues were front burner issues this year. They aren't. The front burner issues are the war, the economy, health care, and jobs.

Voting party loyalty is a bit like living Mark Twain's ideal life of "good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience".

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 03:27 PM

It was Twain who called Congress "that benevolent old asylum for the helpless."

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 03:34 PM

As I have repeatly stated in other threads, I am affirmatively voting for Bush, as well as a Democrat for WV State Governor (Joe Machin) and a Republican for Representative (Shelly Moore Capito). To my knowledge, in over 40 years of voting, I have never voted a straight party ticket.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 04:10 PM

Yeah. I voted for my local member of parliament the last couple of times, because I know him and he seems like a good person to me. I am confident in his basic reliability. In Canada you don't vote for the Prime Minister directly, you vote for the local member of parliament.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 05:46 PM

There is always this alternative.

Which looks like a humorless version of this rip off of the original.

Has Wavy Gravy been on The Daily Show?

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 04:10 AM

Thanks for those who stuck to the topic. There are a lot of threads here to discuss the pros and cons of the coming elections, and if you are one who is really voting FOR someone this time around, that's fine.

But I am most interested in the names of those in the past who we felt positive about (ie-Uncle Dave is a good example of what I was looking for).

Sometimes those we think are going to be great once in office disappoint us, as was the case for me with Clinton...

But I digress. I certainly would have voted for Adlai Stevenson if I had been old enough, and the same for JFK. I still couldn't vote when the election I was the most involved in was getting started, with Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, Bobby Kennedy,etc... After switching our allegiances as they dropped out, or were shot, I ended up having to force my mother to go to the polls when the final name became Hubert Humphrey. She DID vote, but only to write in Dick Gregory in the end...

So what had begun as an enthusiastic time of forward thinking and great belief in the possibility of change became a time of despair and mourning ending in a Nixon White House.

The first time I would be able to cast my vote was for Jimmy Carter, and vote I did. I was living overseas at the time but watched from afar as his Presidency unravelled. I still maintain that he could have been a truly great President, if the office were set up to allow him to be. But I agree that one man, though certainly a powerful figurehead, and in some cases-aggresively determined enough to fight through all the obstacles presented, to really hold onto the reins of his administration CAN make an impact...in many cases, as with Carter, the odds were against him.

Since Carter, I have been voting AGAINST people at the top, and FOR people on lower levels. It is a challenge not to just vote for the party, but we owe it to ourselves to take the time to examine the indiviuals. Unless you've lived in Hawaii, the name Neil Abercrombie won't mean anything to you, but he is the last person I voted FOR. He's a State Senator, and though I still disagree with some of his decisions, I have agreed with the majority.

Also, I did for FOR Ralph Nader in 2000. Am I sorry now I did? Tough one to call. I know I AM deeply sorry that he's running again this time around, and I will not be voting for him, and most sadly, the reason why not is why I started thinking about this thread in the first place.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 04:29 AM

The comparison between the UK and US systems fails in this respect, mainly because we do vote for our PM, who is chosen by members of his party alone. We have the rough equivalent of your state elections, where we choose a candidate to represent us in Westminister, and in some cases that's the last we hear of them till the next election. This is not always a bad thing!
So all that most of us get in this country, is the choice of 4 or 5 mediocre, self serving wannabees. The late John Smith has been mentioned as someone worth voting for, but I think that part of his legend is best served by the fact that he is dead. I admire conviction politicians like Tony Benn, Enoch Powell,and Maggie Thatcher, not because I share their views, but because the stuck to their beliefs, and didn't trim their sails to court popularity.
Who would I vote for in the UK today? The only politician I admire at the moment is Margaret Beckett.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 04:55 AM

DON'T vote for our PM. Sorry!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:17 AM

The last time I have voted with my heart I was to be bitterly disappointed, more than by any of those candidates I did not fully trust when voting for them.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 01:50 PM

I don't fully trust any politician. A politician is a politician. Politics are not ethically or morally pure, and nor are politicians. Anyone with that sort of expectation of politicians probably shouldn't be voting!

That said, I was actually seriously considering not voting for Wellstone when he was killed in 2002. Had he opened up enough of a lead over Coleman, I would definitely have not voted (there weren't any decent alternative candidates on the ballot) in that race. I had written him on numerous occassions, but I blasted him for voting for the Patriot Act. I pretty much lost faith in Wellstone after 9/11. He just seemed to go over the deep end, and betrayed his own principles, which turned out to not be so deeply held as he advertised them to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 01:51 PM

I should have added, I was happy to vote for Mondale, and really wish he had won. I think his is a voice the US Senate needed to have during the difficult times of this bloody mess we find ourselves in now. He would have brought an "elder statesman" perspective that is sorely needed in the US Senate right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 02:44 PM

My birthday, Nov 8, sometimes falls on US Election Day. In 1968, when you had to be 21 to vote, I turned 21 one or two days after election day and was therefore *just barely* too young to vote. Voting age was lowered to 18 immediately afterwards, but by the time I could first vote in a Presidential election in 1972, I was 25 years old, give or take a couple of days.

My vote in that election, for McGovern, was probably my most enthusiastic and principled "for" vote ever. I cast it via absentee ballot while in the US Army, knew that my candidate had little or no hope of actually winning, but was proud and happy about my participation nevertheless.

I like to think of myself as independent, and have voted for members of various different parties, including Greens and even Republicans, on the local level. However, every presidential vote I've ever cast has been for the Democrat. To my mind, the contemporary Republican party has come completely under the control of truly nefarious anti-human financial interests.

The Dems are almost as bad, certainly, and part of the same system, but I still hold out some hope for "the lesser of two evils" -- because I truly believe there is a real and significant difference. IF GORE WERE PRESIDENT, WE WOULDN'T BE IN THIS MESS IN IRAQ! Or, so I choose to believe, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 02:53 PM

I did vote FOR Carter; I was disappointed in the outcome of his term, and I don't consider myself enough of an analyst to say whether it was his lack of leadership, or circumstances under which he never had a chance. But to this day I respect him as a man more than any other candidate since I reached voting age. I voted AGAINST Kennedy, not for good reason, but because I hadn't grown a brain of my own yet, and I swallowed right-wing protestant stuff about the danger of a Catholic president. Given the Nixon-Humphrey choice, I voted for the "Peace and Freedom"candidate. (I don't even remember his name, or if I have the party title quite right).

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 02:55 PM

GUEST, glad to see you back on topic re: enthusiasm for candidates.

As for your contention that Abortion and the environment are not front-burner issues, that's just what Bush wants you to think. He is distracting you with the war so that he can push his social and economic agenda, which includes harming the environment and (possibly) outlawing abortion (though I don't think he much cares about the latter, his Supreme Court appointees might).

In any case, he denies funding to any sexual health programs that mention contraception or abortion, which will probably lead to more deaths from AIDS than in the whole Iraq war.

His environmental policies could conceivably lead to the deaths of everyone.

So, go ahead, GUEST. Keep thinking that these are lame reasons to vote, just like Bush wants you to. That way, if you're pro-war, you'll vote Bush, if you're anti-War, you'll hate Kerry. Either way, Bush will get elected and continue killing people with his environmental and sexual health policies.

By the way, Kerry's health-care policies are sound, and much better than Bush's. Cobb calls for universal single-payer, which I support but which will have to be implemented gradually or it will have no chance of passing Congress. Typically, Cobb is long on ideals and short on practicalities, and offers no way to implement the system he espouses.

You couldn't be worse than Bush on jobs. Certainly Cobb and Nader haven't offered any viable alternatives on job-creation. So even among your "front-burner" issues there are good reasons to vote for Kerry.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 09:00 PM

My first time vote was for McGovern in 1972. My second time round, I voted for McCarthy when he ran as an indie against Ford and Carter. In 1980, I voted for the Citizen's Party candidate, Barry Commoner, though I would have gone for Jerry Brown had he won. I just couldn't bring myself to vote for such a pro-nuke candidate as Carter.

I voted for Mondale/Ferraro in 1984 after working for Jesse and the Rainbow Coalition. I like Mondale, and to this day think he would have made a good president. Pathetic to think we haven't had a woman or minority candidate since then, isn't it?

In 1988, I didn't vote for prez, on account of there not being any decent candidates. I was a hardcore Rainbow Coalition supporter, and was incredibly fired up by Jesse's run that year. I mean c'mon--Dukakis instead of Jesse? Not even.

1992 I was faced with the same. Didn't vote for prez, as I never liked Clinton, and was convinced he was the quintessential sell-out southern Dem in Republican clothing he is from the gitgo.

Finally in 1996, I could vote FOR someone for president again, and voted Nader. And even more proudly again in 2000. Right now I keep swinging back and forth between Nader and Cobb.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,marks
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 11:47 PM

Over the years

McGovern
Reagan
Nader

Any diagnostic comments on my political evolution will be gladly read and pondered, since its got me puzzled as all heck.

Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 07:29 AM

Nadar in '04... There, that *is* voting for a candidate...

The only winning Presidential candidate, however, that I helped elect was Jimmy Carter.

But voting isn't supposed to be like a horserace even tho a lot of folks think it is...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 08:35 AM

Well, as you can see by my list Bobert, I have yet to vote for a winning candidate. But that hasn't led me to believe that voting doesn't matter. That is the eternal optimist side of me.

I'm leaning back towards Nader again, sorta see-sawing back and forth right now between Nader and Cobb. I'll get it sorted out yet...

But back to the subject at hand in the thread...I can only vote for a candidate if it is a vote FOR them. I've never been able to bring myself to the cynical place most voters who bother showing up on election day are coming from, the lesser of two evils thing. What is the point? And why can't we make those idiots stop voting like that and vote for real change instead?

But no, the message gets sent loud and clear to the 50% of people who don't bother to show up: single mothers, people of color, working class and poor people: stay away, we don't want to represent you.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 08:51 PM

Jimmy Carter----history has proven him to be idealistic albeit weak as a president. Too bad idealism did not carry the day.   Still amazes me he got the office.

Bill H

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 08:36 AM

Well, I suppose I could understand how someone was amazed that Carter got the Democratic nomination. But surprised the Democrat beat Ford? How could that surprise anyone? A dead guy could have beaten Ford.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 08:51 AM

Yeah, Bill H, I agree. Moral folks usually don't have what it takes to get this far inpolitics...

I don't think Jimmy was necessary a weak president but a guy who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Throw in the seeds that Barry Goldwater had sewn a decade before, the timing was right for a Reagan takeover...

And they have purdy much dominated since...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Joe_F
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 02:41 PM

I was too young to vote for Adlai Stevenson, but I would have. Nobody since.

In 1968 I made myself a bumper sticker that said HUMPHREY: We Could Do Worse. So we did.

This time around I am voting against John Ashcroft.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 04:02 PM

I voted for President Al Gore.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 10:43 PM

The Australian Liberal government of John Howard was elected in 1998 solely because everyone was so pissed off with the Prime Ministership of Paul Keating.
I was not one of those who voted against Keating, but I could see their point.

In the election of 2001 The Labour contender was Simon Creen, who nobody was going to put in the drivers seat, so the Howard government was re-elected.

For six years we have had a default Prime Minister who has done irreperable damage, stating that he had a mandate to do this, and a mandate to do that, when all he had a mandate to do was to form a government.

But I don't know. It was a bad mistake to vote Howard in just to get rid of Keating, but it seems that it would be a good thing to get Howard out now, whatever the cost.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 05:14 AM

Just read this and had to post it. Good old "Onion"!..xx..e


http://www.theonion.com/election2004/news_4022.php

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 07:46 AM

"It was a bad mistake to vote Howard in just to get rid of Keating, but it seems that it would be a good thing to get Howard out now, whatever the cost."

So, it looks like John and the Onion have made the same astute observations on the place we find ourselves in the Anglo derived autocracies. Be ye in Aus, UK, US or Canada, our choices are the same--whom to vote against as the lesser of two evils, to make us a feel as if we are doing something constructive to rid the world of even a teensy tiny bit of the roughly equivalent evils.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 08:18 AM

And then there is this headline from this week's Ironic Times:

"Millions of voters still without power"

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 09:34 AM

CNN had a poll directly on point.

While I can't remember the exact numbers, it was clear that of those who were nominally voting for Kerry, well over half stated they were voting against Bush, and something like 30% voting for Kerry.

Of those nominally voting for Bush, over 75% were voting for Bush, with some 15% voting against Kerry.

I'm sure it's on their website and someone could link it to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Last time you voted FOR a candidate?
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 06:59 PM

While I lived on Long Island in the '60s, the Democrats & the Republicans ran I forget what candidates for I forget what office, and their campaigns were both so asinine that I was grateful to see a Trotskyite on the ballot.   He probably got just one vote in my district, and I hope it stuck out like a sore middle finger.