Do we really want a Democrat to win in 2004?

I was talking with my Mom last night and she brought up a good point. Shrub will have really messed things up by the time 2004 elections come around. The Democrat who takes office will have such a large mess to fix.

Now on the other hand. If shrub gets 8 years we'll have Quadrupled the mess.

If Bush wins, Canada begins to look more attractive.

At least you acknowledge that the longer we leave the ReTHUGs in, the worse it's gonna get.

It always works that way. The GOP gets in the driver's seat and they go carreening on an orgy of military spending and giving huge chunks of the Treasury to their campaign financiers, all the while talking about how they're gutting "Bloated Government", unlike the "TAX and spend Democrats"

These thugs are the "BORROW and Spend ReTHUGlicans". They're borrowing from you and your kids, and when they finally get thrown out, they leave such a mess that the Democrats have NO CHOICE but to try to pay for it.

They rescind the ReTHUG tax cuts (but the GOP calls that "raising taxes") and they try to restore important federal programs that have been starved to death (the "Spend" part of "Tax and Spend") But the ReTHUGlicans spin that into "Taking YOUR money away from you and wasting it on Welfare Queens"...

I say it's better to get them out of there NOW, while the damage is repairable. Another 4 years could push this country into insolvency, leaving us with a feudal system with all of us working the local "Lord of the Manor" for just enough to slowly die. Another 20 years of this and I'd bet life expectancy in the US would approach that of some African nations.

And don't be so cock-sure that Canada would want you. They don't want us now, unless we're highly skilled. Why would they want us sick, mal-nourished, and unskilled? Stay here and be part of the Solution.

We don't want a Dem elected who will start fixing the Bush mess.

Lets wait until 2008, when things are so bad, they will not be fixable in our lifetime.

You make a lot of sense. NOT.

Gore, the elected President, would have had to endure four years of "He stole the election" from the Repubs which would have been echoed by the media.

If a Democrat wins, any future problems in IRAQ or economy will be strongly promoted as "Democrat" problems by the Repubs. The nominee has to clearly and forcefully prove beyond all doubt that the Repubs have almost destroyed the nation.

...appointments during the next presidents term. These judges will then be on the court for decades to come. Bush has stated that he wil appoint justices of the same political philosophy as Scalia and Thomas. His backers will hold him to that. And it seems he'll have a rubber stamp in the senate to do it. Many of the rights we take for granted are due to decisions of the past when the court was more liberal, especially in its view of first amend issues. If Bush stacks the court with social conservatives, or what they like to call 'strict contructionists', many of these liberal decisions of the past WILL BE overturned. That, imo, is what the next election is about. In 8 years it will be too late; the court will be already be lost.

It may take longer than four years, but we can fix it if we have the political will to do so.

Unfortunately, massive tax cuts are something of a political trap which the Republicans set to nail us. They create massive deficits and then they leave us to clean up their mess. We are forced to make politically dangerous choices which are in the best interest of the country, and the Republicans kick the crap out of us for doing so. This is precisely what happened in the 80s and 90s. Reagan/Bush ran up huge deficits, then Clinton and the Democratic Congress had to pass a tax increase to fix the problem. And we got the crap beat out of us in 1994 because of it. But even if it's unpopular, it's the right thing to do.

Somebody's got to clean up their mess. Because they sure ain't going to do it. Whether they're in office for four years or eight years or more, we're still going to have to clean up the mess. I say get rid of them after four and limit the damage.

EDIT: TYPO

"Biggest tax increase on the middle class" - if you consider that their "middle class" definition started with adjusted net income of $200,000 plus.

That was 1993. Republicans were screaming that it would cost jobs and throw the economy into a recession. At best, they were saying, the budget cuts wouldn't take effect until 1997, "after Clinton had been out of office".

The deficit started going down in 1997, and actually started to begin to have a surplus in the forseeable future.

Clinton managed to clean up Reagan's mess in 4 years.

A side note - Repugs like to point out that there's more millionaires now than ever before. True. But if you throw out spoiled sports stars and entertainers, then who are you left with?

This is a crucially important point, because it is easier to cause damage than to repair it.

Thus, it is important to have as President someone incined to oppose the neofascist agenda. To my eye, this requires a liberal candidate, not a technocratic enabler.

to our country would be an enormous benefit. Although I firmly believe we can do better than that and start to repair the damage.

The President, by what Teddy Rosevelt caled "The Bully Pulpit" is able to move the country's political center slightly in the direction that he wants. That will give him four more years to drift the center to the right.

There are two schools of thought on this subject. The grassroots answer is YES! Win everytime possible. The elitist answer is no. If a Dem wins in 2004 there will never be a President Clinton (Hillary, that is)

Where does everyone stand on this?

in fact, I think Republicans should be banned from ever seeking or holding office again. If Bush is re-elected, I suspect there will be a draft and several more wars for the last oil grab. They're not going to care if they leave the U.S. devastated and broke. I'm convinced they have nothing but contempt for America. All of the Bushies and their supporters will have been made filthy rich from raping the public treasury. They'll have all the oil leases tied up in Syria, Venezuela, Iran, etc., etc. If a Dem isn't in elected in '04, we may either never see a Dem in office again, because the 'pubs will have honed their election stealing skills, or the Dem in office will be faced with a mess so huge that there may be no recovery for decades to come. If someone like Dean or Clark--hell, I don't care, just a Dem with a little balls and a large grassroots following gains office, then at least we have a chance to reverse the disaster created by the Bushies.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Sorry for the delay. I'm not too swift on message boards yet. After I posted I couldn't find it until now.

and TBD licked it in less than four years. Chimpy's mess will take five or six years, tops.

It will only be harder to reverse if he wins a second term. Using your logic, we should never try to put a Dem in the WH or gain a mojority in Congress.

No matter what, we have to try and reverse the R's march towards a cheap labor economy. We deserve better than the "Wal-Marting" of America. This is not what union folks and soldiers died for.

At least now they worry about re-election.

In a second term, they would be totally out of control, totally unbridled and not worried about any consequences.

Horrible horrible court nominees, social programs completely dismantled, greater and greater powers over us under some sort of SuperPatriot Act, higher and higher debt that the middle class will have to pay for as the rich get more and more tax cuts. More adventurism around the world. More outsourcing of US jobs. A worsening economy, another depression even. It just goes on and on and on. I have nightmares about it.

We really have to work hard to get him out NOW.

country, we won't even recognize it. What are you nuts?

I can't believe this is really a question. The US is almost destroyed NOW. If he has 4 more years, I shudder to think what will happen to us all.

able to fix our problems.

I even bought a baby bib for my Chihuahua to wear over his sweaters as a little coat.

I just feel as though shrub has screwed things up so much that the first 2 years of our Dems term will be repair and people won't know how great a president he is.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to ignore my responsibility and not vote or vote for the repugs. I just don't want our guy to get ambushed by shrubs screw-ups.