You know, Al Gore did amazingly well in 2000, considering that..

he had Leiberthug as a running mate and Donna Brazile as a campaign chairperson.

Those two have shown their true colors since 2000. Had gore known who they REALLY were, he would have never chosen them. And he would have beaten the Coward easily, IMO.

that's as well as you can get. a half million more popular votes than the chimp got.

If he had a better running mate than Lieberthug and a better campaign manager than Brazile, he would have won by millions more vots and the rethugs would not have been able to steal it. And he might have had better counsel at his disposal to fight the Florida recount battle. I can't imagine either Lieberthug or Brazile giving him wise, effective counsel in that post election situation.

been picked IMHO..

I don't believe Lieberthug helped that much anywhere and Graham certainly would have carried Florida for the Dems.

And Graham certainly would not have been so buddy-buddy with Cheney in the debates, as Lieberthug was. And it's now easy to see why Lieberthug liked Cheney.

work ethic.

Lieberman was the reason why I didn't vote for Gore, actually. I am registered as Republican but I have never seen Bush as a fit leader. I'd have voted for Gore in 2000.

However, I despise John Kerry for his comments about our VietNam soldiers way back in the 1970's. There is nothing he could do to gain my vote and so I felt compelled to vote for Bush in 2004.

Are the Democrats going to seek someone as a candidate who can actually lead this country in 2008?

Please don't think I'm being belligerent here. I'm just frustrated with our government in general.

Thanks for the welcome Patrice. I guess you can see I'm looking for a new political party. I'll try to behave here.

you are going to experience here, I worked for Kerry in 4 precincts in Mo. I am a Deanocrat. I liked Kerry okay, but he wasn't my choice over people like Dean, Gore, Clark, Bob Graham, CMB, Edwards and various Others. They would have made a great cabinet! Kerry would have moved up in my estimate of him if he had taken a few risks and actually talked impromptu. I don't like the way politicians only say certain things and don't actually respond to individuals; it appears they aren't listening to anyone. I think that somewhat characterizes some Democrats and Republicans.

I'm currently kind of interested in Populism (and Populists = Grassroots), because I'm pretty fed up.

I hope you enjoy the DU as much as I do. There really IS a lot of information here and someone needs to do some serious semantic research on this rather unique e-environment.


Hare Krsna! Hare Rama!

Nah, I don't consider it bad manners that all people don't agree about everything. Kerry is my age so I remember his entire career, which is why I can honestly say I don't like him.

People do mellow out over the years, I guess. It is just that I can't see him doing much different than Bush has done. I can also see that a lot of people feel the same way about Bush as I do about Kerry. Now, I guess I have as low an opinion if not lower of Bush than I do of Kerry in that Bush really let this nation down with his shenanigans.

If Dean or Edwards had run on the Democratic ticket, I'd probably have voted for either of them over Bush in 2004. I think Edwards may have slit his own throat in teaming up with Kerry and I think the Democrats did Howard Dean dirty not to nominate him based on what I saw as welcome "enthusiasm." But I didn't follow Dean so closely because he didn't get the nomination so I can't say I know much about him.

I wouldn't have worked for Bush because I didn't believe in him. And I won't work for anyone I don't support at least 75% of the way.

I know that not all people want all the same things I do. For example, my two "things" are secure borders and getting our soldiers home to protect our own borders for a change.

I guess I'm getting more "isolationist" the more I see, but I sure wish we would back off with sticking our nose in everyone's business all over the world.

younger, but the debating clubs did things together, so he knew him from that. Paul is a Libertarian, so there is no one he approves of, but he doesn't like Kerry either. I accept Kerry as a fact that is one of the results of 2000, which is the prime mover: Gore won.

I'm a Deanocrat, so I partly orient on Dean's perspective, but I'm also kind of a Libertarian in that I never surrender my own perspective. Kerry was working with the Apollo Project (which is something I REALLY wanted for America, Investment in Alternative Energy Technologies' Development and Solution Outcomes of various types and different regions) so I Really admire Kerry for working on that - More needs to be made of the Apollo Project now.

Interesting, Patrice. I don't know much about alternative energy sources but it is obvious that our current administration doesn't particularly care about it.

I am acquainted with a bunch of "oil country" people who once let four out of five of their wells sit idle until all of a sudden gas prices climbed. Now only one out of five sit idle. Do you suppose that the increase in American oil production could have anything to do with the fact that the price went sky high? I find that too disgusting for words!

Utilities on the west coast, right as the .com-bubbles were breaking?

Where I live, around the end of October, they came out with a huge newspaper headline saying that our natural gas bill for heating our homes would go up by 47% this winter. They backed off that kick and reduced the increase to 22% recently. Do you think maybe that Chavez's comments had any bearing?

What a bunch of greedy rogues!

alternatives, such as the methane produced by factory farms, who, BTW, are bigger polutors than vehicles, though the polution is of a type that bio-degrades in 8 yrs, compared to carbon dioxide, from vehicles, doesn't bio-degrade for thousands and thousands of years.

It's frustrating thinking of what we could be working on if it weren't for PNAC's Invasion(s).

Although I suspect for different reasons.

What puzzles me is your comments about the 2004 election. You evidently placed more weight on comments made by John Kerry over 30 years ago (and which are subject to different interpretation) than you did evidence that the Coward was AWOL during the Vietnam War and the fact that you have never considered the Coward a fit leader, plus evidence now mounting that he lied to all of us about Iraq.

I really don't understand that. Did you buy into the swifboat nonsense, or what?

What is your opinion of John O'Neill and his swiftboat buddies?

Speedoo, I think the Swift Boat veterans made some valid points but I also think that they were overzealous in their presentation just like I think that C- BS was dead in the wrong for manufacturing documents that never existed about Bush. I don't think Bush was AWOL and nobody proved that. The reason I despise Kerry is because he dragged our soldiers through the mud and some of those soldiers were my brothers, my cousins and my classmates. I find it repulsive that he labeled them all murderers and rapists.

Actually, when someone, and it was never discovered who did it, passed around a photo of Kerry and Hanoi Jane and made it look like they were together at a war protest way back when I complained to everyone all the way on up to the President himself. I was ready to use up every bit of my printer ink and post that photo on every public bulletin board I could find (I live in a military town.) When I discovered it was false, I was furious! It didn't make me like Kerry any better but it was wrong to do that just like it is wrong for ANY political party to make up stories and seek to destroy people. Face it, if any of them were half as bad as they are depicted they would all be in jail.

Further, I don't believe Bush lied about Iraq. I believe he is simple minded to some extent, and that he believes for whatever reason that what he said is true. Having had access to exclusively Mid East English speaking newspapers and News stations during the first Gulf War and for long periods of time afterward, it appeared as if the entire world believed weapons were being hidden while Saddam Hussein held the UN inspectors at bay. Why would Bush believe any differently? Why Clinton didn't bother to try to do anything mystifies me.

I listened to everything I could that Bush and Kerry said. I didn't like either of them. Both said basically the same things regarding the war.

Me? I was stupid enough to let some jerk tell me that a third party could never win the Presidency (even though Abe Lincoln was a 3rd party candidate and that is how the Republican party was born.) Ultimately, I chose what I perceived to be the one who could do the least harm at the time. If it had been any other candidate, (with the possible exception of Ted Kennedy) I'd have voted Democrat in 2004.

In addition, I thought the Bush had some half-way rational advisers at the time of the election. How was I to know that they were all going to abandon ship. If only I'd have known that, I'd probably have voted for the third party candidate anyway.

Look what we have now: a disgusting puppet show starring people like Rice, Chertoff, Bolton, Gonzales and anyone else Bush can find who will still speak to him with Bush pulling the strings. Disgusting globalists if you ask me!

I find plenty wrong with our government. But I don't think that John Kerry in the Oval Office would have made things any better today. After all, he's a globalist, too, when it boils right down to it.

I ask that question because presumably a republican entering into discussions here would have one of two motives: 1) to stir up trouble (which you impicitly denied in your first post), or 2) to truly look for new information with an open mind.

I assume you would say you are here for motive #2 but what you are saying in response to my questions leads me to believe you do not have an open mind.

So I ask you... do you have an open mind or not? Are you willing to change your mind about Kerry, Bush, O'Neill, etc. or not?

on edit: another question... you say in another post that you are Kerry's age. He fought in Vietnam, heroically unless you believe the swiftboaters. And yet you despise him. Why were you not in uniform during that time?

No, speedoo. I'm not here to stir up trouble. In fact the GOPUSA claims I'm a trouble maker because I don't agree with them about things like the war, Terri Schiavo, women's rights, etc.

See, I think it's time to take a look at what others say about the Democratic candidates other than the right wing conservatives. They accuse people of slandering them but their methods are so hypocritical that I get upset sometimes.

I can't say I dislike any of the other Democrats the way I dislike Kerry. I'm not overly fond of very many politicians at all, these days, if the truth were to be told.

Still, I can't say I don't have an open enough mind to tell when I'm being fed hogwash from either side of the fence. I guess I'm one of those RINOs but I don't intend to even be registered as one come election time 2006 if they don't mend their ways.

No, I'm not willing to change my mind about Kerry. I can't really say I'd change my mind about Bush, either, since I think he has done this nation a great disservice. he's cleaned out the coffers in favor of other nations while Americans in Mississippi and Louisiana are homeless and facing winter. He thinks it's fine for a million or so illegal immigrants to waltz across the border and take American jobs while Americans do without. I find that incredibly capricious. And, yes, Bush pays lip service to the border issues now that he's received millions of letters and petitions right along with the senators and congressmen who seem to have so little regard for Americans. But I haven't seen many even try to rectify things.

The reason I'm here is because I'd like to hear about some of the other potential candidates. I guess I'm looking for at least a little hope for the future of this country. Unless the Republicans can pull a rabbit out of their hats come 2008, I'll be voting Democratic unless they run Kerry again. It's best to know the candidates and I have a feeling this election is going to be a doozie.

2006 is coming even sooner. I am not thrilled about my state's Republican governor and one of our Republican senators is a regular twit. Our congressman from this district is a democrat and even though he and I don't always see eye to eye he always has time for his constituents and that carries some weight with me.

Overall, I'd just like to hear what others have to say. That's OK, isn't it?

You stated earlier that you did not believe he went AWOL and that you did not believe he lied re. Iraq. Are you willing to change your mind about both of those beliefs?

And you did not answer my question about O'Neill and the swiftboaters. Which may be the reason you are unwilling to change your mind re. Kerry. Maybe O'Neill brainwashed you.

I have a major problem with someone like you, who is not a Vietnam vet, who apparantly buys into all the nonsense propogated by O'Neill and the swiftboaters about Kerry, who did serve there and heroically. Remember, John Kerry was the democratic nominee for president in 2004, and this is a democratic discussion board. So if you come here saying bad things about Kerry, you will be challenged at every turn.

And I strongly disagree with your assertion that he and Bush have identical positions re. Iraq. That is nonsense.

I told you that I believe O'Neill and thew swiftboaters had valid points but, just like C-BS with their phony documents, they were overzealous in trying to prove their point. Did their tactics harm their credibility? Perhaps. I know I started wondering about them but I had made up my mind long before they fired their first salvo against Kerry so not much would have changed my mind at that point.

As I said, if anyone else had run on the Democratic ticket, I'd have abandoned the party I was registered with and voted Democrat. Not everyone likes the same people and I don't see anything wrong with that.

No, I am not a vietnam vet but I am married to one, (actually I was married to two of them but the first one passed away) I have two brothers who are, a dead cousin who was and two live cousins, plus countless classmates who are. Not one of them supported John Kerry and they are pretty much all democrats and independents. I guess none of their opinions are of any value. Is that what you are saying?

As for whether or not Bush lied about Iraq, I don't believe he did. If he did, is that going to change anything? Will it undo the war or the casualties that resulted? Nor do I care if he was AWOL or not during VietNam. How many rich kids went to college to avoid the draft? Will it change anything now if Bush was AWOL or those rich kids had been drafted? There are plenty of other things that bug me a lot more about Bush and they all revolve around the disservice he has done to this nation as it's President.

For example, I read recently that he said that the Constitution was nothing but a "***damned piece of paper!" Now that disturbs me! Why didn't the media pick that up? I'm trying to find out. If it was true, don't you think they would have been all over it? Still, I think that is the way he feels even if he didn't come right out and say it.

Yes, I realize that Kerry was the democratic candidate for President in 2004. I didn't use the word "identical" with regard to their campaign views about the war in Iraq, did I? Neither of them had any intention of getting out of the war at that time. Kerry went through a whole production telling people about his big "plan" and where to find it on the web but the page he said to visit didn't even exist as near as I could determine.

As for Kerry, apparently, there are Democrats who didn't like him either. Or at least they didn't like him well enough to get up off their lazy behinds and go out and vote for him. So why am I wrong to say I don't like him?

In any event, 2004 is history. Where is this country going tomorrow? That is what I'm here to find out.

If you think the Republican party has their act together enough to win the next Presidential election, you need to go visit their sites and see all the reasons why I don't believe they can. Then you will know why I came here looking for answers about who the next president will be and what they think.

Let's summarize your positions, OK?

You think Zell Miller is terrific, but you despise John Kerry.

You think Kerry would do nothing different than the Coward re. Iraq.

You believe O'Neill and the swiftboaters made some valid points, which you have not identified. Your only problem with what they did is that they were "overzealous".

You think the opinions of others who have been brainwashed by O'Neill are deserving of value, but you are unwilling to change your mind about Kerry re. Vietnam. (note that I say you are brainwashed by O'Neill because you have repeatedly stated that you are unwilling to change your mind about Kerry.)

You don't have any problem if Bush was AWOL during Vietnam or if he lied about Iraq, and you voted for him after he invaded Iraq, which to date has cost the lives of over 2100 of our people in uniform and at least 25,000 wounded. Not to mention more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi lives.

And so on. And you apparantly are unwilling to change your mind about any of this.

Yes, 2004 is history. Are you saying we should ignore it? Do you not agree that those who ignore the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them? And if you really want to move on from 2004, why the laudatory comment re. Zell Miller? Don't you realize how much he is hated here? You need to re-examine your motive for being here, because much of what you are saying are the words of a troublemaker.

Hey, if you are really here to learn something and that may get your votes for democrats in 2006 and 2008, terrific. But nothing you have said supports that assertion. IMO.

... Seriously. I personally disagree with her strongly about John Kerry (I'm presuming she's a "she"). BUT we need all the votes we can get. And if we want to win in '06 and '08 we're going to need votes from people who voted for Bush. We do ourselves a disservice when we refuse to accept allies. Wes Clark voted Republican for years, yet we accept him as a Democrat.

Refighting the last campaign will do nothing for us. If OldSeaHorse wants to have a debate about John Kerry than we can certainly do that. But that's not the reason she came here and we can use her vote in the future. Let's take her at her word and accept that we have a vote for a future Democratic candidate in '08.

Show me something she says in any of her posts that supports her assertion that she is here to "learn"'

If you went to a site to learn something, would you do it by antagonizing the people at that site? Or would you go there and just ask questions?

issues including his Iraq position. It wasn't hard to find - nor was the transcript of his NYU speech that laid it out. I find it hard to believe you even looked - you were already adamantly against the guy.

Bush very likely had some problems in TANG. He clearly lost his flying privleges. NO ONE saw him in the uit he was suppose to be in. His records have major holes. There was NOTHING bad in all Kerry's records including excellent reviews by SBVT. (One interesting form that was on the web site showed he got a higher clearance to work with the Brooklyn admiral - his line of command would have had to attest to his character and behavior for this)

Kerry did not ever call all the soldiers murders etc - there's no way to get that from his testimony. In fact, an uncle of my husband, a WWII vet who was very pro- Vietnam war took the time to read Kerry's entire testimony, and was very impressed and understood where he was coming from. Although a registered Republican he voted for Kerry.

I was a college student in 1971 and like 95% of the students at the large midwestern state college I went to was against the war. In 1968, the discussions did not fault the soldiers rather LBJ who gave the orders. By 1970, there were people who blamed the soldiers - the stories like Mi Lai - did lead people to blame the soldiers. Kerry spoke in 1971 - at least among the people I knew - antiwar students, he caused us to shift the blame back to Nixon. Certainly having Kerry and a few other articulate moral vets as the image of the soldier was a vast improvement over Lt Calley. So if Kerry IMPROVED the opinion the anti war youth had of the soldiers, whose impression was lowered.

In a documentary, Unfinished Symthany, Kerry was among a group of vets who marched from Concord to Lexington. It was a peaceful non-violent march that ended with them sleeping at the Lexington Green- for which they were arrested. (Kerry's only arrest - they ended up being fined some very small amount) What was intersting was that it used film from that time, in the minute or so Kerry was in it - he was commenting that in the very conservative part of town they were then in, people were offering them sodas and food and were friendly. )

As to Bush not lying -

Think about the MARCH time frame (forget Oct). Blix and Baredai had found nothing. Saddam was destroying missiles.

Everything you were s

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Howdy NewYawker! Thanks for the welcome. I used to be one of those New Yawkers but I got dragged away from NY years ago. These days I consider myself a North Carolinian although I don't live in NC.

Cheney voted against head start and school lunches. Cheney was against Nelson Mandella. Cheney was one of the most RW congressmen we had.

Do you think he made that choice to appease the Hillary Clinton clique in the Democratic Party? It seems to me that these are the same people who later stomped Dean to death, and Gore knew what they could do, so he picked one of theirs.

I'm just from Kansas, but I would have LOVED Bob Graham on that ticket in 2000.

No kidding. This whole W nightmare could have been avoided.

TC

Gore changed. Lieberman changed. True enough. But it was Gore's job to know who Lieberman was. Afterall Gore was deciding who to put a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Actually, Lieberman hasn't changed all of that much. A stronger case can be made for Gore by concentrating on the way he has changed and why. If it comes down to Lieberman having fooled them, that wouldn't speak well for the judgment of anyone who wants to become President.

We have seen the real Lieberthug post 9/11 and in the Iraq debacle which have exposed his overboard views on protecting Israel.

Gore has also changed, more because he has seen the the Coward has done since stealing the 2000 election from him, but also because of 9/11 and Iraq.

with the union brass in WV, and they did not push their members to vote for him. Had he won WV Florida would not have been a issue..

Having said that, my question is How much did Donna Brazile play in his picking Joe for his running mate????????

If it doesn't then that is a serious indictment of the person sitting at the top of the chain. And double that in spades with the most important decisions. I would feel better thinking Gore owned that decision personally than thinking he let a political aid talk him into it without realizing what he was doing. Gore knew Lieberman personally for years.

without being stroked?

and Gore IMHO really had to over come these fears. As is without showing up, it made him look like he was against the coal industry.

I get that, but I still wish people were strong enough to say to themselves "This is going to hurt some, but it's got to be done" when it comes to the environment, instead of needing assurances to do the right thing.

who were Kerry's albatross, a bunch of corporate lobbyists turned campaign "handlers," who made damned certain that neither man showed anyone a glimpse of who he really was and never said anything the least bit controversial and good heavens, never took a passionate stand for anything.

It's not exclusive to the Dems. I remember seeing Dole on some late night chat show after his defeat when HE showed his true colors. Hell, if he'd been the least bit like that on the campaign trail, I might have been tempted to vote for him! He was insightful, knowledgable, and witty.

It's really a shame it's come to this, that candidates are so blandly "packaged" that nobody has a clue who they are or what they might be like if elected. Maybe that's why 51% of the electorate stays home on election day.

Warpy, you are right. Why in the world can't people who want public offices tell the voters why they want those offices and what they plan to do to make things better if they get them.

I mentioned in another post that I'd probably have voted for Dean against Bush in 2004. But all of a sudden, when he showed a bit of enthusiasm, the media made him look like some sort of a nut case and sent him packing.

Zell Miller is my kind of politician. He says what he thinks and to heck with it. I respect that a whole lot more than I respect people who try to play some game to hide their true colors from recognition.

I seriously can believe that anyone who voted for Bush over Kerry, and says he would "probably" vote for Dean over Bush and praises Zell Miller, is likely not a Democrat.

So Miller can rant, rave and lie and you respect him, but you hate a 61 year old man for speaking truth to power when he was 27.

Had it not been for SCOTUS's judicial coup, and had all the votes been counted, Gore would have been declared the winner.

Gore won in 2000!

IndianaGreen, if Gore had "won," he'd have been President.

It seems sort of silly to keep looking backward instead of trying to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.

In my eyes, Gore messed himself up by his actions after the election.

If we didn't have an electoral college and the President was decided by popular vote, we probably wouldn't have so much controversy every Presidential election.

The state of FL elections were run by Katherine Harris, high in the Bush Campaign. His brother was the Governor. The Supreme Court was biased in Bush's favor.

...is suddenly filled with admiration and compassion for Joe Lieberman at this late date. Where was he five years ago?

Note: Said co-worker does Ann Coulter-style personal attacks on co-workers of different political affiliation. He's part of the reason I'm looking for a new job.

Had he hired James Carville instead of her, he would be President right now.

He probably cost some votes on the left, but I do think he was a big part of Gore's post-convention bounce. The ticket garnered a lot of favorable coverage, especially given Lieberman's Jewish identity, and Florida became competitive in the aftermath of the selection. That was probably due to a lot of factors, but Lieberman's popularity with the Jewish community and the favorable coverage of his centrist views in suburban Florida counties probably played a role in making the state competitive.

Moreover, ideologically Al Gore and Joe Lieberman were not far apart and were in fact quite close. They both had strong environmental records, relatively hawkish records in the Senate, and both were known for speaking out against the culture. Post-2000, Gore has moved significantly to the left on many issues, so that a pairing between him and Joe Lieberman would be inconceivable today.

Maybe Edwards or Kerry would have been stronger running mates at the time - who knows? But while I dislike a lot of Lieberman's stances today, I don't think he was a disaster as running mate.

It's hard to say looking back. Lieberman's problem is that he's a sanctimonious prick and tends to pretty much slam those on the left every chance he gets. It almost seems like he went out of his way in attacking liberals. I distinctly remember being disgusted by his "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion" comment. I can see why such statements could have driven some off to Nader.

Gore was certainly stuck in a difficult situation but I think it was a poor idea trying to pander to those that were unlikely to vote for him anyhow. Gore has since realized the mistakes, but I feel some like Hillary are taking an even more extreme approach (like with her support of flag burning laws and attacking video games).