Kerry or Bush and why?

[Kristina]

Preface: Anyway, I haven't posted in a while. I typically only come out of posting retirement for political stuff and even now, I was hesitant. I'll blame Cory; he made me do it I don't want to instigate a war of ideologies and I realize that one post probably won't change anyone's mind. However, it *can* lead to healthy dialogue and as someone passionate about politics, I know that it's important to try to get people engaged. If you want to know more about what I think, you can always IM or email me. This is just a post about why I'm voting for John Kerry.

It's hard for me to think of even where to begin because having worked on the John Kerry campaign for the last 10 months; it's so ingrained into me about why John Kerry is the best candidate. It's beyond ABB (anyone but Bush), it's about voting for a man who has a vision to deal with the problems of today and prepare us for the future. Concerns about the environment, civil liberties, education, jobs, social security, etc. are not merely "sissy" concerns by those "tree-huggin' liberals" [When you're VP of the Bruin Democrats, you hear it all], they are important issues that people of our generation will inherit and issues that Kerry has a plan for. Bush has had more environmental rollbacks than other president in history along with the worst job creation record since Hoover, Ashcroft scares me and I can give you a 20 page paper on why you don't have to compromise defense for civil liberties, we're in a major deficit, ask your teacher what he/she thinks about "No Child Left Behind", the bottom 60% of American only got 14.7% of the last tax cut contrary to what Bush’s claim of the “vast majority of my tax cuts goes to the bottom half of the economic ladder”…the list goes on. Moreover, it may seem like America is on the top of the world, and we are, but we're also a declining hegemon (meaning, we're falling from #1). As any political science or history class can tell you, you need your allies to solidify your position. However, with our retreat from Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, ABM treaty, land mine treaty, comprehensive test ban treaty coupled with our war hasn’t been that great in our foreign relations department.

So it’s easy for us liberals to whine, as we’ve heard that we do far too often. We have a solution though; rather we have a man with a solution. He’s worked in the Senate foreign relations committee for over a decade and understands global issues. He also understands domestic issues from his work in the Senate. Having me explain them wouldn’t do them justice so if you really care, you can go to www.johnkerry.com and read up for them yourselves. As for waffling, all I can say is that President George W. Bush at one point, didn’t want the department for Homeland Security. Does this mean that he’s a waffler too? No, it means that as the climate changes, you have to be receptive to new ideas to fix the environment you live in. Have you never changed your mind? It’s easy to go after a man who’s been in the Senate for so long because he’s had to make hard decisions, but let’s also remember there’s a reason why he’s been there for so long and he’s gained a great deal of experience to lead our country from it.

All in all, this is a brief (ok, I know it’s long, but I could go on for MUCH longer) glimpse on why I’ve devoted so much time to Kerry’s campaign and why I’m proudly voting for him in November. Before I devote myself to a cause, I do my research and I highly recommend that everyone, especially those old enough to vote, do the same. If you’ve done your research, and you find that Bush is the better candidate for you, well, I can respect that much more than I can someone merely going off of a few soundbits on TV or blindly following their parents. So if you get something out of this post, I hope that this is it. Voting for John Kerry would be a nice byproduct, but I think the most important thing is to get involved in the political process. It’s a lot of fun, challenging, important and very rewarding.

And of course I had to attach my picture of John Kerry and I last summer at UCLA.

[David Kelly]

For those of you planning on driving to Atlanta, use this calculator to calculate how much money you will be saving without the $.50 gas tax hike proposed by John Kerry.

Calculator

[Aaron Knight]

Originally Posted by David Kelly

For those of you planning on driving to Atlanta, use this calculator to calculate how much money you will be saving without the $.50 gas tax hike proposed by John Kerry.

Calculator

Whilst we're pulling one side's rhetoric and advertising, how about the other side's Rebuttal?

I don't think either of the candidates' web pages are exactly likely to be rhetoric-free...

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by David Kelly

For those of you planning on driving to Atlanta, use this calculator to calculate how much money you will be saving without the $.50 gas tax hike proposed by John Kerry.

Calculator

I'm riding the bus to Atlanta, but, out of curiosity, I checked out the Bush calculator. This is what I found:

1) My car, a VW Jetta TDI wagon was not listed. Maybe it gets too good of mileage?
2) You have to have a street address, not just a city and state to get a calculation, requiring that you look up an address at your destination, even to get an approximate calculation.

Using Yahoo Maps to get the distance, and a regular calculator, here is what an extra 50 cents a gallon would cost me if I drove:

506 miles/45mpg=11.24 gallons each way, or $5.62 more money if fuel went up 50c/gallon. That's $11.24 for the round trip. The 45mpg is what I get driving at around 75mph on the highway.


Or course, the reality of Kerry's gas tax proposal is that it was basically made up by the Bush campaign. Here is a summery which I found at http://infopunks.net/

"As we've noted before , Kerry's support for a 50-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax happened a decade ago, back when regular was selling for a national average of $1.01 per gallon. Kerry's support was so fleeting that the only evidence of it to surface so far are two old newspaper clips in which Kerry complains that he deserved more credit as a deficit-cutter. He never voted for, or sponsored, legislation to impose such a tax, and he doesn't support one now, when the price is just under $1.76."

[Mike Ciance]

As Jay Lenno once said, this election we have a choice between a guy who's had second thoughts, and a guy who's never had a first thought.

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by afflictionblade

As Jay Lenno once said, this election we have a choice between a guy who's had second thoughts, and a guy who's never had a first thought.

Oh that's funny, and its so true!

[Jeff Waegelin]

The trend in this poll so far is interesting. Anyone care to offer a good explanation for why Kerry has a large margin here? (*cough*Kristina*cough*)

Anyways, as much as I'd like to see that happen in the real election, I'm betting the actual margin, regardless of who wins, will be within 5 percentage points. The electorate is so sharply divided that I think it will be that close. Anyone else want to make a bet on this? I've already wagered some baked goods on this with a team member, and I'm up for other offers.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

Anyways, as much as I'd like to see that happen in the real election, I'm betting the actual margin, regardless of who wins, will be within 5 percentage points. The electorate is so sharply divided that I think it will be that close. Anyone else want to make a bet on this? I've already wagered some baked goods on this with a team member, and I'm up for other offers.

5 percentage points?
5 percentage points? I really don't think that it will even be that close. How about a good 15%? I say this because 'W' has dug himself a huge hole that soon enough he won't be able to get his self out of it. Farenheight 911, the beheadings in Iraq and the continued chaos there (not to mention Afghanistan), an economy that surely is getting stronger but at the expense of so many middle class jobs, making so many poor. I can't help but feel that this will be an easy victory for Kerry.

[Lisa Perez]

<knocking on wood> LOL </knocking on wood>

If 573 were to do the electoral thing - I can see Bush winning. I'm pretty much the only liberal on the team.

Oh yeah, and about the poll. I think you might have to consider us youngins who voted there who won't be able to vote in the November elections

Anyone else going to Inauguration?

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

5 percentage points?
5 percentage points? I really don't think that it will even be that close. How about a good 15%? I say this because 'W' has dug himself a huge hole that soon enough he won't be able to get his self out of it. Farenheight 911, the beheadings in Iraq and the continued chaos there (not to mention Afghanistan), an economy that surely is getting stronger but at the expense of so many middle class jobs, making so many poor. I can't help but feel that this will be an easy victory for Kerry.

While that may affect the election, you have to keep one thing in mind. Around 80 to 85 percent of the voting population has already decided who they'll vote for, and will not change their minds. Of those people, it's about evenly split between Democrat and Republican. Only 15 to 20 percent (someone correct me if they have the actual number) of voters are independent, and it's that small segment that Bush and Kerry both target in their campaigns. So, in order for Kerry (or Bush, for that matter) to win by over 15%, he would have to swing nearly every single independent voter. It's just not gonna happen. Thus, I stand by my prediction... the final vote will be within 5 percentage points. The country is just that divided, right now.

Also, you can say what you may about Bush, Iraq, Fahrenheit 9/11, or the economy, but nothing is ever as persuasive to others as it seems to someone who believes in it. I'd venture from your posting that you're part of the 85% or so who've already decided, and are a Democrat, at that. What may seem self-evident to you as a liberal will seem less so to an undecided voter, and flat-out wrong to a conservative. While I, too, agree with you in principle, one must bow to reality. Politics can be very polarizing, and it's easy to see what you believe as the only way to go.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

The trend in this poll so far is interesting. Anyone care to offer a good explanation for why Kerry has a large margin here? (*cough*Kristina*cough*)

Well, when I worked at Sonic, I chatted once with the owner of the restaurant, this guy in his sixties or seventies (and still not afraid to sling a few burgers). He told me something that makes perfect sense when I realize the general age distribution of this site:

Originally Posted by Leon Irons

If you're twenty and conservative, you don't have a heart. If you're thirty and liberal, you don't have a brain.

While I take issue with the second half of that, it does seem to explain the whole thing.

[tiffany34990]

haa haa-- a lovely poll on this subject matter-- if i could vote and i wish i could but i can't-- but to those who are voting-- good luck with choosing u'r vote-- just make sure that u do go out and vote


enjoy!!

(hopefully this time florida will get it right now wasn't my fault last time)

[Justin]

I'm going to divide this post into two pieces. First off I have to reply to Mr. Andy Baker. I can see that he is a conservative. However I think we should all question whether Bush is a conservative in the true what republicans are supposed to stand for sense, which seems to be the view Mr. Baker shares. What have republicans typically stood for? Small government, less government intervention in peoples lives, and fiscal conservativeness.

Okay 1) Small Government - Mr. Baker says that he is for small government and so he will vote for President Bush. However President Bush's administration and congress is responsible for creating the largest government bureaucracy EVER, the Homeland Security Department.

2) Less government intervention in people's lives - The patriot act. Here is a law that allows the government to look into the lives of average Americans, you or eye, in ways we never dreamed would be possible. They can wiretap my internet connection and phone, search my home (without my knowledge), and obtain a list of the library books I read. All of this mind you can be done without and judicial oversight through a http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13246&c=206]"National Security Letter."[/url] Essentially the FBI drafts up one of these letters and away they go.

3) Fiscally Conservative - The national deficit has skyrocketed under Bush. When Clinton left office the government was projecting surpluses!! Now we are looking at the largest federal deficit in American history. Even the GAO is raising red flags. So much more fiscal conservatives.

I would suggest that the republican part has abandoned their traditional platform and morphed into something new and frankly alarming. Deficit spending is good, spying on Americans is good, and more bureaucracy is good. These doesn't sound like the type of republicans that Mr. Baker seems to be longing form.

[Justin]

Now for why I think that John Kerry is the best, most “FIRST Friendly” candidate. From the outset of his candidacy John Kerry has made his views on the importance of science and technology in driving American forward very clear. Just recently he was endorsed by 48 past winners of the Nobel Prize. Many here are interested in perusing a career in science perhaps even the medical or biotechnology fields. If George Bush stays president the few remaining stem cell lines in this country might not be of any use at all by the time you arrive on the job. John Kerry has endorsed stem cell research and recognizes it for what it is one of new frontiers of sciences which American should be at the forefront of. In addition his call for energy independence will also serve as a catalyst for hundreds of thousands of new jobs. America has a great history of engineering our way out of products and the energy crisis that we face in this country should be no different. In addition American cannot continue to be the leader in science and technology with out a work force that is also the best on the planet and John Kerry’s plans on education and getting more people to college are equally bold and aggressive. We need a president who is willing to challenge the status quo, not be content with it. I firmly believe that John Kerry is that president.

I consider myself a democrat because I find it unacceptable that we are the richest most prosperous nation in the world but still have a sub-par education system, 1000s of children who do not get the chance at college, and hundreds of thousands of people who starve in the streets at night…in the richest most powerful country on the planet this is unacceptable. We have the means and frankly the obligation to help lift people up if you are well off and prosperous that’s great and you earned it but it is wrong for you to earn it on the backs of those who are not as fortunate.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Justin

Now for why I think that John Kerry is the best, most "FIRST Friendly" candidate. From the outset of his candidacy John Kerry has made his views on the importance of science and technology in driving American forward very clear.

I so agree. Yesterday he spoke somewhere about the decrease of interest in Math and Science (probably including technology), how it decreases from lets say grade 4 to grade 8 between men and women, and apparently he has a strategy to spark that interest back up. Unfortunately, he didn't mention FIRST, he did mention small programs though. Anyone interested in telling him about us? I'm thinking about it. Maybe we can get an endorsement from him.