vote_him_out celestias shadow I know a lot of blatherskites out there can vote. Most of y'all are older than me, and I think a lot of you are older than 18. So, here's what I want. The presidential election comes a wee bit after my birthday, but for the sake of this plea, we'll pretend it's ON my birthday. Or something like that. In any case, I know there are some of you out there who love me, or are pretending to. Either way, it's all good. Since I know you ALL want to get me a birthday present, here's what Iyou should do. On election day, go vote, and vote that lying motherfucker out of office. I plan to start a movement on blather to see how many people will do this. If you were already planning to vote against him, or you're planning now, just post your name on this page. I wanna see how many people there are on here that agree with me that he needs a one-way ticket straight back to Crawford. Or better yet, he can be the first to try out his space program to Mars. We'll just forget to accomodate for a return trip. In any case, who out there is gonna vote against Bush? Make me feel better about not being able to vote, people! 040117 ... battle flag blues I'd vote against him twice if I lived in Chicago. It's nauseatingly ironic that most of the Generals who ran the show in the first Gulf War were so against this most recent, ongoing one, and politicans who were old enough, but conspicuously avoided being anywhere near Vietnam were the ones who had such a flaming hard-on for it. On an unrelated note, I almost shit myself laughing to hear that that chickenshit chickenhawk Ted Nugent ripped up his own leg with a chainsaw. Ted was old enough to go to Vietnam, but when it came time to show up for his draft physical, he hadn't bathed for a month and put peanut butter in his asscrack to make it look even more fucked up... and he admits it...and yet the motherfucker had the nerve to talk shit about anti-war protesters. Funny how many people are pro-war that have never been in a fire-fight. Yes, please vote W out! I know I'm gonna try. 040117 ... x www.deanforamerica.com 040117 ... ever dumbening .:trim the shrub:. . 040117 ... realistic optimist i ALWAYS vote outside of the two party system. my vote goes first and foremost against the two party system, and then i look for who the best candidate is. however, since i do have love for the celestial seasonings, we shall call it a birthday present 040117 ... silentbob as an iowan i can contribute to who runs against him. 040117 ... Secret Encrypted Magnesium Hat R-O: While I'm inclined to agree that the 2-party system has been co-opted, there comes a point in any given campaigh season when the additional parties should weigh the potential Liabilities of a run. I would vote Green, but not at the expense of getting C-Plus Augustus out of office. A vote cast on General Principle can be detrimental to the Principle itself. To Wit - Candidate A is the sitting incumbent, He is a shitbag and through careful manipulation and deception, enjoys a substantial chance of being re-elected. Candidate B represents the opposing party, and may share some similar positions on key policies as the shitbag, Candidate A, but also opposes Candidate A on several larger issues. The media and Candidate A's Team have gone out of their way to paint as Negative a picture of Candidate B as possible because B is a bigger threat to their continued grasp of power than the dissening members of their support base are. If Candidate C enters the race because he does not believe that Candidate B goes far enough in opposing Candidate A, he erodes the potential support base for Candidate B by dividing the pool of potental votes. Candidate A has managed this problem because the dissenters in his party know that they can hammer the differences out later and will focus on winning the election, because the dissenting elements also represent a view considered by most to be "fringe" and not likely to be elected. This factor has come to play on a variant basis in the last three elections. Perot ate into the Republican vote in 1992 and helped Clinton win the White House. Buchanan ate into the more Republican vote in 1996 and made Clinton's margin over Dole that much more comfortable. Nader's run garnered votes that would have gone to Gore, but the electoral results and the Florida Scandal had the final say. The lesson that the republicans have learned is one that the democratic party needs to learn and that is this: Make room at the table for those who don't think you are far enough on your side so that if you do make it into office, you insure that their views are well represented and reflected in the policy decisions. The Republicans learned to do this to win elections, although now, one can hope that the political tactics embraced by the current administration serve to split their own party from within. They embraced the right-wing fringe elements of their party and used them as a means to power but alienated the fiscal/political conservatives in the process with some of their policy decisions. On the other hand, some of the things that appease the corporate/fiscal conservatives are an outrage to the religious/social conservatives. The Democratic party needs to find a way to interface and coordinate with the additional parties that could be considered "fringe" elements of their own policy ideas. The first step needs to be a co-ordination and coalition between themselves and parties like the Green Party. Also, for being more insanely pro-Bush than anyone running as a Democrat should be, someone needs to take Joe Lieberman out to the woodshed and beat the holy hell out of him. I'll borrow the line from Birdmad when he said that people want someone who can BEAT Bush, not just someone who can BE Bush. The way Lieberman, Kerry, and Gephardt jumped on Bush's Bandwagon and started bashing Dean after the capture of Saddam Hussein just because they supported the decision to go to war was downright fucking sickening, Especially since it involved them Conveniently Forgetting that their support had been conditional not on the capture of Saddam but on the discovery of the Weapons of Mass Destruction which administration Officials lied to congress (naturally) about and said could be used against the East Coast of the United States within 45 minutes (Whereas North Korea has Actual missiles that could make landfall on the West Coast, as opposed to some fairy tale story about Bio or Chem laden drones which could be deployed against the eastern seaboard, but these fucks never once let the facts get in the way of what Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have been planning since before they had to leave DOD the last time back in 1992) 040117 ... realistic optimist you make poignant points, most of which i have considered myself. but i am of the opinion that with that logic, a builiding of support for voting outside of the two party system may never come to pass. therefore, i suppose i am forgoing the meaning of my vote in this particular election to some degree in the hopes of helping to foster a "vote third party" movement over time. thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter, however. it made for an interesting read. 040117 ... girl_jane I was already planning on trying to get that fuck out of office, but I'll just add a "Happy Birthday!" and do it in honor of you! :) 040118 ... realistic optimist in light of the ever blossoming imperialism and potency of the bitterness being introduced into our legislature, i am inclined to forego my support for the "not two party" vote in order to get this two bit antichrist wanna-be out of office for this election. then, of course, it will be back to the business of eradicating this sadly outdated two party system. 040306 ... z hear hear! once again i agree with you ro. i too am voting pragmatically this time. he must go! 040306 ... birdmad Besides, Nader isn't even running as a Green this year, he's running as an independent with the backing of some slightly wacky people who used to be in charge of the "New Alliance Party" back from 1988 to around 1993/94. It's not that there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats, it's more lately that the only difference between Republicans and al Qaeda is the specifics of a religion. You won't typically find Democrats trying to turn this country into some sort of southern baptist theocracy. I find it funny that the political descendents of the people who tried to accuse John F Kennedy of being nothing more than a proxy or puppet for the Vatican, are practically open about wanting to be proxies for people like Pat Robertson, Howard Ahmanson, Richard Mellon Scaife, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell Large portions of the republican party are pretty much just adherents to the aforementioned cluster of america's would-be ayatollahs anymore, so yeah, i would argue that there really is a very serious and sharp dividing line between the two parties. 040307 what's it to you? who go blather from