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Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1930
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 2:21 pm: | 
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That's a good enough reason to hate a party IMO. |
STRAWling
Citizen
Username: Strawling
Post Number: 9
Registered: 5-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 3:33 pm: |
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Oh, yawn. |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3326
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 4:29 pm: |
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WASHINGTON (May 9) - Asked to say one nice thing about President Bush, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went one better: She named two things.
"He is someone who has a lot of charm and charisma, and I think in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I was very grateful to him for his support for New York," Clinton said Tuesday night during a talk at the National Archives about her life in politics.
Clinton, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said that despite their "many disagreements about many, many issues," she has always had a good personal relationship with the president.
"He's been very willing to talk. He's been affable. He's been good company," said Clinton, D-N.Y.
The junior senator from New York, who is up for re-election this year, said she is still thankful for Bush's personal commitment to helping rebuild lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, 2001.
She recalled how the president, in the grim days that followed the terror attacks, pledged in a private meeting with New York lawmakers to help rebuild the shattered city.
"It was a very personal, very emotional discussion and when we asked him for the help that New York needed he immediately said yes," said Clinton.
At that meeting, Bush pledged more than $20 billion in aid and tax incentives. Some New York Democrats have since charged the Bush administration has fallen billions of dollars short of that goal because some of the programs were underused, but Clinton said the president kept his promise.
"He always kept it on track," she said. "He made sure we got the resources that we needed and I'm very grateful to him for that. ... I am very appreciative in the time when the people I represented needed his help, he was there for us."
05/09/06 21:09 EDT
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crabby
Citizen
Username: Crabbyappleton
Post Number: 592
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 4:32 pm: |
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can you say "snow job"? |
Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 383
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 5:25 pm: |
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Both parties have enough assorted nut jobs to go around. What matters in the US Presidential election is capturing the center. Hillary as the pick has a real problem, less so as VP. Forget Gore, he lost it after he lost the election to Bush. |
3ringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 187
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 6:34 pm: |
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Two of the main reasons for Mr. Bush's low numbers are Iraq and immigration. The two major Republican prospects are Giuliani and McCain, both of whom are stay-the-course on Iraq and soft on immigration. So the Republicans might go with more of the same, which could hurt them if the Democrats could get their act together, which is doubtful.
What we need is a Eugene McCarthy-like candidate who could oppose both the war and the bipartisan/corporate/media consensus on immigration, as McCarthy himself did in his later years. I'm not holding my breath.
Cheers |
STRAWling
Citizen
Username: Strawling
Post Number: 10
Registered: 5-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:15 pm: |
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As I said above, the base will not have Giuliani on a national ticket.
Ain't gonna happen. |
Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 1307
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 9:19 pm: |
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Keeep worrying about '08. While we work on '06. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5593
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 9:33 pm: |
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Capturing the center isn't a strategy. And if it was, how would you do it? What you believe in but pulled back a notch? Vociferously promoting an agenda of that which defines the center -- which is essentially mush? Bush won not because he was a 'compassionate conservative', but because he ran as a conservative and let the chips fall where they may. Kerry in his own vague way campaigned as a liberal but he couldn't use the word 'liberal.' Instead he mouthed stuff against the rich, spent whatever tax hikes he wanted 3 times over while giving a feint towards deficit reduction which didn't add up.
I'm not saying Bush governed as a conservative entirely, just to be clear here. But we're talking about a campaign, not reality.
You capture the center by convincingly putting forth your argument. The other side puts out theirs. The middle will muddle around until they lean one way or the other which usually means waiting for a majority to form and then joining it. It still really comes down to who is better at getting their base out and that base bringing in people along with them. |
The Soulful Mr T
Citizen
Username: Howardt
Post Number: 1894
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:12 am: |
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All this discussion and alot of what I've been reading (and believe me, I've been obsessing about this) leads me to the following conclusion. And, yes, I'm very serious. The only Democrat who can both WIN and be an effective President moving the country in the direction that *I* feel is appropriate is... (drum roll).....ALBERT GORE.
Below is an article from the New Yorker ostensibly about Gore's new movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” It also touches quite heavily on Al's attributes and I find it very...encouraging. Yes, it is a biased piece - Remnick clearly has no use for Bush and his gang. But, be that as it may, please keep your very predictable and obvious wisecracks and putdowns to your self. Then think about WHY you wouldnt support Gore if you're a Democrat. If you're a Republican, keep in mind that the election in 2000 was a tie, for all intents and purposes and if you think Gore is washed up, think about this administration's current poll numbers.
AGAIN it is very easy to make Gore remarks and jokes. However, he may very well be the real deal in 2008. I'm thinking of jumping full throttle onto the Gore campaign bandwagon immediately (altho' it may not be a bandwagon just yet). Any other suggestions?
I await ripostes.
OZONE MAN
by David Remnick
THE NEW YORKER April 24, 2006
The imminence of catastrophic global warming may be a subject far from the ever-drifting mind of President Bush—whose eschatological preoccupations privilege Armageddon over the Flood—but it is of growing concern to the rest of humanity. Climate change is even having its mass-entertainment moment. “Ice Age: The Meltdown”—featuring Ellie the computer-animated mammoth and the bottomless voice of Queen Latifah—has taken in more than a hundred million dollars at the box office in two weeks. On the same theme, but with distinctly less animation, “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring Al Gore (playing the role of Al Gore, itinerant lecturer), is coming to a theatre near you around Memorial Day. Log on to Fandango. Reserve some seats. Bring the family. It shouldn’t be missed. No kidding.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is not likely to displace the boffo numbers of “Ice Age” in Variety’s weekly grosses. It is, to be perfectly honest (and there is no way of getting around this), a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels. It has a few lapses of mise en scène. Sometimes we see Gore gravely talking on his cell phone—or gravely staring out an airplane window, or gravely tapping away on his laptop in a lonely hotel room—for a little longer than is absolutely necessary. And yet, as a means of education, “An Inconvenient Truth” is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. “An Inconvenient Truth” is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.
The catch, of course, is that the audience-of-one that most urgently needs to see the film and take it to heart—namely, the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago—does not much believe in science or, for that matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep. Inconvenient truths are precisely what this White House is structured to avoid and deny.
In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as “ozone man” and claimed, “This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we’ll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American.” In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush cracked that Gore “likes electric cars. He just doesn’t like making electricity.” The younger Bush, a classic schoolyard bully with a contempt for intellect, demanded that Gore “explain what he meant by some of the things” in his 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance”—and then unashamedly admitted that he had never read it. A book that the President did eventually read and endorse is a pulp science-fiction novel: “State of Fear,” by Michael Crichton. Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office. In “Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes, the Fox News commentator, reveals that the President and Crichton “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.” The visit, Barnes adds, “was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more.”
As President, Bush has made fantasy a guide to policy. He has scorned the Kyoto agreement on global warming (a pact that Gore helped broker as Vice-President); he has neutered the Environmental Protection Agency; he has failed to act decisively on America’s fuel-efficiency standards even as the European Union, Japan, and China have tightened theirs. He has filled his Administration with people like Philip A. Cooney, who, in 2001, left the American Petroleum Institute, the umbrella lobby for the oil industry, to become chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he repeatedly edited government documents so as to question the link between fuel emissions and climate change. In 2005, when Cooney left the White House (this time for a job with ExxonMobil), Dana Perino, a White House spokesperson, told the Times, “Phil Cooney did a great job.” A heckuva job, one might say.
Last week, Gore dropped by a Broadway screening room to introduce a preview of “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dressed in casual but non-earth-tone clothes, he gave a brief, friendly greeting. If you are inclined to think that the unjustly awarded election of 2000 led to one of the worst Presidencies of this or any other era, it is not easy to look at Al Gore. He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years (and of what might still happen in the coming two). Contrary to Ralph Nader’s credo that there was no real difference between the major parties, it is close to inconceivable that the country and the world would not be in far better shape had Gore been allowed to assume the office that a plurality of voters wished him to have. One can imagine him as an intelligent and decent President, capable of making serious decisions and explaining them in the language of a confident adult. Imagining that alternative history is hard to bear, which is why Gore always has the courtesy, in his many speeches, and at the start of “An Inconvenient Truth,” to deflect that discomfort with a joke: “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I used to be the next President of the United States.”
Those inclined to be irritated by Gore all over again will not be entirely disappointed by “An Inconvenient Truth.” It can be argued that at times the film becomes “Death of a Salesman,” with Gore as global warming’s Willy Loman, wheeling his bag down one more airport walkway. There are some awkward jokes, a silly cartoon, a few self-regarding sequences, and, now and then, echoes of the cringe-making moments in his old campaign speeches when personal tragedy was put to questionable use. (To illustrate the need to change one’s mind when hard reality intrudes, he recalls helping his father farm tobacco as a youth and then his sister’s death from lung cancer.) But in the context of the larger political moment, the current darkness, Gore can be forgiven his miscues and vanities. It is past time to recognize that, over a long career, his policy judgment and his moral judgment alike have been admirable and acute. Gore has been right about global warming since holding the first congressional hearing on the topic, twenty-six years ago. He was right about the role of the Internet, right about the need to reform welfare and cut the federal deficit, right about confronting Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. Since September 11th, he has been right about constitutional abuse, right about warrantless domestic spying, and right about the calamity of sanctioned torture. And in the case of Iraq, both before the invasion and after, he was right—courageously right—to distrust as fatally flawed the political and moral good faith, operational competence, and strategic wisdom of the Bush Administration.
In the 2000 campaign, Gore was cautious, self-censoring, and in the thrall of his political consultants. He was even cautious about his passion, the environment. That caution, some of his critics think, may have cost him Florida, where he was reluctant to speak out on the construction of an ecologically disastrous airport in the middle of the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. But since the election––especially since emerging from an understandable period of reticence and rebalancing—Gore has played a noble role in public life. It’s hardly to Gore’s discredit that many conservative commentators have watched his emotionally charged speeches and pronounced him unhinged. (“It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again,” the columnist and former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer wrote after one such oration.)
It may be that Gore really has lost his taste for electoral politics, and that, no matter what turn the polls and events take, an Al-versus-Hillary psychodrama in 2008 is not going to happen. There is no substitute for Presidential power, but Gore is now playing a unique role in public life. He is a symbol of what might have been, who insists that we focus on what likely will be an uninhabitable planet if we fail to pay attention to the folly we are committing, and take the steps necessary to end it.
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Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1952
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 11:47 am: |
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When they said that no President loses an election in the middle of a war. I just didn't believe them. I mean c'mon it was clear that Bush was one of the worst presidents in US history. It was also clear that he lied to us specifically about the war that we were in. It was clear that his numbers were declining and less people liked him or where he was taking us. I even met a few Republicans who didn't like the man. I KNEW DEEP DOWN IN MY HEART, that the RULE was going to be broken this time. Bush would lose, because of the war, in spite of the war, even with a war raging.
Well here we are discussing Al Gore. Isn't there another rule that states something to the effect that Gore can't win because he already has proven he's a loser? I would love for these rules to be false. I would love to see a woman president finally and Hillary isn't as evil as the Republicans paint her out to be. I would be content if she was the first. But you now what? There are rules in play here. Rules that my childish, left-leaning mind now have come to finally appreciate their power now. Let's just figure out which old, non-ethnic male appeals ENOUGH to the conservative hicks to steal a swing state or two and get enough votes to elect anyone but a Republican into office finally. I can't deal with another 4 years to these Dark Ages. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 4893
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:05 pm: |
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The "he already lost" rule isn't really a rule. Nixon lost in 1960 but came back in '68. Most of the time, candidates don't even try. It seems the mindset is the same as football fans who say the team that lost the Super Bowl sucks. Well, they don't suck, they're the second-best team in the NFL. |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1955
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:22 pm: |
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Tom, it happens to be a bad example you give, since Nixon was in fact a LOSER, but I get the point you are trying to make. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1324
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:55 pm: |
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Gore was the winner in 2000. More people voted for him then for Bush. Bush won on the wings of the Supreme Court ruling so I wouldnt say that Gore would be a poor candidate.
The fact is that while he may be stiff and intellectual, he is a very intelligent man who cares about all people and would make a fantastic president.
I for one would vote for him again. |
Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1964
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 1:08 pm: |
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I'd vote for him... (blush) this time. |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3334
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 1:18 pm: |
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Where's Adlai when you need him? |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 4895
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 1:38 pm: |
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I'd even vote for him in the primary! |
The Soulful Mr T
Citizen
Username: Howardt
Post Number: 1911
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:27 pm: |
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Alley, Richard Milhouse Nixon was not a "loser." He was a felonious, cretinous, scabrous, heinous, lying, manipulative and corrupt moth*rfu*ker. I was young at the time, but my parents went out in the street banging pots and pans the evening he resigned. What a trip that was. |
Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 402
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:23 pm: |
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Gore? LOL, You guys are damn desperate. He does have his google stock but he seems to have lost his mind after the election, going way to the left of the electorate on a variety of subjects. You guys going to dig up Jimmah Carter next? He has as much of a chance.
The Repubs will love digging into the opposition research on Gore. BTW, I too voted for the shmo. But the man has lost it. |
Straw Kennedy
Supporter
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 7194
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:38 pm: |
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The Soulful Mr T
Citizen
Username: Howardt
Post Number: 1912
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:42 pm: |
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Damn, that's clever! |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5606
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 10:30 pm: |
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Gore in 08? We can dream. |
Madden 11
Citizen
Username: Madden_11
Post Number: 910
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 12:03 am: |
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On what issues is Gore to the left of the mainstream? I know it's an easy knee-jerk reaction to say that...but how about some proof? Cite a Gore position, then cite the polling that wildly disagrees.
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 4897
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 12:20 am: |
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Republicans will just throw darts for now, because they have a lot to fear from a Gore who really campaigns. He's smart, energetic, deeply knowledgeable and experienced. He's better qualified to be president than anyone, Dem or Repub, mentioned so far.
And on environmental issues he's dead right, and more and more people are coming around to his side. |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 1053
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 9:17 am: |
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Madden and tom,
I for one will kind of agree with both of you. But remember, true qualifications don't mean a thing in a Presidential race. I know that is a sad state but we all know it's the truth and I'm not about to rehash the history of American politics to review how we have gotten to this point.
The bottom line is perception not reality. It doesn't really matter who either party nominates because both sides will be at the ready to paint both nominees. We will paint Gore as a left wing nut, a la the I created the internet theme, and you guys will paint our nominee as a homophobe racist. So while I'll agree about knee jerk reactions and that Gore isn't as bad as painted those won't get him elected. I don't live with a utopian view so I expect nothing less than a typical duty race with the winner being lauded by 50% and being blasted and attackd by the other 50%. |
dave23
Citizen
Username: Dave23
Post Number: 1759
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 10:45 am: |
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That Gore has seemingly shed his robotic features is good. But he's going to have to be able to parry the "left-wing nut" attacks really well.
It also depends on who the Rs nominate. I think that Gary Coleman could beat Bill Frist.
Who knows, maybe the Repubs don't want to win. The 2008-2012 years are going to be very difficult to manage. If we aren't fully extracted from the Iraqi occupation by then, the incumbent is a goner. |
Madden 11
Citizen
Username: Madden_11
Post Number: 911
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 11:31 am: |
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Alleygater
Citizen
Username: Alleygater
Post Number: 1995
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 12:57 pm: |
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wha'choo-talkin-'bout-Madden? |
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