Who are you voting for President.

I can't stand Kerry.

Bush may not be the greatest (but who is?), but he has done a good job IMO. The only reason most people don't like him is because of the war situation. I don't think we should make our decision only on that fact.
 
I actually believe that his job has been adequate at best.

Mistakes:
  • Disaster relations with Europe and other Eastern nations.
  • No clear Iraqi exit strategy and still no WMD.
  • Increased budget deficits and increased national debt.
  • Sky-rocketing cost of higher education (some of you may have not have entered college yet, but when you do, you'll find those bills are real).
  • The 'No Child Left Behind' is forcing public school districts to increase thier spending without the help of the federal government.
  • Social Security worries and no gurantee that it will be around when most of you retire (Bush would like to put part of our future of Social Security into the stock market in hopes of generating more revenue for it).
  • Little work done on the cost of perscription drugs.
  • No Osama despite significant efforts.
  • Nothing done on the North Korea\Iran nuclear issues.
  • Large cost of oil.
  • 3 1/2 years of economic recession and only recent recovery (much do in part to the fact that war-portion of occupation in Iraq is finally done).
  • Increase in the lesser respect for the seperation of church and state.
  • Patriot act issues (and the Justice Department's unwillingness to restrict parts that infringe on civil liberties of civilans).
  • The Jose Padilla mess and administrations support of labeling US citizens as 'enemy combatants', thus denying them lawyer or trial access indefinietly.
  • Gay rights/resistance furthering seperation.
  • Little work to reduce racial tensions in the US.
  • Nothing done on immigration.
  • Lack of gun-control legislation.
  • No plans for reduction in drug-abuse.
  • Poor work done on the 'Road map to peace' and Israeli/Palestinian conflicts.
  • Dropped the 'Compasionate Convservative' stance that he took during his run for presidency and instead focused on further distancing the two parties.
  • No work on Health care reform and attempts to cut unjustified malpractice lawsuits in the court.
  • Little or no environment conservation efforts.
  • Won't increase the size of the military, despite needs.
  • Won't be forth-coming about needed costs of continuing operations in Iraq till after the election.
Deeds:
  • Overhall of anti-terrorist efforts on all ends of the US. Government.
  • No more Sadaam.
  • Tax-cut legislation.
Outside of war on terror issues, the Bush administration is flopped on just about every domestic and foreign relations issue. The fact that this admistration has been un-apologetic in all of it's short-comings and for long periods of time relied on macho rhetoric and "stay the course" mentality hasn't helped either.

I'm sure President Bush is a good man, and a moral man. But meeting these qualities does not make you a good president. Since 9 months into his inaguration, his entire policy has been towards the war-on-terror and not much else.

As for Kerry, I don't really care about him either. But given one or the other, I'll take my chances with Kerry. Kerry may end up a flop too, but he's not a proven flop like Bush.
 
Kerry was not the guy I wanted to win the nomination, although I pretty much have suspected that he would ever since the middle of last year or so. That being said, I would vote for a box of frozen turd pops before I would vote for Bush.
 
I'm not an American but I hope to hell that Bush doesn't win. I've never liked him since I heard of his environment policies(or lack of).

You could do a lot better. He's a laughing stock here in the UK.
 
i really don't want bush to win, i don't care who win's but i don't want bush, which means the only other option is Kerry, as Nader or anyone else doesn't stand a chance.
 
all those things you listed, Sundance_2, I really doubt if any other canidate would make much of a dent in. You have to accept that the president can't get all that done on his own. The whole body of politics readlly slows things down.
 
Yeah America really needs a president who's single term is 8 years instead of four so they have time to get their shit down.
 
racketboy,

I completly agree with regard to the fact that it's not a president, or even the entire executive branch, to resolve these issues entirely. However, the president carries great influence. While he's not going to get them passed himself, it's important that he throws these issues at the eyes of congress and the senate. I KNOW that Bush has discussed these issues in debate. But that's all he's done. Given that the republicans control the presidency, congress AND the senate, so much should of been domestically. But it wasn't. Why? Because terrorist issues remained the largest body of action on all ends. And as of late, Gay marriage has become the major issue. But to the average american who can't support a family because of unemployment, these issues are meaningless.

What I would like to see is a president who will speak to congress\senate, and not one who is enamored with the war on terror (but is willing to continue pressure in the middle east for reduction in threats). The terrorist issues are probably the greatest issue that exists today, but it's important to remember that it's not the only issue. Some people forgot that when we went to Iraq on bad itelligence (when supposedly these agencies were supposed to be working together to improve it) and a economy that was in recession (and could not support the costs).
 
just because the terrorism stuff is the only thing you hear on the news, doesn't mean that's the only thing that is worked on. The news only talk about stuff that they think people think is exciting. They aren't gonna talk about the work on other stuff because "it's boring". Unless you work in Washinton, it's kinda hard to actually know what's going on.
 
Not exactly. I don't have to work in Washington to know that these things (many of which were issues in the 2000 election or have been since the first year of his presidency) have gone unresolved. The news agencies aren't going talk about these issues, because as you said, they don't bring in viewers or spark interest. And I realize that Congress and the Senate continue to debate these issues regularly. Since I don't watch CSPAN on a daily basis I can't sincerely attest that nothing has been convered on Capitol Hill. But I can see results, and I do monitor the general passing of major laws and regulations. If you look at my list of mentions earlier, and then compare it with the list of tasks that the Hill has actually passed, you'll find there aren't many matches (or the matches are for only small subsets of the major issues, perhaps enough to just get by). Regardless of how the issue is addressed, patchwork or not at all, its clear that something needs to be done to speed up the pace at which reforms are enacted.

I don't doubt that outside of the presidency, people look at these issues with the amount deserved. However I do doubt the results. And when I see that the results fail with a Republican controlled Presidency and Capitol Hill, I tend to doubt them.
 
All I can say, I will bet you money that John Kerry will not fix many of those issue (at least not without abandoning other important things)
 
Originally posted by racketboy@Jun 12, 2004 @ 06:19 PM

All I can say, I will bet you money that John Kerry will not fix many of those issue (at least not without abandoning other important things)

:agree Sorry
 
no kidding, Bush got blamed for a lot of stuff that is just aftermath from the Clinton administration.

He also gets blamed for reversing (or attempting to reverse) a lot of the things that the Clinton administration worked on, including the aforementioned environmental issues.

Additonally, I think that the very idea that Bush is a man of 'good moral fibre' is laughable. He's done so many things to harm the standard of living of the average American and the security of the country that you can pretty much throw that idea out the window. Not to mention that a number of his efforts were undertaken to serve his own personal interests and those of his buddies. Bush is one of the most evil motherfuckers ever to sit in the Oval Office.

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone who earns less than $100k a year would vote for a Republican president.
 
Originally posted by it290@Jun 12, 2004 @ 10:26 PM

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone who earns less than $100k a year would vote for a Republican president.

That reminds me of a joke my manager once told me.

Q: What do you call a Democrat who makes over $100K a year?

A: A Republican.

:lol:
 
I'm gonna vote for Bush. So HA!

Personally I could care less about what Europe thinks. Business has been rockin since he put in that tax cut. And I think he is doing a fine job with terrorism and Iraq.
 
I voted null. Haven't yet decided who i'm voting for.

Being a moderate, I am mixed on many of his, and the party he leads, issue. I could care less about gay marriage. In a global economic sense, it doesn't matter. Distancing ourselves from the rest of the world is a poor decision. We are in a modern era where a global economy is becoming more important. I would like to see discussions with both Iran and North Korea about Nuclear weapons disarment (though I will bet Kerry won't do anything thing either). The economy is beyond the control of the president. I get sick and tired of people blaming or praising a president for the economy. They blame such a small part, the only real action they usually have is with stabilization after a recession has begun. I do think Bush has a better chance on dealing with the war on terror. However, the Patriot is the largest piece of crap ever. The bill itself is anti-American. I do hope that whoever is in charge, revisits the issue and restrains its scope.
 
I don't blame the president for the massive recession, but I do believe (and most economists believe) that we should of came out of this recession over a year ago.

The general recovery was delayed though by the executive's branch push towards war with Iraq. The fact that we are doing well now has less to do with the tax-cuts (which have been around for a couple of years now and never made a dent over that time) and more to do with major combat ending and lessening concerns about the uncertainty in the Middle East.

Other reasons include lesser concerns about out-sourcing, some increases in consumer spending among other things.

Expect things to drop soon in the fall & into next year, when the state and federal budgets arrive and all thats needed money has to finally come out.
 
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