(crossposted at dKos)
Hi folks,
mydd.com is running July straw poll for President’08.
Unfortunately, Chris didn’t include Al Gore in the list, and so I posted a “delta poll” that works on top of the straw poll (i.e. we add/subtract votes from the delta poll to get a final tally). The Delta Poll is at:
and the main straw poll is on:
Please visit both the links and cast you votes appropriately (you will need to be registered at mydd.com).
If you are an Al Gore supporter, please recommended this diary and my delta-poll diary at mydd.com, and my cross-post at dKos, so that they stay on the frontpage longer, offsetting what I consider to be an unfair handicap to Al Gore.
Thanks,
Neo
ps: Yes, I’d like to see a Gore/Dean’08 ticket, however implausible that may look currently; but I will actively support, post-primary, most of the other leading Dem. contenders.
That is EXCEPT for Kerry or Edwards, mainly since they both voted for the Iraq war and against the $87B approps. to pay for it, an utterly unjustified and indefensible stand in IMO, and what conspired in 2004 elections shows its consequences. Hate to quote the Apparent Treasonist Carl Rove, but he said something like Kerry’s iraq war voting record was the gift horse that kept on giving.
Of course, my opinion on the John Duo is subject to a complete reversal, if the GOP nominee happens to be a CReepublican (Definition: either a radical right winger on any of the economic/religious/neocon fronts, or supports the radical agenda sufficiently vigorously.)
Again, my Al Gore delta-poll is at:
Gore’08 Delta Poll
My copy of Al Gore’s book sits on my shelf of honored writings. The man, whatever his faults, is a genius and a true patriot and wonderful human being. I would wholeheartedly support his return to the political arena. I would have preferred him to any of the other candidates in ’04, but alas, he wasn’t running. I guess you have to go to elections with the candidate you’ve got, not the one you want. Having said that, I disagree with you on Kerry/Edwards. I disagree with Kerry/Edwards voting for the war, but they had many other good qualities to offer. I did prefer the anti-war candidates but in the end I couldn’t vote for them. By the time the primaries got to my state, the outcome was already decided, and I ended up voting FOR Kerry/Edwards in the general election.
I’ll head over to the delta poll now….
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Having said that, I disagree with you on Kerry/Edwards. I disagree with Kerry/Edwards voting for the war, but they had many other good qualities to offer. I did prefer the anti-war candidates but in the end I couldn’t vote for them. By the time the primaries got to my state, the outcome was already decided, and I ended up voting FOR Kerry/Edwards in the general election.
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Actually, my row with these guys is not so much their vote in favor of the war (although I opposed the war myself, mainly for not taking the global consensus way to make Saddam account for WMDs, it is still muddy as to exactly what the senator/reps were told in secret intelligence sessions, and further, the Dems. were backbone-less in general during that period) but for their, what IMO was a slimy vote against the 87 Billion $ appropriations bill AFTER having voted that way (for the simple reason that they wanted to fend-off Howard Dean, who BTW, would himself have voted against the war, but most likely would have voted in favor of the appropriations bill subsequently). Just how could you vote that way, when the troops are already out there risking their lives? I would’ve demanded and fought tooth and nail to get the Adm. to account for the expenditures, but would’ve supported the appropriation itself. Does my opinion make sense?
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I’ll head over to the delta poll now….
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Thanks for your support for Al Gore.
Neo
I’m sure that the “no” vote on the 87 billion was a political mistake, but it was a vote for fiscal responsibility – not a vote for de-funding the war effort. The bill was known to have more than enough support to pass, so Kerry voted against it because it was a totally unfunded bill, the result of which was to drive us into deeper national debt. We can argue about the national debt some other time, but that was what Kerry’s vote was about.
The media/right-wing echo chamber turned it into a “flip-flop”. I’m surprised that you believe their spin. In essence, you advocate the same thing – but ex post facto. I believe that such a fight after the fact would achieve nothing. In fact, it hasn’t. The 87 billion was tacked on to the national debt. This will result in higher expenditures in the future to pay the loan back because of compound interest paid by the government for the money it borrowed to fulfill this immediate funding requirement.
Kerry’s vote makes sense to me. Sure, it’s a complex issue and it was a political mistake. A protest vote, where a person votes against a sure thing to register disapproval of a major portion of a bill is fairly common, I think. For example, how many reps. and sens. voted against the recent highway bill because it was filled with pork, when they knew the bill had enough votes to pass? Was it because they don’t want to maintain our highways? I don’t think so.
You can call it “slimy”, but I call it a protest in favor of fiscal responsibility. It was a political mistake, though. I bet Gore would have voted “no” on the war and “yes” to the unfunded appropriations bill, which would have been a much better political position, I think.
Do you really believe that “it was protest vote for fiscal responsibility” is the real reason why the John Boys voted against the $87B package. I don’t.
The budget is around $2.5T, and $87B is a relative drop in the bucket (about 4%) in that, and I strongly suspect that one can find dozens of other places where the Johns Boys could have asserted justifiable fiscal responsibility but they chose this one. Why? There was one reason and one reason only: Howard Dean! They figured, he had to be stopped somehow, and this was one of the set of strategies (which also included, BTW, outright plagiarization of Howard’s campaign themes and message) that they came up with and which worked, at least in drilling Howard into the ground, and winning the primaries (and mind you, Dean came back and toiled for the rest of the year, raising a large amount of money, and energizing his supporter base, trying his best to help them win).
So, in my opinion, this “fisc. resp.” bit was just a cover and a justification.
Second, I couldn’t really understand his 1991 vote against beating Saddam back from his invasion of Kuwait. If you don’t use military force to rebuff such blatant violation of international law, when would you?
So, the full story reads this way:
Kerry was a war-hero (which I think he was, as he at least went there, albeit with a video camera :)), who came back such a dove that, even nations absorbing other nations doesn’t move his reluctance to wage war, and then due to 9/11 he again became a war-hawk, and then to register a protest vote for fiscal responsibility, he voted against an important appropriations bill (that was only 4% of the overall budget), then continued criticizing the war, but when pressured, yielded to that pressure, came out and said that he would have voted for the war anyway, even after coming to know that the stated premise for the war a blatant lie.
Further, when a bunch of people came forward and pretty much obliterated his integrity, leave alone his valor, using what is apparently a concoction of lies and partial truths, he found it unnecessary to come out swinging to defend his own honor. (IMO, he lost the edge with women on this display of weakness and then some more with the Mary Cheney remark, and hence lost the election).
Then, after the election, he puts up no fight whatsoever in Ohio (at least Edwards seemed wanting to do so), where a string of crapola materialized in the weeks leading up to the election most of it blatantly being perpetrated by Blackwell. Why? Was the idea to leave the $25 million or so that was left in the kitty there to have an early money edge for his next primary run in 2008? You tell me.
If all of that falls in place for you, please be my guest.
But, having said all of that, I still do think that Sen. Kerry is an OK to decent person, but just not cut out, in my opinion, for any type of political leadership, and certainly not the presidency. Basically, he is neither a crook nor a conviction-based and ideals-driven fighter, quite symbolic of what most of the democratic leadership drifted into since the early 70s (excepting Bill Clinton), and allowed the crooks to gain control of the political spectrum, that is, until Howard came along and put some spine and some grease back into the rusty and rickety machinery.
If only Howard had leaned a tad of media savvy (which seems to have sunk in after the recent GOP attacks on his misstatements) and an effective level of diplomacy early on in his ’04 campaign, he would not have given out free sticks for his opponents to beat him up with, and then I believe he would have fought, fought, and won that election (still subject to careful media/image mgmt, and integrity of the electoral process, of course). Alas..
Against all odds, I still would like to see a Gore/Dean ticket in 2008. I believe that these two gentlemen are in this business for reasons beyond themselves, and therefore people like myself will be
able to put their heart and soul into helping them win.
Neo
Let add to the list of politicos: “he is neither a crook, nor a conviction-based and ideals-driven fighter, nor a pragmatic and capable policy wonk (ala Bubba)“
Neo
Oh, also, let me credit Michael Moore along with Dean for putting some backbone back into the Dem. party. The guy has some guts, and no wonder the wingers hate him for it!
First of all, let me say that I think we really are on the same wavelength, but I think I tend to try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to trying to read things into their actions. I respect your opinions, but I don’t agree with all of them:
“$87B is a relative drop in the bucket” – Drip,drip,drip, do you hear it? Soon you have a bucketful.
“one reason and one reason only: Howard Dean!” – Can a vote have two reasons? And why is it not fair game to do a little “political positioning” in order to get citizens to vote for you to get you into office? Is that a categorically bad thing to do? IMO, compromising some of your beliefs for what you think is a higher goal is not always wrong. The Founding Fathers who were against slavery had to compromise their beliefs in order to achieve the greater good of unifying the colonies against King George. Bill Clinton’s campaigns and his entire Presidency were pretty much one compromise after another. I would have had Kerry say anything to get elected when the alternative was to turn the country over to Bush for four more years. Granted, he didn’t say all the right things, and he did say some wrong things, but I believe he actually did win the “election” before it was stolen in Ohio.
Politics is a dirty game, at least it always has been in America, as far as I can tell. What was done to Kerry, and his lack of response to it, could also be said about Dean, as you yourself noted. Why didn’t he come out swinging against the media for playing his scream over and over? Why didn’t he outmaneuver Kerry on the war issue? How did Kerry get the upper hand on him so easily, and Dean say nothing about it (at least nothing that resonated very well, I certainly don’t remember it if he did). And where was Dean when the nut-wingers ran the ad telling him to go back to Vermont?
I don’t excuse Kerry from responsibilty for his mistakes, but you have to remember that from my perspective I didn’t have much say in the process of choosing him as the nominee. By the time I had a chance to vote, it was already decided. (We could certainly discuss the problems with the process of choosing the Democratic Party Nominee, at length, some other time). My choice was to support Kerry or lose to Bush. I compromised a few of my beliefs and voted for the greater good. Besides, I’d much rather have a beer with Kerry than with Bush, the conversation would be much better, I’m sure.
Now, Ohio is a completely different problem for me. I really wanted them to fight for that, but in retrospect, I don’t believe it would have changed the outcome if they did. The lawsuits, the exit poll discrepancies, and the voter suppression through selectively placing voting machines would have, at best, ended up in the SCOTUS again….and we know how that would turn out. For the record, I do believe that Ohio was stolen. But, again, politics is dirty business. I don’t like it, but they stole it “fair and square”. It’s as much an American tradition to steal close elections as it is to bake apple pies. That doesn’t make it right and that doesn’t mean I don’t believe that we should try to change that tradition. But the best time to fight for change to the voting systems and laws to prevent fraud is between elections, before the fraud happens. We know we can not depend on the media and corrupted partisan politicians to help fix it afterwards. The “leftover” $25 million was left because the legal fight would have gotten them nowhere with the margin of victory the R’s managed to “produce” in Ohio. SO, I think that’s what it was – leftover money. In the event the vote total difference had been five or even ten thousand, I think they would have spent that money and more on the recount.
I think Kerry is a fine man and if I had to ride into battle, I would want him on my back. I think he would have made a fine President. I voted FOR him, not just AGAINST Bush. I believe he is an ideals-driven fighter, but here you and I just disagree. Where we do agree is that Al Gore would be better than any of the candidates we have to select from in 2008, so far. AND we agree that Dean is also an honorable man, fit for service.
Thank you for comments and for the discussion. I’m always up for some good civil discourse. I’ll try to check back here for a possible reply if you feel like it, but right now I’m gonna go get some dinner!
blueneck: I thank you in return for the good-spirited dialogue. But, I will not be able to write a response for a day or two. When I do, I will drop you a note as I did this time.
Neo
OK thanks!