Elections in the USA. Start the guess!

[Olivier]

It's time to guess...

Who will be the next president of the USA?

[Olivier]

I guess JFK will be elected with more states but less votes. The same situation than in 2000, but not in favor of GWB.

Of course, I can be wrong.
The result of the guess... next week.

Olivier

[Fundamental]

I just hope from the bottom of my heart that it won't be George W!!!

[giberski]

It's not what I'm want, but I'm almost sure it's gonna be Bush again. If you watch the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 and see what tricks he played the last time, it won't be a problem for him AND his team to do it again. Damn
But of course, Kerry is my favorite too.

Giberski (how about me a president, more money for the people)

[Elmo]

Because the idiot called Ralph Nader is participating again I think Bush will
win again!

[Kalmari]

I'm sure that Kerry will be the president

[Viperazzi]

Hoping for Kerry, preparing for W's second presidency.
After Sep 11, USA has adopted a monster policy. It will take lots of time to recover from that policy even if the president isn't Dubbya. I believe Mr. Kerry wouldn't be that much different...

[Olivier]

The polls are so puzzled... This will be easier to cheat this time, with automatic voting machines in Florida...

[Chiel]

I really hope Kerry will win, but I'm afraid it's gonna be very close again.
Somewhere in a newspaper I read that the company responsible for the voting machines has ties with the Republican Party...

[lmviterbo]

Because the idiot called Ralph Nader is participating again I think Bush will
win again!

I guess you should read some of Nader's thoughts. He's not at all an idiot, he's well supported by at least one of the most brilliant Amercians there are (Noam Chomsky), and he explains on his site not only his 2004 campaign but also why in 2000 Gore "lost" not because of Nader.

I voted Kerry, but that's only wishful thinking.

[Cinnamon]

Hope it's Kerry, but still I gave my vote here to Bush.

[Viperazzi]

The result of the guess... next week.

Are you really that optimistic?

[Elmo]

I guess you should read some of Nader's thoughts. He's not at all an idiot, he's well supported by at least one of the most brilliant Amercians there are (Noam Chomsky), and he explains on his site not only his 2004 campaign but also why in 2000 Gore "lost" not because of Nader.

Is his site www.nader.org? And can you give me the link where he explains
why Gore didn't lose due to Nader?

[Venga]

Hope it's Kerry, but still I gave my vote here to Bush.

Same here.

[lmviterbo]

... he explains on his site not only his 2004 campaign but also why in 2000 Gore "lost" not because of Nader.

Is his site www.nader.org? And can you give me the link where he explains why Gore didn't lose due to Nader?

Glad you took the effort to look for it.
It's not on Nader's personal site, and actually I'm not sure if you can find it on the site of the party he's a candidate for this year, the Reform Party. However, it's on Nader's election campaign official site, http://www.votenader.org. After you read the main page's "20 reasons to vote for Ralph Nader on November 2", you might want to check the F.A.Q. That's where you can find the following:

Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000?
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.
George W. Bush’s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.
The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.
Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.
A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin’s book Too Close to Call).
Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.
Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.
And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.
Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph’s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.
In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph’s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.
In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.
If one accepts the flawed logic that suggests Ralph 'cost' Gore two states (New Hampshire and Florida), then it would also follow that Buchanan 'cost' Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico) in 2000.
CNN’s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.
For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens — oblivious to the facts — looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.
It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.
That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.
Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.
Voting is not a zero-sum game.
Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.

If the goal is to defeat Bush, why not just support the Democratic Party’s nominee?
It’s really not clear that the Democratic Party can defeat George W. Bush all by itself. "Electability" is neither an agenda nor a mandate. A two-front approach may be needed and let’s look at why:
The Democratic Party is part of the problem.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Iraq war resolution turning Bush into a wartime president.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Patriot Act.
* They voted for or failed to stop John Ashcroft.
* They voted for or failed to stop Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Medicare fiasco.
* They lost the 2002 midterm elections, contrary to historical tradition.
* In 1983, the Democrats controlled 23 more state legislatures than the Republicans; today the Republicans control five more than the Democrats.
* In 1983, there were 18 more Democratic governors than Republican ones; Now there are three more. New York, Kentucky, California, Florida and Texas are all Republican controlled.
* More young adults today identify themselves as Republicans than 20 years ago, while fewer identify themselves as Democrats.
At what point do you stop relying on a party to be an opposition party and start asking what else needs to be done to put some spine into Washington politics?



I just wish I could contribute somehow. Unfortunately, USA law clearly forbids foreigners to financially support political parties, and that's why I can't even buy a T-shirt from Nader's site.