Hillary v. McCain: Don't be shy, take the poll

[hsmith]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

If they're talking about 96 they're wrong, if they're talking about 92 the polls are iffy about who'd support who

But your principle is right: Roosevelt is to blame for Wilson's policies

However there is no serious doubt that out of the significant number of voters that went Nader in Florida, enough would have went to Gore

Maybe Gore should have been a better candidate.

Candidates don't "own" the votes, they win them. Nor do other candidates "steal" them from other candidates. This is truly a specious argument from fools.

[6SpeedTA95]

McCain is the third, I voted for him, Dale Earnhardt drove the 3 car and I'm the third, he wins...

[hsmith]

I actually think Paul would fair quite well as a third party in this line up. Both Hillary and McCain are progressives.

But then again, Conservatism is dead, so it doesn't really matter.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by hsmith

Maybe Gore should have been a better candidate.

Candidates don't "own" the votes, they win them. Nor do other candidates "steal" them from other candidates. This is truly a specious argument from fools.

Maybe Ron Paul should have been a better candidate

Votes have consequences, it's not a beauty pageant

People know what they are doing, they are sacrificing, in their mind "the lesser of two evils" and letting the bigger evil win so they can make a protest vote...they know exactly what they are doing and share the blame as much as the person who actually voted for the bigger evil

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Maybe Ron Paul should have been a better candidate

Votes have consequences, it's not a beauty pageant

People know what they are doing, they are sacrificing, in their mind "the lesser of two evils" and letting the bigger evil win so they can make a protest vote...they know exactly what they are doing and share the blame as much as the person who actually voted for the bigger evil

exactly, its like jews in the holocaust, you can help the Germans or die, cuz it's inevitable anyways, so sell out

[motivez]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

exactly, its like jews in the holocaust, you can help the Germans or die, cuz it's inevitable anyways, so sell out

Hardly a fair or accurate comparison..

Also, while not explicitly mentioned, this is appropriate:

[hsmith]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Maybe Ron Paul should have been a better candidate

Votes have consequences, it's not a beauty pageant

People know what they are doing, they are sacrificing, in their mind "the lesser of two evils" and letting the bigger evil win so they can make a protest vote...they know exactly what they are doing and share the blame as much as the person who actually voted for the bigger evil

Voting for evil is still voting for evil and sorry, I don't buy that stupid mind game, it is why we were between Bush and Gore teh first time around and Bush and kerry the second.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by hsmith

Voting for evil is still voting for evil and sorry, I don't buy that stupid mind game, it is why we were between Bush and Gore teh first time around and Bush and kerry the second.

Evil? Don't you think that's more than just a little overdramatic?

[hsmith]

Originally Posted by motivez

Evil? Don't you think that's more than just a little overdramatic?

So when people commonly say the "i am voting for the less of two evils" it isn't dramatic?

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by motivez

Hardly a fair or accurate comparison..

Also, while not explicitly mentioned, this is appropriate:

Well you're right, in their case they had a lot less choice than we do.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by hsmith

So when people commonly say the "i am voting for the less of two evils" it isn't dramatic?

It's just an expression, it means that while you may not like either, there's one that's not quite as bad as the other, and if one of them is going to be 'it', might as well the be one that's not as bad

You seriously think it means 'evil'?

[Thorgrim]

When I was in high school, for a little while I had the choice of a shitty hatchback that was ugly/unsafe/etc and a shitty stationwagon that was the same

overall, i took the hatchback, because stationwagons are just retarded looking

It wasn't the "lesser of two evils" it was just the better of the two...there is always something good about an item or a person

I could have just not driven anywhere...but that would just be idiotic

...learn to find the good qualities in something, and think about that when you choose it

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

When I was in high school, for a little while I had the choice of a shitty hatchback that was ugly/unsafe/etc and a shitty stationwagon that was the same

overall, i took the hatchback, because stationwagons are just retarded looking

It wasn't the "lesser of two evils" it was just the better of the two...there is always something good about an item or a person

I could have just not driven anywhere...but that would just be idiotic

...learn to find the good qualities in something, and think about that when you choose it

We can do circles with these analogies all we want. I could add an awesome sports car as one of your choices that you didn't pick and say thats a better analogy. But it's all fairly meaningless.

I'm just going to leave this conversation with principle I entered it. These terms of "voting for the lesser of two evils" and "throwing your vote away" are simply conditioning. You get told that enough times and you believe it, I guess, and then it becomes truth. And spreading it makes you guys the problem.

[motivez]

It's just reality vs idealism

The reality is that someone like Nader, Paul have no chance in this election, so as long as there's a candidate that's reasonably close to you who does have a chance running against someone much further away from you, it's practical for you to vote for the person closer than you rather than writing someone in, etc.

If this election didn't mean as much as it did, I might even vote for Paul if he ran as a third party candidate, because I think we need to shift away from the two party system..

But, that isn't going to happen this cycle, and I wont help elect someone who'll continue Bush's policies.

[bheld]

The reality is that when you keep voting for people that take your vote for granted they're going to ignore your agenda.

We've been voting for the lesser of two evils for generations now and things aren't getting any better. A pragmatic person would recognize this pattern and do something about it.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by bheld

The reality is that when you keep voting for people that take your vote for granted they're going to ignore your agenda.

We've been voting for the lesser of two evils for generations now and things aren't getting any better. A pragmatic person would recognize this pattern and do something about it.

Yeah, that's why we have primaries and congressmen from 435 districts

Much like Ron Paul, when it comes to a "third way" people just don't really care for it, despite what some internet posters write

[bheld]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Yeah, that's why we have primaries and congressmen from 435 districts

Much like Ron Paul, when it comes to a "third way" people just don't really care for it, despite what some internet posters write

The "third way" I'm talking about is a true representative democracy and a government that works for the people. I'm pretty sure people care about that no matter what the establishment feeds to the masses.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by bheld

The "third way" I'm talking about is a true representative democracy and a government that works for the people. I'm pretty sure people care about that no matter what the establishment feeds to the masses.

We have closed ballots...the people can vote in whomever they want...

[goldenponderbob]

For the record, as it's been broached here, and has consequences in terms of whether McCain or Clinton should prevail next November . . .

The Iraq war was centermost in the hearts of our nation's miltiary leaders (the pentagon) before Bush knew how to play the middle east game. That was his fault. He ignored the middle east for his first six months in office and we've been paying the price for that arrogant ignorance since.

After 9/11, when George W. suddenly discovered he needed the pentagon to route the Taliban form their sanctuary in Afganistan, he fell under the shadow and influence of their culture, as symbolized by their five-sided fortress. In other words he fell into a trap. "George", they said, "We'll help you there if you help us finish what your ol' man left undone back in 91".

The pentagon had been seething about that since George Sr. refused to "go it alone (beyond the objectives of the UN coalition) and let the "brass" take the war to Bagdad".

Almost perfect deja vu of Truman's firing of McArthur forty years earlier. Truman did the right thing, most would agree in hindsight, but at the time it was painted by the predominently conservative press as political suicide. Identical end results as befell George Sr, albeit with reverse idealology and different circumstances.

That is how we got into Iraq! It was a time when democrats were afraid to confront the military establishment, as is normally their role. They got their butts kicked by the voters in 02' and it took until after "shock and awe" for them to get back to being democrats. Our two party system went on hiatus, and we paid dearly for it. McCain, Clinton and many others who saw the same intelligence became early backers. George W. in fact, believed he had major bipartisan support at that time. He was a babe in the woods; he thought all these wolves were on his side. He believed when they confided that they had nothing better to do than help him go after Mr. Meanandnasty. What they really wanted was to get back to making a difference.

Have you ever asked yourself what would have become of the democrats if they had stuck with the President and agreed that the war was the right thing to do? They were bound to oppose it at some point because that's their role; its what they do, and more importantly, it's what we expect them to do. So they bet their marbles on WMD and won. They did that because there were no other options!

Clinton would now like us to believe that her support was never more than lukewarm, but the reality is that she witnessed her own party leaders' shamefull behavior, running like rats from the support they had led poor George to believe he had. While tryng her best to do the right thing, she wound up on the wrong side when her lesser exposed peers just up and bolted.

We don't like to think it happened that way, but that's the way it happened.

Ethically she appears now to be on a higher plain than her peers, but I contend that she simply flipped a coin in terms of which way was better for her future, not the country. From that moment she was stuck with her pro-war position. The rats were really the good guys in that they got themselves back to opposing the president, without which we would never extricate our troops from that hellhole.

McCain, on the otherhand, likes the war even though he, like most Ameicans hates Bush. He would go after North Korea and Iran if the democrats let him.
We can only hope the world situation doesn't deterioriate to the point where the democrats have to let him.

We pay people to keep them from starting wars. For me, it's not question of lesser evils, it's a question of economics. Which candidate is better skilled at paying tribute to all sides without making it look like tribute or bankrupting the nation. If there's one lesson to be learned from "Iraq it's that tribute is lots cheaper than war.

Some would say that tribute is cowardly. My reply is that it's a conflict between Jews and Arabs thats' been going on so long the crusades are still a relatively recent chapter. Competition for control of that part of the world will dominate all other issues far into the distant future. It's our job, or ought to be, to do what we can to minimize the brutality on all sides without getting in the middle, or appearing to take sides, any more than is absolutely necessary.

Along those lines I think Clinton and her husband/ally, understands that, and
McCain does not. It's not about cowardice; it's a recognition of how the world works.

golenponderbob