ANTI BUSH THREAD

[Bug]

We are screwed. Kerry is a total Mondale re-run. Doomed to collapse into his own conflicting party image to lick his wounds and wonder "Why don't they understand that I am working to create things that we stand for and make sense to me when I am running for President?"

SHOW ME THE ISSUES!

[Stonehead]

Kerry is a total Mondale re-run.

 

How so?

[Bug]

He is following his party NOT leading it. It is a maze and a quagmire. The only thing he has tried to do so far is respond to Bush and champion long-standing Democratic issues. These should be secondary to what he personally will do to make a difference. How will he lead us? What is his plan? Edwards and Dean presented their own ideas with much more depth. If we run another Democratic poster-boy against Bush, we are going to to get trampled. We need someone who comes out of the "New Idea" spectrum.

Oh shit. It is too late isn't it?

[willstrickland]

We are screwed. Kerry is a total Mondale re-run. Doomed to collapse into his own conflicting party image

 

I think that's a reflection of the fractional nature of the Dem party, not Kerry specifically. It's a party cobbled together from a bunch of separate smaller issue groups...enviros, gay/lesbian, social liberals, union, etc. It's not a really cohesive power base. Clinton pulled it off because he was an almost dead in the middle centrist and that reflects the views of the general population pretty well.

 

Mondale is a poor comparison I think, mainly because he ran against Regan who in '84 was not a particularly unpopular President. He also ran with a woman on the ticket.

[Stonehead]

Look, if you want non-conformist progressive, you vote Nader. Either way I look at it, whether Rep or Dem, we're on the tracks heading toward a financial wreck. Maybe someone other than Bush can stall it for awhile. Maybe not.

 

I'm just wondering how to emerge relatively unscathed regardless of who the winner is.

 

Is it any wonder now that pain-killers are the hot item? The 60's was LSD--progressive, countercultural, anti-establishment, the 70's marihuana--laid back, take the economic blows, ride it out; the 80's cocaine--hard driving, flash over substance, greed; the 90's ecstacy and methamphetamine?--little bit of schizo here, irrational exuberance; the 00's oxyticin, vicodin, pain killers.

[Greg_W]

Regan who in '84 was not a particularly unpopular President.

 

That's an understatement, since Reagan won by a landslide.

[Stonehead]

A little bit of electoral shenanigans here.

 

Reagan's team stole the Dem's campaign strategy book, the October Surprise (deal with the Iranians to release the hostages), etc.

 

But yeah, I gotta give the credit to Team Reagan for having a pulse on America regarding government bloating and tax revolt.

 

If memory serves me right, what we really got was 12 years of Bush Senior in office.

[Bug]

Reagan said things in such broad terms you had to be a spotted owl with three warts on your ass to not like what he was saying. Trouble was, Reagans interpretation was tilted toward screwing the little guy (farmers,insurance co, savings and loans)and taxing the middle class (taxing unemployment benefits that we already payed into, user fees)while also raising the deficit to record levels, scraping the forests bare, and compromising our miranda rights (a cop can pull you over at will and search you car). Play that against his sound bites.

Meanwhile, Mondale tried to represent his party. Such is Kerry. That is the similarity I am talking about. And do not discount GW. $100 mil goes a long ways in a pres campaign. You can buy ALL the best marketers corporate America can scrape up with that much $. It won't matter who he is or what he did. The hype will be deafening. Even Catbird might be swayed. And Dave Schuldt is a shoe-in for the new republican party by sound bite.

My fovored ticket;