Thursday, October 28, 2004

Two Weak Candidates

<>OK, so the election here in the U.S. is only a couple of day away, and in my opinion, it’s going to get ugly, but more on that later.

As for the title of this blog, well let’s take a look. If you have two strong candidates, it a heated election, but not as nasty. You get some negative campaigning, but not as much. In my opinion, voter turnout is lower. Fewer people are worried about the wrong candidate getting in office. And you clearly don’t get the outrage against the other candidate or party. When you have one strong candidate, it’s a no brainer. There is no questions as to who will win. One candidate will beat the other by 15-20% or more.
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Now to two weak candidates. What happens? There are in my opinion two tell tale signs. First of all, there is the sharp division of the public down political lines. And second of all, rather than people telling you who they are voting for, they tell you who they are not voting for. Don’t get me wrong. If you ask anyone who they are voting for (if they tell you) they will say who they are voting for. But as you talk to people, and as voting comes up, people talk more about the negatives of the one candidate they aren’t voting for. I think it pretty sad when one candidate’s positive attributes are expressed in the terms of the other candidate’s negative attributes.

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It’s a very important election, vote for the lesser of two evils. I have heard that comment time, and time again. Let’s look at the stupidity (and I think stupidity is an understatement) of the second part of that comment. So we are to vote for an evil person to run this country? Enough said? Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a very important election, and I think if you are eligible to vote, you should. But don’t vote for the wrong reasons. Go and vote your heart. I personally would love to see a significant amount of people go in, and say to themselves, neither of these guys are worth it. And vote for someone else. I would love to see the “other” column get a significant amount of votes. And no, this is not an endorsement of Nader, or any other Third party, except to say there are choices out there other than the two big ones. Don’t vote for one of the big two, just so you can say “I didn’t through my vote away”, or “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other guy.” Although you would definitely be able to say that if you voted for a Third party candidate.

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Now for the ugly part. Here in Ohio, a judge has blocked challenges by the GOP to thousands of voter registration. After looking into most of the challenges, they found that by far the majority of registrations were legit. Now I’m not saying that either side is right. But they fact that a legal challenge is being blocked, no matter how legitimate, simply invites a post election challenge of the results.

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<>I believe that Ohio will be this election years Florida.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Did I call it or what?

So, early voting has begun in Florida. Already there are reports of a glitch which prevented voting in the entire Orlando area. There is another report (don't know if it's related or not) that they say will prevent manual recounts of any of the votes cast with the electronic machines, period. I'm sure that both sides have already drafted complaints challenging the election results, that will be filed the day after the election, in Florida as well as the US Supreme court.

It appears the next month or so will be fun.

One of the morning radio personalities made a good comment. Why is it that we can have ATM's everywhere that operate flawlessly, yet we can't produce a simple programs that can track votes. Or at least something to that effect.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Sick of this crap 2

Sorry, got to rant a little more. After the debate last nite, all of the networks had to rush to claim who won. What is there to win!!!!! How good will it make anyone feel saying "they won the debate, but lost the election" Depending on what network, it could be either one. The conservative networks had all of their pundants one claiming that Bush smoked Kerry, While the liberal networks had their pundants on claiming it was Kerry who won.

I do like the fact that the local Cleveland paper runs a story the day after each debate that checks the facts of the candidates claims. See if your local paper does the same. If not, check out the Cleveland Plain Dealer's story:

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isele/1097753542190300.xml

My opinion is that they were both misleading. Although none of their claims were flat out false, the majority of the statements were far from accurate.

How is it that we are supposed to trust one, or both of these guys enough to run the country. And why is it that so many people become frustrated with the political system?

Sick of this crap

I can't wait until maybe the middle of next year. Maybe by then all of the election crap will have calmed down. Of course just after the election there will be the standard challenges to the voting results (they miss counted in this county, or didn't even count these votes in this state) or may even (They didn't even allow these people to vote). Don't get me wrong, I thing anyone who wishes to vote, should have their vote counted. But I bet that both of the candidates’ advisors are drafting challenges, in case they don't win.

Then after the winner takes office, there will be the claims that they didn't even win by a majority of the vote (even though they got more votes than the other guy), which it appears will be the case. Then after a month or so, the partisan politics will really start to kick in, by not confirming appointments and the such.

I'm not saying that by mid year, the crap will have ended, but we should be numb to it by then.

Why am I ranting now? Well I watched the presidential debate last nite. It was the only one that I watched almost in its entirety. I'm just getting sick of the same old crap.

I Have a Plan.......
We've been working hard.......
My opponent wants to raise taxes

I feel as if I could have answered most of the questions from last nites debate, as well as the candidates did.

I believe that the US is the greatest country out there, but there are things that need to be fixed. Just two examples, Health Care and Social Security. One of the candidates said that every American deserves the same health care that members of congress gets. I think a better solution would be to kick members of congress off their cushy plan, and put them on the same plan the Medicare covers. Also I hear that members of congress essentially receiver their same pay, even after they leave. I think they should only receiver the same thing that seniors get when on Social Security, and only if they meet the age requirements.

Now, I have not verified these facts, so let me know if they are not true. But I think we should end the entitlements in the congress. Maybe then, members would have some motivation to actually fix things.