catapult magazine

Does any one of the democratic candidates stand a chance of unseating President Bush? Please feel free to expound.

Kerry is riding the wave of “oh, crap, dean is so unstable—who do i vote for now,” which happened to come at just the right time for him, as the vote neared.

i’m curious how it works with running-mates, since i’m a little unfamiliar with it. does the person who wins generally pick someone from the other candidates, or is that abnormal?

i’m also curious to see how this next round goes. it’s funny how politics is like sports.

Runningmates are chosen for a number of reasons – to get swing voters, to improve regional appeal (for example, Dems are typically creamed in the South unless there’s a Southerner on the ticket) or to achieve political balance (which is basically the same thing as appealing to swing voters). There are other reasons, but those are some that immediately come to mind.

Oh, and it’s definitely NOT abnormal to pick a runningmate from the slate of unnominated candidates, especially if they are strong candidates to fulfill some of the above criteria. Say Kerry is nominated. Being from Massachusetts, he’d be well-served to consider Edwards, who is from the South.

Trying to decide which candidate you favor? Check out this link: http://www.presidentmatch.com/Main.jsp2?cp=main

If you would like to join me in the campaign to take Al Sharpton just a bit more seriously (apparently it is my destiny), let me know.

It’s too bad I can never find a candidate whose platform I remotely identify with on most issues. I don’t want to be a single-issue voter, but it is hard to decide which issues to prioritize, espeically when I violently disagree with most democrats on some issues and with most republicans on others. Any body else have that problem?

Yes and no. In this election, I honestly don’t see any justification for voting for George Bush this time around, given his current track record on tax breaks for the rich, lying to and deceiving America about the war, and the environment. In other elections, I’ve found it much harder.

A question for the history majors out there: I feel more frightened about his election than about any other before. My inclination is that if GWB is re-elected, we could be entering into the most potentially dangerous era—as far as American policy and how that relates to the environment and the world scene are concerned—of our lifetimes. Are these simply just the alarmist heebie jeebies of a post-adolescent who’s finally started to see how messed up our world is? Am I overreacting because I haven’t lived through Vietnam or WWII? Or, in the opinion of fellow current administration dissenters, am I justified in my anxiousness?

there will be disagreement from mrsanniep and others, but I’m with you. the fact that bush might be anti-abortion is nothing compared to the violence a new arms race will bring.

Regarding tax breaks for the rich – do you know that the “rich” (those making more than $250-300K a year) pay about 40 percent of the nation’s income taxes?

Al Sharpton, during a television interview, demanded that the rich pay at least 15 percent. He needs to get some friends at the Department of Revenue and the IRS.

Not looking for an argument, just giving you some facts.

(And yes, I think there is some overrreaction due in part to forgetting just how good life has gotten in the last 50 years, from air quality to upward economic mobility for many of America’s poor).

Not to nitpick or anything but what does that 40 percent refer to? Is that 40 percent of their earnings? or 40 percent of the total take of income tax. Those are two very different things.
How many out there typically vote for either a democratic or republican candidate? I guess I don’t mind throwing my vote away for the very reason Janel gave about not finding a suitable candidate that comes close to meeting my personal views. Regardless who’s going to be getting the democratic nod, I can’t see myself voting for Kerry or Dean or Bush for that matter. There are too many differences of opinion for me to lend my (ultimately meaningless) vote for any of those candidates.

The most recent IRS statistics (for 2001) show the top 1 percent of richest of Americans made 17.53 percent of total adjusted gross income shares. In 1980, the richest 1 percent of Americans paid 19 percent of the federal income tax burden; by 1988, they paid 27.5 percent. They now pay 34 percent. In 2001, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers paid only 4 percent of the federal income tax burden.

So how do people come up with the charge that the rich are let off the hook at the expense of the poor?

To answer your question about voting either Republican or Democrat, I vote both ways. Given the nature of our primaries (no crossover voting), I vote in the state Democratic primaries in an effort to pit weak Dems against other strong candidates, usually focusing on gubernatorial candidates and attorney general candidates.

My husband and I generally vote the same, discussing things beforehand so we don’t cancel eachothers’ votes. If you and your spouse differ in who you’re going to vote for, yeah, your vote might be more “meaningless,” as you’ll cancel eachother out at the polls, essentially.

I’ve yet to hear a third party candidate I like since Ross Perot. And oh no – that guy was rich!

I guess it depends on what stats you use. The gap between poor and rich in America has been growing steadily for the last 20 years. Taxation is one way to slow or halt that trend.

http://www.inequality.org/cbodatafr.html