I'd like to know why exactly people support the candidate they do. Personally, I don't really like either Bush or Kerry. What do you think? Who do you support, and why? If you don't support anyone, why not? If this board doesn't fade into obscurity, I'll try to post my reasons. Thanks.




Icy

Don't expect to much pro-Kerry stuff, just Bush-hatred.  "'I blame him for X amount of jobs lost and I like to pretend that 9/11 didn't make us lose over 1 million jobs, I also like to only look at the payroll survey when it comes to jobs and ignore the household survey.''  ''I blame Bush for lying to the American on Iraq, though everyone around him told him there was no question of WMDs, and let me pretend like Clinton never said the same thing.  My plan was a lucky number 18 resolution.''
''I like to pretend Kerry is tough on defense because of his campaign tough-talk, but let me ignore his 20 year peacenik record.''  ''Kerry was in Vietnam, Bush used the National guard which I act like is on the same level as going to Canada, and I like to say he never showed up in Alabama despite what some people say and despite what Bush's records show.''

3 million jobs lost!
2 million jobs lost!
1 million jobs lost!
Er...uh...600,000 jobs lost!  9/11 didn't happen!
If only the election was 6 months away they would say: ''Bush has only gained a small X amount of jobs.

--Me?  I support Bush on most issues.  Abortion will end if Bush gets in!  The constitutional marriage to keep traditional marriage I support, man and a woman, always has been.  War on terror especially, sorry if were getting blown up the enviornment doesn't really matter (besides have you heard about Bush's plans for the wetlands and the clear skies plan)?  I trust him to handle Iraq better, as does 72% of the troops over there, show the troops your respect with a vote to reelect President Bush, don't force a peacenik on them.  Immigration....well both Bush and Kerry suck here.  Enviornment...don't care.  Health care...leave it up to the people, not the rich to take care of the poor, thats not how we operate here in the greatest country on the planet.

I said in another thread, our democratic republic has been taken over by corporations.  We have COG--Corporate Occupied Government.  If Kerry gets in, we will still have COG. 
However, there are substantial differences.  Kerry will put up more resistance to our corporate occupiers than Bush.  Kerry will not put pollution lobbyists in charge of the EPA or the dept. of interior, for instance.
Judicially, Kerry will not appoint jurists to the federal courts and Supreme Court who believe in Adam and Eve and think women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.
Kerry is STILL going to be beholden to the corporate paymesters who basically CONTROL the United States government.  However, he will not appoint a lunatic and incompetent cabinet who will nudge our world toward armageddon
A Kerry cabinet will not be full of neo-con idealogues who think this country can run infinite deficits to conduct bloody foreign wars for the benefit of the private military-indstrial complex.
Kerry will not continue to give our allies the finger and call them names.
Kerry will work toward a sensible domestic policy which will enable us to build REAL homeland security, which is the best way to fight the so-called "war on terror."
What we MUST have in the next few years is more people who will do what Ralph Nader does, and expose the awful truth about the inner workings of our legislative process and how our government is a subsidy slush fund for multinational corporations who despoil our ecology and pick our pockets.

I support Kerry because he is right on the issues.  

Iraq - A stuid, needless war, not enough troops to win the peace, and, as we see, a breeding ground for terrorists.  For every one we kill, 10 more will emerge to take their place.  We can't kill fast enough to stop them, nor should we.  As Kerry has said, we must rebuild alliances, and find a way to clean up the mess Bush has created, like negotiating with Al Sadre.

Economy - rolling back the tax give-a-ways to the rich is a great idea, and could be used to either reduce the deficit or fund education and health insurance.

Environment - eliminate these stupid "Clear skies" regulations that actually increase the amount of pollution.

One could go on, and on, and on but I just don't have the energy for a dissertation right now.

Along with the above reasons Kerry does not have a"with us or against us" attitude.  The attitude
of bush & co. is that you agree 100% or you are traiter to all that is good.  Kerry is known for
his bi-partisan approach.  What is going on in Washington is ugly and has been extremely
devisive.  We need a President who represents all the people, and can agree to differ as opposed
to one who closes doors on dissent.

I don't support either. I can't really say why I feel like that because I'm not sure. I know I need to make up my mind before November...maybe I should vote for Nader. :P

Off topic: My friend asked me today who I was voting for. I said Nader. Both him and his wife gasped at the same time and shrieked, "WHAT?!?!?!". It was hysterical. ;D

I don't support either. I can't really say why I feel like that because I'm not sure. I know I need to make up my mind before November...maybe I should vote for Nader. :P

Off topic: My friend asked me today who I was voting for. I said Nader. Both him and his wife gasped at the same time and shrieked, "WHAT?!?!?!". It was hysterical. ;D

Some Dems are gonna hold it against you if you vote for Nader.  Not I.  Ralph is right!  If Kerry p#sses me off too much in the next three weeks I might have to do the same.
As it stands now I WILL vote for Kerry.  However, if Kerry sells out to the Right just one inch more, he will make it verrrry difficult for me to cast a ballot for him.
Anyway, I live in Massachusetts.  He's gonna win here anyway!
;D ::)

I would vote for Kerry.

-He is pro-enviroment, and wants us to join the Kyoto agreement
-He is pro-choice
-He is anti-death penalty
-He wants to raise the minimum wage
-He supports unions
-He wants to fight outsourcing

Those are some reasons. I also find him much more likeable than Bush. He is an intellectual person like myself. I cannot stand Bush, his attitude reminds me of a lot of the ignorant rednecks around here in my home, the One Star State(Texas).

Plus, he is sort of a protegé of the most intelligent man in the Senate, so he has to be good. You know who I mean.  ;)

-He is pro-enviroment, and wants us to join the Kyoto agreement
-He is pro-choice
-He is anti-death penalty
-He wants to raise the minimum wage
-He supports unions
-He wants to fight outsourcing



-Environment?  If that is your biggest concern you should pick an enviroMENTALists like David Cobb or Ralph Nader.
-Pro-choice?  Didn't I read Kerry saying he was pro-life?
-He is?  Well I'm not sure.  This is one the things Kerry keeps moving around on.  First he supports it, then he doesn't.  Good luck calling that one.
-Yep, and gut small business in the process.
-I'm in a union as well, who cares.
-Outsourcing is good for America, if you feel like debating me on that please start a new topic.

-Environment? If that is your biggest concern you should pick an enviroMENTALists like David Cobb or Ralph Nader.
-Pro-choice? Didn't I read Kerry saying he was pro-life?
-He is? Well I'm not sure. This is one the things Kerry keeps moving around on. First he supports it, then he doesn't. Good luck calling that one.
-Yep, and gut small business in the process.
-I'm in a union as well, who cares.
-Outsourcing is good for America, if you feel like debating me on that please start a new topic.



I should have known you'd stick your nose in. I didn't really feel like debating this crap.

I don't think raising the minimum wage will gut small businesses. Besides, it takes money to start a business. If you can't come up with the money to run it, then, you just can't. Besides, increase the ammount of loans to them. Anyway, if it was up to me, we'd have a LIVING WAGE.

How is outsourcing good? It's selling out American workers to the WTO and the 'global economy'. Don't give me that BS that it leads to 'higher paying jobs', prove it! Besides, even if it does, there are still LESS jobs. It won't matter if jobs are higher paying if we have less of them, because how is it going to help all of the unemployed people if the folks who are working are making more money?

-Environment?  If that is your biggest concern you should pick an enviroMENTALists like David Cobb or Ralph Nader.
-Pro-choice?  Didn't I read Kerry saying he was pro-life?
-He is?  Well I'm not sure.  This is one the things Kerry keeps moving around on.  First he supports it, then he doesn't.  Good luck calling that one.
-Yep, and gut small business in the process.
-I'm in a union as well, who cares.
-Outsourcing is good for America, if you feel like debating me on that please start a new topic.


He is pro-choice in that he supports a woman's right to choose what's best for her, not for his views. If she wishes to abort, he support this choice. If she wishes to keep it, he support that choice. Listen, Pro-Choice doesn't equal Pro-Abortion, it's pro-do what is feasible to your life.

Tanya

I should have known you'd stick your nose in. I didn't really feel like debating this crap.


It does get a wee bit tedious, don't it, Dude?
::)

-Environment?  If that is your biggest concern you should pick an enviroMENTALists like David Cobb or Ralph Nader.
Is that capitalization of MENTAL supposed to be witty?  "Mental" by itself refers to "mind," a faculty severly underused by some people around here.

-Pro-choice?  Didn't I read Kerry saying he was pro-life?
No.  He said he was pro-choice.

-Outsourcing is good for America, if you feel like debating me on that please start a new topic.

And you've got how many millions in your stock portfolio?  NO, don't answer that.  I REALLY don't want to know about your finances.  It's not my business. 
Outsourcing is good for the elite capitalist investor class,* and that's IT, mon frere!

*No, small potatoes 401K portfolios and retirement funds don't count.  If you've got those, you are not a "capitalist."  You are a "capitalist" if you live off investment returns rather than the sale of your labor.

The issue of abortion is not that black and white, cut and dry.

It is not a yes or no vote of whether or not you simply support abortion, nor it should be.

Kerry simply believes there should be exceptions to the rule for special circumstances.

Please read the following if you care about this issue and read the responses of both candidates because it is a very clear view of how they both stand on the issue.

Do not let anyone make-up your mind for you or tell you what to believe, nor let yourself be misguided by false statements.

This is a copied portion of the transcript of the second presidential debate which reflects both Kerry's and Bush' position on abortion:


DEGENHART (Member of the audience posing the question): Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?

KERRY: I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.

First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that.

But I can counsel people. I can talk reasonably about life and about responsibility. I can talk to people, as my wife Teresa does, about making other choices, and about abstinence, and about all these other things that we ought to do as a responsible society.

But as a president, I have to represent all the people in the nation. And I have to make that judgment.

Now, I believe that you can take that position and not be pro- abortion, but you have to afford people their constitutional rights. And that means being smart about allowing people to be fully educated, to know what their options are in life, and making certain that you don't deny a poor person the right to be able to have whatever the constitution affords them if they can't afford it otherwise.

That's why I think it's important. That's why I think it's important for the United States, for instance, not to have this rigid ideological restriction on helping families around the world to be able to make a smart decision about family planning.

You'll help prevent AIDS.

You'll help prevent unwanted children, unwanted pregnancies.

You'll actually do a better job, I think, of passing on the moral responsibility that is expressed in your question. And I truly respect it.

GIBSON: Mr. President, minute and a half.

BUSH: I'm trying to decipher that.

My answer is, we're not going to spend taxpayers' money on abortion.

This is an issue that divides America, but certainly reasonable people can agree on how to reduce abortions in America.

I signed the partial-birth -- the ban on partial-birth abortion. It's a brutal practice. It's one way to help reduce abortions. My opponent voted against the ban.

I think there ought to be parental notification laws. He's against them.

I signed a bill called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

In other words, if you're a mom and you're pregnant and you get killed, the murderer gets tried for two cases, not just one. My opponent was against that.

These are reasonable ways to help promote a culture of life in America. I think it is a worthy goal in America to have every child protected by law and welcomed in life.

I also think we ought to continue to have good adoption law as an alternative to abortion.

And we need to promote maternity group homes, which my administration has done.

Culture of life is really important for a country to have if it's going to be a hospitable society.

Thank you.

GIBSON: Senator, do you want to follow up? Thirty seconds.

KERRY: Well, again, the president just said, categorically, my opponent is against this, my opponent is against that. You know, it's just not that simple. No, I'm not.

I'm against the partial-birth abortion, but you've got to have an exception for the life of the mother and the health of the mother under the strictest test of bodily injury to the mother.

Secondly, with respect to parental notification, I'm not going to require a 16-or 17-year-old kid who's been raped by her father and who's pregnant to have to notify her father. So you got to have a judicial intervention. And because they didn't have a judicial intervention where she could go somewhere and get help, I voted against it. It's never quite as simple as the president wants you to believe.

GIBSON: And 30 seconds, Mr. President.

Bush: Well, it's pretty simple when they say: Are you for a ban on partial birth abortion? Yes or no?

And he was given a chance to vote, and he voted no. And that's just the way it is. That's a vote. It came right up. It's clear for everybody to see. And as I said: You can run but you can't hide the reality.

As you very well can see, Bush thinks it is that simple.

In my opinion he is simple and I don't mean in in a positive way at all. :P

His quote:

Bush: Well, it's pretty simple when they say: Are you for a ban on partial birth abortion? Yes or no?



I say You decide.

Thank you for that transcript, Hairspray: IMO Kerry's answer was perfect, *exactly* what you'd want the guy in charge to be thinking; Bush just showed that (as I said in another forum a while back) he doesn't have enough grey cells to think in other than black and white.

Thank you for that transcript, Hairspray: IMO Kerry's answer was perfect, *exactly* what you'd want the guy in charge to be thinking; Bush just showed that (as I said in another forum a while back) he doesn't have enough grey cells to think in other than black and white.


You're very welcome and I agree with your assessment of Bush.

I  find it astounding that Bush can't figure out how one can be pro-choice and anti-abortion at the same time, as I am.  Evan my freshmen get the differance, and quite frankly, I wouldn't want any one of them to be president.  In other posts I have called Lil' Georgie an idiot.  He is certainly a simpleton.

Refering to GWB





I should have known you'd stick your nose in. I didn't really feel like debating this crap.




As I said in another post, it may be time to just ignore  this (expilitive and insult deleted by writer) and carry on a debate between intelligent people.  In this case,m the question was "Why do you support..." not "Why do you opposer..."  so he was off topic.  Let him rant, let him rave, ignore him, its not worth the effort.

  I was actually behind Dean at the very outset, but anyway...  I think the netwerks could have maintained better ratings for Dem primaries if they hadn't so successfully hyped the "Dean Scream". Now they have seemingly channeled the well-domesticated herd into one corral...anyhoo...

  If there is no significant upset in the Kerry stampede, I'll be grudgingly chewing the same cud as the Dem mainstream, even though I'll gag on the more disgusting re-feed. Kerry lacks the necessary understanding, IMO, that is necessary for diffusing the growing Mideast threat:

  "John Kerry Believes that history and our own best interests demand that the United States maintain a steady policy of friendship and support for Israel. As the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel is our most important ally, and a critical partner in the quest for peace and security in this troubled region. America’s longstanding commitment to Israel’s independence and survival must never waver."

  Every Mideast initiative a future President Kerry might pursue would be "__________" by this prejudice. Kerry, if true to his platform, could help to extricate the US from some Bush's blunders, but will doubtfully produce any viable progress or solutions to the central Palestinian issue by perpetuating blind favoritism for Israel.

  I like Kerry's energy/environment platform. On taxes, he has a centrist Republican platform, with tax relief for the middle class. While I like the sound of that, I would prefer to see Bush's deficit spending reversed first.

  I like him on trade, but for the fact that he has special interests so far up his arse that, as Governor Dean once put it, "we've got more than one Republican in the race", to which I can only add my own "Yeeaarrrgh", but a more angry one than Dean's.

   I was actually behind Dean at the very outset, but anyway...  I think the netwerks could have maintained better ratings for Dem primaries if they hadn't so successfully hyped the "Dean Scream". Now they have seemingly channeled the well-domesticated herd into one corral...anyhoo...

   If there is no significant upset in the Kerry stampede, I'll be grudgingly chewing the same cud as the Dem mainstream, even though I'll gag on the more disgusting re-feed. Kerry lacks the necessary understanding, IMO, that is necessary for diffusing the growing Mideast threat:

   "John Kerry Believes that history and our own best interests demand that the United States maintain a steady policy of friendship and support for Israel. As the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel is our most important ally, and a critical partner in the quest for peace and security in this troubled region. America’s longstanding commitment to Israel’s independence and survival must never waver."

   Every Mideast initiative a future President Kerry might pursue would be "__________" by this prejudice. Kerry, if true to his platform, could help to extricate the US from some Bush's blunders, but will doubtfully produce any viable progress or solutions to the central Palestinian issue by perpetuating blind favoritism for Israel.

   I like Kerry's energy/environment platform. On taxes, he has a centrist Republican platform, with tax relief for the middle class. While I like the sound of that, I would prefer to see Bush's deficit spending reversed first.

   I like him on trade, but for the fact that he has special interests so far up his arse that, as Governor Dean once put it, "we've got more than one Republican in the race", to which I can only add my own "Yeeaarrrgh", but a more angry one than Dean's.


I liked Dean a lot, too.  He wasn't my ideal candidate.  My favorite was Dennis the hippie, but compared to him, a snowball in hell has fairly good odds! 
It was obvious to me, though, that Dean would never be able to sell out the right-wing nearly enough to become a viable Presidential candidate.  At the very least you've got to kiss some big time Israeli government @ss.  Kerry did.  Hillary did.  Dean wouldn't!
::)

Like a few people have mentioned, Dean was the one who I would like to vote for on Nov 2nd. But, I am going to vote for Kerry mainly because he believes closer to the way that I believe on many issues. Yes, I will be voting for the lesser of two evils.




Cat

   I was actually behind Dean at the very outset, but anyway...  I think the netwerks could have maintained better ratings for Dem primaries if they hadn't so successfully hyped the "Dean Scream". Now they have seemingly channeled the well-domesticated herd into one corral...anyhoo...

 

Actually, we saw Howard a week or so ago and he explained the famous scream.  He was in a large, noisy room trying to hype his sapporters.  The mic they recorded him on filtered out the background noise, so in a way, he was set up by the media (bias).  I too thought he would be a great president (and hoped for a job in his State Department).