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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (7308)	11/24/2000 10:19:55 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

In contrast to the rhetoric, a thoughtful piece. I especially liked this paragraph which I also have felt for some time: "Could Al Gore rally the nation? Maybe. Could he go over the heads of Congress and get the country behind him? Maybe. I think, though, that Bush would be better at those things--and better, too, at restraining GOP Dobermans like Reps. Tom DeLay and J.C. Watts Jr. At the same time, it's not likely that a President Bush would be able to appoint Supreme Court justices ideologically similar to those he says he admires, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Simply put, he ain't got the votes." So even X should be willing, in light of the above, to criticize Al Gore for his shenanigans and support George Bush for President. If only for the following reasons that Mr. Cohen provides: "The first and most daunting task of the next president is not a tax bill or a Social Security plan but--as it was when Jerry Ford succeeded Richard Nixon--the healing of the country. I voted for Gore because he was the better man for the job. I can't help thinking that he no longer is." Thanks for the link Karen!!

To: Lane3 who wrote (7308)	11/24/2000 10:47:41 AM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

" Most of the blame goes to the forbidding proceduralism of registration, enrollment and eligibility and the discretionary power of local and county officials in implementation. And don't forget the gruesome timing of state election laws that restrict voting to one ordinary workday. The duopoly has a stake in low turnout. Virtually all expansion of the electorate (to include women, 18-year-olds, blacks) and the easing of restrictions on registration (judicial enforcement of the "motor voter" law) have been imposed on the state two-party systems from the outside by national social movements and federal courts. Now, as poetic justice would have it, this legal structure is cutting the other way. Just look at the havoc it has wreaked: Loused-up ballots. Machine versus manual recounts. A lawyers' field day and the threat of court intervention that could cause a constitutional crisis or take Florida out of the electoral vote altogether. The Florida crunch can happen in any state where the results are extremely close and the outcome can change the national results. That's because the two constituted parties cooperate well as a duopoly so long as market share is stable, with decisive election results. But whenever there is an extremely close election, the two parties become vicious antagonists, and the high stakes make it profitable for each to use its control of the electoral machinery as a weapon of mass destruction against the other. No war is more destructive than a civil war, and ordinarily the two parties have incentives to keep civil war from happening. Civil war in 2000 has broken out because two-party competition has turned from a public good to a public evil. The two-party system has at the moment become a menace to the Republic, made worse by the overwhelming weakness of the parties' presidential candidates and the impossibility of choosing between them when the only way to vote no for the candidate you hate is to vote yes for the one you can barely tolerate. And forget about having a good option when you hate both equally. " thenation.com