posted on January 9, 2004 11:50:04 AM new
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Bush Predicts Tough Contest
President Bush, campaigning the state that put him in the White house, dropped his self-proclaimed reluctance to talk about politics Thursday and said he expects a tough re-election campaign but a "great national victory in November." (Now, here comes the funny part. . .are you ready. . .here goes) He said Florida would help him win a second term. "We carried it once and we're going to carry it again," Bush said at a fund-raiser that brought in $1 million for his reelection.
Carried it? More like stole it with the whole hanging chad fiasco. How lame was it to use Florida as an example?
The article goes on to say that he spoke in Tennessee and spoke of how he's proposing a $2 billion dollar increase for programs aimed at poor students and those with disabilities. Okay. Just where is this $2 billion coming from? And, was it stereotypical to speak about poverty stricken students in Tennessee, which happens to be the butt of many poor hillbilly jokes?
I seem to be finding humor in almost anything today. Why not? It's snowing again!
posted on January 9, 2004 12:02:19 PM new
Three years down the road....many, many 'after counts' showing Bush did win, but some just can't get 'over it'.
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posted on January 9, 2004 12:19:16 PM new
Keep in mind that he probably never is allowed to see any reality that might upset him. I would bet anything he has no idea the depth of opposition to him and thinks that it is only a few kooks and nut cases that are not solidly behind anything he says. He never picks up an actual newspaper and reads it without some staffer clipping what is considered suitable for his eyes. He has bragged on not viewing anything opposed to him. I wonder if he even gets uncensored TV or it is all cleaned up for him?
It is pretty well documented his attitude is I'm the president so I'm boss - what I say goes and you better get with the program. I'd expect with that sort of attitude everybody just feeds safe reinforcing news to him so the messanger doesn't get shot. I see him as completely isolated from reality.
posted on January 9, 2004 12:53:50 PM new
LOL Cheryl! I was just reading a book review in which the author said,
"Even in the grimmest of times, people find things to laugh about...there's a fine line between tragedy and comedy, between tears and laughter...The more fearsome and threatening the situation, the more we need a sense of humor to keep going and hold on to our sanity."
posted on January 9, 2004 01:12:25 PM new
Nov. 21, 2001
Over the past nine months, a major media consortium comprised of: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Tribune Company, The Palm Beach Post, The St. Petersburg Times and The Associated Press. They put aside their journalistic egos, and pulled out their wallets to pay for this $900,000 study.
They employed the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. NORC in turn employed 153 "ballot examiners" to inspect some 175,010 Florida ballots. The main difference in this recount was that they weren't trying to decipher whom the voter was trying to vote for. Instead they were simply recording any and all information about the marks on each ballot[/b].
[b]To guard against inaccuracy, three "examiners" scrutinized each undervote (ballots thrown out because no discernible vote for President was made). Overvotes (ballots thrown out because more than one vote was made) were inspected by only one examiner because they are easier to analyze and record
What they found was a completely chaotic situation.
posted on January 9, 2004 02:00:32 PM newThree years down the road....many, many 'after counts' showing Bush did win, but some just can't get 'over it'.
What aftercounts Linda? Certainly none recognized by the FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Here, I've posted this before, go look for yourself. Bush lost the popular vote by a half million votes
It's not a matter of getting over it. He lost the popular vote, plain and simple.
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 9, 2004 02:44:25 PM new
Problem is profe - that was completed in Dec. 2001. Just a tad too late to have helped make the decision in time for a decision to be made.
If that Fed report had been available in Nov. 2000 it would have been a different matter completely.
But to say Bush stoled the elections, based on a report done a full YEAR after the election cannot be blamed on Bush, imo.
And if you read my link you will see how they used the actual voter cards...counted different ways and came to the conclusion that Bush would have won anyway.
The final FED report, shows those results. What I'm saying is that if the TWO counties, WHICH WERE THE ONLY ONES GORE ASKED TO BE RECOUNTED....had passed mustard, law wise, the results show Bush would have won. Then it would have been over. Gore would have conceeded and when YOUR results were posted, over a full year later, it wouldn't have mattered one bit. It would have been a year too late. They wouldn't have removed Bush from office because of the final results.
posted on January 9, 2004 02:57:16 PM new
The whole Florida thing was a joke. It was pure coincidence that his brother happens to be Governor of the state that caused all the controversy? Ya, like I believe that one. No conflict of interest there, she says sarcastically.
posted on January 9, 2004 03:04:08 PM new
Cheryl....who doesn't believe the NewYorkTimes???? Other than underground papers that's about as far left as one can go.
Hope you'll be able to put this three year old issue behind you after President Bush's re-election.
posted on January 10, 2004 08:11:51 AM newBut to say Bush stoled the elections, based on a report done a full YEAR after the election cannot be blamed on Bush, imo.
I'm not saying Bush stole the election, nor am I blaming him for anything, at least not here. I'm just countering your assertion that he won the popular vote. He didn't. He lost it by nearly a half million votes. The link I posted above for the second time is the definitive, FEDERAL RECORD of that election's results. History will not pay any attention to Fox News' or WorldNet's vote counts.
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 10, 2004 11:14:08 AM new
profe - NO WHERE did I say this President won the 'popular' vote. If you remember correctly we don't elect our presidents according to a 'popular' vote. We use the electorial college.
Bush won, according to the newpapers above, the election because of getting the electorial votes in Florida. Those were the votes they recounted. And their review is what shows WHY Gore lost the election.
posted on January 10, 2004 11:34:00 AM new
I just have to point out one thing.... isn't one of the recurring Linda vs Helen arguement the question of whether popular opinion should be the deciding factor? I just find it ironic that Linda generally posts that majority opinion is what is right and yet when people point out that Bush was not elected by the majority you tell them to get over it
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 10, 2004 11:39:55 AM new
fenix - Your logic is escaping me. Our voting system is a LAW. A little different than than a majority of American's hold a 'belief' of some sort.
And I don't believe the 'majority' thinks he didn't win this election fair and square. Just you guys here.
Re-elect President Bush!!
posted on January 10, 2004 11:58:42 AM new
Linda - my logic here is that the majority of American did not want him to be president and your response is - oh Well, get over it. But when some poll says that the majority of americans believe in something that you agree with your response is that majority opinion should rule. I just find that ironic.
Yes - I know that we use an electorial college system and then claim a one man one vote system.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 10, 2004 01:34:28 PM new
Linda, correct me if I'm mistaken here, you're telling me the Florida ELECTORAL votes were recounted?. I assume that's what you mean by the following statement:
Bush won, according to the newpapers above, the election because of getting the electorial votes in Florida. Those were the votes they recounted.
Just trying to understand here mind you. I can find lots of articles regarding popular vote recounts in Florida, but none regarding a recount of electoral votes. If you could provide me with a link that describes the recounting of electoral votes, I'd surely be much obliged.
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 10, 2004 01:53:13 PM new To clarify, Linda and I were arguing about majority opinion on such topics as the war, the patriot act and immigration...not on the U.S. election process.
About majority....This is an interesting explanation of the fallacies of democracy.
"I don't think we have been consulted as a democracy. It is the wrong war. We need a bit more imagination. All we are saying is the country is mature enough to sit down and have some kind of referendum." Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur (Source: the Guardian, 21 January 2003)
Readers of last week's column will not be surprised to find a rock singer once again cited as an authority on matters unconnected with music. The concern here, however, is not with Albarn's expertise but with the climate of opinion he reflected. For during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, his view was one which was held by a great many of the British public. Since polls showed a majority of people against going to war with Iraq, it was common to hear people claim that to engage in such a conflict would be undemocratic.
Even though once the conflict began opinion polls started to turn in favour of military action, this post facto change of heart doesn't affect the main argument of the "war was undemocratic" camp. They could, and still do, argue that to start a war in defiance of the wishes of the British people was profoundly undemocratic.
This argument is flawed in several respects. If it is premised on the view that majority opinion is always right, then it is clearly falling foul of the "democratic fallacy", since it is just not true that beliefs become true or false on the basis of how many people hold them.
This crude fallacy is obviously not what most people have in mind when they claim Britain's involvement in the second Iraq war is undemocratic. However, simply acknowledging that public opinion can be wrong immediately exposes the weakness of the other arguments that war was an affront against democracy.
For instance, one can accept that the majority can be wrong but insist that, nevertheless, in a democracy majority opinion must be followed, for better or for worse. But this confuses democracy with simple majoritarianism. As defined by Merriam-Webster, a democracy is "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." A crude majoritarian system, in contrast, is one where the government always does what the majority wants.
Most democracies are not majoritarian. If Britain were run on majoritarian lines, for example, then fox hunting would have been banned long ago and capital punishment would never had been abolished. In other words, Britain would be a country which killed more people but fewer animals.
Majoritarianism is not the favoured system in the west for several reasons. One is to protect minorities. Another is rooted in an appreciation of the democratic fallacy: majorities are often wrong, and they are much more likely to be wrong when they are uninformed about the issue to hand, as they often are when detailed knowledge is required to make a wise decision. This is why Britain, like other western nations, runs on the model of a representative democracy. In this system, members of parliament are elected as representatives to make decisions on behalf of their electors, not as delegates to do whatever their electors tell them. They are held to account every four to five years at elections, when they are judged on their overall record.
It therefore cannot be said to be undemocratic for parliament to act against the wishes of the majority of the population at any given time. This very possibility is just what distinguishes representative democracies from majoritarian regimes. The British Parliament, elected by the people, made a decision to go to war and members of that parliament will be re-elected or voted out by the people at the next election. That is paradigmatically democratic.
Of course, the democratic fallacy would appear in another guise if we argued that decisions reached by this process were always right. But the argument here is not directly about whether it was right or wrong to go to war with Iraq, but whether it was democratic to do so. This charge cannot be made to stick.
An interesting coda to this story is how public opinion has changed over time. In February 2003 the Guardian was able to report that only 29% of the British public supported a war on Iraq. By mid-April, following the fall of Baghdad, support had risen to 63%. Arguably, this shows how the fickleness of public opinion is another good reason why genuinely democratic governments cannot and should not always follow it.
Julian Baggini is editor of The Philosophers' Magazine.
posted on January 10, 2004 02:46:45 PM new
::To clarify, Linda and I were arguing about majority opinion on such topics as the war, the patriot act and immigration...not on the U.S. election process. ::
Thank you Helen but I was perfectly clear on that. I was referiring to continuing theme of one of your arguements and pointing out the irony of the side Linda takes in those regarding popular vote as opposed to her POV when it comes to this issue.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 10, 2004 05:09:17 PM new
And I just had to take exception to the recount statement. Sorry for veering OT.
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 10, 2004 09:07:15 PM new
Conceding defeat or claiming victory is not definitive, and doesn't carry the force of law.
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 11, 2004 04:38:06 AM newBut the decision by our US Supreme Court sure does
It does indeed. Were you going to get back to me on that electoral vote recount linda?
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
posted on January 11, 2004 06:07:13 AM new
Playing games on "word usage" That sounds like fun....I'll go...what's the difference between the phrases popular vote and electoral vote?
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Mi abuelita me dijo "en boca cerrada no entran moscas".
