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Grex > Agora35 > #18: The 2000 presidential campaign item | |
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| 25 new of 406 responses total. |
bru
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response 282 of 406:
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Oct 25 13:28 UTC 2000 |
I did notice there is a website that states that the education, welfare,
healthcare, and crime situation has improved in the last 8 years. It is a
website put out by the CLinton/Gore administration.
In an aside, the president signed a recently passed bill extending breast
Cancer treatment support to millions more women. He did it in a private
ceremony with no fanfare even though it is reportedly a major accomplishment
and would have been an excellent opportunity to draw attention to a major
health issue.
Why a private ceremony?
Because a public ceremony would have required he bring in the sponsor of the
bill, Rick Lazio, Hillary's opponent in New York.
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polygon
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response 283 of 406:
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Oct 25 17:25 UTC 2000 |
So, would YOU invite your wife's bitter antagonist into your home only two
weeks before the election?
If Bob Dole were president, and Liddy Dole was running against me for
Senator, I would not expect to be invited to the White House for a photo
op, either.
Has Lazio complained about this?
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brighn
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response 284 of 406:
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Oct 25 17:38 UTC 2000 |
You're running for Senate? I'm changing my vote in #102. You're surely a
betteroption than those other two. ;}
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rcurl
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response 285 of 406:
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Oct 25 17:47 UTC 2000 |
Lazio can blow his own horn. Note how Bush brags about having adopted
bills in Texas - which he had adamnatly opposed and which were adopted
over his veto. That's more blatant hypocrisy than Clinton's just not
holding a public signing.
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janc
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response 286 of 406:
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Oct 25 18:04 UTC 2000 |
Whenever I deal with movers or appliance deliverymen or roofers, they always
show up in teams - a smart guy who does the paperwork and talks to the
customer, and one or more dummies who lift and carry. It's always struck me
as a sensible arrangement.
Lately I've been wondering if the Republican party has the same idea of pairing
smart guys with dummies. I leave it to you to pick the dummy/nondummy out of
each pair:
Ford/Rockefeller
Ford/Dole
Reagan/Bush
Bush/Quayle
Bush/Cheney
I can't remember enough about Bob Dole's vice presidential pick (Jack Kemp)
to be sure, but I think that may have been a smart-guy/smart-guy ticket.
The last smart-guy/smart-guy Republican pair in office was Nixon/Agnew. Maybe
we should count our blessings.
This could be an illusion brought on by my personal willingness to suspect
all Republican politicians of some combination of evilness and stupidity.
But I'm hard pressed to name any prominent Democratic politicians who strike
me as being a little dim. Carter, almost, but not really.
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brighn
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response 287 of 406:
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Oct 25 18:06 UTC 2000 |
Carter's credited as being one of the more intelligent presidents of the 20th
Century. What he lacked was common sense.
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janc
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response 288 of 406:
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Oct 25 18:07 UTC 2000 |
I was interested that the Sierra Club endorsed Gore. Not surprised, but you'd
think that having the Sierra Club endorsee their candidates would be the first
sign that the Green party is actually somewhere on the political map. Not
only didn't the Sierra Club endorse Nader, their endorsement doesn't mention
him or his party.
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jep
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response 289 of 406:
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Oct 25 19:35 UTC 2000 |
The Sierra Club is interested in political power, and has allied itself
with the Democratic Party. They've certainly endorsed every Democratic
presidential candidate since I've been of voting age, and I'm pretty
sure they've endorsed every Democratic candidate from Michigan for the
Senate and House during that time. Even so, I imagine they're pretty
happy with Gore as Democratic candidate. It's only surprising they
haven't (yet) been attributed to comments about Gore, the way the NRA
has been about Bush. The Sierra Club aspires to be the NRA of the left.
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rcurl
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response 290 of 406:
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Oct 25 19:46 UTC 2000 |
What Carter lacked was *political* sense - his common sense is excellent.
The Sierra Club aspires to influence environmental issues for the
better. They are neither "right" nor "left". That the left supports
the Sierra Club is due to the Sierra Club's concern with issues
of livability, clean air and water, sensible land use, etc, and not
with the bottom lines of big buusiness, which are also largely some
of the "left's" concerns.
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brighn
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response 291 of 406:
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Oct 25 19:50 UTC 2000 |
#290, para 1> Fair enough. Never met the guy personally, so I guess I can't
speak to his common sense. ;}
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scott
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response 292 of 406:
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Oct 25 20:09 UTC 2000 |
Carter was a nuclear engineer, wasn't he?
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flem
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response 293 of 406:
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Oct 25 20:27 UTC 2000 |
Various European-sounding people on NPR just now were complaining rather
bitterly about Bush's plan to pull troops out of Kosovo. One guy even went
so far as to claim it would be the end of NATO. Hmm.
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janc
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response 294 of 406:
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Oct 26 02:51 UTC 2000 |
Hmmm. I guess the Sierra Club is a better contender for "NRA of the left"
than the ACLU since the ACLU doesn't lobby very much.
But neither is really partisan.
For example, the ACLU loves the Republican senator from Rhode Island,
Lincoln Chafee whose voting record is 100% on civil rights issues by
their count. No Democrat votes their way as often. However, the only
other Republican senator with a notably good ACLU score is Senator James
Jeffords of Vermont. For the most parts, Democrats are vastly more
likely to vote the ACLU way than Republicans. The lowest ACLU voting
score in the senate is held by another Republican: John McCain with a
score of 0%. The lowest scoring Democrat are Nevada's Harry Reid and
Louisana's John Breaux with scores of 29%.
The Sierra Club probably didn't have to think hard to figure out
that they liked Gore better than Bush. See there comparison at
http://www.sierraclub.org/voter_education/president/voterguide.asp
The Abraham/Stabenow race was another shoe-in:
http://www.sierraclub.org/voter_education/michigan/voterguide.asp
The League of Environmental Voters does scorecards like the ACLU does
(in fact it looks like they use the same software). Six senators have
100% scores on environmental issues, including one Republican: Lincoln
Chafee of Rhode Island again. Vermont's James Jeffords comes in at 81%
and four other Republicans beat the average score. No less than 34 of the
100 senators have environmental voting scores of 0%. Every single one
of them is Republican. (McCain scores at 6%). Lowest rated Democrats
are John Breaux of Louisiana (18%), Blanche Lincoln of Arizona (31%),
and Robert Byrd of West Virgina (31%). Every other Democrat is at least
above the senate's average score.
I'm actually rather surprised by how dramatic the party splits on these
issues are. Leaving aside mutants like Lincoln Chafee and semi-mutants
like John Breaux, the differences fall very strongly along party lines.
The NRA seems to "grade" candidates. It actually endorses some Democrats,
like Michigan Representive candidates John Dingell and Jim Barcia who
both have A+ scores.
Hmmm...Lincoln Chafee looks like he wasn't elected to office - he was
appointed to the job after his father's death. His voting record is
actually pretty consistant with his dad's though. He is running for
re-election now, with endorsements from Planned Parenthood, John McCain,
and the usual GOP leadership. Very odd. The voting record scores may
not be entirely representative - he's only been in office since November
1999, so he may not have been there for all the votes considered. As far
as I can tell, the Democrat running against Chafee has managed to find
a little space to the left of him. The NRA scores Chafee's opponent as
a F compared to Chafee's D+ score.
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rcurl
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response 295 of 406:
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Oct 26 05:46 UTC 2000 |
The ACLU certainly does lobby! And dues are not tax deductible as a
result. They lobby by bringing issues of legality or constitutionality to
courts more than they enter into election politicing.
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jep
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response 296 of 406:
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Oct 26 15:29 UTC 2000 |
The Sierra Club is locked into the Democratic Party as much as are the
AFL/CIO and UAW. The issues are not the basis of their decision; the
party is all they need to know. The "environmental scorecard" mentioned
in #294 has very little to do with voting records. Fortunately, their
partisan support doesn't affect people much.
The NRA and ACLU tend strongly toward one party; different parties of
course. Do either of them support any candidate from a party other than
the Democrats and Republicans? I'd be surprised if they did. I'd be
surprised if the AARP did. These groups all focus on a few issues, but
they have to support a candidate who might win in order to avoid being
seen as flaky fringe groups.
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rcurl
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response 297 of 406:
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Oct 26 17:06 UTC 2000 |
All "interest groups", which more or less includes all of us, do what
serves their objectives best. The result is that they align with
political parties on issues that support their purposes, which may or
may not mean a consistent alignment with a political party. The Sierra
Club set out to protect significant natural areas, first in California
and later throughout the country. They chose to become politically
active (and hence lost their tax exemption), but will support *anyone*
that will act to further their goals.
The same is true throughout with the ACLU. Their objective is to retain
the principles (and authority) of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution,
and also will align with *any* political party that will further their
goals.
It does happen that the Democratic Party has been for some time a
better ally than the Republican Party for furthering environmental
protection and civil rights legislation and actions.
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scg
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response 298 of 406:
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Oct 26 17:25 UTC 2000 |
I was in a restaurant a block away from the Whitehouse a couple of days ago,
and they had a scoreboard on the wall showing the results of their polls of
their customers. Bush was winning by a wide margin.
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jep
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response 299 of 406:
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Oct 26 19:41 UTC 2000 |
The ACLU does not defend the Bill of Rights; they have a limited
political agenda. They don't vigorously support the 2nd amendment, for
example. They interpret it much more narrowly than they do other parts
of the Bill of Rights.
Name a candidate who has received a Sierra Club endorsement who was not
a candidate of the Democratic Party, please. Any candidate, any office,
anywhere, and any year since 1980.
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brighn
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response 300 of 406:
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Oct 26 20:21 UTC 2000 |
Speaking of the 2nd Amendment, hwy on Earth does the NRA claim it's protecting
"America's FIRST freedom"?
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ric
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response 301 of 406:
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Oct 26 20:29 UTC 2000 |
Because they think they are more important than anything or anyone else.
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brighn
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response 302 of 406:
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Oct 26 20:33 UTC 2000 |
fair enough answer =}
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janc
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response 303 of 406:
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Oct 26 20:35 UTC 2000 |
JEP: I don't know how the Sierra Club chooses people to endorse. I think
state level races are done by state level organizations, so there is likely
no consistant rule. I don't know if they ever endorse Republicans. I'd be
surprised if they didn't. However, looking at the environmental scorecard,
I suspect that it would be rare, because the Republican/Democrat split is very
sharp on these issues. A test would be if they had endorsed Chafee, but
apparantly the Rhode Island Sierra Club is asleep at the wheel because no
endorsements have been made in any Rhode Island race. I'm curious where you
get your information on how the Sierra Club makes endorsements.
As to the environmental scorecards, the ARE NOT done by the Sierra Club, but
by the League of Conservation Voters (see http://www.lcv.org/scorecards and
http://scorecard.lcv.org/ for two different presentations of the same data
that aren't linked to each other for some reason). And they ARE based on
actual votes. For the Senate statistics I quoted, seven votes were
considered. These are described at the web site.
The different statistics on this site are a bit confusing, because they
cover different periods of time. But for the 7 votes in the year 2000,
41 out of 55 Republican senators voted against (or didn't vote) on all
seven. That's 75% of Republican senators voting against environmental
measures every chance they got. And most of the rest weren't doing much
better. Another 11% voted for just one. That's pretty dramatic, if you
ask me.
Given that kind of track record, it's hard to complain if the Sierra Club
isn't very fond of the Republican Party. I don't know if they ever endorse
Republicans. I know that the League of Conservation Voters endorses
Republican incumbant Lincoln Chafee against his Democratic challenger. (So
does Planned Parenthood, since the Democrat is pro-life, but the Unions are
backing the Democrat in that race).
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mcnally
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response 304 of 406:
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Oct 26 20:35 UTC 2000 |
The statements "The ACLU does not defend the Bill of Rights,"
and "The ACLU does not defend my interpretation of the Bill of Rights,"
are not logically equivalent. If you can point me to a case where
the ACLU has actually opposed Second Amendment rights instead of just
not pursuing Second Amendment issues as vigorously as you'd like,
*then* I'll take your criticism seriously..
It's definitely true that the ACLU tend to focus more on issues involving
specific amendments, particularly the first and fourth. Still, I'm always
baffled by supposed "conservatives" who argue in favor of less government
control over people's lives one moment and then turn around and accuse
opponents of being "card-carrying members" of the ACLU in the next breath
as if that was a bad thing. I'm really deeply suspicious of people who
claim to want less government but bad-mouth the ACLU..
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janc
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response 305 of 406:
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Oct 26 22:03 UTC 2000 |
http://www.sierraclub.org/politics/endorsements/vermont/
That's the Sierra Club Endorsement for Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of
Vermont.
Nyaah, nyaah, jep.
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janc
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response 306 of 406:
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Oct 26 22:13 UTC 2000 |
Mike's point is good. The ACLU does very little except tell the government
that it can't do things it wants to do.
The ACLU does make a strong statement to the effect that the second amendment
doesn't say what the NRA says it does. Because of the substantial credibility
of the ACLU on legal aspects of bill of rights issue, it's taking that stance
is a substantial log on the track of the pro-gun movement. Because of this,
I can see why someone for whom guns are the litmus test for everything would
be very unhappy with the ACLU. However, if you believe guns are important
only as a means to protect your rights from others, then you ought to be
willing to forgive the ACLU a lot because it is probably the single most
effective organization for protecting those rights by *other* means.
However, the Republican party votes against ACLU positions almost as
consistantly as it votes against environmental issues. The Republican party
isn't really the party of "low regulation of individuals". It's the party
of "low regulation of corporations". Often these are similar, but in the case
of civil rights, they aren't.
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