response 1 of 65:

Oct 7 06:47 UTC 2000

It might even be good for Bush as well.

response 3 of 65:

Oct 7 07:25 UTC 2000

(look. I'm not voting *for* Bush, I'm voting *against* Gore ok.)

response 5 of 65:

Oct 7 15:10 UTC 2000

A vote against Gore is a vote for Bush.
A vote against Bush is a vote for Gore.
Regardless of who you actually vote for, if you would have normally voted for
a Democrat and don't, you're increasing the Republican's chance of winning,
and vice versa. Because one of them WILL win.

response 7 of 65:

Oct 7 15:17 UTC 2000

Re> #6.
Response: Read #5 slowly. Again and again. Eventually you'll get it.
Important part, again:
Because one of them WILL win.

In my lifetime, two third parties have come close enough to th two parties
to scare them: Anderson and Perot. "Close enough" resulted in 0-0-0 electoral
votes.

response 9 of 65:

Oct 7 17:26 UTC 2000

There's a class of candidates that are probably best thought of as ego
candidates, for lack of any better explanation for why they're running. 
Serious candidates for President have generally first had some other high
ranking government positions, either as Governors, US Senators, or high
ranking US Congress members.  Likewise, credible candidates for statewide
offices such as US Senator or Governor have generally held more local offices
first.  Like in any other field, politicians generally start somewhere near
the bottom and work their way up, gaining experience as they go.

Then there are the candidates whose egos won't let them accept a lower
position, and start out their political careers by running for a higher
office.  In Michigan, a good example of that is Geoffrey Feiger, who ran for
Governor in his first campaign, and after losing that announced that his next
campaign would be for the US Senate (although that appears not to have
happened, unless I've missed something there).  That, I suppose, may be an
example of a midsized ego, and those don't seem to be all that common.  More
common is people who will accept no office lower than that of US President.
We see those frequently, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, and Ralph
Nader, to name some recent examples.  I've seen this occasionally in companies
I've worked for too, people with no relevant experience applying for senior
positions, and they've generally been laughed at.  My guess is that if any
of those frequent Presidential candidates were to start out running for some
lower office, maybe their state legislatures, or city councils, or even US
Congress, there are probably some districts that would elect them, and they
could get some experience as elected government officials.  Moving on from
there, after gaining some experience, they might well eventually be qualified
to be President, but I couldn't possibly describe any of them that way now.

response 11 of 65:

Oct 8 06:08 UTC 2000

There's a good list of 'em at http://www.politics1.com/p2000.htm

response 13 of 65:

Oct 8 16:12 UTC 2000

i think it'd be REAL FUN!   8D

response 15 of 65:

Oct 8 21:14 UTC 2000

But is experience standing up to big corporations the same as experience
running the world's most powerful country?

As a private citizen, Nader could "stand up to big corporations" by writing
a book criticizing them, or by giving speeches against them, or by doing
whatever else it is that Nader has been doing.  As long as his books sell
well, he's doing ok, and since he's speaking only for himself, it's not going
to have really bad consequences for anybody else no matter how mad the people
he is attacking get at him.

Being President of the United States is different.  Those big companies may
do some things that aren't very good.  They also produce products that people
want enough to be willing to pay for, and employ a lot of people.  The
President has a lot more ammunition to go after such companies with, and can
do a lot more damage to them, and by extention to their employees and
customers.  In that regard, being President requires being a lot more careful.

But there's a lot more to being President than consumer protection.  The
President needs to be able to deal effectively with Congress, and with the
rest of the executive branch, to get things done.  That requires a lot of
political skill, and a lot of ability to reach compromises that are acceptable
to enough of the politicians involved that the proposals can pass, and that
are acceptable to enough of the constituents of those politicians that the
politicians won't get voted out as a result of voting for them.  The United
States has also become the country that the rest of the world looks to to take
the lead in solving problems elsewhere.  In that role, the President of the
US needs to be a good diplomat and able to forge compromises between the
leaders of countries that might otherwise be going to war.  Likewise, the
President is in control of the world's most powerful army, and needs to make
decisions when there are world problems about whether a purely diplomatic
solution will receive acceptable results, or whether military force is
necessary as well.  In many cases, lots of people will die as a result of
whatever decision the President makes, so those decisions involve a lot of
speculation about which solutions will cause less death and destruction than
the other.  What sort of experience does Nader have with those aspects of the
Presidency?

My suggestion for Nader would be that he run for Congress.  I'm not sure where
he's from, but I'm sure there are districts in California that would be
willing to elect him if he were to move there.  Once there, he can gain
experience in how to get legislation passed in the US government, and
participate in lots of other policy decisions.  That would probably be a fine
starting point for him to move up to higher offices from, if he can figure
out how to handle the lower offices well first.

response 17 of 65:

Oct 8 21:50 UTC 2000

The most important Presidential skill you learn from being a career
politician is how to lie effectively.  A big reason I like Nader is that
he hasn't learned this yet.  It's also part of the reason he won't get
elected.

response 19 of 65:

Oct 8 21:51 UTC 2000

#17> Nader's duped you, he obviously must have acquired the skill.

response 21 of 65:

Oct 9 00:04 UTC 2000

I trust the country to Al Gore, with all the oversight and checks and balances
that come with the US system of government.  Not that Nader is at all relevant
to this race, but I'd have to think very carefully before trusting Nader with
being mayor of a medium sized city, if he hadn't shown some understanding of
how the city's government operated.  As for Bush, well, I'm not sure what I'd
trust him with.

Unless he says otherwise, I'll assume Carter is voting for Gore.  He knows
how the system works, and he's been a partisan politician.

Likeways, Gerald Ford has said he'll be voting for Bush, even though the
political positions he was expressing in the same interview sounded at least
as liberal as Gore.

response 23 of 65:

Oct 9 02:01 UTC 2000

I think the barrel is a standard 55 gallon drum. But you'll probably get a
bit less gasoline out of it. I dimly recall figures of something like 10% of
the crude typically ending up as motor fuels, but I don't have any solid
references to that.