The 2004 American Presidential Election

[Dinner]

So I was watching MSNBC today and it showed Bush's current approval ratings are 50% with 47% disapproving and 3% don't know/don't care. To compare at this time back in the 1992 elections Bush Sr. held around a 60% approval rating and he still lost. So what do you folks think, have the Democratic candidates drawn blood and is Bush vulnerable?

Also the polls right now are showing Bush getting beat in theoretical match ups with either Kerry or Clark but winning if it's Dean he's running against. Clearly, the America population likes Kerry and Clark (though I think Clark has gotten a short-term boost because he's the new guy. Once that wears off Clark's numbers most likely won't be so high.) but doesn't like Dean. The really sad part is the Democratic party's base is left wing voters so it's likely Dean will get the nomination, because he's the left most candidate running, meaning we're going to get stuck with Bush for another four years.

So which candidates do you like and which do you loathe? Which of the nine dwarves is most interesting and which should be laughed off the stage?

[Q Classic]

i loathe bush, all the democrats, and i'm not sold on either dean, kerry, or clark.

[Dinner]

All the other candidates don't seem to have the money or the standing in the polls to beat Bush.

The sad truth is I really don't know where the three main candidates stand on all of the issues. I wish there was some sort of score card I could use to compare one candidate's position to another.

[TheStinger]

Powell

[Dinner]

To my knowledge Powell isn't running. Though I suspect he will be running in 2008.

[FrustratedPoet]

Powell .vs. Hilary in 2008?

That'd be interesting ... a black guy and a woman.

[Q Classic]

the white supremacists might all just die.

[MrFun]

Howard Dean is the candidate I'm setting my hopes on.


Out with Caveman Bush.

[Japher]

I will vote for Bush, but it will be interesting to see who get as his Veep...

I like Liberman and Clark as well, the rest of the Dems could disappear from the race altogether and I probably wouldn't even notice.

[monkspider]

Both Clark and Dean seem like good, honest men, a rarity in this day and age. But I probably won't be voting for either one.

[Dinner]

Dean stricks me as dishonest. He loves to flip flop on issues depending upon who he's speaking to and what the latest polls show. Kerry strikes me as a stand up sort of guy.

[Japher]

Powell .vs. Hilary in 2008?

Guilliani (spelling)? Add a divorced italian jew into the mix... is he a jew?

[Bosh]

Italian Japher

[Japher]

I know, I got Italian in there... Does that automatically mean he's Catholic? Uh, stupid question Mofioso for life!

[chequita guevara]

Actually, on the positions I've seen them take, Clark is more to the left that Dean. Dean isn't a left-wing candidate.

What no one seems to understand is that there is a huge section of the popultation that absolutely, caagorically, hates Bush. They despise him and curse the ground he walks on. Of the viable candidates, only Dean recognizes it and speaks to it. That is the secret to his success.

Lieberman is only in the Democratic party because he's Jewish, and only is getting anywhere right now because he has name recognition. Kerry is too patrician and trying to be too bi-partisan when the party base wants blood. They want to see a candidate stand up to Bush, and Kerry hasn't.

Gephart gets it, but unless he is revived by Iowa, he's ot gonna go anywhere. He got rousing applause when he termed this President a miserable failure.

Clark is actually left of Dean. He openly calls himself a liberal and takes stances to the left of Dean. I have to wonder, however, to what extent the Democratic elite are behind Clark.

The elite are afraid of Dean, not because he's a loser. It's more than a year from the election. He doesn't need this handlers to tell him what he thinks (and then have them tell him the wrong thing ). When he gives a speach, he breathes fire, not just at Bush, but at the spineless Democrats who have rolled over and pissed on themselves. Dean is a threat to them because he's activating the masses of Democrats who want to take back their party.

Unlike every other candidate (with the exception of Clark), Dean has a movement behind him. His campaign is democracy in action. and that scares the elites, because they don't like democracy any more than the Republicans do.