So who will it be 2004?

[Boris Godunov]

I saw Hillary speak at my campus the day the Lewinsky scandal broke in the news and was able to meet her briefly due to being on the student government executive board. She was quite charming and personable, and I found her speech to be very engaging.

[Drake Tungsten]

Bush is described as articulate in person, Boris. That hasn't affected the public perception of him any. Clinton always appears cold and lifeless in the mass media and that is the image she will have to contend with. She may be the warmest person in the world on a one-to-one basis, but it won't matter.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Liberalism is dying, Kepler. Pushing the Democratic party to the left will just give the Republicans an iron grip on the government. Do you really want that to happen?

No, it's not dying. The upcoming generations are already more liberal than any that preceeded them. Liberalism will make a comeback, it's cyclical. And in the end, progressivism always wins, because ya just can't go back as easy as you can go forward.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Bush is described as articulate in person, Boris.

I called you on this before, I think. I've never seen this substantiated anywhere except from a couple of right-wing sources that wouldn't know it for a fact anyway.

[Drake Tungsten]

No, it's not dying. The upcoming generations are already more liberal than any that preceeded them.

I don't agree. Not that either of us can proof our points.

[Drake Tungsten]

I called you on this before, I think. I've never seen this substantiated anywhere except from a couple of right-wing sources that wouldn't know it for a fact anyway.

Doesn't Woodward deal with this in his new book?

And no, I don't think you've called me on this before. I don't think I've mentioned it before. I'm not a big Bush defender. I hate him as much as I hate Clinton...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Liberalism is dying, Kepler. Pushing the Democratic party to the left will just give the Republicans an iron grip on the government. Do you really want that to happen?

That's just what liberal Democrats said about Reagan and the Republicans twenty years ago.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I saw Hillary speak at my campus the day the Lewinsky scandal broke in the news and was able to meet her briefly due to being on the student government executive board. She was quite charming and personable, and I found her speech to be very engaging.

I saw here interviewed about a month ago. I was happily surprised at her handling of hard questions, her detailed grasp of a wide range of issues, and her ability to explain her political point of view.

But she had as much charisma as a pair of barbed-wire underwear.

[Drake Tungsten]

True. But who's the liberal equivalent of Reagan? Martin Sheen?

[Shi Huangdi]

"about 50% of eligible voters in the country even in a Prez year -- are overwhelmingly young, poor, or minority, and are far left of center. "

It seems everyone seems to believe that non-voters are really just secret holders of their ideology. Libertarians seem to think they're discouraged by two similar parties and would be very receptive to libertarians. Other Green parties think all the nonvoters are natural Green sympathizers. I think the truth is that most of the non-voters simply are not interested in politics.

Take for instance the 1984 election. You had a very clear cut choice between a very conservative Reagan and a liberal Mondale. Where was this army of traditional non-voters then?

"The Democrats need to regain the center and he's the best chance for them to do that."

Edwards is actually pretty liberal I think, their best hope to retake the center would probably be Lieberman.

"He wasn't. He didn't even get a majority in either election. He managed a plurality because the alternative candidates were SO ghastly."

George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole were that ghastly!? You should have checked out Clinton's approval ratings, near the end of his second term they were extremely high.

"The upcoming generations are already more liberal than any that preceeded them. "

Not nessecarily. For instance, the young are for more likely to suppor military action against Iraq than the previous generation(possibly due to Vietnam). Although they tend to be liberal on such issues as the environment and gay rights, more and more are adopting conservative viewpoints.

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
True. But who's the liberal equivalent of Reagan? Martin Sheen?

Sheen's smarter (irony of that statement fully accepted). I think the right comparison for brainpower is Alec Baldwin.

There is nobody stoking the fires from below and getting the Dems to answer the real questions: Why is the middle class shrinking? Why are the impoverished growing? Why has everyone in the country except the top 5% been standing still, even though the innovation, education, and work has been provided by the middle class? After 40 years of progress why is race becoming such a horrible issue again? How does colonizing the world with our overbearing corporate interests make this a safer or more stable place for typical Americans? How does mobilizing a police state apparatus protect our freedom? ow does gutting SEC guidance keep the white collar crooks in line? How does becoming even more dependant on fossile fuel get us out of our energy wedgie?

These are questions the right could be asking as well, but their job is to get fatter and not ask who gets hurt. It's the raison d'etre of the LEFT to hold government accountable, and nobody on the left has the desire or capacity to do so.

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
"It seems everyone seems to believe that non-voters are really just secret holders of their ideology.

Well, naturally -- that way we can claim the silent majority!

But seriously, demographics correlate very well with voting patterns, and the demographics of non-voting is:

RACE: higher proportion of minority than white.
GENDER: virtually even.
INCOME: directly related: the poorer, the less likely to vote.
AGE: directly related: the younger, the less likely to vote.

There are some interactive effects as well -- for example, while students are young and poor and don't tend to vote, students who come from money DO vote and vcote conservatively. Hence, your conservative students are already being counted -- if student participation spiked, the liberals would win big.

This is also the case across the board. Blacks tend not to vote because of the interraction between black and lower income. However, higher income blacks do vote and tend to be slightly more conservative (say, 80-20 liberal), while the blacks who are lower income don't vote and are virtually 100% liberal (check out DC's results sometime).

BAM: If every eligible voter voted in this country, the House would barely change at all in the first cycle (since the districts are gerrymandered for incumbents), and then gradually move more Dem in futurecycles (as they picked up more Governorships and began to control gerrymandering), the Senate would shift Dem only where there are Republican senators in non-southern states with large cities), and the Presidency would go Dem by about 67-33 every time.

The only reason our political center has moved right is that either intentionally or unintentionally our systems has disenfranchised the entire left half of the electorate, so the fight is for a balance point between centrists and right wing wackos.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by UberKruX
i wish someone had a statistic of people who didnt vote gore because leiberman was jewish. i bet you it's higher than you'd think.

I'd be more interested in statistics of people who didn't vote Gore because Lieberman was simultaneously running for the Senate (what an astute bastard ).

[The Vagabond]

Anyway, a very wise decision by Gore. He'll run in 2008 and win. Especially if his VP candidate is Hillary Clinton.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't think Gore will run this time. He will wait until after Bush is assassinated in Dallas in 2003, **** Cheney assumes office and gets us deeply entrenched into an unwinnable war in Iraq. Then Gore swoops down in 2008, wins the presidency, escalates and then ends the war, wins a second term by a landslide and then resigns in disgrace after a lengthy scandal.

Not that anything is cyclical.

For 20 years the good guys haven't had one ball between them. One day they'll get a genuine spokesperson to say it like it is, and then you won't be able to find a Republican north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Living in a (non-existant) dream, are we?

The upcoming generations are already more liberal than any that preceeded them.

That's a BAM. Studies have shown the upcoming generations are more CONSERVATIVE than the younger generations of past. They are more anti-abortion and pro-police than the youth have been in ages.