Perfectly Positive Primary Politics~~In Their Words and Other's

SixofNine

The 2004 election is in full swing, and we can vote with our bad apostate selves! Yeah us. This thread is a place for you to tell the rest of us positive things about your favorite candidate. Seldom does anyone make the choice for who to vote for based soley on the candidates policy positions alone (no one agrees with everything any one candidate stands for), rather, we want to have a sense that we know who this person is at their core.

In order to keep this from becoming a bloodbath, ~~we have positioned armed guards at the entry and exit~~ BigTex (and hopefully the other mods are on board as well) is going to make this the most heavily moderated thread in history, by removing any negative comments and chopping off the hands of recalcitrant negative posters. If something positive said in this thread just has to be rebutted by you, please start a new thread for that rebuttal.

Seriously, this is only for positive words about your particular candidate. Your words, the candidates first grade teacher's words, his college professor's words, his cousin Bob from Ohaha's words (if he has a cousin Bob from Omaha, of course), a well spoken supporter's words, anyone's, including the candidate's own, words are eligible, so long as they don't slam another candidate.

If you happen to like more than one candidate, feel free to write an endorsement for both, or find positive words from others about them both.

If you don't have a favorite yet, check in here often to see what others have to say about them.

BTW, positive words about Bush are welcome here too.

Please do not post entire magazine articles or web sites. Just excerpt a paragraph or two, and link to the rest please.

I suggest putting the candidates name (or logo, if you have it) boldy, and in larger font, at the beginning of your post, so that people can quickly see who they are reading about.

I'll give an example using Dean, who is not my choice, to show the format, and get things rolling....

SixofNine

DEAN

Al Gore, endorsing Howard Dean:

"Let me talk a minute about experience. At the time when Howard Dean left the governors office in his state he had served for almost 12 years, at that point longer than any other Democratic governor in the United States of America. During the time he also served as chairman of the National Governors Association, representing and speaking for Democratic and Republican governors in all 50 states. After that fact he was asked by his peers among the Democratic governors to return to a position of leadership to be the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. And I worked with him extensively when he was in both of those roles. He learned during that time and during those long almost 12 years as governor working with his colleagues around the nation, what the issues are at the national level and how they affect the average folks in this country. And during this campaign as he has traveled across Iowa and across America, he has demonstrated the fact that has that connection and he does understand those issues. "

Big Tex

>in my best Clint Eastwood voice<

Liberal or conservative -- Democrat or Republican. Doesn't matter. Just be ... polite.

SixofNine

"Nothing is more American; nothing is more patriotic than speaking out, questioning authority and holding your leaders accountable."

Wes Clark

Big Tex

Just to be clear, I won't be posting on this thread, unless it is to keep situations from getting out of hand, rather acting like a referee. I won't comment on any issues brought up. However, since I won't be watching this thread 24/7 if anyone sees a problem, please PM me and I will check it out as soon as I'm online.

"Be excellent to one another." -- Keanu Reeves, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Seven

John Kerry

Ever since John Kerry spoke at first Earth Day in Massachusetts 33 years ago, he has been a top leader on the environment, fighting to clean up toxic waste sites, to keep our air and water clean, and to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other pristine wilderness areas. Kerry has turned a spotlight on the Bush Administration?s rollbacks of our hard-won environmental gains and their outdated, old-economy notions that our environment must be sacrificed in the name of short-term profit.

As President, John Kerry will vigorously pursue an agenda that will honor America?s special treasures and pay tribute to her heritage, while renewing our nation?s promise of clean air, clean water and a bountiful landscape for all. Kerry has outlined a six-point plan for restoring America?s environmental values, while making American economy stronger:

1. A new and permanent commitment to "Green and Clean Communities."

He will fight for "Green and Clean Communities" by removing the threat of toxics from our communities, reinvigorating the Superfund cleanup program, improving our parks, and taking on traffic congestion and sprawl.

2. A new "Conservation Covenant" with America

to protect and restore our nation?s Parks, lands, and other treasures for the benefit of future generations.

3. Protecting our Health by Reducing Dangerous Air Emissions.

As President, John Kerry will immediately reverse the Bush-Cheney rollbacks of our nation?s Clean Air laws.

4. A new "Restoring America?s Waters" Campaign

to clean up our nation?s waters, protect communities? fresh water supplies, and help communities reclaim their riverfronts and lake-fronts as new centers of economic growth.

5. Reasserting American leadership

in the international community to tackle climate change and other key global environmental challenges.

6. A new energy economy

that will reassert American energy independence and power job growth and environmental improvement.

*Meet up with other Kerry supporters in your area the fourth Thursday of every month. http://kerry2004.meetup.com

seven, Republicans for Kerry

Seven

Yerusalyim

RADICAL ISLAM: Everyone knows their place. No pesky women's rights issues.

SixofNine

"The easy, conventional way [to reduce our dependence on oil imported from the Middle East] is to raise the price of gasoline. But I don't want that. That's a regressive tax -- the people who pay it the most are the people who can afford it the least. There's people in my part of the country, in Arkansas, who are traveling sixty miles a day for a minimum-wage job. If you raise the price of gas to three dollars a gallon, they can't pay that. They're trying to save everything they can right now. The president talks a lot about hydrogen being the fuel of the future, but where are you going to get your hydrogen from? You're probably going to get it out of natural gas -- and a lot of that natural gas is going to come from the Middle East. So I'd raise average-mileage performance on automobiles. That's something we can do right now that will decrease our oil dependence - but it's something the administration has dragged its feet on."

"Unfortunately, this administration has rolled back the legacy we will leave for our children and our grandchildren. I believe in clean air. They believe in letting power plants modernize without pollution controls. I believe in clean water and preserving wetlands. They believe "shit happens." I don't believe in opening up old-growth forests for logging in the name of fire prevention."

?If you look at a vision for America ?[y]ou have to ask yourself this: A hundred years from now, what will America be like? What kind of America would we want to have helped create? A hundred years from now, most of us won't be here. But the environment will be here, and the constitution - our legal architecture - will be here. And we have to start working now if we are going to produce the kind of environment - physical and legal-institutional - that we want to leave to our grandchildren. That requires work now. So I think we have to look after the environment.?

Excerpted from Wes Clark's statement to Environmental Groups. More here: http://www.enviros4clark.com/issues.shtml

Wes Clark ~ All Patriot, No Act

Excerpted from: http://www.forclark.com/story/2003/11/23/111259/00 (and very worth the long read; a fascinating look at how one woman vetted the individual candidates and ended up, against her initial instincts, supporting Wes Clark wholeheartedly)

As I've been reading blog entries yesterday and today, I've noticed a fair amount of criticism of "hyper liberals," Dean supporters, and "draft dodgers." I urge bloggers to think twice before alienating a population that may very well decide who gets the Democratic nomination.
Today's poll asked where we would rate ourselves on the political spectrum. Twenty percent of us rate themselves as very liberal / green. But even the "very liberal" category may be too conservative for me. I define my political position as progressive, radical, lesbian, feminist. I pride myself on being the kind of woman that keeps Bill O'Reilly up at night with nightmares of being neutered by "feminazis." I am the kind of progressive feminist that drives Rush Limbaugh to drugs.
I guess it's a Talking Heads day for me today, because as I think about finding myself now becoming a Clark supporter, I find myself singing: "And you may ask yourself -Well... How did I get here?"
What follows is a very long explanation of how I became, however reluctantly, a Clark supporter. Normally, I wouldn't expect anyone to be interested in the details of my thought process on something like this, but I think there may be some value to my putting it out there in this forum. You see, I'm thinking that the biggest obstacle to Clark winning the nomination, and eventually the election, is people like me......
........
So in the end, try as I might, I couldn't find a single reason not to support Wes Clark. All of my preconceived notions and prejudices about what his military career said about him were just wrong.
Oh, there was that pesky "integrity" issue that kept popping up. But try as might to find some substance there that could justify not supporting him, I could find none. There was nothing there. Petty envies, bad feelings about promotions, policy disagreements, and typical bureaucratic rivalries. Nothing you don't find in any large organization. I've seen the same thing in corporate environments. But try as I might, I could find no evidence of any deep seeded character flaws.
Instead, what I did find is the compelling story of him repelling down that cliff face in Bosnia in an attempt to rescue some compatriots. And I have to ask myself, who among the current field of candidates would risk their lives in such a way? Not ****** ****, I'm willing to bet. And certainly not our current President ****** ***** ****.
So here I am, with my progressive, radical, lesbian, eco-feminist politics, supporting a 4-star General for President. And doing so not just because he can win and anyone is better than Bush. But supporting him because, surprise surprise, he has good progressive policy positions, the skill sets and experience necessary to lead a large administrative bureaucracy, and a very personal, very tangible, very real respect for all people, regardless of status, wealth, race, education, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or national origin.
He doesn't just talk the talk of progressive values. He holds those values dear. They are the values that define his sense of patriotism.
And yeah, he's electable. He can easily win in a head to head match up with Bush on matters military. He's a white male, he's got the short last name and the great hair. In fact, he's got the best hair of any candidate.
But I find myself supporting Clark not just because he's electable, but because he's an electable candidate that I actually believe in. I don't have to compromise in order to support Wesley Clark. All I had to do was get over my own pre-conceived notions about military men.

Perfectly Positive Primary Politics~~In Their Words and Other's

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