Decision 2004
I stayed up longer than I probably should have last night. Watching Bush get up to 269 electoral votes was pretty depressing. On the flip side, it is a nice sunny day here in Minnesota. Unfortunately it just doesn't feel right. Is anyone else depressed that Bush won instead of Kerry?
This looks cool.
I would have voted for Nader if I was registered. :) Actually, I was liking Kerry for the most part but didn't feel he'd do so well in the war. Also he would take away all pistols from registered pistol owners. You also wouldn't legally be able to sell your gun in the paper any more. I like having guns, and that will only hurt law abiding citizens, not the people who buy them off the street.
However, to get this country on track economically, I think Kerry would have done a bettter job. Overall, I wasn't entirely impressed by either, just hope for the best.
I find that the cure for post-election depression is... a different news source:
<a href="http://www.borowitzreport.com/" target="_blank">The Borowitz Report</a>
My vote for Kerry was mostly a vote against Bush. He threw away all of the support and good will the world had for the United States after 9/11 when he invaded Iraq. While I did support the war in Iraq, it's obvious to me that the administration lied to us. I think his stance against gay marriage is discriminatory and completely counter to the Constitution. The way his campaign took phrases out of context and argued against them shows how he deceives the American people at every chance he gets. I fear that Bush will do some stupid things in the next four years that will be impossible to fix.
It was depressing from the moment the first polls closed and Bush took the lead. By midnight I couldn't stand it any longer and I crashed. At least NH ousted our horrible Republican governor.
I'm not too optimistic on the next four years with Bush. He's not going to tackle any of the tough domestic issues. I just hope he doesn't start any more wars.
I was split for a very long time. To tell you the truth, I wanted niether Kerry or Bush! I thought both of them were the "political" to the max.
I do believe that Bush has his own agenda and is way too nice to the business sector, but on the other hand Kerry was much to liberal for me, and there were some things he supported that I didn't agree with.
I was really hoping for change, I didn't want "four more years" of the same. However, in the end I voted for bush (not that it matters in NY).
It all came down to this: We had a soldier come back from Iraq, he is part of our church and about my age. We were hanging out sunday night and talked about stuff. Among the many questions that were asked he mentioned that the learning curve in Iraq was high, but they understand how to do things now (things are not as bad as TV makes them out to be, we never see the good stuff). The troops are working WITH the local people first and have developed a good working stategy. Now that they finally know how to do it, it would be bad to change that method with a new President.
As much as I may disagree with why we went to war, we ARE at war and must finish well. After I heard the reason from the soldier, it swung me over to Bush.
I was an "anybody but Bush" guy. I voted for him in 2000, but after seeing him in action over the last 4 years, it seemed like every decision he made put the agenda of the wealthy ahead of the needs of a nation. Defense spending exploded under Bush, yet we have soldiers in Iraq without armor (body, humvee, etc), adequate food and supplies...they don't even have enough ammo in some cases. My friend works for Raytheon and spent 3 months in Afghanistan (April-June, 2004) where he saw US servicemen being sent home in caskets every day. We don't see that in the news, we rarely hear of Afghanistan anymore. The media only focuses on Iraq. Because Bush rushed to war without a plan (he claims to have one, but I cannot imagine that this is deemed acceptable losses after major combat operations have ended) we're in this Iraqi quagmire for the long haul. It will not end soon. We'll be there for a long time, and everyday, more and more servicemen, women, and Iraqis will die.
Where there WMD? Probably not.
Was Sadaam a threat? Yes, but a small, manageable one. (not my opinion, his staff said so months before the war)
Why are we really there? To export oil and build a strategic military base in the heart of the middle east in case the Saudis piss us off enough.
All I know is in 4 years, we saw a President simultaneously pass a tax cut and lead the nation into war. His thoughts must have read like this: "I have a brilliant f'n idea! We'll pass a huge ass tax cut and give 42% of the tax cut to the top 1% of the population, but that's not quite enough money to give back...let's start a war and hand over billions of dollars in lucrative defense contracts to my buddies at Halliburton, United Defense, etc. And get this, the war will destabilize the region and push oil futures through the roof! Yee-ha! Now all my other friends will make billions selling oil products at huge profits! I'm an f'n genius! Ah crap, I don't have enough money in the federal budget, and there's a cap on the annual deficit...oh well, time to make a few phone calls to raise the credit limit (heh, heh) and really stick it to the lower class in the form of a huge deficit, and just to make sure me and my buddies don't have to pay it back, we'll eliminate the taxes on dividends and lower capital gains taxes. That way when I get out of here in four years, I'll just work for stock options. Brilliant! (Guinness commercial)"
So, you see, I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush. I had no problems with ousting Sadaam, but for crying out loud have a clue before you do it!
Note to Bush: Next time you invade a country, secure the borders, double the troop count, and make sure you have a way to get supplies through before you take out the middle.
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Note: I didn't even bring up the environment, education, health care, social security, or any of the other domestic issues Bush has ignored. You see, he can really only focus on one thing at a time, and that seemed to be the war on terror. (War on Terror: a way to keep the American public in constant fear)
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But I digress. I was saddened my the election. Kerry may not have been a modern day JFK, but at least he thought America can do better, and I thought so, too.
God bless America. We need you.