BAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

For once I totally agree with Danny.

It frightens me.

The solution to pollution is dilution.

Everybody run for president! Now.....go!

yeah.. he got all of 463,653 votes, nationwide, in 2004, about 1/3 of one percent. I suspect it'll be even lower this year.

When I first heard about it I was concerned, but after thinking about it I think he'll be pretty much sidelined and won't have much influence.

I sincerely wish he'd go back to his roots of consumer protection, could have used him in the last year or two with all the lead paint and e coli that's been floating around. As a presidential candidate he has about as much credibility as Larouche.

meh.

i bought it in 2K, thought about it in 2.4K, then thought better of it...no way in hell this time round.

at first we thought it was a joke.

then i realized it wasn't and then wished it was.

meh.

Give it up Ralph

we get it. the system is broken. thanks for seat belts and safety glass, but stop peeing in the finger bowls. we have to get this broken system working for us the best we can.

He'll get my vote, which no one else who might be on the ballot would have gotten.

Wouldn't you get the same effect by taking your ballot into the parking lot and lighting it afire as a kickass protest to the inherent evilness of the two party system.

Seriously though do you really think that electing Gore in 2000 wouldn't have been better for the environment than 8 years of Bush and his planet-raping cronies?

American voters DID elect Gore in 2000. We have the slimeball Democrats to thank for 8 years of Bush. And to deflect from their own culpability, they have spent 8 years throwing dirt on Nader, as if too many candidates are the problem. Well excuse me for wanting more democracy, Democrats. Guess we should all just be satisfied with choosing between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.

And they wonder why there's so much apathy and low voter turnout.

Eco, I'm with you, but I'm going all the way and voting for a socialist candidate (Roger Calero of the SWP).

Fuck the Vote

Chris, I think the planet's ecology is way too fucked for it to make any difference who gets elected. Gore and Bush only differ on dealing with symptoms and degrees of destruction; neither has any interest in changing the underlying causes. The sooner we get a major collapse of our way of life and reduction in our population, the better for the survivors.

Politically, if all the people who feel that Democrats and Republicans give them no reason to bother voting, and all the people who vote for them solely on the basis of the lesser of two evils, would just start voting for any other candidate, there might actually be reason for hope.

I agree with you to a certain extent. I'm not saying Al Gore would have single handily fixed every environmental ill that plagues us. But I'm not ready to give up on the planet quite yet. And I think that even a relative drop in the bucket from having an an environmental president would have been better than what Bush did in his eight years.

I would have no problem voting for a third party candidate, as long as they were even remotely viable. The fact is this country is nowhere close to being ready to elect someone as liberal as Nader or whomever the Greens throw out there. Generally speaking on most issues I'm more liberal than the Democratic candidate in any given year. But I'm also cognizant of the fact that there are probably 85-90% of voters slightly to WAY more conservative than me. So if you crunch the numbers you come to the conclusion that the only viable third party candidate with a shot would be a moderate. Because in order to win they would have to pull from both Republicans and Democrats. Examples being Ross Perot, Jessie Ventura, and possibly Micheal Bloom-berg. I simply can't see someone way to the left, with a sound environmental policy pulling that off anytime in the next 20 years.

I find it interesting that commenters would state there is low voter turnout and apathy when in actuality, voter turnout so far this year is at an all-time high. Political activism on all sides and from all corners has increased ten-fold for this year's election.

The democratic process is being tested like it hasn't been tested since Kennedy ran for President.

Why now? Why this election? I think it's in part due to the scandals of the last two elections and the irritation with the directions the current administration has taken on the economy and of course, the Iraq War, just to name a couple.

It should be interesting to see who comes out on top in the next few months as we watch the candidates slowly self-destruct until only one is standing.

I think Obama will win on the Democratic side - Hillary's campaign is slowly dying one of those long, extended death scenes from some B-movie comedy that should be funny but in reality, is just sad and makes you kind of uncomfortable to watch.

In retrospect, Hillary should have never let Bill out of the house and she should have played her cards a little closer to her chest. Everyone knew 8 years ago she was going to make this move and I think it really hurt her going forward.

On the Republican side, it's a little more gray and a hell of a lot more intriguing.

Two weeks ago, I would have said John McCain hands-down, but the most recent scandal involving McCain and that lobbyist has me wondering if the Republicans aren't trying to sabotage JM's campaign yet again so that Huckabee gets the nod. Why Huckabee? I have no idea - the man's likeable enough but Presidential? Meh.

What really threw a wrench was Romney's withdraw - either he was promised a plum in the new admin or they found something on him that would destroy his campaign.

So what's going to happen? I have no clue. We'll have to see how McCain recovers from this latest deal first.

Anyway, my two cents'... lol....

eco eco wrote: ...if all the people ... would just start voting for any other candidate, there might actually be reason for hope.

Some of us conscientiously refuse to vote as a protest . The system is/was corrupt from the get-go. The only possible solution I see is withdrawal.

I am able to govern myself fairly well, thank you very much. Except when a basket of french fries is staring me down, then I have no self control.

Conscientiously refusing to vote doesn't do much as a protest. There's not much of a message in being lumped in with people who don't care what happens to the country.

Turn in a blank ballot. Vote third party. Write yourself in as candidate. A vote for Mickey Mouse (Huckabee on meth) is 10X the protest of simply accepting your disenfranchisement such as it is under the two party system.

Am I expecting change? No. Do I think or even really care to see a third party candidate in my lifetime? Depends on the candidates. And that's what I really want to see - the elections go back to candidates and ideas rather than two parties pointing fingers while corporations pull all the strings.

Republicans want you to vote for them out of fear of taxes and terrorists. Democrats want you to vote for them out of fear of Republicans.

So turn in the ballot that says none of the above, or accept the oligarchy passively.

give a politician a free hand and he'll stick it right in your pocket.

yeah, the system's fucked...and the enablers of all this hegemony (corp lobbyists, PACs SIGs, et al) are well fed and well taken care of.

for Romney to state that Washington is broken is akin to preaching to the choir...we ALL know washington and the system is fucked, but I believe that promising to fix the system outright is a bit like Quixote tilting at windmills...and a rather arrogant statement. The man identified as a Mormon, and ran his campaign on that ethical platform. If he was trying to assert that he was (or is) more moral than the guy in line next to him, one needs to closely examine the church to which he belongs. In the last decade, the Mormon church has gone back on its moral principles quite a few times by investing money in corporations that produce things their members are by church doctrine and law not able to participate or partake in...in short, the Mormon church, the faith that Romney stood so firm on and identified himself so strongly with is as deeply ensconced in political and corporate lobbying as any other organization.

IMO, and this is a rather slippery slope that I'm about to step on (sorry, ironic), the whole evangelic/mormon/catholic dogma-ism is less and less about faith and morality and spirituality than it is about money and business and political influence. Unfortunately, that constituency has been duped into believing the exact opposite and is therefor only too happy to open up their wallets and vote for who they're told to by the people in the pulpit (which is yet another legal can of worms.).

sorry for the tangent...

z.

I agree that not voting doesn't do much. It accomplishes about as much as actually voting does, which is a spit in the ocean.

But I get a warm fuzzy everytime I get to say "don't blame me, I didn't vote for the bastard."

And its not the "two-party system" I am disenfranchised with - it is representative democracy that I hate. No one can represent me except for me.

Voting is like asking for the chain and leash cinched around your neck.

Kool-aid (red, blue, green or purple) is simply empty calories. Don't drink it.