Go Tell John Kerry's Campaign Your Opinions, and Pretend He Cares

[queerbychoice]

brienf just pointed out that a group supporting John Kerry is conducting a survey of what issues progressive voters want Kerry to address, whose data they will send to the John Kerry campaign. The survey is awfully frustratingly worded at some points though, and left me wanting to scream, "All of the above, damn it, I need an ALL of the above option!" on questions like this:

Which of the following best describes YOUR position on the best way to prevent TERRORISM:
1) The U.S. needs to take a genuinely neutral leadership role in resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict.
2) The U.S. needs to focus on the root causes of terrorism - ignorance, poverty and oppression. Spend more of our anti-terrorism budget on education, diplomacy and humanitarian assistance.
3) The U.S. needs to become energy independent.
4) The War on Terrorism should not be dealt with as a military issue or even called a War.
5) None of the above.

I mean, come on. These should not be mutually exclusive options here.

And it was really scary how on the last page when the survey asks whether you'd be more likely or less likely to vote for Kerry if he named various specific people to cabinet positions, they included a Republican as someone he could potentially name. Granted, John McCain is no George Bush, but still. It just kind of epitomized the whole question of just which political party John Kerry really belongs to.

Comments

[cheeser1.livejournal.com]

5) the us should support israel to fight for all their land.
reason:
jesus cannot rise again until his land is controlled by his people. thus, being a fundamentalist christian, i* believe that we must facilitate the coming of jesus. amen.


*(me being president bush or any one of his whacky friends)

[cheeser1.livejournal.com]

my real response would be something like 2

[cheeser1.livejournal.com]

and also 4

[interjections.livejournal.com]

I agree with all these except:

The U.S. needs to focus on the root causes of terrorism - ignorance, poverty and oppression. Spend more of our anti-terrorism budget on education, diplomacy and humanitarian assistance.

I'm not arguing that education and reasonable standards of living don't build a better society, but saying that it is the cause of terrorism is a vast oversimplification. The fact is the Al Qaeda are some of the wealthiest and most educated men in the middle east. I don't think they are victims of oppression at all.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

The upper-level organizers are rich, but the lower level recruits aren't. Much like the organization of the U.S. military, and pretty much everything else in the world.

[brienf.livejournal.com]

I really think I need to stay away from hardcore democrats for a few days after taking that survey. And politicians - I shouldn't interact with politicians until I cool off.

[thehandmaid.livejournal.com]

kerry's such a public opinion whore. like clinton. he'll do anything to get elected.

he's a hundred thousand times better than bush, and i'm voting for him. just to get bush out of office. (i realize that's not the greatest reason to vote for someone, but screw it.)

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

I think I should point out that this survey is not being done by the Kerry campaign, but by an independent group which is then going to share the results with the Kerry campaign.

Also, I don't know if they've changed the survey, or have more than one version of the survey, but I didn't get asked that question.

Lastly, John McCain is certainly no progressive, but he's also not all that different on the issues from the several moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate. He is also well known for crossing the aisle and voting with Democrats, and is one of the names on the "short list" that fellow Republicans constantly fear may leave the party (either to become Independent like Vermont Senator James Jeffords or perhaps even Democrat).

Cabinet appointments aren't necessarily about overall political attitudes, but more about expertise and credibility in specific areas (in John McCain's case, probably Defense or Veterans Affairs). Also, at least token bipartisanship in the Cabinet is something of a tradition. President Clinton's Secretary of Defense was also a former Republican Senator, Bush II's Secretary of Transportation is a former House Democrat.

Now, this doesn't mean John McCain would be the best man for the job, nor that McCain would accept if the position was offered. But here are a few reasons Secretary McCain might be a good idea for the Kerry campaign (and the Democratic party):
* McCain would bring an air of gravitas to a cabinet position that few Democrats are in a position to match (Clark is one). Right or wrong, he's widely perceived as one of the few "honest politicians" (oxymoron) left in Washington, and he would be widely respected by both parties.
* It would, as has already been hinted, give Kerry credibility as a bipartisan coalition builder.
* Since the Arizona governor is currently a Democrat, she would have the power to appoint a Democratic Senator in his place, potentially swinging or solidifying the balance of the Senate in the Democrats' favor (until a special election was held to fill the seat, anyways).
* The media would eat it up.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

You only get asked that question on the survey if you state that John Kerry only represents your opinions on terrorism "partially" or "not at all."

I'm well aware that many moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate are indistinguishable from the less extremist Republicans; that's precisely what I'm objecting to. :p

My father is a John McCain Republican who doesn't like George Bush. I'm aware there is a difference between the different sides of the Republican Party. But that doesn't make me want anything to do with any of them. I would vastly prefer that he appoint Wesley Clark, and as far as I'm concerned, "bipartisanship" in Democrats is a distinctly undesirable attribute.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware that many moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate are indistinguishable from the less extremist Republicans; that's precisely what I'm objecting to. :p
While I think we'd both prefer a (super)majority of progressives in the three branches of government, I don't think that's going to be one of our options of directions to head for the near future. Demanding progressive (doctrinal) purity in the Democratic party seems to me likely to have the opposite effect - a (super)majority of moderate-to-conservative Republicans in both houses of Congress as moderates abandon the Democratic party, maintenance of a Republican President in office, and (as a result) an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Certainly whenever Republican leadership starts swinging its weight around demanding everyone lockstep with the conservatives, people have a tendency to abandon ship.

I would vastly prefer that he appoint Wesley Clark
Me too, he would be a good choice for a number of appointments.

"bipartisanship" in Democrats is a distinctly undesirable attribute
To me it's neutral. It can be used for both good and evil.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"Demanding progressive (doctrinal) purity in the Democratic party seems to me likely to have the opposite effect"

I think it can go either way, really. Sometimes when one party moves far to one side, the other party moves in the same direction, and other times when one party moves far to one side, the country rebels against this and drags itself back the other direction. But the longer you can keep the country wherever you've dragged it to, the more people forget where the country used to be - and if you've managed to keep it there for enough years, then even when they think they're rebelling and dragging it back the other way, they tend not to actually drag it back as far the other way as it originally was.

In a case where the specific movement as by the Democrats and moving leftward, the majority of people in the country are already further left than the politicians who get elected, so what the Democrats would really need to do to prevent voter rebellion against a leftward swing is just to fix all the ways that the electoral system currently favors the right wing. First pass some really thorough campaign finance reform, then repeal the prohibition on convicted felons voting (13% of the black male population in the U.S. is currently barred from voting because of this!), require paper trails and open source verification of software honesty in voting machines . . . and someday, when these earlier techniques have been sufficient to firmly establish the country in a more left-wing political position, I want to see the Constitution amended so that Californians' votes are no longer worth a microscopic fraction of what Montana residents' votes are, because there's nothing about state boundary lines that should provide a right for each state to be treated equally with all the other states rather than treating the votes of the individual people within the states equally with the votes of the individual people anywhere else.

But I know perfectly well that proposing that anytime soon would be political suicide. Though why the hell the world has to be that way, I only wish I knew.

[violin.livejournal.com]

I believe a recent poll indicated that right now Kerry would almost certainly win the election if he named McCain as his running mate...

[theobscure.livejournal.com]

he'll do anything to get elected
True. I know last election I was all about voting one's conscience--but this time I'm desperate, because Bush is so toxic.

If we're talking electability, a Kerry-McCain ticket would be absolutely unbeatable, especially with swing voters. I must say, I respect McCain more than I respect a lot of Democrats. He's made a point of saying many times that he's not interested, though.

[chisparoja.livejournal.com]

al Qaeda was created by the CIA to terrorize the Soviet Union. the root causes of terrorism are not ¨ignorance, poverty and oppression¨, they are American imperialism, the ignorance of the American people and the actions of the American government. Japan is plenty wealthy and industrialized and has quite enough enemies around the world and yet doesn´t have this problem. international islamic fundamentalist terrorism is America´s fault. America funded, founded and fuelled all these groups in the name of terrorizing the ¨godless¨ Soviets into submission with a united god-fearing front.

(6) An independent media should be introduced in the United States which is not controlled by the Pentagon or the White House, and does not fear to criticize the government.

(7) American education should substitute thoughtful reflection and independent thought for mindless propaganda and goose-stepping.

(8) Men and heterosexuals should be banned from any governmental position for at least 2 generations, since they seem to see the world as something like a grand barfight or wrestling match. I´m also inclined to suggest they be barred from raising children.

(9) US should leave where it´s not welcome, which now is practically anywhere.

(10) Americans should not be allowed to vote in American elections. Europeans should vote for the American government in their stead, until such time as the US media has become sufficiently freed from government controls and their schools wrested from the propaganda mill that the American public can even know enough about the world they live in to have a meaningful opinion about anything. This will also require that the Americans introduce a new system of government known as democracy in place of their bizarre two-party oligarchy.

these are a few of my modest suggestions. i wonder what john kerry will think about them? :)

[spreadsothin.livejournal.com]

yeah, and isn't that's what we said about Colin Powell?

[tydaj.livejournal.com]

Your icon is better than mine.

[smakin-u-up.livejournal.com]

hey I really liked your journal and I added you as one of my friends.
I tok the Kerry "test" and I was appalled. This man is so MARGINALLY better than Bush it makes me rot inside just thinking about it. I felt that I SHOULD take the stupid thing though to get my voice heard (what little of it will be on the &^$^% INTERNET..but anyway) but I was so pissed off..crap like:THE ECONOMY / JOB GROWTH

"Kerry has a plan to improve the economy and create 10 million new jobs using the following measures: lowering taxes on corporations, encouraging growth of small businesses, closing tax loopholes that result in outsourcing jobs overseas, increasing and better enforcing trade laws, investing in research and development for manufacturers, and providing tax relief for business that offer "quality" healthcare and pensions."

it has been proven again and again that buisness given
tax breaks (notice how the wording was not "tax breaks" but "lowering taxes") can and will hold on ot that "extra" money where normal citezens that really NEED a tax break and make SIGNIFICANTLY LESS money will go out and spend it immediatly. This guy is just another Republican.

and then at the end where the survey just added:
Finally, which (if any) of these additional issues do you think need to be addressed in the 2004 presidential campaign? (Check all that apply.)Women's Health / Reproductive Rights, Media Consolidation, Corporate Reform & Regulation
and Same Sex Marriage...

MY GOD! we are an AFTERTHOUGHT!!!!!! I am so enraged. I have been in a perpetual state of being enraged for - well forever..and this is certainly not helping.

I left him a nice little angry note at the end too. DAMN I cannot stand this election.


in other thoughts- good luck on telling "The Terminator" to listen up. but that is a whole 'nother subject- hope the phone call-in thing does something to make Mr. Austria wake up.