After the last debate, I saw one of the sets of questions that a major news outlet had used in its poll: Which candidate made the best *appearance*? Which candidate seemed *friendlier*? etc... and of the ten questions, only one was remotely relevant to the candidates' qualifications to be President.

And I have never seen polling flip back and forth between candidates on a daily basis...and seen different polls completely contradicting each other (assuming correct polling techniques and a random sample, all polls should show the same results). News is big business for the networks, and your idea that the media are hyping the closeness of the race is a very possible scenario. And let's remember, the election occurs right before the November sweeps period.

Aeis
Badpuppy Forums

It scares the shit out of me that someone who so obviously lacks the mental heft to be president may, in fact, win. Some of my pseudo-liberal friends say "That's ok...he'll just let his advisors run the country like Reagan did"--which is precisely the point, with one major difference: in foreign policy matters, with Reagan we at least had an actor who was able to act presidential, rather than a mope who has trouble stringing together an English sentence. Is that being "elitist"? Fuckin'-A right it is, and I make no apologies whatsoever for it. I know loads of "ordinary" people, and there's no way in hell I'd let one of them run the country (me included). It's simply too difficult a job, requiring experience, the ability to think on one's feet, and the innate understanding of the complexity of the modern nation-state.

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Bush is dangerously lacking in these areas; leaders of Great Britain, France, Russia, India, etc., simply don't give a shit about "Well...this is the way we do it in Texas." If Gore is wooden, so be it: his "peers" are and will be as well (other world leaders with which he has to deal on a personal basis).

And we're not running a popularity contest here, anyway, though this is arguably how "my" current prez got elected: the President can't throw a kegger and get everyone drunk and expect everything to all work out in the US's favor. For all the good liberal politics he gave "us" ("us" being future liberal), Lyndon Johnson was a huge embarassment when it came to foreign policy, simply because there are some people in the world who don't take cocaine (and never did), don't scratch themselves in public, value the fact that they're smart and/or at least well-read, don't apologize for being a career government person, and are secure in the fact that they know how governments work.

Do I trust a person who has personally signed off on the deaths of over 130 people in less than 4 years (and people along a great continuum of guilt...guilty to questionable to not guilty to not fit to stand trial in the first place) with "The Football"? No fucking way.

"Legacy" works with fraternities and with Ivy League admissions...but shouldn't work in elections. In other words, being VP should mean no more than being the Governor of a whoppin' huge, gun-totin', "brown people" killin' [death penalty], polluting state. Given the choices, however, one has the stuff to do the job, and one doesn't. Simple. One has been in the inner workings of federal government and one's dad was. Texas is not Washington. Is being an "insider" a bad thing here? No, if only because the US is not now, nor has it ever been, a democracy; republics depend on a class of government workers to run the country like a business--and Gore is nothing if not an "insider."

This is the party-line liberal argument in a lot of ways, and I certainly know that. However, I'm just cynical enough to think that what we're electing a hood ornament rather than a real change— we've had no real liberal certainly in the last 8 years, and Gore is no different in that respect.

J
Massachusetts

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Bush will win big, if not by a landslide. I sickens me to think such a thing is possible. but he's managed to push all the "hot buttons" to capture the vast numbers of uninformed voters on the edge. Gore, meanwhile, who had everything going for him including a lightweight opponent, has managed to turn off not only possible new voters but his supporters as well. I only hope Dubya won't do too much damage over the next 4 years. The only good things are that he will not be re-elected, and will set the Republicans back 20 years. Who knows, his ineptitude may even enable another Clinton to take the helm in 4 years.