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Surprisingly I aligned with Kucinich 79%

Wow.

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D)
93.88% match

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 91.84%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 73.47%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 73.47%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 73.47%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 69.39%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 65.31%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 65.31%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 44.90%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 41.84%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 26.53%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 26.53%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 21.43%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 18.37%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 12.24%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 8.16%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 5.10%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 4.08%

Here's mine:


Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) 89.19% match
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 78.38%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 67.57%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 64.86%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 62.16%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 62.16%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 62.16%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 62.16%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 37.84%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 29.73%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 27.03%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 24.32%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 21.62%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 16.22%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 13.51%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 13.51%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 10.81%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 5.41%

This surprises me, because the candidate I plan to vote for in the primaries is John Edwards. Of course, they didn't ask one question that is key for me - do you support sitting senators running for president.

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) 88.37%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 76.74%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 74.42%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 72.09%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 72.09%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 67.44%
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 65.12%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 65.12%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 32.56%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 25.58%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 25.58%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 20.93%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 18.60%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 13.95
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 13.95%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 9.30%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 6.98%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 6.98%

DAR

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) 90.32% match
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) - 87.10%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 74.19%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 70.97%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 70.97%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 67.74%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 64.52%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 61.29%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 35.48%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 32.26%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 27.42%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 25.81%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 23.39%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 17.74%

Yep, thats why the only Democrat this lefty could vote for without holding his nose is Kucinich, possibly Gravel.
Hillary the waffle war supporter will NEVER get my vote. Edwards the million dollar, bourgeois, alleged champion of little people, and war supporter, will not either.
Maybe Obama, but that too would be a compromise.
Tony

Tony, did you take the test? My scores surprised me. Yours might surprise you. (And Edwards is a millionaire because he worked hard, went to school and got a degree in a top-dollar field, and was good at it. He started as the kid of a mill worker, and worked in that mill to help pay for his college. Not exactly the "born with a silver platter in his mouth" entitlement kid you are making him out to be.)

DAR
The republicans love ya Tony, as they loved all Nader supporters in 2000 (and I loved Perot supporters in 1992 because they gave us Clinton).

Darrel wrote:

The republicans love ya Tony, as they loved all Nader supporters in 2000 (and I loved Perot supporters in 1992 because they gave us Clinton).

Man, you utilitarians! Didn't you Doug, Schulte and I have this out for hours a while back?
First lets discuss the blame Nader for Bush myth:
There is nothing like partisan Democratic, utilitarian wrath. Just ask Cindy Sheehan now. Or Ralph Nader, who, regardless of your opinion, has actually done more fighting good fights for decades than most milquetoast Democratic politicians.
But lets examine the claim that Nader cost the election for Gore in 2000:
First, Gore won the election nationwide by 500,000 votes. That he lost an election he won is due to the remnants of our Founding Father's anti-democratic streak, the electoral college. Why not blame that elitist Bourgeois remnant, and change it, since it cost the guy with the most votes an election? But within the confines of the electoral college system....
There were only two States where it was possible that Nader could have cost Gore: New Hampshire, and Florida.
This is assuming that all Nader voters would have voted for Gore instead, had Nader not been running. This can be questioned, since I know many lefties who would have never voted at all, had he not been running, thus Gore would not necessarily gotten the total Nader vote. Not to mention my mother-in-law, for instance, due to ideological confusion that apparently was widespread, agonized over voting for Bush or Nader, but never Gore. But I'll concede this point. Let's pretend all Nader votes would have gone to Gore without him in the race...
That gives us New Hampshire and Florida as the only two states where Nader votes numbered more than the margin Gore lost by.
1. New Hamshire is the key to your argument. Gore lost there by 7,211 votes. Nader got 22,198. I'll give you this. The 4 electoral votes would have put Gore at 270 electoral votes to Bush's 267. This is the only way you can claim that Nader cost Gore the election.
However, Florida cannot be blamed on Nader any more than the thousands of Jewish voters who misunderstood the butterfly ballot and mistakenly voted for Buchanan. Why not blame their stupidity instead of Nader? Without the confusion, Gore would have won handily.
Furthermore, as Statewide recounts after the election, under ALL possible scenarios for counting ballots showed that even with the ballot confusion, More people in Florida intended to vote for Gore than Bush. Why not blame the Supreme Court's absurd "sorry times up" 5-4 decision as a grotesque usurpation of democracy for Bush's 'win' rather than Nader? Couple that with the butterfly ballot confusion, it's fairly clear, Gore won nationwide, and in Florida, if the intent of a majority of the voters is the criteria. The fact that Gore only pushed for recounts in areas where he was favored instead of statewide, is his mistake, not anyone else's. Both on how the outcome would have been, and on basic moral principle.
And, here is the kicker, had Gore not run such an unbelievably listless campaign, he also would have won handily. What do I mean? Gore didn't even carry his own State of Tennessee. Had he carried it, he would have recieved 11 electoral votes and Florida and NH would not have mattered. He would have won 277 to 260. Even Mondale in 1984 carried his own State, Minnesota, which was the ONLY state he won in one of the worst electoral landslides in history against Reagan. Nader certainly cannot be blamed for that little piece of incompetence.
I don't even want to defend Nader so forcefully...but I feel compelled to becaus the persistent visciousness metered out by irate Democratic uitilitarians. Heaven forbid someone else runs in this pathetic democracy. If he does'nt have the seal of approval, utilitarian or partisan, he gets tagged as the devil himself.
I blame ALL of us for allowing democracy to be stiffled in such a blatant manner. But I guess its easier to blame someone else, even if that person was simply running on principle, than to look into the mirror. That we have not ended the electoral college monstrosity is OUR fault.

As for voting utilitarian, OY! To hell with that. I'll vote for Kucinich if he get's here in the primaries. I MIGHT vote for Obama among the third tier candidates if he makes it national. That is far as I am willing to compromise my principles. Yep, I'm old fashioned I guess, I still think that means something. NOBODY who helped bring us this war, will ever get my vote. EVER. I do NOT vote for fairweather warmongers no matter what Party they wrap themselves in. I remember well how we were ignored and deemed irrelevant or worse by spineless waffle Democrats when the war began. If you cannot oppose a blatently imperialist war with dire consequences written all over it when the time comes to make it, then you are either incompetent, stupid, or an imperialist. I prefer none of those as President, and I damn sure won't give my vote to it, not matter what utilitarian tricks you can conjure to justify it.




Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:

Tony, did you take the test? My scores surprised me. Yours might surprise you.

No big surprise for me. Kucinich and Gravel number one and two on my list.

Barbara wrote:

And Edwards is a millionaire because he worked hard, went to school and got a degree in a top-dollar field, and was good at it. He started as the kid of a mill worker, and worked in that mill to help pay for his college. Not exactly the "born with a silver platter in his mouth" entitlement kid you are making him out to be

But he voted for the war.
As for working your way up: I personally don't have much respect for folks who rise above the working class rather than WITH it, anymore than I do for folks who are just born wealthy. It's the naive, idealistic, working class socialist in me.
That contentious and provocative bit aside, It's true he has done some good things for working folk. Some bad things too. I think his words speak louder than his actions, but that's for another debate. He waffled on the war. THAT is why I won't vote for him.

Man, I sent this accidentally before I had a chance to proof read and prettify it.

Sorry for the sloppiness. It is almost 1am though.

Off to bed.

DAR
Jeepers, I give you one little sentence, undeniably true, and you call it "partisan Democratic, utilitarian wrath." I thought you had already admitted the Nader thing was a boo.

First off, I would use the word pragmatic here instead of utilitarian. Voting for Nader was a wasted vote, a leftwing tantrum, and an action completely indiscernible from staying home and not participating in the democracy. You might as well have written in Mickey Mouse as I am sure many did (Nader is worse than Mickey Mouse because he didn't spend great amounts of energy climbing on the bandwagon of bashing Gore, see the current Vanity Fair article). I don't find this a pragmatic approach if you want to do your part to steer an obviously dangerous rightwing country away from the major worldwide disasterberg of a Bush presidency. And I don't understand why someone wouldn't want to do that. Note to Tony: you don't live in Canada. Electing Nader to president never has been, and never will be, even remotely, an option. Ever. So a vote for him is nothing but 100% tantrum, and this little lefty tantrum came when those votes were sorely needed. Bush and Gore were the options. That's the reality. Gore was a better option than Bush. Anything else is just posturing, wishful thinking and completely vain protest. You are free to do this sort of thing of course but to one interested in a pragmatic approach that averts disaster it appears to, and in fact does, accomplish precisely nothing.

D.

prag·mat·ic adj.

1. Dealing or concerned with facts or actual occurrences; practical.

Antonyms:

dreamy, idealistic, impractical, pretentious, unrealistic

Well, the utilitarian comments directed at you, were more in manner of a fond elbow jab, especially referring to that big debate you, Doug, Schulte and I once had. The cranky ones were directed at about 100 very cranky Democrats I know.
There was also more than just protest involved in voting for Nader in 2000. Had he recieved 5%, which was surely in the realm of possibility, then he would have recieved federal election funds later on. The point is to try and build a viable third party. Certainly that is possible. I use history as evidence that it can have definite impact. For instance, the Republican Party in the 1850's. The Democratic Party adopting many socialist reforms in the 1930's, thereby creating Roosevelt's New Deal. If you like all those reforms, in part, thank the socialists.
But you are right, this time around, if the Dems put up a warmonger, I'll be quite happy to cast a mere protest vote. That was not the case with Nader in 2000.

Tony wrote: There was also more than just protest involved in voting for Nader in 2000.

DAR
No, there wasn't. Pure dreams and fantasy.

TONY
"Had he recieved 5%, which was surely in the realm of possibility,..."

DAR
Nope, not remotely in the realm of possibility. Even Perot, who was near the realm of possibility by being up around 20%, was not a possibility on election night. A vote for him was a protest vote. Rightwingers who voted for him while preferring Bush over Clinton were foolish.

TONY
...then he would have recieved federal election funds later on.

DAR
Chump change nowadays.

TONY
The point is to try and build a viable third party. Certainly that is possible.

DAR
Not with Nader it isn't. Ever.

TONY
But you are right, this time around, if the Dems put up a warmonger, I'll be quite happy to cast a mere protest vote. That was not the case with Nader in 2000.[/quote]

DAR
Yes it was. Voting for Nader on election night was exactly 100% protest vote and not a penny less. Republicans got everything they paid for when they supported him.

D.

Darrel wrote

Nope, not remotely in the realm of possibility. Even Perot, who was near the realm of possibility by being up around 20%, was not a possibility on election night. A vote for him was a protest vote. Rightwingers who voted for him while preferring Bush over Clinton were foolish.

Lookit, I voted for Nader in 2000, and I'm telling you, I did so in the hopes that he would get 5%, thus qualifying for Federal funds, which though is chump change now, due to the ineffectiveness of Americans to actually demand and recieve an untainted democracy, was much less chump change in 2000. I know for a fact that I was not the only lefty who did so. So yes, there was more going on than merely a protest vote.

As for possibilities, you cannot seriously be denying that 5% was impossible for Nader in 2000, when in fact he got 2.7%. Was 2.8% "possible"?
Possible: 1a: being within the limits of ability, capacity, or realization.

Ok, so I'm just being sarcastic there. Do I need to cite for you times when the total vote count of a major candidate comes in a few percentage points higher or lower than expected? The stomping Kerry took in 2004 comes to mind, plus a host of other historical examples. Truman in 1948??

No sane human being thought Nader was going to win. And yes, many just voted as a protest, or on some horrible notion of principle. But many actually did have realistic goals: trying to build a viable party alternative to our two, only slightly variably, corporately owned Political Parties. And even among them, many realized that 3rd Parties do not often come to dominate or displace the two dominant parties, though we have examples of that in our history.

What is more important, and more realistic, and a simple historical truism, is that in a terribly undemocratic two-party system, faction votes and third parties often-VERY OFTEN- force one or the other dominant parties to co-opt the program, values, concerns being espoused by those third parties. That's how the Democrats became what they recently used to be: Only by adopting many of the issues of the radical left, the socialists for example, did we come to get New Deal Democratic policy. This happens all the time. It's the very nature of a two party system. To deny that is to deny tons of American history.

There were many of us who supported Nader in 2000 who actually know this, and tried to do something to help shift the Democrats left. Without such things, it would never happen.


Darrel wrote:

Voting for Nader on election night was exactly 100% protest vote and not a penny less. Republicans got everything they paid for when they supported him.

Well, he got some of my money too, and only on utilitarian terms can I be called a Republican. Yet with all that money, Gore still won. Too bad we were meek enough as a population to allow democracy to be usurped in such a manner.

Lookit, I voted for Nader in 2000, and I'm telling you, I did so in the hopes that he would get 5%, thus qualifying for Federal funds,...

DAR
Oh I see. You are seeing the 5% threshold as some sort of symbolic victory. I was speaking of victory as in actually winning.

TONY
I know for a fact that I was not the only lefty who did so. So yes, there was more going on than merely a protest vote.

DAR
But I am defining a protest vote as voting for anyone who cannot possibly win. That seems a reasonable definition to me.

TONY
As for possibilities, you cannot seriously be denying that 5% was impossible for Nader in 2000, when in fact he got 2.7%. Was 2.8% "possible"?

DAR
My mistake, I misread your comment. I was referring to the impossibility of Nader winning a presidential election in the US, not just receiving a useless symbolic 5%. If the goal is to just get this paltry 5% then there should be a good reason/reward for playing the spoiler to do this. I see no payback other than Nader feeding his ego. When he actually tried to work within the demo party and was a write in candidate in '92 he got 3,000 votes in the demo primary. He wouldn't go anywhere within the demo party because he is completely unelectable in the big picture. He has no experience.

TONY
No sane human being thought Nader was going to win. And yes, many just voted as a protest,...

DAR
That leaves us with (under my definition of protest vote):

a) sane people voting for Nader, admittedly as a protest vote
b) insane people who voted for Nader thinking he was going to win

It may be possible to go back and forth between a and b.

TONY
But many actually did have realistic goals: trying to build a viable party alternative to our two, only slightly variably, corporately owned Political Parties.

DAR
I see that as completely impossible with Nader.

TONY
There were many of us who supported Nader in 2000 who actually know this, and tried to do something to help shift the Democrats left. Without such things, it would never happen.

DAR
Well then why not work within the party to move it to the left? If they pay too much attention to their fringe minority and go too far to the left in a rightwing country they don't win. It's a compromise. Apparently they are walking right on the razors edge considering how close the elections have been. Losing the tiny 2.7% of Nader lefties caused the left to lose it all and have Bush installed. Oh well.

D.
----------------------------
In [the 2004] campaign Democrats accused Nader of having his bid funded by Republicans who wanted a repeat of his effect on the 2000 election. According to FEC records, the majority of donors who gave the maximum allowed donation to his campaign ($2,300) also gave the maximum to the Bush campaign." LINK

Saturday Night intro with Al Gore:

***
Announcer:
And now, a message from the President of the United States.

President Al Gore:
Good evening, my fellow Americans.

In 2000 when you overwhelmingly made the decision to elect me as your 43rd president, I knew the road ahead would be difficult. We have accomplished so much yet challenges lie ahead.

In the last 6 years we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack.

As you know, these renegade glaciers have already captured parts of upper Michigan and northern Maine, but I assure you: we will not let the glaciers win.

Right now, in the 2nd week of May 2006, we are facing perhaps the worst gas crisis in history.

We have way too much gasoline. Gas is down to $0.19 a gallon and the oil companies are hurting.

I know that I am partly to blame by insisting that cars run on trash.

I am therefore proposing a federal bailout to our oil companies because - hey if it were the other way around, you know the oil companies would help us.

On a positive note, we worked hard to save Welfare, fix Social Security and of course provide the free universal health care we all enjoy today.

But all this came at a high cost. As I speak, the gigantic national budget surplus is down to a perilously low $11 trillion dollars.

And don't get any ideas. That money is staying in the very successful lockbox. We're not touching it.

Of course, we could give economic aid to China, or lend money to the Saudis... again.

But right now we're already so loved by everyone in the world that American tourists can't even go over to Europe anymore... without getting hugged.

There are some of you that want to spend our money on some made-up war. To you I say: what part of "lockbox" don't you understand?

What if there's a hurricane or a tornado? Unlikely I know because of the Anti-Hurricane and Tornado Machine I was instrumental in helping to develop.

But... what if? What if the scientists are right and one of those giant glaciers hits Boston? That's why we have the lockbox!

As for immigration, solving that came at a heavy cost, and I personally regret the loss of California. However, the new Mexifornian economy is strong and el Presidente Schwarznegger is doing a great job.

There have been some setbacks. Unfortunately, the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Michael Moore was bitter and devisive. However, I could not be more proud of how the House and Senate pulled together to confirm the nomination of Chief Justice George Clooney.

Baseball, our national pastime, still lies under the shadow of steroid accusations. But I have faith in baseball commissioner George W. Bush when he says, "We will find the steroid users if we have to tap every phone in America!"

In 2001 when I came into office, our national security was the most important issue. The threat of terrorism was real.

Who knew that six years later, Afghanistan would be the most popular Spring Break destination? Or that Six Flags Tehran is the fastest growing amusement park in the Middle East?

And the scariest thing we Americans have to fear is ... Live From New York, its Saturday Night!

DAR
I saw this on Snuffy this morning. Seems George Will's observations and comments to the rightwing folks in his party would be very apt if a lefty made similar comments to the leftwing Nader people on the far left:

***
On This Week with George Stephanopolis, the roundtable discussion turned to the recent “threats” by the Religious Right (who apparently renamed themselves Social Conservatives) to run a third-party candidate as a result of their distaste for the all-but-presumed Republican candidacy of Rudy Giuliani.

While Claire Shipman suggests that this may be a tactical way for the Dobsons and Perkins of the Religious Right to re-assert to the Republican party the need to cater to them, seeing as the Republicans can’t possibly win this election anyway, so splitting off the vote is more statement than a way to win, George Will has just one thing to say to them: Grow up.

Social conservatives should grow up. If they want to rally around somebody, why don’t try that? Huckabee needs support and money now. If the social conservatives are half as important as they think they are, they would rally around one of these people [..] And then decide what you care about. If you care about judges, then you’re gonna get satisfied by Giuliani, then get in line and play politics. But there’s a vanity in this group right now. They call themselves “values voters.” I’ve news for them: 100% of the American electorate are values voters; they vote their values…And this, this, kind of semantic imperialism that they have where they say “we vote values”. Everyone else votes what?

LINK