What was my reaction to this rally? I flipped off Clinton as he drove by. I told all of my liberal and progressive friends that Clinton was going to strip away our civil liberties and would end up being a good friend to Wall Street.
We know how it turned out. It's pretty amazing that some of you can still argue with a straight face that Gore is somehow different than Bush.
Amazing.
Chuck0
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> This is going to run in Madison - Wisconsin's afternoon paper, The Capital
> Times, on Thursday, October 26. It is timed to coincide with Vice
> President Gore's campaign stop in Madison on Thursday afternoon. Send it
> to everyone you know! Bob McChesney
>
> Will Gore Throw the Election to Bush?
>
> Robert W. McChesney
>
> This past Friday a dozen former "Nader's Raiders" held a press conference
> and told Ralph Nader to drop out of the presidential race and throw his
> support to Vice-President Al Gore. Concerned about Gore's faltering
> numbers in the polls, they argued that votes for Nader might well lead to
> the victory of George W. Bush. It is not an original argument. But the
> problem with it is that they are asking the wrong candidate to quit the
> race. Had they thought it through, they would have demanded that Al Gore
> quit the race and throw his support behind Nader.
>
> Think about it. Vice President Al Gore has now had three 90 minute mano a
> mano debates with George W. Bush. His campaign and related soft money
> groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on political ads to
> convince Americans to support him. He has received an overwhelming amount
> of press coverage, much of it sympathetic. He is a household name across
> the nation. Yet here we are less than two weeks from election day and Al
> Gore still is not ahead of George W. Bush, arguably the least impressive
> and most unqualified candidate for president in U.S. history. Many polls
> find him trailing Governor Bush. And there is little hope for a
> turnaround, as Bush has twice the money Gore does to bombard the nation
> with TV ads. Were a politician the caliber of Bill Clinton running against
> W., he would mop the floor with Bush's carcass, and lead him by 15 points
> in the polls.
>
> Al Gore has failed. For whatever reason, people just don't like the guy,
> and the more they see him, the less they like him. The voters have made it
> clear they might not elect him even over such a numbskull as George W.
> Bush. It seems pretty clear why Gore cannot expose Bush for the fraud he
> is. Bush is owned lock, stock and barrel by the huge corporations and the
> wealthy. As president, Bush will reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and
> eliminate those remaining regulations that protect the environment,
> consumers and workers.
>
> He will also give the green light to anti-competitive corporate mergers
> and consolidation. A Bush Administration will make the Republican
> administrations of the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s look like socialist
> states. insincere focus group tested sound bites or a lot of mumbo jumbo
> on a bunch of incomprehensible policy programs. No one is advocating
> positions that tackle the extreme inequality of wealth and power in the
> United States directly, and the total corruption of our governing system
> by big money. Since there is little of substance to debate between them,
> those voters who haven't fallen asleep are making their choice between
> Gore and Bush on the basis of which they think has a better personality.
>
> On that score, whether it is fair or not, Gore is a sure loser.
>
> Ralph Nader is not the reason Gore's campaign is struggling. Gore has has
> ample opportunity to make his case before the American voters. Gore had a
> ten point lead in some polls in September. As that lead disappeared, most
> of the votes shifted to Bush, not Nader. In fact, surveys show that a
> significant percentage of Nader's supporters -- perhaps a majority --
> either would not vote or would vote for someone other than Gore were Nader
> not in the race. Most of those sympathetic to Nader but scared about a
> Bush presidency have already decided to vote for Gore.
>
> Al Gore, and Al Gore alone, has blown his golden opportunity. In fact,
> that Gore has laid such an egg is damaging Nader's effort to reach the
> five percent threshold and earn matching funds for the Green party in
> 2004. If Gore were doing as well as he should be doing, he would win the
> election handily and Nader could get 7-10 percent of the vote with little
> effect on the outcome. But Gore has indeed laid an egg, and party hacks
> are desperate to find a scapegoat. If Democrats are truly concerned about
> the fate of progressive politics, the rational solution would be for Gore
> to quit and throw his support to Nader.
>
> Gore can't win. Nader can. Without hardly any money and worse media
> coverage than Andrei Sakharov got from Pravda in the 1970s, Nader has
> drawn the six largest crowds in the campaign -- ranging from 10,000 to
> 15,000 people -- and these were paying audiences no less. When people
> actually hear Nader's message they respond, and they respond favorably.
> Nader can galvanize the citizenry in a way Gore cannot. He is the
> smartest, most competent, and most honest figure in public life today. He
> is a national treasure. In leaving the race, Gore should demand that
> George W. Bush have three 90 minute debates mano a mano with Nader in the
> final 10 days of the campaign. Without Gore's dreadful semi-Republican
> record, Nader will easily expose Bush for the ignoramus that he is. Let's
> see Bush serve up his banalities about favoring "small government" and
> "returning power to the people" in the face of Nader's command of the real
> record of massive corporate welfare that Bush supports. Vice President
> Gore should withdraw from the race immediately.
>
> Only Nader can defeat Bush. All that progressives stand for -- the Supreme
> Court, a woman's right to choose, the environment -- is on the line. The
> sad truth is that on November 7 a vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.