is it possible to be more than a cheerleader with your vote? whatever happened to holding your leaders accountable? i understand that politics is a team sport. so is football, and my team is the longhorns. that doesn't mean that i cannot call out greg davis for being a total ******* retard after washington state sacked our quarterback 17 times in the holiday bowl. same goes for politics. i voted for bush in 2000. needless to say, i did not repeat the mistake in 04, but even before that second election i had no problem holding him accountable when he ****** up, which was often. for this election, i am planning on voting for obama. however, it won't stop me from being one of his loudest critics when he fucks up in office. and he will. and it hasn't stopped me from being critical of him in his run for office. why does it seem that so many people who vote in this country automatically rise to the defense of their champion candidate or politician without regard for fact or issue? if you voted for bush, you should be his loudest critic. he is supposed to be working FOR YOU. as such, he is YOUR EMPLOYEE. when i f**k up at work, my boss doesn't try to cover my **** up. he comes in my office and flings it everywhere, but most of it comes in my direction. as it should. i see a lot of people rushing to defend their candidates they plan on voting for. why? own your vote. criticize your candidate. hell, your vote gives you MORE right and MORE responsibility to criticize your guy than anyone else. OWN IT.
This is a fantastic question. Politics is a strange thing. I would presume it has to do with partisan politics and the analogy that no matter how bad the horns suck...you're not gonna go for the aggies.
Agree. I hate the fact that Bush has not taken more seriously the defense of our southern border. Likewise, I wish he would show more fiscal restraint. That said, he gets hammered upon so much and so often by the liberal media and the left-wing do nothings that I cannot help but support him. I think he's done a great job all things considered.
Great post, Hayden! Unless we get over the concept that politics is a team sport and start holding our leaders accountable, even if they are on "our team", the other analogy (I still won't root for Aggie) will always win the day.
Excellent post, Hayden. I voted for Bush twice, but he started losing my support not long after his second term began. I've never had any problem criticizing Bush, and there has been a LOT to be critical of, that's for sure. I consider him a HUGE disappointment, both for his handling of foreign policy after 9/11, and for abandoning fiscally conservative policies at home. He squandered lots of opportunities to rise to greatness. That said, I don't consider his presidency a total failure, and I do recognize some things he did right.
So according to you, Bush's biggest accomplishment as President was getting elected in the first place? I think you proved the OP's point.
I could list a lot of things I think he accomplished, but why? You won't agree with them no matter what I say, so why try? The bottom line is that I'm conservative and I don't want a liberal in the white house, no matter what. Bush being in the white house did that and it's one that you can't agrue. It's a simple fact. I don't accept the premise that Bush is a bad president. However, I don't expect to convince anyone here.
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1163304/posts There's a bunch I agree with. Have fun. Only to 2004, but oh well.
I think it's not so much a team sport as people will tend to follow one party based on issues important to them, and then they drink the koolaid and lose all perspective, and they start hearing what they want to hear from CNN/MSNBC or Fox/ClearChannel. I am very liberal on almost every social issue, so I would almost never vote for a Republican presidential candidate unless I was convinced the Democratic candidate was completely incompetent. If I wasn't in Texas, where most conservatives are big oil, I would be willing to vote Republicans into Congress, but I don't like that Texas allocates so much of its money into one basket. That being said, I like listening to news during the morning drive, and since NPR sucks in San Antonio, I end up listening to Glenn Beck--which can really push me from sorta liberal to radical leftwing in a hurry.
Accomplishments 1) Cutting Taxes 2) Judge Appointments 3) Supporting Eastern Europe 4) Making no apologies for hunting and killing terrorists - not pretending they have the rights of U.S. Citizens 5) Generally ignoring opinion polls 6) Toppling Saddam Hussein 7) Getting Re-elected 8) Dick Cheney 9) Not putting up with that BS stunt from Joseph Wilson 10) First and second African American Secy of State 11) Prescription drugs for seniors Failures 1) Border/immigration control 2) Spending/budget deficits 3) Bin Laden still breathing air 4) Donald Rumsfeld 5) Scott McClellan
Oilfield did a good job. However, and this the main point for me, to think a liberal democrat would have done better, for what I want in a president, is ridiculous to think.
What is it they say about approval ratings? Theres the 20% that are so brain dead they will support the person no matter what.
I'm all for cracking your own. Healthy debate on real issues is good. And I believe on balance that repubs, especially in TX have taken Bush to task on numerous issues - i.e. immigration. Convention time is circle the wagons, lets beat the other team time. That being said, I think a smart McCain would do well tonight to clearly delineate not only where he differs from Obama, but also the things he believes Bush has done wrong. I would like to hear some reference to the Constitution mentioned. Dems and Repubs parroting each other on how best they are going to protect me and spend my money wears very thin.
You do realize- I hope, that the reason Bush's approval ratings are around 30% is b/c some people think he's way too conservative and some people don't think he's conservative enough/abandoned his policies. IOW they don't approve for entirely different reasons. I've got all sorts of things I disagree with him about, but on balance I think his pluses outweigh his negatives. I do own my vote and I do hold my candidate resonsible. In fact, I'm not much of one to ***** b/c the other guy does something I don't like, b/c I expect him to do **** I don't like- that's why I don't vote for him.
I'll blister McCain if his speech sucks, as I blistered him about his ****** *** commericals on a 10 person long thread, chock full of conservatives, all complaining about him. Maybe that should be more that I can own my party affiliation rather than candidate since McCain clearly ain't my guy. I think R's do this better than Dems on this board. Talk radio too I think. McCain was a pin cushon on the airwaves most of this year. The Republican congress also gets lambasted regularly.
National Do Not Call Act - even FDR & Reagan couldn't get this accomplished. Do you remember where you were when this law was passed?
Look at how quickly this turned into partisan name calling. The larger issue in Hayden's post is the fact that your choice should not be binary, which is exactly the mindset that require a criticism of Bush to be followed by a criticism of Clinton. This is not a football game between the Democrats and Republicans, at least not from the voter's perspective. Think, develop your own ideology and then support that. Voting for people or parties lets everyone down because both are by their very nature corrupt. I understood Hayden to mean that people lose their commitment to their principles in the face of cheering for candidates who may not support those ideals. The thread rapidly devolved and proved his point.
I think he's right. On this board I think that conservatives who generally vote R are more likely to unload then libs who vote D. Some of my favorite posters are the libs who are intellectually honest on this board, as well as some of the very thoughtful and astute conservatives. This is getting pushed out by and large by the Obama fan boy nature of so many on this board, and the blind partisan hacks continuing to post "gotcha" type **** acting fair and balanced about issues like Trig not being the Gov's baby.
