Why Democrats shouldn't be scared - By Michael Moore

[Darth Wong]

I've never been really thrilled with either the Dems or the Republicans, but I'm still somewhat wary of having a reasonably powerful third party in America. A large enough third party could pretty much prevent any legislation it didn't like from passing despite not having that kind of mandate.

Our experience with third parties up in Canada is that they don't really do much of anything at the federal level. But a large third party at the federal level can generate enough credibility to get wins at the provincial level. If they were to manage the resulting local administrations well, that would theoretically go a long way to building credibility for them at the federal level. But the NDP (our third party) has historically done a horrible job whenever they've won provincial office, and that has seriously hurt them at the federal level.

[Uther]

The United States has always had, except during a few wacky transitional periods, two major parties. That's just what the system lends itself to.

Kerry is likely to lose, because defense is a "sexy" issue and plays well in speeches, TV ads, and the media in general. Bush is perceived as strong on defense, and his campaign has successfully painted Kerry as weak (which I don't really accept). Kerry, meanwhile, refuses to counter the Republicans directly, and apparently thought his swift boat service would cause him to be seen as a "real man." Too bad he served in a controversial war. And only for a few months. Not that I'm indicting him in any way, but he was quite vulnerable to charges of adventurism and such. Is adventurism a word? Anyway, emphasizing the military service clearly did more harm than good.

Kerry may be a candidate, but what were the alternatives? Howard Dean, in the primaries alone, had provided Bush with enough crazy sound bites to sink him. Gephardt might have been workable but I'm not sure if he has the charisma or energy for it. The only real alternative was Edwards, whose relatively brief service in the Senate is his biggest liability (although I think Bush was only governor for like 2 more years than he's been a senator). I'm not sure the trial lawyer thing would really have hurt him, partially because he genuinely was a victims' rights advocate and because it's not particularly "sexy." Voting against military programs is, even if that's a gross distortion.

Of course, Kerry staged a stunning comeback in the primary season, and he could certainly do so again. But Bush definitely has the upper hand at this point.

[Agent Fisher]

favor gun control

We have enough gun control laws. Enforce them, not make more and leave it at that.

[Stuart Mackey]

Bleh..the only poll that matters is the one on election day.
The trouble here is that Kerry is a grey man in a political system that demands those who stand out on the basis of the superficial, the catchy sound byte. Nor does an apathetic population help..do US presidents have a majority vote of at least 80% of those eligible to vote?If the answer is no, then they is something wrong. You have a two party system that all but buries opinion and an electoral sytem that esnsures Kang or Kane {Simpson's quip there} only gets reprsentation and nothing of substance can change.
But the biggest problem is a population that is to apathetic to see that it could do better.

[Stuart Mackey]

I've never been really thrilled with either the Dems or the Republicans, but I'm still somewhat wary of having a reasonably powerful third party in America. A large enough third party could pretty much prevent any legislation it didn't like from passing despite not having that kind of mandate.

In theory, but that a party that does that tends to get punished at the polls when the government collapses.
Third parties quickly realise that to get their agenda passed they must
a) Be in power
b) For a to be accomplised the government must stand.
c) Third parties also realise that as third parties they do not have a mandate to govern, as such they dont get everything on their wishlist.

In any case, your electoral system does not allow for third parties.

[Mange]

Well, let me put in my 2 cents (well, I have to exchange them first) about a multi-party system.
Here in Sweden, for instance (I won't get into the details of the differences in the election systems, it'll get even more boring), we have two leading parties, the Social Democrats (social-liberals, in Sweden anyway) and Moderaterna (conservatives). On top of that we have the Folkpartiet (liberals), the Christian Democrats, the Center party, the Greens and Vänsterpartiet (communists, marxist-leninists). In the latest election, the Social Democrats didn't have enough support from the voters to form a majority government with 39,8 % of the votes, so they have to rely and make concessions to the Greens (4,6 % of the votes) and the communists (8,3 % of the votes). Worth noting is that a party must reach 4 % of the votes to get seats in Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament). So, in order to be able to regain a minority government formed with Social Democrats only, they must rely on these two parties, parties that aren't supported by the majority of the voters.
Also, each member of parliament must vote according with the party line. Failure to do so in more serious issues can lead to exclusion from the party. In the U.S., the parties are much more diverse, with candidates driving their own issues that they find important. IMO, that's a far better system.
One difference between the U.S. and Europe is that democracy was established in the U.S. before the parties existed, the opposite was true in Western Europe. The parties in the U.S. are therefore in a sense evolutionary, and had to deal with issues that the established parties in Europe didn't, thus the emergence of socialism and communism in Europe (I'm a liberal myself). I wrote a paper on this when I studied political science at university (not a full term paper though). Since the diversity in the political parties in U.S. are so prevalent and cover such a wide range of issues, the need for more parties is rather small.

[RedImperator]

It's going to be very interesting to see what the losing party does after this election. The Democrats especially seem listless and ossified, and a lot of the rank and file is very disappointed right now, even if they're keeping quiet until the election. If Kerry loses decisively, I think we're going to see some kind of revolt within the party against the current Kennedy-Kerry-Pelosi kind of leadership. The question is, will the party be overtaken by (Bill) Clinton centrist Democrats who can appeal to independents and liberal Republicans, or radical leftists who will put on a great show every four years but get clobbered repeatedly by the Republicans.

If Bush loses, I don't think the shakeup in the Republican party will be quite as severe. It would take another lost election or two after that to drive a wedge between the Christian conservatives and the moderates (who mostly detest each other, but work together because they hate the Democrats just a little bit more).

Honestly, if I thought that a Kerry loss would force the Democrats to shed a lot of tiredMassachusetts liberal baggage and get us some strong military/fiscal responsibility/socially liberal candidates, I'd vote Bush this year just to get a viable Democratic party in '08.

[Axis Kast]

Wong said it all: Kerry's so afraid of offending the mongrel of a constituency hatred for Bush put together for him that he's going to lose because he can't keep anybody's interest. Bush will win, if only because he's the devil people know.

[JME2]

Somehow, a bounce two months before the election somehow doesn't tell me 'It's all in the sack'. As for my thoughts on the bounce, well, another thread for that.

I agree it doesn't mean that Kerry is buried completely, but any Democrats who don't think that it's cause to be concerned are nuts.

Hmm, indeed. Now if was two days before the election, than I would freak out.

[Stormbringer]

Somehow, a bounce two months before the election somehow doesn't tell me 'It's all in the sack'. As for my thoughts on the bounce, well, another thread for that.

I agree it doesn't mean that Kerry is buried completely, but any Democrats who don't think that it's cause to be concerned are nuts.

Hmm, indeed. Now if was two days before the election, than I would freak out.

You might not be freaking, but Kerry's lost a lot of ground in key swing states. He's down a big chunk of electoral votes and as we saw last time those are what really count. Right now Bush is up in a lot of them and Kerry's margins in the rest are razor thin.

[JME2]

I agree it doesn't mean that Kerry is buried completely, but any Democrats who don't think that it's cause to be concerned are nuts.

Hmm, indeed. Now if was two days before the election, than I would freak out.

You might not be freaking, but Kerry's lost a lot of ground in key swing states. He's down a big chunk of electoral votes and as we saw last time those are what really count. Right now Bush is up in a lot of them and Kerry's margins in the rest are razor thin.

Obviously, I'm worried by the boost that Dubya received and want Kerry to get off his ass and get cracking with less than two months to go before E-Day.