Here is a further wedge being driven between Europe and the US.

"Arab television stations aired a new audio tape purportedly from Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) on Thursday offering a truce with European states if they stop attacking Muslims, but not with the United States."

"The voice on the tape, broadcast by Dubai-based Al Arabiya channel and then by Qatar-based Al Jazeera station, said there would be no truce with the United States."

"The taped message also vowed revenge on Israel for the death of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, killed last month in Gaza."

""What happened on September 11 and March 11 are your goods returned to you so that you know security is a necessity for all," the voice on the tape said."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040415/ts_nm/security_binladen_dc

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. This announcement coupled with Bush's major shift in decades old US policy by saying Israel could keep its settlement in the West Bank is only likely to make things much worse.....

Bush pulled his typical screw up today by kissing that psycopathic Sharon's ass. It just proves that all the messes we get ourselves into in the Middle East are the direct result of a foreign policy totally controlled by the Israeli lobby. Bush makes a speech last night about respecting the Iraqi people, their culture, and wanting to bring peace and democracy to that part of the world. There is also the unspoken but understood notion throughout his speech that we are going to bring the ignorant savage people of the Arab world into the 21st century. And today he lets the Palestinians know that they are also ignorant savages who rate little in the course of civilization. Especially compared to the angels from heaven who have taken the dead lands of Palestine and turned them into a version of Eden. (We'll ignore the billions in direct US aid or the apartheid system that Israel set up to insure poorly educated cheap labor forced to live in concentration camps overlooking the lands and homes that were once their's)

It's amazing how people can so blind themselves to what their actions produce and then have the nerve to call those who finally snap and react as being terrorists. The events in the last week in Iraq certainly prove that the local man in the street hates our guts and is willing to fight. Magnify this throughout the Arab and Islamic world. And there's Bush telling anyone who listens how he is all for his good buddy Sharon and how the stupid Palestinians should shut up and go play with their camels.

TF:

Again, I couldn't agree more. Neither side in the Arab/Israeli conflict is "on the side of the angles", butthe US putiting a stamp of approval on everything Sharon demands will ultimately produce more terrorism against the USA than even the Iraqi War.


BS

Here's another article outlining the case for having a Democratic president with a Republican Congress as the best combination economically, I forget where I posted the first.

This is from Fortune magazine by Doug Bandow, "senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan."

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,611869,00.html?cnn=yes

I think this might get archived for suscribers only, so just in case.

D'art:

Good article. Reminds me of my basic voting policy - if I don't know any better about a candidate, all else being equal,I vote AGAINST whoever is in power. And let's not even get me started about term limits...


BS

Vote all incumbents out.

Not a bad policy.

The argument against Bush:

He has mishandled the economy. He used the income tax laws to transfer wealth from the middle class to the extremely wealthy in amounts never seen before in history. He fell asleep concerning protecting America from Al Qaida, and then when he had Osama on the ropes in Afganistan, let him slip away. He has zero interest in job creation, he doesn't care that Americans don't have jobs, as long as his rich friends make a buck. His economic policies have caused the highest gas prices in history, to the benefit of his patrons in Texas. He launched a disasterous war in Iraq, for no benefit to the USA, although the oil companies and Halliburton are doing quite well, thank you.

The argument FOR Bush:

"He kick Arab butt". "I got MY $300". "I don't like Kerry".

Well here is some more BAD news for the Kerry camp.

San Diego Union Tribune headline....JOB GROWTH CONTINUES SHARP CLIMB.

The first two paragraphs read.

Employers in the United States added hundreds of thousands of jobs for the second month in a row, the Labor Department reported yesterday, offering clear evidence that the pace of hiring is finally picking up speed in response to the nation's strengthing economy

The eruption in jobs... 288,000 new positions in April following the addition of 337,000 in March... finally brought total employment in the United States above where it had been when the economic recovery officially began nearly two and a half years ago.

Gee, only 2.1 million more jobs to go and Bush can break even with the number of jobs he started office with.

Even if he were to gain 2.1 million jobs between now and november, he can't claim that his administration created more jobs, all he can hpoe for is he will not be the first president in the history of the US who lost more jobs in his administration than he started with.

Even more worrisome for Bush: He must get 500,000 more voters to vote for him, than voted for him in the last election. Remember Bush lost the popular vote by over 500,000 votes to Gore.

OG

OG

OG; Where are you getting your information at? The yellow worm.com? 500,000 votes? Get real.

I just can't see voting for a worm like Kerry, he bends the truth so bad it looks like a pretzel.

Remeber his news conferance on the enviroment? He was asked if he owned an SUV, his reply was a big no!!!

When asked who's suburban SUV that was parked in his driveway his reply was that it was his wifes.

Roadglide

So the real question is why do we have a political system where we only have two viable choices for president - both of them really bad ones? What's wrong with this picture?

Phoenix; The real problem with our political system is the primary'.

The only way that a canidate can get his party's nomination is to be more left wing than the other guy for the Dems, and more right wing for the republicans.

The Republican party screwed Sen. John McCain over hard in California. They "the party" had already made up there mind's on who "they" wanted for their nomination to go agenst Gore.

I volunteer'd some time on his campain in SoCal, but we were way out gunned by the Bush camp and the big money machine.

So we ended up with a hard right winger going up agenst a hard left winger.

That turned off a lot of voter's, and the majority of those that did decide to vote went with Bush.

I think that he was the best choice of the two then and he is again now.

Remember Al Quaida was waging a war against us during the Clinton years and we did nothing about it but chuck a few cruise missles at them. They took that as a weakness and we ended up with 9/11. It's hard to say what Gore might have done, but I doubt that he would have reacted as strongly as Bush has.

I like the two-party system. Imagine if there was an organized third party, and they had one or two senators or a handful of representatives in Congress. Even less would get done than now because both of the big parties would have constantly cut deals with the fringe group to get anything done. Check out Germany, Italy, etc where there are multiple parties. They have to stop everything a form a new government every six months because someone gets pissed and decides to switch support to a different lead party. It's a fucking nightmare. The fringe group constantly acts as a spoiler and ends up with a disproportinate amount of power. It's not a whole lot different than extortion.

A strong two-party system is not perfect, but is the best, by far, of the alternatives. Making a protest vote - Jesse Ventura in MN, for instance - is cathartic and seems good in the short run, but once the vote is over and the fringe is in place, clusterfucks do tend to happen.

RoadGlide

Employment Figures: Federal Register, Wall Street Journal.
Voting Figures: Are you kidding!!. Every Paper in the Nation!!!

But I suppose reading these papers taxes the mental capabilities of hard core Fox News watchers.

John McCain is Bush's worst nightmare, A Republican with integrity.


OG

Quoting from above:

"I just can't see voting for a worm like Kerry, he bends the truth so bad it looks like a pretzel."

"Remeber his news conferance on the enviroment? He was asked if he owned an SUV, his reply was a big no!!!"

"When asked who's suburban SUV that was parked in his driveway his reply was that it was his wifes."

My comments:

If that is the biggest complaint that someone has about Kerry, then I can't imagine what they must think about Bush.....

Here are some general comments on the Bush camp labeling Kerry a flip-flopper.

It doesn't bother me at all. Some will say he has his finger in the wind to see which direction public opinion is going that day and that he changes his stance daily based on that.

What about the flip side of that?

What about someone who believes so strongly in something that no matter how much evidence is placed in front of him to go in a different direction, he decides to be stubborn about it because he believes in it and it is the wrong thing to do?

I'd prefer someone who is constantly re-evaluating and thinking about their positions on issues. Not someone who has a core set of beliefs and no matter what anyone says or no matter what evidence is place in front of them, they've already made up their mind on a particular course of action.

Re: John McCain.

McCain would have beaten Gore in a landslide because many Democrats would have voted for him. McCain would have brought back the "Reagan Democrats."

I would have voted for McCain against Gore if he would have received the Republican nomination.

It is also quite unfortunate that a centrist like McCain is practically being pushed out of the party by the ultra-conservative and far right wingers. Most centrists don't seem to have much of a place in the Republican Party anymore.

Xen,

I was a nominal Republican until the mid-90's (although I did not care for Reagan much at all). However, I cannot remotely identify myself with the current stands of the Rep party. The quote-unquote "Northeast Liberal Republicans" are mostly long gone at this point.

Roadglide, actually the question you proposed to Orgngrndr begs the question of where YOU get your information at. As he replied, the 500,000 figure was written about and discussed so much and so thoroughly that it's hard for me to imagine that anyone that was paying even a little attention to the 2000 election results would not recognize that figure.

The exact difference was 540,520. Gore's 50,996,582 votes to Bush's 50,456,062. Full popular vote tallies can be seen at the Federal Register:
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/2000/popular_vote.html

I'm not sure exactly what Orgngrndr meant, though, as the Electoral College makes how the votes spread out more important than the actual number of votes. I would guess that it would just be embarassing for Bush to win with less actual votes than his opponent a second time.

As for the SUV, who knows what he was thinking except that maybe he got caught off guard when he was expecting to discuss his position on the environment, the war, education, health care, etc...(issues). Conservative media organizations have been really good at shifting focus, often by feeding the "liberally-biased reporters(sarcasm)" from policy positions and implementation (Kyoto, Oil Industry, Water, etc...) to one of the cars in his family.

Many people across the political spectrum have been unhappy with the Bush Administration's effect on international relations, assault on civil liberties, rush to the first pre-emptive war based on false premises, etc.... By contrast, your trump card on Kerry is "he lied about his SUV"?

I strongly agree with Catocony's assessment. Theoretical and real-life examples point to the two-party system to be the best alternative IMHO.

Specific to US politics, they seem to do one or both of the following.

A. Weaken the support of the party more closely aligned philosophically. By logical extension, strengthening the party more philosphically in opposition. To use a real-life example, Nader supporters are left of the Democratic Party and should be horrified at the prospect of Bush's re-election, yet some will still vote for him, thereby increasing the chances of returning the White House to the party farthest in opposition to their beliefs.

B. Push the nearest party farther away from the center. A third party doesn't even need to win to be successful. Strategically, a major party may need to shift positions towards the extreme to avoid losing support (even a little may be crucial when polarization is so even). The consequences of having the parties at far opposite ends is debatable, but I personally feel and believe the general population considers a more centrist path to be the best.

Here's where I have the most problems with the Bush Administration. His compassionate conservatism was complete BS. Powell was placed in a high-position to lull moderates, fence-sitters, and doubters into believing his administration wouldn't be one of the farthest right we've ever seen with the likes of Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfield. Those paying attention, including Powell himself, know that it was all just for show.

The Democratic Party has been closer to the center at least since Clinton despite coordinated conservative mantra stating otherwise.

The Republican Party has lost it's vision. The Bush administration and the neo-cons have twisted the definition of conservatism so much it look nothing of what Goldwater and true conservatives invisioned. This is an interesting article on the "The Right's wrong turn"

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-edwards9may09,1,4682174.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

OG

That's what I like to argue to "conservatives" about. I have a mix of libertarian and liberal social views (abortion, marijuana legalization, Patriot Act bullshit, etc) and moderate/conservative economic views. I believe in reducing debt, streamlining regulations (not destroying), free trade (no more subsidies for agriculture and industry, but I would not fuck around with countries like China that don't play fair), fair taxes and things along those lines. Now, going back 30 years, I'm a clear Republican. However, I am not a tax hater and couldn't give two shits about the bible-thumping dumbasses out there, and that seems to be the Republican mantra of the past 25 years or so.

With the Democratic party convention coming up soon, who do you think will be John Kerry's running mate?

Even though it is HIGHLY unlikly can you imagine what a curve ball Sen. John McCain would be.

I am not sure who the VP will be, but I suspect it will be a John.

I've had a lot of time lately to listen to different people talk about who they want to win the election.About the only thing I've come up with so far is the democrats might as well vote for the republicans because at least something is still better than nothing.

What do you guy's think about the dirty tricks that the DNC is pulling to keep Nadder off the ballot in November?

Well, if you mean challenging the signatures needed for inclusion to the ballot, there are no "dirty tricks". This tactic is used in almost every election, by all parties, so much that so, it is closed to routine. It is also completely legal.

Nader failed to get on the ballot in Az, because they submitted several thousand unverifiable signatures. After a review by the registrar of voters, he needed 550 more qualified signature, and instead of challenging the count, or actually getting up an going out a getting the needed signatures, they folded, claiming insufficient funds.

I see no dirty tricks. The Democrats are playing hardball, that's true. But by implying that they are using "dirty tricks" to deny Nader a place on the ballot is spoken like a true Fox News journalist.

Nader possibly caused Gore to lose and Bush to win the last election, so the democrats will do him no favors.

In fact Nader can be accused of carpetbagging himself. He is trying to use the Reform and Green party and thier political machinery, to gain access to ballots in those states that these parties have enough registerd voters to have a ballot line ceeded to them as do the Republicans or Democrats.

Nader mounted a Presidential campaign as a Independent and did not formally endorse the party lines of either of these two political parties, although philosophical he is in close agreement with their platform. He did the green party no favors in the last election and they denied to endorse him for President. There was no collusion between the Greens and the Democrats either. The reform party endorsed him as a candidate, but may not add him to all state ballots they have access to, as they are running several favorite son candidates under their own slate.

It appears that Nader, who had his name on 43 of the %0 States in the 2000 election, may have less than 5 in 2004.

Many people voted for Nader as they were disenchanted with the Democratic Party in 2000. Many cast their vote as a protest. Too late, many of them realized their votes may have caused more harm than good, as it allowed Bush, who is diametrically opposed to virtually all Green and Reform party policies to grab states way from Gore by the slimmest of margins.

Most rethought support of Nader based on these facts, not some skullduggary on behalf of the Democrats.

There is a big difference between political hardball and dirty tricks.

OG

Well let's see. There are credible allegations the Republicans are providing funds to Nader to help him get on the ballot (to take votes away from Kerry), and the Democrats are asking the states to enforce the laws requiring that the signatures on petitions to place Nader on the various state ballots be valid. Whether one wants to call the latter political hardball, or simply the defense of the rule of law, is a matter of personal opinion I suppose. But what puzzles me is who did you say was engaging in dirty tricks?

Roadglide,

Are you suggesting that dirty tricks and politics is something that the Democrats do? This is news to me. It seems to me that both parties play plenty of dirty politics and I hate to say it. It is the nature of the game. Politics is dirty slimey stuff.

It's just sad that the Democrats are STILL blaming Nadder for their failure in 2000. If they lose this time around who will they blame?

If you think that electing Kerry will get us out of Iraq, think again. He has stated on his web site that he will add 40,000 active duty troops to the Army.

I think I'll blame the voting machines.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_story.asp?category=1700&slug=Profile%20E%20Voting%20Gadfly

I've been following this story for quite a while and this lady’s claims are nothing new. While some of her claims might be over the top, I have a problem with any e-voting system that doesn't leave a verifiable paper trail. Many of the systems don't and Diebold's source code has been posted on the internet. The system is ripe for abuse and fraud and may have us wishing for the days of "hanging chads” by the end of the 2004 election. Since I am a computer guy by trade and hobby, I know how easily these voting machines could be hacked or altered, thereby affecting the election results and the election's integrity.

The Diebold system was used in San Diego County for the last local election. Lots of issues, none of them good.

Roadglide,

The Dems don't blame Nader for 2000. Most Democrats, though, recognize that it is very important that nothing distracts voters from the Democrats primary purpose in 2004. Most people that voted for Nader (myself included) recognize that removing Bush from office is more important than a 'vote of conscious.' But just in case the Democrats would prefer Nader does not get on ballots.

What Kerry is saying about Iraq is that he will do what is needed to get us out as soon as possible. It is his belief that the way to do that is to add troops so that the situation can be stabilized faster. Because he is not as resented internationally as the current administration, he is much more likely to gain support from the UN security counsel with additional troop support.

Beachbum2: Given that you voted for Nader in 2000, I hope you are not from Florida where it mattered. While when even by Bush's count, he only won the election by about 550 votes, there are many things that can be blamed for the outcome, any one of which would have changed the result. Nader should be, and rightly is, up there on the list, as there is no question Gore would have won the election (beyond dispute) had Nader not been on the ballot. Why anyone with liberal tendencies would have voted for that egotistical maniac is beyond me. When the contrast is between someone like Bush and Gore, I don't know how anyone could say that witholding one's vote from Gore so as to give Bush the election is a "vote of conscious" (sic). It is more like a vote of the unconscious.

Sorry about the tone, but I'm really pissed at those of you supposed lefties who should have known better but greased the wheels for Bush to become President.

LD: I live in a State that was not going to be one by Gore even if he got every Nader vote, plus quite a few more. I did not withhold my vote from Gore, I voted for the Green party because I strongly support their view on the environment.

I think the real question is, how could Gore have run such a bad campaign that so many Dems were turned off?

Heh, but how quickly people forget that Perot lost the election for Bush Sr. And, yes, of course Nader spoiled the election for Gore. Both are statistical, exit poll facts. It's all about the third party now. Is it so bad that the Republicans help support the Greens in exchange for some of the Greens policies to get looked at if the Republicans win? Of course not. Take a look across the Atlantic at the multi-party Democracies. It may be beginning here. In fact, I wouldn't mind. There is so little difference between the Reps and Dems it's shocking. Unless you watch TV, however. Then it's merely cheering for your favorite team.

No, the exit polls showed that had Perot not been in the election, his vote would have split about 50/50 between Clinton and Bush, and to the extent particular exit polls showed otherwise, they also showed any disparity would not have affected the outcome of the election. A few years ago I spent some time researching this after hearing the same claim made by a partisan Republican, who also subscribed to this Republican myth. I briefly did a google search today, but much of the material that was on the web then is no longer accessible, or, at least, is more difficult to find quickly. However, I did find an article, admittedly from the Cato Institute (I can't recall whether their academic work is respected generally or not although I believe they can be quirky), that claims Perot actually hurt Clinton against Bush, in that Perot drew from the anti-incumbent vote. While I wouldn't vouch for everything in the article, the general gist is consistent with the actual exit polls I examined a few years ago, although it goes a step further. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj18n1-7.pdf.

On the other hand, if one were to make the claim Perot lost the election for Bush through his arguments, which may have made the general electorate less likely to vote for Bush (thereby making them more likely to vote for Clinton), that is a harder call to make. But that is quite different from how Nader spoiled the election for Gore.
Look at multi-party democracies indeed. In Israel, for example, the extreme religious right has historically had a disproportionate say in the politics of the nation because they have had the "swing vote." This sort of problem also arises in other mult-party democracies, thereby skewing the democratic process in ways that I am sure most of us would find unacceptable.

Alexandra Kerry pic link http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/kerry.asp

Enjoy

Like her father, I think she would look better wearing a stove-pipe hat.

Actually, the Cato study is using hypothetical statistical equations to determine how people would have voted and why. I don't think that analysis is all that clear. There were many actual,live polls that simply stated: "If Perot was not on the ballot, who would you have voted for?" I think that is a pretty accurate study. It was a long time ago, but I remember it turned out that well over 60% would have voted for Bush if Perot wasn't running. This is a lot of votes when he got 24% in Coloroado, and similar numbers in other states. The striking effect it had was that it tipped the scales in the narrowly held Republican states so that Clinton picked up the electoral votes (this is key since popular votes don't matter) he needed to win the election. I can't cite references, nor would I really want to since I vote Libertarian. We only got 0.4% of the vote last time. But, we are going for a big 0.5% this year, so look out!

It is possible I am confusing in my memory the Dole/Clinton race and the Bush/Clinton. If indeed Bush would have picked up 60 percent of the Perot vote, at least with respect to the popular vote he would have won (I believe he needed just over 58 percent). However, I'm still not at all sure the exit polls showed Bush doing as well with the Perot vote. While I was unable to find anything direct this time in my recent google search, I did find that the Perot vote split rather evenly between Democrat and Republican when it came to how the Perot voters voted in the Senate and Congressional contests, with the difference favoring the Republicans by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent, hardly the 16-17 percent margin that the Perot people would have had to favor Bush by in order to give him the popular vote win in the absence of Perot on the ballot. OTOH, and this does get tedious and a bit complicated, in the next election, the 1992 Perot voters voted more solidly for the Republican candidates.

By the way, I hear Kerry is a closet Libertarian; any chance you will consider voting for him this time around rather than throwing your vote away, like a Naderite?

This is a very interesting article about how the Republican party in Michigan is assisting Nader in getting his name on the ballot. It begins:

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan Republicans are helping gather signatures to place independent Ralph Nader (news - web sites) on the presidential ballot in the battleground state, irritating Democrats who accuse the GOP of trying to pull votes away from candidate John Kerry (news - web sites).

It gets more interesting, so here is the link to the whole article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&e=5&u=/ap/nader_petitions

I'd be interested in others reactions as to whether this behavior constitutes a dirty trick, unethical behavior or acceptable political activity.

No, I don't think I'll vote for Kerry or Bush. If that's the best this country has to offer, then there is something seriously wrong with this country. IMO, the political race is nothing more than a staged WWF match with all the scripted drama. It's like Orwell's 1984, but both parties are the "Inner-Party". I'd rather sleep in that Tuesday morning than vote for either of those two clowns.

I think it's a waste of time, and an embarrassment, the energy both sides are putting into this. I know only a couple people who voted for Nader, and both insist they would have not voted at all had he not been on the ballot. Might have been similar for Perot. They should let Nader deal with the election committees and stay out.

One of the neatest "dirty tricks" I heard of is when Nixon's people sent old, tattered bills of many denominations to Jesse Jackson's people. The fake letters sent along explained how they were from non voters in the past who finally found a man worth backing. Jackson bought it, and may have siphoned votes from McGovern.

Robewarrior
You don't have to like everything about anyone to vote for them. Nobody does. There must be an issue that separates the two choices available. Polls are open till 7PM!

As Dubya starts to sink in the polls the closer the election gets, it becomes apparent a new strategy is needed. Let's take an inside look at the newest neo-con think:

Strategy #1: Start a war, wave the flag, and ride the emotional and political high that follows.

Result: been there, done that. (Remind self to have an exit strategy)

Strategy #2: The whole Arab world hates US, who knows why. But hey! We are Americans. It us against the world. lets circle the wagons, declare a "terror alert" every four weeks to constantly remind everybody that we are at war, man! I am the War President, dammit!

Result: DO NOT find Osama Bin Laden, we desperatly need that boogeyman. Without him, we couldn't scare half of America.

Strategy #3 Make sure we do not have an actual terrorist incident as then Americans will learn that despite the Afghan and Iraqi war, the Patriot Act and "illegal combatents", we still are no safer than we were before September 11. We need people to belive that we can fix everything. TRUST US. Hell they might decide to vote us out, like they did the Spanish Government, when they wised up on out little-nation-building-war-conflict-police action-or whatever.

Result: By all means we need to postpone the elections, if our little deciet does not fool ot fellow countrymen. This will give us the needed time to really scare everyone into voting for us. At least we should cancel the Elections until poll numbers for us improve.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44676-2004Jul12.html

If we can't steal this election as they are now wise to us, we can at least postpone the election until we decide when and where, if ever it can be held, if anyone will be allowed to vote for "other" candidates, or if it is now "safe" for democracy.

TRUST US.



OG

--According to President Bush, President Bush has never made a mistake. Also, should a mistake be made, President Bush will be unable to recall the mistake or any events that happened before and after said mistake. President Bush also would like you to know that any fact brought forth must meet with President Bush's approval. Failure of the fact to be approved makes the fact false. Only President Bush approved facts will be considered truthful.

The latest projection from Rasmussen Reports predicts Kerry with 254 electoral votes to Bush's 197. 270 are needed to win the election. The rest of the states are toss ups.

Arkansas is now in play for Kerry and he is leading by a point there. Kerry is also up by five points in Florida. If Kerry takes all the states Gore took in 2000 and picks up either Ohio or Florida, Kerry will win.

The only problem with that is both Pennslyvania and Michicgan are both very close. Although, just recently Pennslyvania was moved into the Kerry column and he leads by 5 points there as well. Michigan is still a toss up though.

Other states Bush won in 2000 that are now in play are Missouri, Virginia, and New Hampshire.

You can visit the state by state breakdown here:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/election_2004.htm

Here is another site with state by state polls, but you'll have to add up the Electoral Votes on your own.

These are battleground states:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry_sbys.html

These are other state by state polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry_sbys2.html

And don't forget http://www.pollingreport.com, but their state polls are paid access only. Still a good site for national polls though.

Ronald Reagan's son, Ron Reagan will speak at the Democratic National Convention about Stem Cell Research.

The speech will be limited to Stem Cells and won't be a broad based attack on Bush's Administration. Reagan is quite the liberal now though according to this article.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=9&u=/nm/20040712/pl_nm/campaign_reagan_dc

I think Stem Cell Research is vital and it should receive government funding. I think Bush's ban on Stem Cell Research is extremely short sighted. He decision to ban government funded research on any new stem cell lines is based on his religious and moral belief that a two day old embryo is a human person and extracting the stem cells (which kills the embryo) is murder.

Scientists believe stem cell research could eventually lead to treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s, heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer. 100 million Americans could eventually benefit from treatments developed by stem cell research.

Could it be argued that NOT developing or researching stem cells is also murder? What is more important, the life that is already living or the life that will never live because the embryo would have been discarded anyway since they were left over surpluses from in-vitro fertilization. That makes no sense to me at all.

John Kerry would reverse the government ban on stem cell research if elected.

"He(President Bush's) decision to ban government funded research... "

I think it fair to stress this "ban" only relates to Federal monies, ie taxes. I think the private sector can cash in plenty enough to fund research now.

You are correct. The ban only affects government funding for embryonic stem cell research and does allow for government funded research on existing stem cell lines, the last of which were deemed mostly unusable around 2003. Only about 11 existing lines remain available for research.

It should also be noted that the far religious right wanted a federal ban on all embryonic stem cell research, be in public or private or government research. Some others also advocated developing embryos specifically for stem cell research.

The compromise that many in the middle (like me) were hoping for was frozen embryos found in many fertility clinics all across the country. Generally 8 or 9 eggs are fertilized. If multiple embryos develop from fertilization they are then frozen or destroyed, based on the request of the parents. There is currently a surplus of embryos destined for destruction at fertility clinics. Some have estimated that there are over 100,000 such embryos in frozen storage in the U. S. alone.

Why not use these frozen embryos for research? Why not use the ones that would have been discarded for research? It is a reality that federal money and research grants are highly needed in the research community. Available Federal money would greatly speed the research and the end results.

The problem with mixing Federal and private monies in one pot is the same that foreign health-care agencies ran into 3 years ago when the Bushies decreed that if you receive any US money, that program cannot promote abortion. That was to prevent the obvious go-around - say, you spend all US money on admin/support and then all private money on family management.

The domestic work around would be the same - you spend the Federal money on the infrastructure (lab, equipment, etc) that is "mixed-use" and specificaly not for stem-cell research, then spend private dollars on the actual research.