Mind Screw Poll

As much as I love Obama, I voted for choice #1. I do not believe our country would be in the shape it is in had Kerry been elected. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about Kerry as I am for Obama, but I still believe we would be in a better position as a country, and that is what is important.

I can’t do it. I cannot make that decision, not even in my own head. It’s blowing my mind trying. Back forth, up down. *going under desk*

I’m with Zanath, for the same reason.

Hmmm. I think Kerry actually won Ohio in 2004, but that’s not the question you’re asking so…honestly?I think this country needed to hit rock bottom. Don’t get me wrong, I worked my ass off to get Kerry elected and I think he would’ve made a fine president, but I also think a lot of people would have just gone back to sleep once he became president. Sadly, people have to lose their homes, their livelihoods and their retirement savings before they pay attention to the fact that who they vote for DOES make a difference in their lives. And that maybe there’s more to worry about than abortion and your gay neighbors getting hitched.Also, Obama is running such a positive and honorable campaign. I hope that future campaigns will look to it as a model of success, something to aspire to.So, I guess #2. But if I have to go through the depression and sadness I felt after the 2004 election again, the deal is off.

It would be wonderful if greatness could come without tragedy, but I think history demonstrates that’s not possible. Had Gore won, our world may have been unrecognizable from today; no ascendancy of Rovian politics or Machiavellian rule; but I believe it would have been tenuous, and we would have accepted prosperity without examining our own worth and purpose. Eventually the political pendulum would sweep away the gains.With all dreck has happened with Bush, the good that has come from it has been a self examination of our own principles and beliefs. I believe the country stands today on the most solid footing it has ever found in recent history with respect to self-awareness. We have been through the trials necessary for our generation to adopt strong convictions, and unfortunately draw some lines of demarcation in our populous.Kerry would have done things differently, sure, but a cancer patient in remission is not a person without cancer. The Conservative ethos would have been a constant abscess on our Democratic Progressive aspirations. The numbing left vs. right struggle would have propagated for who knows how many more years or decades. But the events of the last 8 years have surfaced the cancer of Conservatism to such heights that it is undeniable that the patient needed to beat it or die. Kind of like the woman who finds herself in the hospital after a car crash…only to there discover she has stage III cancer. Was the crash a bad thing? It likely saved her life?I’m going with the zen perspective with my vote. All things happen for a reason. This is our moment, this is our time. Let the lessons of our past inform our commitment to the future.(thanks doc, I think I needed to get that one out)

I had to take option 2….

I wasn’t all that impressed with Kerry, although I voted for him as the lesser of 2 evils…

However, looking back at the past 8 years, I’m loving the amount of damage that Bush and his accomplices have done to the Repubs… I have to believe that having things gone as they have for the Bush years can only lead to bigger better things for our future as a country.

OK, I guess I should have just said:

Yeah! What LiveFree said!!!!

I still have trouble wrapping my head around the poll question but LFOD and Tanya are especially convincing in leaning me toward pushing that particular button, if I find myself able. You guys put forth some heavy shit. Got some swampland to sell in FL to someone who has trouble with pushing poll buttons on the spot?

I agree with Tanya and LFOD. As painful as these past 4 (8, in actuality) years have been, I think they were necessary for some people to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee.It is a human trait, or perhaps a uniquely American one, that we cannot recognize or appreciate when our lives require drastic change until we have reach the ultimate low and the only option we have is change.I believe that if Kerry had won in ’04, as much as I wanted that to happen at the time, I think the ’08 election would have been just another scripted Democrat vs. Republican election.Instead, this election has gone beyond the White House – beyond who becomes president. This election speaks to the soul of America. It is asking every American to take a stand about what we believe in and what we want for our country – because we all create it. That is why we are seeing such record numbers in the amount of people voting. This is why friendships have been broken, why lines in the sand have been drawn – because it’s not just about whether you consider yourself a casual Democrat or Republican. It’s about who you are as a person.People have become passionately involved in this election, and I think it’s fantastic. It has caused people to become so much more involved in our gloriously American democratic system – people who had become lazy and lethargic. People are re-examining beliefs that they had held all their lives. This would not have happened if this was a Kerry re-election campaign.I know I’ve rambled on, but despite the awfulness of the past 8 years, we need to look for the positive. And I think having record early-voting turnouts and having people (like me) volunteering for a campaign who never would have done so before are signs that, in some aspects, times have changed for the better. No disrespect meant to John Kerry, but we needed a kind of change that he could not inspire.

Kat -Marry me.that was beautifully put. Kudos!

Just FYI I went with the latter, not because I think Obama is better than Kerry or any such nonsense, but because we were already teetering on the edge of collapse.Given our slim majority in both houses of Congress if we’d had a Democrat as POTUS we’d be really screwed right now!As it stands now the worst things can go is we gain a few seats in both the House and Senate, we have a douchebag for POTUS, and in 4 years we have to prove he/she was a total douchebag!

I went for option 2 as well. I think this country really needed to understand how far it had plunged into the depths of purgatory in order for this massive change to take place.It’s kind of like we as a country have been in an abusive relationship for the past 8 years. We had a chance to walk away in ’04, but the bastard made us think we couldn’t make it on our own and nobody else would want us, so we stayed. Now 4 years later, after getting our asses kicked over and over, being lied to over and over, the final straw is coming home and finding your kid acting just like the bastard. That’s your wake up call. You know you have to get out, make a change.I know, that was pretty dramatic.

When I first looked at this I thought “what’s so hard…#2″ but then I really considered both options and voted #1.Here’s why: I had this image in my head of soldier’s dying in Iraq and I honestly believe that wouldn’t have happened had Kerry won that election. I’ve been so damn proud and involved in Barack’s election, I know it’s the right thing for our country. I think we’re beyond fortunate to have this chance to right some of the wrongs that have happened this last 8 years. We have the opportunity to get our country back! But I had to vote #1.Geeze-um, Bob, did you have to make this so damn hard???

Imagine if we hadn’t been spending $10 billion a month in Iraq for the last 4 years. Imagine if the 3000 or so young people who have died in Iraq over the last 4 years were still around to love their families and hug their children. Imagine that the oil companies hadn’t been making record breaking profits quarter after quarter. Imagine that the Justice Dep’t hadn’t been politicized and New Orleans hadn’t been forgotten by the gov’t. Imagine what it would be like to go to the polls this year with only a little concern that someone might screw the electorate. Imagine only soldiers residing at Gitmo and the rule of law actually meant something.You can’t assume that today’s circumstances would be what they are in spite of a Kerry presidency because those circumstances were determined by choices that were not Kerry’s.

#1. Love the O-bomb, but Kerry would’ve started wrapping up the Iraq war and listened to people, like the O-bomb, who said, “I think Wall Street is about to pants us.”

I’m glad we arrived at this moment in history. The nation was not asking for universal health care four years ago – we are now. Four years ago the nation was heavily divided – a Kerry win would not have produced a governing majority. I believe what has happened is written; part of our collective legacy that brings us to this moment. Obama ’08 is not just the man, its the moment, and we are a part of it. Obama ’12 would have been a different thing altogether, if it would have happened at all.QT

For Cactusgal it’s Option 2 all the way.Had Kerry been elected with Edwards as VP, I believe there would have been some kind of a scandal that the Refucks would have pounced on, and we would have been toast for God knows how long, Obama or not.Incredulous72 kind of said what I would have if I had kept my beak out of the wine box until 6:30. The only thing else I can add is that I’m utterly thrilled with and committed to Barack Obama, and with Kerry…not so much.

My preference is that the actual winner of the 2000 race had been able to serve his term, which I think would have been two, actually.However, like Kat, I believe sometimes we have to hit bottom. Sometimes we have to be dragged to the water before we willingly drink.In this case, what we get is an amazing, incredible chance to move our country over a hurdle that has to be jumped at some point — having a non-white-male president.Once we get past the point where race or gender matters, past this growing pain in our history, we will be a better country and a better people.Sometimes it takes horrible circumstances to prepare us to make those forward leaps, and right now I’m just glad we are standing holding the glass in our hands and are ready to drink.I’m cautiously optimistic about Obama winning, but if we get there, America will truly, honestly, for the first time in its history, be the country where, when we tell our children they can be anything they want to be, we will be telling them the truth.I want to believe that makes it all worth it.Yes we can.

Yeah, but history has never allowed 4 terms of Democrats, has it?Well, besides FDR

Aww, you guys are making me cry with some of your answers.I’m not sure what I’d pick…but if an Obama candidacy was guaranteed in 2012, I’d go with A.It’s just kind of hard to imagine life without him now that we’ve gotten to know him over these past few years.

Definitely not a very fair list of options. In the end I had to go with a Kerry victory though. As much as I feel the country needs what is happening right now, I can’t really reconcile it with all the loss of life in Iraq or the extra trillions in national debt that has accumulated in the last four years.Trade offs are a bitch though. As I said I can’t honestly say I’d have preferred all the terrible things that have happened since Kerry lost. However, since those things did indeed happen, the end result that will hopefully stem from an Obama victory this time around, will truly be something marvelous to behold.At 40, I never saw Kennedy live, and only vaguely remember Watergate. I have a better recollection staring in the Carter years. All the same I can say that at least in my lifetime to this point, there hasn’t been another candidate even remotely in Obama’s class.It has nothing to do with the historical aspects such as race. From the very first time I heard the man speak, and every time since, even though I’ve heard variants on the same speech the last week or so on a daily basis, I still watch and listen in awe. My first thoughts… after being able to actively think again was that he sounded like a cross between Kennedy and MLK, Jr. He has that special something that really only comes along once in a generation.On top of the sheer charisma, he has an intellect that is second to none, keen political insight, and on top of that still has the sheer audacity to be a hell of a nice guy that really cares about this country and the people who live here the way a real leader should care.In any event, although I wish we weren’t in straits we are in, I’m grateful that the one who looks to be the one to lead us out of it again, is actually better than Kerry, not to mention leaps and bounds above anything the Repubs have to offer.Oh and we get to have him four years earlier than with the other option.My only worry, is that Bush and Co. and dug such a deep hole that it is going to take long enough to start seeing improvement, that our impatient, and often not too bright electorate will become too impatient and cut his administration short. The country doesn’t need to head back to the right before that bunch gets their collective feces together and rejoins the rest of humanity.

Option 2, for all the reasons listed above. I don’t have any new insight, I just wanted to post because I know you guys couldn’t get to sleep tonight without knowing my opinion on this.:)

There’s no going back. You can’t jump into the far future. All you can do is the next right thing. And that’s enough.

uuuuh… I don’t even know why that vote is even close. In fact, the results so far are tragic.”Do you think it was for the better that the worst president in American history has governed for four more years or are you glad because now a different guy is going to take over?”When you’re talking about the long-term damage that f–ing monkey has done to this place the question is utterly absurd.Has anyone seen “Sunshine” or “Apocolypse” or any of those apocolypse-themed movies? It would be like if one of the crew members took a vote about not going to the meteor or the sun to do their duty for mankind’s survival because he wanted to live a few more days and maybe the future really wasn’t in doubt anyway… although it was and he was deluding himself.What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck?

Somehow four or possibly eight years of Kerry makes me want to reach for the Tums. Now if you had offered a choice of Gore in 2000 and Obama in 2008 …. hmmm.

Now ask this one, Bob, ask this one!!!A. Jesus IS NOT crucified and the Christian movement fizzles out, eliminating future takeover and domination of republican politics by the Religious Right.B. Jesus IS crucified, right-wing religious fanatacism is fatally damaged by blow back in 2008, and in 2009 Bush and Cheney are found guilty of treason and imprisoned at Gitmo for life.(Even tho A very tempting to this old heathen, I still gotta go with B because of the Bush-Cheney part.)

I’m with MG on not understanding how the results of this poll are even close. Nothing could make four more years of bush/cheney worth it.