March 18th, 2007
I’ve seen Alec Baldwin appear on Faux News a couple of times, and have liked how he has performed against the belligerent Hannity and bloviating O’Rielly; and now I like what he has written here:
The low point in US politics (and it is the lowest point because of how close we all are to the lessons we should have learned from Vietnam, the first Iraq war, Watergate, etc.) has rendered us incapable of any real effort in the service real change. Americans, if not disgraced by their government, are enervated by it. And they hate it. I have never heard Americans speak so poorly of the institutions of our government as they are now.
Is a one-term Senator from Illinois the answer? Is a woman who is bright and strong-willed, yet in it just as much to rewrite her own epitaph as anything? Is she the answer? Could you ever vote Republican again? You’d have to pry all of their lips off of Bush’s ass before they could answer a debate question or kiss your baby. (Think about where all those Republicans lips have been before you even contemplate handing them that baby.)
There is a candidate out there who IS the answer. The only answer. And, in what I believe is the true American spirit, I would rather die under a government headed by such a man than live under one like we have now.
[...]
Think about it. One man. Smart. Experienced. Brave. Doing it for the RIGHT REASONS!
You want his phone number?
As others have speculated in response to this post by Baldwin, we’ve already got this mystery candidate’s number… DraftGore.com.
September 13th, 2004
Recently I’ve come across the un-critical and reflexive remark, “Oh, just get over it, Gore lost the election. Period.” After coming across this on a message board, I was reminded of isolated news reports at the time that raised the opposite scenario. That is, in some late polls in 2000 it appeared that Bush would win the popular vote and Gore would go on to carry the electoral college vote. Well, we all know what happened. What’s not well remembered, is that Bush and his campaign had decided that if Gore won the electoral college vote, but not the popular vote, that Bush would contest the election on popular grounds:
The most intriguing scenario has Bush winning with voters while Gore squeaks to victory in the Electoral College.
Such an ambiguous finish to the closest, most hotly contested White House race in decades, would give Gore a legal claim to the presidency - and likely plunge the nation into a messy political crisis.
The Bush camp, sources said, would likely challenge the legitimacy of a Gore win, casting it as an affront to the people’s will and branding the Electoral College as an antiquated relic.
McGovern, however, warned that any Bush legal challenge could tear apart the nation and undermine the presidency.
“If there’s no legal basis for Bush’s case, it would be destructive,” said McGovern.
One informal Bush adviser, who declined to be named, predicted Republicans would likely benefit from a storm of public outrage if Bush won the popular vote but was denied the presidency.
“That’s what America is all about, isn’t it,” said the Bush source. “I’m sure we would make a strong case.”
Boston Herald, Nov 3. 2000 [ Link via EVote.com ]
Now, I’ll grant you this, reports like the one I cited are scattered and hard to find; however, I think that Republicans would’ve been far more rabid if the above scenario had played out, as opposed to what occurred. Perhaps the Democrats and Gore would’ve mounted a far more strenuous challenge, if the Democratic party had controlled the Senate, House and, for all practical purposes, the Judiciary — as the Republican party did then, and does now.
