http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...4&e=4&u=/nm/20040503/ts_nm/campaign_bush_dc_4 ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Debates? GWB don't need no debates. The American people know exactly what he thinks. Rove is too smart to allow chowder head to debate Kerry.
So, let me get this straight, the incumbent is going on a bus tour to hold rallies for people that are already voting for him most likely, instead of doing something like...I don't know...running the country? I hate politics.
No, most instances apparently. He spends very little time on the bus. The bus is a prop, just like a rubber turkey he gave to the troops for Thanksgiving.
Yeah, I've never liked that sitting politicians can spend their time campaigning for reelection. Seems so unethical. But it's kinda built into the process now, and we just accept it as the nature of business. Sucks, but that's the way it is. And probably has to be.
From David Corn... these guys have to go... and Young Republicans like this scare me... _______________ Shouldn't college students seeking knowledge--especially knowledge that might challenge their own biases--be encouraged? Not so, it seems, according to the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign and the College Republicans of Kalamazoo College. When seven sophomores at the school showed up at Wings Stadium in downtown Kalamazoo to see George W. Bush at a campaign rally on May 3 and presented the tickets they had obtained for the event, security officers would not allow them in. The problem, according to these students, was that College Republicans volunteering at the event fingered them as liberals who did not support Bush. And such citizens were not welcome at the rally. According to Ted Hufstader and Julia VanAusdall--two of the Kalamazoo Seven--here's what happened. Last week, the students heard that Bush would be appearing at Kalamazoo during a bus tour through the swing states of Ohio and Michigan. Hufstader maintains that this group of friends, which was made up mostly of Bush detractors (some of whom have engaged in protests in the past), only wanted the chance to see and hear the president. They were, he says, not interested in waging any anti-Bush action. "We wanted to get a better idea of what he's like," Hufstader notes. "All we get are little soundbites on the news." And he points to the fact that one of the seven was an international student as evidence of their sincerity: "We would not have done anything to jeopardize this student's standing in the country." So Hufstader hit the Internet and discovered that tickets for the Bush rally would be handed out at a local Chamber of Commerce office. ("The tickets are free and will be distributed on a first come first serve basis," the chamber's website reported.) Last Friday morning, he and Lisa Dallacqua arrived at that office at seven in the morning and waited--in the rain--for two hours. Inside, they were asked to show a photo ID and to provide their addresses--and the addresses of several friends for whom they were obtaining tickets. "We later heard that some people who wouldn't declare they were Republicans were denied tickets," Hufstader says. "But we didn't see that happen." Hufstader and Dallacqua were given seven tickets, and their names and the names of their friends were placed on a list that would be checked at the rally. When the gang arrived at Wings Stadium--home of the Kalamazoo Wings, a minor league hockey team--they had to pass through a series of checkpoints. Hufstader maintains they were each dressed conservatively--"you know, khakis and sweaters"--and sported no political buttons or any other accouterments of dissent. At one of the checkpoints, they were spotted by a member of the College Republicans. He was familiar with the political predilections of several of these students and asked how they had received tickets. "We stood in line," Hufstader says he replied. At another checkpoint, Hufstader and his friends saw several College Republicans talking to the volunteers working security. The security people then told Hufstader, Dallacqua, VanAusdall and the others (Laura Lonneman, Leah Busch, Shanna Barkume, and the international student whose identity Hufstader and the others are currently protecting) that they could not enter. "They told us," Hufstader says, "that we failed a background check, that we had been identified by volunteers as a potential threat, and that if we didn't leave we would be arrested." Hufstader and the others insisted they simply wanted to hear Bush and demanded to see what list--if any--indicated that they had failed a background check. They argued their point until local police showed up and said they would be arrested unless they departed. The police officers explained the rally was a private event and the organizers could pick and choose who would attend. The police took their tickets and escorted them seven blocks away from the stadium. "Several things anger us," says Hufstader. "It may have been a private event, but the tickets didn't say that and we were never told that. We felt misled. But we felt worse about the College Republicans. We were very disappointed that our peers singled us out for what they thought we might do. And we later heard they had been trained to find potential threats at the event. But we were not a threat. We're even friends with some of these College Republicans. This was a sad commentary about the bitter divide of American politics. Look how hard it was for us to hear a contrary view. We wanted to see the president and then talk about what he said afterward. We felt like we were being blacklisted by our campus peers, and this is a campus that is supposed to be open to different political views." Did the College Republicans put the kibosh on the Kalamazooans? I emailed the head of the group at Kalamazoo College and have not yet heard back from him. Is it standard practice for the Bush campaign to ban from its rallies citizens who do not pledge allegiance to the candidate? I called the Bush campaign and was passed to Merrill Smith, a regional spokesperson. No word back from her either. But it's no surprise that the Bush campaign--like other campaigns--stage-manages its public events to the fullest extent possible and tells non-supporters to keep out (or be locked up). Bush did not engage in drive-by campaigning in Kalamazoo to provide local citizens the opportunity to see him in action. He hit the town in search of a middle-of-America backdrop, a screaming throng, and upbeat footage on the local news shows. After all, campaigns are about candidates, not voters. So while Hufstader and his pals did not get to see Bush in person wax about the glories of freedom they did at least receive a lesson in modern politics.
Wow, that's crap. Even more evidence to back up what I said about mostly only Bush-supporters being at Bush rallies. A way he could get re-elected is by showing that he can be a competent president, not by finding young republicans that are voting for him to cheer him on. Once again, I hate politics.
When you consider that the Bushies can't do math, then their attacks make sense in an idiot sort of way - they don't know any better. Quote/Claim: "If this were a spending contest, I would come in second. I readily admit I'm not going to grow the size of the federal government like [Gore] is." [Source: Debate transcript] Fact: "The numbers are astonishing. Congress is now spending money like a drunken sailor. And I've never known a sailor, drunk or sober, with the imagination that this Congress has." - John McCain (R-AZ), Fox News, 11/30/03 "Conservative Republican frustration over the failure of the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership to restrain federal spending has boiled over in recent days, producing a rare confrontation between GOP lawmakers and party leaders." - The Hill, 12/3/03 Quote/Claim: "I came to this office to confront problems directly and forcefully, not to pass them on to future Presidents or future generations." [Source: White House Web site] Fact: “When the Treasury Department tallies up final figures later this month, it is expected to show a federal budget deficit between $370 billion and $380 billion for 2003,” one of the biggest debts passed onto another generation in American history. - Wall Street Journal, 10/9/03 Quote/Claim: "Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term….” [Source: White House Web site] Fact: "The federal deficit will hit a record $477 billion this year and get worse if lawmakers cut taxes or increase spending, the Congressional Budget Office projected Monday." - CNN, 1/26/04 "The idea that this is manageable or that we are going to grow our way out of the problem is just flat false." - U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, LA Times, 10/7/03 "The U.S. government's budget deficit came under fire on Wednesday from two global institutions (OECD and the IMF) saying a plan to halve the record gap by 2009 may not be enough to stop long-term damage to the world economy." - Reuters, 4/14/04 Quote/Claim: "Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. . . I agree. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now." [Source: White House Web site] Fact: "Deficits as far as the eye can see. That was the word this week from the White House, which projected the federal government will spend a record $455 billion more than it takes in this year, and $475 billion more next year." - MSNBC, 7/18/03 Quote/Claim: "The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years." [Source: White House Web site] Fact: White House estimates neglect inevitable costs. The President's proposal to cut the deficit in half deliberately "omits a number of likely costs" such as the continued cost of Iraq and its own defense spending plans. All told, he is proposing roughly $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending, including $1 trillion to make his tax cuts permanent, $70 billion for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and $50 billion more for war in Iraq. The result is that the deficit is predicted to be "in the range of $500 billion in 2009" – not even near half of what it currently is. - CBPP, 1/16/04; Washington Times, 1/20/04; Reuters, 2/2/04 Quote/Claim: "The reason we are where we are, in terms of the deficit, is because we went through a recession, we were attacked, and we're fighting a war." [Source: White House Web site] Fact: All told, tax cuts account for 35% of the $9.3 trillion deterioration in the budget outlook since Bush took office - the largest single factor contributing to the deficit. The tax cuts cost more than even the post-9/11 defense and homeland security spending increases. That is almost $3.3 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years due to tax cuts. - CBPP 8/26/03 Quote/Claim: "This nation has got a deficit because we have been through a war." [Source: White House Web site] Fact: The Bush Administration's own budget analysis conflicts with his statement. According to Government Executive Magazine, "The Office of Management and Budget-prepared baseline shows that the deficit will decline precipitously without the changes in tax and spending policies the White House is proposing. In fact, the baseline shows that the budget will be in surplus starting in 2006 and that the surplus will increase every year thereafter. But S-3 also indicates that implementing the Bush budget would greatly increase the deficits in 2003-2005 and obliterate the projected surpluses in 2006-2008." - GEM, 2/12/03
