John Kerry's Growing Base

[Nbadan]

Voter registration drives aimed at young people are turning 18- to 24-year-olds into an important variable in the presidential election, especially in decisive battleground states such as Michigan where nearly 100,000 young people have registered in recent months and Wisconsin, where the numbers are even higher.

Officials in several other battleground states New Mexico, Ohio and Florida among them see clear signs that more young people are interested in this election. And some election experts believe that polls of ''likely voters'' often miss young people because the population is so mobile.

In Wisconsin, the New Voters Project claims to have registered more than 109,000 young people numbers election officials say they have ''no reason to doubt.''

Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/dailynews/264/politics/Young_people_registering_by_th:.shtml)

Young people tend to be much more progressive than the general public. Here is a break-down of the U.S. population

http://www.nationmaster.com/images/pyramids/us-2003.png

and what is the number 1 issue driving young people to the Polls?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/somnamblst/draftalert.gif

[Tommy Duncan]

Your quote provides no information on voter drives in past preisdential elections. These results are most likely par for the course.

Also, one such voter drive (Dean's Democracy for America) registered me to vote this past weekend. I suppose I am now part of the great progressive movement to socialize this nation and give danny a bunch of free shit that "the rich" will work and pay for.

[Tommy Duncan]

PS...so Dick Cheney can't engage in what some weak sister Democrats woud like to call "scare tactics" but you are free to do so with your silly draft bullshit?

Makes a lot of sense.

[Yonivore]

I thought it was the Republicans that were using scare tactics.

Hmmm, guess not.

Of course, the only Legislators even remotely mentioning bringing back the draft are that wacko Charles Rangel and his type.

[Nbadan]

Sinister or not, the fact remains that the military draft is an important issue for 18-24 year olds, and most of these kids are left uncounted by modern polls.

[Spurminator]

Both Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly said they oppose a draft. (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6027815/)

"We don't need the draft," Bush told a campaign audience in Florida last month. "I'll tell you one way you make (the all-volunteer Army) work. I just signed a defense appropriations bill, which is the fourth year in a row in which we've raised the pay of those who wear our uniform, and the pay's getting better. And the housing is getting better."

“This country does not need a draft,” Rumsfeld told an Army sergeant who’d just returned from Iraq and asked about the draft at a town hall meeting in Fort Bliss, Texas on Aug. 23.

Noting the size of the U.S. population, more than 290 million people, Rumsfeld said, “If you add up everyone we are looking for in the active forces, 1.4 million and the Guard and Reserve and the selective reserve and individual ready reserve and if you add them all up, it’s about 2.5 million. And all you have to do is alter the incentives and we can attract and retain all the people we need. We do not need to go to compulsion.”

Rumsfeld recalled that as a member of the House of Representatives in the 1960s, he introduced legislation to create an all-volunteer Army.

He thought in the 1960s that “we owed it to people to pay them and treat them like we would if we had to go out and in (the labor) market, attract and retain them.”

And in today’s all-volunteer military, Rumsfeld said, “That’s what we do.”

[Yonivore]

It's an issue pulled out of thin air though...

Like I said, the only people talking about a draft are nut cases like Rangel.

[Tommy Duncan]

You don't know what young people think.

[Spurminator]

What Bush needs to do is simply come out and say "There will be no draft." While his remarks would seem to reflect that sentiment to anyone with an ounce of common sense, it is Election Season, where knit-picking is the status quo.

[Nbadan]

Never mind that our Reserves and National Guard are stretched to thin. W and Rummy said there were weapons of ma...oops..said there would be no military draft. So there it is!

:lol

[Yonivore]

Okay! So, don't vote for Bush.

Jeeze...you're stupid.

[SpursWoman]

Yep, dan's *basing* alright. :fro


http://spies.com/~gus/musings/dec97/gd-dxm.jpg

[Tommy Duncan]

Kerry and Edwards said that Iraq was a threat and that he needed to be dealt with. Both had access to the intel that supported that claim. I guess we shouldn't trust anything those two say either.

[Spurminator]

It's long been the Democrats who have complained about the shortage of soldiers. They have also been the ones bemoaning the economic inequality of the Military compared to the economic breakout of Americans, where it is seemingly the poor and uneducated who are sent to fight.

Which party is more likely to resurrect conscription? The one that believes in a voluntary military, or the one that believes in Military Affirmative Action, increasing the total personnel, and which has historically been the biggest proponent of conscription?

[Tommy Duncan]

Spurm has a point danny can't refute with a visit to democratsundermound.com or whatever.

[Nbadan]

We've already established that the C.I.A. was feeding the Senate information. In any other administration the President would step up and take the heat for members of his administration mistakes, but since shit just seems to slide of W., helped mainly by lies feed by right-wing radio, I guess this doesn't apply today.

[Spurminator]

Like I've said, neither party will ever reinstitute the Draft, because it would be political suicide to do so. But as long as we're telling hypothetical horror stories...

[Tommy Duncan]

Sure, the Senate based its judgement on the intel the President had to base his on.

Anything beyond that is pure partisan speculation.

[Spurminator]

Dan seems to be under the impression that half of the country listens to right wing radio.

[Tommy Duncan]

Dan also seems to believe that all the shit he reads in an extremist left wing forum is true.

[Nbadan]

I know 18-24 don't listen to right-wing radio, and that's the only thing that matters.

[Spurminator]

Neither do a vast majority of 25-99. Even those voting Republican and voting Approval in the polls.

[Tommy Duncan]

danny's problem is not that the radio programs he objects to promote a particular point of view, but rather that they promote a conservative one.

[Nbadan]

but rather that they promote a conservative one.

I wouldn't object to them if they presented a actual conservative point of view, but they don't. They support a NeoCon view.

[SpursWoman]

I know 18-24 don't listen to right-wing radio, and that's the only thing that matters.

I'd be willing to bet they sure as hell aren't listening to left-wing radio, either.

I'd lay my money on them listening to MUSIC on the radio. Which is what I do.


:)

[Nbadan]

Imagine an Austin Texas in every swing city. That is the effect all these young voters are going to have on the 2004 Presidential election.

[Tommy Duncan]

What do you consider to be an "actual conservative" view? Pat Buchanan's?

That would actually explain your madness.

[ClintSquint]

I don't listen to any of those blow-hard, self-loving, self-centered, holy rollin', never-wrong, my-opionion-only, you are un-patriotic, Bush lovin' conservative a-holes! :flipoff

[Spurminator]

Neither do I. You want my cookie?

[ClintSquint]

I'm more into pie.

[SpursWoman]

NBADan is starting to sound like mouse.....


"If you don't call into radio shows, you're not a real Spurs fan."




Newsflash: Most normal, rational people don't GAF about talk radio. I heard Rush once for < 30 seconds about 5 or 6 years ago. That was enough.

[Yonivore]

Who?

They were an awesome band! From Canada, if I'm not mistaken.

[Nbadan]

Newsflash: Most normal, rational people don't GAF about talk radio. I heard Rush once for < 30 seconds about 5 or 6 years ago. That was enough.

Listening to Rush and Insanity is kinda like kissing your cute cousin. It feels good while your doing it, but you feel really dirty after wards (which is probably pretty normal for SW).

:p

Nobody in this forum listens to these right-wing hot-heads, yet I see traces of their back-ward ideology and dry, whitless humor in almost every thread.

[SpursWoman]

No, I do all of my incestuous whoring around without regret.

[Tommy Duncan]

Imagine an Austin Texas in every swing city

There is an Austin in Wisconsin it is called Madison.
There is an Austin in Michigan it is called Ann Arbor.
Etc.

You know you've lost an election when you are claiming that 'oh yeah we're registering a lot of new voters.'

[Yonivore]

"No, I do all of my incestuous whoring around without regret."
Incest is not necessary, SW. ;)