ugh

[noodle]

A reader e-mailed me this story by Matt Coughlin in yesterday's Bucks County Courier Times:

"A Lower Makefield woman said she received a rude awakening Wednesday when she tried to get tickets to see President Bush today in Lower Makefield.

"Simi Nischal got a ride with a co-worker to pick up tickets for herself, her husband, Narinder, and their two children. But just as the tickets were about to be placed in her hands, she was escorted from the Yardley gristmill and told to leave, she said.

"'I deny you the right to attend this rally,' Nischal said a Bush-Cheney campaign worker told her.

"Apparently, Nischal's ride was a Kerry-Edwards supporter. Her car sported a bumper sticker for the Democratic candidates."

Another reader e-mailed me this two-week old Des Moines Register story by Lynne Campbell, who writes that "John Sachs, 18, a Johnston High School senior and Democrat, went to see Bush in Clive last week. Sachs got a ticket to the event from school and wanted to ask the president about whether there would be a draft, about the war in Iraq, Social Security and Medicare.

"But when he got there, a campaign staffer pulled him aside and made him remove his button that said, 'Bush-Cheney '04: Leave No Billionaire Behind.' The staffer quizzed him about whether he was a Bush supporter, asked him why he was there and what questions he would be asking the president."

Sachs told Campbell: "Then he came back and said, 'If you protest, it won't be me taking you out. It will be a sniper,' . . . He said it in such a serious tone it scared the crap out of me."

Chris Suellentrop writes in Slate from a rally yesterday for Laura Bush in Port St. Lucie, where the crowd was led in "the Bush Pledge" by Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt.

"The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: 'I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.'

"I know the Bush-Cheney campaign occasionally requires the people who attend its events to sign loyalty oaths, but this was the first time I have ever seen an audience actually stand and utter one."

for those that don't recognize that sign, it is one that says "Republicans for Kerry".

[lochinvar]

There is a lot of ugliness that goes on in the name of "free, democratic elections." Otto von Bismark said that there are two processes that shouldn't be witnessed by those with weak stomachs: sausage making and politics.

[mrbiggs]

This election is very intense as well, with two very different but equally plausible views on how the country should be run, and it's especially important with such important issues as alot of new Supreme Court Justices, Abortion, Gay rights, a WAR, etc.

[prototoast]

This election is very intense as well, with two very different but equally plausible views on how the country should be run, and it's especially important with such important issues as alot of new Supreme Court Justices, Abortion, Gay rights, a WAR, etc.

1) Their views on how the country should be run are nearly identical

2) Issues such as abortion and gay rights are largely trivial issues, which are brought to our attention because they are very polarizing.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

hey, its not like the election will change the world or anything like that

[ThornOfTheBlood]

hey, its not like the election will change the world or anything like that

Hahaha...lol....an interesting statement...

[mrbiggs]

1) Their views on how the country should be run are nearly identical

2) Issues such as abortion and gay rights are largely trivial issues, which are brought to our attention because they are very polarizing.

Um.....are you serious?

1. They are similar in the following: a)They are both anti-terrorism b) they both beleive in lowering taxes and increasing spending c) they both want to get out of the Iraq war. That's it.

2. To YOU, maybe, but to many, these issues are absolutely vital, and there's Bush, who is very conservative on both issues.

[Peach]

1) Their views on how the country should be run are nearly identical

2) Issues such as abortion and gay rights are largely trivial issues, which are brought to our attention because they are very polarizing.

I have to disagree with you on that. Kerry and Bush may be restrained by bureaucratic realities from dealing with the war in Iraq in any fundamental way (heck, some may argue that Presidents are largely hogtied in practice anyway), but their views otherwise are markedly different. And neither abortion nor gay rights are trivial issues for those votors who are directly affected by them, voters who are a large percentage of the electorate.