Why Vote?http://www.good.is/Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." We say, "How about you just vote?" Here are 1,565 reasons to get to the polls.Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:51:32 -0800CakePHPhourly1en-us <![CDATA[The D.C. Bar Crawl]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-dc-bar-crawl/ http://www.good.is/post/the-dc-bar-crawl/ You should vote because no matter whose confetti gets tossed in November, D.C.'s favorite pastime will never change: drinking too much and arguing too loudly about politics. If you find yourself in D.C., you might want to spend an hour or two observing this strange local ritual, where young men in khakis and loafers can be brought to the brink of dueling over a New Republic article that neither has read-sort of like full-contact, IRL blogging. Whether it's ambition-drunk Capitol Hill interns lured by 10-cent wings and Miller Light or hotshot lobbyists sipping 20-year-old single-malts, here are the ten best places to eavesdrop on the conversation.

1. The Old Ebbitt Grill


675 15th Street



LOOK FOR: Congresspeople, dignitaries, other assorted honorables, and their respective security details

The establishment's favored establishment, est. 1856 one block from the White House. Bush held his second inauguration party here in 2005. "The worst party ever," says bartender Jason Parsons. "They spent a pretty penny renting out the whole restaurant, expecting 700 people. Maybe 130 showed." In the off season, he says, "congressmen whoop it up more than senators. We often get the black Chevy Suburbans pulling up. Security will dash in and search the place."

By day the scene is wholly civilized, with tourists lunching alongside White House staff, but nighttime can get rowdy. How rowdy? It depends on who's in power. "When the Democrats are in house, the party scene is better, but Republicans spend more money," he says. "That doesn't mean they tip better."

2. Pennsylvania Ave. pubs


in the 300s on Pennsylvania Ave.



LOOK FOR: Self-conscious interns, post-collegiate strivers

Neither these bars nor their clientele are as homogenous as they look. The Tune Inn is the oldest and most authentically divey. Born 1967, when doves actually posed a threat, the Hawk 'N' Dove attracts a mix of older regulars and interns self-consciously sporting security badges.

Next door, the Pour House (formerly Politiki) has a sports bent, evidenced by several ESPN-tuned plasma TVs. Capitol Lounge is a favorite of the Hill's young twentysomethings who pack the bar for Wednesday's quesadilla happy hour, where I heard "Tucker's Dream" playing on the jukebox over a khaki sea of meaty wonks and wonkish meatheads. Is this a Machiavelli for Dummies seminar, or the seventh circle of Abercrombie? Three beers in, it's hard to tell.

3. Town and Country Lounge at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel


1227 Connecticut Ave NW



LOOK FOR: Philandering politicians, media cockblockers, presidential ghosts, FBI agents, freelance snitches

Though the Mayflower opened in 1925, 305 years after its pilgrim-bearing namesake landed at Plymouth Rock, its profile as a federal institution is only slightly smaller. The hotel played host to Calvin Coolidge's inaugural ball and was J. Edgar Hoover's favorite lunch spot. More recently, Client Number 9 used the Mayflower's room 871 for his stocking-clad romp with "Kristen" the call-girl, a night that cost him $3,200 and the governorship of New York. Don't try to nick the room plaque-it's been stolen so many times that they've installed a permanent one.

Cambodian-born, white dinner jacket-clad Sam Lek, the Mayflower's legendary bartender, has been working his charm at this leather-and-mahogany den since 1976. He has a signature cocktail (the Sam I Am, a blend of Ketel One Citroen, cranberry juice, and Amaretto) and knows a few magic tricks. "Republicans tip better," he smiles brightly. "But I treat everyone the same."

4. Round Robin at the Willard Intercontinental


1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW



LOOK FOR: Empty chairs, Southern gents, tourists

Founded in 1850, the Willard plays demure Betty to the Town and Country's saucy Veronica. Walt Whitman, a regular during the Civil War era, wrote a poem about the bar, and Martin Luther King Jr. penned his "I Have A Dream" speech in the hotel in 1963. The Robin's circular bar, green felt wallpaper and brass chandeliers frame an atmosphere of staid restraint.

Bartender Jim Hewes mixes at least a dozen mint juleps each day. As he tells it, "it entrances the taste buds, and is a fitting showcase for America's finest distilled spirit: Kentucky straight sour mash whiskey." This place may harken back to another era, but Hewes, like the rest of Washington, is impatient for the future. "We're living through a lame duck presidency," he says. "Things are on hold. We're just waiting for the change."

5. The Q&A Café at Nathans Restaurant


3150 M St. NW



LOOK FOR: Literati, A-listers

Longtime TV journalist Carol Joynt hosts this weekly lunchtime Q&A series where Tina Brown dished about Lady Di and Ted Sorensen recalled his 11 years as JFK's rhetorician-in-chief. Over the hushed sounds of Georgetown socialites discreetly nibbling Caesar salads and clanking glasses of Oregon pinot, you can listen to Joynt gently probe her celebrity subjects.

Joynt launched the Q&A series after the 9/11 terror attacks, as an informal salon for Washingtonians to discuss the scary new world. Her mission has since broadened. Recent guests have ranged from Jacques Cousteau's grandson Phillippe Jr., chatting about his ocean conservation work to Valerie Plame, sharing tales from the spy game.

6. Busboys and Poets


2021 14th St.



LOOK FOR: Anti-power artists, Peace Corps layovers, the dispossessed

This "progressive" (read: ultra-Leftist) bookstore doesn't attract much red-state clientele, but it has something for most every shade of blue and even pink. On Tuesday nights the dreadlocks and bongos set arrives for a hugely popular open mic poetry night. Wednesday's Hump Day Groovez brings the live jazz. The name references Langston Hughes, who worked as a busboy, among other jobs, before gaining acclaim as a poet.

Founded in 2005 by Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American peace activist, artist and restaurateur, Busboys quickly became a community gathering place attracting students and intellectuals. As I sink into an overstuffed couch with a Big Daddy (three shots of fair trade espresso, two spoons of raw sugar, steamed milk), a woman clad in a "Say Not to GMOs" t-shirt tells me "this is one of the few real coffeehouses in the city, and the only one where social justice is on the menu."

7. The National Press Club


529 14th Street NW



LOOK FOR: The liquid-lunching reporters at the bar are no more. Mostly an invite-only crowd of stuffed suits.


In 1945, a 20-year-old Lauren Bacall caused an uproar when Life magazine snapped a shot of her at the club, draped seductively across the top of a piano that then-vice-president Harry Truman was in the midst of playing. Woodrow Wilson used to come in here, too, to groom the egos of the fourth estate. "We provide a neutral forum for all the ideas in the world," says Gil Klein, former club president and a member for the past 23 years.

Lining the hallways are photographs of public figures great (Nelson Mendela) and small (Bindi Irwin), with a generous helping of do-gooding Hollywooders like Brangelina and George Clooney. At the nearly empty members-only Reliable Source bar one afternoon, I sidle up to the bar and meet Richard, who's been slinging drinks here for 40 years. It's Friday night's happy hour taco night that really goes off, I learn. "The club's changed," says Klein. "It used to be we had reporters three deep at the bar, three-martini lunches and such. But these days, it's more about book launches and luncheons."

8. Steakhouses


The Palm 1225 19th Street NW; Capital Grille 601 Pennsylvania ; The Caucus Room 401 9th Street NW, Market Square North; 101 Constitution Ave. NW



LOOK FOR: Expense-account chicanery, coronaries-in-waiting, handshake deals

Sometimes a steak the size of Delaware is all it takes to unite the partisan divide. At DC's power steakhouses, the men sport suspenders and bowties, the ladies look like pantsuited anchorwomen, and the interiors are charmingly mid-20th century.

Tommy Jacomo, the Palm's maitre 'd, greets customers by name before seating them at a booth encircled by caricatures of those mid-tier Washington "personalities." The Caucus Room's maze of private dining rooms attract a lattice of back-slapping power lunchers.

9. Bullfeathers and Tortilla Coast


Bullfeathers 401 First Street SE; Tortilla Coast 400 First Street SE



LOOK FOR: Powerful Republicans, hangers-on, young seducibles

Named for Teddy Roosevelt's byword for bullshit, Bullfeathers is favored by the RNC's painfully eligible polo shirt and pearl-necklace set, and the GOP congressmen at whose troughs they feed. Regulars lap up the Cheers-like atmosphere and daily draft beer specials, surrounded by American flags. The more downscale Tortilla Coast looks like a suburban strip mall version of a Tex-Mex restaurant, with brightly colored geckos painted on the walls. Interns have been known to subsist on their frozen margaritas for months.

10. Degrees Bar at the Ritz Carlton Georgetown


3100 South Street NW



LOOK FOR: Superstars, loosened white collars, Hollywood expats

The Ritz sheds its chintz and slips into edgy exposed brick and leather at this Georgetown outpost, a former incinerator now frequented by Washington's power elite. Everyone from Condoleeza Rice to Pamela Anderson to Bono has been spotted at Degrees, where the long black bar is flanked by red velvet curtains. For the last election season, Degrees introduced the Kerry Berry Kosmo and the W-tini. Might Scotch-on-Barack be next?]]> You should vote because no matter whose confetti gets tossed in November, D.C.'s favorite pastime will never change: drinking too much and arguing too loudly about politics. If you find yourself in D.C., you might want to spend an hour or two observing this strange local ritual, where young men in khakis and loafers can be brought to the brink of dueling over a New Republic article that neither has read-sort of like full-contact, IRL blogging. Whether it's ambition-drunk Capitol Hill interns lured by 10-cent wings and Miller Light or hotshot lobbyists sipping 20-year-old single-malts, here are the ten best places to eavesdrop on the conversation.

1. The Old Ebbitt Grill


675 15th Street



LOOK FOR: Congresspeople, dignitaries, other assorted honorables, and their respective security details

The establishment's favored establishment, est. 1856 one block from the White House. Bush held his second inauguration party here in 2005. "The worst party ever," says bartender Jason Parsons. "They spent a pretty penny renting out the whole restaurant, expecting 700 people. Maybe 130 showed." In the off season, he says, "congressmen whoop it up more than senators. We often get the black Chevy Suburbans pulling up. Security will dash in and search the place."

By day the scene is wholly civilized, with tourists lunching alongside White House staff, but nighttime can get rowdy. How rowdy? It depends on who's in power. "When the Democrats are in house, the party scene is better, but Republicans spend more money," he says. "That doesn't mean they tip better."

2. Pennsylvania Ave. pubs


in the 300s on Pennsylvania Ave.



LOOK FOR: Self-conscious interns, post-collegiate strivers

Neither these bars nor their clientele are as homogenous as they look. The Tune Inn is the oldest and most authentically divey. Born 1967, when doves actually posed a threat, the Hawk 'N' Dove attracts a mix of older regulars and interns self-consciously sporting security badges.

Next door, the Pour House (formerly Politiki) has a sports bent, evidenced by several ESPN-tuned plasma TVs. Capitol Lounge is a favorite of the Hill's young twentysomethings who pack the bar for Wednesday's quesadilla happy hour, where I heard "Tucker's Dream" playing on the jukebox over a khaki sea of meaty wonks and wonkish meatheads. Is this a Machiavelli for Dummies seminar, or the seventh circle of Abercrombie? Three beers in, it's hard to tell.

3. Town and Country Lounge at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel


1227 Connecticut Ave NW



LOOK FOR: Philandering politicians, media cockblockers, presidential ghosts, FBI agents, freelance snitches

Though the Mayflower opened in 1925, 305 years after its pilgrim-bearing namesake landed at Plymouth Rock, its profile as a federal institution is only slightly smaller. The hotel played host to Calvin Coolidge's inaugural ball and was J. Edgar Hoover's favorite lunch spot. More recently, Client Number 9 used the Mayflower's room 871 for his stocking-clad romp with "Kristen" the call-girl, a night that cost him $3,200 and the governorship of New York. Don't try to nick the room plaque-it's been stolen so many times that they've installed a permanent one.

Cambodian-born, white dinner jacket-clad Sam Lek, the Mayflower's legendary bartender, has been working his charm at this leather-and-mahogany den since 1976. He has a signature cocktail (the Sam I Am, a blend of Ketel One Citroen, cranberry juice, and Amaretto) and knows a few magic tricks. "Republicans tip better," he smiles brightly. "But I treat everyone the same."

4. Round Robin at the Willard Intercontinental


1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW



LOOK FOR: Empty chairs, Southern gents, tourists

Founded in 1850, the Willard plays demure Betty to the Town and Country's saucy Veronica. Walt Whitman, a regular during the Civil War era, wrote a poem about the bar, and Martin Luther King Jr. penned his "I Have A Dream" speech in the hotel in 1963. The Robin's circular bar, green felt wallpaper and brass chandeliers frame an atmosphere of staid restraint.

Bartender Jim Hewes mixes at least a dozen mint juleps each day. As he tells it, "it entrances the taste buds, and is a fitting showcase for America's finest distilled spirit: Kentucky straight sour mash whiskey." This place may harken back to another era, but Hewes, like the rest of Washington, is impatient for the future. "We're living through a lame duck presidency," he says. "Things are on hold. We're just waiting for the change."

5. The Q&A Café at Nathans Restaurant


3150 M St. NW



LOOK FOR: Literati, A-listers

Longtime TV journalist Carol Joynt hosts this weekly lunchtime Q&A series where Tina Brown dished about Lady Di and Ted Sorensen recalled his 11 years as JFK's rhetorician-in-chief. Over the hushed sounds of Georgetown socialites discreetly nibbling Caesar salads and clanking glasses of Oregon pinot, you can listen to Joynt gently probe her celebrity subjects.

Joynt launched the Q&A series after the 9/11 terror attacks, as an informal salon for Washingtonians to discuss the scary new world. Her mission has since broadened. Recent guests have ranged from Jacques Cousteau's grandson Phillippe Jr., chatting about his ocean conservation work to Valerie Plame, sharing tales from the spy game.

6. Busboys and Poets


2021 14th St.



LOOK FOR: Anti-power artists, Peace Corps layovers, the dispossessed

This "progressive" (read: ultra-Leftist) bookstore doesn't attract much red-state clientele, but it has something for most every shade of blue and even pink. On Tuesday nights the dreadlocks and bongos set arrives for a hugely popular open mic poetry night. Wednesday's Hump Day Groovez brings the live jazz. The name references Langston Hughes, who worked as a busboy, among other jobs, before gaining acclaim as a poet.

Founded in 2005 by Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American peace activist, artist and restaurateur, Busboys quickly became a community gathering place attracting students and intellectuals. As I sink into an overstuffed couch with a Big Daddy (three shots of fair trade espresso, two spoons of raw sugar, steamed milk), a woman clad in a "Say Not to GMOs" t-shirt tells me "this is one of the few real coffeehouses in the city, and the only one where social justice is on the menu."

7. The National Press Club


529 14th Street NW



LOOK FOR: The liquid-lunching reporters at the bar are no more. Mostly an invite-only crowd of stuffed suits.


In 1945, a 20-year-old Lauren Bacall caused an uproar when Life magazine snapped a shot of her at the club, draped seductively across the top of a piano that then-vice-president Harry Truman was in the midst of playing. Woodrow Wilson used to come in here, too, to groom the egos of the fourth estate. "We provide a neutral forum for all the ideas in the world," says Gil Klein, former club president and a member for the past 23 years.

Lining the hallways are photographs of public figures great (Nelson Mendela) and small (Bindi Irwin), with a generous helping of do-gooding Hollywooders like Brangelina and George Clooney. At the nearly empty members-only Reliable Source bar one afternoon, I sidle up to the bar and meet Richard, who's been slinging drinks here for 40 years. It's Friday night's happy hour taco night that really goes off, I learn. "The club's changed," says Klein. "It used to be we had reporters three deep at the bar, three-martini lunches and such. But these days, it's more about book launches and luncheons."

8. Steakhouses


The Palm 1225 19th Street NW; Capital Grille 601 Pennsylvania ; The Caucus Room 401 9th Street NW, Market Square North; 101 Constitution Ave. NW



LOOK FOR: Expense-account chicanery, coronaries-in-waiting, handshake deals

Sometimes a steak the size of Delaware is all it takes to unite the partisan divide. At DC's power steakhouses, the men sport suspenders and bowties, the ladies look like pantsuited anchorwomen, and the interiors are charmingly mid-20th century.

Tommy Jacomo, the Palm's maitre 'd, greets customers by name before seating them at a booth encircled by caricatures of those mid-tier Washington "personalities." The Caucus Room's maze of private dining rooms attract a lattice of back-slapping power lunchers.

9. Bullfeathers and Tortilla Coast


Bullfeathers 401 First Street SE; Tortilla Coast 400 First Street SE



LOOK FOR: Powerful Republicans, hangers-on, young seducibles

Named for Teddy Roosevelt's byword for bullshit, Bullfeathers is favored by the RNC's painfully eligible polo shirt and pearl-necklace set, and the GOP congressmen at whose troughs they feed. Regulars lap up the Cheers-like atmosphere and daily draft beer specials, surrounded by American flags. The more downscale Tortilla Coast looks like a suburban strip mall version of a Tex-Mex restaurant, with brightly colored geckos painted on the walls. Interns have been known to subsist on their frozen margaritas for months.

10. Degrees Bar at the Ritz Carlton Georgetown


3100 South Street NW



LOOK FOR: Superstars, loosened white collars, Hollywood expats

The Ritz sheds its chintz and slips into edgy exposed brick and leather at this Georgetown outpost, a former incinerator now frequented by Washington's power elite. Everyone from Condoleeza Rice to Pamela Anderson to Bono has been spotted at Degrees, where the long black bar is flanked by red velvet curtains. For the last election season, Degrees introduced the Kerry Berry Kosmo and the W-tini. Might Scotch-on-Barack be next?]]> Genevieve Paiement Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:42:56 PDT <![CDATA[Our Final 284 Reasons to Vote]]> http://www.good.is/post/our-final-284-reasons-to-vote/ http://www.good.is/post/our-final-284-reasons-to-vote/ Why Vote? Reasons 1,281 - 1,565

Rob Reiner, Natalie Portman, and even Oscar the Grouch have their reasons for voting. Maybe you agree with them. Maybe you have your own. Hopefully, you're not still looking for one. (We've already given you 1,280!) But, just in case, here's our last batch of reasons to push the button, pull the lever, check the box, cast the ballot, mail the envelope, or whatever you have to do.






1281. Because it's a slightly more important vote than the next American Idol by POST TYPOGRAPHY





Rob Reiner
film director

 


1284. The next president will name 3,000 or so political appointees, who will inspire or frustrate, lead or mislead hundreds of thousands of government employees.  And if Karl Rove, L. Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Brown, Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, and all the other political appointees who have been recently fired have taught us anything, it's that it matters who's in charge of H.R.







"Polar bears are endangered!" Natalie Portman, actress and director






Andrew Arulanandam


National Rifle Association's Director of Public Affairs

1286. Freedom matters. It is vital for citizens to exercise their right to vote because their elected officials at the local, state, and federal level will have a say on how much freedom people have.

1287. You live in another country and you haven't real-mailed anything in a while.


1288. McCain says he doesn't know how to use a computer. This might be problematic. But you know who else couldn't use a computer? George Washington.

1289. The Greeks did it. The Greeks were amazing. We should do whatever the Greeks did.

1290. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, a butterfly flaps its wings, setting off a tornado halfway around the world.

1291. You're going to have to read about whomever wins for the next four years.
1292. Be honest-you're not doing anything else that day.

1293. You've placed a bet on who will win.

1294. You could get hit by a car in 2009, survive, not have health insurance, and not be able to afford to pay the bills on your own.

1295. "A man without a vote is a man without protection." -Lyndon B. Johnson

1296. The other guy scares you.

1297-1516. You like tradition; this one has been around for 220 years.

1517. You want to be part of the majority.

1518. You've already registered. That's at least half the battle.

1519. There's always a chance the empire will strike back.

1520. Not voting is the adult equivalent of not dancing at your middle-school dance-which is lame.

1521. The previously irrelevant town of Obama, Japan (population 32,000), wants to maintain it's high Google ranking and booming tourist trade.
1522. It feels good.

1523. When you were a kid, going into the booth with your parents felt pretty grown-up and pretty awesome. And it still does.

1524-1537. The average white man born in 1936 had a life expectancy of 58 years. McCain is 72.




1538-1541. John F. Kennedy was 43 when he became the youngest elected president in U.S. history. Obama is only four years older.

1542. Your kids can't.

1543. It's free nationwide performance art. Like good theater, it's a little bit absurd, a little bit tragic, and it doesn't work if you don't play your part.

1544. "Not because it's cool, because it's not. You know what is cool? Smoking. Smoke while you vote."-Jon Stewart

1545. Earlier this year, the Canadian dollar was worth more than ours.






Nadine Strossen


President of the ACLU

1546. We're one vote away from losing the constitutional right to abortion on this Supreme Court. The next president is almost certainly going to have the power to appoint at least one supreme court justice, if not more. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that the government is the most powerful teacher, and it teaches by the example that it sets. We want a government that is going to inspire us to the best that we can be as individuals, and that will inspire other countries' officials around the world to be the best that they can be as leaders.







Anthony West


age 40

Felons'-rights activist and program director of Virginia Cares.
Will first vote in November, after regaining his right following a felony conviction.I went into the prison system when I was 24, for drug distribution. As a young African-American man from the ghetto, I didn't think about voting. Voting wasn't something that people like me did. When I came home, though, I realized that my vote could make a difference. I live in Virginia, and we're one of 13 states where once you've been released, you have to wait a period of time before you can get your rights back.
At one time, violent offenders, such as myself, had to wait seven years before they'd be eligible, and that's after they've come off parole and paid the fines they've accumulated in the court system-tens of thousands of dollars that some people never pay off in their lifetimes. I applied for my rights, and man, when I got them back, on March 5, 2008, I felt like a citizen again. At 24, voting didn't mean diddly-squat, but I'm 40 now, and it means something to me. I will definitely be voting in November, for the first time in my life.

1548. As of September 14, 4,721 soliders had given their lives for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. They will never vote again. You should.
1549. Guantánamo.

1550. You like pulling a lever, and you happen to live in New York, the only state where they still use mechanical voting devices that resemble slot machines.

1551. Republican operative Allen Raymond spent three months in prison after illegally jamming Democratic phone lines during the 2002 New Hampshire senate race.

1552.  You get to see the inside of some municipal facility you'd never otherwise visit.

1553. Centuries of European colonial genocide and white-washed American history shouldn't be for naught.

1554. The United States has scared the crap out of the world, and with a major change, we just might be able to rectify the damage done to our reputation and standing in world affairs.

1555. WWJD (What Would Jefferson Do?)





1556. by Stephen Doyle

1557. More than 200 national wildlife refuges exist without any on-site staff at all. The Obama campaign promises to beef up conservation efforts in general, so does McCain. But neither candidate has satisfied parks advocates.


1558. Obama has praised community-supported agriculture and promised to implement federal policy to promote small-scale, locally supported farms. He also calls for a funding boost to support small farms' organic certification. McCain's agri-policies don't explicitly repeat the local-sustainable mantra.





"Vote for the things you believe in-like trash, the freedom to stink, and the unalienable right to annoy people."
Oscar the Grouch

1559. The seemingly important choices you make on other days in November-should I have more turkey?-are pretty trite by comparison.

1560. It's arguably easier than recycling, and you get just as much credit for it.

1561. It separates us from the great apes. Even monkeys have opposable thumbs.

1562. King George III was an asshole.
1563.  It's not over till it's over.


1565. By SPOTCO

Why Vote? Click here for all 1,565 reasons.]]> Why Vote? Reasons 1,281 - 1,565

Rob Reiner, Natalie Portman, and even Oscar the Grouch have their reasons for voting. Maybe you agree with them. Maybe you have your own. Hopefully, you're not still looking for one. (We've already given you 1,280!) But, just in case, here's our last batch of reasons to push the button, pull the lever, check the box, cast the ballot, mail the envelope, or whatever you have to do.






1281. Because it's a slightly more important vote than the next American Idol by POST TYPOGRAPHY





Rob Reiner
film director

 


1284. The next president will name 3,000 or so political appointees, who will inspire or frustrate, lead or mislead hundreds of thousands of government employees.  And if Karl Rove, L. Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Brown, Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales, and all the other political appointees who have been recently fired have taught us anything, it's that it matters who's in charge of H.R.







"Polar bears are endangered!" Natalie Portman, actress and director






Andrew Arulanandam


National Rifle Association's Director of Public Affairs

1286. Freedom matters. It is vital for citizens to exercise their right to vote because their elected officials at the local, state, and federal level will have a say on how much freedom people have.

1287. You live in another country and you haven't real-mailed anything in a while.


1288. McCain says he doesn't know how to use a computer. This might be problematic. But you know who else couldn't use a computer? George Washington.

1289. The Greeks did it. The Greeks were amazing. We should do whatever the Greeks did.

1290. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, a butterfly flaps its wings, setting off a tornado halfway around the world.

1291. You're going to have to read about whomever wins for the next four years.
1292. Be honest-you're not doing anything else that day.

1293. You've placed a bet on who will win.

1294. You could get hit by a car in 2009, survive, not have health insurance, and not be able to afford to pay the bills on your own.

1295. "A man without a vote is a man without protection." -Lyndon B. Johnson

1296. The other guy scares you.

1297-1516. You like tradition; this one has been around for 220 years.

1517. You want to be part of the majority.

1518. You've already registered. That's at least half the battle.

1519. There's always a chance the empire will strike back.

1520. Not voting is the adult equivalent of not dancing at your middle-school dance-which is lame.

1521. The previously irrelevant town of Obama, Japan (population 32,000), wants to maintain it's high Google ranking and booming tourist trade.
1522. It feels good.

1523. When you were a kid, going into the booth with your parents felt pretty grown-up and pretty awesome. And it still does.

1524-1537. The average white man born in 1936 had a life expectancy of 58 years. McCain is 72.




1538-1541. John F. Kennedy was 43 when he became the youngest elected president in U.S. history. Obama is only four years older.

1542. Your kids can't.

1543. It's free nationwide performance art. Like good theater, it's a little bit absurd, a little bit tragic, and it doesn't work if you don't play your part.

1544. "Not because it's cool, because it's not. You know what is cool? Smoking. Smoke while you vote."-Jon Stewart

1545. Earlier this year, the Canadian dollar was worth more than ours.






Nadine Strossen


President of the ACLU

1546. We're one vote away from losing the constitutional right to abortion on this Supreme Court. The next president is almost certainly going to have the power to appoint at least one supreme court justice, if not more. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that the government is the most powerful teacher, and it teaches by the example that it sets. We want a government that is going to inspire us to the best that we can be as individuals, and that will inspire other countries' officials around the world to be the best that they can be as leaders.







Anthony West


age 40

Felons'-rights activist and program director of Virginia Cares.
Will first vote in November, after regaining his right following a felony conviction.I went into the prison system when I was 24, for drug distribution. As a young African-American man from the ghetto, I didn't think about voting. Voting wasn't something that people like me did. When I came home, though, I realized that my vote could make a difference. I live in Virginia, and we're one of 13 states where once you've been released, you have to wait a period of time before you can get your rights back.
At one time, violent offenders, such as myself, had to wait seven years before they'd be eligible, and that's after they've come off parole and paid the fines they've accumulated in the court system-tens of thousands of dollars that some people never pay off in their lifetimes. I applied for my rights, and man, when I got them back, on March 5, 2008, I felt like a citizen again. At 24, voting didn't mean diddly-squat, but I'm 40 now, and it means something to me. I will definitely be voting in November, for the first time in my life.

1548. As of September 14, 4,721 soliders had given their lives for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. They will never vote again. You should.
1549. Guantánamo.

1550. You like pulling a lever, and you happen to live in New York, the only state where they still use mechanical voting devices that resemble slot machines.

1551. Republican operative Allen Raymond spent three months in prison after illegally jamming Democratic phone lines during the 2002 New Hampshire senate race.

1552.  You get to see the inside of some municipal facility you'd never otherwise visit.

1553. Centuries of European colonial genocide and white-washed American history shouldn't be for naught.

1554. The United States has scared the crap out of the world, and with a major change, we just might be able to rectify the damage done to our reputation and standing in world affairs.

1555. WWJD (What Would Jefferson Do?)





1556. by Stephen Doyle

1557. More than 200 national wildlife refuges exist without any on-site staff at all. The Obama campaign promises to beef up conservation efforts in general, so does McCain. But neither candidate has satisfied parks advocates.


1558. Obama has praised community-supported agriculture and promised to implement federal policy to promote small-scale, locally supported farms. He also calls for a funding boost to support small farms' organic certification. McCain's agri-policies don't explicitly repeat the local-sustainable mantra.





"Vote for the things you believe in-like trash, the freedom to stink, and the unalienable right to annoy people."
Oscar the Grouch

1559. The seemingly important choices you make on other days in November-should I have more turkey?-are pretty trite by comparison.

1560. It's arguably easier than recycling, and you get just as much credit for it.

1561. It separates us from the great apes. Even monkeys have opposable thumbs.

1562. King George III was an asshole.
1563.  It's not over till it's over.


1565. By SPOTCO

Why Vote? Click here for all 1,565 reasons.]]> GOOD Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:55:12 PDT <![CDATA[How Not to Win the Presidency]]> http://www.good.is/post/bob-barr/ http://www.good.is/post/bob-barr/ Why Vote? Reason 1,280

YOU SHOULD VOTE BECAUSE Libertarian Bob Barr will not be the 44th president of the United States. Neither will the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. But if 2000 taught us anything, it's that third-party candidates can influence the outcomes of elections. Is Barr the new Nader?

Flag GraphicBob Barr actually cares what you write about him. He's especially sensitive to jabs about his wardrobe. Journalists have painted him as everything from "grumpy and humorless" to "stocky and rumpled." Barr has also been called "trim"-he saved a copy of that one. But what really ticked him off was when a reporter placed him in a "three-piece suit." Because he hasn't worn a three-piece suit in 30 years. He tells that anecdote with perfect comic timing and just a hint of sarcasm. It's a great icebreaker, and today it gets a big belly laugh from his audience.

It's a quarter past nine on a perfect mid-August morning in Washington, D.C., and Bob Barr, the four-term former Georgia congressman who led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton, is trying to explain to a dozen or so members of the conservative media why he should be elected president on the Libertarian ticket.

It's a tall order for a man who once licked whipped cream off a woman's breast at a fundraiser and accidentally discharged a loaded pistol at a campaign event. But he has his backers. The American Spectator and the anti-tax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform have sponsored the breakfast. Calling them fiscal conservatives would be an understatement; tax-and-spend politicians are red meat for these guys.

Witty posters from the past ("The Soviet Union Needs You: Support a U.S. Nuclear Freeze") and present ("Big Sister Is Watching You," which features an extreme close-up of Hillary Clinton's mug) adorn the walls of the conference room. There's also a poster-more like an idol-of Ronald Reagan. With the specter of the Great Communicator behind him, Barr launches into his core positions: the social-security system is a "Ponzi scheme"; the government is wasteful; taxes are too high; government needs to be more hands off; a non-interventionist foreign policy is the way to go-all accomplished, of course, with a balanced budget.

Dressed in a black pinstripe suit and stylish Prada glasses, he's neither stocky nor trim. Certainly not humorless. But still a little grumpy. He criticizes John McCain's stance on the Russia-Georgia conflict ("‘We are all Georgians.' What does that mean? It means absolutely nothing."), the war in Iraq, and debunks the prospect of debating the Green Party candidate for president, as the last Libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik, did in 2004. "Because we're far ahead of the other third parties in the polls, we believe that I will be the only candidate that has a reasonable shot at gaining access to the national debate," he says. "That is our goal. Our goal is not to engage in or settle for debates that are not national in scope."

And why should he? While it's highly unlikely he will stand alongside McCain and Barack Obama at the debates, Barr has a point. The major parties like to scoff at fringe candidates, but if the 2000 election taught us anything it is that they are not without political significance, both in terms of influencing policy, and affecting the outcome of elections. Ralph Nader's Green Party, at its peak in 2000, drew 2.7 percent of the national vote. And though the party has floundered in recent years, now led by former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her hip-hop-activist VP, they're still polling at about 1 percent. The Libertarians, meanwhile, are drawing numbers that are reminding a lot of people of Florida eight years back. Polling at 3 percent in most national surveys, Barr will likely land on the ballot in 48 states-that's four more than Nader did in 2000.

Sure, that theoretical 3 percent is not enough to usher him into the Oval Office, but it is enough to make a serious dent in someone's numbers come November. It's also enough to make the Republican party stand up and pay attention-to Barr, to his policies, and to his supporters-the way the Democrats perhaps should have with Nader in 2000.

Republicans have reason to take note. In the Republican primaries, the Libertarian-leaning congressman Ron Paul surprisingly drummed up $35 million in contributions and outlasted Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two golden boys of the GOP establishment. Barr and his 3 percent, meanwhile, have been tabbed potential "spoilers," on track to siphon enough votes from McCain in swing states like Nevada to tilt the election to Obama. Naturally, this wasn't lost on the party of Lincoln.

On August 18, a Republican Party leader filed court papers to remove Barr from the Pennsylvania ballot, a state with 21 Electoral College votes and where Obama holds a slim lead. There was also a rumor that McCain selected the moose-hunting governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate with the hopes of securing an NRA endorsement that could go to Barr. Even Obama is feeling the heat, continuing his rightward lurch in an effort to appeal to centrists and swing voters.




Convincing people he should be president is a tall order for a man who once licked whipped cream off a woman's breast at a fundraiser.

Ralph Nader was the last presidential candidate that voters embraced as a viable alternative to the majors, but the party with which he rose to prominence isn't doing so well these days. On October 14, 2000, when Nader spoke before 15,000 of his acolytes at Madison Square Garden, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, and Michael Moore were there to cheer him on; Eddie Vedder even performed. When Rosa Clemente, the Green Party's vice presidential nominee, speaks before her followers tonight, they will number a few dozen at a hipster dive bar in Brooklyn, New York.

Several factors have taken the wind out of the Green party's sail-but no single factor is greater than that many on the left haven't yet forgiven Nader, or his party, for "costing" the Democrats the election.

"There are people who we meet on the street that say, ‘It's your fault we are in Iraq,'" says Kat Swift, a Texas Green who was a candidate for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. "The people who aren't paying attention to the facts still think the Green Party is the problem. But if you talk to people who understand the media and political spin, they understand that the people in power want to keep their power so they are going to do what they can to maintain that. Whether they join the party or not is a different issue."

Most of them do not. Since 2000, party support has shrunk considerably and consistently. That year, Nader collected 2.9 million votes; in 2004, the Green Party candidate David Cobb received only a little more than 100,000. Obama's victory over Clinton in the Democratic primary didn't help them either. He's the Democrats' most progressive candidate since George McGovern in 1972. Put simply, the far left don't need the Greens the way they did when Kerry ran; Obama's got them covered. And today, the party is polling behind even Ralph Nader, who is running again, but this time as an independent.

But that hasn't stopped Cynthia McKinney, a six-term congresswoman from Georgia, known for her incendiary comments and for her ballsy take on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Two years before Fahrenheit 9/11, McKinney spoke of Bush Sr.'s connection to the Carlyle Group, a private-equity investment firm that once had connections to the bin Laden family.) She's also known for introducing articles of impeachment against Bush Jr., Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, and, in March, 2006, she was involved in a physical altercation with a Capitol police officer. That year, she lost her bid for re-election. The following year, she left the Democratic party.

"The Democratic party has definitely changed," she says. "It's become the money party and the war party. The money comes from the same special interests that control the system and inhibit alternative voices." McKinney is running on a platform of an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, economic and environmental sustainability, and universal single-payer health care.

A major challenge to the party, too, is the ghost of Ralph Nader. At the Green Party's convention this summer, the famed consumer advocate received the second highest number of delegates, despite his announcement back in February that he would decline to seek the Green Party nomination. It made the party look like the heartbroken ex who can't come to terms when the relationship has runs its course.

"When people think about the Green Party, they think Ralph Nader," says Swift. "You kind of have to know that he was just the nominee, he's not the party. Most people who supported Nader supported Nader-they weren't Green Party people."

Similarly, Barr thinks the Libertarians' numbers are mushrooming because of, well, because of Bob Barr. "Having at the top of the Libertarian ticket a former member of Congress with a relatively high name ID and a great deal of credibility from the work since serving in the Congress on substantive issues makes a tremendous difference," he says. "That adds a lot more credibility and validity to our national ticket than we've had in the past." At the same time, he concedes that he represents an alternative to a party that has greatly disappointed some of the Republican core-something the Greens can't dream of tapping into. "The deep dissatisfaction with the status quo is much more pronounced this cycle than any previous year, including 2004," he tells me after breakfast.

So while the far left may not need the Greens, the fiscal conservatives do need the Libertarians more than ever. The Patriot Act, a $9 trillion national debt, and an aggressive interventionist foreign policy have outraged Libertarians and even some Republicans. "[People] are voting for Barr to send a message," says David F. Nolan, who founded the Libertarian Party in 1971. "The people that are voting for Bob Barr are Libertarian Party loyalists, which will be about 400,000 or 500,000. Then there are a lot of people who vote Republican because they are under the delusion that the Republican Party is the party of limited government, as it was in the days of Barry Goldwater and, to some extent, Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush is the antithesis of a limited-government/Constitution guy."

"The Libertarian Party of 2008 is not your grandfather's Libertarian Party," Barr says, attempting to debunk the public image of Libertarians as either Ruby Ridge gun nuts or eccentric stoners.

Grover Norquist agrees. He remembers scouting meetings in the early 1980s, attempting to recruit the people wearing suits and ties. "Back then, there were serious guys who were more aggressive, radical Republicans who called themselves Libertarians. Then you had the anarchist types," he says. "The difference is some people were having fun expressing themselves and some people wanted to change the world." For third parties "there are two impulses: one is to shock people. … Then, there is, let me reason with you. Bob Barr is not a shock-and-awe Libertarian."




"We're in a two-party system and we're supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world? That makes no sense." - Rosa Clemente

But not all Libertarians are behind Barr. To some within his party, he isn't shock and awe enough. While in Congress, he wrote the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, was an early supporter of the Patriot Act, and was one of the most stringent advocates of the Drug War-all positions antithetical to Libertarian ideals. He also didn't join the party until 2006. "The laws that he passed resulted in my family being broken up and me almost dying in [police] custody," says Steve Kubby, a medical marijuana activist and cancer patient who has served jail time and once fled to Canada. He ran for the Libertarian nomination, but now supports Barr. "He did hideous things but has personally admitted and apologized for them. We have to have patience for these recovering Republicans."

Not all Libertarians do. At their convention in Denver this spring, Barr's voting record spooked party loyalists and he didn't clinch the nomination until the sixth ballot. And though he's currently polling higher than any previous Libertarian presidential nominee, the lack of confidence from within the base has stalled fundraising. As of September 12, Barr had only raised $881,500.

"Barr's people have not understood that they don't know how to appeal to or motivate or get money out of the Libertarian base of activists, those 15,000 hardcore money-giving people. They were proceeding [under the assumption], I believe, that they could pull a Ron Paul and come out of nowhere and get $35 million over the internet," says Nolan, who claims that the Barr campaign has not sent out a single fundraising letter. "They want Ron Paul's support but they fail to tap into his main issue, which is the money situation. There is an increasing awareness of the Federal Reserve. You are not picking up on Ron Paul's issues, so how can you count on his support? I think he is a good candidate but has run a bad campaign."

"Ron Paul did not drain our money," says George Phillies, a physics professor who ran for the Libertarian nomination. "He published his donor list and my campaign was able to pick up 100,000 names that way, which we could compare with Libertarian Party membership lists. … There was a ten percent overlap."

Party unity has been a concern for the Greens, as well, due in part to the fallout from a misguided strategy last election cycle. In 2004, the party was fractured. One faction believed in running what was called a "Safe State Strategy," meaning the Green candidate would not campaign in swing states. The other wanted an all-out campaign to differentiate themselves from the Democrats. The "Safe State" contingent won and nominated David Cobb, who ran under the radar and whose popular vote tally proved it. Instead of being in it to win it, Cobb's campaign was a figurative waving of the white flag. It appeased left-leaning Democrats, who mostly agree with the Green Party's principals but who, after 2000, will probably never stray in that direction again. It's essentially a struggle between idealism and pragmatism.

"There are people that are Green-leaning, but they are afraid to take that leap," says Julia Aires, former co-chair of the Green Party in Florida. "It's very unfortunate because until people are willing to step out and build a party, we will never be able to be that alternative that people want and need so badly."

"It's what I call the Kucinich Democrats," says Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the New York State Green Party. "They have this illusion that someone like Dennis is going to come along and the party is suddenly going to change. I respect Dennis, but I think it's an illusion that anything is going to change because of him. I think there are these white middle-class people who desperately want the Democratic party to change, but we haven't found the formula yet for attracting them. You look at Barack, I think that his speeches about hope and change are empty rhetoric. It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that it really is just words-they don't have much depth to them. The problem is, people are desperate."

Rosa Clemente, the Green Party's vice presidential nominee, is not interested in reminiscing over 2000. She says the goal of the Green ticket is to receive 5 percent of the vote, to qualify for matching funds. It would be a step in the right direction to give more choices to the electorate. "People always say how fucked up the elections are in Africa or in Haiti," she says. "But in those elections, more than two people run. You can come from the depths of South Africa or Nigeria or Ghana and there are more than two people running for president-there is more of a parliamentary representative type of government. We're in a two-party system and we're supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world? That makes no sense."

Tonight's fundraiser, which is also Clemente's first speaking engagement since accepting the nomination, is a step toward rectifying that. But Clemente, who is dressed in a horizontal-striped halter dress with a peace sign over the abdomen and door-knocker earrings, and who sports tattoos of Cuba and the continent of Africa on her arms, is running late.

It's at Galapagos, a bar and performance space in Brooklyn, and it smells like pot. Clemente will introduce some of tonight's speakers: There's "Evergreen Joe," a local Green politician who gets big cheers for quoting the late Green Party candidate for governor, "Grandpa" Al Lewis of The Munsters. There's La Bruja, a spoken-word artist and musician. She recites a poem called "The Pussy Piece."

About an hour into the event, I do a head count. Discounting the one toddler, there are 53 people. And a motley crew they are, unified less (it seems) by the Green platform than by something more elusive: an alternative to the party that failed them.

One of them is Ann Eagen, a lifetime Democrat who became disgusted with the party after its treatment of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. "The Democrats are the party of the corporations who own the country," she says. "Maybe their candidates are kinder and gentler [than the Republicans], but their aims are the same."

Eric Alterman, author of Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, doesn't buy it. "Ralph Nader said in 2000 that there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between [Republicans and Democrats]. Bad prediction," he says. "The only people who were willing to risk an administration like the Bush administration, who profess to care about the things that Greens profess to care about, are people who are totally not serious about politics. It's people who think of politics as a form of therapy as opposed to a means of getting things done."

Before the event gets going, I also meet a middle-aged man named Richard Degen, who's wearing cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt swathed in political buttons ("Free Mumia,"  "No Blood for Oil"; 12 in all). He's swigging from a container of Paul Newman Lemonade that he smuggled into the event. Next to him is Robert Hernandez, 49, from Bedford-Stuyvesant. They conduct speak-outs every Thursday in Manhattan's Union Square ("If you hear a bullhorn in Union Square, it's us"). "They finally picked a great ticket. Two powerful women. And what do you get from Obama and McCain?" Hernandez asks. "Clueless."

Soon, both take turns on the soapbox. They rant about the Tompkins Square Park riots, the Vietnam War, and SAT scores. They also predict a resurrection of 1960s radicalism.

"We don't stay complacent like robots and listen to our iPods and chat on our cell phones and take everything for face value," Hernandez says. "People hate us, but we don't care."

It has nothing to do with the next president. It doesn't have much to do with the Green Party, either. But you get the feeling he wants to change the world. He won't, but at least he's having fun expressing himself.

Why Vote? View 1,564 more reasons here.]]> Why Vote? Reason 1,280

YOU SHOULD VOTE BECAUSE Libertarian Bob Barr will not be the 44th president of the United States. Neither will the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. But if 2000 taught us anything, it's that third-party candidates can influence the outcomes of elections. Is Barr the new Nader?

Flag GraphicBob Barr actually cares what you write about him. He's especially sensitive to jabs about his wardrobe. Journalists have painted him as everything from "grumpy and humorless" to "stocky and rumpled." Barr has also been called "trim"-he saved a copy of that one. But what really ticked him off was when a reporter placed him in a "three-piece suit." Because he hasn't worn a three-piece suit in 30 years. He tells that anecdote with perfect comic timing and just a hint of sarcasm. It's a great icebreaker, and today it gets a big belly laugh from his audience.

It's a quarter past nine on a perfect mid-August morning in Washington, D.C., and Bob Barr, the four-term former Georgia congressman who led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton, is trying to explain to a dozen or so members of the conservative media why he should be elected president on the Libertarian ticket.

It's a tall order for a man who once licked whipped cream off a woman's breast at a fundraiser and accidentally discharged a loaded pistol at a campaign event. But he has his backers. The American Spectator and the anti-tax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform have sponsored the breakfast. Calling them fiscal conservatives would be an understatement; tax-and-spend politicians are red meat for these guys.

Witty posters from the past ("The Soviet Union Needs You: Support a U.S. Nuclear Freeze") and present ("Big Sister Is Watching You," which features an extreme close-up of Hillary Clinton's mug) adorn the walls of the conference room. There's also a poster-more like an idol-of Ronald Reagan. With the specter of the Great Communicator behind him, Barr launches into his core positions: the social-security system is a "Ponzi scheme"; the government is wasteful; taxes are too high; government needs to be more hands off; a non-interventionist foreign policy is the way to go-all accomplished, of course, with a balanced budget.

Dressed in a black pinstripe suit and stylish Prada glasses, he's neither stocky nor trim. Certainly not humorless. But still a little grumpy. He criticizes John McCain's stance on the Russia-Georgia conflict ("‘We are all Georgians.' What does that mean? It means absolutely nothing."), the war in Iraq, and debunks the prospect of debating the Green Party candidate for president, as the last Libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik, did in 2004. "Because we're far ahead of the other third parties in the polls, we believe that I will be the only candidate that has a reasonable shot at gaining access to the national debate," he says. "That is our goal. Our goal is not to engage in or settle for debates that are not national in scope."

And why should he? While it's highly unlikely he will stand alongside McCain and Barack Obama at the debates, Barr has a point. The major parties like to scoff at fringe candidates, but if the 2000 election taught us anything it is that they are not without political significance, both in terms of influencing policy, and affecting the outcome of elections. Ralph Nader's Green Party, at its peak in 2000, drew 2.7 percent of the national vote. And though the party has floundered in recent years, now led by former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her hip-hop-activist VP, they're still polling at about 1 percent. The Libertarians, meanwhile, are drawing numbers that are reminding a lot of people of Florida eight years back. Polling at 3 percent in most national surveys, Barr will likely land on the ballot in 48 states-that's four more than Nader did in 2000.

Sure, that theoretical 3 percent is not enough to usher him into the Oval Office, but it is enough to make a serious dent in someone's numbers come November. It's also enough to make the Republican party stand up and pay attention-to Barr, to his policies, and to his supporters-the way the Democrats perhaps should have with Nader in 2000.

Republicans have reason to take note. In the Republican primaries, the Libertarian-leaning congressman Ron Paul surprisingly drummed up $35 million in contributions and outlasted Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two golden boys of the GOP establishment. Barr and his 3 percent, meanwhile, have been tabbed potential "spoilers," on track to siphon enough votes from McCain in swing states like Nevada to tilt the election to Obama. Naturally, this wasn't lost on the party of Lincoln.

On August 18, a Republican Party leader filed court papers to remove Barr from the Pennsylvania ballot, a state with 21 Electoral College votes and where Obama holds a slim lead. There was also a rumor that McCain selected the moose-hunting governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate with the hopes of securing an NRA endorsement that could go to Barr. Even Obama is feeling the heat, continuing his rightward lurch in an effort to appeal to centrists and swing voters.




Convincing people he should be president is a tall order for a man who once licked whipped cream off a woman's breast at a fundraiser.

Ralph Nader was the last presidential candidate that voters embraced as a viable alternative to the majors, but the party with which he rose to prominence isn't doing so well these days. On October 14, 2000, when Nader spoke before 15,000 of his acolytes at Madison Square Garden, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, and Michael Moore were there to cheer him on; Eddie Vedder even performed. When Rosa Clemente, the Green Party's vice presidential nominee, speaks before her followers tonight, they will number a few dozen at a hipster dive bar in Brooklyn, New York.

Several factors have taken the wind out of the Green party's sail-but no single factor is greater than that many on the left haven't yet forgiven Nader, or his party, for "costing" the Democrats the election.

"There are people who we meet on the street that say, ‘It's your fault we are in Iraq,'" says Kat Swift, a Texas Green who was a candidate for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. "The people who aren't paying attention to the facts still think the Green Party is the problem. But if you talk to people who understand the media and political spin, they understand that the people in power want to keep their power so they are going to do what they can to maintain that. Whether they join the party or not is a different issue."

Most of them do not. Since 2000, party support has shrunk considerably and consistently. That year, Nader collected 2.9 million votes; in 2004, the Green Party candidate David Cobb received only a little more than 100,000. Obama's victory over Clinton in the Democratic primary didn't help them either. He's the Democrats' most progressive candidate since George McGovern in 1972. Put simply, the far left don't need the Greens the way they did when Kerry ran; Obama's got them covered. And today, the party is polling behind even Ralph Nader, who is running again, but this time as an independent.

But that hasn't stopped Cynthia McKinney, a six-term congresswoman from Georgia, known for her incendiary comments and for her ballsy take on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Two years before Fahrenheit 9/11, McKinney spoke of Bush Sr.'s connection to the Carlyle Group, a private-equity investment firm that once had connections to the bin Laden family.) She's also known for introducing articles of impeachment against Bush Jr., Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, and, in March, 2006, she was involved in a physical altercation with a Capitol police officer. That year, she lost her bid for re-election. The following year, she left the Democratic party.

"The Democratic party has definitely changed," she says. "It's become the money party and the war party. The money comes from the same special interests that control the system and inhibit alternative voices." McKinney is running on a platform of an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, economic and environmental sustainability, and universal single-payer health care.

A major challenge to the party, too, is the ghost of Ralph Nader. At the Green Party's convention this summer, the famed consumer advocate received the second highest number of delegates, despite his announcement back in February that he would decline to seek the Green Party nomination. It made the party look like the heartbroken ex who can't come to terms when the relationship has runs its course.

"When people think about the Green Party, they think Ralph Nader," says Swift. "You kind of have to know that he was just the nominee, he's not the party. Most people who supported Nader supported Nader-they weren't Green Party people."

Similarly, Barr thinks the Libertarians' numbers are mushrooming because of, well, because of Bob Barr. "Having at the top of the Libertarian ticket a former member of Congress with a relatively high name ID and a great deal of credibility from the work since serving in the Congress on substantive issues makes a tremendous difference," he says. "That adds a lot more credibility and validity to our national ticket than we've had in the past." At the same time, he concedes that he represents an alternative to a party that has greatly disappointed some of the Republican core-something the Greens can't dream of tapping into. "The deep dissatisfaction with the status quo is much more pronounced this cycle than any previous year, including 2004," he tells me after breakfast.

So while the far left may not need the Greens, the fiscal conservatives do need the Libertarians more than ever. The Patriot Act, a $9 trillion national debt, and an aggressive interventionist foreign policy have outraged Libertarians and even some Republicans. "[People] are voting for Barr to send a message," says David F. Nolan, who founded the Libertarian Party in 1971. "The people that are voting for Bob Barr are Libertarian Party loyalists, which will be about 400,000 or 500,000. Then there are a lot of people who vote Republican because they are under the delusion that the Republican Party is the party of limited government, as it was in the days of Barry Goldwater and, to some extent, Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush is the antithesis of a limited-government/Constitution guy."

"The Libertarian Party of 2008 is not your grandfather's Libertarian Party," Barr says, attempting to debunk the public image of Libertarians as either Ruby Ridge gun nuts or eccentric stoners.

Grover Norquist agrees. He remembers scouting meetings in the early 1980s, attempting to recruit the people wearing suits and ties. "Back then, there were serious guys who were more aggressive, radical Republicans who called themselves Libertarians. Then you had the anarchist types," he says. "The difference is some people were having fun expressing themselves and some people wanted to change the world." For third parties "there are two impulses: one is to shock people. … Then, there is, let me reason with you. Bob Barr is not a shock-and-awe Libertarian."




"We're in a two-party system and we're supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world? That makes no sense." - Rosa Clemente

But not all Libertarians are behind Barr. To some within his party, he isn't shock and awe enough. While in Congress, he wrote the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, was an early supporter of the Patriot Act, and was one of the most stringent advocates of the Drug War-all positions antithetical to Libertarian ideals. He also didn't join the party until 2006. "The laws that he passed resulted in my family being broken up and me almost dying in [police] custody," says Steve Kubby, a medical marijuana activist and cancer patient who has served jail time and once fled to Canada. He ran for the Libertarian nomination, but now supports Barr. "He did hideous things but has personally admitted and apologized for them. We have to have patience for these recovering Republicans."

Not all Libertarians do. At their convention in Denver this spring, Barr's voting record spooked party loyalists and he didn't clinch the nomination until the sixth ballot. And though he's currently polling higher than any previous Libertarian presidential nominee, the lack of confidence from within the base has stalled fundraising. As of September 12, Barr had only raised $881,500.

"Barr's people have not understood that they don't know how to appeal to or motivate or get money out of the Libertarian base of activists, those 15,000 hardcore money-giving people. They were proceeding [under the assumption], I believe, that they could pull a Ron Paul and come out of nowhere and get $35 million over the internet," says Nolan, who claims that the Barr campaign has not sent out a single fundraising letter. "They want Ron Paul's support but they fail to tap into his main issue, which is the money situation. There is an increasing awareness of the Federal Reserve. You are not picking up on Ron Paul's issues, so how can you count on his support? I think he is a good candidate but has run a bad campaign."

"Ron Paul did not drain our money," says George Phillies, a physics professor who ran for the Libertarian nomination. "He published his donor list and my campaign was able to pick up 100,000 names that way, which we could compare with Libertarian Party membership lists. … There was a ten percent overlap."

Party unity has been a concern for the Greens, as well, due in part to the fallout from a misguided strategy last election cycle. In 2004, the party was fractured. One faction believed in running what was called a "Safe State Strategy," meaning the Green candidate would not campaign in swing states. The other wanted an all-out campaign to differentiate themselves from the Democrats. The "Safe State" contingent won and nominated David Cobb, who ran under the radar and whose popular vote tally proved it. Instead of being in it to win it, Cobb's campaign was a figurative waving of the white flag. It appeased left-leaning Democrats, who mostly agree with the Green Party's principals but who, after 2000, will probably never stray in that direction again. It's essentially a struggle between idealism and pragmatism.

"There are people that are Green-leaning, but they are afraid to take that leap," says Julia Aires, former co-chair of the Green Party in Florida. "It's very unfortunate because until people are willing to step out and build a party, we will never be able to be that alternative that people want and need so badly."

"It's what I call the Kucinich Democrats," says Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the New York State Green Party. "They have this illusion that someone like Dennis is going to come along and the party is suddenly going to change. I respect Dennis, but I think it's an illusion that anything is going to change because of him. I think there are these white middle-class people who desperately want the Democratic party to change, but we haven't found the formula yet for attracting them. You look at Barack, I think that his speeches about hope and change are empty rhetoric. It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that it really is just words-they don't have much depth to them. The problem is, people are desperate."

Rosa Clemente, the Green Party's vice presidential nominee, is not interested in reminiscing over 2000. She says the goal of the Green ticket is to receive 5 percent of the vote, to qualify for matching funds. It would be a step in the right direction to give more choices to the electorate. "People always say how fucked up the elections are in Africa or in Haiti," she says. "But in those elections, more than two people run. You can come from the depths of South Africa or Nigeria or Ghana and there are more than two people running for president-there is more of a parliamentary representative type of government. We're in a two-party system and we're supposed to be the greatest democracy in the world? That makes no sense."

Tonight's fundraiser, which is also Clemente's first speaking engagement since accepting the nomination, is a step toward rectifying that. But Clemente, who is dressed in a horizontal-striped halter dress with a peace sign over the abdomen and door-knocker earrings, and who sports tattoos of Cuba and the continent of Africa on her arms, is running late.

It's at Galapagos, a bar and performance space in Brooklyn, and it smells like pot. Clemente will introduce some of tonight's speakers: There's "Evergreen Joe," a local Green politician who gets big cheers for quoting the late Green Party candidate for governor, "Grandpa" Al Lewis of The Munsters. There's La Bruja, a spoken-word artist and musician. She recites a poem called "The Pussy Piece."

About an hour into the event, I do a head count. Discounting the one toddler, there are 53 people. And a motley crew they are, unified less (it seems) by the Green platform than by something more elusive: an alternative to the party that failed them.

One of them is Ann Eagen, a lifetime Democrat who became disgusted with the party after its treatment of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. "The Democrats are the party of the corporations who own the country," she says. "Maybe their candidates are kinder and gentler [than the Republicans], but their aims are the same."

Eric Alterman, author of Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, doesn't buy it. "Ralph Nader said in 2000 that there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between [Republicans and Democrats]. Bad prediction," he says. "The only people who were willing to risk an administration like the Bush administration, who profess to care about the things that Greens profess to care about, are people who are totally not serious about politics. It's people who think of politics as a form of therapy as opposed to a means of getting things done."

Before the event gets going, I also meet a middle-aged man named Richard Degen, who's wearing cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt swathed in political buttons ("Free Mumia,"  "No Blood for Oil"; 12 in all). He's swigging from a container of Paul Newman Lemonade that he smuggled into the event. Next to him is Robert Hernandez, 49, from Bedford-Stuyvesant. They conduct speak-outs every Thursday in Manhattan's Union Square ("If you hear a bullhorn in Union Square, it's us"). "They finally picked a great ticket. Two powerful women. And what do you get from Obama and McCain?" Hernandez asks. "Clueless."

Soon, both take turns on the soapbox. They rant about the Tompkins Square Park riots, the Vietnam War, and SAT scores. They also predict a resurrection of 1960s radicalism.

"We don't stay complacent like robots and listen to our iPods and chat on our cell phones and take everything for face value," Hernandez says. "People hate us, but we don't care."

It has nothing to do with the next president. It doesn't have much to do with the Green Party, either. But you get the feeling he wants to change the world. He won't, but at least he's having fun expressing himself.

Why Vote? View 1,564 more reasons here.]]> Thomas Golianopoulos Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:11:08 PDT <![CDATA[Even More Reasons to Vote]]> http://www.good.is/post/why-vote/ http://www.good.is/post/why-vote/ Why Vote? Reasons 1,159 - 1,279

What do Madeleine Albright, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Aboriginal novelist Sam Watson have in common? They all play a part in our next 121 reasons to get out and vote.







Madeleine Albright


Former secretary of state and Georgetown professor
1159.  It is a way responsible citizens have a voice in the conduct of their nation. It is both a responsibility and a privilege.






1160-1198.

In November, voters in 24 states will have a chance to weigh in on 39 ballot initiatives that can profoundly change their lives-and their freedom. At their best, initiatives represent direct democracy in action; at their worst, they're the special interests' back door to your ballot. Massachusetts, for example, recently passed a measure to end greyhound racing, while in November, Coloradoans decide whether or not to define a fertilized egg as a human being. It doesn't mention abortion; it just classifies doctors who perform abortions as murderers.

On these initiatives, deceptive language is common and catchy names are de rigueur. Arizona's "English for the Children," for example, barred Spanish bilingual education; it also ended funding for native-language lessons on Arizona's Indian reservations. But such wordplay is actually aboveboard, as long as the initiative's actual language is attached to the petition. In other words, if you live in one of those 24 states, read the fine print.




Sam Watson, Age 56Aboriginal Australian novelist, playwright, activist, and politician. First voted in 1972, five years after all aboriginals were granted the vote.The truth is, the right to vote doesn't give us any real power in a democratic system. In America, the black vote is very powerful, and they've been able to secure their people into key positions. But in Australia, aboriginal people constitute 2.5 percent of the national population. In 1972, I approached voting with mixed feelings, but we had the option of voting for a new government-an opposition party, led by Gough Whitlam-and he did a great number of things for aboriginal people.But aboriginals still stand as a sovereign people. We have never ceded sovereignty to the British government. Before James Cook came here, on behalf of the British government, this land was occupied and owned and held by more than 800 separate, autonomous nations; reading some proclamation in a foreign language did nothing to extinguish our sovereign rights.

1200. The artist Chris Jordan was able to recreate the masthead of the U.S. Constitution using 83,000 photographs of the tortured and abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib (see it at chrisjordan.com).

1201.  You want to refute the wisdom of crowds. Google Trends shows searches for "Obama" far outpace searches for "McCain."

1202. Bear Stearns.


1203. IndyMac.


1204. Fannie Mae.


1205. Freddie Mac.


1206. Lehman Brothers.


1207. Merrill Lynch.


1208. The next one.


1209-1274.  Maybe you don't want each of the 66 paid lobbyists that were working for the McCain campaign in March of 2008 to have an influence on his policies.

1275. Your grandparents had to hike barefoot in the snow uphill both ways to vote.

1276. Unlike the SAT, leaving an answer blank doesn't work to your advantage.

1277.  You want to call yourself patriotic without being a hypocrite.




Ben Nighthorse

Ben Nighthorse Campbell


Former Colorado senator and first Native American to serve in the Senate

1278. There have been many times in recorded history when one vote turned the tide. When women's right to vote was ratified throughout America, the last state to ratify it was Tennessee. The vote came down to a tie on two successive votes. On the third try, one state representative changed his mind and decided to vote for it. That one single person's vote gave Tennessee the final ratification to allow women to vote in America.





1279."Fuck the vote. Seeing friends wearing Obama shirts reminds me of dorks who were bummed about a lack of enthusiasm at our high school and wanted to ‘Bring the Spirit Back!' Do these people really think McCain is that different from Obama? Conservatives voted for Bush to close borders and get a grip on spending. He blew up the borders and spent more than any president in history. Liberals voted for Clinton to throw money around and were willing to pay the taxes to do it. He spent less than anyone and left us with very conservative-friendly profits. You don't know what you're getting."Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice magazine and the Street Carnage website
]]> Why Vote? Reasons 1,159 - 1,279

What do Madeleine Albright, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Aboriginal novelist Sam Watson have in common? They all play a part in our next 121 reasons to get out and vote.







Madeleine Albright


Former secretary of state and Georgetown professor
1159.  It is a way responsible citizens have a voice in the conduct of their nation. It is both a responsibility and a privilege.






1160-1198.

In November, voters in 24 states will have a chance to weigh in on 39 ballot initiatives that can profoundly change their lives-and their freedom. At their best, initiatives represent direct democracy in action; at their worst, they're the special interests' back door to your ballot. Massachusetts, for example, recently passed a measure to end greyhound racing, while in November, Coloradoans decide whether or not to define a fertilized egg as a human being. It doesn't mention abortion; it just classifies doctors who perform abortions as murderers.

On these initiatives, deceptive language is common and catchy names are de rigueur. Arizona's "English for the Children," for example, barred Spanish bilingual education; it also ended funding for native-language lessons on Arizona's Indian reservations. But such wordplay is actually aboveboard, as long as the initiative's actual language is attached to the petition. In other words, if you live in one of those 24 states, read the fine print.




Sam Watson, Age 56Aboriginal Australian novelist, playwright, activist, and politician. First voted in 1972, five years after all aboriginals were granted the vote.The truth is, the right to vote doesn't give us any real power in a democratic system. In America, the black vote is very powerful, and they've been able to secure their people into key positions. But in Australia, aboriginal people constitute 2.5 percent of the national population. In 1972, I approached voting with mixed feelings, but we had the option of voting for a new government-an opposition party, led by Gough Whitlam-and he did a great number of things for aboriginal people.But aboriginals still stand as a sovereign people. We have never ceded sovereignty to the British government. Before James Cook came here, on behalf of the British government, this land was occupied and owned and held by more than 800 separate, autonomous nations; reading some proclamation in a foreign language did nothing to extinguish our sovereign rights.

1200. The artist Chris Jordan was able to recreate the masthead of the U.S. Constitution using 83,000 photographs of the tortured and abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib (see it at chrisjordan.com).

1201.  You want to refute the wisdom of crowds. Google Trends shows searches for "Obama" far outpace searches for "McCain."

1202. Bear Stearns.


1203. IndyMac.


1204. Fannie Mae.


1205. Freddie Mac.


1206. Lehman Brothers.


1207. Merrill Lynch.


1208. The next one.


1209-1274.  Maybe you don't want each of the 66 paid lobbyists that were working for the McCain campaign in March of 2008 to have an influence on his policies.

1275. Your grandparents had to hike barefoot in the snow uphill both ways to vote.

1276. Unlike the SAT, leaving an answer blank doesn't work to your advantage.

1277.  You want to call yourself patriotic without being a hypocrite.




Ben Nighthorse

Ben Nighthorse Campbell


Former Colorado senator and first Native American to serve in the Senate

1278. There have been many times in recorded history when one vote turned the tide. When women's right to vote was ratified throughout America, the last state to ratify it was Tennessee. The vote came down to a tie on two successive votes. On the third try, one state representative changed his mind and decided to vote for it. That one single person's vote gave Tennessee the final ratification to allow women to vote in America.





1279."Fuck the vote. Seeing friends wearing Obama shirts reminds me of dorks who were bummed about a lack of enthusiasm at our high school and wanted to ‘Bring the Spirit Back!' Do these people really think McCain is that different from Obama? Conservatives voted for Bush to close borders and get a grip on spending. He blew up the borders and spent more than any president in history. Liberals voted for Clinton to throw money around and were willing to pay the taxes to do it. He spent less than anyone and left us with very conservative-friendly profits. You don't know what you're getting."Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice magazine and the Street Carnage website
]]> GOOD Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:39:54 PDT <![CDATA[Third Party Candidates]]> http://www.good.is/post/third-party-candidates/ http://www.good.is/post/third-party-candidates/ Why Vote? Reasons 1,150 - 1,158

Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney won't be the only also-rans in the pack of presidential contenders. Most people know about the Libertarian and Green parties' candidates, but there are others--aside from the Dems' and the GOP's, of course--and they have their own ideas about how to govern this country. After reading this, you won't be able to say that you didn't know all your options.







































Vote Gene Gene Amundson Prohibition Party:
Chuck Baldwin Constitution Party:
Charles Jay Boston Tea Party: "Why wouldn't I run? is the real question. I'm going to win if I get through to the end, because somewhere along the line, we're going to change some minds."
Jackson Kirk Grimes United Fascist Union: "We must end the reign of terror of the capitalist elite. To correct the flaws in modern society, the United Fascist Union recommends halting the monopolies on utilities; imposing strict censorship on the press; halting urban sprawl; and enacting rules of public conduct that police would enforce rigidly."
Alan Keyes America's Independent Party: "If you really want to see a change in government then we need to restore the credibility of the Republican party-a credibility that has been destroyed by the betrayal of promises to keep government limited and a betrayal that has resulted in outrageously high budget deficits."
Gloria La Riva Party for Socialism and Liberation: "As a worker and a union leader who represents workers who are losing their jobs left and right, my run for the presidency is against the corporations, the banks, and big money-the pillars of the American plutocracy."
Frank McEnulty New American Independent Party:
Brian Moore Socialist Party USA:
Ralph Nader Independent: "[Millennials] are the first generation that, when polled, say they're not going to be as well off as their parents. And the indicators are all coming down: millions of Americans not making a living wage, not even close-Wal-Mart wages, McDonald's wages, Kmart wages. Just think of that. This is the richest country in the world."
]]> Why Vote? Reasons 1,150 - 1,158

Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney won't be the only also-rans in the pack of presidential contenders. Most people know about the Libertarian and Green parties' candidates, but there are others--aside from the Dems' and the GOP's, of course--and they have their own ideas about how to govern this country. After reading this, you won't be able to say that you didn't know all your options.







































Vote Gene Gene Amundson Prohibition Party:
Chuck Baldwin Constitution Party:
Charles Jay Boston Tea Party: "Why wouldn't I run? is the real question. I'm going to win if I get through to the end, because somewhere along the line, we're going to change some minds."
Jackson Kirk Grimes United Fascist Union: "We must end the reign of terror of the capitalist elite. To correct the flaws in modern society, the United Fascist Union recommends halting the monopolies on utilities; imposing strict censorship on the press; halting urban sprawl; and enacting rules of public conduct that police would enforce rigidly."
Alan Keyes America's Independent Party: "If you really want to see a change in government then we need to restore the credibility of the Republican party-a credibility that has been destroyed by the betrayal of promises to keep government limited and a betrayal that has resulted in outrageously high budget deficits."
Gloria La Riva Party for Socialism and Liberation: "As a worker and a union leader who represents workers who are losing their jobs left and right, my run for the presidency is against the corporations, the banks, and big money-the pillars of the American plutocracy."
Frank McEnulty New American Independent Party:
Brian Moore Socialist Party USA:
Ralph Nader Independent: "[Millennials] are the first generation that, when polled, say they're not going to be as well off as their parents. And the indicators are all coming down: millions of Americans not making a living wage, not even close-Wal-Mart wages, McDonald's wages, Kmart wages. Just think of that. This is the richest country in the world."
]]> GOOD Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:12:46 PDT <![CDATA[The Election Horoscope]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-election-horoscope/ http://www.good.is/post/the-election-horoscope/ Why Vote? Reason 1,149

YOU SHOULD VOTE BECAUSE If watching the news and talking to your friends hasn't convinced you how important this election is, maybe the stars can. Planets

Are you inspired to rush out and participate in the great privilege of American democracy? Or are you fed up with the whole damned thing? It all depends on which news channel you happen to be watching. If you tune in to the "liberal" guys and even think about voting for McCain, then you're accused of being a horrible racist clinging to the practices of an administration that has brought us to the edge of the abyss. According to the other news station, however, if you go for Obama, then you're secretly colluding with the Islamic fundamentalists and you're nothing more than a traitor, against all the values for which our Founding Fathers lived and died.

Astrologically, the polarity that exists in this election between the Republicans and the Democrats is a symbolic contest of the celestial opposition between the planets Saturn and Uranus. It's a rather rare occurrence and will culminate around election time and last through 2009. McCain is a Virgo, and if you know any members of that sign, you know that in spite of feeling lousy from the nonstop pressure, Virgos have to continue to perform their duties as if nothing was hurting them. Why the Republicans would want to put forth a man who is obviously in constant pain and present him as excited and energized might seem like a mystery. The reason is that with Saturn strong in all Virgos' horoscope right now, McCain represents the fatherly ticket, restoring the nation to a more stable and prosperous position. Saturn rules order and the conservative way. Seen from another point of view, however, it's likely to mean four more years of Bush policy.

The Democrats, on the other hand, want us to believe that a vote for Obama is a vote for refreshing vitality. Obama, a Leo, represents Uranus, the revolutionary planet of change. According to his people, his dynamism and vitality will be able to handle the drastic change we need in America. Forget the fact that he talks as if he is giving a high school graduation speech.

The Presidential Election of 2008 is going to be the weirdest one we've ever seen. And as astrologers know, with Uranus coming to the end of Pisces in a year or so, and with Pluto about to enter Capricorn, this country is in for it, big time. Pluto in Capricorn means tighten your belts, and no frills. And normally sweet Pisces in unpredictable Uranus is going to cause everyone a veritable tsunami: Americans are about to experience a social, economic, and political upheaval not seen in at least 80 years. And no matter who ends up in the White House, the next five years will see a tremendous nationwide struggle between the fight for individual rights and liberties and a crackdown against rebellion that will make the 1960s look tame.

So what to do? As a Virgo, McCain has a sincere and humble desire to serve, and Saturn does give him prudence, thrift, and forethought. With Saturn in his zodiac sign, however, he does seem mighty creaky around the edges. Not to say that Virgos are dried up and toxic. It's just that Saturn tends to age people before their time, making them worried they, like the old lady on television, will fall and not be able to get up. The influence of Saturn in the sign of Virgo will be strong through 2009, and for all of us that means big issues of health care and employment. It would be wonderful if health care were available to everyone, but as long as the pharmaceutical companies are hawking new diseases like restless leg syndrome, such universal care will not be around the bend.

So then, should you vote for Obama? He may truly identify with the altruistic revolutionary ideas, upheavals, and unexpected reversals that always come with the planet Uranus. Don't ever forget, however, that he's a Leo, so utter selflessness is just not part of his DNA. There's no question that he radiates energy, youth, and even the anger young people feel when they sense they are being ignored or misunderstood. But don't be naïve enough to think that race is not the giant issue; with Pluto still in Sagittarius, it is. And although he is flying under the Let's-Clean-House banner, remember that Obama is the symbol of Uranus-the planet of utter unpredictability-so do not bet on the end of the story. The twists will be crazier than anything Hitchcock on acid could have dreamed up.

If you're an American citizen and of voting age, there are two things you should know: First, a planetary opposition such as the one occurring now drives people to polarize in their positions, but in reality they are joined and thus much closer philosophically than one might think. Because of the economic crisis that will affect everyone, neither candidate can avoid the political bleeding between party lines this election will bring. As far as the rhetoric goes, remember this: Campaign speeches and promises are as sincere as the things a guy tells his date when he wants to get laid.

Second, if you do watch the news, turn down the sound so you can't hear the mind-numbing, brain-bending demagoguery. When the candidates appear, watch their eyes and their body movements. Then consider making your decision based on something more visceral. Maybe you should vote the one who brings back fond memories of either the kindly old grandpa who loved and protected you when you were little, or the cute guy you should have married in high school.

We are living on the brink of an ideological transformation on these American shores that hasn't been seen in a very long time. The presidential election of 2008 will someday be seen as the defining moment of a revolution that will change this country forever. What part do you want to play in it?]]> Why Vote? Reason 1,149

YOU SHOULD VOTE BECAUSE If watching the news and talking to your friends hasn't convinced you how important this election is, maybe the stars can. Planets

Are you inspired to rush out and participate in the great privilege of American democracy? Or are you fed up with the whole damned thing? It all depends on which news channel you happen to be watching. If you tune in to the "liberal" guys and even think about voting for McCain, then you're accused of being a horrible racist clinging to the practices of an administration that has brought us to the edge of the abyss. According to the other news station, however, if you go for Obama, then you're secretly colluding with the Islamic fundamentalists and you're nothing more than a traitor, against all the values for which our Founding Fathers lived and died.

Astrologically, the polarity that exists in this election between the Republicans and the Democrats is a symbolic contest of the celestial opposition between the planets Saturn and Uranus. It's a rather rare occurrence and will culminate around election time and last through 2009. McCain is a Virgo, and if you know any members of that sign, you know that in spite of feeling lousy from the nonstop pressure, Virgos have to continue to perform their duties as if nothing was hurting them. Why the Republicans would want to put forth a man who is obviously in constant pain and present him as excited and energized might seem like a mystery. The reason is that with Saturn strong in all Virgos' horoscope right now, McCain represents the fatherly ticket, restoring the nation to a more stable and prosperous position. Saturn rules order and the conservative way. Seen from another point of view, however, it's likely to mean four more years of Bush policy.

The Democrats, on the other hand, want us to believe that a vote for Obama is a vote for refreshing vitality. Obama, a Leo, represents Uranus, the revolutionary planet of change. According to his people, his dynamism and vitality will be able to handle the drastic change we need in America. Forget the fact that he talks as if he is giving a high school graduation speech.

The Presidential Election of 2008 is going to be the weirdest one we've ever seen. And as astrologers know, with Uranus coming to the end of Pisces in a year or so, and with Pluto about to enter Capricorn, this country is in for it, big time. Pluto in Capricorn means tighten your belts, and no frills. And normally sweet Pisces in unpredictable Uranus is going to cause everyone a veritable tsunami: Americans are about to experience a social, economic, and political upheaval not seen in at least 80 years. And no matter who ends up in the White House, the next five years will see a tremendous nationwide struggle between the fight for individual rights and liberties and a crackdown against rebellion that will make the 1960s look tame.

So what to do? As a Virgo, McCain has a sincere and humble desire to serve, and Saturn does give him prudence, thrift, and forethought. With Saturn in his zodiac sign, however, he does seem mighty creaky around the edges. Not to say that Virgos are dried up and toxic. It's just that Saturn tends to age people before their time, making them worried they, like the old lady on television, will fall and not be able to get up. The influence of Saturn in the sign of Virgo will be strong through 2009, and for all of us that means big issues of health care and employment. It would be wonderful if health care were available to everyone, but as long as the pharmaceutical companies are hawking new diseases like restless leg syndrome, such universal care will not be around the bend.

So then, should you vote for Obama? He may truly identify with the altruistic revolutionary ideas, upheavals, and unexpected reversals that always come with the planet Uranus. Don't ever forget, however, that he's a Leo, so utter selflessness is just not part of his DNA. There's no question that he radiates energy, youth, and even the anger young people feel when they sense they are being ignored or misunderstood. But don't be naïve enough to think that race is not the giant issue; with Pluto still in Sagittarius, it is. And although he is flying under the Let's-Clean-House banner, remember that Obama is the symbol of Uranus-the planet of utter unpredictability-so do not bet on the end of the story. The twists will be crazier than anything Hitchcock on acid could have dreamed up.

If you're an American citizen and of voting age, there are two things you should know: First, a planetary opposition such as the one occurring now drives people to polarize in their positions, but in reality they are joined and thus much closer philosophically than one might think. Because of the economic crisis that will affect everyone, neither candidate can avoid the political bleeding between party lines this election will bring. As far as the rhetoric goes, remember this: Campaign speeches and promises are as sincere as the things a guy tells his date when he wants to get laid.

Second, if you do watch the news, turn down the sound so you can't hear the mind-numbing, brain-bending demagoguery. When the candidates appear, watch their eyes and their body movements. Then consider making your decision based on something more visceral. Maybe you should vote the one who brings back fond memories of either the kindly old grandpa who loved and protected you when you were little, or the cute guy you should have married in high school.

We are living on the brink of an ideological transformation on these American shores that hasn't been seen in a very long time. The presidential election of 2008 will someday be seen as the defining moment of a revolution that will change this country forever. What part do you want to play in it?]]> Michael Lutin Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:21:42 PDT <![CDATA[Another 964 Reasons to Vote]]> http://www.good.is/post/another-963-reasons-to-vote/ http://www.good.is/post/another-963-reasons-to-vote/ Why Vote? Reasons 185-1,148

186. Using colorful language to carp about elected officials is a time-honored tradition. Best practiced at barbershops and old-man bars, bitching is far too much fun to do away with. But if you don't cast a ballot-as some know-it-all will surely remind you-you forfeit your right to complain. Don't risk it.

188.  "The ballot is stronger than the bullet."-Abraham Lincoln

189. Like Don Quixote, we believe in fighting windmills.

190. More than 1.1 million people will apply for legal U.S. citizenship this year-an all-time high. While those immigrants wait to enjoy the rights of that citizenship, we have all of its privileges now.

 


Medal of Valor191. Your grandfather won a Medal of Valor, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He was wounded twice by the Nazis trying to defuse booby-traps attached to wounded American G.I.s. He missed the birth of your father, his firstborn, recovering in an Army hospital before returning to combat. Vote for his memory and for all those like him.

192. It pisses off Osama bin Laden.

193.  As many as 2,000 Georgians were killed or wounded defending their young democracy.




Chester Williams
Age 38 Former South African rugby player. First voted on April 27, 1994, after blacks got the vote in South Africa.

I cast my first ballot in the Western Cape. There were concerns there would be violence, but everything went accordingly. It was an amazing, emotional thing for me-a feeling that I deserved the right to vote, and that I was going to be speaking for my country. Before, there had always been a sense that you're trying to build the country, but you can't do this thing that white people can do. It was almost nerve-wracking when you finally had the chance to do it. There were jubilations-people danced and had barbecues and drove up and down the street, whooping. Fourteen years later, it is all still fresh in my mind. South Africa is still a work in progress. It's a process, and the goal will take a bit longer. But I think in time people will talk about "South Africans"-not "black" and "white" and "colored" and "Indian."

194.  The people currently in office-to say nothing of the fools at the EPA-are clueless about environmental preservation and sustainability.

195. Things could be better.


196. You didn't vote in 2000, when you were living in Florida, and we're all still mad at you for it.

197. You want lower taxes.

198.  We stand to elect a guy who actually knows something about war.

199. Even if you don't want to vote for anyone in particular, you can vote against someone else.

200. Apathy isn't sexy.


Obama Posters201. Obama has an art posse. It started with Shepard Fairey's limited run of that iconic red and blue stencil; Ron English, Alex Pardee, and Sam Flores soon followed.

202. As the "leaders of the free world" we seriously lag when it comes to voter turnout, and not just behind our friends in Western Europe, who have us by about 20 percent. Despite major suppression and violence, and an almost-total boycott by Sunnis, Iraq still turned out a higher percentage of voters than we did last time around. And Malta turned out 93 percent of voters in its last election-that was a down year.

203-637. Every U.S. representative has to run every two years. There are 435 Congressional districts up for grabs.

638. A vote is an opportunity to tell the truth. As George Orwell wrote, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."




Timothy Wirth

Timothy E. Wirth


Former senator from Colorado and president of the United Nations Foundation

639. The next president will have an opportunity to present a new face to the world, strengthen America's reputation, and foster international cooperation to solve the world's most pressing problems, such as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, stamping out terrorism, confronting climate change, and revitalizing the global economy.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush rallied the international community through the United Nations to combat global terror networks. The administration also dramatically increased financial resources to combat HIV/AIDS, helping to rally the world. Conversely, the administration had a major disagreement with allies and much of the international community over its decision to initiate a pre-emptive war in Iraq and its reluctance to participate in cooperative efforts to prevent climate change and address other global issues. The Bush administration has increasingly called on the U.N. to take on key tasks on the global agenda, especially peacekeeping, but has not been honoring its commitment to the missions for which it has voted. As a result, the United States is more than $1.5 billion in debt to the U.N.

Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are supportive of strengthening the U.N., by updating operations and management processes. Senator Obama has committed himself to the principle that the United States should pay its U.N. dues on time and in full, without inappropriate conditions. Senator McCain has proposed establishment of a League of Democracies as an alternative when the U.N. Security Council is deemed incapable of addressing global threats, but the criteria for membership and legitimacy of the proposed league are unclear.

640. The current inflation rate is 5.6 percent. The current unemployment rate is 5.7 percent. And, gas prices are hovering near $4 a gallon. You work too hard to see numbers like this.





"The Bush administration has shown that democracy is something that can be lost. One of the ways you show your love of this great experiment called democracy is to vote. Also, when you check America's not-so-ancient history, you will see that the ability for all to vote did not come quickly or without great protest by some. That alone should be all one needs to get to the ballot box."
Henry Rollins, spoken-word poet and former front man of Black Flag

641. "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others."-Winston Churchill

642. Americans under the age of 20 have never lived in a country where the president wasn't named Bush or Clinton.

643.  In some states it's illegal to use a mobile phone in a polling place. Which means half an hour in a room with no jerks screaming into their BlackBerrys.

 644. If he wins, Barack Obama might actually appoint people of color who care about the interests of minority communities. Attempts at this by previous presidents only led to appointments of people who worked to protect their respective administrations by any means necessary, no matter how damaging it was to the communities they came from. (We're looking at you, Condi.)

646. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act has already passed in the House. And if this Bush-endorsed bill is signed into law, it will give the government leeway to scan your emails, Facebook page, and Skype chats in an effort to determine if you're just a run-of-the-mill activist or a full-blown homegrown terrorist. Naturally, it's also up to them to tell the difference between the two, which chips away at the most fundamental American right-to holler loudly about the things you think are unjust.


647. "When the world goes up in flames, there will be one less reason to feel responsible." Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker

648. Two words: aging boomers.

649. Bristol Palin isn't the only one. Teen birth rates are up for the first time in 15 years, and many blame Bush's brainchild: abstinence-only education.

650. Having a black president would not be insignificant.

651. Surely you remember that scene in Election, when Matthew Broderick's character tossed a couple of ballots in the trash bin and changed the outcome of the election? Yeah, that happens in real life, too.

652. John McCain has an explicit, stated intention to overturn Roe v. Wade.




 

Rose Pomponio


Age 97
First voted in 1932. She was born eight years before women were guaranteed the vote throughout the United States.

I don't remember women marching in the street, but I recall men booing. I remember my mother would go with my father to cast her vote, and I think he usually talked her into voting for the same man. There was so much corruption in those days-we lived in a changing Chicago neighborhood and we had one Italian precinct captain who'd go around and want everybody to vote for his man. My father would never vote for him, so when Thanksgiving came around, the precinct captain would give out turkeys to everybody but us. The first person I voted for was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and then little Harry Truman. Beth Truman was a regular little homebody-she had her card club, and they'd come to the White House to play every month. FDR wasn't as faithful to Eleanor, even if she did give him five sons. He wanted his secretary, I guess. Some things never change.

654-783.  130 journalists (and counting) have been killed while on duty in Iraq since the war began.

784. You voted for prom queen at your school. Ditto season two of American Idol.

785. Public housing is in a sorry state, and Barack Obama's policies fall short of a pledge to fix it. He prefers mixed-income, public-private partnerships.

786. Even though his kids go to private school, Obama supports public schools.

787. Even though his kids went to private school, McCain supports school choice.

788. No one wants to read the equivalent of "Dewey Defeats Truman" on Wednesday. Don't let it be close.

789.  Your vote is just as important as that of a self-righteous Hollywood A-lister or an impassioned AM radio blowhard.

790.  Your father hasn't voted in decades, and he's too much of an asshole to talk about it.

791-812. If you're a woman, this is only your 22nd opportunity to do so in a Presidential Election, but women now vote more than men do.

813. Only you can prevent forest fires.




Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich


Author of Rediscovering God in America and former speaker of the house

814. The world is an inherently dangerous place. Things that are now going very well can very quickly go bad. When reading the news about war and disaster in other countries, I am always reminded that, were it not for the right leadership throughout our country's history, these terrible things could just as easily be happening in our cities and neighborhoods. Voting is the process by which we choose our leaders, and thus the process by which we choose the future for our families, our communities, and our country.

 815-919. 51 countries and territories in the world are not free, 54 are only partly free, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two. That means that there are billions the world over who can't vote, or who can, but their ballots are chucked if they're for the wrong guy. To keep track of it all, the democracy think tank Freedom House publishes an annual tally of each country's track record-basically a look at who has it worse or at least as good as you do, democratically speaking.




920. Because we're counting on you by Felix Sockwell

Some countries are murkier than others. Behold, for example, the United Arab Emirates, home to the wacked-out international playground of Dubai: They wear the garb of modernity and are home to Al Jazeera, but the country is still a dictatorship, and thus not free. Other not-free countries stage sham elections then openly disregard the results. In Uzbekistan's last election, in 2007, for instance, President Islam Karimov took a whopping 88 percent of the  tally. He has also won every election since 1991. In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, Robert Mugabe lost a parliamentary election in March but decided to stay put-classic "not-free."

Then there are the partly free countries. From all appearances, Hong Kong seems free: it enjoys freedom of the press and of assembly, has elections and, for 14 years running, has boasted the world's freest economy. But living under China's "one country, two systems" rule makes it only partly free, because only half of Hong Kong's legislators are elected. The other half-including its chief executive-are appointed by Beijing. Since Beijing won't grant the former British colony universal suffrage until at least 2017, the peninsula will be just partly free for the near future.




921.To make it cooler By CHIP WASS

922. The Bradley Effect is a recipe for last-minute plot twists. (Look it up.)

923. Your girlfriend dumped you to go work for Obama, and how many times in your life will you get to cast a spite vote?

924. George Washington would have wanted you to.

925. You oppose federally mandated universal health coverage. Medicaid sure doesn't work well.

926. These presidential candidates raised more than a billion dollars in funds, just to pay to convince you to vote for them.

927.  A new law prohibits reporters from reporting on soldiers' injuries unless they have their signed written permission
in advance.

928. Thanks to the 24th Amendment, you can do it for free.


929. Even though no one seems to agree how many people have died since we invaded Iraq, 90,000 dead civilians is a safe estimate.





Michael Pollan


Author of The Omnivore's Dilemma

930. Over the last eight years, the government has taken steps to radically curtail our liberties and erode some of the bedrock principles of our republic-from undermining habeas corpus to conducting torture in our name. To decline to vote is to tacitly accept the administration's redefinition of the republic; to vote for a new government this fall is to reject the project and, we can hope, begin to roll it back.

931. The average distance to a polling place in Los Angeles is about half a mile. You can walk that. Even in Los Angeles.

932-958. We've been able to preserve the sanctity of the Constitution and amend it 27 times.

959. The election won't be determined by an NBA referee.

960. Mama didn't raise no fool.

961.  You can take some credit when things go well.







Allen St. Pierre


Executive director of NORML, a nonprofit lobbying organization for legalization of marijuana
962. The Bush administration has taken one of the most aggressive stances against cannabis ever-even compared to Reagan's Pollyannaish campaigns of the 1980s. Since Bush took office, over 5.3 million citizens have been busted on pot charges, almost 90 percent for possession only. I think it's time for a change. To date, McCain has said he does not support patients' access to medicinal cannabis and will continue the current administration's policies. Obama has flipped-flopped on the larger issue, first supporting decriminalization, but, when he was pressed by the conservative Washington Times, he said he supports the current federal laws. Still, it is my personal view that cannabis consumers in America will fare much better under Obama than under McCain.

963.  Your polling place is really easy to find: vote411.org.

964-1116. New York electioneer William "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?" Tweed has been dead for 153 years and it's still fun to make him roll over in his grave.

1117. "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." -John F. Kennedy

1118-1127.  The Bill of Rights was really well-written.


1128. You want the troops to come home.

1129. 20 percent of registered voters who didn't vote in 2004 said they were too busy to do so, and that makes them sound like people you don't want to know.


1130. Puffy was right.


1131. Despite what cable news networks love to tell us, there's no such thing as one Mark Penn-anointed, microsliced-and-diced demographic segment that decides who becomes president. There's just you.

1132. More Americans have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than did in the Revolutionary War.

1133.  Your parents are voting for the other guy.

1134-1148. The current presidential cabinet is made up of: Michael Mukasey, attorney general; Edward Schafer, secretary of agriculture; Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce; Robert Gates, secretary of defense; Margaret Spellings, secretary of education; Sam Bodman, secretary of energy; Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services; Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security; Steve Preston, secretary of housing and urban development; Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior; Elaine Chao, secretary of labor; Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state; Mary Peters, secretary of transportation; Henry Paulson Jr., secretary of treasury; James Peake, secretary of veterans affairs.]]> Why Vote? Reasons 185-1,148

186. Using colorful language to carp about elected officials is a time-honored tradition. Best practiced at barbershops and old-man bars, bitching is far too much fun to do away with. But if you don't cast a ballot-as some know-it-all will surely remind you-you forfeit your right to complain. Don't risk it.

188.  "The ballot is stronger than the bullet."-Abraham Lincoln

189. Like Don Quixote, we believe in fighting windmills.

190. More than 1.1 million people will apply for legal U.S. citizenship this year-an all-time high. While those immigrants wait to enjoy the rights of that citizenship, we have all of its privileges now.

 


Medal of Valor191. Your grandfather won a Medal of Valor, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He was wounded twice by the Nazis trying to defuse booby-traps attached to wounded American G.I.s. He missed the birth of your father, his firstborn, recovering in an Army hospital before returning to combat. Vote for his memory and for all those like him.

192. It pisses off Osama bin Laden.

193.  As many as 2,000 Georgians were killed or wounded defending their young democracy.




Chester Williams
Age 38 Former South African rugby player. First voted on April 27, 1994, after blacks got the vote in South Africa.

I cast my first ballot in the Western Cape. There were concerns there would be violence, but everything went accordingly. It was an amazing, emotional thing for me-a feeling that I deserved the right to vote, and that I was going to be speaking for my country. Before, there had always been a sense that you're trying to build the country, but you can't do this thing that white people can do. It was almost nerve-wracking when you finally had the chance to do it. There were jubilations-people danced and had barbecues and drove up and down the street, whooping. Fourteen years later, it is all still fresh in my mind. South Africa is still a work in progress. It's a process, and the goal will take a bit longer. But I think in time people will talk about "South Africans"-not "black" and "white" and "colored" and "Indian."

194.  The people currently in office-to say nothing of the fools at the EPA-are clueless about environmental preservation and sustainability.

195. Things could be better.


196. You didn't vote in 2000, when you were living in Florida, and we're all still mad at you for it.

197. You want lower taxes.

198.  We stand to elect a guy who actually knows something about war.

199. Even if you don't want to vote for anyone in particular, you can vote against someone else.

200. Apathy isn't sexy.


Obama Posters201. Obama has an art posse. It started with Shepard Fairey's limited run of that iconic red and blue stencil; Ron English, Alex Pardee, and Sam Flores soon followed.

202. As the "leaders of the free world" we seriously lag when it comes to voter turnout, and not just behind our friends in Western Europe, who have us by about 20 percent. Despite major suppression and violence, and an almost-total boycott by Sunnis, Iraq still turned out a higher percentage of voters than we did last time around. And Malta turned out 93 percent of voters in its last election-that was a down year.

203-637. Every U.S. representative has to run every two years. There are 435 Congressional districts up for grabs.

638. A vote is an opportunity to tell the truth. As George Orwell wrote, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."




Timothy Wirth

Timothy E. Wirth


Former senator from Colorado and president of the United Nations Foundation

639. The next president will have an opportunity to present a new face to the world, strengthen America's reputation, and foster international cooperation to solve the world's most pressing problems, such as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, stamping out terrorism, confronting climate change, and revitalizing the global economy.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush rallied the international community through the United Nations to combat global terror networks. The administration also dramatically increased financial resources to combat HIV/AIDS, helping to rally the world. Conversely, the administration had a major disagreement with allies and much of the international community over its decision to initiate a pre-emptive war in Iraq and its reluctance to participate in cooperative efforts to prevent climate change and address other global issues. The Bush administration has increasingly called on the U.N. to take on key tasks on the global agenda, especially peacekeeping, but has not been honoring its commitment to the missions for which it has voted. As a result, the United States is more than $1.5 billion in debt to the U.N.

Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are supportive of strengthening the U.N., by updating operations and management processes. Senator Obama has committed himself to the principle that the United States should pay its U.N. dues on time and in full, without inappropriate conditions. Senator McCain has proposed establishment of a League of Democracies as an alternative when the U.N. Security Council is deemed incapable of addressing global threats, but the criteria for membership and legitimacy of the proposed league are unclear.

640. The current inflation rate is 5.6 percent. The current unemployment rate is 5.7 percent. And, gas prices are hovering near $4 a gallon. You work too hard to see numbers like this.





"The Bush administration has shown that democracy is something that can be lost. One of the ways you show your love of this great experiment called democracy is to vote. Also, when you check America's not-so-ancient history, you will see that the ability for all to vote did not come quickly or without great protest by some. That alone should be all one needs to get to the ballot box."
Henry Rollins, spoken-word poet and former front man of Black Flag

641. "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others."-Winston Churchill

642. Americans under the age of 20 have never lived in a country where the president wasn't named Bush or Clinton.

643.  In some states it's illegal to use a mobile phone in a polling place. Which means half an hour in a room with no jerks screaming into their BlackBerrys.

 644. If he wins, Barack Obama might actually appoint people of color who care about the interests of minority communities. Attempts at this by previous presidents only led to appointments of people who worked to protect their respective administrations by any means necessary, no matter how damaging it was to the communities they came from. (We're looking at you, Condi.)

646. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act has already passed in the House. And if this Bush-endorsed bill is signed into law, it will give the government leeway to scan your emails, Facebook page, and Skype chats in an effort to determine if you're just a run-of-the-mill activist or a full-blown homegrown terrorist. Naturally, it's also up to them to tell the difference between the two, which chips away at the most fundamental American right-to holler loudly about the things you think are unjust.


647. "When the world goes up in flames, there will be one less reason to feel responsible." Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker

648. Two words: aging boomers.

649. Bristol Palin isn't the only one. Teen birth rates are up for the first time in 15 years, and many blame Bush's brainchild: abstinence-only education.

650. Having a black president would not be insignificant.

651. Surely you remember that scene in Election, when Matthew Broderick's character tossed a couple of ballots in the trash bin and changed the outcome of the election? Yeah, that happens in real life, too.

652. John McCain has an explicit, stated intention to overturn Roe v. Wade.




 

Rose Pomponio


Age 97
First voted in 1932. She was born eight years before women were guaranteed the vote throughout the United States.

I don't remember women marching in the street, but I recall men booing. I remember my mother would go with my father to cast her vote, and I think he usually talked her into voting for the same man. There was so much corruption in those days-we lived in a changing Chicago neighborhood and we had one Italian precinct captain who'd go around and want everybody to vote for his man. My father would never vote for him, so when Thanksgiving came around, the precinct captain would give out turkeys to everybody but us. The first person I voted for was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and then little Harry Truman. Beth Truman was a regular little homebody-she had her card club, and they'd come to the White House to play every month. FDR wasn't as faithful to Eleanor, even if she did give him five sons. He wanted his secretary, I guess. Some things never change.

654-783.  130 journalists (and counting) have been killed while on duty in Iraq since the war began.

784. You voted for prom queen at your school. Ditto season two of American Idol.

785. Public housing is in a sorry state, and Barack Obama's policies fall short of a pledge to fix it. He prefers mixed-income, public-private partnerships.

786. Even though his kids go to private school, Obama supports public schools.

787. Even though his kids went to private school, McCain supports school choice.

788. No one wants to read the equivalent of "Dewey Defeats Truman" on Wednesday. Don't let it be close.

789.  Your vote is just as important as that of a self-righteous Hollywood A-lister or an impassioned AM radio blowhard.

790.  Your father hasn't voted in decades, and he's too much of an asshole to talk about it.

791-812. If you're a woman, this is only your 22nd opportunity to do so in a Presidential Election, but women now vote more than men do.

813. Only you can prevent forest fires.




Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich


Author of Rediscovering God in America and former speaker of the house

814. The world is an inherently dangerous place. Things that are now going very well can very quickly go bad. When reading the news about war and disaster in other countries, I am always reminded that, were it not for the right leadership throughout our country's history, these terrible things could just as easily be happening in our cities and neighborhoods. Voting is the process by which we choose our leaders, and thus the process by which we choose the future for our families, our communities, and our country.

 815-919. 51 countries and territories in the world are not free, 54 are only partly free, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two. That means that there are billions the world over who can't vote, or who can, but their ballots are chucked if they're for the wrong guy. To keep track of it all, the democracy think tank Freedom House publishes an annual tally of each country's track record-basically a look at who has it worse or at least as good as you do, democratically speaking.




920. Because we're counting on you by Felix Sockwell

Some countries are murkier than others. Behold, for example, the United Arab Emirates, home to the wacked-out international playground of Dubai: They wear the garb of modernity and are home to Al Jazeera, but the country is still a dictatorship, and thus not free. Other not-free countries stage sham elections then openly disregard the results. In Uzbekistan's last election, in 2007, for instance, President Islam Karimov took a whopping 88 percent of the  tally. He has also won every election since 1991. In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, Robert Mugabe lost a parliamentary election in March but decided to stay put-classic "not-free."

Then there are the partly free countries. From all appearances, Hong Kong seems free: it enjoys freedom of the press and of assembly, has elections and, for 14 years running, has boasted the world's freest economy. But living under China's "one country, two systems" rule makes it only partly free, because only half of Hong Kong's legislators are elected. The other half-including its chief executive-are appointed by Beijing. Since Beijing won't grant the former British colony universal suffrage until at least 2017, the peninsula will be just partly free for the near future.




921.To make it cooler By CHIP WASS

922. The Bradley Effect is a recipe for last-minute plot twists. (Look it up.)

923. Your girlfriend dumped you to go work for Obama, and how many times in your life will you get to cast a spite vote?

924. George Washington would have wanted you to.

925. You oppose federally mandated universal health coverage. Medicaid sure doesn't work well.

926. These presidential candidates raised more than a billion dollars in funds, just to pay to convince you to vote for them.

927.  A new law prohibits reporters from reporting on soldiers' injuries unless they have their signed written permission
in advance.

928. Thanks to the 24th Amendment, you can do it for free.


929. Even though no one seems to agree how many people have died since we invaded Iraq, 90,000 dead civilians is a safe estimate.





Michael Pollan


Author of The Omnivore's Dilemma

930. Over the last eight years, the government has taken steps to radically curtail our liberties and erode some of the bedrock principles of our republic-from undermining habeas corpus to conducting torture in our name. To decline to vote is to tacitly accept the administration's redefinition of the republic; to vote for a new government this fall is to reject the project and, we can hope, begin to roll it back.

931. The average distance to a polling place in Los Angeles is about half a mile. You can walk that. Even in Los Angeles.

932-958. We've been able to preserve the sanctity of the Constitution and amend it 27 times.

959. The election won't be determined by an NBA referee.

960. Mama didn't raise no fool.

961.  You can take some credit when things go well.







Allen St. Pierre


Executive director of NORML, a nonprofit lobbying organization for legalization of marijuana
962. The Bush administration has taken one of the most aggressive stances against cannabis ever-even compared to Reagan's Pollyannaish campaigns of the 1980s. Since Bush took office, over 5.3 million citizens have been busted on pot charges, almost 90 percent for possession only. I think it's time for a change. To date, McCain has said he does not support patients' access to medicinal cannabis and will continue the current administration's policies. Obama has flipped-flopped on the larger issue, first supporting decriminalization, but, when he was pressed by the conservative Washington Times, he said he supports the current federal laws. Still, it is my personal view that cannabis consumers in America will fare much better under Obama than under McCain.

963.  Your polling place is really easy to find: vote411.org.

964-1116. New York electioneer William "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?" Tweed has been dead for 153 years and it's still fun to make him roll over in his grave.

1117. "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." -John F. Kennedy

1118-1127.  The Bill of Rights was really well-written.


1128. You want the troops to come home.

1129. 20 percent of registered voters who didn't vote in 2004 said they were too busy to do so, and that makes them sound like people you don't want to know.


1130. Puffy was right.


1131. Despite what cable news networks love to tell us, there's no such thing as one Mark Penn-anointed, microsliced-and-diced demographic segment that decides who becomes president. There's just you.

1132. More Americans have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than did in the Revolutionary War.

1133.  Your parents are voting for the other guy.

1134-1148. The current presidential cabinet is made up of: Michael Mukasey, attorney general; Edward Schafer, secretary of agriculture; Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce; Robert Gates, secretary of defense; Margaret Spellings, secretary of education; Sam Bodman, secretary of energy; Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services; Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security; Steve Preston, secretary of housing and urban development; Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior; Elaine Chao, secretary of labor; Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state; Mary Peters, secretary of transportation; Henry Paulson Jr., secretary of treasury; James Peake, secretary of veterans affairs.]]> GOOD Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:10:58 PDT <![CDATA[Political NASCAR]]> http://www.good.is/post/political-nascar/ http://www.good.is/post/political-nascar/ Political NASCAR

Barack Obama and John McCain have raised millions of dollars for their presidential campaigns. In GOOD's second installment of Political NASCAR, we look at the uniforms the two candidates would wear if companies wanted to use their political donations as advertisements, and if running for president ended with the winner doing donuts on the White House lawn.

View Political NASCAR]]> Political NASCAR

Barack Obama and John McCain have raised millions of dollars for their presidential campaigns. In GOOD's second installment of Political NASCAR, we look at the uniforms the two candidates would wear if companies wanted to use their political donations as advertisements, and if running for president ended with the winner doing donuts on the White House lawn.

View Political NASCAR]]> GOOD Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:07:56 PDT <![CDATA[Why Vote? Reasons 178-183]]> http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-reasons-178-183/ http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-reasons-178-183/ Scientific research says we are indeed a superficial species, so you can feel free to make your decision the easy way. Want to guess who our next president is? You'll know him when you see him. Sure, we're supposed to base our vote on who's the best person for the job. But chances are you made your decision way before you downloaded that will.i.am song, bought bumper stickers, and googled unknown Alaskans. Just ask Alexander Todorov. The Princeton University researcher asked people to judge the competency of unfamiliar politicians running for office simply by looking through photographs. Todorov discovered that his subjects were able to pick the winner 68 percent of the time. What does that mean? More often than not, it's physical appearance that sways the electorate. Here are eight winning traits to watch for before stepping in the booth this November.

Youth Nine of the most successful presidents in history were 54 years old when they first called the White House home.

Face  A pronounced jaw, sharp brow ridges, small eyes, and thin lips are tantamount to greatness. Round-eyes and a baby face, meanwhile, may be equated with inexperience and weakness.

Hair Americans love a good head of hair. Facial hair's a no-no, however. No president in this century has rocked a 'stache or beard, perhaps because so many of our enemies do.

Height Nearly half of all U.S. presidents have stood 6 feet or taller: Lincoln was tallest at 6'4"; little James Madison, at 5'4", was shortest.

Skin Color Though it hasn't happened yet, one poll found that 66 percent of people say they'd vote for a black president. Mormon and black, though? Not a chance in hell.

Weight The last big guy to occupy the Oval Office was Taft in 1912 (all 300-plus pounds of him). Now, athleticism is prized. Ford played football. Carter played tennis. Reagan rode horses. And Bush runs 7-minute miles.
-Cristina Goyanes









 




ANATOMY OF A CANDIDATE



Obama McCain
Barack Obama
Age 47
Height 6'2"
Weight 180 pounds
Fitness regimen Jogs and plays basketball
Advantage One survey said 42 percent of single women would like to see Obama naked.
Disadvantage Despite what the polls say, some believe Obama's race will play a role during the November elections.		 John McCain
Age 72
Height 5'7"
Weight 165 pounds
Fitness regimen Walks and hikes
Advantage The former POW and cancer survivor wears visible scars to remind voters of his courage and strength.
Disadvantage There's a concern that the senior citizen could croak while in office.

Read 1,560 more reasons to vote.]]> Scientific research says we are indeed a superficial species, so you can feel free to make your decision the easy way. Want to guess who our next president is? You'll know him when you see him. Sure, we're supposed to base our vote on who's the best person for the job. But chances are you made your decision way before you downloaded that will.i.am song, bought bumper stickers, and googled unknown Alaskans. Just ask Alexander Todorov. The Princeton University researcher asked people to judge the competency of unfamiliar politicians running for office simply by looking through photographs. Todorov discovered that his subjects were able to pick the winner 68 percent of the time. What does that mean? More often than not, it's physical appearance that sways the electorate. Here are eight winning traits to watch for before stepping in the booth this November.

Youth Nine of the most successful presidents in history were 54 years old when they first called the White House home.

Face  A pronounced jaw, sharp brow ridges, small eyes, and thin lips are tantamount to greatness. Round-eyes and a baby face, meanwhile, may be equated with inexperience and weakness.

Hair Americans love a good head of hair. Facial hair's a no-no, however. No president in this century has rocked a 'stache or beard, perhaps because so many of our enemies do.

Height Nearly half of all U.S. presidents have stood 6 feet or taller: Lincoln was tallest at 6'4"; little James Madison, at 5'4", was shortest.

Skin Color Though it hasn't happened yet, one poll found that 66 percent of people say they'd vote for a black president. Mormon and black, though? Not a chance in hell.

Weight The last big guy to occupy the Oval Office was Taft in 1912 (all 300-plus pounds of him). Now, athleticism is prized. Ford played football. Carter played tennis. Reagan rode horses. And Bush runs 7-minute miles.
-Cristina Goyanes









 




ANATOMY OF A CANDIDATE



Obama McCain
Barack Obama
Age 47
Height 6'2"
Weight 180 pounds
Fitness regimen Jogs and plays basketball
Advantage One survey said 42 percent of single women would like to see Obama naked.
Disadvantage Despite what the polls say, some believe Obama's race will play a role during the November elections.		 John McCain
Age 72
Height 5'7"
Weight 165 pounds
Fitness regimen Walks and hikes
Advantage The former POW and cancer survivor wears visible scars to remind voters of his courage and strength.
Disadvantage There's a concern that the senior citizen could croak while in office.

Read 1,560 more reasons to vote.]]> GOOD Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:02 PDT <![CDATA[Look Out, World]]> http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-177/ http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-177/ Why Vote? Reason 177

You should vote because John McCain and Barack Obama have very different takes on the global mess they'll be inheriting-and what they'd like to do with it.

Despite all the talk about our troubled economy, this year's presidential race will still come down to competing visions of the post-9/11 world, and what America needs to do about it. George W. Bush leaves office stunningly unpopular, due overwhelmingly to his schizophrenic foreign policy (six years Hyde, two Jekyll). Given the strong political impetus for change, this election has always been the Democrats' to lose.

True to form, the Dems have done their best to make it a close vote by nominating an African-American senator with limited national security credentials. But Barack Obama gave them no choice. By redefining the way campaigns are mounted in this networked age, his candidacy has produced the sort of worldwide electricity that most certainly will get him selected as Time's "person of the year"-if he wins.

In contrast, John McCain's candidacy has the consistency of comfort food, the underlying personal message seemingly, "I've waited long enough." He is the default candidate-as in, "If you aren't willing to risk it all on Obama, think about me." Unlike Obama or Hillary Clinton, voting for McCain as president offers no history-making opportunity, which makes the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate all the more politically clever.  But even with that move-bold or desperate or both-McCain remains an essentially back-to-the-future choice: a pre-boomer for a public fed up with that generation's do-nothing politics.

Both nominees offer a strongly "realist" perspective on international affairs, with the differences stemming primarily from their generational backgrounds. McCain's stark realism stems from the Cold War. Ronald Reagan's personal mystique was largely a fiction of our imagination, but McCain's legend-the good and the bad-is based on true stories of personal heroism. He lived them all. If you want someone who can recognize human evil and fight it tooth and nail, McCain's your man.

Obama's subtle realism emerged from a far different time: the truly tumultuous 1970s, where we first locate much of today's globalization-energy and food shocks, Middle East conflicts, environmental awareness, global market swings, and transnational terrorism. Befitting those fractured times, Obama's journey plays out like an ABC "Movie of the Week": the biracial child who willed himself from a Jakarta grade school to the pinnacle of Harvard Law, landing next on the South Side of Chicago as a community activist who instinctively countered the prevailing counterculture. If you want someone who can recognize global complexity and manage it with confidence and care, Obama's your man.

Both McCain and Obama represent quintessentially American stories, with their amazing personal trajectories obscuring the underlying political philosophies each brings to a possible administration. Pundits (and Karl Rove) would have you believe that fear alone will settle this election. But the question every voter must answer is not, "Do you fear?" but rather, "What do you fear more?"

Barack Obama will make America smarter about the outside world, and John McCain will make the world smarter about America. And on that score, there are plenty of ways to divvy up the global landscape. Here are ten criteria you can use to compare the candidates and help you break down the basic choices.

Priorities: Where's the focus? Early last summer, Fortune asked the candidates to lay out the "gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy." According to the article, Obama didn't blink: Our energy policy. McCain paused for several long seconds before answering, "Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence."

Those answers speak volumes about how each senator approaches international affairs. Obama focuses on upstream, big-picture causality (e.g. fix energy and improve everything that follows from it), while McCain gravitates toward more downstream, immediate tangibles (stop the bad guys from doing bad things). So if you want a terrorism-centric foreign policy, McCain is your guy. If you want something broader, Obama makes more sense. With McCain, you're less likely to experience a security breakdown, but more likely to see a wider array of ongoing problems exacerbated. With Obama, you're more likely to see more general improvement on a host of issues, but you stand a greater chance of waking up one morning to some nasty surprise. The basic question is, which spooks you more concerning America's resilience? The perceived steady decline, or the occasional external shock?

ADVANTAGE: The American voter, because there's a distinct choice.




Who should America seek out as strategic allies? If you think it's the French and the Germans, you need to update your global database.


Allies: How to pick 'n' save? Here McCain makes a bold call, but an awful one. His proposed League of Democracies-an international alliance of democratic countries-is as close as anyone has come to mindlessly regurgitating Cold War memes. McCain additionally calls for ousting Russia from the G-8 (to be replaced by India), while leaving rising China out in the cold. Here's why it won't work: When you tell off both Russia and China, you kill India's incentives to bind itself to the West. Why would New Delhi pick that fight with two huge neighbors also on the rise? If the Indians wouldn't make that call during the Cold War, what's the additional incentive now? Ditto for Brazil, South Africa, and a host of other rising pillars of the southern hemisphere. They'll simply view McCain's proposed forum as yet another arena in which the old West gets to boss them around and demand they toe its preferred line.

Here's a big clue as to whom America should seek out as strategic allies: rising defense budgets, big standing armies, and a willingness to use them in other peoples' (failed) states. If you think that's the French and the Germans, you need to update your global database, because in this century, the countries with the most rapidly expanding global economic networks are the ones most incentivized to play-in the manner of the United States-globalization's bodyguards.

The far more careful and circumspect Obama wins this round hands down. He'll clearly bring a non-Eurocentric view to global alliances, speaking as he constantly does about the need to integrate a rising Russia, China, and India into our plans. McCain makes similar noises, but all of that is drowned out by his League of Democracies. As his response to the Russia-Georgia conflict amply demonstrated, given the right prompt, he'll reflexively knee-jerk us into another Cold War standoff at a point when America needs to be stocking up on allies-as immature as they may be-rather than adding more enemies.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, for the sole reason that he's smart enough not to let Georgia-on its own-declare war between NATO and Russia.

The vision thing: What to expect? You can tell a lot about each candidate's modus operandi on foreign affairs by the campaigns they've built. Obama's team of 300-or-so advisors is methodically organized, reflecting a corporate ethos that minimizes ego clashes and maximizes on-message delivery. From the experienced Clinton gang, Obama's managed to attract the very cream of the crop, so expect a well-run State and Defense. Obama's decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate only strengthens that.

You should anticipate a far more conservative first term from Obama on national security than Bush's previous eight years. Obama will seek to carefully unwind America's tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan so as to expand his administration's freedom of action elsewhere, but this will take a long time. Some bad things will definitely happen in the meantime. The potential upside is substantial on restoring America's good standing around the world.

McCain, on national security, is truly "what you see is what you get." Despite the hovering from the neocons, McCain will be his own man and run his own foreign policy. Palin as vice president adds nothing to the senator's well-credentialed resume. Letting McCain be McCain will be a bumpy ride for all involved: the rest of the U.S. government, the American people, our allies, and-most importantly-our enemies; but always entertaining, and full of sharp turns. If he had won it all in 2000, he would have arrived early enough in the rise of Russia, India, China, and Brazil to perhaps have had a serious opportunity to get them in line, especially on the heels of 9/11. But now, trying to ride herd these rising great powers could easily backfire if pursued angrily (remembering the man's temper), so the downside on McCain could be profound.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, because a more conservative-dare I say, humble-American foreign policy is what the world needs now.

Heal the force:  How to repair the U.S. military after Iraq? Here's where McCain's unimpeachable credentials in national security and his history as a rice-bowl-breaking maverick could well serve America's strategic needs. There will be a huge bureaucratic and political impetus to "heal the force" after Iraq, meaning rest the troops (good idea) and resume buying all the same outdated military platforms and weapons systems (a truly bad idea that will leave us as unprepared for the next Iraq as we were for the last one).

McCain is far more likely-believe it or not-to push the necessary changes through a Democratic-controlled Congress, which, in an inevitable "anything but Bush" post-election fit of pique, could easily trash all the good work so far accomplished by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, General David Petraeus, and many others. Obama, especially since he'll bring back all the same security players from the Clinton years (who were too deferential to the military), is more likely to pass on that fight in favor of other early possible legislative victories.

The fly in the ointment? McCain's bevy of neocon advisors, armed with that League of Democracies notion, might just as easily try to have their cake (Cold War Leviathan force) and eat it too (continue to engage in plenty of post-9/11-style small wars). That would, indeed, look like a third Bush administration.

ADVANTAGE: Definitely the maverick McCain, but only so long as Father Time doesn't toss the presidency-in the form of Sarah Palin-back to the neocons.

Globalization: America's new bogeyman, or its logical cause célèbre? Despite the trade-protectionist leanings Obama put on display for the primaries, where his proposal to renegotiate NAFTA was particularly egregious, he has assembled a nice collection of Clintonian economic advisers. Plus, Obama's more holistic approach to national security is less likely to get America trapped in useless overseas adventures and more likely to make him sensitive to the needs of emerging and developing economies. Obama will never match Clinton's zeal, but he's unlikely to screw up globalization's continued advance.

McCain's senate record indicates a fierce free-trade stance. And since a Democratic-controlled Congress could easily engage in all manner of trade protectionism, especially vis-à-vis China and recently re-demonized Russia, having a Republican in the White House makes a lot of sense if you don't like that sort of thing. The problem would be-again-McCain's penchant to pick unnecessary fights with globalization's rising economic pillars, too few of which will qualify for his democracies-only club.

Then there's the larger reality that globalization faces a populist headwind that is likely to pick up dramatically in coming years. A stubborn McCain, as correct as his economic instincts may be, could easily find his politics out of synch with global trends, resulting in stalemated trade negotiations overseas and deadlocked legislation back home.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, because he'll guarantee half-a-loaf outcomes on most issues and could spark the necessary shift to progressivism that globalization desperately needs.




Letting McCain be McCain will be a bumpy ride for all involved: the rest of the U.S. government, the American people, our allies, and-most importantly-our enemies.

Climate change: The end of the world as we know it? Climate change is becoming a dominant global narrative, one that indirectly challenges globalization's advance by casting doubt on whether developing nations can emerge as the West once did. The brutal truth is they can't, but not simply due to climate change. There are a host of more immediate reasons (air pollution, supply constraints) that speak to humanity's need to move beyond oil and any number of self-limiting industrial-age technologies. Because America remains the world's single biggest national market (meaning we control a lot of demand), we must either lead or eventually get out of China and India's way.

Both Obama and McCain seem to understand the larger competitive challenge framed by global warming, which isn't surprising because both are problem-solvers at heart. Given today's political landscape, both are selling the chimera of national energy independence (a dubious economic goal), linking it to job creation in the high-tech "green" sector. Usually, it's safer to go with the Republican candidate when it comes to promoting entrepreneurs and innovation, so a slight edge to McCain on that score. But since any response to climate change will entail some serious cooperation with emerging economies on their infrastructure development, and with vulnerable developing economies on the aid-related subjects of food security and disease control, Obama's "dignity" agenda tops McCain's focus on demanding democracy.

ADVANTAGE: Push. Let's stipulate that both candidates will move the ball forward significantly.

Iraq: When do we wrap up? The Iraq "war," or whatever you want to call it, is clearly a moving target, meaning where Iraq was at the beginning of these campaigns-when positions were initially articulated-and where it is today, are two vastly different things. The criticism now focuses primarily on the high cost involved.

McCain gets credit for advocating the surge and the associated counterinsurgency strategy, two much-needed changes on which the Bush administration wasted many months-and lives-before adopting. Basic lesson? When McCain makes a decision, he follows it through to the end, eagerly seeking out new solutions to persistent problems.

But for those who objected to the war, Obama also gets credit for opposing the invasion from the start. As for opposing the surge, Obama now appears less flexible than McCain in admitting his party's past mistakes and moving on to better solutions.

In political terms, the problem McCain faces is that improvements in Iraq favor all the positions Obama has long advocated. So again, we see the essential difference emerge. McCain's approach has the value of concentrated effort, but suffers the dynamic of "one damn thing after another," meaning: Just after you fix one thing, you're on to the next. Obama is less likely to suffer big losses in any single situation, but he's also less likely to score any big wins.

As for wrapping up America's combat involvement in Iraq, the differences between the two candidates have narrowed dramatically: Obama calls for a withdrawal of combat troops by 2010, while McCain targets 2012. The major difference concerns the pace of withdrawal: Obama says the Iraqi government should decide; McCain says our generals should decide. In reality, it'll be our generals right up to the point when the Iraqis decide for themselves. This "war" stopped being America's to "win" or "end" a long time ago-to wit, Iraq's government wants us gone by 2011.

ADVANTAGE: Obviously McCain, because of his courageous call on the surge.

Afghanistan and Pakistan: How do we ramp up? Obama has made some hawkish statements about taking the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban directly into Pakistan. Much like McCain's tough talk regarding Iran's involvement in Iraq, such statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Pakistan, like Iran, is a far bigger and more potent entity than its troubled neighbor, and possesses considerable leverage on its own. With Pervez Musharraf gone from power, expect even more autonomy from an Islamabad intent on showing it's no U.S. puppet.

When George W. Bush redirected the war on terror in 2003 from Afghanistan to Iraq, that was a radical move. Today's radical move would involve rapidly re-directing U.S. military efforts back toward Afghanistan, thus accelerating Iraq's movement toward policing its territory and handling its neighbors largely on its own. In asserting that Iraq will remain the central issue for the next president, McCain actually stakes out the more conservative position here, whereas Obama now advocates a more aggressive line.

Odds are good that Afghanistan will once again become the central front in the war on terror early in the next president's term, and that some modest troop surge will accompany a revamped counterinsurgency strategy that takes on many of the same characteristics of what worked in Iraq.

Attempts by the competing campaigns to portray either Iraq or Afghanistan as the "good war" are largely rhetorical at this point. Events on the ground appear to be driving this re-direct in operational focus, and both candidates advocate the same basic ramp-up in U.S. capabilities and resources.

ADVANTAGE: McCain, because you have to go with experience on this potential quagmire.




Obama will seek to carefully unwind America's tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan so as to expand his administration's freedom of action elsewhere, but this will take a long time.

Iran: How far do we go? Here McCain advocates a hard line strikingly evocative of George Bush's rationale for invading Iraq: prevent a regime that sponsors transnational terrorism from achieving weapons of mass destruction. Obama, in contrast, advocates a more direct diplomatic approach aimed at revamping U.S.-Iranian relations as a whole. How you judge the validity of their approaches depends on your perception of the threat.

If you trust the long and varied history of strategic nuclear deterrence, then you're probably of the opinion that the Shia bomb (Iran) won't be any more usable than the Jewish (Israel), Sunni (Pakistan), Hindu (Indian), Confucian (Chinese), or Christian (the rest) bombs, especially since Israel very likely possesses at least 200 deliverable nuclear warheads. And if you're familiar with the history of nuclear proliferation, you'll know that declared nuclear powers tend to be extremely careful with the technology, whereas undeclared powers (e.g., Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, South Africa) have been known to share. So the real question is, Do you think Tehran is crazy enough to give either Hezbollah or Hamas a nuke? And if there's even a scintilla of chance there, should America pre-emptively strike, or instead aggressively seek some détente with Iran?  In other words, is it time for Dr. Strangelove to step up, or should "Nixon" finally go to Tehran?

Iran, of course, complicates the matter by in effect saying, "You know we've already got the ‘guns' [i.e. missiles] and are cranking out ‘gunpowder' [i.e. uranium], but since we're not manufacturing any ‘bullets' [i.e. warheads], you can't actually prove anything-or ever be quite sure how close we've come to putting it all together." Couple that stance with Ahmadinejad's frequent verbal threats concerning Israel's right to exist and there are plenty of grounds for both McCain's calculated threats and Obama's calculated engagement.

But if a conventional bombing campaign could assuredly take out Iran's nuclear facilities, chances are the Bush administration would have pulled that trigger by now; and if not the Bush administration, then certainly Israel. If neither could see its way to launching a strike by the end of the Bush administration's second term, then it's highly unlikely that such a campaign-absent full-out invasion and occupation-will ever make sense. In short, we'd have to go nuclear to stop Tehran from getting nuclear.

If that strategic logic and historical record ring true to you, then you definitely want Obama in the White House, because McCain could well launch us into a war with Iran. If you consider that pathway inevitable, then McCain's the better choice, along with a strategic missile defense that-despite all the failures up to now-finally works as promised.

ADVANTAGE: Push. Totally depends on your worldview, unless you're committed to granting Israel a zero deductible on America's nuclear umbrella insurance policy.

The war on terror: Remember that? It must seem odd that, seven years into this war on terror, al Qaeda itself seems like such a strategic afterthought. Part of this is due to the Bush administration's real success in disrupting al Qaeda's global networks.

But it's also due to al Qaeda choosing to become less operationally focused and evolving into more of a worldwide anti-American/Western branding mechanism-sort of a Jihadis-R-Us. Sad to say, this is probably as close to "victory" as we'll come for the foreseeable future because, cynically speaking, transnational terrorists are a useful bogeyman for a networked age.

As somebody who's worked in national security affairs for close to two decades, I'll tell you that as far as anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism are concerned, it won't matter much who gets elected president. The U.S. government possessed such a security community prior to 9/11, and that community got a whole lot bigger after 9/11. Today, that community operates like any sizeable and widely distributed bureaucracy: just well enough not to fail spectacularly, but nowhere near well enough to succeed spectacularly.

So in regards to the candidates, frankly, it's a coin toss. Obama would present a more conciliatory face, which can invite more aggression or subdue it. McCain would present a less compromising face, which can accomplish the same. Both will promise and likely achieve somewhat more secure borders, and any new management might inject the Department of Homeland Security with more purpose and better execution, but expect the world to continue appearing more dangerous over time (God bless our sensational media) while actually becoming more secure. And if it makes you feel any better, just go on believing that Washington really runs America and that America really runs the world.

ADVANTAGE: Draw. This leaves the final count tied at 3 apiece, with 4 toss-ups. Expect another tantalizingly close vote.]]> Why Vote? Reason 177

You should vote because John McCain and Barack Obama have very different takes on the global mess they'll be inheriting-and what they'd like to do with it.

Despite all the talk about our troubled economy, this year's presidential race will still come down to competing visions of the post-9/11 world, and what America needs to do about it. George W. Bush leaves office stunningly unpopular, due overwhelmingly to his schizophrenic foreign policy (six years Hyde, two Jekyll). Given the strong political impetus for change, this election has always been the Democrats' to lose.

True to form, the Dems have done their best to make it a close vote by nominating an African-American senator with limited national security credentials. But Barack Obama gave them no choice. By redefining the way campaigns are mounted in this networked age, his candidacy has produced the sort of worldwide electricity that most certainly will get him selected as Time's "person of the year"-if he wins.

In contrast, John McCain's candidacy has the consistency of comfort food, the underlying personal message seemingly, "I've waited long enough." He is the default candidate-as in, "If you aren't willing to risk it all on Obama, think about me." Unlike Obama or Hillary Clinton, voting for McCain as president offers no history-making opportunity, which makes the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate all the more politically clever.  But even with that move-bold or desperate or both-McCain remains an essentially back-to-the-future choice: a pre-boomer for a public fed up with that generation's do-nothing politics.

Both nominees offer a strongly "realist" perspective on international affairs, with the differences stemming primarily from their generational backgrounds. McCain's stark realism stems from the Cold War. Ronald Reagan's personal mystique was largely a fiction of our imagination, but McCain's legend-the good and the bad-is based on true stories of personal heroism. He lived them all. If you want someone who can recognize human evil and fight it tooth and nail, McCain's your man.

Obama's subtle realism emerged from a far different time: the truly tumultuous 1970s, where we first locate much of today's globalization-energy and food shocks, Middle East conflicts, environmental awareness, global market swings, and transnational terrorism. Befitting those fractured times, Obama's journey plays out like an ABC "Movie of the Week": the biracial child who willed himself from a Jakarta grade school to the pinnacle of Harvard Law, landing next on the South Side of Chicago as a community activist who instinctively countered the prevailing counterculture. If you want someone who can recognize global complexity and manage it with confidence and care, Obama's your man.

Both McCain and Obama represent quintessentially American stories, with their amazing personal trajectories obscuring the underlying political philosophies each brings to a possible administration. Pundits (and Karl Rove) would have you believe that fear alone will settle this election. But the question every voter must answer is not, "Do you fear?" but rather, "What do you fear more?"

Barack Obama will make America smarter about the outside world, and John McCain will make the world smarter about America. And on that score, there are plenty of ways to divvy up the global landscape. Here are ten criteria you can use to compare the candidates and help you break down the basic choices.

Priorities: Where's the focus? Early last summer, Fortune asked the candidates to lay out the "gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy." According to the article, Obama didn't blink: Our energy policy. McCain paused for several long seconds before answering, "Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence."

Those answers speak volumes about how each senator approaches international affairs. Obama focuses on upstream, big-picture causality (e.g. fix energy and improve everything that follows from it), while McCain gravitates toward more downstream, immediate tangibles (stop the bad guys from doing bad things). So if you want a terrorism-centric foreign policy, McCain is your guy. If you want something broader, Obama makes more sense. With McCain, you're less likely to experience a security breakdown, but more likely to see a wider array of ongoing problems exacerbated. With Obama, you're more likely to see more general improvement on a host of issues, but you stand a greater chance of waking up one morning to some nasty surprise. The basic question is, which spooks you more concerning America's resilience? The perceived steady decline, or the occasional external shock?

ADVANTAGE: The American voter, because there's a distinct choice.




Who should America seek out as strategic allies? If you think it's the French and the Germans, you need to update your global database.


Allies: How to pick 'n' save? Here McCain makes a bold call, but an awful one. His proposed League of Democracies-an international alliance of democratic countries-is as close as anyone has come to mindlessly regurgitating Cold War memes. McCain additionally calls for ousting Russia from the G-8 (to be replaced by India), while leaving rising China out in the cold. Here's why it won't work: When you tell off both Russia and China, you kill India's incentives to bind itself to the West. Why would New Delhi pick that fight with two huge neighbors also on the rise? If the Indians wouldn't make that call during the Cold War, what's the additional incentive now? Ditto for Brazil, South Africa, and a host of other rising pillars of the southern hemisphere. They'll simply view McCain's proposed forum as yet another arena in which the old West gets to boss them around and demand they toe its preferred line.

Here's a big clue as to whom America should seek out as strategic allies: rising defense budgets, big standing armies, and a willingness to use them in other peoples' (failed) states. If you think that's the French and the Germans, you need to update your global database, because in this century, the countries with the most rapidly expanding global economic networks are the ones most incentivized to play-in the manner of the United States-globalization's bodyguards.

The far more careful and circumspect Obama wins this round hands down. He'll clearly bring a non-Eurocentric view to global alliances, speaking as he constantly does about the need to integrate a rising Russia, China, and India into our plans. McCain makes similar noises, but all of that is drowned out by his League of Democracies. As his response to the Russia-Georgia conflict amply demonstrated, given the right prompt, he'll reflexively knee-jerk us into another Cold War standoff at a point when America needs to be stocking up on allies-as immature as they may be-rather than adding more enemies.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, for the sole reason that he's smart enough not to let Georgia-on its own-declare war between NATO and Russia.

The vision thing: What to expect? You can tell a lot about each candidate's modus operandi on foreign affairs by the campaigns they've built. Obama's team of 300-or-so advisors is methodically organized, reflecting a corporate ethos that minimizes ego clashes and maximizes on-message delivery. From the experienced Clinton gang, Obama's managed to attract the very cream of the crop, so expect a well-run State and Defense. Obama's decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate only strengthens that.

You should anticipate a far more conservative first term from Obama on national security than Bush's previous eight years. Obama will seek to carefully unwind America's tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan so as to expand his administration's freedom of action elsewhere, but this will take a long time. Some bad things will definitely happen in the meantime. The potential upside is substantial on restoring America's good standing around the world.

McCain, on national security, is truly "what you see is what you get." Despite the hovering from the neocons, McCain will be his own man and run his own foreign policy. Palin as vice president adds nothing to the senator's well-credentialed resume. Letting McCain be McCain will be a bumpy ride for all involved: the rest of the U.S. government, the American people, our allies, and-most importantly-our enemies; but always entertaining, and full of sharp turns. If he had won it all in 2000, he would have arrived early enough in the rise of Russia, India, China, and Brazil to perhaps have had a serious opportunity to get them in line, especially on the heels of 9/11. But now, trying to ride herd these rising great powers could easily backfire if pursued angrily (remembering the man's temper), so the downside on McCain could be profound.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, because a more conservative-dare I say, humble-American foreign policy is what the world needs now.

Heal the force:  How to repair the U.S. military after Iraq? Here's where McCain's unimpeachable credentials in national security and his history as a rice-bowl-breaking maverick could well serve America's strategic needs. There will be a huge bureaucratic and political impetus to "heal the force" after Iraq, meaning rest the troops (good idea) and resume buying all the same outdated military platforms and weapons systems (a truly bad idea that will leave us as unprepared for the next Iraq as we were for the last one).

McCain is far more likely-believe it or not-to push the necessary changes through a Democratic-controlled Congress, which, in an inevitable "anything but Bush" post-election fit of pique, could easily trash all the good work so far accomplished by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, General David Petraeus, and many others. Obama, especially since he'll bring back all the same security players from the Clinton years (who were too deferential to the military), is more likely to pass on that fight in favor of other early possible legislative victories.

The fly in the ointment? McCain's bevy of neocon advisors, armed with that League of Democracies notion, might just as easily try to have their cake (Cold War Leviathan force) and eat it too (continue to engage in plenty of post-9/11-style small wars). That would, indeed, look like a third Bush administration.

ADVANTAGE: Definitely the maverick McCain, but only so long as Father Time doesn't toss the presidency-in the form of Sarah Palin-back to the neocons.

Globalization: America's new bogeyman, or its logical cause célèbre? Despite the trade-protectionist leanings Obama put on display for the primaries, where his proposal to renegotiate NAFTA was particularly egregious, he has assembled a nice collection of Clintonian economic advisers. Plus, Obama's more holistic approach to national security is less likely to get America trapped in useless overseas adventures and more likely to make him sensitive to the needs of emerging and developing economies. Obama will never match Clinton's zeal, but he's unlikely to screw up globalization's continued advance.

McCain's senate record indicates a fierce free-trade stance. And since a Democratic-controlled Congress could easily engage in all manner of trade protectionism, especially vis-à-vis China and recently re-demonized Russia, having a Republican in the White House makes a lot of sense if you don't like that sort of thing. The problem would be-again-McCain's penchant to pick unnecessary fights with globalization's rising economic pillars, too few of which will qualify for his democracies-only club.

Then there's the larger reality that globalization faces a populist headwind that is likely to pick up dramatically in coming years. A stubborn McCain, as correct as his economic instincts may be, could easily find his politics out of synch with global trends, resulting in stalemated trade negotiations overseas and deadlocked legislation back home.

ADVANTAGE: Obama, because he'll guarantee half-a-loaf outcomes on most issues and could spark the necessary shift to progressivism that globalization desperately needs.




Letting McCain be McCain will be a bumpy ride for all involved: the rest of the U.S. government, the American people, our allies, and-most importantly-our enemies.

Climate change: The end of the world as we know it? Climate change is becoming a dominant global narrative, one that indirectly challenges globalization's advance by casting doubt on whether developing nations can emerge as the West once did. The brutal truth is they can't, but not simply due to climate change. There are a host of more immediate reasons (air pollution, supply constraints) that speak to humanity's need to move beyond oil and any number of self-limiting industrial-age technologies. Because America remains the world's single biggest national market (meaning we control a lot of demand), we must either lead or eventually get out of China and India's way.

Both Obama and McCain seem to understand the larger competitive challenge framed by global warming, which isn't surprising because both are problem-solvers at heart. Given today's political landscape, both are selling the chimera of national energy independence (a dubious economic goal), linking it to job creation in the high-tech "green" sector. Usually, it's safer to go with the Republican candidate when it comes to promoting entrepreneurs and innovation, so a slight edge to McCain on that score. But since any response to climate change will entail some serious cooperation with emerging economies on their infrastructure development, and with vulnerable developing economies on the aid-related subjects of food security and disease control, Obama's "dignity" agenda tops McCain's focus on demanding democracy.

ADVANTAGE: Push. Let's stipulate that both candidates will move the ball forward significantly.

Iraq: When do we wrap up? The Iraq "war," or whatever you want to call it, is clearly a moving target, meaning where Iraq was at the beginning of these campaigns-when positions were initially articulated-and where it is today, are two vastly different things. The criticism now focuses primarily on the high cost involved.

McCain gets credit for advocating the surge and the associated counterinsurgency strategy, two much-needed changes on which the Bush administration wasted many months-and lives-before adopting. Basic lesson? When McCain makes a decision, he follows it through to the end, eagerly seeking out new solutions to persistent problems.

But for those who objected to the war, Obama also gets credit for opposing the invasion from the start. As for opposing the surge, Obama now appears less flexible than McCain in admitting his party's past mistakes and moving on to better solutions.

In political terms, the problem McCain faces is that improvements in Iraq favor all the positions Obama has long advocated. So again, we see the essential difference emerge. McCain's approach has the value of concentrated effort, but suffers the dynamic of "one damn thing after another," meaning: Just after you fix one thing, you're on to the next. Obama is less likely to suffer big losses in any single situation, but he's also less likely to score any big wins.

As for wrapping up America's combat involvement in Iraq, the differences between the two candidates have narrowed dramatically: Obama calls for a withdrawal of combat troops by 2010, while McCain targets 2012. The major difference concerns the pace of withdrawal: Obama says the Iraqi government should decide; McCain says our generals should decide. In reality, it'll be our generals right up to the point when the Iraqis decide for themselves. This "war" stopped being America's to "win" or "end" a long time ago-to wit, Iraq's government wants us gone by 2011.

ADVANTAGE: Obviously McCain, because of his courageous call on the surge.

Afghanistan and Pakistan: How do we ramp up? Obama has made some hawkish statements about taking the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban directly into Pakistan. Much like McCain's tough talk regarding Iran's involvement in Iraq, such statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Pakistan, like Iran, is a far bigger and more potent entity than its troubled neighbor, and possesses considerable leverage on its own. With Pervez Musharraf gone from power, expect even more autonomy from an Islamabad intent on showing it's no U.S. puppet.

When George W. Bush redirected the war on terror in 2003 from Afghanistan to Iraq, that was a radical move. Today's radical move would involve rapidly re-directing U.S. military efforts back toward Afghanistan, thus accelerating Iraq's movement toward policing its territory and handling its neighbors largely on its own. In asserting that Iraq will remain the central issue for the next president, McCain actually stakes out the more conservative position here, whereas Obama now advocates a more aggressive line.

Odds are good that Afghanistan will once again become the central front in the war on terror early in the next president's term, and that some modest troop surge will accompany a revamped counterinsurgency strategy that takes on many of the same characteristics of what worked in Iraq.

Attempts by the competing campaigns to portray either Iraq or Afghanistan as the "good war" are largely rhetorical at this point. Events on the ground appear to be driving this re-direct in operational focus, and both candidates advocate the same basic ramp-up in U.S. capabilities and resources.

ADVANTAGE: McCain, because you have to go with experience on this potential quagmire.




Obama will seek to carefully unwind America's tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan so as to expand his administration's freedom of action elsewhere, but this will take a long time.

Iran: How far do we go? Here McCain advocates a hard line strikingly evocative of George Bush's rationale for invading Iraq: prevent a regime that sponsors transnational terrorism from achieving weapons of mass destruction. Obama, in contrast, advocates a more direct diplomatic approach aimed at revamping U.S.-Iranian relations as a whole. How you judge the validity of their approaches depends on your perception of the threat.

If you trust the long and varied history of strategic nuclear deterrence, then you're probably of the opinion that the Shia bomb (Iran) won't be any more usable than the Jewish (Israel), Sunni (Pakistan), Hindu (Indian), Confucian (Chinese), or Christian (the rest) bombs, especially since Israel very likely possesses at least 200 deliverable nuclear warheads. And if you're familiar with the history of nuclear proliferation, you'll know that declared nuclear powers tend to be extremely careful with the technology, whereas undeclared powers (e.g., Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, South Africa) have been known to share. So the real question is, Do you think Tehran is crazy enough to give either Hezbollah or Hamas a nuke? And if there's even a scintilla of chance there, should America pre-emptively strike, or instead aggressively seek some détente with Iran?  In other words, is it time for Dr. Strangelove to step up, or should "Nixon" finally go to Tehran?

Iran, of course, complicates the matter by in effect saying, "You know we've already got the ‘guns' [i.e. missiles] and are cranking out ‘gunpowder' [i.e. uranium], but since we're not manufacturing any ‘bullets' [i.e. warheads], you can't actually prove anything-or ever be quite sure how close we've come to putting it all together." Couple that stance with Ahmadinejad's frequent verbal threats concerning Israel's right to exist and there are plenty of grounds for both McCain's calculated threats and Obama's calculated engagement.

But if a conventional bombing campaign could assuredly take out Iran's nuclear facilities, chances are the Bush administration would have pulled that trigger by now; and if not the Bush administration, then certainly Israel. If neither could see its way to launching a strike by the end of the Bush administration's second term, then it's highly unlikely that such a campaign-absent full-out invasion and occupation-will ever make sense. In short, we'd have to go nuclear to stop Tehran from getting nuclear.

If that strategic logic and historical record ring true to you, then you definitely want Obama in the White House, because McCain could well launch us into a war with Iran. If you consider that pathway inevitable, then McCain's the better choice, along with a strategic missile defense that-despite all the failures up to now-finally works as promised.

ADVANTAGE: Push. Totally depends on your worldview, unless you're committed to granting Israel a zero deductible on America's nuclear umbrella insurance policy.

The war on terror: Remember that? It must seem odd that, seven years into this war on terror, al Qaeda itself seems like such a strategic afterthought. Part of this is due to the Bush administration's real success in disrupting al Qaeda's global networks.

But it's also due to al Qaeda choosing to become less operationally focused and evolving into more of a worldwide anti-American/Western branding mechanism-sort of a Jihadis-R-Us. Sad to say, this is probably as close to "victory" as we'll come for the foreseeable future because, cynically speaking, transnational terrorists are a useful bogeyman for a networked age.

As somebody who's worked in national security affairs for close to two decades, I'll tell you that as far as anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism are concerned, it won't matter much who gets elected president. The U.S. government possessed such a security community prior to 9/11, and that community got a whole lot bigger after 9/11. Today, that community operates like any sizeable and widely distributed bureaucracy: just well enough not to fail spectacularly, but nowhere near well enough to succeed spectacularly.

So in regards to the candidates, frankly, it's a coin toss. Obama would present a more conciliatory face, which can invite more aggression or subdue it. McCain would present a less compromising face, which can accomplish the same. Both will promise and likely achieve somewhat more secure borders, and any new management might inject the Department of Homeland Security with more purpose and better execution, but expect the world to continue appearing more dangerous over time (God bless our sensational media) while actually becoming more secure. And if it makes you feel any better, just go on believing that Washington really runs America and that America really runs the world.

ADVANTAGE: Draw. This leaves the final count tied at 3 apiece, with 4 toss-ups. Expect another tantalizingly close vote.]]> Thomas P.M. Barnett Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:02:28 PDT <![CDATA[Why Vote? Reasons 1-176]]> http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-reasons-1-176/ http://www.good.is/post/why-vote-reasons-1-176/ 1.  An "I Voted" sticker is the unequivocal best accessory of all time. 

2. Arugula prices at Whole Foods aren't going to lower themselves.

3. The days of a single global superpower are gone, so we need to start making some room at the table-and who we elect to host the dinner party is going to have a big say in how the next 50 years unfold.

4. Toby Keith-composer of songs with lines like "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way"-endorsed Obama. You never know how these things can go.

5. In a true November surprise, your patriotism will be rewarded with a voucher to download Toby Keith's "Shock'n Y'All" on Rock Band 2. Jingoistic air guitar is wicked awesome.

6. Reduce Your Blood Pressure by Paula Scher
Reduce Your Blood Pressure by Paula Scher

 


John Brown7. John Brown gave his life and those of three sons to save the Union, and you're being asked to give half an hour.

8. We don't need another Pillsbury, North Dakota, where not a single person voted in the mayoral race in June. Because while it makes a funny weird news story, that would be a pretty bad look for an entire country.

9. Universal health care means more beautiful people.

10.  You're part of that much-maligned generation whose political apathy is well-documented and tirelessly trotted out in the media. Let's not give the media another easy story.

11.  Jesus didn't get a vote. Neither did Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman, or Leonardo Da Vinci. Eleanor Roosevelt couldn't even vote until she was 36 years old. So that's one thing you've got on all of them.

12.  Election Day is like Super Bowl Sunday, except you always get to play, and score.

13. Yakov Smirnoff came to this country for the very right you're throwing away. And if you don't vote, it's tantamount to saying, "Hey, Yakov, stop writing your humor column for AARP Magazine, get in your time machine, and go back to Soviet Russia." And trust us, Yakov won't like that. Because here, you cast ballot. In Soviet Russia, ballot cast you!

14. Tuesday, November 4, will be perfect for it: mostly clear, with unseasonably high temperatures thanks to a high-pressure system that has settled over the region. Which region? All of them.

15. "We will all be better citizens when voting records of our congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games." -Lou Erickson

Ralph Nader16. Nader supporters will.

17. President Bush is trying to take independent review out of the Endangered Species Act-a move that would essentially sink the legislation on one of the few categorical successes of the environmental movement. Supporting that is like saying you hate polar bears.

18. At some point you will probably need Social Security.

19. In 2009, the president and Congress will ride tandem on a new version of the federal transportation bill. If you ride a bike (or would, if there were a damn bike lane where you needed to go), this could mean a serious expansion of your ability to get around. As it stands, Obama has pledged to increase bike funding if elected president. McCain, meanwhile, hasn't rolled out any commitments on the issue.


20.  Corporations like Blackwater and KBR are still getting multibillion-dollar contracts to carry out work that should be entrusted to publicly held institutions.




21"Whether we like politics or not, politicians are running our lives. They decide issues of war and peace, whether we'll have jobs, whether we can afford a good education, the quality of our environment, and whether we and our loved ones will be able to afford quality health care. How can we possibly choose not to care? "
Jerry Springer

22

23-77.  The so-called largest political party in America-every eligible voter who doesn't vote-has lost every presidential election since 1789. That's 55 in a row.

78. If you don't, crotchety old war hawks can become president.







Van Jones

Van Jones


Civil rights and environment expert


79. The stakes have never been higher for the viability of human life on earth.

80. The stakes have never been higher in terms of rescuing the U.S. economy from the fiscal mismanagement of a previous administration.

81. The stakes have never been higher in terms of moving away from a drill-and-burn energy policy and a lie-and-die military policy.

82. This is the one opportunity we have to let the world know that the people of the United States reject the direction we've been following for almost a decade now.

83. It's a better excuse for being late to work than "I'm super hungover" or "I got really caught up in this episode of Regis and Kelly."

84. You get to stand in the booth, close the curtains, pull the lever, and pretend Madonna is going to dance for you.

85. You're going to have an Election Night party, and it's going to seriously undercut your credibility as host if you say you were too busy making humanely raised, antibiotic-free chicken wings and organic guacamole to get to your polling station.

86-90.  Five of the nine sitting justices on the Supreme Court are edging toward retirement age, which means five potential vacancies within the next four to eight years.


91. As Emma Goldman said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." And they did, in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Burma, and elsewhere.

92. "George Bush doesn't care about black people."-Kanye West

93. Margins of victory in swing states like Ohio and Florida have been as low as half a percent in the past two presidential elections.

94.  While your vote is secret, the fact that you did (or did not) is a matter of public record. So if you ever find yourself requesting help from any of your elected representatives, this is the first thing they'll be checking when you need them.




95. By Milton Glaser.
To Vote is Human by Milton Glaser

96. It's so easy, even old people can do it. And they do. In 2004, only 47 percent of people age 18 to 29 voted; 73 percent of people age 65 to 74 did. Are they voting for the person you want to win?

97. We had this revolution in which our forebears declared that taxation without representation was tyranny, and kind of insisted that we, as a nation, be allowed to vote on issues that affected us. Yes, it was also about trade and stamps and being allowed to bear arms. But it was a lot about voting, too.

98. It'll prove Robert Putnam wrong: Maybe you bowl alone, but you can still be civic-minded.

99. At this rate, when your children are adults, the United States will owe China more money than actually exists on the planet.

100. Hiu Lui Ng, a 34-year-old married immigrant with two American children, was denied medical supervision and died of cancer in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement this August. Despite earlier stabs at reform, McCain now says he would no longer support his own 2006 bill that would have offered a path to citizenship for people already living in the country.

101.  20 percent of NYU students polled recently said they'd give up their right to vote in 2008 for an iPod Touch. A fucking iPod Touch.








Porochista Khakpour


The author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects


102. I was not a citizen until 2001; I sealed the deal that fall, muttering "America the Beautiful" with a bunch of misty-eyed foreigners in a Brooklyn courthouse just weeks after 9/11. 2004 was my first chance to vote, but somehow I botched it-my absentee ballot came late? Something. And so, during these two Bush terms, as I've complained with the rest of you, I've felt a counterfeit quality to my complaint. I feel like if I vote in 2008 and something goes wrong, I, too, can be validated as a reasonable American human, by complaining and knowing I earned that complaint.

103. "Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." -George Jean Nathan

104.  The old people manning the polls are always super nice.

105. You can become famous by accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan.

106. When the guy you didn't vote for but thought was all right loses, you'll need someone to blame, and it would suck if that person was you.

107. You want to avoid giving Robin Williams and Kevin Costner the material to make more unbearably weak political satires.

108. Unless you are a white landowning male Protestant, there was a time in our history when you would have been thrown out of the polling facility without a second thought.

109. Your buddies are gonna be all, "Hey, what'd you think about the referendum?" And if you don't vote,
you won't know what they're talking about, so you'll be all, "Oh, I, uh… liked it?" And then they'll inch away with disgusted looks on their faces because you apparently support testing nonlethal weapons on animals.

110. Like it or not, there are a lot of people who will do whatever Sean Hannity tells them to.

111. Like it or not, there are a lot of people who will do whatever Keith Olbermann tells them to.

112. Great Britain is still looking for evidence that our little experiment didn't work out. Don't help them along.

113. Le esperanza es lo último que se pierde.

Socrates114-173. They killed Socrates, 280 to 220.

174. If you live in a swing state, your vote will count a lot more than everyone else's (if it gets counted).

175. In Australia, voting is mandatory.

176.  There are 6.46 billion human beings who aren't eligible to vote in this election, but who will have to live with the results.]]> 1.  An "I Voted" sticker is the unequivocal best accessory of all time. 

2. Arugula prices at Whole Foods aren't going to lower themselves.

3. The days of a single global superpower are gone, so we need to start making some room at the table-and who we elect to host the dinner party is going to have a big say in how the next 50 years unfold.

4. Toby Keith-composer of songs with lines like "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way"-endorsed Obama. You never know how these things can go.

5. In a true November surprise, your patriotism will be rewarded with a voucher to download Toby Keith's "Shock'n Y'All" on Rock Band 2. Jingoistic air guitar is wicked awesome.

6. Reduce Your Blood Pressure by Paula Scher
Reduce Your Blood Pressure by Paula Scher

 


John Brown7. John Brown gave his life and those of three sons to save the Union, and you're being asked to give half an hour.

8. We don't need another Pillsbury, North Dakota, where not a single person voted in the mayoral race in June. Because while it makes a funny weird news story, that would be a pretty bad look for an entire country.

9. Universal health care means more beautiful people.

10.  You're part of that much-maligned generation whose political apathy is well-documented and tirelessly trotted out in the media. Let's not give the media another easy story.

11.  Jesus didn't get a vote. Neither did Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman, or Leonardo Da Vinci. Eleanor Roosevelt couldn't even vote until she was 36 years old. So that's one thing you've got on all of them.

12.  Election Day is like Super Bowl Sunday, except you always get to play, and score.

13. Yakov Smirnoff came to this country for the very right you're throwing away. And if you don't vote, it's tantamount to saying, "Hey, Yakov, stop writing your humor column for AARP Magazine, get in your time machine, and go back to Soviet Russia." And trust us, Yakov won't like that. Because here, you cast ballot. In Soviet Russia, ballot cast you!

14. Tuesday, November 4, will be perfect for it: mostly clear, with unseasonably high temperatures thanks to a high-pressure system that has settled over the region. Which region? All of them.

15. "We will all be better citizens when voting records of our congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games." -Lou Erickson

Ralph Nader16. Nader supporters will.

17. President Bush is trying to take independent review out of the Endangered Species Act-a move that would essentially sink the legislation on one of the few categorical successes of the environmental movement. Supporting that is like saying you hate polar bears.

18. At some point you will probably need Social Security.

19. In 2009, the president and Congress will ride tandem on a new version of the federal transportation bill. If you ride a bike (or would, if there were a damn bike lane where you needed to go), this could mean a serious expansion of your ability to get around. As it stands, Obama has pledged to increase bike funding if elected president. McCain, meanwhile, hasn't rolled out any commitments on the issue.


20.  Corporations like Blackwater and KBR are still getting multibillion-dollar contracts to carry out work that should be entrusted to publicly held institutions.




21"Whether we like politics or not, politicians are running our lives. They decide issues of war and peace, whether we'll have jobs, whether we can afford a good education, the quality of our environment, and whether we and our loved ones will be able to afford quality health care. How can we possibly choose not to care? "
Jerry Springer

22

23-77.  The so-called largest political party in America-every eligible voter who doesn't vote-has lost every presidential election since 1789. That's 55 in a row.

78. If you don't, crotchety old war hawks can become president.







Van Jones

Van Jones


Civil rights and environment expert


79. The stakes have never been higher for the viability of human life on earth.

80. The stakes have never been higher in terms of rescuing the U.S. economy from the fiscal mismanagement of a previous administration.

81. The stakes have never been higher in terms of moving away from a drill-and-burn energy policy and a lie-and-die military policy.

82. This is the one opportunity we have to let the world know that the people of the United States reject the direction we've been following for almost a decade now.

83. It's a better excuse for being late to work than "I'm super hungover" or "I got really caught up in this episode of Regis and Kelly."

84. You get to stand in the booth, close the curtains, pull the lever, and pretend Madonna is going to dance for you.

85. You're going to have an Election Night party, and it's going to seriously undercut your credibility as host if you say you were too busy making humanely raised, antibiotic-free chicken wings and organic guacamole to get to your polling station.

86-90.  Five of the nine sitting justices on the Supreme Court are edging toward retirement age, which means five potential vacancies within the next four to eight years.


91. As Emma Goldman said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." And they did, in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Burma, and elsewhere.

92. "George Bush doesn't care about black people."-Kanye West

93. Margins of victory in swing states like Ohio and Florida have been as low as half a percent in the past two presidential elections.

94.  While your vote is secret, the fact that you did (or did not) is a matter of public record. So if you ever find yourself requesting help from any of your elected representatives, this is the first thing they'll be checking when you need them.




95. By Milton Glaser.
To Vote is Human by Milton Glaser

96. It's so easy, even old people can do it. And they do. In 2004, only 47 percent of people age 18 to 29 voted; 73 percent of people age 65 to 74 did. Are they voting for the person you want to win?

97. We had this revolution in which our forebears declared that taxation without representation was tyranny, and kind of insisted that we, as a nation, be allowed to vote on issues that affected us. Yes, it was also about trade and stamps and being allowed to bear arms. But it was a lot about voting, too.

98. It'll prove Robert Putnam wrong: Maybe you bowl alone, but you can still be civic-minded.

99. At this rate, when your children are adults, the United States will owe China more money than actually exists on the planet.

100. Hiu Lui Ng, a 34-year-old married immigrant with two American children, was denied medical supervision and died of cancer in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement this August. Despite earlier stabs at reform, McCain now says he would no longer support his own 2006 bill that would have offered a path to citizenship for people already living in the country.

101.  20 percent of NYU students polled recently said they'd give up their right to vote in 2008 for an iPod Touch. A fucking iPod Touch.








Porochista Khakpour


The author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects


102. I was not a citizen until 2001; I sealed the deal that fall, muttering "America the Beautiful" with a bunch of misty-eyed foreigners in a Brooklyn courthouse just weeks after 9/11. 2004 was my first chance to vote, but somehow I botched it-my absentee ballot came late? Something. And so, during these two Bush terms, as I've complained with the rest of you, I've felt a counterfeit quality to my complaint. I feel like if I vote in 2008 and something goes wrong, I, too, can be validated as a reasonable American human, by complaining and knowing I earned that complaint.

103. "Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." -George Jean Nathan

104.  The old people manning the polls are always super nice.

105. You can become famous by accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan.

106. When the guy you didn't vote for but thought was all right loses, you'll need someone to blame, and it would suck if that person was you.

107. You want to avoid giving Robin Williams and Kevin Costner the material to make more unbearably weak political satires.

108. Unless you are a white landowning male Protestant, there was a time in our history when you would have been thrown out of the polling facility without a second thought.

109. Your buddies are gonna be all, "Hey, what'd you think about the referendum?" And if you don't vote,
you won't know what they're talking about, so you'll be all, "Oh, I, uh… liked it?" And then they'll inch away with disgusted looks on their faces because you apparently support testing nonlethal weapons on animals.

110. Like it or not, there are a lot of people who will do whatever Sean Hannity tells them to.

111. Like it or not, there are a lot of people who will do whatever Keith Olbermann tells them to.

112. Great Britain is still looking for evidence that our little experiment didn't work out. Don't help them along.

113. Le esperanza es lo último que se pierde.

Socrates114-173. They killed Socrates, 280 to 220.

174. If you live in a swing state, your vote will count a lot more than everyone else's (if it gets counted).

175. In Australia, voting is mandatory.

176.  There are 6.46 billion human beings who aren't eligible to vote in this election, but who will have to live with the results.]]> GOOD Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:53:46 PDT