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The only thing pollers have to go on is past turnout and educated guesses. We all know that if EVERY eligible voter showed up, Democrats would win virtually every election in the US.
The truth is that polls are NOT reliable ways of handicapping a presidential race since ther is no way to determine who will show up and vote. They ARE good tools for political campaigns to vette their message and get a good idea about what their "flow" is.
In other words, if Kerry's poll numbers move 7 points in one direction, it's probably a good indicator that his numbers moved 4-10 points. The ACTUAL number of votes he has is harder to gauge because of the whole "weighting" issue.
Let's see what happens after the debate on Thursday. Kerry has sharpened his tongue quite a bit lately. I hope he lashes it repeatedly at Bush JUST LIKE GORE did in round 1 last time. This is the foreign policy debate. THIS IS WHAT BUSH IS RUNNING ON.
Bush running on the ILLUSION that he is a good foreign policy president. Kerry needs to come out with full guns blazing as an attack dog. It doesn't matter much if Kerry can provide a good alternative. The point is to trash Bush's ONLY selling point.
All the pollsters will tell Kerry that he needs to be statemenlike and needs to explain his "alternative policies". Thats a bunch of shit. Unlike the LAST election, it's NOT a race, it's a referendum on Bush's performance. All Kerry need do is demonstrate credibility in the subject and show that Bush has taken ALL THE WRONG MOVES and made our country LESS SAFE against terrorists!!!!
If they're still in doubt, Kerry can quip points like:
* Bush has no credibility in Iraq. To the Iraqi people, he is little different than Saddam Hussein himself. He drags their innocent loved ones from their beds and has them tortured in dungeons. That is NOT a policy that fosters trust amongst Iraqi citizens.
A few years back, many people stopped trusting the FBI and ATF because of a few heavy-handed raids against criminals. Well, the actions of the FBI and ATF at Ruby Ridge and Waco pale in comparison to those in Baghdad and Fallujah. Would you trust a law enforcement agency that stole away your loved one, stripped him, humiliated him and photographed the event??? Would you trust the leader that allowed that to happen????
No, you would not. And it's very clear to me that had the occupants of Ruby Ridge been tortured, that Janet Reno would have been fired for deriliction and President Clinton would have been accountable for failure to control these critical law enforcement agencies.
President Bush will Parade Allawi around as Iraq's "leader". But the man was never elected. Nor does Allawi or the Coalition Provisional Authority have a single sovereign power that President Bush cannot veto. That my friends is NOT sovereignty.
Whether the President likes it or not, HE is responsible for our actions in Iraq. He ignored the cautions from the CIA about WMDs. He defied the UN in going to war without a significant coalition of allies. He further alienated those same allies with hateful campaigns of derision meant to taunt our friends in NATO.
There is an old saying. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Well, President Bush made his impression in Iraq. And it wasn't a good one. One troops arrived in Baghdad, they had no plans to secure ministries. They had no plans to protect and secure vital civil institutions like hospitals, water facilities, schools, marketplaces and museums. He had no plan to deal with the Iraq military other than dissmissing them. And like his plan for America, he had no plan for putting the people of Iraq back to work reconstructing their own country.
Bush had only ONE plan. He assumed that his corporate chronies would rebuild Iraq in America's image. He had no concern for whether the Iraqi people favored that image. He gave no-bid cost-plus contracts out that ENCOURAGED companies to overpay for supplies and pass all the cost on to American taxpayers. The more money Halliburton, Bechtel, Titan and others waste the more they are paid.
They never CONSIDERED the needs of the Iraqi people. They never CONSIDERED the humiliation of jobless desperation. They never considered that the old saying that idle hands are the tools of the devil. Just like Americans, they see foreigners doing the work THEY should be doing. They are both envious and angry. And far too many of them come to believe that they are being colonized instead of liberated.
WE have ALL of these problems because George W Bush does not and NEVER HAS understood the pride in a hard days work. He has taken more vacation time than any president in history. He is the LEAST accomplished, LEAST intelligent president in the history of this country. He has given the LEAST service to the nation than any other man holding this highest of offices. He is a man who could not even complete one week a month and two weeks a year of service in exchange for deferrment from a war he advocated.
And because we have not gotten Iraqis back to work, because they feel powerless over their own destinies, they seek to control their destinies from a barrel of a gun. President Bush is NOT at war with terrorists in Iraq. He is at war with the Iraqi people themselves.
This is why it is imperitive to replace this man. The Iraqis will NEVER accept any policy, or election that is supervised by him. They will reject any military commanded by him. And curse any nation he presides over. As long as their is a President Bush, we will have deadly enemies in Iraq.
As president, I have will have the moral authority to guide Iraqi reconstruction without the fear of colonization. It will NOT be an easy job to fix the damage President Bush has done. But I bring a certain credibility. When a barber cuts your hair crooked, do you let that same barber fix it??? When a doctor prescribes the wrong medicine, do you let try to prescribe the right one???? When a driver delivers you to the wrong place, do you trust him to deliver you to steer you right???
George W Bush has steered this country in the wrong direction. I don't trust him to steer us right. I don't believe the Iraqi people will EVER trust him to steer them right. And I don't think the American people should trust him to steer us right.
Put quite simply a lifetime of wrongs CANNOT make a right!!!! Bush is the WRONG man for the job. From day one he neglected the terrorist threat on the United States. His attorney general de-prioritized anti-terrorism efforts underneath prostitution and pornography. He would not even meet with his own director of counter terrorism.
Before 9/11, two separate FBI field agents discovered men of Arab descent taking flying lessons on Boeing 747 simulators. Both of these men refused lessons on takeoff and landing. Both of these well trained agents thought this was suspicious and wanted to investigate furhter. Is it any wonder that an agency that considered counter-terrorism less important than pornography and prostitution would deny BOTH of these astute detective permission to pursue and investigation????
A memo to Richard Clarke explained to him that he could not meet with the president because of his vacation. While terrorists were prone to strike America, Richard Clarke was begging to get access to the President. John Ashcroft told Clarke he didn't want to hear anything more about terrorism. And the president's vacation was more important than our national security.
While on that vacation, the president was given a daily brief that detailed how Osama Bin Laden planned to strike the US yet again. Yet neither President Bush nor Condaleeza Rice did ANYTHING about it. Condaleeza Rice later claimed that no one could anticipate hijacking multiple plains and using them as missles. Yet, the FBI let by Janet Reno discovered and stopped a plot called project Bojinka that planned just that. Did Condaleeza rice even BOTHER to read what here predecessors had done??? And why do I ask you is a person who presided over the WORST intelligence failure in the history of the United States STILL our National Security Advisor????
Why hasn't ANYONE in the Bush administration been held accountable for ANY of these failures???? Why hasn't John Ashcroft been called out for cancelling the counter-terrorism policies that the Clinton administration established to help prevent re-occurences of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings???
ALL of the signs were there. They only needed to be read. Condaleeza Rice said there was a wall that prevented communication. I agree. That wall has a name, GEORGE W BUSH!!!!!
George W Bush has thrown up a wall shielding the administration from intelligence and thoughtfullness. They have thrown up a barrier to any policy that does not directly affect their poll numbers and political strategy. They have thrown up a wall that has placed national security SECOND to the thoughless grab for more and more political power. And I stand here telling you today that the 3000 dead Americans of 9/11 are a DIRECT result of President Bush's reckless irresponsibility and failure to do the simplest forms of reading, collaboration and reflection!!!!!!
Last year, the President saw fit to dress up in the clothes of a soldier and make a landing on and aircraft carrier. The carrier was held up for over a day delaying loved ones their dearly earned re-union. Then he swaggered up to a podium and declared that major combat operations had completed. On that day, just over 100 Americans had perished in Bush's errant and reckless war. After that day, the numbers of dead per day has steadily increased.
This all came from a man, who recklessly bragged for terrorists to "come and get us". The president stood in the White House and dared terrorists from across the Middle East to infiltrate Iraq and engage Americans. More than 900 Americans proceeded that dare. And it is sickening, absolute sickening to me as a veteran that a man who has never dared fight in a war would dare others to kill American soldiers!!!!
3000 Americans died on 9/11 and Bush COULD have prevented it. Over 100 Americans died in the Iraq invasion that was unnecessary. 900 more Americans have perished in a struggle brought on by the incompetence of President Bush to alienate yet another potential ally, the Iraqi people. On top of that thousands more Americans have been mamed and permanently harmed by Bush's reckless irresponsibility. Estimates are that over 15,000 of the people we we supposedly trying to liberate have perished.
I lay all these lives at the feet of George W Bush. And I say to him, you did this. These people did NOT have to die. It was YOUR gross irresponsibility and incompetence that made it so!!!!
I ask the American people, how can a man be SO WRONG about SO MANY things. :long pause: How can you trust that man to make things right??? :long pause:
I will not lie to you. The road ahead is a difficult one. The job of making a just peace in Iraq will be hard. And I too will make mistakes along the way. But the man who's recklessness, irresponsibility and lack of judgement has killed so many, CANNOT be trusted to fix his own mess. It's a bitter task that others must accept.
I say to you Americans that since the first day in office George W Bush has made America LESS SAFE. And HE cannot fix this. The ONLY safe place for President Bush to be is back in Crawford, or Austin, or Connecticut or Kennibukport permanently. The farther away from the White House George W Bush gets, the safer our nation will be.
I will bring our allies back in the fold. I will put both Americans and Iraqis back to work. I will forge alliances that put Iraqis in charge of their own nation while putting the vast resources of wisdom and knowledge of the worlds best minds at their disposal to build a free and just society of THEIR choosing, not ours. And finally, if the Iraqi people request that we leave, I will leave knowing full well that NO NATION can impose a system of government on another. The Iraqi people MUST CHOOSE their own way of life. They must forge their own destiny. They cannot live in an Iraqi nation of American making. Any more than we could have lived in an American nation of British making. And that my friends is the integrity that will bring the MOST important ally to our aid, THE IRAQI PEOPLE!!!!!!
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OK, so it turned into more of a speech. Anyone like it????
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