What if Kerry had told the truth?

[ramapo]

About the deficit, the environment, the credit binge, housing bubble and so on. The course we're on is plainly unsustainable.

What if he had done a Ross Perot and outlined how screwed we are over the long term and how there will need to be sacrifice and change EVERYWHERE.

I remember Mondale proclaiming how taxes need to be raised and that he would raise them. Candid but fatal as Reagan attacked the tax-and-tax Democrat...but of course Reagan then raised taxes.

I imagine Kerry would've been ripped to shreds based on his voting record or as being just a nattering nabob of negativism (Thank you Spiro Agnew).

Face it, Kerry pandered with the best of them...
Any chance a candidate could ever level with us and be rewarded for it?

[Kierkegaard]

1. Not likely.

People are suspicious of anything new, and the political system has been the standard in pandering for decades. Someone speaking the whole truth would likely be viewed as Perot was (good of you to dredge him up); a kook.

[Flammable Materials]

2. A little late in the game for that.

Politics is bullshit. There are no heroes in the political realm. We need to face this, accept it, and realize we're powerless.

DISCLAIMER: Author is drunk on Belgian ale. But many a truth is spoken in a state of inebriation.

[Kierkegaard]

4. Ah, I'm envious.

I'll have to settle for a couple of lousy Beck's...

[Martin Eden]

5. inebriation = no inhibitions

= honesty (you say what you think without thinking about the consequences)

and, alas, I happen to agree with you. The nature of the political beast in this country is such that honest heroes can rarely, if ever, succeed.

Barack Obama appears to be a relative breath of fresh air, but I'm not holding my breath for him to change the paradigm.

[Danocrat]

3. What if Kerry had told the truth?

He would have been considered a conspiracy theorist and a crackpot, just like I have been for so long from so many.

[mistertrickster]

6. Actually, that's what attracted me to Dean. You asked him a question

and he gave you an answer, not a policy declaration.

I thought he levelled with people in an authentic way.

[Seabiscuit]

7. Howard Dean leveled with us and look what Kerry & media did to him.