A win for the Democrats


See Student Discourse Version:
A Naderite for Bush

Trust me when I say, this was a watershed election for me. Every which way I turned, I faced decisions on the ballot between the lesser of two or three evils. Ultimately, I held my nose as I pressed the button that recorded my decisions at the Monroe County Court House Tuesday.

To be honest, neither Gore nor Bush are particularly appealing presidential candidates, and looking into my crystal ball, I doubt either one has the ability to last more than one term in office.

With that thought, I actually would prefer Bush to be president of the United States for the next four years, and not because I am a Republican. I’m not. I voted for Ralph Nader this year, and I am, for the most part, a left wing liberal with a few odd conservative streaks in me.

Bush as president is a strategic thought — with the House and the Senate so closely divided, whoever is president will not be able to get much done, and we will have the ultimate “do nothing” Congress — hamstrung by the close split and the constant threats of filibusters in the Senate. This “do-nothing” Congress will probably not pass a lot of laws, which might be a blessing in disguise — considering Congress’s past record.

The one downside to a Bush presidency is the Supreme Court. Bush has threatened to make appointments to the Supreme Court that will take the United States back in time to a period when women had no right to choose, when prayer in school was state-sanctioned and when free speech was restricted. Realistically, that’s not likely to happen, since it takes a two-thirds majority of senators to confirm judicial appointments and only 50 or 51 senators are Republicans. Bush will be forced to moderate his nominees in the hopes that they are confirmed.

The advantages of a Bush presidency are too numerous to tally, but I shall take a shot:

  • Usually the party of the incumbent president loses seats in the House at mid-term elections, which means Democrats might control the House that is currently controlled by Republicans after the 2002 elections. If Gore is elected, Democrats will probably lose seats in 2002, and that’s not really desirable in my book.
  • Environmentalists have had allies in power for too long and have grown soft. By having a Bush appointee at the Interior Department, one who is certain to be in favor of mining and drilling on federal lands, environmentalists will again have a cause to rally around. Remember that Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt in the early 1980s was a rallying cry for environmentalists; invoking his name and actions helped the environmental movement grow both in stature and fiscally.
  • Rush Limbaugh will be put out of business. Limbaugh has thrived on the Clinton presidency, and if Clinton had not been elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1996, he wouldn’t have had anything to complain about for the past eight years. Limbaugh really wants Gore to win so he can spend the next four years complaining about Gore on his radio talk show, thus making money. Nobody will want to listen to him praise Bush for the next four years — people only want to listen to whiners (thus explaining the success of weirdos like “dr.” Laura who does nothing but whine about what she thinks is the immorality of society).

If Bush is president for the next four years, all of this sets us up for a Democratic president starting in 2004, and that is something to look forward to.

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