Will Dean supporters blindly vote for Nader (again) and condemn us to four more years of Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfield, Pearl and CONDEMN us to a "new" Supreme Court makeup with NO moderates, let alone NO liberals? Look at who Bush has appointed to head the "independent" investigation for WMD for a taste of who your "I'm not going to vote for Kerry" vote will take us.
I have been a Clark supporter, but I am NOT going to condemn us to four more years of further destruction by the Bush Administration [ - who control every branch of government and are pons of the mega-corporations - ] by either NOT VOTING or voting for a fringe candidate. I tried to convince my fellow environmentalist friends in 2000 that a vote for Nader would be a vote for Bush, but they said oh four years of Bush won't be that bad, it's more important to voice our environmental concerns. . .
And, look what happened to environmental concerns with a Nader vote which effectively allowed Bush the margin to "seal the deal" with the Supreme Court vote!
Let's look at the big picture. These years of the Bush Administration have been worse than I could have imagined in 2000 and another 4 years? I can't even imagine what the "permanent" tax cuts, the "permanent" Patriots Act, the "permanent" new Medicare bill will mean for our country!
Intellectual exchanges are great. But, all of our concerns about "changes" won't have a speck of a chance with another with years of what's happening at every level of the government - and overseas.
I hope that by November, all of us who have given so much to ourselves - in loyality, time, and resources - will think very hard about a NON-VOTE and remember the consequences of a NADER VOTE IN 2000.
Some say that the Environmental Movement started here in Santa Barbara with the oil spill that killed so much of our wild life. . . but, many of today's Santa Barbara environalmentalists regret that they "voted with their ideals" for Nader in 2000 instead of for the main anti-Bush candidate.
It looks like a number of my friends get the pragmatics this year in a way that they couldn't in 2000. Hope that's true for many of the Dean supporters at this blog. :-)
Carla, Santa Barbara, CA