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politics
i don't understand the george bush thing and i dont want to ask google. real people give better, straightfoward answers
ok so
- he was running against al gore
- he is a republican whose father was pres before him, george bush senior
why did he win? did he get more electoral votes? i though al gore got more popular votes?
what is your personal opinion of him?
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Ok normally I stay away from these things since I do not live in the US, but I figured maybe you might be interested in an outsider's point of view.
First off, I think most of the world mourned the fact that Al Gore didnt win that (particularly after the first few years of Bush's first term). The system, as Thew states, is outdated. Americans are actually under the impression that they live in a democracy, when in fact they do not.
Why Bush won remains a bit of a mystery. I recall watching the debates, and seeing Gore (a very intelligent man) absolutely destroy Bush. The US must be the only place on earth, that I know of anyway, where you can get a "sympathy vote". Gore was advised to go easier on him the second time round, if you can imagine that. The candidate with the best ability to joke around won.
Everyone already explained the electoral system so I wont go into that.
My personal opinion of him is that he is an incredibly dangerous man. This is a guy who referred to his war effort as a "crusade" for heavens sake. If all he had done had remained within the US that would be one thing, but the whole world suffers for his dubious foreign policy and his almost total lack of environmental respect. Economic growth comes at a high price.
I should probably just mention that my opinion has little to do with your whole Republican- Democrat thing. Its kind of amusing to see two right wing parties refer to each other as conservatives and liberals... tomato, tomaato if you ask me, not much in the line of choice.
Anyway, my only consolation is that I am pretty sure history will judge him accordingly. The man who plunged the US into two costly wars for very dubious reasons, who distanced the country internationally from its allies, and who made a mockery of diplomatic efforts with his gung ho "good guy"- "bad guy" mentality.
Thats my opinion anyway. Somehow I think this will be a matter debated inside and outside the US for a long time...
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When you vote for president, you actually are voting for a representative that will cast their electoral votes. They pledge to vote for a certain candidate, and very rarely do they change their mind. Each state gets a certain amount of electoral votes. The candidate with the most electoral votes win. It worked out that Gore got the most votes overall, but less electoral votes in the end. The current system is pretty ridiculous and outdated.
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Popular vote doesn't get you elected. Having 270 electoral votes does- however the popular vote determines whether you get those electoral votes. So let's say in Minnesota Bush gets more votes- the electoral college of Minnesota from the Republican party casts however many electoral
votes they have for Bush. The electoral votes are the number of Representatives in the House for a state.
Al Gore (the stupid asshole that he is and people have the audacity to call Bush an idiot when Gore is quoted as saying that "I invented the internet" and "A Zebra can't change it's spots"....real great alternative) won more of the popular vote but didn't get the vote in the heavy electoral college states that really matter. The Supreme Court decided to give the remaining electoral votes to the current President.
The electoral college was set up exactly for this reason- so that ignorant, uninformed people don't have the direct say in who the President is and that a cast of electors do.
Now you said better, straightforward answers so here's mine-
What do I think of him? I don't agree with everything he does- but I am a lot more savvy than to fall for the picture that the liberal media paints of him and let them do my thinking for me. I read the very right wing NY Post everyday as well as the moderate/kinda left Wall Street Journal as well. So we have a street smart paper that people call trash because it tells the truth and a more respectable paper. Liberals never let you know how good the economy is doing or how the unemployment rate is at an all time low just because he's Republican, has a set of balls and tells them to fuck off. Hate him or love him- you gotta respect the fact that he has a pair.
But you know what they say...a liberal is a liberal until they get mugged.
or my personal favorite from Winston Churchill-
"If you aren't liberal by the time you're 25; you have no heart and if you're not conservative by the time you're 35; you have no brain."
So liberals go can live in their quixotic anti war hippy American flag burning world where everyone gets along by "Diplomacy" until they wake up and take a dose of real life.
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Electoral votes and popular votes are two different things. Let me try to explain:
I live in Kansas, which 99.9998% of the time votes Republican based on electoral votes. Now, say that 49% of Kansas residents vote Democrat and 51% of the state votes Republican. It is the 51% of voters who get the electoral vote, making Kansas's vote for the Republican candidate.
Now, say Al Gore had the popular vote. Since he lost, that means that Bush got electoral vote from each state's individual majority percentage, but Al Gore got a higher percent of votes from each individual state's minority percentage when added together with the other 49 states.
In short, when all of the votes for the entire country are added together, Gore received more votes than Bush. Bush won because they don't add the votes of the country together as a whole, they do it by the state. Bush got the most votes in Kansas, so the state of Kansas voted for George Bush. Electoral vote.
I know, it's confusing. It confuses me too. I don't like electoral votes, I believe in "majority rules" but our government doesn't like it that way for some odd reason.
My opinion of George Bush? Well, anything nice I thought of him went out the window when he lied to us about why he was going to Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction (which were never found) was only an excuse for him to continue the war his father started with Iraq. I firmly believe it has something to do with oil. I know it has nothing to do with the attack on our soil on 9/11.
I think he talks to the people of this great nation as though we are all complete idiots. I think the fact that he lied about his reasons for going to war should have been grounds for impeachment. I will be so glad to say goodbye to that man when his term comes to an end.
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