[thechat] US Elections

[Erik Mattheis]

At 1:04 AM +0530 11/8/02, Madhu Menon wrote:
>What are the major philosophical, ideological, and policy differences
>between Democrats and Republicans?

The biggest difference is that generally, Republicans are better
cheats and liars than Democrats, and I say that only half jokingly
(about the Democrat half).

The appearance lately is that there is not a lot of difference. For
lots of reasons:

Since Bush became president, Democrats tried to nullify accusations
of "partisanship" by giving Bush everything he asked for, sometimes
in slightly modified form. Which of course is Democrats cooperating
with, and maybe in a way, acting like Republicans.

Yet a major campaigning cry from Republicans was that Democrats were
bad because they wouldn't give the President what he needs. People
believed the rhetoric and ignored the facts.

Secondly, Republicans, particularly the Bush White House, have
successfully convinced Americans that they are moderate, which in
turn makes Republicans look like they're acting more like Democrats.

In reality, the Bush White House has been enacting a right wing
agenda, arguably an extreme right wind agenda (the easiest to see
regards the environment; they've already slashed programs and eased
environmental regulations ... and are proposing to cut environmental
spending another 3.4% - $1,000,000,000 - in the 2003 budget). Again,
lots of Americans believed the rhetoric and ignored the facts.

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- Erik Mattheis

(612) 377 2272
http://goZz.com/

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