Wasn't Gore a Senator from TN before?

[malmapus]

If he was, was it the same area that Frist represents?

I just can't imagine how an area could go from Gore to Frist!?

[Mark Williams]

1. Senators

are elected in state-wide elections. Congressman are elected from areas or districts.

It is hard to imagine people changing their votes from Gore to Frist especially with Gore being so passionate and Frist being so robotic and boring.

[question everything]

14. And yet, Gore did not carry TN in 2004

thus, it appears that the electorate of TN changed.

Also, I think that Gore changed too. For example, I think that before joining Clinton he was not exactly a supporter of women's right to choose.

[AllyCat]

2. Yes. He was Senator from TN.

His wife, Tipper, was the one who tried to impose the ratings on music/labeling about the filth in modern pop/rock.

That was one of the many reasons I did not support him as I assumed he would not be that far removed from his wife's cause and first amendment rights. When Clinton snatched him up as VP I thought "oh God, please don't let him be Prez". That, his opening of a dam out west for a good photo op of him paddling to show him as an "environmentalist", and taking campaign "donations" from Buddhist nuns are reasons why I did not vote for him in 2000.

[yardwork]

6. Well, that's disappointing

Number one, Tipper didn't "try to impose ratings" - she suggested the voluntary stickers that exist today on cd's. A fairly mild form of censorship, imo.

Number two, neither Tipper nor her husband ever remotely opposed First Amendment rights - as the "winner" of the 2000 election has done.

Number three, they weren't "Buddhist nuns." Buddhism doesn't have nuns. The campaign donations Gore received from Buddhists were nothing compared to the graft and corruption W has received. Last time I looked, the Buddhists weren't threatening to take over the U.S.

Number four, Gore is far more of an environmentalist than just about any other currently "elected" official I can think of offhand, particularly in comparison to the occupants of the White House.

So really, what was the problem with Gore?

[sweetladybug]

8. Thank you yardwork. I could not have said it better myself. AND

I hope President Gore runs for re-election in 2008!

[Mark H]

12. Me too.

No matter what count you accept, he (and we) was within a whisker of avoiding all this mess we see today.

[AllyCat]

10. Buddhism has nuns and monks

They laundered, handled, or otherwise funneled campaign contributions through one or maybe more nunneries giving him money. Where would they get that money? The Chinese maybe? I dunno, they got MVN trading status during Clinton's campaign. They were more than willing to help Gore in 2000.

Yes, he drained a canyon somewhere out west (opened a dam) for the sole purpose of a photo op to show him as an environmentalist.

I suspected only, as I said in my post that Tipper, as might Al, have some problems with first Amendment rights if they were willing to label music that might be offensive.

Is Gore a better environmentalist than Bush? Of course. There is no question. He is articulate and can at least say the words and I have no doubt he would have been better than the cabal in there right now. But that was NOT the case in 2000. We had never seen anything so horrible as this administration and on that, I based my decision not to vote for him in 2000.

Are Buddhists threatening to take over the US? No. Who is, might I ask?

[yardwork]

13. Again, I believe that several of your facts are wrong

I had no doubt that w, if elected or selected, would be a horrible president. A cursory glance at his record as governor of Texas told me that.

[AllyCat]

15. Here are some links to back my statements:

Non-partisan group called Transparency International. Pan down to item IV:

http://www.transparency.org/working_papers/thematic/us_paper.html

About the dam/paddling thing (my mistake, it was in Connectict, not out west):

http://notes.sej.org/sej/sejourna.nsf/0/9d3bad31d4601c5186256f2b000547d4/$FILE/sej_wi00.pdf

And like I said, I had concerns about first amendment freedoms, but these were merely my own, I guess.

I had no doubt that W would be a horrible preisdent. But in my view, Gore had done enough things that made me feel that he was not going to be much help either. In hindsight, he's nowhere near as bad as Bush (nor is anyone!), but from my place in the voting booth in 2000, I did not see a major party candidate that was without ethical problems that had already been proven on a nationwide scale. So I did not vote for either.

Here's what frustrates me yardwork, (and I know you did not make this statement, but many here do) people on all the political sites I frequent love to talk about how great Clinton was/is or how lily-white the Democrats are when we examine the horrifying things the Republicans do. But they aren't without blame. No, I can't say any of the Democrats ethical lapses have endangered thousands of US troops and millions of Iraqis. Nor would I put forth an argument saying our civil liberties would be worse with the Dems, as they certainly would be better than they are now. If Al Gore was POTUS, we would NOT be in Iraq and I am quite certain that 9/11/01 would have been a different day. As horrible as I thought W would be, I never dreamed that he would be responsible for Iraq and INMO, 9/11.

But the Democrats have done their share of unethical things and that is what I didn't want to vote for in 2000 and don't want to vote for in the future. I want a candidate with some actual values to show me that he or she is not going to sell us out to the Big Corp with the most cash and influence. And that is not what I have seen with either party. I don't want the lesser of two evils. I want a Democratic candidate who walks the talk. We all do things wrong, but violating campaign laws to take money from the CHINESE of all people (!) and paddling a canoe for a press conference on environmental issues while opening the dams to provide more water are not noble things I would want in any candidate.

Now that the pendulum's fulcrum is so skewed to the right, anything looks good compared to the current administration. But my concerns are high enough that I won't vote for Hilary Clinton. I won't vote for Joe Biden. I won't vote for anyone in the DLC. In my view, they are switching us over for a different kind of sell-out and that's not the America in which I want to live.

[oasis]

9. "Earth in Balance".

[catzies]

3. Part of your answer is found in the book "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Substitute TN for KS.

[Lars39]

4. Vote fraud and intimidation didn't just happen in FL.

[mcscajun]

5. Tennessee has an interesting history on that...

Here's a list of the last four or five Senators from each 'class', representing Tennessee in the last few decades:

Class 1:
Albert Gore, Sr. 1953-1971 - Democrat
Bill Brock 1971-1977 - Republican
Jim Sasser 1977-1995 - Democrat
Bill Frist 1995-Present - Republican

Class 2:
Howard Baker, Jr. 1967-1985 - Republican
Albert Gore, Jr. 1985-1993 - Democrat
Harlan Matthews 1993-1994 - Democrat
Fred Thompson 1994-2003 - Republican
Lamar Alexander 2003-Present - Republican

[Tsiyu]

7. You have a lot of different demographics in TN

Memphis, Nash Vegas, Chattanooga, Knoxville. Little mountain towns and Air Force suburbs and plain folks in between. Political views are all over the place...

[spanone]

11. ...and there's a shitload of corruption here. Stealing right & left.

They just had a federal sting operation called 'Tennessee Waltz' where they caught legislators on video & audio tape taking bribes.

~snip~ NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Four Tennessee lawmakers, a former senator and two others were indicted Thursday amid a federal investigation into the business dealings of a state senator from Memphis from a powerful political family, officials said. ~snip~

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/26/lawmakers.arrested.ap/