It's true, George W. Bush is the front-runner in the Presidential campaign. He's raised the most money ever, $36 Million. Why?
There are innumerous reasons not to vote for him. I will attempt to categorize them here.
- Lack of Experience
Bush has very little political experience, especially compared to the other people running for office. He has served as Governor of Texas since 1995. And that's it. Other candidates, such as Democrat Al Gore and Republican John McCain each have a ton of Senate experience. As Governor, he did little. I lived in Texas when he won, and I've looked at his various websites. He signed a handful of some random bills, that's about it. He basically got elected because he was the President's son. His military experience was as " an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973," as his National Governors Association website says. Basically, he joined the National Guard during the height of the Vietnam War to avoid service in the war. He failed numerous business ventures, being bailed out by his father and his various campaign contributors. His one succesful venture was buying the Texas Rangers baseball team with lots of his dad's money, building a new stadium with the taxpayer's money, and then selling the team for big bucks. So basically he used the taxpayers to make money for himself.
- Lack of Opinions
So far, Bush has very few opinions on much
of anything. From the very little I've gleaned from the tv news and
the newspaper, he is against abortion, though how strongly, I don't know.
I have been watching the news and reading, so it's not like I could have
missed it. He is a "compassionate Conservative." What this
means, no one knows. I watched "Politically Incorrect" the other
day and Bill Maher was talking about his views. So far, Bush stands
for 1) no taxes on internet transactions, and 2) ethanol subsidies.
Maher mentioned that both of these happened to be linked to certain companies
that might support Bush with funds. Hmm. Bush did make a stand on one issue, however : abortion. After being soundly defeated by Mr. McCain in New Hampshire, Bush began to speak out against abortion in South Carolina, a generally conservative state strongly against abortion. Bush used all the rhetoric of typical anti-abortionists, talking about rights of infants and other such things, and caused quite a stir thanks to a speech at Bob Jones University, a conservative religious school where inter-racial dating is banned. After his victory in South Carolina and Super Tuesday, Bush played down the abortion issue, and it has since been scarce on the campaign trail. It seems odd that Bush frequently speaks against abortion in a place against it, but then does not speak about it elsewhere. This information is from a non-partisan biography aired during CBS's coverage of the Republican Convention.
- Lack of Intelligence
For lack of a better term, this is very true for our Mr. Bush. Bush has made a fool of himself numerous times, mainly having to do with geography. He called the people from Kosovo "Kosovians." If you have even looked at a tv in the past year, you would know that they are in fact called Kosovars. He mixed up Slovakia and Slovenia. Sure, they are small countries, but one was part of the former Yugoslavia and the other was not. This is an important distinction. He also mixed up East Timor, a region of Indonesia fighting for independence, where some of the latest Nobel Peace Prize winners have come from. And, he called people from Greece not Greeks, but "Grecians". This can probably be attributed to his use of Grecian Formula, the hair tonic that "blends away grey, naturally." It seems he may not be the right man to criticize Bill Clinton's foreign policy. At least Clinton gets the countries right.
So that's what I think. What are
your opinions?
write
me.