The Outer Limits

Happy Birthday to Linwood (chernocub)!

The presidential debates are on tonight. I don't expect to learn anything new from either candidate, as it seems this debate will be tightly scripted and controlled. In fact, I think that they are just going through the motions here. The podiums are just the right height, the temperature is set, and the message is as exact as Bush can memorize. Once again the candidates are steering clear of the domestic agenda to talk about the war on terror, and Iraq, subjects that Bush has usually been stronger on, throwing in Patriotism and movie-western type quotes.

Is this really what voters want in a debate? What about social Security, jobs and the economy? Doesn't matter, we control the horizontal.

I won't tell you how to vote (heck, I still haven't decided to vote for Kerry or Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, since Texas' electoral votes are going for Bush), but if you haven't registered to vote, you need to do so now. Deadlines are looming, and early voting starts in the next few days in most states. I was happy to see that Richard (dedagda) had registration cards on his counter at Zeus Comics in Dallas, and my alma mater, the University of Houston has a large, student run voter drive going on right now all over Houston. Heck, you can even mail it in in many states if you print off the form from the Federal Election Commission.

I do have one recommendation for you. In senate races, which Texas doesn't have one this year, vote Democratic. The best thing we can do is divide the Congress so no matter who's president, we don't get stupidity like the Federal Marriage Amendment or other christian-right legislation taking the place of more important and necessary legislation.

At work one of our more conservative people said that people who were undecided were stupid. I told him, "No, they are not, their weighing the problem of being presented with two choices and they don't like either of them." I don't think today's debate will change that for anyone.

The House Divided

I'm actually very surprised that the House of Representatives actually failed to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment. The issue failed by about 40 votes that would be needed to give the amendment the 2/3 majority needed to pass. The effort was trying to look like an effort to move this back to the Senate where they failed to even vote on the legislation last July. In reality, it was an effort, whether it failed or not, of Republicans to have another point to bring to voters trying to show that their opponents are against families because they are against "traditional" marriage.

I really thought the Republican majority in the House would get it passed, but perhaps many of the incumbents aren't in such a hurry to pass this purely for political gains. I'm sure several candidates out there are very disappointed that they don't have a stronger pitch. Several candidates who are the targets of this campaigning can now say, look, the other party wasn't solidly behind this too, they knew it was political, and it was mearly a witchhunt for votes.

Still, you can't stop Representative Tom DeLay (yep, he's from Texas, we're so proud), he still says the legislation is needed in fear of "activist judges", and will bring up the issue next year. Next year, after the campaigns are over, after the "outrage" has calmed down, after the issue has disappeared since it was only brought up to be the new Family Values card in this election year. I would hope that after a year where the congress did very little but grandstand, they would actually get to work on something important.

So now the fight goes to the states. It's believed that out of the 11 states that have a version of the marriage amendment on the ballots, 9 are sure locks to pass it. There's other states, like Texas, who may bring it up next year when the legislature meets again. Soon, the fight will be taken to the courts, as it already is in Washington and California, and we do seem to have a win in Massachusetts where the new speaker of the house doesn't plan to bring the proposed amendment up for a vote next year, killing the measure and continuing the current, legal same-sex marriages in the state.

I won't claim total victory, we have a long way to go, and several more hurdles, but it's starting to look more inevitable than not that in the next 20 years marriage will be for all.

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Otherwise, yep, watching the debate which is boooooring. I know there's not much you can do to make it interesting. Kerry is dull, and sometimes a little confusing, but he's at least looking polished, and able to handle many different ideas. The president tends to give very simple, memorized answers, and sounds like a broken record. He seems to skip a few beats trying to remember one answer, or move to another. Occasionally he started on his answer, that was memorized and had little to do with the question.

Still, for many who were looking for that conviction, that steadfastness, Bush is giving that. He's stubborn, and his pat answers are just that. Of course he looked like he ran out of material. Sometimes giving out too many ideas lose people. I'd say Kerry won the full debate, but Bush talks in better soundbites, and for those who didn't watch, just checked the aftermath on the TV news, you might think it was much closer.

What won't be seen on the news is the scowl that Bush seemed to have at everything Kerry said. Kerry took a lot of notes, looking like he was thinking, which is good body language.

Theresa Heinz-Kerry and Laura Bush are wearing the same color - heh.

I wonder if any undecided voters really got anything from this. Will they vote at all? Maybe when we deal with more personal issues. Security is a big issue, but it's sort of big and doesn't affect people personally on the international scale. Dealing with airport security, and ongoing terror alerts and the Patriot Act is really bringing home the issue to the people. The only personal thing was the troops, and even that wasn't talked about in a manner that connected with people.

OK, so Kerry wins, buy a smidgen. Enough with this stuff. I'm off to the store to buy some milk!