Horseshit. The key is to get people registered to vote. I am pretty sure no one is holding a gun to their head and making them decide, not to mention the fact that the RNC has similar programs in place to get people to register while also pumingp them full of their own agenda.

Registering is the first step, the rest is free will baby!

I am unaware of any pro-administration campaign that bribes eligible voters to register.

What claptrap (feel free to abbreviated that as "crap").

While there is a clear social agenda, the target audience is asked only to register to vote.

And they are factually right on education and the environment - the current adminstration is screwing both up.

In fact, the smug assumption that "once we have told you all the facts, you will doubtless see it our way, young person (want more free music?)," is the antithesis of democracy.

I don't know about that, but it is certainly wildly optimistic to assume that facts will change anybody's mind.

of course Hal, since they agree with you they are factually correct, and it is therefore perfectly okay to bribe potential voters with free music

No, Eric, facts only disagree with those who refuse to face the truth.

But maybe they did get their facts wrong. Can you show me evidence that any of their following statements are wrong? If they are, I'd really like to know as I hate misinformation.

This administration's budget contains $9.4 billion less than the $34 billion needed by the states to comply with NCLB. A recent report prepared by the House Appropriations Committee predicts further underfunding in future budgets - $1.9 billion in 2006 increasing to $4.6 billion by FY2009. These cuts will result in drastic cuts in services, including support services for teachers.

NRDC reports," compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides."

...and if Bush wins, steals, or subverts the election, you get a free copy of a song by The Sex Pistols...

"NO FUTURE!"

BTW: In honor of our current political system, Shark will be selling his presidential vote on EBAY... to the HIGHEST BIDDER, of course.

xxoo-
All-American,
Shark

Bush usually buys votes with promises of tax cuts, but that strategy may have reached a point of diminishing returns.

the point of this post is not 1) support or disapproval of any given candidate or agenda, 2) the platform of any given candidate, party, or agenda, but that it is at best disingenuous to predicate a get out the vote campaign on bribing potential voters to register with free goods, and then, while preaching the importance of voting in general and decrying the relative poor voter turnout of young people, telling them that it isn't REALLY voting in general, participating in the civic process, and expressing your opinion that is important, but voting specifically the way that particular organization wants you to vote is what's REALLY important.

I would have no problem with any of it if they left off the propaganda and just bribed people to register

Every 4 years some group of 30-somethings has a flash of insight and figures out that the way to stick-it-to-the man and save the country from the evil Republicans is to get the 20-somethings to vote. So they make voter-registration as easy as possilbe, offer up some kind of bribe, or even worse, use shame and fear to inspire the younguns. And, every 4 years they lament the fact that those "stupid kids" screwed things up and didn't vote.

Oh, I almost forgot, and every 4 years they spew a bunch of lies, that do not bear up to scrutiny. Especially now that we have the Internet and Google.

By the way, more people are covered by health insurance now than ever before, the unemployment rate is the same now as it was in 1996, and the NRDC is comprised of a bunch of lawyers who get fat off of their lawsuits and make more in a few years than most of us will in a lifetime. They have a vested interest in skewing the truth and misrepresenting the facts.

thanks Remy, balance is a fine thing - again, I don't much care what the agenda is, I object to the patronizing attitude that young people will be inevitably drawn to a given political view because they are young and like free music. It's a bribe and a dishonest bribe at that

"...By the way, more people are covered by health insurance now than ever before..."

...with some 40 to 45,000,000 without.

You're welcome.

Your "by the way," Remy, is misleading and disingenuous.

There are more covered by health care only because the population has grown: the number of those not covered by health care has grown even faster under this administration, and it is growing worse as more companies stop offering health care plans because of the high costs.

Similarly for the unemployment percentage. Looking at percentages masks the reality, so let's look at the real numbers from the BLS.

When Bush took over his job, the non-farm employment number was 132 million. From there things went downhill, bottoming out at just under 130 million mid-2003. Last month's preliminary figure shows 131 million available jobs, so while we're in the hole things aren't as bad as they were.

However, there's more.

What this data overlooks is the growth of the labor force over this time. We see the effect of that in the unemployment numbers.

When Bush took the reins , there were 5,692,000 unemployed. Last year, the figure was 8,774,000. Things have improved a bit since then, and last month there were 8,000,000.

In addition to that, 1,500,000 workers were counted as "marginally attached" - they had no jobs but had not looked in the previous four weeks. And on top of that, the BLS tells us that there are another 5 million who are unemployed and want jobs but are not counted in the labor force or the unemployment numbers.

That adds up 14.5 million wanting work, and a real unemployment rate of about 10%.

Remy's first paragraph doesn't make sense either. Every four years the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote.