Granted, this is a non-scientific poll. Granted these are AOL users. But 535-3?…
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AOL Straw Poll: Bush 535, Kerry 3 - Comments Page 3
Granted, this is a non-scientific poll. Granted these are AOL users. But 535-3?…
Article comments
76 - harry carter
Sorry, my comment should have been directed to RJ not Sondra. Sorry, dear.
77 - the gaulieter
you get it evil....you'll be asked to be on the board when the dust settles....hal, rj, and mac, keep your head down and keep banging away at the keyboard. if you look up now, the anvil will look like a bird or some othrt small spec in the sky. it won't hurt as much if you don't see it when it hits....ask wile e. ....he'll tell ya
78 - JimB
Okay, here's my take on this AOL straw poll. Liberals.. you should be afraid. very afraid. AOL is extremely representative of middle America likely voters. In many polls I've seen on conservative/lib leanings, AOL is fairly balanced in subscribers..maybe leans a little right. But 300,000 votes is 300,000 votes. I have been watching this straw for several months and it has gradually moved more and more to Bush. It is reset on the first of the month and you are limited to one vote per screename per month (unless you dump your cookies of course.. but dems are as likely to do that as convers. ) I don't think it's as strong Bush as this straw suggests, but along with all else I've seen including a raw numbers on MSNBC of over 500,000, Bush is going to win by someone between 56-59% and probably at least 40 states. That's what it is folks. My suggestion to liberal friends would be to deal with it.. and contact Hillary who has already formed her 08 committee. By the way.. you havent seen Hillary stumping for Kerry lately have you? Hmmmm. And it seems like everytime we see lady Hillary on TV, she's smiling. A lot. I think she is very happy with the way things are going..how bout you?
79 - RJ
"I choose to believe that a cross section of Americans using AOL participating in their straw poll IS more scientific and more believable than a pollster calling 900 people from New England and asking them whom they would vote for for President."
Scientific polls are not run that way. Look into it.
"Besides, Sondra, a poll of 100 million would be called an "election" would it not?"
Not if the only people polled were Democrats. (Or Republicans.)
Scientific polls are carefully calculated to include a realistic cross-section of the electorate. They are imperfect, but vastly more credible than anything AOL puts up for the teens to play around with...
80 - RJ
"Bush is going to win by someone between 56-59% and probably at least 40 states."
Care to bet on that?
I can name 11 states right now that Kerry will win for certain, keeping Bush under 40:
New York
Massachusetts
Vermont
Rhode Island
Illinois
Hawaii
Maryland
CT
Delaware
Michigan
Washington state
(and DC too)
Now, I think Bush will win the election. But it won't be a Reaganesque victory, by any stretch of the imagination.
81 - j
the aol poll is absolutely unscientific, but that doesn't mean that it's some evil conspiracy. it is what it is -- a straw poll. it's reset every month and it only allows you to vote once per cycle.
prior to the republican convention, john kerry was way ahead, and no one was questioning the acuracy of the poll or the intelligence of the participants. all of a sudden, the radical left doesn't like the results of the poll, so they throw a tandrum by attacking the poll itself and insulting the participants.
truly pathetic, but entirely predictable.
82 - harry carter
Bottom line is that this poll showed that the great majority of people voting favored the President. Period. Scientific or not; Bush wins, big time. Personally, as a two tour (full tours...no four month bullshit) Vietnam veteran, I would not vote for Kerry for dogcatcher.
83 - Hal Pawluk
No, the "bottom line is that this poll showed that the great majority of the people" taking this particular poll, with all its warts, said they would vote for Bush.
And how about Bush? Would you vote for him for dogcatcher? You might get a lot of agreement.
84 - harry carter
Bitter! Bitter! Bitter! Can't stand the truth, can you? I sure hope Santa brings you some positive energy.
85 - Molly
I'm kind of late posting on this issue. I had just done a search on AOL's straw poll and I can't believe so many people are covering and fretting over the AOL straw poll as a source of voter intent. I could vote all day on AOL with my COOKIEWALL that blocks their voting cookie. Every time I check the straw poll, I get the opportunity to vote. If I can do it, I imagine THOUSANDS on AOL do it. Let's HOPE TO GOD the REAL voting machines don't work like AOL's Straw Poll.
86 - Catrina
Aol has rigged the poll so you can't vote if you are going to vote for Kerry. I have emailed them about this to no avail. I have tried to vote for Kerry several times and the system won't let me.
87 - BOBL811
This poll was one of the most pathetic polls I've ever participated in. Yes, you could vote once a month & expect your vote to be counted. In the beginning, you could keep track of the total number of participants & watch the numbers change. After the RNC Convention, things changed rapidly. Votes cast for Kerry were NOT added to the total in my particular state. Also keep in mind, ANYONE with multipal screen names & family members with the same, were able to vote more then once a month. Also, when a new political news story was posted on AOL, somewhere within the story was a link to go to the straw poll map & you could again cast another vote during the same month! Showing the ENTIRE map in red is absurd! Especially since Bush's numbers have been declining. The REAL national poll numbers show Bush & Kerry in a virtual tie which should be proof even to the mentally challanged, that the AOL straw poll map is nothing more then BS. Ah, the age of computers! If you expect your vote to count in November, the ONLY way to be certain, is to vote on PAPER via ABSENTEE BALLOT! BOYCOTT ALL TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES!!!!!
88 - bomar
How can a patriotic American vote for Kerry after what he did to our troops still in the field and prisoners of war?? Even Lib/dems, if they were candid would agree that anti war marches,speeches etc aid and abet and support the enemy's will to go on. After the war a North vietnam General said in an interview that if it were'nt for the Fondas, Vets Against (Kerry) etc they would have lost the war. Then the question is when would North Vietnam have conceded, called for a cease fire etc? Six months before the end? A year? Two years? Who knows how much sooner. But whatever the period those troops that were killed and maimed then were the direct result of the Kerry/Fondas of this country! Lenin once called them USEFUL IDIOTS. our prisoners did not confess or admit to the things in Kerry's speech and they were subjected to his speech over and over again. KERRY HOLDS A PLACE OF HONOR IN THE NORTH VIETNAM WAR MUSEUM IN HANOI!! What a disgrace. And he might be elected Pres. of the United States of America. I pray that the AOL poll is correct.
89 - Rodney Welch
Kerry told the truth about Vietnam -- which would have been lost in any event because American involvement was a bad idea, as was Iraq. What I don't understand is how anyone can vote for Bush, who as President blundered into war, and has consistently lied or misled his own people about it ever since -- and who now finds himself very much in the same position as Lyndon Johnson 40 years ago: telling the public we're winning when the facts on the ground tell a different story altogether. Does anyone really believe that a free Iraq is possible? Why? Enlighten me. From what I hear the people over there are waxing nostalgic for the good old days of Saddam Hussein, when you could at least walk down the street without getting your head blown off -- and they're all way too bloody scared to vote in these forthcoming free elections. Daddy Bush was right after all: "No exit strategy."
90 - Jeremy Chrysler
Rodney, I am hopeful regarding a free Iraq, and so are a lot of Iraqis.
I submit for you this post from a native Iraqi, blogging from Iraq:
91 - Rodney Welch
Jeremy,
A most interesting letter. However, I must say I find the following one, which you may have already read, far more persuasive. It was penned by Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter, and privately e-mailed to friends. It was not intended for public dissemination, but -- this being the Internet -- that's what it became:
"Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.
"Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.
"It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when
Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began
spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.
"Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
"What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.
"Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
"A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.
"For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.
"The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
"I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.
"America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard
units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.
"As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that
almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18
billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.
"Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage
and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
"Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
"I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.
"Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."
"One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
"The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months
while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the
government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.
"I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in
the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree
elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"
-Farnaz
92 - Hal Pawluk
You beat me to it, Rodney, but I doubt many on the Right will even read the letter, much less think about the content - it doesn't agree with the "all the good things happening there" pitch we keep hearing from the administration.
And that's too bad.
93 - Rodney Welch
Hal,
Yep -- like I said earlier, just like LBJ, and I'll bet Bush's behind-the-scenes talks with Cheney and Rumsfield are like LBJ's with McNamara and Rusk -- a lot of worn-out old men seeing a country in free-fall, mopping their brows and wondering what in the hell they're going to do. Watching the news about Iraq is like watching a high-impact car crash you are powerless to stop.
94 - Hal Pawluk
So will Bush withdraw from the race like LBJ did? Nah, too much to hope for.
(I remember seeing the LBJ announcement on a marquee alongside the freeway as I was driving to work on the morning of April 1, 1968 and thinking it was an April Fool's Day joke.)
95 - Sandra
It was hard to find, but here is the new location of AOL’s straw poll. Only about 500 people have voted so far.
http://electionguide04.com/straw_poll_october.adp
96 - Sherry
Does anyone know the address to go to where one can vote (NOT JUST SEE THE RESULTS)in AOL's straw poll for president? Everytime I go to the link I have, it justs shows all the results so far. I've not been able to locate a link where a person can actually place their vote. I, myself already voted but my husband would like to be able to vote under his own name. Thanx
97 - harry carter
Log in on AOL and paste in the address located in Sandra's post and it will take you to the voting screen. Your husband will have to log in on his name since you have already voted under your name.
98 - Sherry
Thank you but that does not work. That addy still just takes me to the page where you see the results--the page with the states being either red or blue. 525 people have voted so far it shows. Maybe they have changed it so only one vote will be taken from a computer even though there may be two people with 2 different screen names on aol such as in my case. I don't understanhd why they are hiding this straw pol other than it always shows Bush way ahead of Kerry and AOL owners are clearly for Kerry.
99 - Sherry
Please disregard the above post. Apparently my husband must have already voted this month very early and mixed up his memory of it as he voted very late in the September poll. I just went on with 2 other screen names and it did let me vote. So all you people who think the poll is fixed in Bush's favor....take note- my family just placed 2 more votes for Bush (NY state) and the total never went up at all from the original 17 he had before they voted!!!!!
100 - Jeremy
I did read that letter Rodney and Hal. It's pretty convicting, but it is only the opinion of one person, and a lot of postings on the BBC arabic board seem to disagree with his assessment that "They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler."
I've seen a number of opinions to counter that. For example, at this BBC story, one finds interviews with 6 women who are at worst equivocal about their situation in Iraq.
Says UM Samir:
I'm not saying it's great in Iraq, far from it, but, all things considered, I don't think it's the unmitigated, train-wreck writeoff that is characterized above.
You might check out Arthur Chrenkoff's updated good news from Iraq series...
101 - Hal Pawluk
Well, check the news videos form Iraq.
Now look out your window and imagine that three of the five houses across the treet are rubble from the bombs of those who invaded your country.
Think back to the ambulances and funerals that you've seen again and again over the last 18 months, and the people you'll never see again, many of them your (former) relatives.
Then go out to your front porch and tell me you'd stand there and shout: "Thank you, thank you, thank you, you foreign invaders! I love you for what you have given us!"
That's the way it is for many in Iraq.
102 - don
Is this life supposed to be utopia or heaven? Maybe "all men are born to suffer" is right. I know that sounds callous but does anyone really care about my pain? (Not that I expect them to) I'm somewhat undecided and this will be my first time voting and both sides treat the other like they are trying to be wrong when I think it is mostly perceptions, but what do I know I'm just an AOL user.
103 - Shelly
Imagine instead a dictator dragging your neighbors, or worse yet you and your family to be tortured and killed. Sometimes you have to do a lot of messing up to clean up. Iraq needed cleaning.
104 - Cris
I believe the President is going to be reelected but not with 535 electoral votes. Perhaps by 300+ EV. Now that the election is getting closer, Kerry is getting desperate. He says ANYTHING, he does ANYTHNG to discredit the President. I think Mr. Kerry is a little bit 45 States late. GO BUSH!
105 - Hal Pawluk
I believe that Kerry is going to win with a 6% margin in the popular vote.
So?
106 - curt
aol??? what!? oops, sorry...i misread the title. i thought it said awol, and i knew bush led kerry in that category, 1-0.
107 - Cris
Noticed the similarities between the comments made by Bin Laden and the Democrats about President Bush's first reaction to the 9/11 attacks, when the President was in the classroom with the children? OBL and the Democrats seemingly think alike. Do they communicate with each other?