I guess this is Kerry being Presidential

[Eloriel]

https://contribute.johnkerry.com/index.html?team=4

Shaking my head in disbelief.

You know, I was going to lay off Kerry a bit -- certainly not start any threads on him (and in fact, I've only started a few, weeks and months ago). But this is just SCREAMING for more publicity.

Eloriel

[meegbear]

1. What's the problem?

Please advise?

[KoKo]

48. My prolem is with the language of the ad.....what does it mean? Quote:

what does "investing in people&mdash" mean. And, what does "truck hauling W" mean. When has he hauled trucks. This ad makes no sense. Who in the world wrote it? :shrug:

Quote from Contribution Ad:

"With your help we can send W back to Crawford for good. We need a
President who will get this economy back on track by creating jobs
and investing in people— with your help John Kerry will be that
President. With your contributions, the truck hauling W will get closer
and closer to Crawford."

[ButterflyBlood]

2. I think it's funny

and quite similar to something you'd see on a site like Bartcop.

[helleborient]

18. But are they running for President?

Seriously...Al Franken says things that aren't very presidential...and I wouldn't want him as President, because I like him in his chosen field, comedian.

Is Kerry wanting to be Comedian-in-Chief?

[VermontDem2004]

3. WTF? Can he at least come up with a better animation than this?

[kwolf68]

7. Then go help him

If he can't get it done, then he won't get nominated. If you think this is lame then he will fall out the race and Dean will win, right?

It appears the "they are attacking him because they are afraid of him" mantra you Deaners keep saying may be more applicable than you know.

[VermontDem2004]

11. He could of had the people at Ebolaworld help him

http://www.ebolaworld.com/mainpage02.html Click on the George Bush head and watch masterpiece animation at it's best. Listen, I just thought it was a strange as hell animation, I am not basing my support on Dean because of this animation.

[_NorCal_D_]

9. LOL

Yes, it is crude, but effective!

[kwolf68]

4. What the hell is your problem?

Its a silly flash cartoon big deal? Shaking your head in disbelief?

If Kerry were to cure cancer you'd probably figure out a way to "shake your head in disbelief."

He isn't as smooth as Deano who wants you to sign a petition on his website before hitting you up for money. Big freakign deal.

Another waste of bandwidth brought to you by the "Dean for America 2004 malcontents and the need to lambast John Kerry at every turn committee "

[meegbear]

8. If they can bitch-slap another candidate ...

the deanpers do.

[kwolf68]

13. Really

These people are freaking nuts.

They are VERY MUCH like Conservatives…Spending countless amounts of bandwidth bashing Kerry and giving us very little detail on WHY Howard Dean is the better man for the job.

The debate sucks. SOME of the Dean people are an embarrassment.

Maybe this is why the Dem Party is junk…We eat our own.

[_NorCal_D_]

5. Am I missing something?

What's wrong with asking for contributions?


The Flash movie is pretty funny too!

[Jacobin]

6. Mr. KindaInFavorOfTheWar

I'm an avowed Dean supporter. His anti-invasion stance will stand him well in the coming months, I believe. Made sense (although it wasn't popular) then and makes even more sense now.

Kerry's support of the invasion burned me up. I even got one of his cheesy form emails about why we MUST invade Iraq back when I wrote him and asked him not to vote for Smirk's Great Adventure. Fork him.

[kwolf68]

10. Another great agrument

How many threads does this need to be on?

The word is out...You Dean freaks don't like Kerry. We get it...Now leave those of us who DO like Kerry the hell alone.

[Capn Sunshine]

17. Well, I Like Kerry

but I'm working for Dean. Does that make me a freak?

Or just a realist?

:nuke:

[Jacobin]

19. Gee, I didn't mean to wander into a Kerry Love Fest

So, how's the weather in Baghdad?

Are you enlisting soon to help in Kerry's PNAC plans?

Keep us posted!! :-)

[kwolf68]

36. Fair enough

You ready to defend Dean's record (whatever of that we can get?)

You guys have been spinning Deans environmental record, his gun and death penalty record...and even his "anti-war" record pales in comparison to Kucinich.

If the war vote is your big issue then get behind Kucinich.

[welshTerrier2]

31. kerry deserves to be "bashed" on Iraq

i agreed with your first post ... i saw nothing wrong with Kerry's "cute little cartoon" ...

and i see nothing wrong with appealing to democrats and other progressives who have justified disdain for bush ...

but, this last post misses the point completely ...

and before you go slinging labels around, i'm not a Dean supporter ...

Kerry deserves plenty of bashing for the wrongs he helped cause in Iraq ... and it needs to be said until he either loses the nomination or withdraws from the race ... as long as he is still campaigning, this issue is fair game ... after all, he is still continuing to defend his vote on the Iraq resolution ... so why don't we have a right to continue to highlight how wrong it was ...

Kerry voted to "trust" Bush with the full weight of Congressional approval ... he was impressed by Powell's presentation to the U.N. and he said so ... is this the type of judgment we on the left should trust ??? mr. kerry will never again receive my vote ...

[kwolf68]

38. And Dean deserves to be bashed

On gun control, death penalty and according to some the environment. When we find out what Dean advocated as Gov of Vermont then YOU FOLKS may have some ''esplaining to do as well.

In the meantime enjoy "bashing" Kerry. FTR-I thought voting for the pre-auth for war was a disaster. It bothers me and to some degree I'm looking past that for so much of the other great things Kerry has done.

[welshTerrier2]

45. YOU FOLKS ??

then YOU FOLKS may have some ''esplaining to do as well.

as i said, i am NOT a Dean supporter ... why did you include me in your "YOU FOLKS" generalizations ??? the concern i have is that DU is becoming a nah-nah-nah-nah-nah my candidate is better than yours ...

if the truth be told, i'm not totally on board with any of the candidates yet ... and i never will be with any of those who could not see through bush's madness on Iraq ...

[Nicholas_J]

58. Dean is simply the has the most ideological economic policy

Of all of the candodates.

His fiscal conservatism is merely political code for corporate whore.

Thats the deal behind Deans Health care plan, and why he doe not want to make significant changes to the Health Care industry.

Deans economic ideas are the kind that favor a small number of individuals, at the expense of the greater good.

The most striking example of this was his supposed health care initiaitive in Vermont which was designed to use what non-ideologue economists call political mathematics. Dean never designed, or called for a design of a structured health care system in Vermont in order to cover as many people as possible. Essentially, he used federal medicaid exemptions to take what was supposed to be unspent funds from federal money provided for areas outside of health care, such as building roads and such. Dean underfunded these projects, and then used the exemptions to move the fund into the medicaid program. But Deand had the medicaid program set up to get small copayments from a lot of people for a a lot of differnt medical services, at the same time, Dena kept on reducing the rate at which doctors and hospirals were reinmbursed. Doctors and hospirals were bearely paid enough to provide the services, and patients had various small copayments for various services....

Here is where the political calculus comes in, as with programs like medicare and medicaid, a third party comes in. Since the Government is not set up for handling things like medical insurance claims, this service is contracted out to the private sector, invariably, one of the large Health Care providers, like Blue Cross. Here is the political calculus. A large number of relatively poor people are charged a few dollars for a doctors visit, the hospital is paid a very small sum for the diagnostic services it performs. all medical sewvice providers are paid a very small sum, compared to what they woiuld recieve from private insurance given by an employer.

The company hired to do the administrative wirk decides what services and charges are acceptable, and pay those who provided the medical services a small amount for allowable charges, and disallow others and so on. The company administereing the claims makes payments to doctors, and hospitals and so on, and telles the patient what they can expect to be billed for their share, and then this corporation doing the administrative work, gets the lions share of the state fubnds allocated to health care for their administrative services.

By 2002, A bipartisan commission mandated by Dean, comprised of people appointed by him found that the health care system was in complete chaos, and more money was going into the health system than all other government services put together, yet there had not been a significant increase in the number of people who had health insurance.
Large sums of money were being spent on those administrative services utilized to manage the insurance claims:


Governor's Bipartisan Commission

On Health Care Availability & Affordability

Final Report

I. Authority, Scope

A. On January 24, 2001, Governor Howard Dean issued an executive order establishing a Special Governor's Bipartisan Commission on Health Care Availability and Affordability...

B. Based on what we have learned, we do agree on this: Health care in Vermont is near a state of crisis -- some of us would say it is already in crisis -- and all health care sectors are on edge. We also note that many of these problems are national or even global in scope and that our abilities to solve them at the state level are limited.

C. Health care costs in Vermont, now exceeding $2 billion a year, are of a sufficient magnitude, however, and are increasing at a sufficient rate to place state government itself in jeopardy, including every program for which it appropriates money. By comparison, Vermonters budgeted $1.8 billion for all state government services in FY 2001 (not including federal funds).



We are rapidly approaching the point at which these costs will directly conflict with our ability to do such things as to maintain roads and bridges, for example, or to provide cost-effective services to our infants and children, to promote agriculture and tourism, or to provide any other services our citizens have come to expect.

D. We do not have a health care system in Vermont.4 That means:

1. No one is in control.

2. No one is responsible for ensuring that high-quality medical care is adequate for the needs of the public.

3. No one ensures that medical charges are appropriate or that they are paid in full.5

4. There is a "disconnect" between the consumer receiving health care and the entity paying the bill. Consumers are shielded from the cost of the service.

5. There is no global budgeting or targeted growth planning for health care in Vermont.

6. There is little in the way of public accountability for the performance of health care institutions, or for their long-term planning.

7. Although administrative costs, including those associated with government paperwork burdens, have reached an unacceptable level, no one has been able to do anything about it.

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:aC9QzqwOEmkJ:www.state.vt.us/health/commission/docs/report/mainreport.doc+%22Howard+Dean%22+%22Incentive+Plan+for+Medicaid%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

It is one of the most amaizing cases I have ever seen of special interests being given great preference over the common good.

Disguising it as a program designed to assist the poor was rather audacious. The claims of services provided almost outrageous.

It was sort of like taking ten dollars from 25 million people in order to start a program that gave 1000 dollars to 100 thousand people. No matter what, you still end up 150 million dollars in the red. It is simple math.

The beauty of schemes like this is that there is no big public outrage about taking such small sums from individuals even though the sums involved are enormous, and no one but the doctors complain about the pittance they received for their services but the doctors, and as the latest arguments that doctors are making about how blood sucking trial attorneys are sending thm to the poor house fall on deaf ears. No one will listen to doctors poormouthing themselves.

So the real winners are the insurance companies that administer claims, deny treatment, charge individuals an extra dollar here or there, cut doctors and hospitals reimbursements by ten dollars here and there, and the health insurance companies keep what remains as a stipulated by the contract with the states.

This is why Dean is so vehemently opposed to single payer plans, why his universal health plan relies almost totally on the private sector, and why he wants each state to handle universal health, exactly the same way, by contracting with a large health insurer to manage the claims, and decide which charges are allowed, disallowed, and how how much is reimbursed to doctors, and howe much patients pick up afterwards.


Interesting, and completely in line with the practice of the politics of supporting speacial interest groups. Relatively small sums of money are diverted from a very large group of people, in order to turn the total of these small sums to a very small group as very large sums...

[w13rd0]

44. Not true...

...although it might be said that many of the "Dean freaks" (your words) don't like many of the "Kerry freaks" (my words), many Dean supporters would enthusiastically support Kerry if he were the nominee, or any candidate were they the nominee. Take your broadbrush and <deleted>...

[deutsey]

50. I support Dean; will vote for Kerry if he's nominated

I just don't get what the problem is here.

[GalleryGod]

15. Indeed, we get it....you loathe and fear Kerry,,,we get it!

Now...buh-BYE:donut:

[Jacobin]

24. Why are you an Iraq invasion supporter?

Do you still think we will find WMD and that Saddam was 45 minutes from blitzing us?

Gotta link on that hot threat we have to defend against? :-)

[GalleryGod]

12. I think it's FUNNY! Here's one from about 51 yards out!

:kick:

BTW-I do save my "shaking my head in disbeliefs" for when I'm grading COLLEGE STUDENTS blue books:puffpiece:

[sandnsea]

14. I'm so glad Deaniacs don't bash

Whew, I thought it was just my imagination.

[molly]

16. OK - the gloves are off - you people

are going to be truly sorry you started this negative crap!

Helllloooooo - the ISSUES are what's important not these childish bullish posts concerning a sandwhich, a joke, and now a website for contributions - get a f'n life!

[Capn Sunshine]

20. I just want to add one thing

a recent survey amongst Dean supporters asked "if your man doesn't get it , who would you back? 62% said Kerry.

So don't be so touchy. We can all get along.

[_NorCal_D_]

25. I agree

we should all bash Bush instead!

[VermontDem2004]

22. I can't believe all the Kerry supporters are getting hypersensitive

To me it was funny because it was a strange as hell animation, if Dean done something like this I would laugh. If Bush made a 5th rate animation like this about Democrats you wanna bet we would all laugh at it. http://www.ebolaworld.com/mainpage02.html click on the Bush head to watch masterpiece animations.

[GalleryGod]

26. Molly,Dear! It's FRI-day in Blackout Free Delaware!

:toast: Let's CHILL!:toast:

Round-up Lynne & Ramsey!B-)

[vi5]

21. This is the 3rd Kerry bashing thread in the past few hours.....

Considering that yesterday there was a thread devoted to how many unprovoked attacks on Dean there were, even though most of the posts I read that elicited the outraged responses seemed to this undecided voter pretty innocuous. It seems like there's more than a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Jacobin]

27. Maybe he should have voted his convictions on the invasion

rather than trying to win a popularity contest.

If he had, I would be supporting Kerry. :-)

[VermontDem2004]

30. How is this a Kerry bashing thread?

It was a strange as hell animation and we were just laughing at it, I think it was supposed to be meaningless and harmless, you all are getting way to hypersensitive about this. http://www.ebolaworld.com/mainpage02.html click on the Bush head to watch animations.

[vi5]

33. Oh, come on....it is a much as the post

From someone who got a Dean fundraising letter and wondered how they got on his mailing list that brought about at least 20 angry responses from Dean supporters.

Again, I have no favorite candidate in this race and am supporting whoever wins the nomination. And in many ways I hope it is Dean.

But the whining, petty sniping, and hypocricy I'm seeing on this board all around just makes me shake my head and wonder how in the hell we'll even come close to winning in '04.

[VermontDem2004]

34. I see it from all camps, not just the Dean camp

but I had a good laugh at the animation because it was strange and that was about it.

[WilliamPitt]

23. For the luvva god

I don't see the problem here. There are plenty of things to kick Kerry over. This is...nonsense.

[GalleryGod]

32. Sir Pitt! Somebody get a Ref's Shirt & Whistle!?

HOLD-ing! number 66 on the Dean line!:bounce:
15 yards from the site of the foul!

FIRSSSSST down!
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[onehandle]

35. Ya Think?! nt

nt

[Eloriel]

54. You know, Will

This thread has been an amazing read.

I'll tell you this about the "animation." If someone here in the State of Georgia running for just some rinky-dink state office had an animation like this on his or her website, I'd frankly be embarrassed as hell.

That Kerry supporters can't see what cheesy poor taste it is reveals a lot to me.

What's even funner, IMO, is all the charges of Kerry bashing, even while they rush to defend this abominable animation as nothing at all. So which is it, they're embarrassed for Kerry too, or it's nothing and therefore not a Kerry-bashing thread? My OWN comments in my opening thread were pretty tame, merely expressing distaste and disbelief.

The thread certainly didn't take the direction I thought it might, but it's sure as hell been instructive.

Eloriel

[molly]

55. Then why did you post it?

[MiltonLeBerle]

28. Is he saying that as President he'll keep the Bush Tax Theft in place?

Because that's what it seems to say.

[_NorCal_D_]

39. Really?

I don't see that connection.

:shrug:

[DagmarK]

41. It's a poor connection.......grossly drawn......

but it's there.

The animation says, "At least you got your tax cuts!" thinly implying that Kerry will let them keep their tax cuts.

It's a reach to determine that as part of Kerry's platform. But has Kerry said he would rollback those taxcuts????

[tjdee]

49. Uh...what?????

The elephants are supposed to be Republicans. The "at least you got your tax cuts!" is supposed to be what Georgie says to them when he is dropped on his butt in Crawford--he says that to them because they are all crying (sad he lost the election).

The cartoon was done by a highschool student Kerry volunteer.

Geez.

[poskonig]

29. Oh no! Kerry is going down in flames!

As if a single corny fundraising ad is going to sink him.

Personally, I'm more annoyed with Kerry ripping on Gore, but that is another matter.

[DagmarK]

37. Wow.......**shaking my head in disbelief**

You can see Kerry saying..."we have to find a way to connect to those people.....those regular americans out there. That seems to be Dean's strategy.."

Problem is: DEAN is a regular guy! He's just being himself. And putting himself out there and lo and behold......the people are pleased.

Kerry, OTH, is being forced to commiserate with the earthlings...... which is hard to do when you are of a different galaxy.....Like George the 1st oogling at the grocery store scanner!

Anyways.....KEEP up the good work Kerry! This Dean supporter is grateful that you have no earthly idea what a regular american is and can't even pretend to be one of "us."

[flpoljunkie]

40. Cartoon was created by high school student, a Kerry campaign volunteer

And it gets the job done; it is hokey, but effective.

Thanks for calling attention to it. It seems that contributions have increased since you posted.

[newsguyatl]

43. well good

because he certainly needs all the support he can get...

the way his campaign has been going in the last few months, he's gonna be left in the dirt if he doesn't pick up some steam...


so i'm glad eloriel helped your man out... we need some real competition anyway :hi:

[Cocoa]

42. aren't you one of the "take off the gloves" people?

Don't you join in all the threads calling the dems too timid?

Now, you're shaking your head in disbelief, now you want the dems to be "presidential."

And please, you are consistently anti-Kerry, so saying "I was going to lay off Kerry" is just totally insulting to our intelligence, especially over this.

[Eloriel]

56. It's a taste and decorum issue, Cocoa

And obviously some folks don't get it.

Eloriel

[w13rd0]

46. Well, I just watched the animation...

...see nothing wrong with it. Except for the "Make a Kerry Contribution" it could have easily been any of the dem nominees animation...

[FredScuttle]

47. I fear that Kerry's in deeper trouble than from this....

the cheesesteak debacle will end his campaign. Talk about non-Presidential...swiss cheese on a hoagie? (sarcasm off)

I think there's room in the tent for both Kerry and Dean's points of view. The challenge will be fighting back against the reich wing media's attempts to smear whichever of them is the candidate (witness this ridiculous cheesesteak story and Dean's TIME cover profile in which the "objective" writer handily provided GOP talking points after each of Dean's campaign themes)

[deutsey]

52. Exactly!

I can understand some heated debate over issues between Kerry and Dean supporter; but I don't get this crap where Dean supporters smear Kerry and Kerry supporters smear Dean.

We're only weakening ourselves when we attack each other.

[Eloriel]

57. Oh, but in THIS instance,

AFAIC, it's Kerry smearing himself.

At least from a taste point of view. :evilgrin:

Eloriel

[dsc]

51. frankly the ad is funny

This time he attacks the right target.

[_NorCal_D_]

53. Yes,

if the site had a Flash movie attacking Dean, that would warrant shaking ones head in disbelief. Otherwise I just don't see the problem with this is.