Sen. Bill Nelson for VP?

[CMT]

I just read an article in the NOTE about possible run for VP by Bob Graham, but that some people actually think Florida's junior senator would be a better pick.

Nelson is said to have more charisma than Graham and has the "astronaut thing" going for him.

I really hadn't thought about Nelson before.

Any thoughts?

[jiacinto]

1. The Castro apologists here at DU would have a problem with

that

[madfloridian]

11. Question: If I don't care for Nelson, how does make me a Castro apologist?

:shrug:

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mika]

14. Jiacinto paints with a broad brush

Bill Nelson espouses hard line action against Cuba.

Some of us DUers here don't support the hard line against Cuba.

Carlos does.

That makes some of us "Castro apologists".

Get it? :crazy:

[madfloridian]

2. NO....check out his voting record.

More later. Have to run. I have posted a lot on this. Very corporate, and a few other good things.

[TakebackAmerica]

3. Correct.

Nelson is a DINO.

[Rowdyboy]

5. I was waiting to see how long

it took for someone to call him a DINO. 15 minutes. You guys are so predictable.

[CMT]

6. true he isn't as "liberal" as Graham

but he isn't far off. The liberal organization Americans For Democratic Action gave Nelson a 70% positive score in 2002 which is five points lower than Bob Graham who had a 75.

By contrast Zell Miller had a 30% rating, Max Cleland had a 65% rating, John breaux has a 65% rating, and Mary Landrieu had a 70% rating.

http://adaction.org/SenateVR2002.htm

I'm not advocating for Miller just posing the question. I, myself, would prefer Graham.

[GBD4]

24. Ben or Bill?

Ben Nelson IS a DINO. Agreed. But Bill? I wouldn't go that far. He's no Lieberman.

[NewJerseyDem]

28. I don't think Bill Nelson is a complete DINO

I think that term should largely be left to Ben Nelson, Zell Miller and a few congressmen, maybe even John Breaux but not Bill Nelson. He is certainly moderate and according to the ACU has the same 20% rating as Joe Lieberman. I won't go in to the details about how ridiculous and ill informed the hatred of Joe Lieberman is here.

Here is a list of Bill Nelson's conservative votes in the past couple years in the Senate according to the ACU.

NOTE: Titles of bill have conservative spin because they are written by the ACU. Also, the titles may be oversimplified so you shouldn't rush to judgement on what those votes mean.

http://www.acuratings.com/acu.cgi?ACT=1&USER_ID=36&YEAR=2002

Government Discrimination in Farm Regulation. S. 1731 (Roll Call 15)
Trade Promotion Authority. HR 3009 (Roll Call 130)
International Criminal Court. HR 4775 (Roll Call 139)
Death Tax Repeal Permanent. HR 8 (Roll Call 151)
Use of Force Against Iraq. S.J.Res. 114 (Roll Call 237)
Union Bargaining On National Security. HR 5005 (Roll Call 247)

http://acuratings.com/acu.cgi?ACT=1&USER_ID=36&YEAR=2001

Individual Retirement Accounts S. 420 (Roll Call Vote No. 21 )
Defense Spending Increase H. Con. Res. 83 (Roll Call Vote No. 72 )
Decrease Navy Appropriations S. 1077 (Roll Call Vote No. 225 )
Taxpayer Funding for Gun Turn-Ins HR 2620 (Roll Call Vote No. 267 )
Strikes by Public Safety Employees HR 3061 (Roll Call Vote No. 323 )
Needle Exchange Programs HR 2994 (Roll Call Vote No. 328 )

[madfloridian]

30. This statement of yours bothers me some.

SNIP..."I won't go in to the details about how ridiculous and ill informed the hatred of Joe Lieberman is here....."

I do not think it is hatred so much as realization of his positions and beliefs. I don't think many of us were truly aware of them in 2000.

I do not care for him. I don't like to be called ridiculous for that feeling.

Nelson does not really listen to his constituents. He has been criticized for it by far more intelligent than me. I consider myself well-informed, though, and I felt uncomfortable when you said that.

[Mika]

15. CANF Lauds Senator Bill Nelson's Leadership

Bill Nelson is friends with and supported by CANF membership that is riddled with CIA anti Cuba terrorists like Orland Bosch and Louis Posada
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/posada/posada9.htm


CANF Lauds Senator Bill Nelson's Leadership
http://www.canfnet.org/News/Press%20realease/020530releasea.htm



Bill Nelson does 2nd annual keynote address to the CANF
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:e8Gw1APFiA8J:www.naplesnews.com/03/07/florida/d862844a.htm+%22bill+nelson%22+%2B+canf&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

For the second straight year, the organization invited U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Melbourne, to be the keynote speaker.

[Malikshah]

27. Nelson's not the best pick...

Better than his Repug competitor--but only in the most partisan way--in reality--he's a hack.

[jiacinto]

4. He isn't Barabara Lee or Maxine Waters

And so of course he is being called a DINO.

[Loyal]

7. I agree

Anyone to the right of Barbara Lee or Jim McDermott on DU is referred to as a DINO. Let us cater to the 2.74% of the population, the Nader voters, most of whom don't even bother to donate to DU yet they become so indignant with us.

[madfloridian]

9. That is just plain stupid.

He got the award from the National Chamber of Commerce for voting for business interests 70% of the time. Look at his website, he wears it proudly.

He has done some good things of course, but he seldom answers constituents.

Go and check his votes and quit being so judgmental about people who expect Democrats to act like one.

[madfloridian]

12. Some of his votes really concern me.

I found a few articles about 3 votes that bother me. There are more, but it is late.

From 2001 he supported tougher limits on patient's right to sue.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/06/14/patients.rights/
"Sens. Don Nickles, R-Oklahoma, Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Bill Nelson, D-Florida, support tougher limits on a patient's right to sue. "

Nelson voted against resolution for Mandela's release.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/WhitehouseWag/wag000806.html

"According to White House aides, the president was totally unaware that Nelson, who served in Congress along with Cheney, also voted against the resolution calling for Mandela’s release. (Nelson’s vote was first reported by National Review Online at about the same time as the president’s remarks.) Nelson’s explanation for his vote is essentially the same as Cheney’s, namely, that Mandela’s party were still communists and had refused to renounce violence."

Voted to break the Estrada filibuster, only 4 Democrats did that.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15334

"Thursday's vote was a clear win for Daschle, and for legal, civil rights, labor and women's groups that have campaigned for months to convince Democrats that Estrada has not met the basic standards for confirmation. Only four Senate Democrats – Georgia's Zell Miller, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson of Florida and Louisiana's John Breaux – voted to break the filibuster. (Florida Democrat Bob Graham, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination who is recovering from surgery, did not vote.) "

[madfloridian]

8. The Fellowship. More about power than religion?

Undercover among America's Secret Theocrats

SNIP..."Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in
Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the
members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of
believers who refer to themselves as "the Family." The Family is, in
its own words, an "invisible" association, though its membership has
always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R.,
Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John
Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.),
and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as "members," as are
Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph
Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.).
Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department
of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties
with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family
maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues
no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak
about the group or its activities.

The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some
defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International
Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship
House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council,
the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw
attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in
the words of one of the Family's leaders, "a target for
misunderstanding."

Do NOT attack me on a religion deal. If you read all the pages of this article and do a search on Doug and David Coe, you will see that it is not as much religion as power and world leaders. I was raised Southern Baptist, but I am not anymore. I am in between religious organizations right now.

If you do better searches you might find more. There is a pdf version of an LA Times article on the power of this group. I will see if I can find it. Bill Nelson's wife is on the board of directors of this extremely powerful group as well.

[sandnsea]

16. Conrad Burns??

First, the idea that he is part of a powerful world group is absolutely hysterical. Really, I'm rolling on the floor here. Do you KNOW what a mindless twit this guy is? But as to Nelson, if he wants to be a part of a group that Conrad is part of, I know for sure I don't want him!

[madfloridian]

17. Don't know Burns, but the others bother me.

Inhofe and Nickles stood out for me as not really wonderful leadership material. I felt like you did about the power thing, but then I realized who is in the White House. And I shivered.
:hi:

[madfloridian]

10. Here is a link to the LA Times 2002 article, pdf version.

GROUP DIFFICULT TO LABEL
Activities Shrouded by silence

http://www.nwaonline.net/pdfarchive/2002/september/28/FZ%209-28-02%20A5.pdf
SNIP:
"ARLINGTON, Va. — The Fellowship
is a collection of public officials,
business leaders and religious
ministries that defies easy description.
Sometimes known as
the prayer group movement, its
members espouse a common devotion
to the teachings of Jesus
and a belief that peace and justice
can come about through quiet efforts
to change individuals, particularly
those in positions of power.
Personal outreach is paramount.
They also share a vow of silence
about Fellowship activities. Douglas
Coe, the group’s leader, and
others cite biblical admonitions
against public displays of good
works, insisting they would not be
able to tackle their diplomatically
sensitive missions if they drew
public attention. Members, including
congressmen, invoke this
secrecy rule when refusing to discuss
just about every aspect of the
Fellowship and their involvement
in it.
Jennifer Thornett, a Fellowship
employee, went so far as to say
that “there is no such thing as the
Fellowship,” even as she helped
lead a group of 250 college students
around Washington this
month, part of a Fellowship-sponsored
national leadership forum
on faith and values.
The group’s official name is the
Fellowship Foundation, though it
does most of its business as the
International Foundation. It is
based in Arlington, in a sleepy
neighborhood of upscale houses,
many owned by members of the
Fellowship or groups tied to it.
The foundation has nonprofit
status under the Internal Revenue
Service code and a board of directors
that includes a senator’s
wife, a former Air Force assistant
secretary, an Education Department
official and the former director
of Asian affairs for the National
Security Council. IRS filings
show the Fellowship has an annual
budget of $10 million and
spends most of that on salaries,
the National Prayer Breakfast, travel
for Coe, members of Congress
and others, upkeep of Cedars and
a roster of Christian groups worldwide."

[madfloridian]

26. Another quote from the pdf file about getting access to the president.

This just interests me a lot. As I say, I voted for Nelson, though we probably won't do so again. He has a lot of connections and power for someone just elected in 2000. Like our Repub congressman Adam Putnam....who along with Foley said Nelson would be a good VP to work with. I just know I have had no real response from his office but once.....he wrote a fairly personal letter to tell me of the dangers of ignoring Iraq and reiterating his support of Bush.
This is an interesting part from the article above:

SNIP..."At Senate Foreign Relations
Committee confirmation hearings
for incoming State Department officials
last year, Sen. Bill Nelson,
D-Fla., whose wife, Grace, is on
the board of the Fellowship, complained
that the State Department
blocked President Bush from
meeting privately at the 2001prayer breakfast with heads of
state from Rwanda, Macedonia,
Congo and Slovakia.

“Well, if I might observe, I’m
not sure a head of state ought to
be able to wander over here for
the prayer breakfast and, in effect,
compel the president of the United
States to meet with him as a
consequence,” replied Sen. Paul S.
Sarbanes, D-Md. “I mean, getting
these meetings with the president
is a process that’s usually very
carefully vetted and worked up.
Now sort of this back door has
sort of evolved.”

Another short snip to show the influence by these guys:
SNIP...."“The first thing we did when
we met with (Afghan) President
(Hamid) Karzai and President
(Pervez) Musharraf was to say,
‘We’re here officially representing
the Congress; we’ll report back to
the speaker, our leaders, our committees,
our government. But
we’re here also because we’re best
friends We’re members of the
same prayer group,”’ Pitts recalled
in a recent interview with his college
alumni magazine, the Asbury
College Ambassador....."

I quoted an extra paragraph because many do not have the Acrobat reader.

[davhill]

18. Nelson still thinks Iraq war was a good Idea

This is still on his website: <http://billnelson.senate.gov/iraq/iraqmain.cfm#>
He supported Bush all the way and never backed down on his claim that Weapons of Mass Distruction will eventually be found in Iraq.
I use to like the guy.

[madfloridian]

20. His office admitted 90% of calls were against war in Iraq....ignored.

He voted for it, and you are right.....he has not even blinked. If 90% of your calls are against something and you do it anyway, then your loyalty is elsewhere.

[LynneSin]

19. Both Nelsons are pretty conservative for Democrats

he and Ben Nelson of Nebraska tend to vote in the middle and even cross over. I also believe Bill Nelson has gone against some of the filibusters for some of those bad judicial nominees.

[madfloridian]

21. Yes, here is a mention of the Estrada filibuster he voted to stop.

Voted to break the Estrada filibuster, only 4 Democrats did that.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15334

"Thursday's vote was a clear win for Daschle, and for legal, civil rights, labor and women's groups that have campaigned for months to convince Democrats that Estrada has not met the basic standards for confirmation. Only four Senate Democrats – Georgia's Zell Miller, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson of Florida and Louisiana's John Breaux – voted to break the filibuster. (Florida Democrat Bob Graham, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination who is recovering from surgery, did not vote.) "

We voted for him in 2000, and we really liked him. This has been a gradual realization.

[NewJerseyDem]

23. Florida has a lot of Hispanics

Bill Nelson may have been worried that a vote against Estrada would hurt his reelection chances in 2006. While Bill Nelson is fairly moderate on other issues, he is certainly more liberal than someone like John Breaux or Ben Nelson. I think he is someone that is worth considering especially since vice presidents don't do much anyway. However, it would depend if his moderate views completely clash with the democratic nominee so much that it is unworkable. Also, I don't know if I want to lose his senate seat to a Jeb Bush appointee.

[madfloridian]

22. Could the Note have been hearing Foley and Putnam praise Nelson?

Two of our Republican congressmen, just spinning away how Nelson would be a better player. Putnam is being groomed for the future, only 28 now. Considered a safe district. Votes only pro-Bush. Flew the country with Bush on 9/11.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/20/Worldandnation/Graham_s_chance_for_N.shtml

SNIP..."Graham "just oozes experience and credibility," said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow. "But after the singing and the calls for impeachment and the early remark about going into Syria, I think he's lost his Moses-like aura."

Putnam said Florida's other U.S. senator, Bill Nelson, would make a better Democratic running mate. "He's got charisma, he's got the whole astronaut thing going for him," Putnam said.

Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, agreed that Nelson would be better than Graham.

Nelson "is more of a centrist player and he's got better poll numbers," said Foley. "He appears to be better on TV. He's a little crisper."....."

Wonder if this is where the idea came from? I agree Graham's campaign was not run well from the start. Those of us who tried to say anything never heard back. I just wanted to make a point about two of our very most Republican players (Putnam is the rising star)and their remarks about Nelson.

[stickdog]

25. Yeah, He's a fucking DINO and a CIA operative. (NT)

[DemDogs]

29. Don't know about that but sure not my choice (n/t)

[LightTheMatch]

31. Clark-Nelson?

What do we get and not get with Clark and Nelson as a ticket?

[madfloridian]

32. Read what our GOP congressmen say about Nelson.

I think they are the ones who started this draft Nelson movement. They are the same ones condemning Graham for speaking against Bush. I don't like their obvious attempt at this.

SNIP..."SNIP..."Graham "just oozes experience and credibility," said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow. "But after the singing and the calls for impeachment and the early remark about going into Syria, I think he's lost his Moses-like aura."

Putnam said Florida's other U.S. senator, Bill Nelson, would make a better Democratic running mate. "He's got charisma, he's got the whole astronaut thing going for him," Putnam said.

Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, agreed that Nelson would be better than Graham.

Nelson "is more of a centrist player and he's got better poll numbers," said Foley. "He appears to be better on TV. He's a little crisper."....."

If they like Nelson so much, I get suspicious.