Letters to the Editor
SueNJ97
Published Letters: 176 Editor's Choice: 4
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Sometimes I wonder about reality
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's tough week]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is this board reality? Are the polls reality?
Because, I watched Bill Maher (for the first time in a few weeks, I wasn't so tired from work that I collapsed and fell asleep at about 9pm). He sent out this week's visiting reporter (Dan Savage, I think it was) to find people to interview about the election. Admittedly, it was a small sample. They knew they were being filmed. So, maybe they were being polite. And, I assume he didn't look to hard for the McCain supporters and, Bill admitted, hey this is Los Angeles, almost everyone is supporting a Democrat.
They talked to about 12 people, I think. One person hadn't made up their mind yet, and wouldn't say anything else. One person wasn't voting, at all, for anyone. The rest were pretty much split between Clinton and Obama and all but one said, whichever one gets the nomination, I'll vote for that person. BTW, they talked to blacks, whites, old and young, men, women, admittedly, it was a very small sample but each was included.
The people they talked to were genuinely attached to their choice, but absolutely intended to vote for the 'D' nominee.
Maybe they were just being polite for the cameras. Or, maybe, as Savage himself suggested to Maher later, the polls now allow people to basically have a fit, almost in public but not on camera, but that doesn't mean they'll have one in November.
I work with surveys for a living (at least part of my job) so I know this is unscientific, very unscientific and not a statistically significant sample. But I thought it was interesting. So, I thought I'd mention it.
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@Silenced re: Gore
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's tough week]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I always thought that Gore didn't run on the things that were really important to him (or at least some of them), in 2000, and ran a fairly bad campaign, although the media accusing him of lying about everything and making fun of him at every turn didn't help matters. However, I disagree with my brother (who swears the NYT is mostly responsible for Al's defeat) because I point out to him that Al lost his home state and I just don't believe that enough people really pay attention to the NYT in Tennessee for that to have been the deciding factor.
However, given the fact that the Gore family has gotten personally involved in things like 'warning labels' on recordings, it's possible that Al meant it about drugs in 2000. But, maybe now that his son has been arrested for drug possession (I still can't help laughing that he was pulled over while driving a hybrid car, hey, at least he was polluting as little as possible!), Al will re-think, if he was really serious.
For cost reasons alone we simply can't just keep incarcerating people for things like possession and drug use if they aren't associated with violent felonies, it screws up the entire prison system, which has enough on its hands already. I realize that there are some drug offenders who don't clean up until they see the inside of a prison (David Crosby, anyone), but in general, most have to be pushed to actually go to treatment and money would be better spent actually focusing there, and integrating it with the other issues you mentioned, alcoholism, prescription drug issues, etc.
I always laughed when Keith Olbermann would sit there, interviewing Gore, staring at him like a woman in love and practically begging for him to run again. Do I think Gore would have been better for the country that Bush? Absolutely, but that's neither here nor there. He's one of those people who has been freed by the release from the need to campaign for office and he can concentrate on what he loves, and people see him in a much different ligh, but I still don't know what would happen if he ever campaigned for office again.