From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: My View of the Debate
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: The Bates Motel
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:06:12 GMT

ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes:
>
>#1 Perot showed them "where it hangs". He was a bresh of fresh air 
>and you could tell that his answers came from the heart, not from 
>some script.

Of the three men, Ross was the least "studied" and stilted in his
manners and he even had the air of "improv" in the way that he gave
his answers (probably easier to do when you know and believe in your
platform, I guess).

>#2 Clinton just gave me no reason to want to vote Democrat at all. 
>I can forgive him for his past mistakes (even though he isn't big 
>enough to admit he made those mistakes), but I simply can not trust 
>him. There is something about that slick smile and his scripted 
>responses that just made him look totally fake.

I'm a person who would not begrudge him for what he did (I know lots
of people who travelled to the old USSR, including my sister as a
press attache for Canada's National Junior Hockey Team many years ago;
and I've had a number of American students from Columbia's Journalism
School sleeping over at my old Montreal studio apartment to catch the
plane for Cuba to do (State Department authorized) summer research
projects), just that there's been no reason to hum and haw about it.
If he doesn't believe in his professed convictions, he'll end up just
like ...

>#3 I think Bush showed that he is a man of character. Nobody can
>question that he is a decent man. However, I feel he is as much a
>victim of the political process as Clinton. They both are out of
>touch with reality. They were bought off long before you knew they
>were going to be candidates.

And anybody who remembered the George Bush of the late 1970's should
really wonder what pod this fellow jumped out of in 1988 ...

>Hey, I'm laid off right now. I not exactly thrilled about paying
>extra for gas. But it IS what has to be done in order to fix this
>country. 

While a basic hole in the gas tax argument is that the United States
has toll booths (with the long lines and wasted time) as opposed to
built-in tolls via fuel taxes that we have in Canada and Europe (where
they add on even more stuff than just basic road tolls), Perot's basic
argument is that an investment has to be made in infrastructure that
will go beyond whatever can be salvaged by merely rerouting funds from
current wasteful spending.  Unfortunately this makes too much sense
and ...

>Nobody wants to admit that this country is so screwed up that it will
>have to take some pain to fix our problems. Please, vote for truth and
>not for fantasy.

>George Bush? He doesn't have a clue anymore. Bill Clinton? A slick smile and
>a pandering style. Neither one is being realistic about what it is going to
>take. The answer..........? ROSS FOR BOSS! VOTE FOR ROSS PEROT FOR PRESIDENT!

While this amateur pundit doesn't expect the Perot campaign to be
revived enough for a Perot win, this platform and Paul Tsongas's
prior to that can be kept in the American public eye long enough
to sway one party or another, and maybe assure Ross Perot of some
kind of influence in the next Administration for that programme.
Perot's heckler/harassment candidacy will serve to draw the main
combatants away from tabloidism (as shown by Bush suffering triple
damage in negative ratings versus what was done to Clinton lately)
towards unpleasant realities ... it's like a mother kicking her
kid's butt to quit procrastinating and do homework ...

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		Oct 26/92: Just say "OUI!"
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			(Let's worry about the economy!)