Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win?

Puny Human Nick writes "As mentioned before, the last home game the Redskins play before the election has predicted who will win since 1944. Well, the Redskins v. Green Bay game ended a few hours ago and it looks as though Kerry is going to win on Tuesday."

No

[Anonymous Coward]

The Redskins suffered a bad call with 2:35 when they were about to tie the game. If Kerry does win, this must mean he does it unfairly.

Re:No

[modernbob]

oh yah, you must mean like Bush did in 2000. :-)

Re:It means GOP will try to cheat and fail

[cicatrix1]

the country hasn't melted

But it's about as close as possible.

Budget: fail
Foreign Policy: fail
Education: fail
Healthcare: fail
Jobs: fail

What else? Oh yeah, we were attacked, and we started a war that we are losing with people totally unrelated to our attackers.

What else can go wrong?

Re:It means GOP will try to cheat and fail

[Minna Kirai]

All the ballots were later counted by several (liberal) mainstream newspapers and Bush won in every scenario.

Wrong.
1. The Wall Street Journal was amoung those newspapers. (It isn't liberal)
2. Out of the 24 scenarios they considered, Gore won most of them.
3. The scenarios that counted the most votes Gore won. Bush only won if (a) recounting stopped after just a few counties, or (b) a large number of votes were disgarded as spoiled.

So in the final consideration, although the recounts Gore asked for wouldn't have made him the winner, a full, correct counting of the whole state would've. The only reason nobody's made a big deal about this result is that it was released on September 13, 2001.

Re:It means GOP will try to cheat and fail

[Keebler71]

Actually it contained thousands of hispanics,...almost all were (correctly) listed as "white" since "hispanic" is an ethnicity not a race... but why believe me? Check out a screenshot [gregpalast.com] of the list refrenced on Greg Palast's website (I assume he is the author of the Guardian author you cite since your link doesn't work and he is the only one I have seen quote these incorrect numbers.)

more in my journal [slashdot.org]

Re:No

[dimator]

You do realize that it is sort of suspicious when Bush's brother is in charge of the disputed state?

And you do realize it's more than a little suspicious to have Bush's Florida campaign manager play a major role in the recount?

Re:No

[IdleTime]

I for one, hope that we can modernize the whole election system. We are worse than a 3rd world country. Which other developed country has as much problems with their elections as we do? Not a single one! You never see a court deciding the outcome of an election in any other 1st world country. Voter frauds? Unknown.

We also need to get rid of a system that only gives your vote importance if you live in certain states. I live in Florida and you all know the issues we have had and how important it is to vote here. If I had lived in Nebraska or South Dakota I could just as well have stayed at home and not voted since the outcome of those states are already set. Our election system is a leftover from the days of no communication and a different world. We are the most backwards country in the world when it comes to electing a leader, it's a disgrace to this country!

Re:No

[TGK]

The problem w/ recounting only some votes is that it violates the Equal Protection clause of the United States Constitution.

While (logically) there's nothing wrong with recounting just those counties which are close enough to swing on the recount, legally this presents a problem because you are saying that the state has a more compelling interest to get person X's vote properly recorded than person Y's.

Unfortunately for Gore, this was a catch 22 (something the GOP won't point out I might add). While the legal side of things dictated that he had to recount every vote, the GOP was trying to stop the recount. If no recount could be achieved before the deadline (I don't remember the exact date but is was coming up fast) then Katherine Harris couldn't certify the election results. Without her certification the assignment of Florida's all important electoral votes fell to the overwhelmingly Republican Florida legislature.

Gore needed to try to expedite the recount process because a full recount could never be accomplished before Jeb and his cronies could toss the election to the legislature. While Jeb and co could have approached the Gore camp and said that they were going to stave off this maneuver until a full recount could be accomplished, no such approach or effort was made.

The legal decision was a formality, and the Court knew it. That's why if you read Bush v. Gore you'll discover that the Court goes to great pains to make sure the decision doesn't apply to anything else. Ever.

Re:No

[dabigpaybackski]

Must've been keeping score on Diebold equipment.

Re:No

[iMaple]

Ironically, diebold also manufactures ATM machines used in major US banks, and so far, we've heard few complains. why can't they duplicate that logic when creating e-voting machines ???

So that the people with the largest bank balances get the most out of the machines

Re:No

[Fiz Ocelot]

That just means we're going to need several replays...er recounts to determine the winner.

Hardly

[drlake]

While the umps named the wrong player, the player on the far right side of the redskins line wasn't set when the ball was hiked, so the call was a good call. They screwed up, and paid the price. Of course, we could say the first part of that about Bush, and I hope the second as well.

Re:Right from the source:

[kajoob]

He said "umpireS"...There is only 1 umpire in the NFL. Couple that with the fact that he said the ball was "hiked" (the ball isn't hiked - "hike" is what you say for the center to "snap" the ball) and I'm pretty certain the guy has no clue what he's talking about. But 'twas a joke, so don't get your jockstrap in a wad.

Ummm....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're reading WAY too much in this. Get out and vote, rather than saying who's going to win based on a football game...

and watch out for fraud and suppression

[gad_zuki!]

dailykos has the details. [dailykos.com] The GOP doesnt like to lose.

ourvote.com [ourvote.com] has a site up and a hotline ready. See also: my earlier post on fraud and corruption in American politics. [everythingisnt.com]

I care who wins, but I care more about winning legally and properly. I care about every vote being counted. I wish more of my fellow countrymen felt the same way.

Re:Ummm....

[strider44]

Don't you see? It's proof that John Kerry is a definite winner! No need for Kerry supporters to go out and vote now obviously - he's already won.

Well, but, yes.

[mattdm]

That's because Gore was foolish, and only demanded a recount in counties where he expected to do well. That's a dubious strategy anyway, and as you say, it turns out Bush would have "won" counting that way too. (Never mind that it's really a statistical tie and we all pretty much lose.) But when a _real_ recount of all state ballots was conducted by a consortium of newspapers, the results came out with Gore winning by over 20,000 votes. Too bad the Supreme Court didn't order that!

Re:Well, but, yes.

[Aexia]

That's because Gore was foolish, and only demanded a recount in counties where he expected to do well. That's a dubious strategy anyway,

Gore had to follow state law that limited in the numbers of counties he could request a recount.

Re:Florida recount study: Bush still wins

[FungiFromYuggoth]

That was the headline, but the body of the actual report showed that a statewide recount would have elected Gore.

So would a count of clear overvotes (where Gore was circled and also written in). The article you cited mentioned that, but didn't mention that the Florida judge was strongly considering counting these overvotes where the intent of the voter could be determined (since that was the Florida standard).

What is without a doubt true is that more people went to the polls in Florida with the intent to cast their ballots for Gore.

Re:No

[haus]

I am sorry, you have scored an incorrect answer. The real answer, which has been report to several times, but amazingly is ignored by people such as yourself is that Gore won the election in Florida. When the state wide recount was completed Gore simply had more votes that Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOT E. html

I now return you to your normal delusion.

Re:No

[haus]

I know that going to page two of a story is such a challage, so I thought that I would help you out.

Using the most restrictive standard -- the fully punched ballot card -- 5,252 new votes would have been added to the Florida total, producing a net gain of 652 votes for Mr. Gore, and a 115-vote victory margin.

All the other combinations likewise produced additional votes for Mr. Gore, giving him a slight margin over Mr. Bush, when at least two of the three coders agreed.

Re:No

[tonsofpcs]

Undecisive votes are votes like absentee ballots and possible rejected cards from automatic counting machines. These are only counted usually if the #2 person's decisive votes + all the indecisive votes is greater than or equal to the #1 person's.

Re:Sounds like GOP spinning Iraq explosive theft.

[LMCBoy]

Is this the same Major who said he never saw an IAEA seal on any of the bunkers he visited? The same Major who said he blew up "munitions" and couldn't say if any of it was the high-grade explosives that are in question? The same Major who said he was at Al Qaqaa 5 days before the embedded KSTP TV crew shot video of US Soldiers at Al Qaqaa breaking IAEA seals, opening the bunkers, and examining the barrels of the high explosives still contained therein? Same guy? How can you conclude from his testimony that the explosives had been detonated?

Baseball

[Sivar]

Of course, Baseball is the definitive method for predicting the outcome of political elections.
(?)

Re:Baseball

[drawfour]

... The Redskins are a FOOTBALL team.

Re:Baseball

[RealProgrammer]

>The Redskins are a FOOTBALL team...

<flamebait>

Barely.

</flamebait>

Re:Baseball

[innosent]

The fact that the next leader of the freaking world can be predicted by a game...

So, anyone want to take a guess as to why the rest of the world thinks Americans are arrogant pricks?

Re:Baseball

[xsupergr0verx]

The fact that the next leader of the freaking world can be predicted by a game... So, anyone want to take a guess as to why the rest of the world thinks Americans are arrogant pricks?

Because we refer to the world as the "freaking world" while our military doesn't have a single shark with a "freaking laser" on it's head?

Re:Baseball

[Sv1ad]

Hi, I'm not American, but living as I do in Australia, I might as well be one since the US elections are going to be deciding who runs the land of oz for the next 4 years. And I don't know what scares me more - the idea that Americans think their election outcome might be decided on a sports game or the fact that they do have a hegemony in international relations. Or maybe it's the voting system of the supposed paragon of democracy....

Re:Baseball

[Jonny_eh]

Last time the Red Sox won, the incumbent lost. How's that for a pattern?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/humor/redsox.asp [snopes.com]

That's why a third party will never be viable...

[GreenPenInc]

...unless... can they tie in football?

Re:That's why a third party will never be viable..

[secolactico]

That's why a third party will never be viable..

You silly... Everybody knows a third party candidate wins whenever the Washington Generals beat the Globetrotters.

No...

[holzp]

Red Sox win 8 in a row, Patriots lose today, old sports adages are breaking all over the place when MA is involved.

The game

[Rick Zeman]

As someone who watched the game it means that Bush will win the election and then it'll be overturned in favor of Kerry by the judges. That would be the exact parallel with the game.

Re:The game

[bigberk]

You're going too deep; the Packers won by a 2:1 margin, so Kerry will win by a 2:1 landslide.

You're both idiots! :) I wish people would stop with the weird statistical correlations[1]. If you want to do something meaningful, go vote and tell all your friends to vote.

In the last four presidential elections, the cookie recipe of the candidate's wife (versus the opponent's) has been a perfect predictor of the election outcome.

Re:The game

[jusdisgi]

Dude, you're taking yourself way too seriously. These guys knew the shit they were talking was just bullshit......this whole story is. So what? It's supposed to be funny. And, for some of us, it is.

I'm not worried...

[R2.0]

Since the Red Sox won the Series the end of the world must be rapidly approaching.

You think the candidates have it tough....

[Dozix007]

This is not really politically related, but I am a huge Packer fan and a Bush support (wait, do I hear hick jokes in the distance ?). What is a poor divided Elephant with a Cheesehead supposed to do ?

Don't you mean ...

[EggplantMan]

Vote on the third [theonion.com]?

You would think...

[trevdak]

You would think that people with sport superstitions would have had some sense knocked into them after the World Series...
... not that I would mind Kerry winning.

Re:You would think...

[Beatbyte]

politics and sense.. would you like some jumbo shrimp with that? ;-)

Weekly Reader

[Helios1182]

The Weekly Reader has also correctly picked the president for about the same length of time. They chose Bush.

Re:Weekly Reader

[Alan Hicks]

The interesting thing is that the Weekly Reader is an actual Presidential poll of kids, and thus might have some relevance. The idea is that kids can tell you about how their parents intend to vote, and that people without kids or grand kids represent such a minority that they won't seriously effect the outcome of the election.

Now whether or not this is true or not is the million dollar question, but it at least has some relevance whereas a football game clearly has no relation.

Entirely ignores younger generation of voters

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is that kids can tell you about how their parents intend to vote, and that people without kids or grand kids represent such a minority that they won't seriously effect the outcome of the election.

Most of the people I know who are aged 18 to 25 or so don't have kids, and don't subscribe to Weekly Reader either. There are millions of these people in America, and by all accounts, record numbers of them are registering to vote this year. I wouldn't call them "such a minority" by a long shot.

All of these polls (and especially the superstitions) are a crock of shit.

WTF^3

[Tackhead]

> Well, the Redskins v. Green Bay game ended a few hours ago and it looks as though Kerry is going to win on Tuesday."

I think I speak for at least three Slashdotters with mod points - whether they be Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, or Guns-And-Dope Party - when I pound out the following message in Morse code using my head and the desk:

"What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck?!?!"

Re:WTF^3

[zx75]

From all us non-american slashdotters, we let out a collective 'Aha!' after finally understanding how you actually decide who will be president.

Interesting

[Captain Rotundo]

But not because it predicts anything. Interresting because it allows us to discuss critical thinking. This is a perfect example of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" - a VERY common logical fallicy, also known as a "coincidental correlation".

Basically the problem is people frequently see something happen and ASSUME that something they noticed, or known about the prior situation MUST be the cause. - It gets better with increasing numbers (if the reskins game had only predicted the winner once its cute, but after 15 elections it has got to be right!)

Now the reason this is such a good exercise to use for this important critical thinking skill is because most reasonable people would already know that the redskins game predicting an election is absurd.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" - a VERY common logical fallicy, also known as a "coincidental correlation".

When you just said that, a monkey flew out of my ass.

Re:Interesting

[nomadic]

"post hoc ergo propter hoc" - a VERY common logical fallicy, also known as a "coincidental correlation".

What's REALLY interesting is the fact that you spelled the latin words correctly, but still spelled "fallacy" incorrectly.

No surprise.

[AbbyNormal]

Have the Redskins won a game since 1936?

Signed, former VA resident.

a better indicator!

[macsox]

as salon's excellent sports columnist king kaufman [salon.com] reveals:

Consider this: Every time the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in a presidential election year, Woodrow Wilson gets elected president. You can look it up: 1912 and 1916. Now the Sox have done it again. What's it mean? You read it here first: Woodrow Wilson in a landslide!

enough said.

Surely somebody here understands statistics!

[lakeland]

Say we're talking about 15 elections. To be able to predict them accurately is a 1 in 2^15 chance or 1 in 32768. All you need to have is 32 thousand things going on and you're all but assured that one of them will be a perfect predictor.

It reminds me of a stock scam from a few years back. You mail out aprediction on some random stock to 10,000 people. Half you say it will rise, half you say it will fall. Repeat until you've been right 10 times in a row. Now contact the 10 people you were right for, and offer to sell them your method for $LOTS. How many people would turn down someone who was right ten times in a row.

Of course, like every other non-american, I'm desperately hoping Bush loses

Re:Surely somebody here understands statistics!

[Schnapple]

Has anyone else noticed how non-rigid this legend is? For starters, it's not every time these two teams meet, it's every time they meet in an election year, so only 25% of their games count toward this election. Plus, it's the "incumbent party", not one party affiliated with a particular team. If the Redskins always represented Republicans and Green Bay always represented the Democrats, then it of course wouldn't work. And - I'm no football junkie - but is this even a significant rivalry? I always figured the Redskins were rivals mainly with the Dallas Cowboys.

I hope Kerry wins and so I obviously like this "omen", but to me this is more akin to those guys that find the Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon connection - yeah it fits but how long did it take you to find the correlation?

Yes but not because of this superstitious crap.

[Gldm]

The real reason Kerry will win is because the polls are very wrong. Just as generals always "plan to win the last war" the polls are showing methods designed to win the last election.

When they poll "likely voters" they ignore, among other considerations, people who have cellphones. AFAIK, they only poll over land lines.

Also, there's huge assumptions in the statistical breakdown of voting age. Young voters often don't care about the election and have the lowest turnout. However, many people are so worked up over this election and the results of the last one that I believe we'll see the highest percentage of young voters in a long time. Most younger voters lean more towards the left.

Thus the polls are skewed because their assumptions are totally wrong. Given that it's a dead heat in most polls right now, Kerry should come out ahead.

Unless there's some kind of cheating/manipulation of the election, but what are the odds of that?

Re:Yes but not because of this superstitious crap.

[node 3]

Just as generals always "plan to win the last war" the polls are showing methods designed to win the last election.

They are only polling the Supreme Court justices?

Re:Yes but not because of this superstitious crap.

[Sahib!]

Now I can't find a link, but I'd swear I read an article this morning saying that Gallup (or some other big poller) just did an SMS survey and found that Kerry was way ahead with that group...

Here is a link to a Daily Kos story [dailykos.com] from today. The polling was done by Zogby in partnership with Rock the Vote and Motorola. Here's Zogby's article. [zogby.com] The Rock the Vote Mobile site [rtvmo.com] is not responding for me at the moment.

Pull the stick out of your ass, please ...

[mios]

Holy shit .. by the looks of these replies, you'd think you folks were on his Doctoral comittee and he just submitted this as his Disertation thesis ...
It's an 'interesting' statistic -- an urban myth. You people are busting out with Chebyshev's law this, and according to Modus Ponens that ... sweet jesus, it's just a funny coincidence ...

hey, news flash, you're not going to find the meaning of life encoded in the articles of slashdot ...

Wow ... hey, there is no Santa Claus either so I don't want to hear about that weird deer you saw running around on your roof on christmas eve last year, either ...

The odds...

[Quaoar]

Ignoring which team was better each year, the odds are 1/2^14 that the game would predict the outcome of the election (14 elections since 1944). That's .0061%, roughly. Of course, you gotta realize that they look at all the games played over the years and look for patterns, and ANY football game of the season could possibly be a predictor of who will be elected. In the NFL, there are 32 teams, which have played about 8 games each so far this year. So total number of games played = 32 * 8 / 2 = 2^7. that brings our odds to 2^7/2^14 = 1/2^7 = .75%. Not at all negligible. Now you can start including multiple criteria for each game. For instance, if the total points stored in the Redskins game is over 30, the incumbent wins. Or, you could change it to a certain party winning. And we're just considering football, imagine if we included games from other sports played this year. The sheer number of baseball games almost guarantees that one annual match-up will be a good predictor of any "coin-flip" event such as a presidential election. So, the moral is, this isn't the least bit extraordinary.

Re:The odds...

[Artemis]

You do realize that part of what makes this "predicition" popular is the fact that it's the Washington Redskins (the Washington D.C. team) and it's related to their last HOME game before the election. This myth would not be nearly as popular if it were some prediction based on the St. Louis Rams last game at Green Bay or something. This is one that is relatively non-obscure, but still just coincidental of course.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What about the kids?

[Billobob]

Every time kids/teenagers have been polled en masse about the presidency, the president they chose won. Strangely enough, Bush came out on top by about 10% in ChannelOne's massive poll of teenagers. Does this mean Bush will win? No, it means superstitions are bullshit.

Kerry or Bush wins = America loses

[Anonymous Coward]

The apathy of the electorate, in *not* demanding better candidates from the major parties, has gotten us into a mess. The parties have no interest in *really* fixing things, because a fixed government is one that doesn't need to give handouts. But the handouts are what buys the votes of the uneducated/ignorant/lazy.

Speaking as a member of the RNC

[Shihar]

Let me be the first to say that we here at the Bush camp concede early to Kerry. It seems clear that due to this unfortunate turn of events that Kerry has won the election. As a side note, we should also point out that with the election already all but decided, you shouldn't burden yourself on election day with voting if it is an inconvenient, especially if you happen to be black, gay, poor, a college student, or a woman. So stay home. Nothing to see here.

Short answer

[HarveyBirdman]

No.

To believe otherwise is metaphysics.

I hope this helps.

New US electoral process

[darnok]

Dear USA,

We've decided to step in to fix a problem you seem to be having.

Unfortunately, the election of your President impacts many of us greatly. While it has been a source of considerable amusement to us in the past, recently we have become less tolerant of the outcomes it has produced.

Starting today, here is the amended process whereby a US president gets elected:
- US citizens get together to elect a US Presidential *candidate*. Your current options: Bush, Kerry, various others nobody cares about. Method: Toss a coin, spin a bottle, use the results of a sporting event nobody cares about. We don't care, so knock yourselves out
- candidate is put forward to the rest of the world to decide whether he/she/it is suitable. Their current options: winner of Bush/Kerry, "go find someone else". Method: secured regulated ballot process, as used in nearly all Western countries for many years without problems. Feel free to read up on it some time if you're interested
- results announced: "go find someone else"
- repeat approx 300 million times, or until point is made...

WE REALLY LIKE YOU AMERICANS, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY. SURE, YOU DRESS FUNNY AND MAKE US LAUGH WHEN YOU'RE IN INTERNATIONAL VENUES, BUT YOU'RE REALLY NICE PEOPLE REGARDLESS AND WE LOVE HAVING YOU ALONG FOR THE RIDE. ON TOP OF THAT, YOU'VE GOT SOME OF THE REALLY SMART PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LIVING IN YOUR COUNTRY. HOWEVER, WHAT CRAZY SYSTEM LETS YOU IGNORE THE REALLY GOOD PEOPLE AND SPIN OUT SUCH LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES AS YOU MANAGE TO COME UP WITH?

Ahem, sorry about that. Anyway, please understand that these changes take place immediately, no correspondence will be entered into, yada, yada, yada.

Yours truly,

God (no, NOT yours, and not yours either. In fact you were all wrong, and what the hell made you think I'd give a stuff about you tiny little humans anyway?)

Correlation != Causality

[Ingolfke]

Everyone repeat after me... Correlation does not prove causality... correlation does not prove causality.

meaningless

[binarybum]

yeah but the red sox won the world series...

all bets are off this year.

Slashdot...hates religion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Loves science, hates superstition... unless it agrees with their world viewpoint...

Re:1944?

[Peyna]

Wrong.

"In 1932 the Washington Redskins were neither the Redskins nor a Washington team: they were the Boston Braves, and they played in Braves Field, which they shared with the National League baseball team of the same name. On 6 November 1932 they won at home against the Staten Island Stapletons, 19-6, a result that should have foretold a presidential victory for the incumbent Republican party. Neither the Redskins' team name nor their predictive powers were yet evident, however, as President Herbert Hoover lost to his Democratic challenger, Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York, on 8 November 1932"

http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp [snopes.com]

Re:1944?

[nomadic]

On 6 November 1932 they won at home against the Staten Island Stapletons

Woo, Stapletons rule!!! GO STAPES!!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Thanks

[Chuck Chunder]

<sarcasm>I'm glad you pointed all that out. There was me thinking there was a serious cause and effect going on here</sarcasm>

Re:Statistics...

[Peyna]

The rule follows for the incumbent party, not just the incumbent president. That makes 17 data points now, possibly 18.

It's obviously just a coincidence, but an interesting one at that.

Also, I'm sure that if the Redskins won, we would have had the same story, and the same things would be said except with "Bush" instead of "Kerry".

Re:Statistics...

[ergo98]

Sigh...drawing causation or correlation from 5 data points is just sad. Kerry supporters are grasping at straws.

I think the sad thing is how seriously the Bush camp is taking this. While most everyone else is taking this as a "Ha ha! What a neat coincidence", repeating it tongue in cheek, the rabid frothy spittled Bush supporters have actually come out defensively regarding this (see your post, and many before it). Amazing.

There's been 17 elections since this 'pattern' supposedly emereged. At most, that means 9 times an incumbent was running. At most, that means 5 times the incumber lost when the Redskins did. ...sure helps to demystify curses with logic, but most people don't bother.

Huh? Firstly it's not a curse, it's a humorous coincidence. Ha ha. Secondly, RTFA - They're talking about the incumbent PARTY. Thirdly, your convoluted attempt at bringing "logic" to the table looks like it misfired - your logic is nonsensical.

It _is_ a pretty unlikely coincience....but unlikely coincidences happen all of the time.

Re:Statistics...

[bitingduck]

but unlikely coincidences happen all of the time.

One in a billion events happen to six people on earth every day...

Most of them are probably dull and go unnoticed.

You're kidding, right?

[Infonaut]

Kerry is so close to Bush

Yes, they're both rich white men. But aside from that there are a host of rather large differences.

For one thing, the Bush Doctrine [wikipedia.org] is a serious departure from previous American foreign policy. Kerry has advocated an approach that relies on the sort of coalition-building that Bush Sr. used with such effectiveness in the first Gulf War.

Kerry believes that excessive tax cuts for those who make over $200k per year is counterproductive. Bush believes that tax cuts of any kind, particularly those that favor the wealthy, result in increased entrepreneurial activity, which pumps up the economy, resulting in more jobs for everyone. These differences definitely have an effect on economic policy.

On the environment, the candidates aren't even close. Kerry has a long history of working for the environment, and Bush doesn't even know what the word "environment" means.

Bush has to cater to his "Base" by nixing stem cell research. Kerry knows that science is not something to be feared.

The differences go on and on and on...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Reality Master 101]

Kerry knows that science is not something to be feared.

I'm so tired of hearing this. It's not about "fearing science", it's about ethics. Whatever your stand on the issue is, it is undeniable that experimentation on human embryos has significant ethical considerations.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Creedo]

I bet dollars to doughnuts that if you were diagnosed with Parkinsons or if you suffered a spinal cord injury and the only hope you had was embryonic stem cell research, you wouldn't have a problem with it.

You're on. In my case, it's a family predisposition to diabetes. I fully recognize what my fate could be, and I have no qualms with saying that my stance on embryonic stem cell research would be exactly the same.

I find it extremely unethical that anyone would stand in the way of potentially finding cures for many diseases. That is, essentially, what you do when you stand in the way of embryonic stem cell research.

Use adult stem cells. No issue there. Heck, I'll even donate some of mine.

When your "ethics" put the value of cells doomed to die anyway above those that are living, I would call that egregiously unethical.

Last time I checked, we were all just a bunch of cells doomed to die anyway.

Re:What about the other candidates?

[Chuck Chunder]

Policies aside, at least with Kerry the rest of the world won't be snickering so much.

I mean, ~290 million people to choose from* and George Bush was viewed as the USA's best choice for President? That really is funny on a very fundamental level.

* Yes, I'm aware that the entirety of the US population isn't eligable to be president, but anyway....

Re:This trend is already over

[evslin]

That raises an intesting point, now that I think about it. If Bush wins this year, the statisticians out there can amend this rule to state that the Redskins will determine the outcome of the election except in instances where they lose against teams whose names bear a similarity to one of the candidates.

Bills = obvious
Green Bay = George Bush

Re:This trend is already over

[sessamoid]

It died in 1996 - the Redskins lost to the Bills 38-13 and Bill Clinton was reelected two days later.

No, it didn't. The tradition states that the last Washington home game before the election is predictive. The game you refer to was played in Buffalo. The last home game before that election was against Indianapolis, which the Redskins won. Thus, they predicted the win for the incumbent Democrat. This is also noted on snopes.com [snopes.com].

Re:This trend is already over

[Peyna]

It's Slashdot, you don't have to be right to get modded up, you just have to say it like you know what you're talking about. Sort of like all the presidential candidates.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Jonathan the Nerd]

Good idea, but let's choose a better candidate.

"President Mitnick's first official act was to pardon everyone who had anything to do with his unexpected landslide victory."

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Melantha_Bacchae]

As a slashdotter, I think we have the responsibility to actually listen to "Mosh" and act responsibly. The republicans can sink to their own filthy level of voter fraud and intimidation by themselves. There are two ways to stop them:

1) Get out the vote, and overwhelm any cheating the bad guys can do. That kind of cheating works great if the candidates are tied (which every wishful poll in the country would have you believe). The more people get out to vote for Kerry, the less chance cheating can throw the election. So don't go to those polls alone: bring your friends, family, and anyone else you can (without forcing, kidnapping, or bribing them, of course). Give Kerry a landslide from the people those polls don't count.

2) Join the efforts by various rights groups to help monitor and protect voting polls and voters.

Personally, I think Eminem delivered the true October surprise. He's right too, the coming of the King of Terror began in a schoolroom, it's reign should end there too, with the only real swing state that matters: the youth of America.

There is hope Kerry can win, and not only from sports omens. Leading Hindu astrologers [newindpress.com] and a noted Hindu mystic believe that Kerry is going to win, Bush will never again be president, and Kerry will end terrorism and bring world peace! The sun and the moon have even endorsed Kerry.

"The last hope is to fight by ourselves."
Belebera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Hatta]

Ah, but only a harsh demonstration of the fallability of these machines will make them get rid of them. I'm thinking a land slide victory for Homer Simpson.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[FlopEJoe]

Holy crap, people! This could have been a great discussion of superstition and how people base things on a statistical count of about 20. I'm sure there are comments to that affect but I'm not going to wade through 500+ rabid fan-boy posts to find them.

If I had a million mod points, I'd mod all the "Kerry will raise taxes on small businesses" and "Bush is an imperialist" posts as off topic. It seems I'm in the minority so mod me to the bucket if you must. Yeah, I know, I must be new here and welcome to /. but doesn't the nerd-atrons, pulsing through your veins, find the /actual/ article at all interesting to comment on?

Let me save the submitters to the Politics topic some time. We can enumerate all the off topic responses and save reading time to thouse that want to read about the actual submission:

Dibold

Bush is an imperialist

Bush administration is incompetent

PATRIOT act

Bush stole the 2000 election

Counter: all recounts had a Bush win

Kerry flip-flops

Kerry has been consistant

Edwards is way under qualified

Kerry has his secret plans for everything

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[some damn guy]

Well, truth be told, it has been done elsewhere. Putin in Russia seems unlikely to give up power, though he is not in danger of losing any elections. The opposition parties are finding it curiously hard to gain any ground against him. It helps to have all the TV stations on your side. He has a vast majority in their congress and he can legislate more terms for himself as he sees fit.

But we're not Russia. Truth be told, I really think it's just not worth it in a truely robust, though obviously imperfect, democracy like ours. Even if the election goes horribly for the Republicans they'll still hold nearly half the congress and in just four short years they'll get another shot at the White House.

What you are talking about isn't an impossible scenario, given extremly dire circumstances, but it's very difficult to imagine it now. We did have a civil war once upon a time, but we were a different country then, and people's allegences were much more local. I think that anything like that happening now would never work because people, despite their differnces, would rightly see it as an attack on democracy on a very fundamental level. In other places in the world were democracy is a relatively new thing this might not be as huge of a concern. Many peoples have known only periods of disorder and periods of tyrany. Look at Russia or Iraq, many people there still believe that however scary it may seem, one all powerful man may be the only force that can actually keep order. Saddam was a brutal tyrant, but he kept the many fractured, tribal elements in his country from endless bloodshed.

America, fortunately has no such history. We have seen democracy work. We have a peaceful country and we are not concerned about internal strife like this. The Republicans, or the Democrats for that matter, have lost many presidential elections but have always been able to get power back down the road. Our political warfare has so far served both sides relatively well. If Bush loses, a war will certainly begin to restore power, but it will, thankfully, be a peaceful one.

What money?

[Nomihn0]

May I ask what money you are referring to?

* Do you earn more than $200,000 a year, if you do: welcome back to 1999. Big deal. You just helped our country. If you earn less than that, you keep your tax break.

* Are you referring to premiums for non-privatized health insurance? That's why Kerry supports a cap on insurance payout: $30,000.01 and up is covered by government. This effectively reduces how much you pay for your insurance premium each year. Privatizing health insurance leads to misinformed citizens and patchy plans - backed by companies that could go under any second in the resulting big business competition.

* Are you referring to the war in Iraq which has cost over $120,000,000,000? Are you not concerned that nearly half of your taxes go to the military and fund this war? That's what is being deducted from your paycheck. Vote with your wallet.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[DarkEdgeX]

Unless you earn > $200,000 a year, you should be safe. In fact, according to Kerry, you could be getting even more tax breaks under his administration. From the second debate [cnn.com]--

Question 11: Sen. Kerry, will you pledge not to raise taxes on families making less than $200,000 during your first term?

GIBSON: Sen. Kerry, the next question will be for you, and it comes from James Varner, who I believe is in this section.

Mr. Varner? You need a microphone.

QUESTIONER: Thank you.

Sen. Kerry, would you be willing to look directly into the camera and, using simple and unequivocal language, give the American people your solemn pledge not to sign any legislation that will increase the tax burden on families earning less than $200,000 a year during your first term?

KERRY: Absolutely. Yes. Right into the camera. Yes. I am not going to raise taxes.

I have a tax cut. And here's my tax cut.

I raise the child-care credit by $1,000 for families to help them be able to take care of their kids.

I have a $4,000 tuition tax credit that goes to parents -- and kids, if they're earning for themselves -- to be able to pay for college.

And I lower the cost of health care in the way that I described to you.

Every part of my program I've shown how I'm going to pay for it.

And I've gotten good people, like former Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin, for instance, who showed how to balance budgets and give you a good economy, to help me crunch these numbers and make them work. I've even scaled back some of my favorite programs already, like the child-care program I wanted to fund and the national service program, because the president's deficit keeps growing and I've said as a pledge, I'm going to cut the deficit in half in four years.

Now, I'm going to restore what we did in the 1990s, ladies and gentlemen: pay as you go. We're going to do it like you do it. The president broke the pay-as-you-go rule.

Somebody here asked the question about, Why haven't you vetoed something? It's a good question. If you care about it, why don't you veto it?

I think John McCain called the energy bill the No Lobbyist Left Behind bill.

I mean, you've got to stand up and fight somewhere, folks.

I'm pledging I will not raise taxes; I'm giving a tax cut to the people earning less than $200,000 a year.

Now, for the people earning more than $200,000 a year, you're going to see a rollback to the level we were at with Bill Clinton, when people made a lot of money. And looking around here, at this group here, I suspect there are only three people here who are going to be affected: the president, me, and, Charlie, I'm sorry, you too.

(LAUGHTER)

GIBSON: Mr. President, 90 seconds.

BUSH: He's just not credible when he talks about being fiscally conservative. He's just not credible. If you look at his record in the Senate, he voted to break the caps -- the spending caps -- over 200 times.

And here he says he's going to be a fiscal conservative, all of a sudden. It's just not credible. You cannot believe it.

And of course he's going to raise your taxes. You see, he's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending. And you say: Well, how are you going to pay for it? He says, well, he's going to raise the taxes on the rich -- that's what he said -- the top two brackets. That raises, he says $800 billion; we say $600 billion. We've got battling green eye shades.

Somewhere in between those numbers -- and so there's a difference, what he's promised and what he can raise.

Now, either he's going to break all these wonderful promises he's told you about or he's going to raise taxes. And I suspect, given his record, he's going to raise taxes.

Is my time up yet?

GIBSON: No, you can keep going.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: Good.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[ozmanjusri]

When's the last time you bought any thing European other than a tin of biscuits, wine, or a Linux distro? They are not expensive because they are good. They are expensive because you are paying for the outrageous taxes and labor costs which many European companies have to pay.

My cars were made in Germany and England. My best suit was made in Italy, and my spectacles have Italian frames. My coffee grinder is from Germany, and the best shoes I have were made in Spain. My favorite beers are made in England, Germany, Denmark and Belgium (Ok, I admit I like beer a lot...), while my girlfriend is addicted to Swiss and Belgian chocolates. My phone is Finnish and the engine in my boat was made in Sweden.

I do the research when I buy and, while all of these item are good quality, they are not the most expensive by any means. I don't think your argument against European products is is true at all.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[ozmanjusri]

you do not get rich by spending money foolishly. and you spend it very foolishly.

I don't want to get rich, and I don't want to seem rich. I want to live well. You seem to think the wealth is what matters. It doesn't, and there's little point in accumulating huge amounts of money if you don't spend it on things you enjoy. Believe me, I spend my money very wisely.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Thomas Miconi]

Looks as if you are swallowing the Democrat party line of class hatred and not looking at the actual process and results of taxation and the history of how Congress votes.

I know you're probably trolling, but lots of people really believe (and spread) this kind of BS, so I'll pretend you really think what you say.

In short, you get economy 101 but apparently you didn't make it to 102.

Sweden (yes, 50%+ income tax Sweden [sweden.se]) has a massively positive trade balance with the USA. When I say massively positive I mean they sell you almost three times as much as they buy from you ! [4uth.gov.ua] And no, it's not biscuits or linux distros. It's high tech industry-oriented goods. Except for Ikea, Ericsson and Volvo, most Swedish exports are from small specialised companies that employ ridiculously educated workers to desing and produce high value-added goods.

France and Germany are a mess, but that's not because of taxes or social security. It's just that they dug themselves into a bureaucratic hole. Saying that a strong state with highly developed social services entails sprawling, Franco-German like bureaucracies is a lie ! Hell, you Americans share a border thousands of miles long with Canada, don't you ever look at what's going on up north ?

Your whole argument about labor costs and massive offshoring is dumb. The same BS that politicians serve us daily. Read any book by Paul Krugman as an introduction (looks like you'll need it), then hit a real economy manual. In short, wages in any given national industry tend to equal the average productivity of this industry in this country. Do you really think that wages in India and China have not risen in the last decade ? See South Korea or Taiwan for other recent examples.

Do the research and really think before you vote.

Yup, good idea.

Thomas-

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[visualight]

Also: Norway and pretty much anything nautical.

From a purely economic standpoint, anyone who works for a living and votes republican is an idiot. They've been duped into voting "what's good for the country" instead voting based on their own situation.

For 2003 a single man making 28,400 dollars, and living in WA state (8% sales tax) he will pay 27% of his wages in tax. This assumes that 50% of what he makes will be spent on taxable goods, and that he takes the standard deduction. It should be noted that this same table gives the U.S. tax rate at 35% because it only displays the highest rate for countries with a variable tax.

According to www.worldwide-tax.com, if the same man lived in Germany he would pay 25% of his wages in tax. In Norway, 28%, in the UK, 30%.

The way I see it, the big difference here is not how much we pay vs. European countries, but what we get for those taxes vs. what people in European countries get for thos taxes. Free medical, free University level education, real Social Security. We get give two billion dollars to Halliburton.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[flyingsquid]

To hear Kerry talk, he seems to believe that Bush is dishonest and incompetent and has accomplished nothing of note either domestically or in his foreign policy.

Well, MOST people who follow the situation in Iraq closely believe that the Bush administration is incompetent. Where do we begin? Letting looters run wild? Not securing the arms depots (not just the high explosives, all kinds of stuff was left unguarded- hell they stood by and watched as insurgents carried weapons off)? Disbanding the army? Going into Fallujah? "Flip-flopping" and getting out of Fallujah when it got a little too messy? Total cockup start to finish.

Afghanistan has been done better but there is still more of the country under the control of the Taliban and warlords than Karzai. Half-assed, but not a total cockup.

Bush on the economy has been something of a failure. Sure, we're coming out a recession, and I'm sure the tax cuts helped that- they could hardly hurt. But instead of directing the money where it would do the most good (the middle class) it went to where it did much less good (the wealthiest people in America) and created a massive budget deficit that will take years to pay off. This didn't help the economy so much as it helped the rich. The recovery has been far from amazing.

Socially? Most people feel he did a good job post 9-11. But it's amazing to see how much that has been messed up. He said he'd be a uniter, and he hasn't been- he's divided this nation. America is now more divided than it has been since the Viet Nam War. For some people he's been a good leader. If you're rich, right wing, and/or Christian he's great. But he seems to think that everyone else can go fuck themselves.

Finally, how about those American values like freedom and our rights that he is supposed to be protecting? Under the Bush administration we have seen people locked up without trial for years at a time. Four years ago if you said that America would do that I'd never have believed it. Sure, governments do that. But just the bad guys- the USSR, China, Nazi Germany- right? Those kinds of governments lock up people without trial. Not the good old freedom-loving USA.

I could go on forever. As for mandates, let's not get started on that. Bush lost the popular vote, so he has no mandate.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[mkldev]

The mods are just returning the favor for the Patriot Act.

:-p

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the terrorist apparently are big Tom Clancy fans. 9-11 was just a ripoff version of "Debt Of Honor." What your describing is "Sum of All Fears."

Well, there's only one thing to do:

Let's use the PATRIOT Act to throw Clancy in the clink for abetting the enemy! That'll learn him!

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[hazem]

> What your describing is "Sum of All Fears."

And a character in Sum of All Fears, the book, actually refers to a movie that had the same scenario - I think it was "Black Sunday".

Have you ever noticed how you never see George Bush and Clancy in the same place at the same time? It's clear to me that Clancy is really the president, being an expert on all government conspiracy kinds of things, and is only dressing up as a dufus, pretending to the president.

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[Methuseus]

Bush's regime would have you believe terrorists just came to be 3 years ago. They don't want you to think about the fact that there have been terrorist attacks before and we didn't need things like the Patriot act to make ourselves feel safe....

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[MeanSolutions]

I find it highly amusing, but at the same time disturbing, that the Americans since 9/11 have been shouting for terrorists heads on a plate while for many years before 9/11, and quite likely after 9/11 as well, collections has been and are being made in support of the IRA.

Do tell me that you actually realise the double morale in that...

Re:Does this mean Kerry will win?

[LtOcelot]

so are you saying that it's GWB's fault that we did nothing before 9/11 (like a response to the first WTC bombing, the African embassies bombings or the Cole bombing)?

Nah, but what I'm saying is that you're full of shit [snopes.com].