How will Louisville Hotbytes vote in the Election?

Christopher Walken! Why didn't I think of that?

Anyway, yeah, let's throw a real party!

I appreciate hearing when people say that their vote doesn't seem to really count for much, and I honestly agree with that. That's why I like to say "Democracy doesn't end on Election Day". Democracy is an ongoing process where factions/groups across the country struggle to get their policy ideas into place, and elections matter only to a particular point. But I think where this election matters the most falls on one issue: The Constitution and its interpretation. If you want to signal approval of the Bush regime's rough treatment of the Constitution, while hoping for a very anti-female, anti-rights Supreme Court, then, by all means, vote for John McCain.

[Robin Garr]

I'm surprised at those who don't see a difference between the candidates. I've been voting for many years, and I can't remember a time before where there was such an apparent difference in policy and philosophy. Then again, maybe I've had a few too many sips of the kool aid myself.

I'm with you, Steve. I don't see a whole lot of neo-conservatives in Obama's camp, but hey! Is that GRAPE Kool-Aid?

I'm more interested in our local Senate race; After having the rare privilege of hearing our senior senator speak in person this week....

I had to leave the room during the Q@A portion when Senator McBush stated that our new immigration policies seem to be working because his fellow senators out West were hearing from their constituency about "How hard it is to find farm workers right now"...

At that point several people in the room started laughing...However, I didn't find what passed as a joke, funny at all...

I felt it in my best interest to leave the room before I said something that would have probably got me pounded by the security detail in tow and made the 6:oopm news.....

I'm more interested in our local Senate race; After having the rare privilege of hearing our senior senator speak in person this week....

I had to leave the room during the Q@A portion when Senator McBush stated that our new immigration policies seem to be working because his fellow senators out West were hearing from their constituency about "How hard it is to find farm workers right now"...

At that point several people in the room started laughing...However, I didn't find what passed as a joke, funny at all...

I felt it in my best interest to leave the room before I said something that would have probably got me pounded by the security detail in tow and made the 6:oopm news.....

The last thing we want to see is Chef Dan screaming "don't tase me man!" You are a braver man than me. I wouldn't even walk into the room.

[Robin Garr]

The last thing we want to see is Chef Dan screaming "don't tase me man!" You are a braver man than me. I wouldn't even walk into the room.

I find it interesting that Mitch now feels that he needs a bodyguard to travel at home in Kentucky among his constituents. He didn't used to do that, and while he might cite 9/11 as an excuse, I'm thinking that Al Qaeda is probably pretty scarce at political events in the Derby City. It kind of creeps me out to see him and the guys with the earbuds rolling out of a black Suburban.

I wonder if Lunsford travels with guards ...

Forgive me if I don't find the if you want women's rights to be compromised, vote for McCain argument very compelling. While McCain is probably more centrist than anything on most issues, he's not exactly the Taliban. And he's not Bush either. There's a reason the republican party has rejected him as a viable presidential candidate for so many years. Yes, his voting record on abortion doesn't conform to the wider, conventional feminist platform (although even feminists are divided over abortion), but at the same time I seriously doubt he'd have much influence there anymore. But my irritation with that particular argument is this.... I'm tired of people using reproductive and abortion rights as a sort of bludgeon to influence women during election seasons. I've been a feminist for going on 40 years now, and trust me, I lived through that era of the fight for abortion rights. I know what that means. I lived through being scorned for being a feminist, being called a baby killer and man-hating-lesbo-hairy fill in the blank, and I'm hardly one to brush off reproductive rights. I find it a little bizarre that folks who probably didn't find women's rights very compelling in the past find it perfectly acceptable to preach to women now about how they should vote, using rhetorical scare tactics suggesting they're in danger of being compromised as human beings if they don't vote for the apparently most appropriate guy. And frankly I'm just a little skeptical about the motives, especially as women's issues seem to matter to most folks only around elections. And It's profoundly annoying when folks suggest that if I don't vote according to whatever they believe is the best option, I'm somehow compromising women's rights.... Not to mention it's patronizing....

Wow, C.! You are absolutely right. Thank you very much for your thoughts on the issue. I agree with you completely.

Because I am young and female, I've had a lot of people force their opinions of who I should vote for on me, one who told me I was only considering voting for the person I'm considering because "my daddy told me to." Someone from the more "tolerant" party who told me that if I voted any way other than THEIR way, that I was a moron, and setting the women's movement back. So much for tolerance.

Not really very effective persuasion. If I vote at all, I will vote for the candidate that I feel will be best for my loved ones, and our country, not the candidate I feel pressured into voting for. People who know me know that I'm pretty stubborn, and my dad can't really tell me squat. I've definitely got my own opinions about a lot of different issues.

Thank you, C., for having the guts to step up and say what I've been feeling, but didn't have the guts to say. This is America, and everyone should be entitled to their opinion, without being made to feel like a fool for expressing it.

I truly believe that whom you vote for is a deeply personal choice. While our version of democracy is flawed, it is a participatory process that requires you to get involved with it at all levels. I see these candidates in stark contrast to each other outside of the "they are just politicians" argument that apathy imbues. I have no business trying to influence anyone's decision and the knee jerk reaction of negative campaigning troubles me greatly. While some may say that the choice of a president has little effect on the bureaucracy of government I disagree. With appointments, policy changes and general tone the apparatus of government does make a shift, subtle at first, but one that becomes palpable over time. Our greatest threat comes not from without but from within. Special interests have us polarized and argumentative. I truly believe that most everyone is a centrist at heart, that we abhor war for the sake of profiteering, we wish for education of our youth, the care of our aged, infirm and vulnerable populations and the fiscal responsibility to avoid a 2 class society. We struggle and strive for ourselves and those around us to keep the dream of what America should be alive. Please take the time to find that part of democracy that still stirs you and vote.

Not voting does no good for our great country. Rock The Vote

C. Devlin and Michelle, by all means, please go ahead and vote against your interests. Don't let me or anyone else stand in your way, no matter how rational our arguments!

C. Devlin and Michelle, by all means, please go ahead and vote against your interests. Don't let me or anyone else stand in your way, no matter how rational our arguments!

I find it interesting that this election has brought out this sort of attitude. It used to be (as noted elsewhere here) that people tended to respect other people's votes as a sort of private affair. You no more hectored people to vote for one person over another than you would hector somebody to subscribe to a particular faith.

Truly, I'm stunned by this attitude. I haven't seen anything quite like it since I came of voting age.

Here's how it looks to me.... Progressive democrats/liberals have spent the last 8 years lamenting the Bush administration, and Bush himself, only to be told by his faithful followers that we're not patriotic, that we're not allowed to criticize him, that we should vote particular ways, otherwise we're not true Americans.

I don't find the same sort of rhetoric in reverse any more appealing. It doesn't look any better coming from "our" side. And that's exactly what I meant when I said earlier that I can't tell the two parties apart anymore (and that's apart from the exceedingly appalling fact that this democratic congress we voted into office has done little more than allow Bush to continue to lead them around by the noses). On the one side we've got the conservative republican faithful demonizing Obama and the democrats and progressives, and on the other side we've got the democrats and progressives demonizing McCain and the conservatives.

I don't know about y'all, but I've got a number of friends who vote exactly the opposite as I do on nearly every issue. I don't sit around hectoring them about it. I don't rail at them. It's their business whom they vote for. Interestingly, they accord me the same respect. Unlike many of my fellow democrats this election season.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all just stop turning the "other side" into cartoon cutouts and the devil incarnate? They do it to us, we do it to them, they do it to us because we do it to them, and we do it to them because they do it to us,... ad freaking nauseum.

I vote entirely in keeping with my best interests, thanks. I am, surprisingly, I guess, or anyway apparently to some very enthusiastic Obama fans, a fully adult woman capable of voting according to my own best interests and my own conscience. And I don't hector other people, not even my own husband who has some otherworldly views on topics that sometimes make me a little crazy. Trust me, hectoring folks doesn't exactly win them over.

C. Devlin and Michelle, by all means, please go ahead and vote against your interests. Don't let me or anyone else stand in your way, no matter how rational our arguments!

Wow, condescending, much? I haven't even decided IF I'm voting, let alone who I will vote for if I do, but rationale like that certainly isn't making your guy more appealing. I haven't been talked down to like that since I was a child.

Thank you so much, Mr. Magruder for telling me how I should vote in this election, since I'm female, and apparently too naive to make my own decisions. How did I ever get along without you?

Your comment was rather chauvinist. Very unbecoming for a "tolerant" man. Apparently your tolerance only extends so far, and its limit is people who don't see things exactly as you do, politically.

Not voting does no good for our great country. Rock The Vote

I agree with this.

Im not going to soapbox on who you should or shouldnt vote for, because its neither my business or duty, to try and influence you one way or the other.

Attempting to force someone into your opinion isnt right, freedom of speech, is just as much granted in this country as right to privacy.

Or it was.