This is easily the most widely covered US election we have ever had in Australia...

standing on the outside looking in - John Kerry's wife... she looks like she might influence a lot of the female vote... She has just been in our faces a lot, and because I am not a woman, I can't really comment, but from here it looks as though she is opening her mouth for the specific purpose of appealing to the woman voters... her opening her mouth surely couldn't appeal to the male voters

I dont know much about the black vote...

BAM!!!

I don't see Bush needing to apologize to the NAACP any more than I see Bush needing to apologize to the KKK. They are essentially the same organization these days but with different clients.

I don't think he should apologize either. I also don't think it'll make a difference, because the NAACP doesn't consist of swing voters.

Given the plethora of questionable tactics that helped GWB beat McCain ("would you be less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew that he illegimately fathered a black child? All right then, thank you for taking our survey"--the genius of Rove), and Gore, it would not surprise me whichever tricks they pull between now and election day.

For minority or gender issues to effect the election you have to believe that we are basically safe with either candidate, and beleive that the real difference is going to be the social and economic progress of the nation. I don't think people have that luxury this time. People who vote for Kerry seem to be genuinely concerned for the safety of the nation under Bush's leadership, and vice versa.

People have really expected to see who Kerry is by now. I think they thought that the Democratic convention would be where he really cemented his identity and platform. He didn't. That is troubling even to some Democrats that I know, simply because they can't trust him to make politically jeopardizing decisions. Those who remain committed to Kerry seem to know what Bush would do, and it frightens them more than what they think Kerry is capable of.

In all, I think women and African Americans will vote first for the person they can trust to do the job. This is going to come down to fear as a motivation for voter turnout. Whoever inspires the most fear in the folks that generally don't go to the polls will be the one who loses, and I believe by a wide margin this time. I don't think recounts will even be a factor.

The area I live in is 99% African American and poor. At least once a week, there are people knocking on the doors here to not only get people registered, but they are giving out stats about education, health care, jobs. Not one pro Bush person has been down my street. I think it's going to be a tight one, but so far, I don't feel like Bush is convincing too many Ohians at this point, to vote for him.

Draginol, the next time you feel like asking "What? I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND it! Why do people think I'm a right-wing loony?" come back to this post and read the comment where you compare the NAACP, a political lobbying organization that holds positions one might disagree with, to the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization that has a 100 year history of organizing and committing brutal public murders and vivisections of people for the crime of being black.

Hope that helps, buddy!

Far LEFT weenies will always think I'm a right wing "loon" because to them, EVERYONE looks like a far right loon other than people who share their own vision of the world.

Well said and absolutly true!
BTW.......How does the NAACP still maintain a tax exempt status when it is clearly a partisan leftist mouth piece? I was under the impression that they had to be a politically neutral organization to qualify and it is painfully obvious they are NOT.

Oh and.......one of the reasons that I am confident that Bush will win is a comment that democrat Randy Kelly, Mayor of St. Paul Minn, made on Sunday. "George Bush and I do not agree on a lot of issues but in turbulent times what the American people need more than anything is continuity of government, even with some imperfect policies. The economy is going in the right direction. There is no reason to believe a change of course will produce better or quicker results. The United States will bring the troops home from Iraq a lot sooner if we don't bring in a whole new leadership to run the show. We must stay the course".

The NAACP is not lobbying for equality.  They are lobbying for special rights.

Moreover, the NAACP has used phrases like Nazis to describe the Republican party.

In remarks to hundreds of cheering liberal activists Wednesday, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond singled out Republicans as enemies of black Americans and compared conservatives to the terrorist Taliban who once ruled Afghanistan.

"Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side," Bond told a cheering audience.

You were saying?

No matter how powerful of a lobbying group that it is, the demand for equality and acceptance into the mainstream is certainly not the top goal of the KKK (considering that they do everything in their power to see fit that the oppressed stay oppressed)

Okay.......I have no arguement with that statement. Although, if you are trying to sell me on equality and acceptance being top goals of the NAACP, you have a long hard road ahead of you. Years ago, I saw the NAACP as a positive force for African Americans but Bond and Mfume are turning it into a hostile, politically motivated organization that I, for one, have little respect for now.

"He didn't catch a plumeting economy, in fact the economy didn't start to decline untill after the first two months of the Bush presidency. "

Do you people even know how government works? Statements like that just show how pig-ignorant people can be. Maybe you should look at what Greenspan was doing, maybe you should look at what tech stocks had been doing, and how many people had blindly invested in them. There were a million reasons the economy had begun to spiral, and NONE of them had to do with Bush.

People like "liberal Dem" above are invariably people who don't keep track of the economy. I remember people talking gloom and doom long before the election in 2000. If it was forseen before the election, I kind of doubt anything Bush did in 2 months created the problem.

Bush had been in office for 2 months functioning under the previous administration's budget. WTF do you think you are "bringing to the table"?

"The economy has been in recovery mode for quite awhile now and you might have to blame Bush for that too. I assume that would be a bit painful"

If Kerry wins and the economy contiues to recover RadLibs will probably say that it was "buyer confidence" spurred on by the belief that Kerry would win. If the budget tanks a few months after he wins, they'll certainly blame it on Bush, though.

How does the NAACP still maintain a tax exempt status when it is clearly a partisan leftist mouth piece? I was under the impression that they had to be a politically neutral organization to qualify and it is painfully obvious they are NOT.

Lots of partisan mouthpieces are. Jerry Falwell's organization is tax exempt, for example.