I regret voting for George W. Bush in 2000
There are a few votes that I’ve cast in my life that I regret — and, no, voting for Jesse “The Body” Ventura to govern my state for four years is not one of them!
I regret voting for the Minnesota Legacy Amendment to the state constitution in 2008. I don’t think that we should legislate via constitutional amendments, nor do I think that taxes should be set by amendment.
I regret voting for Norm Coleman for U.S. Senate in 2002. I was going to vote for Paul Wellstone. But the speeches of Rick Kahn and others at Wellstone’s funeral pissed me off so much that I lodged a protest vote against the Democrats. I flinched, and that was a mistake.
And I regret voting for George W. Bush in 2000. His disastrous response to 9/11 — the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan — drove our country into moral torpor and economic recession. I think he was a good guy, and ultimately a centrist, but he let himself get pushed around by Cheney and Rumsfeld. He listened to the wrong people.
OK, so what votes do you regret?!?
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
I regret voting for George W. Bush in 2004! At the time I was pretty immersed in a very conservative Evangelical and partisan mentality, blind to anything outside the “gay marriage” and abortion debates. I have come a long way since then.
Lets see.
Nader in 2000? Proud of that
Romney for Gov of MA in 2002? He was a different guy then and fine with that
McCain in 2000 Primary? He was a different guy too
I don’t regret voting for Bush in 1992 and Dole in 1996. (was a big Kemp fan). But, in hindsight, not voting for Clinton, who ended up a heck-uv-a President is a regret.
Any vote for the US president should be regretted –regardless of the party. Why? Because the popular vote does not select the US president. That authority is given by the US COnstitution to the Electoral College. To vote, therefore, is to support the fundamentally undemocratic aspect of our political system. Instead, don’t vote for the US president and loudly and repeatedly tell people why you did not vote.
I disagree with a lot of the political stuff on this blog, but none more so than that comment.
The only one I regret is one I didn’t cast–for Dukakis. I was still registered in my hometown and intended to drive the two hours after work to vote and I didn’t make it. I never complained during the first Bush presidency because of it. That said, I don’t necessarily regret voting for Reagan in ’84 but I do regret that I did so for no good reason other than he seemed so nice and grandfatherly. I tried to make it up to Mondale in 2002. I wasn’t living here to vote for The Body, but boy I would have!
Mostly I regret going through a long non-voting phase: I voted for George Bush the First back in 1992 (during my thoroughly conservative days) and didn’t vote again until John Kerry in 2004–after I finally spent some time actually studying economic justice issues. (I was in the Philippines in 1996 and in Canada in 2000, but I could have put forth a half-assed effort if I wanted to)
I voted Reagan in my first of-age election (1980) because my family was conservative and I hadn’t thought about it yet. I still recall the ashen face of my English teacher, Mrs. Jelinek (the only liberal within miles of my village), when I told her. Not even sure I regret the vote — just the years I took off Mrs. J’s life!
I regret voting for Raagan in ’84 – my first of-age presidential election. Same reasons as you, but the shock from my conservative Christian Baptist college roommate the next day hit me hard, too! He was amazed that I could limit my scope to one or two “moral” issues that Reagan effectively did nothing about. In ’88 I was my precinct chairman and a district delgate for Jesse Jackson; in ’92 I was a precinct and district delegate for Jerry Brown; voted Nader twice (I was living in Montana by 2000, so my vote had no impact). My two votes for Wellstone are among my proudest (along with Obama!).
As a liberal pragmatist, I don’t regret any of my votes, but I admit that I wasn’t very enthusiastic about some of my presidential candidates (Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry) as I was about others (Carter, Clinton, Obama). It just took me a long time before I voted for a candidate who actually won. (I have yet to vote for a winning candidate in the state of Texas.)
My late father used to say that the only vote he ever regretted was his vote for Nixon–the first and last Republican he voted for.
Your father was right to regret that.
I have voted for two Republican candidates, Gerald Ford and Jon Anderson. I do not regret these votes, I regret my choices did not win. The idea that not voting is a protest, seems very very dumb to me. It effectively protests only against the right to vote. Nothing else.
I regretted voting against Bloomberg for his second term as NYC mayor (don’t even remember who his opponent was). Then, after he bullied his way to a 3rd term, I lost my regret.
Regrets? I’ve had a few:
I crossed over to vote in the Democrat Primary in ’92 for Paul Tsongas. The regret there is that while the ballot itself is secret, the fact that I voted in the Democrat primary is public information on my voting record.
I voted for Lloyd Bentsen in ’88 for Senator. (But not for VP.) And I think I voted for Mark White in ’86 for governor.
I actually don’t remember if I voted for Clayton Williams or for Ann Richards for governor in 1990, but I would regret voting for either of them.
(I probably voted for Clayton Williams.)
That’s about all I have to say about that.
Why do you disagree with my above comment about not voting? What reasons?
Where to start to answer that?
1. We don’t live in a democracy per se, we live in a republic. We don’t vote on every issue in this country (it would be an enormous waste of time and energy if we did), we send people to the capital to represent us. The electoral college is in keeping with that idea. We send electors to the state capital every four years and they vote for the President and the Vice-president.
2. There was a wisdom in the electoral college that the founding fathers recognized. It mandates that candidates campaign in the entire country. Presidential campaigns would be very different under a pure popular vote; candidates would focus on large urban/suburban centers and smaller states/towns/population centers would not have the opportunity to be as involved in the process as they do now.
3. It increases the opportunity for corruption. (I’m certain that in a popular vote system Chicago’s precincts and Louisiana’s precincts would report later than the rest of the country.)
4. It takes away the sovereignty of individual states. In the current system states essentially run and certify elections. Sending that authority to the feds is just a bad idea. (I’d say it’s contrary to the 10th Amendment, but then again, being contrary to the 10th Amendment has never stopped the fed before.)
5. But most of all, what the flamin’ hell does not voting accomplish??? Do you actually think not voting makes for a more democratic society??? Hello! McFly!
If you want to change the system, it requires a constitutional amendment. You would start with your state representative. (But he/she isn’t going to pay you a whole lot of attention to your opinion when you’re not even a voter.) You’ll also have to get 34 other states to ratify the amendment. Good luck with that.
1. A republic is an indirect democracy — as opposed to a direct democracy
2. Wisdom, maybe ; less democratic, for sure — as a result the electoral college generates a tension between popular will and the electoral college (e.g. election of Bush with minority of popular votes and this has happend three additional times in US history)
3. Is there evidence to suggest that the popular vote is more or less corrupt than electoral college?
4. It gives sovereignty to “the people”
5. Not voting for president is a form of protest against the current electoral college — especially if one can articulate why they don’t vote. Conversely, if one’s vote does not elect the US president, why vote? It is ritual and little else with consequence.
1. That’s my point
2. The tension is only for those who voted for the loser and don’t understand the process. (Sound familiar, Jacob?)
3. In the current process all a corrupt precinct can do is throw a state. There’s still a chance that a candidate can overcome the corruption by winning less corrupt states.
4. The people don’t have sovereignty.
5. No, it’s just stupid. It accomplishes absolutely nothing, and I don’t know why I just wasted 60 seconds of my day arguing with you.
1. But an indirect democracy says nothing about the electoral college. A republic, in other words, could exist with or without an electoral college. I would like to do away with the electoral college.
2. I didn’t vote for the loser or the winner of the last election. But the tension exists nonetheless — as the political stuggle that followed the 2000 election clearly shows. I understand the process, but I disagree with the process.
3. Having the popular vote select the president wouldn’t lead to more corruption. Or, at least, we have no evidence to suggest that it would. So, do you think that the electoral college prevents corruption? How?
4. The US Constitution starts: “We the people of the…” In other words, “the people” formed the government — the government didn’t form the people. In direct and indirect democracy, the point is the people are sovereign — not the king, not the government, etc.
5. Whether you find it “stupid” or not says nothing about the effectiveness of protest. The Constitution certainly isn’t perfect and I am in favor of increasing the say of “the people” in terms of our government. I am not in favor of increasing the distance between “the people” and their leadership, which is what the electoral college does.
@ Mr. Stump. The effectiveness of your “protest” is easy to measure. If everyone joins your protest, it will not eliminate the electoral college. It will simply eliminate the need to hold elections. If you want to eliminate the electoral college, you need to vote for people who agree with you. If enough people believe, as I do, that the electoral college was one of the wiser things the founders incorporated into our system, then you will never get your way.
Comrades and fellow working men, and women. I regret voting for Berry, sorry, Barrack Hussein Obama. He has not done well with our socialist revolution.
I regret I vote. Why I still do is a mystery.
The Electoral college is bad enough but winner take all for each state during the primaries/convention? Please! In the olden days, you didn’t know who the nominee would be going in because … gasp… every elector’s vote counted. I’d settle for that. The founding fathers thought the rabble … er … electorate were not educated enough to vote for their leaders. I guess the electors aren’t educated enough now so we need corporations and big banks to vote for their guy with big fat campaign bucks. (since corporations now have the same rights as the individual). Check it- you can’t make this stuff up.
Voting for state-office term limits in California in 1992. The result has been governors and legislators who, because they’ll be out of office in 12 years, make absolutely no longer-term plans for the state. Consequently we have falling-apart infrastructure, oddly funded (and now unfunded) social services, collapsing school systems and prison systems, a Democratic majority that takes its power for granted, and a Republican minority that makes itself less relevant yearly.
I don’t regret voting for Bush twice; I still think he was the lesser evil of the two. But voting for Tweedledum instead of Tweedledee still means you elected a Tweedle.
Interesting reading. What I take away is that nothing really ever changes. People run for president, promise the world and other people fall for it. Then they are stunned when government isn’t actually made more efficient or the planet doesn’t heal or the rise of the oceans isn’t slowed.
Good question, Tony. I hadn’t thought about it but was pleased to find I don’t regret any vote I’ve ever cast.
never have cast a vote that I regretted. If I had been able to vote in 2000 I might have voted for Nader, and since I live in FL and given what an out of touch megalomaniac he has turned into, it would be a regret. Have voted for several independent/3rd party people over the years and never regretted a single vote.
If you always vote your conscience you’ll never have a regret.
Tony, I heartily agree with your assessment of George W. Bush! I think he is a good man with some radically misguided political beliefs. He made terrible mistakes. But if you compare his rhetoric to that of the current Republican presidential candidates, you can tell that Bush was a man who genuinely cared about helping people improve their lives. That didn’t stop him from being a disaster, of course….
Interesting question: best/worst 2 presidents of the last 50 years (from JFK on and you can’t count Obama or Bush II – too soon to tell).
BEST: Reagan (economy), Clinton (economy)
WORST: Carter (economy), Nixon (Watergate, gold standard, price controls)
Carter McNeese,
Doesn’t everyone vote according to their conscience? Unless they get paid for their vote – now there’s a whole new market opportunity for job-creators to develop!
I also wanted to say that over time, as I learn and mature, I sometimes realize that my conscience was ill-informed, and then I regret a choice made in ignorance or confusion. My conscience isn’t always the perfect guide, but it’s the best I can do at any given time.
I regret not voting for Gerald Ford in 1976, though I have always liked Jimmy Carter, I just think in retrospect that Ford would have done a better job as president.
Oddly enough I don’t regret voting for Bush in 2000 or Nixon in 1972, though they both turned out to be disastrous choices. I regret that our political system was unable to produce more worthy candidates to oppose them.
The BEST vote I cast was for Al Franken, who won directly as a result of my vote (and about 500 others).