Focus 580; Open Line with JOHN HAGELIN

Good morning and welcome to focus 580. This is our telephone talk program. My name is David Ensor. Glad to have you with us. We are scheduled to be talking this morning in this part of focus 580 with John HAGEN. He is a candidate for president here in the state of Illinois. He appears on the ballot as the candidate of the Reform Party and some other states. He is the candidate of the Natural Law Party. He in fact is the founder co-founder of the Natural Law Party that was in 1982 and he has run twice as the natural law candidate for president in 92 and 96. In some states he is also listed as an independent in some states he's making a attempt at being a write in candidate. But the plan was that they were going to call us and we're you have been waiting and so far we haven't gotten the call yet. If he calls we'll put him on Otherwise I guess we will take the other option that we sometimes do when things don't work out as we planned. And that is just throw the lines open and do an open line and certainly if any day would be appropriate for talking about politics and attitudes towards

candidates and voting and political coverage this would be the day so if you have comments. I'd certainly be happy to have them. About politics in general you can give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We should certainly take a moment here to talk a little bit about the coverage that we have planned for tonight. And you can tune in to any of our stations AM FM TV will be there online to provide coverage. Jack Brighton who is one of the producers for Focus 580 here stepped into the studio for a moment and I believe that also you will be anchoring tonight the coverage that morning. That's right and of course there are in addition there will be just about everybody else will be busy and will be doing some air work. Our reporters are going to be out there in the field we're going to be collecting information and trying to get some vote totals out so.

We're trying to provide a variety of coverage. And starting. At. Let me see it o'clock tonight. OK. I know Bing Brian is tied up with you taking some phone calls we get some people lined up here in just a second. But we do want to say just for people who are who want to have that option. So what kind of things you think you could be doing. Well it's actually going to be very exciting we're going to have numbers reported from all the county courthouses in like a very quick fashion we're reporting those on the air and also online via graphs if people want to look at our election website. You know you see you just click on election 2000 and you will see a graph a graphic representation of the vote throughout the 15th congressional district there are 11 counties we've got people in 11 county courthouses are going to report back the numbers that we're going to update

the numbers very quickly the reason we're doing that is because we were very unhappy last time around the last few times actually with the numbers we were getting from Associated Press. They just weren't fast enough. And so we felt like we want to do a better job we're going to do that tonight. Also we're going to have some in-studio commentary from Brian Gaines who teaches political science here at University of Illinois he's a national political watcher will have the same go from the Institute of Government Public Affairs commenting on some of the state issues and races in the student annoy. And Bill will house from Illinois Public Radio the capitol bureau chief there will talk with him from time to time. And of course National Public Radio's coverage will be you know sort of a magazine format around the clock from eight till whenever. OK and maybe what I see we have a number of callers here so people we can talk with some folks maybe also at at some point today if you like but at some point we would certainly be interested in hearing some people who were using our our special

election Web page and to find out you know what did you think was that did you. Did you appreciate having that information there was it useful to you. Is there something different. Because we certainly and Jack particularly has been put in a lot of hours on this thing hoping that it would be something that you could use. And we know that some people have been accessing it it's a little I guess is a little difficult to know exactly how many people and what parts of it they're using. Right. But it certainly makes it one thing that we can do with that and have done is that all of the the thing all the material that we've had on the air is there. So if people missed something when it was first broadcast focus 580 or candidate. The things that that our reporters did with talking to candidates features that they produced all that stuff is there so people who have the Internet access can go there and can listen to it anytime that they want. Right. So at some point if you found that was good you know maybe you might drop us a line and email regular mail and let us know because we're certainly

interested. He was sort of an experiment because we wanted to see how what we could do with this new technology. The other thing that we have going is the election 2000 newsletter which is an email newsletter we've been sending out. Not a lot of people signed up for it. I think it's very experimental thing at this point but it's worked out real well for those who have actually subscribed to this thing as a free service. And we'll keep doing it after the election in a number of other ways. OK well let me just mention again that we've had a little change of plans this morning. We were expecting to talk with John Hague one candidate in this state of the Reform Party and others of natural law. His This is his third I believe his third run for the presidency he did twice with Natural Law Party. And they believe last week his campaign called and said Would you like to talk to him and we said sure. And they said OK we set it up for today and they said we'll call you. We're still waiting. Waiting for the call waiting for the call. And if he does call well we'll talk with him otherwise this is probably a pretty good day to be doing a political open line

so we'll do that in fact the lines are full. So we'll start right in. We'll go to align number one the caller's Urbana. Hello. Yes good morning. I have been so happy with W I L L radio and TV coverage of the election it's been wonderful and I don't have a website myself and I don't have access to a computer so I can't comment on the fact that you can reply all these things via the computer I think it's just a great idea though. Do you want to urge people to vote today. And also I am a very partisan person I'm hoping people do not vote for Nader but will vote for Gore instead. So that's what I'm urging you for the Nader people to say we can't have a Republican presidency we need to have a Democratic presidency. So thanks for giving me a chance to air my views.

You're certainly welcome thank you for the go. Let's go on here we'll go to Champagne It's next in line number two. Hello David. Thank you so much. Actually going was I just I started it for it's wonderful you're going to have Jones and your team on TV coverage of focus has been marvelous about getting him to the lawn. That's why we support them so much. I'm wondering in the campaign why so little has been. With the foreign affairs area it seems has been so much focus on the domestic situation of course there's plenty there. But personally I feel that the Vice President Gore is so well qualified in the foreign affairs

area he's entered into a lot of things and I just can't imagine the governor of Texas sitting there an international settlement. Some of the major problems that face us. So I hope people think about that when they're voting and vote for Gore please. I think it's an interesting question and about why perhaps foreign affairs are played more prominently and and I guess I would think of the answer not claimed to be an expert on American politics but I would think that the answer most people would give is that most Americans aren't that interested in foreign policy and what is most important to most Americans are domestic issues and that's particularly true now that we are in the post-Cold War era. I'm not saying that that should be the case but it is my sort of general feeling that that is that is the case out there in America that there isn't a great

deal of interest in foreign affairs and that's too bad because we shouldn't be in and no nothing but inward looking situation when so much depends on where world leaders we need. Well the leadership at the top of the White House thanks so much I'll give room for others. All right thanks. Oh well then in that case you have a you have a household where I'm sure a lot of time is spent discussing politics in Welly. We give it up. Situation is a major focus to the right. Thanks so much for being there for all of us. Well thanks for the call we provide. Let's go to Banda next line 3. Hello hello. Yes I wanted to take this opportunity to bring your attention and the attention of your listeners to something that's been going on for Nader supporters

here in Urbana. I'm a Nader supporter and a lot of other Nader supporters supporters I know have woken up almost every morning for the last week and found that our Nader lawn signs have been ripped up thrown away torn into small pieces. This is gotten to be more and more severe the closer to the election. It's gone on. Although I in no means mean to you. Implicate any of the Democratic candidates for this. Often times people also have Democratic signs in the yard and those are left untouched. I just want to express that this is I mean to me a complete outrage this is. These are individuals who support one candidate trying to suppress the speech and the personal expressions of people who do not support that candidate or supported an oppositional candidate. That's outrageous to me. And it also seems to be a pretty silly tactic if Democrats are concerned that people are supporting Nader so suppressing their ability to support Nader their ability to express their viewpoint is only going to increase dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and not bring it back.

I think that we agree with that assuming that people are assuming that this is something the Democrats are doing. That's definitely the feeling that all that that I have and that other people who this has happened to have had just because our Democrat signs are not being ripped down our Nader sign is we've also gotten a lot of the concerns that. And sending us flyers in the in the mailboxes urging us not to vote for Nader. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Some of the timing of those has coincided rather suspiciously with the same time that the Nader signs have been ripped out. Let me ask you a question if I may just because there has been this effort among Democrats to persuade Nader supporters to support Mr. Gore. What do you think about that particularly this argument that says well you Nader folks you may be well intentioned but you're taking votes away from Mr. Gore and so this is in effect. But it's almost as if you were voting for George Bush.

Well I think that that Al Gore has to convince me to vote for him through the positions that he espouses through the policies that he says he's going to put in place. He's not been able to do that. He doesn't own my vote. Nader has been able to convince me I support his I support his policy positions I support his record. I've been very very very disappointed with the point and I worked for Clinton in 1992. I wouldn't even vote for him in 96. I voted for Nader if I would. Registering a protest vote in 96 Thank you no reason why if I can actually start building a party in the year 2000 why I wouldn't do the same and vote for Nader. Well I appreciate your call. All right Zain thank you very much and that some other folks here who are ready to go lined up maybe again I should mention that we were scheduled to this morning on focus 580 to talk with presidential candidate John Glenn candidate of the Reform Party here in the state of Illinois and in other places candidate of the Natural Law Party party he helped to found and in some places he's actually running as an independent he is not on the

ballot in all states. He was going to the caller there. His folks are going to call us and didn't. And if we hear from him say before about 10:30 we'll still go ahead and talk with him. Otherwise we're interested in your thoughts on this Election Day you can give us a call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champagne Urbana toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5. We'll go on here is color in Freeport in line number four. Hello. Yes I was going to ask your professor hard go on his van on my desk in front of me. Workers were amazed Bieber has referred to Governor George Bush as governor in that regard. Someone turned 21 executions during his term of governor in Texas and now he's so concerned about an American fireman saving wife for no new forms are going on would be not a big advocate of family but he's not here of course.

That's yeah and you know I know I did spend some time looking at their Web sites just to get some sense of what their positions on various issues was were and I don't I guess I don't remember whether they address that or not and in fact I have it here on the computer in front of me and I see a number of things. Issue issues. Here we go. Capital punishment pile is just see what it says. It looks like that they don't as I'm trying to read here very quickly. It looks as if they. They are there they don't favor capital punishment. That would be my reading of what they have to say. They're there you know they take up. I think they take a much more sort of preventive approach to the issue of crime with their what they would argue is that if people lived in the right way that there we wouldn't have the kind of crime that we do. So I guess I guess the answer that I think you would get would be that he would not be in favor of capital

punishment. People are we're living in right. So yeah I magine here I would think you probably agree with it. Yeah I actually interviewed John Hagelin last time around and really his approach to crime is as you say preventive. They really take a sort of a transcendental meditation approach to a lot of social problems. I mean realistically one has to say that that if enough people practice certain meditation procedures and so forth that has an effect on the social fabric. Not everyone has to meditate but they feel that if there's a critical mass beyond which a lot of social problems start to resolve in really that may be sort of you know not doing the argument Justice in his eyes but he's not here to articulate so that's the best I can do. So I think that's probably the end of the question of course. All right. Well thanks for your call let's continue we'll go to Dunlap which is lie number one. Hello hello. I'm calling because by this time tomorrow the.

Advertisement for all of the rhetoric everything will be done. And so I'm calling to ask if anyone else has. I have some old political chestnuts that I'd like to repeat and I wonder if anyone else would like to have a little bit of leavening to today's election. There is no one that has phoned her early and often there is the one that's Why would anyone run for public office for a job that pays a quarter of a million and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to gain an office and so on. I think it's time to lighten up. OK thank you. All right good for you good. I would certainly agree invective. We sort of made the decision that that unfocussed 580 tomorrow morning we would not talk about politics. We don't even get close. We're going to do car care and consumer electronics. Two of our very favorite non-controversial topics at least it seems like it's not controversy.

So yeah I think that probably people who the voters probably are a little tired most people expect and I'm sure that people in the media who are concerned with US are probably tired of it too. Yeah. I think everyone is feeling you know. However it ends up it's going to be done and we're going to be a big sigh of relief felt across the country now. That's not to say that we don't care about it. It's just that it has been very strenuous. Well and I really do think that there is genuine feeling out there in the land that the campaign just goes on too long and that it would be we'd all be better off if perhaps we could somehow make it a little shorter and certainly there are many countries in which by legislatively they have said all right it's only going to be this long it's not going to go on for two years. It's going to be two months or something like that. And they seem to be able to get along pretty well. Well any any case here which is keep on talking with people we'll go next to champagne and this is line number two.

Hello. Hello good morning David good morning Jack. Yeah I wish I could follow up the previous callers levity but I suppose a bit more serious today. I am very excited about election day and I making a vote not out of fear and out of the vote for the lesser of two evils but indeed for the third party candidate Ralph Nader. Like the young woman in Urbana my sons are retired too. They have been several times and I've been to their the Green Party's downtown office. I'm a Green Party member and I'm supporting the candidate that the Green Party Caucus can chose to support I think folks ought to understand that regardless of how flaky they may have seen Ralph Nader over the past 40 years. He's an outstanding candidate a candidate of great character and I believe great vision. Would you make a group the best president. Not necessarily but I believe that it's a voting conscience rather than a vote for fear. It's so heartwarming to make a decision on Election Day. It doesn't make me want to throw up. And I voted for Nader in 96 and that was a protest vote. And Clinton in

92 and Dukakis before that. So I would just like to point out that I do enjoy the coverage that you folks have given towards local candidates. It's shameful utterly disgraceful that the local broadcast news stations television stations lavished themselves with puppy dog stories and disgusting tidbits of nothingness while there are such crucial issues that. That you folks have dedicated time to. It's too bad that that that you folks aren't the norm. And then you could even elevate that bar further. It is it is laughable that in this town. Of highly educated people that we don't demand more of our local news and we certainly get it at least local coverage of politics from you and I would like to say on the national level NPR did a disgraceful job covering up third party candidates in my opinion. We certainly got our fill of Bush and Gore over the past two years and we really had to fight hard on a national level to hear any of the reporting a following of Nader or even for God's sakes Pat Buchanan but he's a third

party candidate the natural law candidates. I wonder just as a final thought what you folks might have thought if as Ross Perot was allowed to do allowed to debate he got 19 percent of the vote 92 8 percent in 96 and in 96 he only debated it once. Now in 98 and it in the year 2000 Nader hasn't been allowed to debate and neither is Pat Buchanan. I I hasten to think that that they're doing it out of some types of rules formulation certainly they've gotten together and decided that you know Nader can't debate and if he could've I can better believe that he would have drawn Republicans independents and Democrats probably gotten somewhere around 20 percent. Thank you for the time. And filling in like this this morning for sure thing all thank you for the go. I think he's got a lot of good points. The debates certainly were the rules were fashioned by the Democratic and Republican parties. The Presidential Debate Commission is essentially a commission of those two parties. And I think the country would have been better off hearing more

voices that said that didn't happen. I think it would have made for a much more interesting debate although I wouldn't want to be the moderator of that debate. I think it would have been very difficult for Jim Lehrer who would probably had another heart attack. You know what just keep going. Well I tell you maybe what we also need to do the one thing here real quick we need to do this test of the Emergency Alert System. And this is focused 580 our telephone talk program my name is David in sitting here in studio with

me Jack Brighton. He's one of the producers for Focus 580 also will be involved in our coverage tonight on AM FM online of the election. And we're certainly interested in what you have to say if you have some thoughts about generally speaking about how the election has been covered or specifically about what we've done. We'd certainly like to hear from you and maybe I'll mention just once again that we had planned this morning to be talking with John Hegland. He is the candidate in this state of the Reform Party and others of the Natural Law Party. His campaign offered us the opportunity to talk with him and we said sure we would do that and they said fine we'll call you. And they didn't so we decided well we'd go ahead and we just could just do an open line. Sure. And it's a good day to be doing it. Your comments on politics are certainly welcome here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 also toll free anywhere that you can hear us that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. And our next caller here in line would be

number three. Hello. Good morning gentlemen. I'd like to join this groundswell of Nader supporters and I just want to mention a couple reasons that I would never vote for Gore. One is this is an utter lack of imagination health care for instance. He's he's given us a few crumbs. He want to see here's to ensure all the children. Now when Clinton came in there was a lot of support for what they called single payer I believe at the time something like Canada's and of course the doctors then were calling it socialized medicine. And but anyhow Clinton turned it over to Hillary and she made it so confusing and she tried to cater to I believed all these special interest groups. The insurance companies and everything that thing just sell. But now even the doctors are so down on HMO as I think they would support single payer in fact. They should call it Medicare for everybody you know make it easy to understand so I am

really disappointed that Gore doesn't have the courage to push right away for universal health care. And then another thing he does nothing to educate the electorate on anything moving like. I'm sure Nader would be pushing for more power for you when perhaps some kind of un standing army for the submergence emergency situations and that we don't get any and the white does their education and talk just the same old stump speeches and a third the last thing I want to say. I think Clinton and Gore really dropped the ball in Russia. By now they should have been our best friends and Europe if this were handled or handled right but it was handled all wrong and we have these enemies all over the world and they're worried about terrorism here and a good foreign policy we wouldn't have enemies all over the world won't would have friends I think where we're trying to do too much for countries like Japan and Western Europe that just don't want to hold up their share of the game. So that's all I want to say.

OK well thanks for the call. Okay bye bye highly appreciate the call and sharing some of your thoughts of that be interesting to see exactly what what happens here we'll see with Mr. Nader. I just want to reflect that call shows that people out there think about issues and I think that's really true one thing that you know we often hear is you know American people don't care about politics or they're not you know they can't handle the issues I just you know you know I've been doing the show too long too to buy into that argument and have heard the comments of people who listen to this station and people elsewhere. People are smart enough to figure things out. OK well let's go on Southern Illinois is our next person this is the line number four. Hello. How you doing. I for one will be thankful when all this negative campaigning is over with and that really turns me off. I mean I like to look at the issues but when I hear that negativity that just kind of turns me off on that person even though they may actually be the best candidate. But the thing is you know I just wish that I could actually see the person's heart and really know their motivation because

these issues are meaningless thing I mean even for the present you know Congress seems to be the one who really makes a lot of the things and really runs the country you know in the present I just. Stand for that one voice I know they do a lot of executive orders but I don't quite understand about what the one issue I'm really concerned with is they talk about these criminals on death row you know and haven't sympathy for them. But they say that they don't see that in the same light as these little babies that are in these womb have and sympathy for them and they say well the woman should have her choice but. But the woman and the man who made that baby had the choice to come to join in a sexual relations that led up to that baby so the choice was already made in my eyes and there should be no choice over here to kill this baby because this baby deserves a life. It hasn't committed any crimes or anything it may be the next president who knows. But there are lots of people longing for babies and can't have them and they're just slaughtering these babies and I just I just hurts

me inside and I want to see something change you know and you know it seems like Gord this is hearsay I know but before he was even pick for vice president he was for life. But then he switched over. No it's hearsay I know but. And nobody's there to come frm it. You know they're going to say what they want to say now because they want to get where they want to be but but you know he was for pro-life and then all of a sudden just so he could be vice president he swopped is his thinking and now he stand strong and I don't like it. And so I voted for Bush. I know these people are talking about Ralph Nader I farm. And so I get three months out of the year that I don't even listen to the radio or nothing and I'm totally misinformed and so I have to search for my information. And I didn't hear much about Nader but I think Bush. For me I am when I would lived in Miami. Bush's dad was the president when Hurricane Andrew came through. And you know as soon as there was jobs there I would have never had a problem finding a job but the moment Clinton got in there it seemed like I couldn't find it. Yeah. And saw found myself here and you know so

that's just my thinking as that's my experience and that's MY are going up and listen. Well again thank you very much appreciate the call. We'll just keep on going and talking with as many people as we can we'll come back here locally to Urbana That's next person in line. One number one. Hello. Hi yes Hi David and Jack. I'm a Democrat I know a few Republicans and a few Nader right. Some I respect greatly. But I wanted to refer to the lady's call about the sign only I know several Democrats who signs have been ripped up. Up to four times. And so I just want the Naderi to understand that I think this kind of behavior is just a little chink in human kind that we all wish people would not allow to happen. I don't think it has any party speciality and that we should just regret that there are people who rip up anybody sign

especially if they're placed on private property. So I don't think paranoia is in order. And I hope our local residents realize that this is just a negative behavior on individuals part not along party lines. Well then I guess that would be my question no I hear what the caller said and you know she said that some people who had signs for Democratic candidates and. As for Mr. Nader the Nader signs with the only ones that were torn up so I don't know exactly what to make of that I guess my initial question would be well is this just simple vandalism or is it politically motivated I guess we could go out there and we could do a count and see how many how many signs of what candidate wear ripped up and try to make the decision that way. I guess I would be a bit of both. David I would think so on and I guess at the you know my bottom line would be to in a sense to agree with both you and the other caller and say this is really unfortunate.

It is unfortunate but we're receiving these kinds of vandalism acts or political acts and we just have to say The heck with that and get on with our candidates. Everybody should vote today I hope they do. Yes. Well thank you. Bye bye. We'll go next to let me see the champagne. Line number two. Hello. Hi I'd like to say a couple things. First of all I'd like to encourage everybody to get up go vote. Our democracy depends on participation. Fewer people vote every time and each time they do that those people who do vote begin to make more and more of a difference your vote gets the more power more powerful when less people vote to get up and vote. Second of all I'd like to ask a question. I voted Republican and I vote Republican locally but not in national elections. What I want to know is why is this party the party so based on divestiture of power from the federal government about freedom to

own and use weapons. The freedom to have enterprise the freedom to do a lot of different things. Why is this party so concerned about what woman one woman does with their own body. Why is it this party so base on taking power away from the government keeping the government out of your life and making the government smaller and more and less part of everybody's day to day existence. Why do they care what you do with your body. And third of all I'd like to say kudos to Nader voters. I vote for Nader is not a vote for Gore. If Gore had not lost touch with his party there would be no Nader support. And that's just it. Going back to just interest in what you had to say. The issue of abortion I guess it was my impression that the Republican Party was was hoping to downplay this issue that while it was very important you know as with the previous caller it was maybe one of the most important things to some Republicans to

others they they feel that it's less so. And it seems that they think they'll be more successful if they talk less about it. I think also the loss of Pat Buchanan like Pat Buchanan had sway over the Republican Party in certain ways they had to cater to his people when making their platform and him being outside the party has drawn away some of that far right religious right support. Well I suppose depending on what happens tomorrow some people will look at if if Governor Bush is elected I suppose some people will say that it was a successful strategy to attempt to put less emphasis on the social cultural issues and more. The economic ones. Are great. I guess we'll find out. Thank you very much and thanks for the call. Again we'll just keep right on going to this is another Urbana person that's line number three. Hello. Hi. Yes I'm calling about the Nader issue myself. Yes and I'm feeling increasingly festive sinful I have often voted

Democrat. If I had had no other choice absolutely no other choice including write in candidate in this election to vote for Gore or Bush. I honestly don't know what I would have done because I feel like Gore has betrayed us. He's I feel like he's trying to play to the center trying to say things that he thinks people want to hear which of course is the opposite of being a leader. The one thing I would like to have a leader. And they they haven't fulfilled the promise of aggressiveness that they that they came into office on eight years ago. So it's not. It's not it's not that I'm a person that would be voting for Gore anyway I'm not a Democrat. The Democrats don't own me. I'm a person of conscience with a brain and for once I'm going to get to go in a voting booth and vote for somebody I feel good for. And as far as the argument that you know this is a wasted vote because he's not going to win that is absolutely not true. It is an investment in the

future of our country. It's it's an investment in the Green Party which I believe is a good thing. So it's an investment in the future of our country. I just think that the people that are harassing the Democrats that are harassing the Nader supporters are. Looking at the wrong issues and looking at it the wrong way and I think they're very short sighted and not I won't be thrilled to see Bush get in if if Nader voters and you know costing Gore votes I don't like Bush I won't be thrilled to see him get in but I have to. I feel like you know I have to put my personal feelings about Bush aside and vote my conscience and investment for the few. Of this country. Thank you. I wonder just if I could ask you a quick question and I'm just sort of curious as you say the sort of the conventional wisdom says that if Ralph Nader wasn't

running that the people who are supporting him would be supporting Mr. Gore and I'm just curious based on what you said and based on your experience and the people you that you know whether you think that there might be significant numbers of people who will be voting for Mr. Nader who as as as I think I hear you say would not be voting for Gore if Nader wasn't an issue that perhaps people not might be voting at all. Right. To tell you the truth I think I would vote but I don't know if I would vote for presidential candidate four years ago. You know I let friends convince me that rather than vote for Nader and risk. Putting Dole in the White House I should vote for the Clinton Gore ticket and I did and I regret it terribly. Not not because of any of the personal stuff. I thought the impeachment stuff was a totally waste of time. It's the it's the

issues and I regret so much that I didn't vote for Nader four years ago. I would go and vote because I would but there are local people that I want to vote for. But I would not I don't I honestly don't know I maybe I would withhold my vote in a protest if I couldn't find you know a registered write in candidate that I support maybe I would just not vote on a presidential candidate. Because I think that. Need to see you know. You know you can't beat say estimates that it will still vote for you because you know we don't like the Republicans say they need to see that that this that they don't represent a lot of people anymore. Well again I appreciate your call. Thanks very much. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. Thank you we have about 10 minutes left in this part of focus 580 and perhaps I should mention again for anyone who's tuned in expecting to hear us talking with John Hey Glenn. And we did say that we're going to be doing that we had in fact planned to be doing that and they were

going to call us to initiate the connection at the beginning of the hour and we never heard from them. So we're sorry about that. I think now as we've talked about it we decided that probably we should have made more of an effort to talk with third party candidates we did invite Mr. Buchanan Mr. Nader to be on the show and they turned us down or their campaigns turned us down. And I think though that as we've talked about. We decided that if we're all still here doing this in another four years we will make we'll make sure that we have whatever third party candidates on that will will do this the least. Certainly the ones that are on the ballot. We'll talk to them. But that's some years down the road. We're doing here a little election day open line if you'd like to call and tell us what you think of the candidates and the issues. You can do that. We have the lines are full. We have about 10 minutes. We'll try to get in as many people as we possibly can and here I'll give you the number again 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. The next person here in line

would be Terre Haute Indiana one number four. Hello hello yes I'm calling from Terre Haute. Yes yes I am really concerned about today way Mr. Bush was selected to represent the Republican Party. I want to lend a hand. He's a level we can all right. He's already scary when he was asked. When he said that we have over committed the troops overseas and he was asked from which point he would like to withdraw them to reach a level of satisfaction he named only two points one was 80. Well they are only 29 observers American observers. And then in the Nam to Kosovo where we don't have a moment in the movie I don't know 500 and normal. He stopped there and I saw when he was asked to name a strategic point says American foreign policy is concerned. He said that Africa has no strategist importance to the United States and of course when he

anywhere he went to campaign he always made sure he had what I call black flowers. There were always black faces behind him to make sure that he cared. It doesn't have to scare me. They last went I want to make about Mr. Bush. That he had made it pointed out that the economy is doing so well now because of the genius of the American people. But the very same American people were there when their leadership or before Bill Clinton almost drowned the economy of this country. And it scares me to see that he's surrounding himself with this so-called experts. Who come from the hood older generations is only running MIT. We're supposed to have been to fix them. Just a week before you made a decision. To change his residence dozer vote assume selected things we don't like about Democrats. So I am really scared about Mr Bosma the elected president would be suitable for dinner as well.

Again I appreciate the comments thank you very much. We have others we just keep going all go next to Bama and this would be a lie number one. Hello hi I want to thank you for the election coverage I think you guys have done a great job and it's really important to me to be able to call and talk to candidates I really appreciate that. I want to say that my kind of sad place sign got ripped off a long time ago and my neighbors Ralph Nader sign is still standing up very proudly right down the street wearing everybody side finally you know that other signs and I think Ted Johnson signed it last couple of times too so I don't know anything about that except that my Saturdays mind just disappeared and I only had that because they have called me. I do want to say in response to other collars today I kind of wish that that the previous caller just said that she wished she'd have voted for Nader last time I was she had to the. And court is hanging in the balance the next president I Statesboro a point at between two and

five U.S. Supreme Court justices those are lifetime appointments we're talkin about constitutional law for the next 10 20 maybe 30 years. So I just think people ought to take that very seriously. Thank you for the opportunity to write and thank you again for the call we'll go next to champagne and line number two. Hello. I might even get some of the candidates here but I want to ask is there is much talk about getting rid of them like Tauriel college because this looks like it's going to be a good turnout this year and I hate to see the popular vote go with the Electoral College. It's think that system's a little bit dated. Well I I'm I'm not sure myself you know as a matter of fact this is something that I had thought we probably should have done a show on to talk about what the system is how it works why we have it and why some people think that it should be changed depending upon what happens. Well you know I think as as so many

people have pointed out if we had one candidate win the popular vote and one candidate win the Electoral College then there's going to be a huge outcry for that to be changed. Otherwise you know it'll be four years and nobody will talk about it for for the next four years. Right. I think it will remind people how it came into play this summer and have a two party system came in. Well as you know let's face it it's out there. Do you think do you think this is going to be a big turnout for the selection. Well gosh I I think I think if champagne County is any indication yes because we have now have a record. If I'm remembering this correctly we have a record number of people registered and of course that doesn't mean that doesn't actually mean they're all going to go vote. But just based on that based on the level of interest I guess I would say that I would think so again that or that remains to be seen to be encouraging but in a sense it's also still a little discouraging because there are so many people who don't choose to vote by I kind of think that there

will be I think the elimination. Two party system might encourage people more. But that's my point. Well I think you know there there are many people who as you know we've heard from a lot of people this morning who said they're going to be voting for Ralph Nader and people generally say that they're disenchanted with the choices and there are some people who say that they don't think that there's enough difference between the two. So I guess I guess I would think that a more vibrant system would be in everybody's interest. And if people would get more energized and there would be lots more discussion about issues that there would be a good thing and if there were more candidates you know particularly strong articulate candidates and they had an opportunity to make their views known I guess I would say that would be a good thing. Yeah well it is it's kind of like Rush Limbaugh in there the way you know what are you. We're probably going to want to run them a lesson tomorrow. It's not almost

it's coming on oh they want to move before they want to hear what's said. Well I just get tired of you and I and I think that I think you know over time as as more voters are interested in in identifying themselves as independents and not with one of the other parties maybe that says that you know we have people who are willing to who would say yeah I would vote for a Democrat I would vote for Republican I would vote for another party what I'm interested in is what that person has to say. So yeah you know maybe over time that might change. Yeah. Well thank you. All right thank you. We're just about the point where we have to stop here I guess we will do one more inner Banna align one. Hello. Oh yes yes yes yes. My husband and I always vote pro-life because we feel that's the bottom line for us. And in any decision it's wonderful to say to talk about women's choice but when you think that women's choice involves two lives

not just won because it's indisputable that that is human life. Then that decision has to take into consideration the innocent lives as well as the woman's choice. And you can hardly equate women's choice with with the choice to work in any kind of profession and choice for the equality of say with the the choice of ending another human eye. And so that's always the issue that trumps every other issue for us and I can never understand why people will say well I am against abortion but there are other issues. Well surely the taking of innocent human lives would have to trump all of these other issues. Well again as I've said to the other callers I'd appreciate your comments thank you very much for calling

and I and sorry to sort of jump in on you there but we're going to have to stop because we've used the time for this hour and again before we finish. We certainly would do want to remind folks that we will have coverage on AM FM TV and online tonight. Jack Brighton will be involved and what time we're going to start going to start 8:00 locally actually will probably have updates before then. And National Public Radio's coverage begins at 5:00. OK. Thank you. I mean our thanks to everybody who called. Hope you'll tune in.