Political Activist Michael Moore

Nov. 7 -- Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore didn’t want you to vote for Al Gore. While he said he thinks Gore is “a decent guy,” he also took the vice president to task in an open letter: “I have spent the last eight years doing what I could, in my own small way, to try and stop the hemorrhaging that your administration caused.”

And Michael Moore really didn't want you to vote for George W. Bush. He told the Texas Governor, “Your possible victory on Tuesday is a threat to our national security.” He went even further, calling Bush “a banal, despicable, and corrupt human being.”

While Moore would have preferred that you vote for Ralph Nader, whose presidential bid he ardently supported, he suggested that almost anyone was a better choice than the major-party candidates in this year’s election. The point, he said, was having a choice — in Congressional races where a single candidate is running unopposed, he urged voters to cast write-in votes for house plants instead of allowing an uncontested victory. “Our whole campaign slogan here with the ficus is ‘Vote ficus. It can’t get any worse,’” he said. “A potted plant will not send us to war.” Michael Moore discussed the choices this year’s voters have — and why some feel disenfranchised — in an online chat on Election Night. A transcript of the chat follows.

Moderator

Michael Moore joins us now in a live, online discussion. Welcome, and thanks for being here!

Michael Moore

Thank you for having me.

Moderator

You say on your web site that a Bush presidency would be "a threat to our national security." What do you mean?

Michael Moore

Number one, he is the one who told us about a year agothat he has not committed any felonies in the last 25 years.It implies that he committed one more than 25 years ago,and if that is true,we must not have someone sitting in the Oval Office who can be blackmailedif someone finds out this deep dark secret he is hiding.Then he becomes a risk to our national security,be it from a foreign enemy such as Saddam Husseinor a domestic one like Exxon Mobil.

Houstonian asks:

How can the process be reasonably changed so that people have more of a say in who is chosen to represent the parties? Who picked these guys? Some choice.

Michael Moore

Exactly!Out of 275 million Americans, it's embarrassing that these are the two best people the system has come up with.Number one, we need a system of proportional representationlike they have in a couple of cities and states here in the United States.