AR 75% GA 76% KY 75% MI 59% MS 89% MT 67% ND 73% OH 62% OK 76% OR 57% UT 66%
Do you think that that is anywhere near the percentage of Republicans in those states? If so, the democratic party is doomed, particularly in Ohio, Michigan, Oregon, and Arkansas. Those states were either swing or blue this year.
As for why Kerry lost, I'm ashamed to say it but I have to agree with Thor. There were more issues than just the gay issue. I think Security Moms were a big block that moved Red. There was speculation before the election that the Jewish and Black votes would be a little less blue. I think that turned out that way but I don't have a link.
And I think Kerry was just downright awful. Doubts were raised over the only thing that he said qualified him, his 4 months in viet nam. You can't underestimate the blow the Swifties did to that man. Plus he was a zombie. I kept expecting him to promise to eat our brains.
You guys shoulda gone with Howard Scream. He was a one-eye-bigger-than-the-other nutter, but at least he had a personality. Though I'm sure he had skeletons in his closet we never got to find out about.
posted
I agree that Kerry was not the best candidate the Dems could have fielded, though neither do I think it was Dean. I think Graham would have made an EXCELLENT candidate, as would have Clarke, had he had any political experience. I still hope Wesley Clarke runs for something somewhere so that he can stay in politics.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:John Kerry was not defeated by the religious right. He was beaten by moderates who went -- reluctantly in many cases -- for President Bush. This will be hard for many Democrats to take. It's easier to salve those wounds by demonizing religious conservatives. But in the 2004 election, Democrats left votes on the table that could have created a Kerry majority.
Consider these findings from the network exit polls: About 38 percent of those who thought abortion should be legal in most cases went to Bush. Bush got 22 percent from voters who favored gay marriage and 52 percent among those who favor civil unions. Bush even managed 16 percent among voters who thought the president paid more attention to the interests of large corporations than to those of "ordinary Americans." A third of the voters who favored a government more active in solving problems went to Bush.
True, 22 percent of the voters said that "moral values" were decisive in their choices. But 71 percent picked some other issue. All this means that Bush won not because there is a right-wing majority in the United States but because the president persuaded just enough of the nonconservative majority to go his way. Even with their increased numbers, conservatives still constitute only 34 percent of the electorate. The largest share of the American electorate (45 percent) calls itself moderate. The moderates went 54 to 45 percent for Kerry, good but not enough. And 21 percent of this year's voters -- bless them -- called themselves liberal.
There might have been a big turnout for the Republicans, but the 10% of 2000 Gore voters who switched to Bush made a huge difference.
Storm, I don't doubt what you're saying. But I've seen too many "liberal" memes sweep through the country to doubt that there's something similar on the left. For example, Estrada was called "too conservative" by people who didn't know his record at all. The retelling of the Willy Horton and supermarket scanner stories from Bush I are two very clear examples. Similarly, the "Bush is stupid" or "Bush is fighting for oil" memes got propgated pretty well.
I find it interesting that there are some states that look very red in that map, but none that look very blue.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I had a thread somewhere about why I thought moderates is a misused term. I think that this thread fits in with that.
I don't have access to any polling data or any other reliable evidence, so what follows is just my completely unsubstantiated opinion.
It's a common mistake to assume that other people see the world the same way we do. In this case, people who are deeply invested in a specific political viwe (liberal---moderate---conservative) seem to me to be improperly assigning this way of think to pretty much everyone who voted.
There is a large section of the populace who don't approach elections or other things political with this as their primary concern. In some cases, their beliefs span this scale or are outside its scope entirely.
The view of competing ideologies works in many cases, but it ingores the fact that people are voting on two specific people and two specific campaigns. However, instead of address this aspect, people have twisted the terms so that they sound sort of like they are talking about it. Libeal has taken on meaning supports democrats (or a specific democrat) and attacks republicans. Vice versa with conservative. And thus a moderate could be someone who either dislikes both or likes parts of both.
That's absurd. It's a huge mistake to tie ideology to specific csaes, especially for people whose primary viewpoint is not ideologically based. In this election, it's clear that there were ideological (e.g. gay marriage or abortion) and party identification aspects, but some of the biggest concerns such as the economy, the response to terrorism, or the war in Iraq were much more ad hoc issues centered around questions of application, not ideology. John Kerry did not get these votes because these people felt that, regardless of his ideology, he wouldn't do a better job on these things that George Bush.
Also, the actual campaign seems to be an ignored factor here. Granted, the focus on both sides seems to have been on energizing their bases, but the campaign did affect people who don't belong to either base. The Republican PR machine and campaign strategists seemed to me to be better than the Democratic ones. Most of the time, it seemed like the Republicans controlled the strategic public perception ground during this campaign. That's quite an accomplishment for an incumbent candidate who is a pretty poor public speaker and is unable to run on his record.
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I'm troubled by what looks to me to be attempts by both sides to use bare majorities to fight their political battles. The democratic cry after this and the 2000 election suggests to me that they are locked in a strategy of contending their base against the republicans base. George Bush and the republican's response to winning these elections carries, to me, an air of "We've got a bare majority voting for us, so we can do whatever we want." Tyranny of the majority, no matter which majority it is, is a bad thing.
The democrats need to realize that, if they are locked in a "culture war" with the republicans, it's because they are largely only drawing on their maybe 25 percent of the population to fight the 28 or so percent that the republicans have. If they provided someone or something to realisticly believe in, or just did a better job shaping the public discourse, it would be a much different ballgame.
The republicans need to realize that the power to do something does not mean that this thing should be done. Most of the Kerry votes in this election were "not Bush" votes. This should be troubling for any sincere leader of the people and for those who support him. I don't actually have any solutions to offer here, but a recognition that a large section of the popluation really doesn't agree with the way you've been conducting things would be nice. Legally, you're not forced to listen to these peopel because you have somewhat more people voting for you, but I think it is the responsible thing to do (and I acknowledge that many of what these people have to say is pretty much "Hey Bush, you suck!")
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Man, it's difficult being an anarchist in theory and an anti-populist in practicality. I'm torn between advocating actual liberalism and thinking that the American public needs someone to keep an eye on them so that they don't hurt themselves.
posted
Storm, If you really believe that the conservative news sources are significantly worse, the logical thing to do is to focus on the principles of what the right stuff should be, and not on the sources themselves. Given a reasonable set of standards, people aren't in large part going to fight you if you stand up for these standards and make them the focus on public discourse on it. Getting people to commit to what the right thing to do in theory makes it a lot easier to get them to admit or do something about it in reality, even when it is done by people they support. If you can say "Look, they are clearly violating this principle that we all agreed is a necessary part of responsible journalism." and stay focused on that instead of being drawn into other arguments, the apologist's only recourse is to deny that they are actually doing these things.
It's still not an easy path, but it has a lot better chance of success than attacking irresponsible partisan broadcasting directly.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Some 42 percent of voters said that the issue of abortion affected the way they voted in last week's election.
Those voters favored pro-life candidates by nearly a two-one margin with 25 percent of all voters saying they voted for pro-life candidates who oppose abortion and only 13 percent of all voters saying they backed candidates that favor abortion.
This is yet another look at the reason for the election outcome. Evidence suggests that even if the majority of Americans aren't pro-life (and there is evidence to suggest that, in fact, most of America is pro-life and the margin is increasing) certainly pro-life Americans are more likely to vote their conscience on the issue than are pro-choice.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Storm, If you really believe that the conservative news sources are significantly worse, the logical thing to do is to focus on the principles of what the right stuff should be, and not on the sources themselves. Given a reasonable set of standards, people aren't in large part going to fight you if you stand up for these standards and make them the focus on public discourse on it. Getting people to commit to what the right thing to do in theory makes it a lot easier to get them to admit or do something about it in reality, even when it is done by people they support. If you can say "Look, they are clearly violating this principle that we all agreed is a necessary part of responsible journalism." and stay focused on that instead of being drawn into other arguments, the apologist's only recourse is to deny that they are actually doing these things.
It's still not an easy path, but it has a lot better chance of success than attacking irresponsible partisan broadcasting directly.
Bullpoo-poo. That trick doesn't work because what is and isn't 'reasonable' only works if the people you're talking to are willing to be 'reasonable' and if they think you are 'reasonable'. Given my experience on these and other forums, these things can happen, but it is extremely rare. Reasonable people are born, not converted and made that way.
You and the other idealists are going to stand up and say 'He's a partisan hack!' and people are going to look at you and say, yes, but isn't what they are saying 'true', and then you get sucked into trying to prove that what they're saying isn't true from what will probably be the 'main stream media', which automatically means you're screwed because everyone knows the main stream media lies, etc., and assumes the person you're talking to is open to listening to what you have to say anyway.
Negative advertising and smear work. I've run across a couple articles in the last few days that talked about how, of those campaigns that used negative attack ads, most of those candidates got elected. The question liberals should be asking themselves isn't how they can prove that the other side are partisan, but how they can color the other side as extremist wife beating child molestors, isn't it?
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Dagonee, focusing on 'values', how is Kerry significantly different from Gore? Show me how Kerry is more liberal than Gore or, for that matter, Clinton. After all, if the argument is that so-called moderate Dems get votes, then both of those candidates should be more moderate than Kerry. Show me that it really is reality and not just perception.
quote: See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. There were clearly two lines in that post.
More liberal misrepresentation.
Caught red handed.
mph, I want to hear what you have to say. I don't mind if sometimes someone posts single line/minimal replies in threads, but you seem to do it so much, it's become irritating to me for some reason. Not specifically sure why.
quote:Dagonee, focusing on 'values', how is Kerry significantly different from Gore? Show me how Kerry is more liberal than Gore or, for that matter, Clinton. After all, if the argument is that so-called moderate Dems get votes, then both of those candidates should be more moderate than Kerry. Show me that it really is reality and not just perception.
Or Bush is perceived as more moderate than Dole and Bush I were at the time. The argument isn't that more moderate Dems get votes, it's that moderates preferred Bush to Kerry. Or, to put it another way, that the issues on which Bush is moderate were more important than the issues on which Kerry was moderate.
There's too many issues different between Clinton, Kerry, Bush I, Dole, and Bush II to possibly create a linear ranking of "moderateness."
quote: Or Bush is perceived as more moderate than Dole and Bush I were at the time. The argument isn't that more moderate Dems get votes, it's that moderates preferred Bush to Kerry. Or, to put it another way, that the issues on which Bush is moderate were more important than the issues on which Kerry was moderate.
There's too many issues different between Clinton, Kerry, Bush I, Dole, and Bush II to possibly create a linear ranking of "moderateness."
Then, is moderate something that can be defined well enough to even use in discussion, much less polls, much less by a political party? It's kind of like being wealthy, I suspect. I've known people with mansions who regularly took vacations in Europe who would never describe themselves as wealthy.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I'm assuming the polls let people self-identify.
I don't think it's a particularly useful word.
I'm nowhere near the "compromise" solution on most issues, but some of them are the solution from one side of the political divide and some are from the other. If they were evenly balanced, would that make me moderate?
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