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As it is, you overstated the case by 20%, so your example with a roughly 4% overstatement doesn't seem very applicable.

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Now, I just want to say, everybody seems so against Bush being the president? why is that?

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Hobbes,
At night major cities would close their doors. This was mainly to keep out anything unwanted. The eye of the needle was a small door, usually on a different side of the city, the would permanantly stay open, so that travelers would not have to stay out of the city at night. The door was large enough that the camel could, concievably, crawl through it on it's knees, but it was difficult to get the camel to cooperate. The phrase implies that rich man 'is' the camel, and heaven 'is' the eye of the needle. It's concievable, but not likely.

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So it's impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, that is, if he is going to remain rich in his own resources, if he's going to remain rich in his own good works, in his own things which he has done which he believes ought to merit God's favor. These things are an impossible means by which he can go into the Kingdom of Heaven.

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From here

Hobbes

[ December 04, 2004, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]

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The Saviour appeared in the form of a boy of twelve years, wearing a linen garment 'smooth within and without', and said; Fear not: let the needle and the camel be brought. There was a huckster in the town who had been converted by Philip; and he heard of it, and looked for a needle with a large eye, but Peter said: Nothing is impossible with God rather bring a needle with a small eye. 17 When it was brought, Peter saw a camel coming and stuck the needle in the ground and cried: In the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate I command thee, camel, to go through the eye of the needle. The eye opened like a gate and the camel passed through; and yet again, at Peter's bidding

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Hobbes

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Oh all right- needles and camels it is. I just had to make that post. I feel special when I actually have puns to make .

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Please someone just tell me why they wanted bush to win.

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Ah! Here is the real question, and in eleven words. Shear, if you want to rifle through the forum and find the threads on this topic you are quite welcome to .

[ December 04, 2004, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Teshi ]

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Okay Dragonee let's do math! I say: 1/3rd. 1/3 = 33.3%. You say but it's only 23.9%!

quote: As it is, you overstated the case by 20%, so your example with a roughly 4% overstatement doesn't seem very applicable.

WOW I guess I was really only about 10% off.

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I was making the statistical correction because that's all that other guy talks about. God damn it why won't you people talk about the real issue at hand [Wall Bash] Please someone just tell me why they wanted bush to win. I'd enjoy talking about that instead of why my statistics are slightly off. Thanks a bunch guys! By the way im playing violent video games so ill check back in about an hour. peace.

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I was making the statistical correction because that's all that other guy talks about. God damn it why won't you people talk about the real issue at hand Please someone just tell me why they wanted bush to win. I'd enjoy talking about that instead of why my statistics are slightly off. Thanks a bunch guys! By the way im playing violent video games so ill check back in about an hour. peace.

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Personally, I voted for Bush because I agreed with him more often than I agreed with Kerry.

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"On both sides, the presidency of George Bush was a lightning rod," he said. "For those who supported him, they supported him for traditional values, strong leadership, the war on terrorism and some rejection of things that the Democrats advocate," such as abortion rights and gay civil unions.

"On the other side, it was the war on Iraq, debt, the feeling he hadn't been candid with the American people, too conservative values and division in the country," Gans said.

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Hm... Ok, so some of his statements seemingly are right. At least he WAS right about Christianity making up the vast majority of the US population.

So his argument, the way I read it, was that it was 'moral values' inspired largely by christian religious belief that won president Bush the presidency in 2004.

From the above data it is very possible that this is indeed the case. However, I couldn't find any data anywhere to unarguably support or refute it. I know many people who self-identify as christian but who are as liberal as I am and find it disgusting that people voted Bush in on issues such as gay civil unions/marrige and abortion.

The general opinion in the media however does seem to be that the election was won on 'moral values' and that Bush managed to bring out enough of the 'religious right' vote to counter act the huge liberal vote that Kerry managed to raise. This is just going from things I recall reading around election time, I could go and dig up the articles if people would like, but I just spent an hour combing the internet for information and am a tad burnt out on that level.

Conclusion: his argument states what seems to be the general media opinion, but I could find no statistics to prove or disprove it. It is plausible from the avalible statistics.

Now I'm just going to state my own opinion, assuming that the general media opinion is true:
WARNING: Ranting contained within
If people voted for Bush on the abortion issue, well I can respect that. While I myself am pro-choice, pro-life views are views I can respect. While I disagree that it should be made law I can entirely understand where they are coming from. Now the anti-gay marrige/civil unions DISGUSTS me. I have ABSOLUTELY no respect for people who want to ban gays from civil unions or marrige. Especially when they use stuff from the bible to support their arguments for making a constitutional gay marrige ban. HELLO? Separation of church and state? Making a constitutional amendment based on stuff in the bible in a country that supposedly has separation of church and state? Wtf? If you want to ban your churches from giving gay marriges fine, but the government issuing gay couples marrige licenses is COMPLETELY different, and religion should have absolutely NO say in it. Thats the government issuing a state benefit to a significant part of its population. Gays should get the same benefits as everyone else! CONSTITUTIONAL GAY MARRIGE BANS ARE EXAMPLES OF LEGALIZED CONSTITUTIONALIZED DISCRIMINATION AS BAD AS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACKS OR JEWS!! The fact that many religions preach otherwise AND THAT PEOPLE BELIEVE makes me lose a lot of repsect for the religions preaching it and the people believing it.



End Rant

[ December 04, 2004, 11:48 PM: Message edited by: Alcon ]

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I have ABSOLUTELY no respect for people who...

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Here's the simple fact: The evidence that moral values determined the election rests on a single dodgy exit poll question. And it's not at all clear that more voters are preoccupied with moral values now than were fretting about "family values" on Election Day 1996, when exit pollsters included that phrase in a question about "priorities for the new administration." But in the often arid and repetitive arena of American political ideas, fun new contestants can be hard to disqualify. The myth of the moral values election is proving hard to snuff out.

The mantra was in full hum on election night. Television commentators were understandably struck by the results of the question asked of almost 7,000 voters as they left their polling places: "Which one issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?" The most cited issue on the list of seven options offered to those surveyed was "moral values" at 22 percent; 80 percent of these voters went for President Bush, 18 percent for Democratic nominee John Kerry. "Economy/jobs" came next on the list at 20 percent, followed by terrorism (19 percent), Iraq (15 percent) and then health care, taxes and education in single digits.

Brian Healy was the CBS News producer covering the exit polls, something he has done in many elections. He recalled that everyone was surprised that moral values topped the list as the numbers came in, but it wasn't until about 4 a.m. that someone quite innocently asked, "What exactly are 'moral values'?"

Too late. The story line was already set. And the surprise nature of the moral values result boosted its allure for the commentariat. When the newspapers could finally write definitive headlines, the notion that moral values was a synonym for various conservative positions became a given -- as did its decisive effect on the outcome of the contest. "Faith, Values Fueled Win," reported the Chicago Tribune. " 'Values voters' key to Bush re-election," declared the Fort Worth Star Telegram. "Moral Values Decide Election," the Tri-Valley Herald in northern California told its online readers.

From the modest experiment of one exit poll question, a Unified Theory of Election 2004 was hatched. Pundits began to spread the word. "Ethics and moral values were ascendant last night -- on voters' minds, in Americans' hearts," William J. Bennett wrote in a column posted in the National Review Online at 11:09 a.m. on the morning after the election -- even before Kerry's concession and Bush's victory speech.

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Now, to the hard question: Are there more values voters than there used to be?

In 2000, the consortium that ran the national exit poll did not list "moral values" as an option on their issues menu. At that time, it would have been seen as a question about Bill and Monica, and so pretty useless. So it's hard to know whether the slice of the electorate concerned with such matters has grown during President Bush's term.

We do know that in the 1996 question about the next administration's priorities, "family values" was tops for 17 percent (behind the winner, "health of the economy," at 21 percent), and that group largely went for Bob Dole. So you could argue that the 17 percent whose top worry was family values and went heavily Republican turned into 22 percent worried about moral values in 2004. That's a slight shift, but hardly a cultural tsunami -- and remember, no one asked these voters for their definition of family values then, or moral values now.

Nonetheless, analysts have been surfing on tidal-wave conclusions. It has become a breast-beating crisis for Democrats that the values voters who were 22 percent of the electorate went for the Republican by a crushing margin, 80 percent to 18 percent. By that logic, it must follow that it's a crisis for Republicans that the 20 percent who care most about the economy and jobs went 80-18 for the Democrat.

Or perhaps it's a crisis for the Republicans that the 45 percent slice of the electorate that describes itself as moderate went for Kerry 54-45? Or that first-time voters went 53-46 for Kerry? So many crises, so few facts to support them.

Voting behavior does divvy up Americans into certain patterns. Rural residents and heavy churchgoers vote Republican. City people and church-avoiders vote Democratic. But these cleavages have persisted in several elections. Moral values didn't just seep into the drinking water.

Yet the myth persists. Sometimes it's perpetuated by partisans claiming that Democrats are hostile to values voters. "There simply aren't enough voters in Berkeley, Santa Monica, Santa Fe, Manhattan and Cambridge to offset the many concerned evangelicals, Catholics and Jews in the rest of the nation for whom moral values are a determining issue," wrote Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke in a Nov. 15 Los Angeles Times op-ed.

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We've done a post-election poll of 1,400 rural and exurban voters in Ohio counties that Bush won by an average of 17 percentage points. Their answers, and a closer look at other poll data, explode a few widely held theories about what happened.

The first myth: Many more churchgoing voters flocked to the polls this year, driven by the Bush "moral values" and the gay marriage referendum.

Reality: The 2004 election brought no increase whatsoever in the portion of the voting electorate who attend church on a weekly basis or more often than that, according to exit polls. In Ohio, the share of the electorate represented by frequent churchgoers actually declined from 45 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2004. Nationwide, Bush improved his vote among weekly churchgoers by just one point over 2000, while increasing his support among those who don't go to church by four points.

So how could religious voters have been the basis of Bush's victory, at least in Ohio? Answer: They weren't.

Second myth: The Bush campaign won by mobilizing GOP strongholds and suppressing turnout in Democratic areas.

Reality: Turnout in Democratic-leaning counties in Ohio was up 8.7 percent while turnout in Republican-leaning counties was up slightly less, at 6.3 percent. John Kerry bested Bush in Cuyahoga County (home of Cleveland) by 218,000 votes -- an increase of 42,497 over Gore's 2000 effort. In Stark County (Canton) -- a bellwether lost by Gore -- Kerry won by 4,354.

Third myth: A wave of newly registered Republican voters in fast-growing rural and exurban areas carried Bush to victory.

Reality: Among Ohio's rural and exurban voters, Bush beat Kerry by just five points among newly registered voters and by a mere two points among infrequent voters (those who did not vote in 2000).

Fourth myth: Republicans ran a superior, volunteer-driven mobilization effort.

Reality: When we asked new voters in rural and exurban areas who contacted them during this campaign, we learned that they were just as likely to hear from the Kerry campaign and its allies as from the Bush side. (In contrast, regular voters reported more contact from the GOP.)

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