As someone who believes that parental involvement is the most imortant element of education, I fail to see what your point has to do with anything else. I know plenty of kids who's parents didn't give a whit about education. Its a personal choice. You can work a job and still be involved with your child's schooling. My parents seem to have done it just fine.
If the MSM is cheering for us, how did we end up in Iraq? How come so many voters are wrong about what the Bushies defined as the fundamental issue of this campaign, security? In a close race like this, you can point at a dozen things that cost you the election. One is the gender gap...it was smaller than usual. Kerry did well enough among men to win, if he had kept the normal gender gap from the last few elections. Why didn't he? About a week ago, I linked to a study that showed that 30something percent of voters thought there was an Iraq-9/11 link (or maybe it was Iraq-AQ.) As you would expect, almost all of these people were for Bush. Which means that almost all of Kerry's 48% of the vote came from the 60something percent of voters who knew the truth of the central issue of the campaign. Some help the MSM was on that. Anyway, to tie up the loose end...men were wrong on this issue to the tune of in the 20s. Over half of women were wrong about the facts of the issue. That, in my opinion, is why the gender gap was smaller than normal. But to get back to the above...Kerry DESTROYED Bush among voters aware of the truths in the 9/11 commission report. He beat them far worse than anything we've seen since George Washington in the 18th century. What does that tell you? That the MSM used their bogus objectivity (Kerry says X, Bush says Y), which allowed the Bush camp to get away with lying. If they had objectively weighed, from this past spring, the truth of each sides charges, the Bushies would've been like Bloods bringing brass knuckles to a rumble with the Crips. Game over. The thing is, your side makes this case all of the time. Yet, you never cite evidence of bias in reporting. We do. That's because we're right and you're wrong.
Actually the first 2 years sounded like a very liberal administration but after Hilary got her socialized medicine plan handed back to her with a generous pile of dog doo on the side, they moved way back to the middle and things went well after that. Which brings up another interesting topic; is Dick Morris really correct? Is that joyful laughter I hear in the background really Hilary celebrating the fact she won't have to run against an incumbent Democrat to get to the White House in '08? If so, Joe Lockhart did his job well.
Wow, I know you feel strongly about things, but your continual scream of "we're right and you're wrong" will not enable you (and your party) to do some objective analysis. The country is trending away from the point that liberalism and the Democrats have anchored themselves. The only hope the Dems have is Hispanics, but 44% voted for Bush this time. If the GOP can reach-out to Hispanics in California as they've done elsewhere, the Dems are on there way to permanent minority status. BTW, as I'm sure you're aware the 9/11 Commission was only investigating 9/11. Yes, they indicated there was no Iraq-9/11 link, but they did NOT state there were NO links between Iraq-AQ. As commission members have stated, that was outside their charter. As most of the material is classified, we don't have close to the full story. Hell, people are still debating the Pearl Harbor attack after 60+ years Also, my original point was that MSM cheerleading for Dems is quite a bit of PR, and free at that. Were people listening? Probably not. The MSM has been losing viewers, listeners and readers for years and this election cycle only accelerated that process.
You seem to miss the point. At what point did they "move back to the middle"? After the GOP swept in 1994. Clinton then co-opted part of the GOP agenda and signed NAFTA and Welfare Reform. I give Bill Clinton alot of credit: he cared alot more about being in power than he did his liberal creds. In case you haven't noticed, Hillary is quietly doing the same thing. She's become incredibly hawkish lately (at least for her). Even so, I don't think she'll have it as easy as every thinks in '08. She isn't close the politician her "husband" is and isn't universally loved by anyone. Feared is a better word. We'll see how it goes.
The objective analysis is that people voted for a lie. Republicans are now saying that the Democrats should agree with their lie to get votes. I think that is the wrong lesson. The right one is that the Democrats should make up their own lies next time.
Actually, that's exactly what this thread is about. Quit wasting our time with the "We hate Bush" platform. It doesn't present a different perspective. It doesn't give me an alternative. Instead of focusing so much on Bush (and you can look around these parts to see if I am off my rocker on my assertion that Dems are weenies who spend more time worrying about Bush than they do focusing on their own party), instead focus on your own ideals. Rethink your methods. Present a different alternative worth voting for, not a whining, bitching alternative who's slogan is, "Whatever he says, we disagree. Whatever he does, we bitch about." It isn't working. I believe there are some very good ideals on the left side of the aisle, but the Democrats aren't focusing on their ideals, they are doing a piss poor job of articulating them because they are forgetting what they were in the first place, their methods are even worse, and they are losing because of it.
Not to split hairs here but Clinton had started moving toward the middle when he saw the medical program was doomed. This was apparent early in '93. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the PARTY didn't get it. They kept right on with their left-wing rhetoric right into the '94 election. Clinton paid them enough lip-service to hold his base but he himself was well on the road to the middle before the election was held. He also benefitted from the biggest economic boom of the century with all the tech biz fueling a very robust growth. This growth was misinterpreted by many Dems who didn't realize that it is far easier to be a liberal in a thriving economy. As a result, they missed all the clues and got thrown out.
I think we're in general agreement, although I think you meant to say "This was apparent early in 1994". I assume your '03 was '93, but Clinton didn't get inaugurated until Jan. '93 and Hillary's task force didn't start until spring or summer. Excellent point that it is fairly easy to be a liberal in a thriving economy. The Dems almost destroyed California because they didn't think the gravy train of revenues would ever end. It did and Gray Davis got thrown out........and the rise of the Governator
Sorry, must not be sophisticated enough to understand your humor. Just stay angry and read Michael Moore....good for your health.
SUV's are macho, station wagons are not. People care more about their image than practical things like gas mileage, unfortunately.
Your date corrections are duly noted. Also your points about California are also accurate. Everyone assumed it was only about the energy crisis but that guy was the worst manager imagineable. Similar effect on a national basis. Left-wing still denies it but the effects of over-spending during the dot.com boom were what triggered the recession that started in mid-summer 1999. But then to admit that would be to admit that Bush really DID inherit a recession and it ruins all the criticism of the jobs deal and a whole bunch of other things on which they based the whole failed Kerry economic campaign.
If only there was a nationally televised debate, or three. If only Al Gore had invented some means of distributing lots of information quickly. Maybe then you wouldn't have had to remain in the dark about Kerry's platform. Why are you making excuses for voting for the winner? He was a wartime president chosen by Jesus, wasn't he? Don't tell me you're already having second thoughts. And, no, "scoreboard" doesn't cut it. Bush lost the popular vote four years ago, and he didn't get more sane. He had an even less coherent platform than Kerry, if anyone had paid attention.
I think I've figured it out. The policy doesn't matter one whit - but how you package it does. Democrats simply need to become better populist demagogues than the Republicans. Tall order.
"He had an even less coherent platform than Kerry." Explain this statement please in light of James Carville's post-mortem that NOBODY understood what Kerry was trying to do.
So let me get this straight. Reading up on objective analyses of voters prevents me from doing objective analysis of the election. I think you're using words that mean the opposite of what you think they mean.
My point is, whenever anyone looks for evidence of MSM cheerleading, it is on behalf of GOPs/conservatives, not Dems/liberals. So the fundamental premise upon which you base your assertion is false, ergo your assertion is false.
Please stop pulling sh** out of your rectum, and then making us look at it. We don't criticize Bush for inheriting an economy that was just emerging from recession. We criticize him for stupid stimulus policies, which we predicted wouldn't work, and didn't work. Trickle down has been proven less effective over the last 72 years in stimulating the economy than stimulating demand from below. If he inherited a recession, then why the f*** couldn't he overcome that in *4* years????? Riddle me that, Batman.
I take issue with this statement, "As most of the material is classified, we don't have close to the full story." It is true but much of the information is unclassified and it clearly shows Saddam helping Al Zaqwari against Jordan and Bin Laden against Saudi Arabia. Saddam and Bib Laden even cooperated on WMD's. If you like you can read "Through Our Enemy's Eyes" by the Clinton era CIA chief of the Bib Laden station or do a search on Google with Saddam al Qaeda Sudan and CBRN. This has been worked over pretty hard on the internet with some saying the evidence was made up and with others saying it was confirmed but the best source source, the CIA chief of the Bin Laden station, who has many other criticisms of Bush &Co, says it was true. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=saddam+al+qaeda+sudan+CBRN&btnG=Search
SpecialDave, You were wrong before the election. You were wrong on the election. You are wrong after the election. You are the wrong poster for the wrong forum at the wrong time. But keep shouting the same things over and over. Who knows? Maybe the 12,432th time you tell everyone the same thing, they'll listen.
Most of us do this anyway. I don't charge (or charge minimally) patients who have no insurance and little money. The problem in my practice is the Hospital where I work will only provide Free Care to the really indigent. The working poor gets charged Dept. of Defense screwdriver rates for everything ( e.g. $ 4,000 for CT scan). Access is a problem, but to a large degree, most uninsured patients in the US can get care. They just have to mortgage their house to do.
Nutmeg, Sorry, but i think you completely miss the point of my post. It's not to say, "oh, Bush is horrible, we hate him, let's vote for the Dems." Precisely the opposite. The "left side of the aisle" has done nothing for us and continuing to discuss strategies on how they could win over parts of the country when the platform does NOT present an alternative frames politics merely on the plane of what party is winning and losing, instead of what politics should be about: what direction the country is moving and how that impacts society. This discussion has mostly been about strategies for "who wins", not what needs to happen. I am saying that the Democrats (along with the Republicans) have a significant role to play in the WRONG direction this country is taking by failing to stand up to policies and actions that are incredibly detrimental to working people. If they want more votes, maybe they should try appealing and motivating their base (who opposes the war, stands for universal health care, abortion rights, and equal rights for gays and lesbians) rather than chase votes that aren't going to go their way. My personal strategy? Don't vote for the Democrats or the Republicans until they actually stand for equal rights, a living wage, healthcare, and an end to the war (which, as much money as they've devoted to it, could pay for the healthcare and a living wage) and even then distrust them until they do it. Every other second of your life you're outside of the ballot box, organize and publicize your ideas because it's become abundantly clear that politics in this country is entirely based upon "who wins" not what needs to be done.
AM, I've seen alot of that info plus other things that have been written by Dr. Laurie Mylroie and others. Didn't want to go there in this thread as it is still somewhat controversial in many quarters. My main point was that the 9/11 commission was just looking at Iraq-9/11 connections, but the MSM has reported it as no links whatsoever b/w Iraq and al-Queda, which is just ludicrous. Of course, it makes it harder to scream against the war in Iraq if you admit that Iraq was a player in global terror, so critics have ignored those troublesome facts.