Yup, and if the Queen of England had balls, she’d be the King. Elections are held only every four years in this country, and that is why Bush was so pleasant to people in 2004 and 2000, but not 2001, 2001, 2003, 2005 etc.
Apparently Bush was really unpleasant to people in 2001.
Two good points. It’s pointless to say Bush would lose an election against a hypothetical opponent if people were voting today. There isn’t an election today.
Bush would have several months of warning before a theoretical election to sell himself anew. And once a candidate was named, regardless of what kind of campaign the Democrats ran, the Republicans would spend months destroying his or her reputation. By election day, Bush would once again have several million voters scared half to death of some imaginary menace and convinced that voting for the other guy is one step from having their entire family murdered.
I just don’t understand this. I know why Kerry might not have been someone’s ideal candidate–Lord knows he wasn’t mine, though he was closer than I’m likely to come for a while–but I just don’t see how anyone could have looked at that election without deciding that Kerry was at the very least more competent.
The perception is that the election is all about picking up those folks in the middle, those confused souls who somehow can’t see that Kerry couldn’t possibly be worse than Bush. In reality, it’s about getting more of your solid base out to the polls without alienating those in the middle that you do have. Republicans have just been better than Democrats at this lately, because they have a much more easily defined base.
In the last election, there were anti-gay-marriage amendments on the ballot all over the country, which got the “pro-family” (God, how I hate that term) voters off their asses. Without them, the election might have been a different story.
To answer the CNN poll of the OP-there isn’t a presidential election this year, so what’s the point of this non-news item? C. Estes Kefauver wouldn’t draw good numbers in an election, either-he’s dead.
Yes, “anti-family” is much more accurate.
To someone who understands that the world is not a perfect place and cannot be a perfect place, the lesser of two evils is an option, and in fact, a necessity if that is the best that is possible. But there are people who think that perfection is not only preferable to the lesser of two evils at the risk of the greatest evil, but a necessity, as any evil is not an option.
These naive people have not correctly evaluated the risk grid. There are two coordinates. X equals the desireabilty of a candidate on one end and the undesireablity (evil) towards the other: the good they will do as compared to the evil they will do in the voter’s mind. The X coordinate crosses the Y coordinate, and that ranges the liklihood of a candidate getting elected. Because of the plurality taking each state in the electoral system, a vote for a minor party candidate makes the liklihood of electing the evilest candidate the most likely.
A minor party thus not only has a chance of getting elected approaching zero, but also of hurting that voter’s lesser of two evils, thus maximizing the chance of a candidate that voter would consider the least desireable.
Third party voters who are smart enough to understand this refuse to judge between the two less desireable candidates, stating that they are both equally undesireable.
The way third parties become successful in this country since 1850 has been to organize within the Dems or Reps and take them over from within. The Reagan Republicans have done this since 1976 when they last lost to the moderates. They started in 1964 with the Goldwater movement.
This point can’t be over emphasized. If you had told me in January of 2004 that I’d be voting for Bush, I’d have said you were crazy.
Then the dems nominated John Kerry. I never dreamed I’d have an opportunity to vote against Kerry. My issues with him go back to the 1970’s, and I didn’t need any SwiftVets to remind me of those issues.
Run Kerry again tomorrow, I’ll vote for Bush again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if I hadn’t hit my approach shot into the water on the 17th hole last Sunday, I would’ve won the tournament, too. But I did hit it into the water and those amendments were on the ballot. So where does that leave us? If you think all the Democrats have to do next time is keep SSM amendments off the ballot, you’re sadly mistaken.
Besides, I believe it’s already been shown that increased voter turnout in states w/ SSM initiatives wasn’t significantly higher than turnout in states w/o such initiatives. Doesn’t really matter, though. There are always going to be mitigating circumstances working against your side. The key is to win despite that inevitability.
The half that was eaten after passing through.
55-39 would be, by modern standards, a massive shitkicking. It would be the biggest shellacking since 1984.
Kerry was a far from perfect candidate; If I wasn’t voting against Bush, I would have voted for Ralph Nader or even Ralph the Dog as Bush was such a complete nightmare. Kerry had very little in his record to appeal to moderates and republicans that disliked Bush. I have voted 3rd party quite a few times.
Voting for Kerry was very distasteful. The Powers behind the Democratic party really fumbled the ball. A moderate candidate like Clinton would have won easily. I thought that Kerry was about the worst of the major candidates in 2004.
Wesley Clark & Howard Dean I actually liked.
John Edwards had a better chance, was more charismatic and a better speaker. (Probably from being a successful trial lawyer) I did not like him.
Richard Gephardt: a better if not great choice.
Joseph Lieberman: A better choice and would not have frighten the “family values crowd”
Dennis Kucinich: would have been worse, no charisma.
AL Sharpton: could not win and did not expect to.
Carol Moseley Braun: interesting candidate but no real chance.
‘Balls!’ said the Queen, ‘If I had to, I’d be King!’
The King laughed. He had to.
The Princess laughed. She wanted to.
The Prince didn’t. He was shy to.
The Duke said they’re both nuts.
– Something my dad used to say
Your impressions of the Democratic field were pretty interesting and I agreed with a few. The problem with Kerry wasn’t the product, it was the selling of the product. He failed to deliver the message and failed to respond to Republican attacks. It is only with shrewd advertising that a man that took enemy fire in Vietnam somehow had less military credibility than the man that dodged the draft in the NG, then later dodged the dodge and later lied about dodging the dodge.
He could have mopped the floor with Bush and made the election lopsided enough that even election fraud in Ohio wouldn’t have mattered. But he didn’t, and now we all pay the price.
To clarify, my review of the field was as a disenfranchised moderate republican not an actual democrat.
I was listing the candidates I feel would appeal to other moderates and independents, not registered democrats.
I think most democrats would have voted for any of the candidates over Bush.
Am I the only person here scratching my head in bafflement? George W. Bush won two elections in a row as President. He is ineligible to run again. As long as he doesn’t do anything like send burglars to break into Howard Dean’s offices, or get a blowjob in the Oval Office, it is completely irrelevant whether people would or would not vote for him.
Now you make perfect sense. Except that you liked Dean. Was it just that he actually stands up for what he believes in, even if it is too liberal for your taste?
For me personally, I got the feeling that eventually Kerry won over Dean only because of two things: that Dean seemed to be a bad loser (his famous ‘scream’), and probably more importantly, that under the rapidly changing international circumstances, the voting Democrats momentarily (and eventually I think mistakenly, but that’s hard to tell in restrospect) thought that War-credibility was suddenly more important.
But talking to an American friend who voted for Bush, for him the feeling that Bush was the kind of guy who you could drink a beer with, and Kerry wasn’t, was a big part of the reason why he voted for Bush rather than Kerry.
I don’t get this. I just don’t get this. There are plenty of guys I’d be glad to have a beer with that I wouldn’t trust to tie their own shoes. (And, yes, Bush is one of them. I think he’d be fine to sit down and chat with. If he was like, the owner of the local Ace Hardware or something.)
Boy did you nail that one exactly.
Also I am liberal when in comes to the Environment and universal Health Care.
He just came across very honest and I liked the fact he was a doctor and not a politician, businessman or lawyer.
As a Fiscal Republican, I think UHC would help small and medium businesses tremendously and I think this would help the economy in the long run. I also think UHC is good for the long term health of the Country as it should stress preventitive medicine.
As far as the enviroment, it is very short sighted not to conserve what is left and make it better. This is a valuable resource and clean air and clean water will reduce overall medical costs and improve quality of life.
I know he would have tried to reduce military spending and I decided I could live with that part for 4-8 years. On most issues, I liked him.
I would vote for him in 2008 if he ran over most potential candidates.