I know the rules of your thread were not to go into specifics, but I am just a bit puzzled.
I am not surprised, and quite happy that Kerry is winning this poll thread by a landslide. As a huge anti-Bush poster, I am more than thrilled.
But I am wondering why?
So far, it seems that you only have to post any variation of, “I Love Kerry” or “I Hate Bush” and you get about 60/40 in favor of Kerry.
Yet your poll shows overwhelming support of Kerry?
Simple question: Are the Bush supporters simply not bothering to answer the poll, or are there so few, but very vocal, Bush fans that I have been duped into thinking there are more?
Why bother? The outcome was certain even before the OP ever hit submit. Identifying yourself as a Bush voter simply allows someone else to note that and attempt to use it against you later, Remember all the “Anyone who votes for Bush is a moron” threads? Well, there you go.
You are right about one thing, though. There is a comparatively small number of conservatives on the board, and of those there is a very small vocal contingent, of which I must say I am one. There are also conservatives, also like me, that have no intention of voting for Bush, so the sample gets even smaller.
This place is in no way, shape or form representative of any sort of reality. This place is liberal Fantasyland.
Airman Doors must get bulk discounts from Home Depot, given how many times he’s erected the “Poor Besieged Conservative Doper” cross and hung himself on it.
As for the “Anyone who votes for Bush is a moron” threads, it’s nobody’s fault that Bush hasn’t given us any reason to disprove them…
I can’t help it if the truth hurts, rjung. I mean, you can keep denying it, but it’s self-evident. How many polls have to be decided in a landslide here, how many Bush-hating threads have to be started, what has to happen for you to admit what is perfectly obvious to virtually everyone else?
There are plenty of Kerry bashing threads here as well. Bush may get more but he’s getting his share as both a candidate and as the incumbent president.
As for the idea that this board is a “liberal Fantasyland” keep in mind, as you yourself are an example of, not everyone who opposes Bush is a liberal.
Easy answer…this board doesn’t represent main stream America. As Airman said, this board is overwhelmingly liberal (he actually had a political test thread a while ago that really showed this in GD). There are very few hard line conservatives (and even fewer people who associate themselves as ‘Republicans’), and many people who identify themselves as ‘conservative’ have already said they won’t be supporting Bush.
As Airman said, the answer was obvious without the thread…in fact, I said that IN the thread if I recall correctly. The answer was a forgone conclusion. I’m surprised Bush got even as many votes as he did (which wasn’t a lot…as I also said in the thread, Badnarik got nearly as many votes as Bush :)).
Well, I can’t speak to the Pit posters (I almost never go there), but I think you are wrong about GD…if anything, had more of the usual crowd in GD showed up for the vote it would have gone even more for Kerry.
I don’t think he was saying its a ‘liberal Fantasyland’…he was merely pointing out the fact that the board is overwhelmingly liberal. Thats two different things. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that liberals, in general, won’t be voting for Bush (to say the least)…no? YOu are correct that its not JUST liberals that oppose Bush…but I think MOST liberals (on this board anyway) support Kerry.
Never mind…I guess he WAS saying its a ‘liberal Fantasyland’…I missed that in his post. My appologies Little Nemo…and to Airman as well. MY opinion is that this board isn’t necessarily ‘liberal Fantasyland’…but that its certainly overwhelmingly liberal in its makeup.
I’m not sure you understood what I was saying. The OP says “The usual threads about the election run about 60-40 in favor of Kerry; why is the straw poll running so much more lopsidedly?” (paraphrase).
I’m suggesting that it’s because there are a lot of people – most of them, apparently, for Kerry – voting in the straw poll who don’t post in the political threads, whether they’re in GD or the Pit.
In other words, the “silent majority” who don’t post in those threads are pretty strongly pro-Kerry.
I’d have to agree with Airman that there is entirely too much “Bush voters are morons” sentiment on this board. I mean, I don’t like Bush. Even if I were old enough to vote, I would vote for Kerry. However, I respect the views of the Bush voters and am willing to listen to their side if they listen to mine. Just because we Kerry supporters have the majoity here doesn’t mean that everyone else is an idiot.
Well, when I wrote that thread I knew that the poll would overwhelmingly favor Kerry. I had no real motive in writing it other than to see how it would pan out by state. IOW, I knew that if I just said “Who are you voting for?” Kerry would have won by a huge margin; I just wanted to see how Kerry’s electoral vote numbers would look on the SDMB. I expected them to be equally huge, of course.
By the time I saw the thread, Kerry had all but “won”. I considered not posting because it wouldn’t have had any chance at affecting the outcome (here in California we’re used to that feeling). But in the end I figured it was my civic duty, so I joined the other 2 conservative Californians.
George W Bush isn’t “everyone else”. You would not have seen the same phenomenon with regards to Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush, Phil Graham, Steve Forbes, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, Orrin Hatch, Jeb Bush, or any other Republican to the rational side of David Duke. The man has earned it, and his supporters catch the fallout.
Be that as it may, I agree with Airman Doors and the others, there’s not much point and little pleasure in participating in a straw poll of SDMBers as a Republican this year. The result is a foregone conclusion and the poll makes no difference. I don’t blame them for sitting this one out.
FWIW: I wouldn’t bother voting if I knew the thread existed, so I guess I have two reasons for not voting (and I would have voted Bush). My time on the boards is limited, and I much prefer hanging around GQ and the Cafe, with occasionals look-sees in the other departments.
Just looks to me like backlash after all the “If you Saddamites aren’t supporting us, you’re supporting the terrorists” threads. Which, in my opinion, were written by morons.
And it does say, right at the top of the page, Fighting Ignorance Since 1973. The fact that there are still so many Bush supporters here slams home the truth of “It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought.”
