Of course not. After all, some of us ARE Americans.
Though there certainly is a subsection of Americans we call stupid… about 51% of it, actually. 48% aren’t bad eggs, and the remaining 1% are hanging chad and write-ins for Reagan’s corpse.
And do you believe this cunning strategy will enhance the likelihood that this 51% will vote for your side next time?
Well, it’s kinda like waiting for a loved one to wake up from a coma. You know, deep down, that they’re lost souls… but you keep on talking to them like they’re going to wake up any second and actually care what you had to say anyway.
Great! Good luck with that…
[Moderator Hat ON]
Demorian, take it to the Pit. You’ve had some decent posts but have also made a lot of driveby swipes lately. Put the swipes in the Pit and the debate here.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
WeLl Bricker, by allemans, get all your gloating gloating outta syate.
At least Americs won’t br going down alone for as long as it’s populated by people such as yourslef.
Viva Franco! Y Trujllo!
I’kk let hisrory chursh them all. ONLY TAJES
No one here is suggesting the American voter is stupid.
If any one here is, you’re calling 48% of Americans stupid for not following a supposedly obvious strategy. Other than that, it’s a total hijack.
A guy I worked with, lower income, voted for Reagen. He explained “I didn’t think the other guy (Carter) could win.”
That’s pretty stupid.
Your contribution is much appreciated, annaplurabelle. While I’m “busy” trying to duck any actual work in investigating my own theory you are making yourself useful. As usual.
Hereis the 2004 versus 2000 comparisons you are looking for from Associated Press (May require you to register with washingtonpost.com). and here is the various definitions of swing (battleground) states.
Note that Tennessee and Louisiana voters increased the gap between Republicans over Democrats to 15% in 2004 from 4% and 8% in 2000 respectively. Similar results can be seen in Alabama, Georgia, and of course Florida, where the Republican majority increased by one million votes in 2004.
If you analyze the number of voters for each party in each state in year 2000 and year 2004, you’ll clearly see the pattern of Bible-Belt contribution to the 3 million surplus popular vote for Bush. Whereas in California, the number of Bush voters actually dropped from 4.5 million in 2000 to 4.4 million in 2004.
Bricker, it sounds like you think “opinion” is synonymous with “strategy.” Why is that?
Take this admittedly ham-fisted example: Imagine that you, Bricker, live in a society of 100 people, who elect a President by pure popular vote. For reasons you cannot fathom, 53 people in your society wake up every morning and hit themselves in the head with a rock. They think it makes them smarter by stimulating brain cells. Of the two candidates for president, one of them makes a campaign promise that if he’s elected, he’ll pass a law that everyone will have to hit themselves with a rock each morning. To your great frustration, that candidate wins, 53-47, and you suspect that a significant portion of those 53 voted the way they did because the candidate was validating their feelings about rocks and heads.
Now, you may well think that 53 people in your society are behaving foolishly. But that does not mean that your “strategy” for the next election is to yell “You’re stupid!” at all of them. I’d hope that your strategy would be to try to educate them about the realities and dangers of head-bashing.
I’m not saying that all of Bush’s policies are a silly as striking our heads with rocks. And among the 51%, there are plenty of people, like yourself, who voted based on thoughtful consideration of issues, and Bush’s various policies. But there are plenty of people who voted against Bush who honestly feel that he won because there are more people on his side who believe foolish things. From your many posts like the one above, it sounds like you think those people should just shut up and accept that the majority must be on to something or they wouldn’t be the majority. But put yourself in their shoes. Imagine that Kerry won the election on a platform of giving in to terrorist demands, and 51% of the electorate agreed with him. If you then came on a message board and said “Those people are ignorant of political reality! How can someone think it’s a good idea to cave to extremists?” would you expect the same reply that you gave above to Demorian?
In other words, are you really saying that if a majority of folks believes something, it’s never a good idea to try to convince them that they’re wrong or misinformed? Perhaps you’re not, but that’s what it sounds like you’re saying.
-P
p.s. RedFury: post, then drink. Though I’m impressed that despite at least 10 typos, you got “it’s” right, apostrophe-wise.
Holy crap, I have to side with Bricker.
But seriously, we’re not winning any swing votes with this kind of condescending attitude. Do I think 51% of our populace has made a serious mistake? Yes. Do I think they’re stupid? Well, I do think a good portion of the populace is grossly underinformed and ignorant of the issues, both Pubs and Dems. But even if one thinks Republicans are slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging, drooling cretins that should have drowned in the gene pool, that’s not exactly an effective strategy for courting the centrist swing votes.
I mean, that’s a big strategy of the Republicans: they make us liberals and Democrats look like out-of-touch elitist intellectuals, and every time we insuinuate more than half the population are morons, we only confirm their rhethoric and make it more difficult to win back that center.
But the GOP didn’t win by playing to the center…
Funny that precisely what they didn’t do is what they are now advising the Dems to do…
Anyway, here’s some dope on those faith-based GOTV efforts:
A case study in PA:
My bold. Some numbers:
Early indications of how the faithful voted in the presidential election
How did the votes of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in 2004 compare to 2000?
Did anyone hear about this documentary?
To hell with that! Tell the truth: that we have been lied to, that we are still being lied to, and so long as we permit them to, they will continue to lie to us.
The Bushiviks are delusional, arrogant, and self absorbed. They think they can get away with anything. It’s not us who are calling the people stupid, unless we stop trusting them, unless we start trying to fool them by being Republican Lite. Then we will have earned their contempt.
Their arrogance will be their undoing. A year from now, half the people who voted for him will be swearing they didn’t.
Yeesh, remind me to not make any more jokes around here.
You’ve only been around for 2 months. “People who voted for Bush are stupid” is a tad overdone in this forum-- just a tad. Try something new.
[Joke]Um… the sky is blue?[/joke]
Well?
Because when the opinion gets published by people that purport to speak for the left – blogs, message boards, celebrities – it becomes a strategy.
Of course. But I would also acknowledge that the main failure was on my side for failing to communicate the dangers and inefficiencies of the rock plan well ahead of time. In other words, if I get beat for that reason, THE FAULT IS MINE. The simpler the proposition is that I have failed to convey, the more my fault it is.
So under those circumstances you’d NEVER hear me saying that the rock bashers are idiots – I’d be castigating my side for being so idiotic we couldn’t come up with a way to convince people NOT to bash themselves with rocks!
- Rick
I think the R’s won because in huge part because they put a happy, optimistic face on everything, even their grossest mistakes, which they never admit to.
“Sure there aren’t any WMDs now, and there’s no connection between Saddam and 9/11, but we’re bringing those poor Iraquis freedom for the first time. Aren’t we great?”
“Sure we’ve stretched our national guard and reserve forces too thin, and sent them in with outdated equipment and inadequate training in a war we chose to fight, but aren’ t the people in our military the greatest in the world?”