Substitute Rush Limbaugh show listeners for SDMB leftists.
Same result: How on earth can anyone vote for that moron Clinton/Bush when he has done all of these evil things?
You could ask the above question to the Rush listeners. You would probably get the same kind of answers from them as you would from some of SDMB leftist folks.(the electorate is dumb…don’t care about substantive issues…only concerned about what things directly affect them…yadda yadda yadda.
Part of your answer, I think, is in the PR war: the Bush campaign has done a good job of painting Kerry, in many people’s minds, as someone who would totally screw the country up if he got elected. Bush’s campaign has also done an admirable job of painting him as a strong leader in the War on Terror, while the truth is that he’s a guy who’s scored a whole bunch of own goals in that war. Bush’s campaign has also done an excellent job of sweeping under the rug the very existence, let alone the magnitude, of the looming fiscal crisis created by the tax cuts Bush wants to make permanent.
Voters are going to vote on the basis of what they believe to be true with respect to the issues that they’re actually thinking about. To the extent that Bush can successfully paint a much better picture of himself in the public mind than that which is warranted by the facts, he can win.
FWIW, you’ll have to count me among the persons who believe that no reasonable person could possibly support Bush. Not only are his fiscal and foreign policies not sustainable in the long run (any political philosophy, followed unwaveringly, contains the seeds of its own eventual destruction), but they’re not even sustainable much beyond his would-be second term, if that long.
You are making the exact case that the OP is asking about. With the exception of #6, only a small minority of Bush supports fall in those categories. Are we to surmize that ALL of the other Bush supporters are in category #6? I don’t think so.
Perhaps that’s your interpretation, but it isn’t mine. I’ve met some intelligent people who support Bush, and I think anyone else who frequents this board would agree with me. Yes, many on the board speak out forcefully and consistently against him. That’s not the same as claiming that everyone who supports the guy is an idiot.
Damn the hamster that ate my post. Try number two:
Bricker - here’s my answer. It doesn’t require ‘sheeple,’ nor does it require the belief that whatever draws people to this board also makes them lean far to the left.
My answer is twofold:
Bush is viable because Republicans are much much better at turning an election into a bunch of one-issue contests. That may sound like an oxymoron, but much of the populace has one issue that outweighs all others, and entirely governs how they vote.
So a voter may be OK with gay marriage, fine with affirmative action, be for some gun control, and pro-environment, but by God they hate abortion and always vote Republican because of that.
Another may also be liberal on most fronts, but detest affirmative action because they feel like they lost their job because of it, and so always vote Republican.
Republicans are much better at packaging that to the right groups. They’re able to cobble a majority out of coalitions, each of which has one central issue.
In support of my thesis, the gay marriage thing seemed to come out of nowhere last January, when Bush was trying to deflect attention from the war.
People I know who are voting Bush, almost without exception (that being my mother-in-law) aren’t voting “for Bush” - they’re not thrilled with him. But one hates unions, and thus always votes Republican. Another is consumed by being anti-abortion. Another, frankly, is a bigot, and thinks the Mexicans and blacks are ruining the country. My mother-in-law exception that proves the rule actually likes Bush. Thinks he comes across as a great guy.
A lot of people like war. Most wars are popular politics, and with some of the population, war is always popular politics.
Oh, I agree that Rush Limbaugh’s audience is, by and large, the mirror image of SDMB leftists. The difference is that if I wanted to assemble a group that I felt would be bright enough to look to the nuance of issues, I don’t believe I would solicit Rush’s “Frequent Listener” mailing list to populate it.
I might, however, have considered this board.
In other words, I’m suggesting that at first blush, the population of this board would seem a good candidate for nuanced observation – even given the left-leaning aspect of the board, I would expect it’s members to understand that reasonable people may disagree.
Actually, the reponses to this thread are slowly eroding my belief otherwise. But the responders to this thread are not, by and large, the rabid partisans; they have have tended more towards the reasonable model. Maybe my perception has been colored by a minority of vocal posters.
That would suggest that, like Nixon said, there’s a “silent majority” out there - and I suspect that he’s correct. What is vexing, is that the pendulum swings both ways and we go through political cycles. The Democrats ascend for a bit, the country appears to get a bit nervous, and there’s a rush to the Republican camp. After a few years of that, once again there’s a national identity crisis, and there’s a rush back to the left.
You have to wonder if it is going to be a perpetual cycle, or will there come a time when some sort of equilibrium is achieved. Given the near even divide we’ve seen in the past few years, and the fact that the discourse has only gotten harsher, I don’t hold out much hope for any improvement.
In 1999/2000 I did not like George Bush - I felt his qualifications were dubious and he was far from the best available candidate for the job. In fact I registered Republican so that I could vote against him twice, although by the time the NY primaries occurred it was pretty much a done deal. But, once he was nominated, I could understand why a reasonable person with different priorities than mine (say, pro-life or in favor of conservative judicial activism or whatever) would favor him as president. I might not fully understand it, but along the lines of people who put nuts on their sundaes - if that’s what you want, so be it.
In 2004 however, I feel that even by his own principals, statements, and goals he has been a failure and that the very issues on which he lauded himself as God’s answer to the country’s problems - character and integrity, uniter not divider, compassionate conservative - have been belied by his actions subsequent to his election.
On two of the three reasons you have listed for backing Bush this year I cannot really criticize (pro-lifeness and strict constructionist court nominations). On the third -Iraq- I find your response unreasonable and divorced from both reality as I see it and in opposition to the other two principals you listed. That is where the incomprehension comes in.
OK. But given that you feel that these forces - religion and fear - motivate large numbers of voters, and that they militate towards support of Bush, why would you predict that absent electoral fraud, Bush has no chance of winning?
Hey! Secretariiat was the finest hunk of horseflesh I’ve ever seen while Kerry is, at best, quirkily handsome like Man o’ War (swaybacked, big shoulders and hindquarters).
Bush looks more like Seabisquit, lunkish and kinda stupid looking, and is winning the same way: surprisingly.
An artical in the Economist, described the most influencial demographic in the US. IIRC, it is your typical, Middle America, makes $45,000 a year, house and kids in the suburbs, maybe a college degree, soccer mom/dad.
This is someone who’s entire perception of the outside world comes from the idiot box. The are probably a little behind the curve in terms of critical thinking and originality, prefering instead to do what is told to them or expected of them. Everything happens to “other people”. They are probably a little overweight. Foreigners and minorities are a “they”. They only like to travel to places that are exactly like the place they traveled from. Their perception is if something happens on the news, it could happen to them next. They are easy to scare because they know very little outside of their little world.
A GW Bush appeals to them because he represents their typical view of “Ameriduh”. He doesn’t cater to minorities (who are tolerated but only as a polite and harmless minority). He talks about a strong America kicking ass with the rest of the world kowtowing to out leadership. Their knowledge of economics is their job, their taxes, their house payments. Their understanding of international politics is aircraft carriers and fighters.
In other words, the typical American is good natured and hard working and tends to rely on “common knowledge” and 30 second spots for information and decision making. Unfortunately, common knowledge is not always correct.
Well, category #6 is not insubstantial. But, I guess then my point is that if the electorate was made up of “reasonable” and well-informed people (the latter may actually be more important than the former) then Bush would be getting far fewer votes.
And, by the way, I am not sure how “blindingly obvious” Bush’s flaws are. They are blindingly obvious to me but I am someone who makes practically a 2nd career out of keeping up with what is going on and have done a lot of research to find good sources of information. For those who don’t have the time, energy, or educational background to do this, I think it is easy to be taken in. The fact is that this Administration is extremely good at selling their policies; they are essentially, very skilled con artists.
By the way, I did sort of leave out a group of people, which seems to include a fair number of people on this messageboard, namely, people who are voting for Bush as the perceived lesser of two evils because he is somewhat closer to their general political philosophy. I don’t know how reasonable I think all of these people are…But, that depends on how one defines “reasonable”.
Mostly because a) people are reluctant to switch choices while the nation is under a continuing terrorist threat, and are influenced by the fact that there has not been another attack on the U.S. (the perception that his policies are “working”), and b) Kerry hasn’t made clear that he would do anything radically different and effective on either countering terrorism or the economy, the two biggest issues (I highly doubt very many voters care all that much about things like gay marriage).
Incumbents have a built-in advantage unless the economy is in really bad shape or there’s some other disaster, and the perception of disaster isn’t there for many folks. I think it will become clear only much later just how badly GWB has failed to seize initiatives on matters such as Mideast peace and energy independence, and thus placed us all at greater risk. By then he’ll probably have been a two-term President.
By the way, much as it is tempting for an ideologue to argue that his side is oh-so-reasonable and that it’s the other guys who are doing the demonizing - if one believes the right-wing pundits, the nation will go right down the sewer if Kerry is elected. The level of venom isn’t quite as high as on the Left (since Bush is ahead in the polls), but if things get tight look for the sleaze quotient to ramp up even further.
By the way, from now on, whenever anyone ever uses the “We saved the Iraqis from torture and death at the hands of an evil dictator” line to justify the Iraq debacle, I have a three word response: “Really? Sudan. Waiting.”
Getting back to the OP, the flaw in that argument is so blindingly obvious that no one would be in the running if he or she advocated it. You are saying that one must not intervene in any conflict unless one is able and willing to intervene in all conflicts (or at least two conflicts). Ridiculous.
The Iraq war can stand or fall on its own merit. It needn’t be compared to any other situtation for justification.
