They choose not to remember it because it kills the entire Obama=Carter meme. As I mentioned in post #33 Operation Eagle Claw was the tipping point from which Carter was never able to recover. Of course, there is no interest on the part of the Obama haters to encourage comparison of this event to anything that may have occurred during the Obama presidency.
I think folks like our OP and those who agree with him would prefer to ignore all the facts you mention rather than risk having people remember them too V[COLOR=“BLUE”]I[/COLOR]VI[COLOR=“Magenta”][COLOR=“Magenta”][COLOR=“Magenta”]D[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]LY.
You keep mentioning Teddy’s seat. As discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, the Democrats lost that seat because Martha Coakley ran the worst campaign this side of Alvin Greene, majorly pissing off the solid Democratic base. Instead, they went for the much less obnoxious Scott Brown (who was trailing pretty heavily initially), who is pretty mild by GOP standards. Hell, I probably would have voted for Brown.
Sorry: I’m not getting your point, nor your reference. Are you saying you subscribe to the OP’s unsupported viewpoint? Just curious, as I’m keeping a list and wondering if I need to add you to it.
Ah yes, the old 1980 “October Surprise” slander. Between that and 2000’s “hanging chads” BS, Little Nemo’s assertion above seems both laughable and perhaps psychologically informative. (Now wait for a chorus of “no it isn’t! Reagan and GWB really did steal the elections!”)
Ok pkbites, since you’re so sure of your prediction - how much you wanna bet? I’m dead serious if you want to put a gentleman’s wager on it. My stance: Obama will win his second term in 2012 (likely by a comfortable margin).
You and others have posted stuff lately to the effect of “Unlike our foes, we Democrats are open minded, tolerant of ideological non-conformity and accept our defeats with grace,” which (as gonzomax and others demonstrate) is laughable on its face and may say something about y’all’s own level of introspection.
I don’t know why I’d say “we Democrats” when I’m a Republican. I’d have thought the fact that I’ve been posting suggestions on what the Republicans need to do to win next year’s election might have been a hint. But I guess that was too subtle.
What I’ve been saying is that the Democrats try to learn from their mistakes while too many Republicans refuse to admit they ever make a mistake.
OK, sorry about that. But I’m still unpersuaded that Democrats are more flexible than Republicans in this regard – again, I’ve never heard Republicans go on about how Clinton or Obama stole the election.
Mainly because those elections weren’t too close. Close elections tend to bring out the conspiracy theorists of the losing side - I bet you’ll find some folks on this very board who doubt the results of 1960.
Odds? Hah, no. The OP came in here confidently proclaiming what a sure thing it is that he will lose. Although I know you’re not the OP, one doesn’t run their mouth like that and then expect favorable odds. I’m trying to get him to put his money where his mouth is.
My point was that a lot of Republicans say that these elections somehow aren’t reflective of the general electorate. I’ve seen a lot of Republicans claim that the reason why McCain lost was because he wasn’t conservative enough. Which is a ridiculous claim - McCain lost to Obama, which is evidence McCain lost because he wasn’t liberal enough.
Or they’ll say the 1976 election wasn’t normal because it was right after Nixon resigned. And the 1992 election wasn’t normal because Perot ran. And the 1996 election wasn’t normal because Clinton was an incumbent. And the fact that more people voted for Gore in 2000 doesn’t matter because Bush won the electoral vote.
The mindset is that the voters are somehow naturally supposed to be Republicans and any time they vote for a Democrat it’s an aberration. And because it’s an aberration, it can be ignored.
But it happens too often to be considered just an aberration. Republicans need to recognize that people vote for Democrats. It’s not enough to say “We’ll run a Republican candidate and their candidate is a Democrat, so we’ll win.” But that’s the kind of complacency I’m seeing here.
Actually, the “McCain lost because he wasn’t conservative enough” claim isn’t so much based on the unlikely scenario of conservative Republican voters choosing Obama but rather upon the fact that they were so discouraged with the choice presented, they stayed home instead. To support this, they’ll point to the fact that voter turnout in 2008 was not much greater than turnout in 2004 despite the influx of new voters Obama brought to the polls.
Anyway, as stated previously, Obama is presently in a better position than Carter because he doesn’t have a foreign policy debacle like the Iran Hostage Crisis and the failed hostage rescue. The OP is basically premature. It’s important to remember that in 1980, momentum did not break clearly for Reagan and the GOP until less than a week before the election due to Carter’s poor debate performance.
