Yes, indeed, Reagan! Master strategist for our incursion into Lebanon! And who could forget the bold military thrust into Grenada, when American forces confronted the crack Cuban bulldozer drivers in a desperate struggle with overwhelming odds. Well, actually a lot of people can forget it. And already have.
Like your football team, your party is never as good as you think it is when you win nor as bad as you think it is when you lose. Incumbent presidents are supposed to win re-election handily, Bush won narrowly if not illegitimately. The fact that there was no landslide and no mandate does not bode well for the Pubbies. The fact that such an eminently pitiful incumbent was not driven from office in disgrace does not bode well for the Dems. The Pubs now have won plenty of rope and a good stout limb from which to hang themselves. Barring some miraculous turnabout in Iraq by 2008, they may well do just that. The pendulum has swung as far to the right as it will- time will tell.
Well, our serious involvment in the affairs of Vietnam really began under Eisenhower.
You mean we’re still going to be fucking around in there 4 years from now? :eek:
But more to the point, if Kerry HAD won this time around, I certainly would have expected quick action on Iraq from him, and been pissed if I didn’t get it.
What about Korea?
June 1950: North Korea invades South Korea. Truman has US join UN coalition to put a stop to them.
January 1953: Truman, termed out, hands power to Eisenhower, having at least achieved a stalemate, something Bush, who doesn’t even have Soviet nukes hanging over his head to worry about, will consider himself lucky to have achieved within the same timeframe, about a year from now.
July 1953: Armistice signed, ending major combat operations, Eisenhower dicks around for the next 7 years without bringing things to a close.
There sure is a lot of talk about ‘swinging back’ and ‘pendulums’ in some posts here. I guess that’s all Hegel’s fault. Enough to make you think that ships ALWAYS right themselves
If ‘all is well in Denmark’ – and if you’re relying on some sort of “natural law” that will create a swing back in the opposite direction - nature better call soon. Because again - Karl Rove is with someone, somewhere, grooming the 2008 candidate. And Hillary, god’s own gift to the Republican Party, is a viable candidate for 2008.
Oddest thing about Hilary. A lot of the Tighty Righty are convinced she’s a shoo-in for candidate, despite repeated denials on her part and a complete and utter lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy. Outside the Republican Party, that is.
And you know, after four more years of lies, incompetence and general pooch-screwing, she might have a chance!
A propos of nothing, my football team is the Jets and they are precisely as bad as I think they are when they lose. Except on the rare occasion when they’re even worse than that. 
I think that younger liberals are just more likely to remain independent rather than registering as Democrats. I’ve never registered with a party in my life and I’ve been a regular voter since 1984. Conservatives seem to feel a greater need to march in lockstep with a group and think less and listen to the constant reiteration of their own viewpoints on the radio. Liberals and moderates are more thoughtful and resistant to groupthink and they like to hear both sides and they don’t like to be labled or told what to think. Also we don’t want the endless solicitations that come with party membership.
The real story here isn’t the Republican victory in this particular election.
The Democrats used to be the majority party in America, and their electoral strength reflected this. Democrats used to perpetually control the House of Representatives, most governorships, most state houses. They had an advantage in the Senate for most of this period as well, though sometimes a narrow one.
In the last twenty years or so, this advantage has slipped away. The Republicans closed the margin until parity was reached, and that seemed to hold for a few years. Now, the Democrats would love to just get back to parity.
Over this period, the Republicans have grown far stronger and the Democrats far weaker. There’s really no other way to read the numbers.
This should be an indication to those Democrats that there are issues the American public regards as settled, but that they still want to fight over. Unless they cede some of these battles, they’ll keep losing ground.
I think that younger conservatives are just more likely to remain independent rather than registering as Republicans. I’ve never registered with a party in my life and I too have been a regular voter since 1984. Liberals seem to feel a greater need to march in lockstep with a group and think less and listen to the constant reiteration of their own viewpoints on TV and in the newspapers. Conservatives and moderates are more thoughtful and resistant to groupthink and they like to hear both sides and they don’t like to be labled or told what to think.
That’s a laugh.
If younger liberals weren’t “joiners”, MoveOn would never have gotten off of the ground.
People like to join things. It’s part of human nature, and saying younger liberals are immune to this is just ignorant of reality. Besides, don’t Democrats pride themselves on their coalitions and the strength of the groups within it? I certainly heard a lot about this during the campaign.
It may be that some liberals are joining more radical groups instead of the Democratic Party proper. I hardly see this as being a sign of strength in the party, however.
The last President to win re-election “handily” was Reagan, and before that, Nixon. Ford lost, Carter lost, Bush Sr. lost, and Clinton never gained even a majority of the popular vote.
Regards,
Shodan
Back to the OP: my thought is that it is based on a poll that is pretty much meaningless. It was taken in the wake of the election, and I submit that the results of the election influenced enough people to make a swing to the GOP.
In other words, some of the respondents just want to back a winner.
Let’s look at the percentages: The GOP slice of the pie jumped from 34 to 37% in the space of about a month. The Democrat slice shrank from 37 to 32%. Is it that people move directly from the Democrats to the GOP? I seriously doubt it, because you’re forgetting the third slice: independents, a. k. a. “Decline to state”. What I suspect is happening here is that 3% of those surveyed (is that even outside the MOE? The article doesn’t say) moved from independent to GOP, and I would guess these people tended to be conservative to begin with.
Meanwhile, 5% of voters moved from Democrat to (my guess) independent. The assumption that all of these “independents” are politically moderate is a fallacy; some conceivably could be far-leftists put off by what they perceived as the party’s moderate message.
Oh, sure, this poll doesn’t augur well for the Democrats, but the Pubbies here really don’t have as much cause to be gleeful about it as they seem to think. For starters, if the country is drifting rightward, how can one explain state-level results? The key to winning elections hasn’t changed: it’s winning over independents. These voters are practical, results-driven people unlikely to be swayed by ideology (which increasingly drives the GOP) and who want reform. Guess what will happen after the GOP has had a couple of years running the country and tries to frame itself as the “reform” party?
I assume you thought I meant the product was Bush? No, he’s an embarassment, something we will see the Pubbies slowly own up to over the next four years.
I was referring to the patently false notion that Republicans make better leaders of modern warfare.
The explaination may be in the linked article itself. Deep into the article you linked is this –
Two words: Zell Miller.
scotandrsn, I’ve not seen any large campaign on Reps being better at war per se, but 2 things come to mind: one is that the incumbant ALWAYS gets reelected when we’re at war. Independants are snikkity about changing Commanders-In-Chief during a war crisis. Secondly, the fact that Bush is perceived as a “cowboy” by international folks might have played into that. Certainly Bush was perceived as tougher on war than Kerry, and being a war-time campaign, the Dems putting whimpy Kerry in was a major display of weakness in the party, and a blow to folks’ confidence in the party to lead the country.
I still can’t understand how the Pubs sold the lie that Kerry, a decorated Vietnam vet, is a wimp about war, yet Bush, who deserted his cushy job in Texas Air National Guard, is a “cowboy.”
And what a statement about our nation that judgement and intelligence are derided as weakness, and ignorance and strutting are thought to be strength.
The notion may be false, but in addition to my previous post, also consider this… Pacifists and anti-war folks tend to be… liberal. Democrats. All the anti-war demonstrators and vocal celbrities are all… Democrats. How in the world can folks perceive a political party with a constituency of pacifists and can’t-shut-the-hell-up celbrities to be “tough on war”? Especially a candidate who spouts “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.”
Because it was true?
Three more words “…is an idiot.” That the Republicans and Zell himself managed to portray Zell as some sort of moderate who saw the Democratic Party move to the left and abandon him (with particular emphasis on the issue of security) is a crock of shit. If you look at his voting record over the past few years, you will see that he has completely drunk the Kool-Aid on a range of issues from the trickle-down economics tax cuts to environmental issues. (His rating from League of Conservation Voters just barely beats out Sen. James “Global warming is the biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind” Inhofe.) If the Democratic Party consisted of Zell Miller clones, the elections in America would be between the far right-wing party and the very far-right-wing party.
Bah…A spin machine that can make Max Cleland look like he is weak would have done the same to practically any Democratic candidate. Let’s face it, with Bush’s approval ratings, the only thing he could do is tear down the other guy to the point where there were voters who thought he was bad but were scared that the alternative was worse. It was a campaign of fear.
At some point, the American people will learn that there is more to their security than just electing the person who is willing to blow more things up…At least I hope they will.
Yeah, if you can’t be in favor of totally unjustified wars started for reasons that are a combination of lies and deceptions built on a foundation of shitty intelligence and that decrease rather than increase our security, then what sort of wars can you favor?