I’m not sure that was in response to my post, but since it followed my post, I’ll assume it was.
You misunderstand me. There is no need to defend Kerry on his vote for the Iraq war resolution. You are making the same mistake that Kerry is-- that too many Americans will think he’s a traitor for saying the wart was mistake.
But he is hampered in his ability to really go after Bush by his unwillingness to just let it go and say, “Bush mislead us, and I mistakenly voted for the war resolution. Knowing what I know now, I would not have voted for it. Bush stands by his decision to invade Iraq. Look at the situation now and decide who is right.” Then go for the jugular.
Of course he has to reassure the troops and the rest of us that he is 100% dedicated to fixing things in Iraq, in as much as they can be fixed. That he is not going to pull the troops out and just let chaos fill the void.
He had no problems saying pretty much the same things back in the early '70s when he protested the Vietnam war. That war was a mistake, and Iraq was as well.
Since you ignored my question, I’m going to ask it again. What have I said about Kerry that is doing him a “great disservice”? In my opinion, it is the Democrats at large who are doing him a great disservice by shrieking without listening, by presuming the worst about both their opponents and allies, and by straining gnats when the whole room smells of camel’s ass.
Can you explain why the silence now and the predicted silence if Kerry is inaugurated? Are you under some militiary restriction (I can’t imagine thay our are)?
I’m utterly confused.
It seems reasonable, even if not actual military code, to refrain from bashing his commanders while he is engaged in the exercise of his duties.
I wrote about this here and here.
The gist of it is that I will not break the law, not even semi-anonymously on a message board. In some respects that’s my own choice because I’m maintaining discipline when it’s very likely that nobody cares, but on the other hand if the Bush administration is as paranoid as you guys maintain that they are then they can take the PATRIOT Act and ram my words straight down my throat. 
I think this is spot on. Politicians seem to the think the public will not forgive an honest mistake, when what the public is less likely to forgive is pretending that you never made the mistake in the first place.
Whose guys said anything about the Patriot Act?
I guess the source of my confusion is that you’ve pretty clearly stated here that you’re not voting for Bush because of the Iraq War. How much different would it be for you to say “Bush made a mistake going into Iraq”?
At any rate, do what your conscience tells you to do. I’m in no way trying to egg you on. I just think you’ve already criticized Bush quite a bit on this board.
Oh come now mhendo, really. The genesis of the entire argument about the 2000 election was that Gore got a few percentage points more of the popular vote than Bush did. Those “Re-Defeat Bush” stickers that have appeared recently all over bumpers here in Baltimore (and presumable everywhere else-I saw one on a car in Yellowknife, NWT) are not about the decision the Supreme Court reached or the methods of recount in Florida. Intellectuals in academia and pseudo-intellectuals here at the SDMB love to argue the whichness of why VS the whyness of which, but I assure you, if you asked the average Democrat on the street about the election of 2000, they’d say “Gore should have won because he got more votes”. You’re over -complicating the issue.
The only one making assumptions here is you. If you go back and read what I said, I agreed with the statement that Fear Itself made (“All of this is well and good, and if that’s how it plays out, then Kerry will be the next president.”). What I found interesting was Democrats pining their hopes on the exact same set of circumstances that happened in 2000, when the outcry then was huge, so I asked a question: Would that situation make a Democrat feel like a hypocrite or not? It’s a neutral question. You’re acting like I asked “That would make you a real hypocrite then, wouldn’t it?” I didn’t. I very specifically didn’t. I would appreciate your reacting to what I actually write, not to how you preceive my political position.
[quote]
You still can’t seem to address the actual issues that relate to your own OP. If you were really serious about discussing the relevance of those poll results, as you claim and as your OP suggests, then why not do just that? Why not either tell Fear Itself that you agree with him, or say why you don’t and present a rational argument as to why?
[quote]
Well, considering that my OP dealt with a question about changes in the polls after the RNC, and the data you posted to refute that comes from a poll from before the RNC (From the linked website-“The most recent results are based on telephone interviews with 1,004 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Aug. 23-25, 2004. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.”), I’m not sure of the relevance here. If you have any poll data supporting your point from after the RNC, please post it. Since what you posted doesn’t meet that criteria, I don’t think it’s germain to the discussion. That being said, as I indicated back on page one I agree with you, the results in swing states are going to be more important than the overall results AGAIN. That still doesn’t change the fact that a 10 point swing in the polls is pretty impressive, considering the deadlock we’ve had all summer.
Ask a question. I’ve covered this
Complete the quote, if you please: “saying over and over to each other “how did this happen, I don’t know anyone who voted for Bush” YET AGAIN.” You’re a historian, you should know that Pauline Kael, commentator for the NY Times, said “I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon!” in response to Nixon’s landslide win 1972. It’s a famous quote that’s often used to illustrate the dangers of being insulated in your thinking, because you’ve surrounded yourself with people who think exactly the same way and agree with you. As for the “limp dicks in their hands”, I think it’s a pretty accurate metaphor for the way Democrats will feel if they lose a close election in November. I am sorry you don’t like it.
Dave, I have to disagree. The genesis of the argument over Election 2000 was perceived irregularities in the Florida vote count, plus the Supreme Court decisions in Bush v Gore, awarding Mr. Bush the Presidency, when there were serious questions about the validity of the results and the perceived politically-motivated decisions made by people ranging from the Florida Secretary of State to the SCOTUS majority.
I’ve had candidates lose elections before, sometimes to people I thought were arrant idiots, and I’ve taken a philosophical attitude that the voice of the people was heard – no matter if the people were being taken in by a demagogue or making silly choices, they got what they decided to choose. And that’s something I can live with.
This race was different – akin to the old boss-style elections where the poll results were manipulated by fraudulent means. (And yes, there were Democratic bosses galore – my point is not partisan.)
If people who attempted to cast valid votes had their votes thrown out because the poll-place staff gave them wrong information, if there was a concerted campaign to eliminate voters of a given race or party in some areas, if recounts called for in law were contested in court for political advantage – then the game is not being played fairly, and somebody should speak up.
I was as offended by the discarding of military ballots based on a technical error not caused by the servicemen voters, thanks to a Democratic challenge, as I was by the ploys perpetrated by some Florida Republicans in Palm Beach and Jacksonville. (And those have been rehashed enough times that I think I don’t need to give you details.)
That is bullshit pure and simple – putting party above country. And I’m disgusted by it.
For me, the worst thing that could happen in 2004 is for a very close race with more of the same allegations – no matter whether it’s a very tight win for Bush or for Kerry. Because give us another four years of this sort of rabid partisanship, and this country will be tearing itself apart.
And, quite simply, IMO Mr. Bush is not interested in serving the people of this country, but in doing what will benefit his constituency and continue to ensure their support. And Mr. Kerry seems to be having a great deal of trouble taking a stand and sticking to it – he’s playing the “how can I make them like me” game, and not realizing that he’ll get a lot more respect and support for doing what he thinks is right than by trying to please everyone.
Look up the phrase “Spanish vice” in Google, and tell me what you think of what you find.
If you think that’s true, show me some evidence. Your personal assurances don’t really cut it, i’m afraid. What qualifies you, someone who despises Kerry and spends half his time slagging off Democrats, to speak for “the average Democrat in the street”? At least show me some evidence that your assertion is backed by something—anything—other than your own feeling.
I spend a lot of time reading liberal and leftist magazines. I have ongoing subscriptions to The Nation, The Progressive, Z Magazine, Harper’s, and Atlantic Monthly, and i make regular or semi-regular purchases of The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Ms. Magazine, and a bunch of other magazines. I also spend a considerable amount of time on the internet reading the so-called liberal newspapers, like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Guardian. I list these not to make some show of false erudition, but simply to let you know what my sources are.
In all the articles i read about the 2000 election, most of the criticism revolved around voter disenfranchisement, irregularities in the ballot and in the counting procedures, and the role of the Supreme Court. Sure, there was some criticism of the electoral college system, but generally from people who were opposed to it on principle, and not just because Gore happened to lose the election. Hell, The Nation is generally considered the ne plus ultra of American liberal weeklies, and its main focus had very little to do with the electoral college, and much to do with the other factors i’ve mentioned. Someone has already linked to Bugliosi’s book about the election. Bugliosi wrote about the election for The Nation, and then published his book; the book does not blame the popular vote/electoral college vote discrepancy for Gore’s loss.
If you can show me a bunch of liberal journals that do, in fact, use the electoral college issue as the key reason for opposing Bush’s election, i’ll think about re-evaluating my views. Similarly, if you can show me some polls or articles or studies that show that this was what the majority of liberals were worried about, i’ll look at the evidence. But your opinion runs contrary to what i read every week in some of America’s best-known liberal news outlets. I’m goona have to go with them over your feelings, i’m afraid.
All my evidence so far comes from extensive reading in liberal sources. Whether you give any credence to my summary is, of course, up to you. I can also add some anecdotal evidence, to go with your completely irrelevant observation of a bumper sticker in Yellowknife. I have many liberal and leftist friends who have problems with the way the 2000 election was decided, and all of their problems revolve around issues of disenfranchisement, voting machines, voter registration, badly-designed ballots, recounts, and the Supreme Court.
Are there liberals who would like to reform the electoral college system? Sure. And there are actually conservatives who don’t like it too much either. Personally, given the choice, i would reform the electoral college system, but i’ve been of that opinion since well before the 2000 election. When i was very first taught about the EC as a sophomore in college, i thought back then that it was a rather poor way of deciding a presidential election, and i continue to think so.
Personally i think that, whatever their reasons for complaining about the 2000 election, liberals need to put it behind them and get on with the real job, which is in the future and not the past. But i don’t agree with you that the the discrepancy between the electoral college vote and the popular vote is the main issue for most liberals who look back to the 2000 election. Many of the critics of the 2000 election talk about issues of legality, and surely there is no issue of legality regarding the electoral college. So, it stands to reason that they must be talking about something else, no?
Again, you have no evidence that “Democrats” are pinning their hopes on winning the electoral college but not the popular vote. You were responding to a single post by a single person, who was expressing his own position, and yet you chose to make it about the possible hypocrisy of “Democrats” more generally. You continue to generalize about Democrats when you have no apparent basis for your generalization. The fact that your question was asked politely does not make it less offensive, because its very content assumes that Democrats hold a single position about both the 2000 election and about the upcoming election, and sets up a false situation that assumes that Democrats, as some monolithic whole, all share a particular attitude to the role of the electoral college in the 2000 election.
The point i made was not about when the poll was conducted. It was about the relative importance of aggregate and state-specific figures. I’m not saying that your poll figures are wrong. I’m just saying that, in the absence of figures for the battleground states, they really can’t tell us anything one way or another about the result.
Your first statement in your OP was “Read it and weep,” which strongly suggests that you believe that the polls you cite have important implications for the election result. All Fear Itself was saying, and all i’m saying, is that those numbers might have very little bearing on the final result if they don’t take swing state numbers into account. That is, your OP might not be wrong, but it’s definitely incomplete, and you have so far been more concerned about making unfounded assertions about what Democrats believe than with actually looking for further evidence to support your OP. That’s your call, obviously, but it undermines your position somewhat.
Completing the quote doesn’t change the fact that you felt the rather puerile need to refer to Democrats and “limp dicks.” Does you little credit if you’re seeking to paint yourself as a moderate.
Sure, but that’s tangential to your pointless references to impotency.
I don’t really like or dislike it. You might make some sort of Freudian connection between your sexual performance and the fortunes of your political party, but you perhaps should be careful about projecting your own insecurities onto Democrats.
Poly, I understand what you are saying, but I don’t think that in general the people who post here are representative of the general rank and file Americans. I work, every day, with your basic middle class and working class people (different ones all the time), and the overwealming majority of them (when the subject comes up) express the opinion that Gore won the election because he had more votes. Especially now, 4 years down the road from 24 hour a day news coverage of hanging chads. They recognize that Florida was a issue, but most of the time it’s all variations on a common theme : The Supreme Court gave the election to Bush/votes weren’t counted properly in Fla/ballots were thrown out/ whatever/ and the reason that’s wrong is because Gore won the popular vote. (obviously, these are the Democrats I am talking about. Republicans don’t feel the same way. 
) Issues get simplified over time, and I think that’s what has happened here. IME, anyway, it is.
And that’s your problem. All of those liberal sourses you cited are no more indicitave about what the man on the street thinks than Anne Coulter is of all Republicans. I have an idea. Lets the two of us, you and I, grab a couple of clipboards and go down to, say, the corner of St.Paul and Baltimore street. We’ll conduct a straw poll. We’ll each ask 100 random people if they are Democrats or Republicans. The first 100 Dems we meet, we’ll ask the following 2 questions:
“Did Bush legitimately win in 2000?”
and if they say no, we’ll ask
“Why?”
I think the results might suprise you, but who knows, maybe I’ll be suprised. You game?
When you judge the New York Times or The Nation as equivalents of Ann Coulter, i see no further point in arguing at all.
I’m done here.
If you go back and reread what I posted for content, you will notice that nowhere did I use the word Democrats in that post.I did use the word “liberals”, but all I said was they cried foul when Bush won, which I doubt even you would deny, as you’ve spent paragraphs in this thread holding forth as to why they cried foul. The rest of the post was directed at Fear Itself. Stop implying that I said things I didn’t.
Have you missed the several times in this thread where I have agreed with the general concept of swing states?
I titled the link “Read it and weep” because it’s bad news. How do you preface bad news, anyway?
Uh-huh. So I started a topic for discussion. I asked what people thought. That’s the way things are done around here. You’re jumping on me for starting a discussion. Why? I dunno, could it be that you are reacting to your preconceived idea of where i am coming from, and allowing it to color your thought process rather than just reading what I say? I think it might, because you go on to attest:
Where? Where have I done this in this thread? I’ve talked about how Democrats are acting (How fucking stupid do the Democrats have to be not to see that?) in regard to a small segment of their party(the most vocal segment of the Democratic party who are all screaming that Bush is Hitler, Satan, and Stalin all rolled into one). I mentioned “liberals” several times, and I do believe that I mentioned “The general condesention of the Left towards anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with them”. I thought that by using capitols “the Left”, it was pretty obvious I was referring to the extremists. In fact, the only time I have talked about “what Democrats believe” in general it has been in the context of saying that that’s what I have observed in my experience, or what I believe to be true, and I’ve even proposed an experiment to see if I am right or wrong. Does that sound like someone piggishly holding onto bias in the face of facts to you?
Sure, if I referred to Democrats as "limp dicks’, you might have a point, but instead I talked about Democrats holding their limp dicks in their hands after having blown their wad on the election. If Kerry wins, it’ll be the Republicans who are deflated in the aftermath. You’re reaching. A lot.
Since I don’t have a party, I’d be in great deal of trouble then, wouldn’t I? In fact, my metaphor had nothing at all to do with impotency, but was instead all about being wrung out after having given ones all in a great effort. Again, you are finding stuff that’s not there.
Jesus, for a smart guy, you sure have some reading comprehension problems. I did not compare the New York Times or The Nation to Ann Coulter. I compared the relationship between those two publications to the average Democrat as the same as Ann’s relationship to the average Republican. Please, reread what I said. Would you feel better if I substituted The Washingtom Times for Ann Coulter? Feel free to do so.
Also, don’t you want to go play downtown? It could be fun. I am now interested in what the results would be myself.
I think that what I find–page after page of hits referring to the Spanish vice president, vice premiere, vice consul, etc.; plus occasional hits on Spanish Vice Lords and ads for dictionaries that translate “English-Spanish/vice versa”–is not terribly relevant to the discussion at hand. How about just explaining the term?
(Otherwise, nice post.)
(Oh sorry, this is the Pit. Fuck.)
Re your last line, sorry; I’m not into sex with macroscelidids!
Seriously, “the Spanish vice” was the term used back in the 30s, and for some time after, for the attitudes taken by leading Spaniards, where a strongly left-wing government, or phalangist quasi-Fascism (literally, not insultingly), or the concerns of Catalonia or the Basque country or Andalucia, were placed above the good of all. The net result was the Spanish Civil War, and the ensuing massive depression (exacerbated by the world depression of the time) and lingering hatreds between Spanish partisans of all varieties.
America is headed down the same road, in my pessimistic opinion – people are not taking into consideration what a small-town Baptist family that wants to bring their kids up right, or an unemployed legal Hispanic immigrant, or a gay couple, or whoever, may want and need – they are dividing up into small groups defined by issues and a sense that their opponents are being foolishly destructive of “America” as they envision it. The recent Cheney exchange is a good example: Dick is nobody I have a whole lot of respect for, thanks to some of the Cheney Chicanery relative to Haliburton, energy policy, etc. But I respect the fact that he may have moral convictions and a love for his daughter, and be trying to balance the two, and also his political position, and that that may put him on the horns of a dilemma. That he, or his daughter, have not come out squarely on the side of gay rights – well, I think he ought to, but I respect his right to make his own decisions. Likewise, Mr. Kerry’s stance on drivers’ licenses for highschool dropouts is liberal overregulation at its worst – I understand what he’s trying to accomplish, but how he’s doing it is contrary to my own views of American freedoms. Likewise right-to-life extremism where that is the only issue on which people ought to be judged in terms of their political stance is playing the particularism game. Some of the more infamous dictators were firmly against abortion – does that make them good leaders?
Dammit, think of other people, and what their needs and wants may be, and don’t demonize anybody. We used to be a country that could argue strongly about what was right – and then get down to the business of making it happen. Now, we’re a bunch of small particularist pressure groups convinced that everybody else is Satan incarnate, out to destroy what’s important to us.
And we don’t stop and realize that we, collectively, are doing just that to ourselves.
I have to say, they seem pretty damn fucking forgiving of Dubya and the long procession of fuckups, all of them unacknolwedged, that is his life.
So on the evidence, your theory does not hold.
Yes, I have. As a citizen I’m allowed to speak my mind, as a member of the Armed Forces I’m restrained in what I can say. Legitimate criticism is OK, like in the Bush/National Guard thread. But I have to be careful, because the line is very fine and it’s not at all clear sometimes where that line is.
The PATRIOT Act thing was an attempt at some snide humor. It didn’t work. Sorry.