Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the first liberal opinoin that does not seethe. I totaly get that response.
And your posts have been totally seethe-free?
I’m trying. Qagdop’s kind of reply helps that immensely.
I was an anarchist before I was of voting age.
Through High School I became increasingly sour on the Democratic Party; I thought they were getting a lot of mileage from claiming to be for the downtrodden, left-out, disenfranchised groups (of which they had a specific, politically-editable list), when in fact they didn’t give a shit except for international corporations of a certain ilk and entrenching their own power.
Wasnt’ eligible to vote against Jimmy Carter in '76, but did so in '80. I was expecting a balanced budget from the Republicans (the promised it, and everyone knew that’s the kind of thing you could expect from Republicans), whereas obviously the talk of curtailing abortion rights was just blather (everyone knew the Republicans supported basic individual liberties and would be affronted by big-brotherly paternalistic laws. except for drugs, but abortion isn’t at all like getting high on drugs).
I have voted for Republicans since then, but not for US Prez. I’ve been increasingly annoyed with and frightened by the [del]Moral Majority Party [/del] Republican Party. In 1984 I voted for Sonia Johnson of the Citizen’s Party. Since then I’ve given my national-office votes to the Democratic Party. Whatever concerns I had about them have been substantially eclipsed by larger concerns about the Republicans.
I remain open to third-party candidacies but haven’t been lit on fire by any in recent history.
Were I American, I suspect my votes (starting in 1988) would have been Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry.
For what it’s worth.
Kerry represents the worst in American polatics. That was bad bad bad.
Worse than Hillary?
It would have been my most hesitant vote (Clinton '96 or Gore '00 would have been my most enthusiastic) but Bush43’s first term wasn’t that inspiring. I’d’ve backed Dean had he secured the nomination. YEEEEEEEAAAHHHHH!!
Hillary wants to take your income and re-distibute it as she and her minions deem necceary. That is power and control. My vote so far says no.
Mitt wants to baptize my ancestors as Mormons, so he’s right out.
This differs from all other administrations how?
Lets just vote niether for a while. Eh?
Try answering a question instead of just backpedalling, bob.
1992–Voted for Clinton
1996–Voted for Dole(Hey, I was in the military, whaddya want?)
2000–Voted for Gore. I never liked or trusted Dubya from the start. I looked at him, listened to him talk and immediately saw the very worst aspects my college frats had to offer.
2004–Kerry, although I didn’t like him very much. It wasn’t so much liking Kerry more as it was hating him less.
You know who I miss? You know who I really feel sorry for? Who I think I and everyone else was way unfair to? Bush Sr. Looking back on the previous seven years of ineptitude and general assaholia, I realize now that Bush Sr. might not have been the most telegenic president, but damn that man knew foreign affairs. He took a lot of flack for the way he beat back the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait without toppling Saddam, but it turns out he was absolutely right. I didn’t agree with a lot of his policies, but in hindsight, he was a very capable president. I also thought Bill Clinton did quite well, even though I’m a conservative.
I disagree about Jimmy Carter being the best ex-president. I think he’s got a good heart, and I’m sure he means well, but it’s plain he didn’t learn a whole lot about human nature from his four years in the White House. I think Habitat for Humanity is a worthy charity, but it’s impact on his legacy is cancelled out by Carter’s statements on Israel and his sucking up to North Korea in the 90’s. In my eyes he’s intelligent but naive and flakey.
I’m not sure who the best ex-president is, actually. Looking at the current crop of former presidents who are still living, I’m tempted to say that taking the trouble to figure out the best ex-president is sort of like calculating who the smartest kid is in the remedial class. None of them are very good, although I think Clinton’s doing OK.
Let me throw my voice in here as a non-Bob, non-Hillary-liking member of the right.
I was born at the very beginning of the 80’s, and grew up in a heavily partisan Republican family. I remember only understanding GHWB as some sort of pseudo-Republican, far left-wing, Reagan-lite wannabe. The first election I was really politically cognizant of was the 1996 election, where I, in vain, tried to convince my father to vote for Perot over Dole, as I was of the belief that Perot was actually a possible candidate who would try to reduce the tendency of the government to “take [our] income and re-distibute it”.
By the time the 2000 election came about, I was old enough to vote, and worked for Alan Keyes’ primary commtitee in Maryland. When November came around, I ended up tossing my vote to Bush, mostly because I felt that a vote for Gore would somehow be a vote for a continuation of Clinton’s regime, one that I despised for (get this) it’s unneccessary and incessant involvement in foreign affairs that didn’t really seem necessary for the advancement of US policy: e.g. Serbia, Macedonia, Somalia, the Sudan. While I didn’t vote for Bush in '04, I don’t particularly feel ashamed, like many of my liberal friends would like, for voting for him in '00. My mindset then was that of voting for someone who would bring about a change in government intervention in the private sector (I still wonder how the hell the NEA is still around) and a strong anti-abortionist (while I’ve become much more liberal on social issues, I’m still a semi-practicing Catholic). In ‘04 I voted Badnarik, mostly as protest against the poor job I felt Bush had done and my general antipathy towards’ Kerry’s policies.
As far as Hillary goes: she pissed me off when she tried to hijack her position as first lady in order to meddle in public politics. It pissed me off when tons and tons of people claimed in the run-up to the '96 election that Bill needed to be reelected for, if no toehr reason, to give Hillary a second term. It pissed me off ,as a native New Yorker and as a believer in the representative nature of our government, that she moved to New York solely in order to get Moynihan’s senate seat. I don’t think that anything that she could say policy wise (and I know that she’s as far right-wing a Democrat as is running) could get me to get over my personal dislike of her.
I was a libertarian in my youth and voted for both Reagan and Bush I. At the time I totally bought into the smaller government/more individual liberty line that the Republican Party was pushing.
The scales fell from my eyes around the time of the first Gulf War. That’s when I realized two key facts that have strongly shaped my politics ever since:
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Libertarianism is wonderful in theory, but unworkable in practice. In a world full of multinational corporations it is impossible for an individual to compete on his own. The only protection from corporate tyranny and exploitation is a powerful and responsive democratic government. Government regulation and guidance are essential to a strong and prosperous modern society.
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The modern Republican Party is built on a big lie. Its three main constituencies are the religious fundamentalists, the small-government libertarians, and the wealthy business interests. The fundamentalists and libertarians provide the votes and the business interests provide the money. But, while Republican politicians talk a lot about things that are important to the fundamentalists and the libertarians, when you look at how they actually vote, they really only serve the wealthy. That’s the big lie.
I realized back during the first Bush administration that, as a libertarian, I was being played for a sucker by the Republicans. And then, when I started paying more attention to the Democrats, I started to realize that maybe my attachment to libertarianism itself had been foolish as well.
These days I’m a yellow-dog Democrat. It takes something really major to get me to cross party lines.
MerryMagdalen, I’m about a year younger than you, so my personal witnessing of political history is probably about the same as yours. My folks are and have nearly always both been ultra-conservative, but the rest of the family I grew up around were all liberals (from Massachusetts). Kid brother and I are moderately conservative. We disappoint our father for not voting a straight ticket.
I voted for Dole, then Bush twice. I wanted not Clinton, not Gore and not Kerry so my wishes were fufilled 2/3rds of the time.
Okay, that’s glib. Sorry. I’m pro-life, pro-death penalty (but it should be used sparingly), pro-civil union, pro-welfare reform, pro-social security reform now while we still have time to improve it, pro-education reform, against amnesty for illegals, against our current Laissez-faire business laws that allow for companies to off-shore without any penalties, I’d liked to see NAFTA repealed, I’d like to see there be more accountability for judges who give far more lenient than average sentences, I’d like for there to be federal laws against cell phone use by minors who are driving, against allowing religion to play into law-making, against NASA funding… So obviously I’m never going to find a single candidate that’ll always vote my way. Every election is a compromise, but thus far the republicans have told the lies I like better.
Kerry was somehow fake. A politician. I tend to vote not that guy %100 of the time. Not Clinton, not Gore, not …
Thanks guys, this is really educational.
Another, sort of related question: Were both parties, in your memory, about equally socially conservative? Or was there a wider range between them? I’m thinking the differences wouldn’t have been so pronounced because some of the social issues that divide (at least parts of) the parties today - gay marriage and adoption, transgender issues, maybe single-parenthood to some extent, treatment of illegal immigrants (social aspects of) - weren’t as visible, or even on the radar.
No. Blacks are historically democrats. Free the people from the man is a left saying. Free me from the people would be a right creedo.
The last of the segregationists just left.