# Strange Bedfellows: Is the GOP splitting the sheets? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098 "2005-10-20T16:14:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/41 "2005-10-21T04:26:38Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > I am curious who you think makes up the Democratic party. Whoever it is, they got 48% of the vote last election. From your appraisal, I can only conclude that nearly half the country is far left wing socialists. I’m curious about your appraisal of the 52% or so that voted for Bush. Do you really think they’re all right wing ideologues? Likewise the folks who returned, yet again, the House to the Republicans, and delivered the Senate also. Including, I might add, Tom Daschle’s seat. Which party is doing a better job communicating its message to the middle? You can comfort yourself with that 48%, I guess. Never mind that it was given to a condidate who represented change, at a time when many Americans wanted such. When they were tired of war, fearful of the economy and uneasy about terrorism. They still, at this dark hour, delivered their vote to the guy who arguably got them into the mess. How will Americans vote in the future when things are going well. And also, it must be pointed out, when Ross Perot isn’t running? The Democratic Party right now is in the precarious position of depending upon dire conditions in the American electorate in order to win. The country, then, has to lose before they get a chance. That’s not a great position for a party that, at least rhetorically, hopes for America’s ultimate success. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/42 "2005-10-21T06:39:44Z")
> [@](#): > > **Mr. Moto** : Which party is doing a better job communicating its message to the middle? I think that the Republican Party, or at least some of the more questionable elements in it, are doing an excellent job of communicating the message of just how concerned, compassionate, organized, efficient and decent they really are. I can’t watch the news without getting the message loud and clear. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/43 "2005-10-21T06:54:11Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > You’d think so, but surprisingly, no. > > [Texas Penal Code § 21.06](http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/petoc.html). Still on the books and everything. True, but thanks to Lawrence it’s unenforceable. Didn’t Mass have laws against witchcraft and Quakerism until the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/44 "2005-10-21T10:42:48Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > I’m curious about your appraisal of the 52% or so that voted for Bush. Do you really think they’re all right wing ideologues? I made no such suggestion. You are the one who made the claim about the makeup of the Democrats, I merely commented on it. Do you agree with my conclusion? > [@](#): > > You can comfort yourself with that 48%, I guess. Not as much comfort as you seem to derive from a 3% percent mandate. We’re talking a 1.5% swing of moderate voters to change the outcome. In light of the public perception of Iraq, gas prices, looming indictments in the White House and disgust with the response to Katrina, we’ll see who is more comfortable in '06 and '08. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/45 "2005-10-21T14:12:05Z")
Well, sure. You guys might eke out an election here and there. But do you think a commanding majority like you used to command is around the corner? It is gone, probably for at least a generation. And things might get a lot worse for your party before they ever get better. And once again, you’re predicating electoral victory for your party upon bad conditions in the country. Said so yourself in your post, **Fear Itself** , which is a further indication to me that the Democrats can only win if the country is losing. You’re in a perverse place here. You are actually hoping for things to get worse because it will help you politically. That strikes me as profoundly anti-patriotic, in a way. The Republicans took over Congress in 1994, at a time when the economy was doing pretty well. We don’t bet on our country’s failure. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/46 "2005-10-21T14:21:27Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > The Republicans took over Congress in 1994, at a time when the economy was doing pretty well. We don’t bet on our country’s failure. So what you’re saying is that you take over when things are peachy keen and run it into the ground. You weren’t in control and the economy was good. You are in control and it’s gone to hell. Hmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/47 "2005-10-21T14:34:40Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Well, I guess it’s possible to say that gays should have the same civil rights as straights and still support the Texas sodomy law. (I’m pretty sure Texas banned both heterosexual and homosexual sodomy, didn’t it?) I wasn’t aware of her comments to the Eagle Forum. Whenever ones hears a conservative say that gays should have the same civil rights as straights, you have to consider that they might mean that just like a straight, a gay person should continue to have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/48 "2005-10-21T17:30:07Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > The Democratic Party made a slight rightward tack with Bill Clinton. That doesn’t erase the forty plus years of leftward Democratic drift since Kennedy’s death, does it? 😕 “Leftward drift”? Since McGovern ran in '72, the Democrats have had no leftist agenda to speak of other than that based on racial, gender, and other “identity politics” – which is hardly leftist at all. To the contrary, the party moved further away every year from the the “leftism,” such as it was :rolleyes: , of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s War on Poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/49 "2005-10-21T17:44:09Z")
Compare for me sometime John F. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, and tell me which one was more right wing. I know, I know - products of their times. But I think a comparison can still be made, and it leaves Kennedy on the conservative side of the party, and Kerry on the left. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/50 "2005-10-21T17:47:39Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > The Republicans took over Congress in 1994, at a time when the economy was doing pretty well. Yeah, I remember your campaign slogan; “Vote Republican, End Prosperity!” > [@](#): > > We don’t bet on our country’s failure. Of course you do. The whole Bush game plan is based on keeping the sheeple afraid of one thing or another. In 2003, it was nuclear bombs in Iraq. Lately, Bush is trying to whip up bird flu hysteria. The threat of disaster is your party’s stock in trade. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/51 "2005-10-21T18:20:29Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Yeah, I remember your campaign slogan; “Vote Republican, End Prosperity!” Of course you do. The whole Bush game plan is based on keeping the sheeple afraid of one thing or another. In 2003, it was nuclear bombs in Iraq. Lately, Bush is trying to whip up bird flu hysteria. The threat of disaster is your party’s stock in trade. Yep. That explains that well known Republican shill, the World Health Organization, responding to the bird flu through their Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response system. [Link.](http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/52 "2005-10-21T18:24:55Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Compare for me sometime John F. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, and tell me which one was more right wing. > > I know, I know - products of their times. But I think a comparison can still be made, and it leaves Kennedy on the conservative side of the party, and Kerry on the left. 😕 How? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/53 "2005-10-21T18:29:03Z")
Maybe what you’re observing is that it doesn’t generally behoove a party trying to get into power to claim that things are going well? And that it _does_ benefit the party in power if people think that everything is OK? I would also claim that you can predict that things aren’t going well, without _hoping_ it turns out that way. Just after Clinton was elected in 1992, Rush Limbaugh claimed that he’d challenged (IIRC) the DNC to a $1-million wager that in four years: 1. The federal budget deficit would be higher; 2. Unemployment would be higher; 3. The stock market would be lower; and 4. Interest rates would be higher. (The DNC refused to take the bet. Four years later, all four of Rush’s predictions turned out to be wrong. I don’t have a cite for this, but I remember reading it in the 1992 Holiday issue of Playboy magazine). Was Rush ‘betting on his country’s failure’? > [@Mr. Moto](#): > > We don’t bet on our country’s failure. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098/54 "2005-10-21T18:30:12Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Yep. That explains that well known Republican shill, the World Health Organization, responding to the bird flu through their Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response system. > > [Link.](http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html) Which is entirely appropriate, at this stage of the threat. But the President made it sound like outbreak was imminent, and America should be very afraid of a 1918 style pandemic. Typical overeaction just to disturb the masses. By the way, did the WHO ever find that yellowcake from Niger? No? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-bedfellows-is-the-gop-splitting-the-sheets/327098.md?page=2)