# "The President won't let policy be influenced by public opinion" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 10, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405 "2007-01-10T14:25:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405/81 "2007-01-15T05:58:16Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation] Sure, Bush is a complete moron. But he was elected _twice_ by an electorate too dumb to see the folly of electing a complete failure of a man because they’d like to have a beer with him. Why would people that deluded and uninvolved become wiser and more involved in a direct democracy? [/QUOTE] Wait a minute there, cowboy. The simple fact of the matter is that Shrub proved himself to be the _smarter_ of the two candidates up for election. :eek: _Anyone_ who manages to get beaten by a moron automatically proves themselves to be a much larger moron by default, since they couldn’t figure out how to beat the moron. IIRC, before Kerry got the Democratic nomination, polls were showing that _any_ Democrat could beat Shrub, hands down. Kerry, however, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As bad as the drooling idiot in charge is, I have to think that things would be far, far, far worse with Kerry in charge. Would that someone like Wesley Clark, or hell, anybody but Kerry or Lieberman, been chosen during the primaries, and Shrub would now be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405/82 "2007-01-15T06:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] _Anyone_ who manages to get beaten by a moron automatically proves themselves to be a much larger moron by default, since they couldn’t figure out how to beat the moron. [/quote] That’s a beautiful oversimplification. Kerry campaigned stupidly and Bush had some good strategists. The fact that one man is a better campaigner than another doesn’t mean the other is stupider or wouldn’t be as good a President. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405/83 "2007-01-15T06:10:32Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] The simple fact of the matter is that Shrub proved himself to be the _smarter_ of the two candidates up for election. [/quote] Not quite; at best, you could argue that the Bush _election campaign_ was smarter than the Kerry _election campaign._ But unless we’ve got proof that GWB himself was directing every facet of his 2004 campaign, there’s no way to conclude that his wwin was due to being smarter than Mr. Kerry. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405/84 "2007-01-15T06:25:24Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] That’s a beautiful oversimplification. Kerry campaigned stupidly and Bush had some good strategists. The fact that one man is a better campaigner than another doesn’t mean the other is stupider or wouldn’t be as good a President. [/QUOTE] I gotta disagree. If Kerry _didn’t_ have the smarts to order the people running his campaign to run ads showing the Deciderer doing stupid things like saying he’s “the Deciderer” then he’s a dumbfuck, no matter how smart the folks running Shrub’s campaign were. Shit, if Kerry had simply run ads asking, “Where’s Osama, stupid?” he would have done better than what he did. Instead, we got stupid shit like that brace faced little girl at the DNC lecturing us about Cheney saying a bad word. Guess what, honey! He’s a _grown up_ and _grown ups_ are _allowed_ to say such things, and they _don’t_ take kindly to being lectured to by precocious little kids. I’m sure that when _you_ become a _grown up_, you’ll understand such things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-wont-let-policy-be-influenced-by-public-opinion/387405.md?page=4)