I have no idea what that means, and even less idea what it has to do with Republicans focusing on the ends and Democrats focusing on the means (as you claim.)
Let’s look at your own cite, since a) I don’t see how Evil One’s cite validates your point, and because your cite is your cite.
Even a quick glance at those numbers invalidates your idea that Republicans won because of the stupid (your word) vote.
a) Amongst those with the least education measured (no high school), Kerry enjoyed the advantage. I’m not sure where you draw this line of who’s stupid and who’s not in your claim, but clearly if the line is “least educated according to CNN’s poll on the Bush/Kerry election”, Democrats enjoyed the stupid vote.
b) Yes it’s true that if you draw the stupd line based on college degree vs. no college degree, Republicans win. But this is artificial, because Kerry was heavily loaded by votes from those with postgrad studies. In the case of college graduates, those with some college, and those with high school diplomas, Bush was the clear winner. So, if you drop the stupid line down to some college vs. no college, you find that Bush won in both camps, i.e. stupid and non-stupid (again, your term):
Bush Kerry Nader
No College (26%) 52% 47% 0%
Some College (74%) 51% 48% 1%
Do you have any other backing to this claim that Reps win by virtue of claiming the “stupid vote”?
a) people with no high school education made up only 4% of the vote. The postgrads made up four times as much of the vote, and voted Democrat with a 5 point greater margin.
b) You have to adjust all those numbers by the fact that Bush beat Kerry by an overall margin of 53%-47%. When you do that, it becomes clear that a disproportionate number of conservative voters had less education, and in a future election where the popular vote is closer, it might very well come down to the uneducated vote. (And all of this is magnified by the electoral college. Do you really need a cite that rural people tend not to be as educated?)
This really isn’t that controversial. It’s acknowledged by both sides, hence the phrase ‘liberal elite.’
My point is that the public saw how much of a priority national defense spending was to both sides. And when security over all other considerations became the issue after 9/11, the Democrats paid for their choice.
They will/are using the age old political tactic of ‘create an enemy that unify people behind you to fight that enemy’. I have never read Machiavelli but I bet he wrote on that subject. It was also covered a bit in the book the Lucifer Principle where politicians from the 1950s used racial desegregation as the boogeyman of choice.
The idea is to essentially exaggerate an external enemy (and his/her threats) and say that only you can protect people from him/her. It is no coincidence that political support for a president jumps to 80-90% when a war starts. In 2004 they used gay marraige for this purpose. I woudn’t be suprised if ‘judicial activism’ is the boogeyman of 2006 or 2008. I have no idea what the next boogeyman will be though. Illegal immegration makes for a crappy boogeyman as the Bush admin hasn’t done much about it and has a poor track record. Terrorism, naturally, will be on the agenda. So will ‘the liberals are trying to destroy america’s value system, vote for us and we’ll protect it’. Come to think of it this was discusses pretty thouroughly in a book I recently read called what’s the matter with kansas. The author talks about how people in Kansas vote Republican due to threats to their values (gun rights, gay rights, abortion, etc) then the republicans keep the minimum wage low and do other things that hurt people in Kansas, who are mostly poor. The author also talks about how 100 years ago Kansas was a very radical left wing state and now it is the heart of conservative country.
Democrats on the other hand offer more utopian agendas. “Vote for me and you’ll get a higher minimum wage” doesn’t have the gut reaction as “Vote for me or else terrorists will bomb your city”.
No apologies necessary. I didn’t mean to sound accusitory, if I did, then I apologize for that.
Agreed.
I agree with this as well. I have gotten into several arguments with people over the value of voting 3rd party. I honestly have never gotten any other reason than the usual, “You’re wasting your vote!” or “A vote for [third party liberal] is really a vote for [mainstream conservative]!” I could go on about this, but that would be hijiacking. You get my point I am sure .
By what definition of “have” and “have not” is it mathematically possible to have more of the former than of the latter? The most reasonable definitions I can come up with for those two terms guarantee either equal amounts of both, or a greater number of have-nots.
Defending your ridiculous proposition with the claim that it’s common knowledge is not an argument. Do you have any facts or not?
Can you find one reasonable leader among Republicans that says they control almost the whole of the United States Government because they pandered to the “stupid vote”? Where’s this acknowledgement you claim?
And what pray tell could a manly GOP-funded defense could have done to stop 9/11? The GOP has the appearance of being strong on defense, that’s all. In reality, neither party in power would have stopped 9/11, either party would have gone after the Taliban, and only GWB would have invaded Iraq. You can talk about how tough you are, you can wear a flight jacket to speak, but in the end what counts is did you make the country safer? The Iraq war has made the US much less safe. GWB and the GOP have failed the country miserably on defense.
I’m beginning to think that you are deliberately refusing to comprehend my point. I’m not saying that 9/11 could have been prevented by anything the Republicans could have done over the last 30 years.
I AM saying that the Democrats have chosen over the last 30 years to represent constituencies and priorities other than the Defense Department. Hence, when 9/11 happened, voters took note.
Like it or not, tough defense talk from most Democrats is not taken seriously.
This is somewhat true. On the other hand talk of helping the poor and downtrodden by republicans is not taken seriously either. By and large though I don’t think that this matters much for voting. Do you feel that voting for senators, representatives and governors was affected by terrorism? I don’t. For the presidental vote, yeah sure I think that terrorism helped the republicans. but I doubt many people changed their votes for their house representatives or governors because of terrorism.
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