I don’t think it’s much of a reach to say that wealthy people tend to be more politically conservative. And conservative politics generally equates with Republicanism.
So, yeah. I assume that.
actually, there’s whole lots of conservative people who are not wealthy. Rural counties, for example, do not generally tend to be ‘wealthy’ folks, but are consistently conservative in viewpoint (or that’s been my experience in MI).
Come to think of it, I have to say ‘nonsense’ to this too. There are most certainly things that could be done about large voter turnout. The very fact that we don’t prepare for EVERYONE to vote is highly suspicious in itself.
Perhaps you are familiar with “EZ-Pass”? I’m quite certain that if we can invent ways to take money from people more efficiently, we can conjure up a way to get votes counted even if everybody shows up.
The Republicans are not the ones causing apathetic voter turn out. I live in Virginia, where we are hip deep in Republicans, everywhere you look.
Every DMV has a voter registration kiosk, as does every library, and half the fire stations, and in presidential election years there are tables at post offices, supermarkets, and other retail outlets. They send you a Voter Registration application with your Drivers License renewal notice, and every time you pay your local taxes. The Republican Party in Virginia is not sabotaging voter registration.
The bitter facts are that the moderate to liberal faction of the adult population in the US simply doesn’t vote as regularly as the Republican Party membership does. In fact, in Virginia, even that rare bird, a Registered Democrat is statistically less likely to vote than is an average registered citizen. They have a million excuses, and even a few actual reasons. But, at the bottom line, until some Republican like Nixon goes out and actually horrifies them, they don’t bother to vote. This year, they couldn’t even come up with enough candidates for Congress! How apathetic is that?
People get the government they deserve, and right now, we deserve Bush, and Ashcroft, and the suspension of Constitutional Rights, because we voted for em, now didn’t we? If we gave a damned at all, we would have voted. Maybe you did vote, and maybe you think that gets you off the hook. It doesn’t. Nor does possible existence of error, or fraud amounting to a percent of the votes cast. The fact is if half the people who can vote don’t, it only takes a quarter of the people to have a majority voice. All the possible fraud so far described doesn’t even compare to one percent decrease in the number of folks who just don’t give a damned. If you have a voice, perhaps you ought to raise it a bit, among the non-voters you know. It’s all their fault.
Tris.
“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.” ~ Josh Billings ~
Gassendi wrote:
Pardon me, I have a cold.
cough [sub]Ted Turner[/sub] cough [sub]Masamoto Yamazaki[/sub] cough [sub]Ted Kennedy[/sub] cough [sub]Pat Stryker[/sub] cough [sub]Jon Corzine[/sub] cough [sub]Al Gore[/sub] cough [sub]Robert MacKay[/sub] cough [sub]Sam Donaldson[/sub] cough [sub]Alan Alda[/sub] cough [sub]Barbara Streisand[/sub] cough [sub]Ralph Nader[/sub] cough [sub]George Soros[/sub] cough [sub]Hugh Hefner[/sub] cough [sub]Stephen Spielberg[/sub] cough [sub]Warren Beatty[/sub] cough [sub]Robert Redford[/sub] cough [sub]Paul Newman[/sub] cough [sub]Martin Sheen[/sub] cough [sub]Alida Messinger[/sub] cough [sub]Ben Cohen[/sub] cough [sub]Smith Bagley[/sub] cough [sub]Katherine Meyer Graham[/sub] cough [sub]George Donaldson[/sub] cough [sub]Claiborne Pell[/sub] cough [sub]Herb Kohl [/sub] cough [sub]Jay Rockefeller[/sub] cough …
You forgot Jane Fonda! How the heck did that happen, Lib. Has Babs Striesand replaced her as you guy’s Betty Noyer?
It is a natural human fact that the better off people are, the more likely they are to be conservative. If things are good for you, its only natural for you to think that things are as they should be, God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world. But they aren’t really the problem. Wealth and power doesn’t necessarily corrupt a person’s soul, any more than poverty enobles
Our legislators are corrupted by money, to be sure, but it is not direct handouts from the Gottrocks, its money siphoned from business interests. Human beings have souls, they can, for the most part, be influenced by appeals to compassion and justice. Corporations have spreadsheets.
Even before this last election, Mr. McCain was complaining that the persons charged with enforcing the new campaign finance reform laws were tinkering it to death: a loophole here, an exemption there. Soon America will be free from the stranglehold of Big Labor and the dreaded Trial Lawyers. But Monsanto will continue to make environmental policy, Archer Daniels Midland will decide whats best for the “family farm”, and so on and so on.
That is, if we let them get away with it. All indications are that we probably will, as the vast majority of Americans are stalwarts of the Apathy Party.
The last scandal of the Wellstone campaign was a sudden rush of money at the last minute, as it appeared that Wellstone might actually win. The culprits, Americans for Job Security (ah! such a felicitous name) were enjoined, by law, either to eschew supporting particular candidates or to reveal thier sources. With a straight face, they refused, claiming that they weren’t, in fact, supporting a candidate. And they were just about to get away with it until…well, you know the rest.
As long as the Pubbies have the advantage of money, they have no real motivation to get to the really ugly stuff of stiffing voters, its too complicated, too many ways to get caught. But they will fight tooth and nail to keep the advantage in money, because without it, they’re well and truly screwed.
Couldn’t happen soon enough. Well, it didn’t, at any rate. I would be hard pressed to find a political issue that Mr. McCain and I are in agreement about, save this. He is a man of honor and a true patriot.
Hey, that’s funny! Good one!
Too bad it has no substance. C’mon Lib, you know perfectly well that I could counter with my own list of famous people illustrating whatever I want to show, and you could put up another one after that, and so on, and so what?
The trend, as I observe it, is that money makes people conservative. Disagree with me if you want, but at least use an argument with some teeth.
How about we counter with some FACTS then?
[ul]
[li]In 2000, the voters in 17 out of 25 of the nation’s most affluent counties – all with high percentages of people with advanced degrees – cast majorities for Al Gore, sometimes by more than 70 percent.[/li][li]In nine out of the 10 poorest counties in Kentucky, for example, places where the Democratic Party of Harry S. Truman ran roughshod over Republican adversaries, George W. Bush won, frequently by margins the mirror image of Gore’s in the nation’s richest and best educated counties.[/li][li]According to a study by the National Committee for an Effective Congress of the 88 congressional districts that shifted from Democrat to Republican from 1994 to 2000, 59 had average incomes below the national norm, and in 68, the percentage of residents with college degrees was below the national average.[/li][li]Conversely, of the 46 seats that went from Republican to Democratic, 29 were districts that had higher than average incomes.[/li][/ul]
Among the highest income brackets (over $50,000), Republicans still hold a very small margin - 53 to 47%. But the wealthy Democrats are much more concentrated, and typically urban. That gives them a lot of clout.
But certainly if your thesis is that a major chunk of Republican support comes from the rich white guys that control the country or something, that would be dead wrong.
Have a look at this county map, showing who voted for Bush vs Gore: http://mwhodges.home.att.net/usmap-large.gif
Al Gore’s three major constituents were affluent urbanites, affluent New Englanders, and black people. Places like San Fransisco, Hollywood, New York, and New England are Democratic strongholds.
The idea that the Republicans are supported by the rich and Democrats by the poor has almost no factual basis at all.
That’s more like it. I’ll study it.