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OFFICIAL ELECTION THREAD MEANS ALL ELECTION-RELATED STUFF GOES IN HERE, DUR

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M

myzhi

Banned
Sysgen said:
Kerry had his shot (if that's what your referring to). Next time it just may be Hiliary vs. Giulianai.
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If that happens, Giulanai will destroy Hilliary. Hilliary is much more polarize then Kerry. The DNC would be smart to go with someone else.
 
Xenon

Xenon

Member
Wow, whining, bitching and personal attacks.... I am not surprised.

That’s what happens when you rest your hopes on a "I'm not Bush" platform. Kerry was so lame that he was overshadowed by a manipulative piece of tripe passed off as a documentary.
 
dem

dem

Member
Who the hell is going to vote for Hillary? She just looks annoying...


Bring back Bill Clinton!
Stupid 2 terms..
 
G

ge-man

Member
"2006 election: Take back the Congress."

Let's hope so. The party needs to get it's shit together. If this election has proved anything, the Republican machinery is an effective weapon. They have successfully demonized liberal and even moderate thinkers while creating a hero out of president who in another time period would have been forced out of office for his complete incompetence.
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Member
Seth C said:
Wasn't this period of economic boom also part of the time when more American citizens put themselves more in debt than ever before in our history?
Click to expand...

Spending power != debt incur'd.
 
S

siamesedreamer

Banned
NYHETER-23s14-bush-13.jpg
 
T

Tenguman

Member
Who wants to take bets as to whether Michael Moore comes out and says

"Americans are stupid, how could you!"

or

"There's a conspiracy afoot! Republicans surpressed votes!"
 
S

Seth C

Member
Matlock said:
Code: 
 2003......         7,607            10.0         3,856            28.0
 2002......         7,229             9.6         3,613            26.5
 2001......         6,813             9.2         3,470            26.4
 2000 12/..         6,400             8.7         3,278            25.4
 1999 11/..         6,792             9.3         3,559            27.8
 1998......         7,186            10.0         3,831            29.9
 1997......         7,324            10.3         3,995            31.6
 1996......         7,708            11.0         4,167            32.6
 1995......         7,532            10.8         4,057            32.4
 1994......         8,053            11.6         4,232            34.6
 1993 10/..         8,393            12.3         4,424            35.6
 1992 9/...         8,144            11.9         4,275            35.4
 1991 8/...         7,712            11.5         4,161            35.6
 1990......         7,098            10.7         3,768            33.4
 1989......         6,784            10.3         3,504            32.2
 1988......         6,874            10.4         3,642            33.4

'cause census.gov is so hard to find.

Does look fairly cyclical, but look at how the Bush admins only served to heighten it, and the Clinton one was the only one to reduce it. :p
Click to expand...

Funny, those states are different than the ones I see on census.gov. 1996 is listed as 13.7% as an example.
 
G

ge-man

Member
Tenguman said:
Who wants to take bets as to whether Michael Moore comes out and says

"Americans are stupid, how could you!"

or

"There's a conspiracy afoot! Republicans surpressed votes!"
Click to expand...

I'm betting on the first one. The numbers don't seem to be as fishy as the last election.
 
D

Do The Mario

Unconfirmed Member
Can I stress one thing to Pro Bush Americans?

What is going to happen when America when America is no longer the world hegemonic power?

Do you think you will get away with invading other countries?

With the tightening of relations between the EU countries and the Extreme growth in China and India it will not be long before America is no longer the most powerful country in the world.

As no pro bush supports answered my hypothetical I will post it again.

What would be your reaction be in 30+ years if America was invaded by a superior country so it could be disarmed.

People don’t understand that America is setting a dangerous precedent with its disrespect and contempt for the UN and the unilateral action taken against Iraq.

But hey why should you guys care? Were America you kick ass right?

I wrote an essay last year on the failure of the UN to Prevent Americas unilateral action however it’s on my old computer so I can't post it

Thanks solomon for the input!
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
From The New Republic:
GAY MARRIAGE HURT KERRY: I know the election isn't officially over yet, but it's not too soon to begin dissecting why Kerry did so badly. Against an incumbent with this record, the election simply shouldn't have been this close.

I'm sure Democrats will spend a great deal of time finding creative ways to blame each other for the failure. (Hey, we're really good at that.) But I think it's obvious that one strategic move by the Republicans worked better than everybody anticipated: Gay marriage. I haven't seen polling to confirm this, but based on the interviews I did outside a blue-collar district in the Detroit suburbs yesterday, I can tell you that quite a few voters cited their opposition to gay marriage as one of their most important political issues. (Michigan was one of the states with a proposed constitutional amendment on gay marriage on the ballot. In fact, as I understand it, it was one of the most draconian in the entire country.) And I'm pretty sure every one of those voters ended up supporting Bush.

This surprised me. While I certainly read stories suggesting that gay marriage might energize the right's base, I don't recall hearing a great deal about it going into Election Day. I thought of it as just so much more background noise, one of many issues figuring into the mix. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that gay marriage was instrumental in tipping the balance to Bush, particularly with so many Bush voters citing his moral qualities as a reason to support him.

What lesson do we take from this? I'm not sure. As a matter of principle, I supported Kerry's position on the issue. (Actually, I'd go a bit farther than he would.) The Democratic Party can't and shouldn't abandon the cause of rights for gay couples any more than it can or should abandon other civil rights causes. But Democrats clearly need to find a way to talk about these issues or overcome them. Simply avoiding them, as Kerry did, doesn't really seem to work.

--Jonathan Cohn
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WHO TO BLAME?: Let me be the first to join the recrimination wars: I blame those Massachusetts judges. Without their inflaming of the cultural right in their gay marriage decision, it's hard to imagine that evangelicals would be quite such enthusiastic participants yesterday. Once the story of this election is told, I'm guessing that we'll be hearing a lot about the centrality of Republican gay baiting. We already know some of this, like the robo-calls that asserted Kerry's support for gay adoption. This is probably only the half of it. What was the substance of those highly effective pitches that evangelicals made to their neighbors as part of Rove's highly vaunted Amway-like outreach strategy? It's easy to imagine how these conversations would precede: Those damned liberals just made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts; John Kerry's from there and supports the homosexual agenda; he even voted against the Defense of Marriage Act.

Pure political gold, I'm afraid.

In retrospect, Bush's embrace of the Federal Marriage Amendment was a stroke of political genius. It apparently cost him nothing from the center and bought him infinite amounts of capital from evangelicals. Had he not taken this stand Gary Bauer and James Dobson would have been drenching the president in lighter fluid. Then, there were the anti-gay marriage initiatives. Surely, these drove massive numbers of evangelicals, giving Karl Rove the impossibly high religious conservative vote totals that many of us had mocked.

(Don't misunderstand me on any of this: I yield to only Andrew Sullivan in my support of gay marriage. But I found that Mass decision, legally and politically, dunderheaded.)

So, as we beat the hell out of our Democratic brethren in the next few weeks, I suggest saving a few licks for those robed fools.

--Franklin Foer
Click to expand...

A more hopeful perspective, from Andrew Sullivan:
THE IMPACT ON GAYS: I've been trying to think of what to say about what appears to be the enormous success the Republicans had in using gay couples' rights to gain critical votes in key states. In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. Their legal ability to visit a spouse in hospital, to pass on property, to have legal protections for their children has been gutted. If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers. I'm not surprised by this. When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses. But it is deeply, deeply dispiriting nonetheless. A lot of gay people are devastated this morning, and terrified. We have seen, and not for the first time, how using fear of a minority can be so effective a tool in building a political movement. The single most important issue for Republican voters, according to exit polls, was not the war on terror or Iraq or the economy. It was "moral values." Karl Rove understood the American psyche better than I did. By demonizing gay couples, the Republicans were able to bring in whole swathes of new anti-gay believers into their party. With new senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two of the most anti-gay politicians in America, we can only brace ourselves for what is now coming.

FEDERALISM WORKS: At the same time, gays can still appeal to the fair-minded center. After fanning the flames of fear for much of the year, the president himself recently came out in favor of civil unions. That puts him at odds with the initiatives passed so easily across the country. I do not believe a majority exists for denying gay couples legally protected relationships. The national exit polls showed that 27 percent support marriage rights, 37 percent support civil unions and only 35 percent want to keep gay couples from having any rights at all. There are still many states where it is safe to be a gay couple or an openly gay person. We have the right to marry in one state, and in that state, pro-equality legislators were all re-elected handily. In California, we are on the brink of having almost-equality under the law. Around the civilized world, gay relationships are increasingly accepted as worthy of dignity and respect. The passage of so many anti-gay amendments in so many states reduces the need, by any rational measure, for a federal amendment that would scar the Constitution with discrimination. We need therefore to be even more emphatic about the need for a federalist response to an issue best left to the states. If we can avoid the FMA, we can live to fight another day.

STAND TALL: But one more thing is important. The dignity of our lives and our relationships as gay people is not dependent on heterosexual approval or tolerance. Our dignity exists regardless of their fear. We have something invaluable in this struggle: the knowledge that we are in the right, that our loves are as deep and as powerful and as God-given as their loves, that our relationships truly are bonds of faith and hope that are worthy, in God's eyes and our own, of equal respect. Being gay is a blessing. The minute we let their fear and ignorance enter into our own souls, we lose. We have gained too much and come through too much to let ourselves be defined by others. We must turn hurt back into pride. Cheap, easy victories based on untruth and fear and cynicism are pyrrhic ones. In time, they will fall. So hold your heads up high. Do not give in to despair. Do not let the Republican party rob you of your hopes. This is America. Equality will win in the end.
Click to expand...
 
S

Sysgen

Member
myzhi said:
If that happens, Giulanai will destroy Hilliary. Hilliary is much more polarize then Kerry. The DNC would be smart to go with someone else.
Click to expand...

I agree. It seems that the Dems are stuck with a primary system that keeps spitting out extreme liberals. How do they over come that? They got lucky with Clinton, but they have had Kerry now and Dukakis before.
 
O

OmniGamer

Member
Well, this punctuates the sheer stupidity(no other word for it...deal) that is prevalent in this country.

I swear, blind faith is a cancer.
 
G

geogaddi

Banned
It's interesting that all reactions I see from this thread stem from a belief system, philosophical pre-supposition or worldview AND you can see the outworkings of one's worldview clashing against others, right here, right now.
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Member
ge-man said:
"2006 election: Take back the Congress."

Let's hope so. The party needs to get it's shit together. If this election has proved anything, the Republican machinery is an effective weapon. They have successfully demonized liberal and even moderate thinkers while creating a hero out of president who in another time period would have been forced out of office for his complete incompetence.
Click to expand...

What the democratic party needs are good leaders. If they have ANY sense at all they need to start sorting through their ranks next month and start getting their 2008 candidates ready and groomed for potential office, voting along the parties ideals, vocal in chambers and vocal in the eyes of the people. Then they need to come up with a message - what the hell does the democratic party stand for? I still don't know. They need to enforce this message in both the states where they are strong but particularly in the states where they are week. They need to not be afraid of challenging the presidential policies and start making decisions on what they believe and not their reelections. If some democrats get voted out of office, that's fine - but you have to develop a platform. Next you need to seriously look at the issues that turned people in your own party against you. Why 23% of gay/lesbian people voted for Bush is just beyond comprehension for me. Why 45% of youth (who very much could be drafted if things go south) voted for Bush is interesting - though somewhat reasonably debated.

Get your list of people together, get your 2008 platform, and start hitting the streets. Do what the Republicans have done and start funding think tanks to come up with political strategy and target messages. Help out your democratic governers in republican held states so that over the next 4 you can start to sway voters in states that are considered a lock for a particular candidate.
 
S

Seth C

Member
According to these documents at census.gov....

1994 - 14.5%
1995 - 13.8%
1996 - 13.7%
1997 - 13.3%
1998 - 12.7%
1999 - 11.8% (lowest since 1997)
2000 - 11.3%
2001 - 11.7%
2002 - 12.1%

The record low poverty, according to census.gov, was in 1973, at 11.1%. That would be in the middle of the Republican led Nixon/Ford term, you know, if anyone is curious. :)
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
gaffers am indeed cry.

Oh well, good luck to Bush.

See you all in 2008.

(or in a few mins in another thread. kthxbye.)
 
T

Tommie Hu$tle

Member
Seth C said:
The record low poverty, according to census.gov, was in 1973, at 11.1%. That would be in the middle of the Republican led Nixon/Ford term, you know, if anyone is curious. :)
Click to expand...


Due in part because the were implemnting programs that were established during the end of Johnson's term.
 
S

siamesedreamer

Banned
Many people will disagree with me here and I don't care.

But, Kerry lost the election the day the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. That action alone caused 11 other states (especially in Ohio) to put gay marriage bans on the ballot and that brought Bush's conservative base to the polls.
 
M

Matlock

Banned
Seth C said:
The record low poverty, according to census.gov, was in 1973, at 11.1%. That would be in the middle of the Republican led Nixon/Ford term, you know, if anyone is curious. :)
Click to expand...

Agnew, actually. Ford didn't come in until mid-October 1973.
 
T

Tommie Hu$tle

Member
siamesedreamer said:
Many people will disagree with me here and I don't care.

But, Kerry lost the election the day the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. That action alone caused 11 other states (especially in Ohio) to put gay marriage bans on the ballot and that brought Bush's conservative base to the polls.
Click to expand...


Pretty much. At anyrate it's time to just sit back and watch the fireworks.
 
T

teiresias

Member
Many people will disagree with me here and I don't care.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree at all. I think it was the prime motivational tool for bringing out the radical right base. Being a gay activist is fine and all, but learn some damn better timing.

That said, I don't vote based on fiscal policy or even foreign policy for the most part. Stuff like that is easier to turn around later on than rights or equality issues, particulary when a constitutional amendment is involved. The bigotry and hate of the christian right wing ideology that this administration represents scares the hell out of me. If it's allowed to further permeate into political policy then I think the Constitution is in store for a serious erosion of its legitimacy.
 
S

Seth C

Member
Tommie Hu$tle said:
Due in part because the were implemnting programs that were established during the end of Johnson's term.
Click to expand...


No doubt. Still, current poverty is very similar to that of the past 40 years. In fact, it is at or below average over that period. Which brings me back to my whole point about the long term, and the fact that we (as a nation) we be okay, Bush or Kerry.
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Member
And for the rest of you who are saying America is stupid - America is not stupid. Kerry WAS a weak candidate. Look at the exit polls available on CNN. Bush was more effective at converting Democrats than Kerry was at converting Republicans. That speaks masses for how poor a choice Kerry was from the very beginning. Though I voted for Kerry, I really just never liked Kerry. This wasn't a vote between a great Democratic candidate and a poor Republican candidate - this was a vote between a sub-par Democratic candidate and an average Republican candidate. Bush for all his annyoying stupidity appeals to rural America because he is rural America. Kerry doesn't really appeal to anyone. If you look at the poll numbers, 71% of the people polled said they were voting more against Bush than they were FOR Kerry. That's a HUGE problem.

In summary - yes much of America is sheep, but given the choices it was easier for many to chose Bush than Kerry. We can lump much of this decision on the Democratic party for choosing Kerry to represent us. If he was the best that the democratic party had to offer, God help us come 2008.
 
D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
The majority of college-educated people voted for Kerry...

This is a sad day for democracy :(
 
T

Tommie Hu$tle

Member
Seth C said:
No doubt. Still, current poverty is very similar to that of the past 40 years. In fact, it is at or below average over that period. Which brings me back to my whole point about the long term, and the fact that we (as a nation) we be okay, Bush or Kerry.
Click to expand...


IAWTP
 
S

Seth C

Member
Matlock said:
Agnew, actually. Ford didn't come in until mid-October 1973.
Click to expand...

I stated it that way only because Nixon and Ford shared an eight year period, as Ford finished Nixon's second term, and that low happened nearly between the two of them.
 
P

Pimpwerx

Member
Well, looks like that feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn't a ham and cheese sandwich afterall. I said this earlier in the year, and I'll say it again. Kerry is the Democrat version of Bob Dole. A born loser. He had no chance from the start, eventhough he was running against a lame duck like Bush. I don't think this speaks so much about the stupidity of Americans (although some merit must be given to that argument), so much as the ineptitude of Kerry and the Dems who nominated him. It should never have been him. Dean would have cleaned house against Bush. Hell, I'm starting to think Kooch would have put up a good fight. But Kerry is Gore redux. Major redux, b/c he couldn't even put in the half-assed showing Gore did.

Oh well, it doesn't look good for the next 4 years. Why do the Reps always win when there's something important coming up? Why couldn't Clinton have gotten a Supreme Court appointment? Fucking Kerry. Now we're all stuck with turd sandwich for another term. :( Democracy just got served. PEACE.
 
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