THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE "SICK" and "DESPICABLE"

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

"You Bush Republicans are becoming nearly as despicable as the Bush crowd which you willfully support."

"Yes, and your and all these other Bush Kool-Aid drinkers' despicable arrogance in presuming to dictate how others conduct their memorial service reveals far more about the depths of depravity to which you have willingly sunk by handing over your souls in supporting this Machiavellian human garbage in the White House."

"You people are sick."

"You people are absolutely despicable."

"Why don't you people find a hobby and keep your noses out of other people's drawers? Gross."

"Absolutely despicable, HC. Get a hobby and mind your own business."

"No, your audacity in going out of your way to traumatize a family in their moment of grief is what is pathetic and twisted. Get a life."

"get your nose out of other people's underwear. It is absolutely disgusting."

"And you are going to keep milking it like the despicable partisan Bush Kool-Aid drinker which you have always tried strenuously not to protray yourself as."

"Get it? Now get a life and quit dancing on dead men's coffins like a Bush Kool-Aid drinker."

"Have you always been a Bushbot or was it only triggered by this grieving family's memorial service? Seriously."

"If you are a Bushbot, then it is impossible to have an intelligent discussion with you".

"So based on the timing, you, following the Flatulent Fraud's lead, wish to politicize this tragedy with "equal time" arguments! That is sick. Just let it go."

A "private poll by Bill Clinton's former pollster, Mark Penn, suggests the service backfired on Democrats nationally as well. Penn found that 68% of voters knew about the service?a high awareness of an event broadcast live nationally only on C-SPAN. What's more, 49% of voters said the service made them less likely to vote for a Democrat?and 67% of independents said they felt that way." --Time Magazine


Some things just speak for themselves.

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

A "private poll by Bill Clinton's former pollster, Mark Penn, suggests the service backfired on Democrats nationally as well. Penn found that 68% of voters knew about the service?a high awareness of an event broadcast live nationally only on C-SPAN. What's more, 49% of voters said the service made them less likely to vote for a Democrat?and 67% of independents said they felt that way." --Time Magazine


Some things just speak for themselves.

I thought myself on Election Night, before any polling data (except the limited data available the previous Sunday) that that rally had been a disaster for the Democratic Party. The Dems were gaining traction up until then, not a lot but some, and even Zogby was predicting them to do well.

Then, suddenly, POOF! That rally was a classic example of a backfire.

The real kicker in that poll was the "67% of independents". Yikes!

Listen closely to Clinton in the coming weeks, and you'll bet a bead on how he is interpeting that 67% number. Obviously, the Democrats are going to parse that rally and try to figure out just what the "independents" didn't like about it.

Their future will rest on how well they "get it", as Stonewall would say. :wink:

A poll this morning appeared on the front page of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press about the MN Senate Race, and why people voted the ways they did and so forth. Here's the raw data about a certain question:

"When did you decide who you were going to vote for in the U.S. Senate race?"
PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR COLEMAN
Before or around Wellstone's death: 71%
After Wellstone's memorial service: 22%
After the Coleman-Mondale debate: 2%
Election Day: 3%
Not Sure: 2%

PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR MONDALE
Before or around Wellstone's death: 86%
After Wellstone's memorial service: 3%
After the Coleman-Mondale debate: 3%
Election Day: 5%
Not Sure: 3%

As you see, the memorial service definitely had devastating effects for the Mondale camp, and James Cahn (SIC?), the speaker who initially turned the memorial service into a political event, could have single-handedly affected the balance of power in the Senate, in a way that he would least like it to be. Governor Ventura, although unpopular, probably also helped the race go to Coleman by walking out of the memorial, which got a bit of attention in the state. It seems that the attitude of most people is: "I hate Ventura but good for him for walking out of that thing".
[/b]

Originally Posted by AlexMnWi

A poll this morning appeared on the front page of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press about the MN Senate Race, and why people voted the ways they did and so forth. Here's the raw data about a certain question:

"When did you decide who you were going to vote for in the U.S. Senate race?"
PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR COLEMAN
Before or around Wellstone's death: 71%
After Wellstone's memorial service: 22%
After the Coleman-Mondale debate: 2%
Election Day: 3%
Not Sure: 2%

PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR MONDALE
Before or around Wellstone's death: 86%
After Wellstone's memorial service: 3%
After the Coleman-Mondale debate: 3%
Election Day: 5%
Not Sure: 3%

As you see, the memorial service definitely had devastating effects for the Mondale camp, and James Cahn (SIC?), the speaker who initially turned the memorial service into a political event, could have single-handedly affected the balance of power in the Senate, in a way that he would least like it to be. Governor Ventura, although unpopular, probably also helped the race go to Coleman by walking out of the memorial, which got a bit of attention in the state. It seems that the attitude of most people is: "I hate Ventura but good for him for walking out of that thing".
[/b]

These questions do not establish any cause and effect, Alex. In order to do so, they would have to ask specifically whether people changed their votes after seeing the memorial service and as a result of that service. This poll does nothing of the kind. It merely establishes that certain people made up their minds after certain dates.

Originally Posted by Xer of Evil

You guys are still talking about that memorial service, or political rally, or whatever it was? I don't know anyone outside of this website that even cares about that at all.

Like Stonewal Patton's sheer hysteria over the matter ("get your nose out of other people's underwear. It is absolutely disgusting."), the equally hysterical "Just stop talking about it!" crowd is nearing the "second step" of Kubler-Ross's Death and Dying phase. The first step being "denial", the second, she calls "anger". :wink:

Originally Posted by Xer of Evil

I do have a few questions for anyone who wants to discuss something else. I was wondering why everyone seems to think that the Republicans have it so great. There were only a few seats in both houses of congress that changed hands, right? Or am I missing something? Also, what exactly is this "Homeland Security" bill supposed to do? And isn't creating another government department exactly what Dubya claimed to be AGAINST in 2000? "Read my lips ... less government?"

XoE

Uhhhhh, what was the question, again? :wink:

Originally Posted by Xer of Evil

You guys are still talking about that memorial service, or political rally, or whatever it was? I don't know anyone outside of this website that even cares about that at all.

The Democrats are still talking about it behind closed doors, you can rest assured, since it looks very much as if it cost them control of Congress. At this point, I'm only academically interested in it as a political phenomenon.

I do have a few questions for anyone who wants to discuss something else. I was wondering why everyone seems to think that the Republicans have it so great. There were only a few seats in both houses of congress that changed hands, right? Or am I missing something? Also, what exactly is this "Homeland Security" bill supposed to do? And isn't creating another government department exactly what Dubya claimed to be AGAINST in 2000? "Read my lips ... less government?"

XoE

The GOP hasn't won a huge mandate. It is very very unusual for the party of the sitting President to pick up seats in both houses of Congress an off-year election. It's unusual to the point that it's left some factions of the Dems in shock. But in many ways, as I pointed out elsewhere on the forums tonight, it's a mirror-image of '98, where one party's base was fired up and the other party's base was not.

However, the Dems themselves made a very grave tactical error, by making this election a referendum on Bush. Their entire campaign strategy, to the degree they had one, was based on focusing Democratic base anger against Bush and his policies. By doing that, they enabled Bush to claim the victory Tuesday as his own, and in effect nullify all debate about his legitimacy.

It's now utterly pointless for the Dems to talk about who won the popular vote in 2000, or the Florida count, since the Dems made this election a referendum on Bush, the victory confirms Bush in office for all practical purposes. That, plus Jeb's solid victory in Florida, against a major effort on the part of the Dems, means that the Florida E2K count is now utterly irrelevant in political terms.

As for what the Homeland Security Department will really do, the most likely answer is not much. The Dems themselves originally suggested it and pushed for it, and Bush opposed it until he saw a political angle. I'm beginning to suspect that the Dems in fact walked into one of the slickest political traps in years.

In practical terms, the HSD is supposed to form an overarching command authority for the FBI, the INS, and a few other departments, creating a connector that will enable them to share intelligence and coordinate their activities. Stonewall and his fellows see the nucleus of the Gestapo in it, and it's not impossible that it could go that way, but in fact the most likely result is a 3T style reshuffle that doesn't change much.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

The GOP hasn't won a huge mandate. It is very very unusual for the party of the sitting President to pick up seats in both houses of Congress an off-year election.

Didn't the same thing happen in 1998? So maybe its not so unusual at this time.

I don't think the GOP got a mandate. I would say it is more accurate to say that Bush got a mandate. Or more accurately the Bush Doctrine got a mandate.

The GOP has been the ascendant party since 1980, they always have the "mandate" in the sense that they set the agenda of what is politically relevant to discuss. But what style of GOPism comes and goes.

Reagan started the 1980-2000 conservative era with the Reagan revolution. The philosophical basis for "Reaganism" was libertarian. The political "shock troops" were social/religious conservatives, but they had less say in policy.

Bush switched to "kinder, gentler" conservatism, raised taxes and lost to Clinton in 1992. Taking this to mean a repudiation of "Bushism" the GOP came back with "The Contract with America" under Gingrich in 1994, which was another libertarian-flavored philosophy of government. One difference was that social/religious conservatives had a bit more say in policy (e.g. Clinton impeachment). But the Contract with America fizzled out and the GOP lost strength for six years. In 2000 this decline ended with the election of a new Bush, with a new formulation for GOPism.

With the WOT, Bush has effected a complete break with libertarians. We can expect to see declining influence of libertarian ideas on GOP policy and philosophy in the coming years. We may even see a GOP push for higher taxes if the war continues on for too long. We may see increases in social welfare spending--under the aegis of faith-based organizations. In other words, the US could go substantially to the left (from the POV of libertarians) yet do so in a manner that social/religious conservatives approve. The Christian canon contains much justification for a "kinder gentler conservatism", which becomes a possibility once hard-edged libertarians are removed. A Christian-orientated leftward shift would still be a liberal era, as projected by the political cycles, but it would not be seen as such to social liberals in the Democratic party.

Should something like this happen, Bush would go down as a great liberal president, in the mold of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. After all, the Progressive era was launched by the GOP.

I mentioned this possibility in my K-cycle book (along with the conventional idea of a revamped Democratic party gaining ascendance in a critical election in 2004).

Originally Posted by Xer of Evil

A liberal Christian Republican prez? How totally uncool. But do you really think that he will raise taxes after all this tax-cut hype? Like father, like son?

XoE

Such a creature really exists? What have I been missing? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Originally Posted by Xer of Evil

You guys are still talking about that memorial service, or political rally, or whatever it was? I don't know anyone outside of this website that even cares about that at all.

XoE

Then you're not from Minnesota, are you?

Well, my politically savvy mother, who lives in Alabama, mentioned the Wellstone rally/service/debacle when I talked to her a couple of days ago, and she seemed to think that it hurt the Democrats.

The partisan side of me is just sick that Wellstone is dead, and that he probably would have kept his seat if he had not died.

OTOH, Carnahan in Missouri probably didn't deserve to keep her seat. The New Hampshire win for Sununu didn't surprise me, either.

The total repudiation of Max Cleland and the Democratic governor in Georgia was the real shocker for me last Tuesday, along with the fact that I am now represented in my State Senate by a Republican woman who ran one of the nastiest, most expensive campaigns for that office that I can remember.

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

Well, my politically savvy mother, who lives in Alabama, mentioned the Wellstone rally/service/debacle when I talked to her a couple of days ago, and she seemed to think that it hurt the Democrats.

The partisan side of me is just sick that Wellstone is dead, and that he probably would have kept his seat if he had not died.

OTOH, Carnahan in Missouri probably didn't deserve to keep her seat. The New Hampshire win for Sununu didn't surprise me, either.

The total repudiation of Max Cleland and the Democratic governor in Georgia was the real shocker for me last Tuesday, along with the fact that I am now represented in my State Senate by a Republican woman who ran one of the nastiest, most expensive campaigns for that office that I can remember.

Here is a compilation of major media stories on election day "funny business" with the computerized balloting:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0211/S00049.htm




Good point on the Georgia "surprise." Here is Bartcop's compilation of before and after numbers:


http://www.bartcop.com/111102fraud.htm

(All usual disclaimers apply)



Diebold Magic?



****Poll by Atlanta Journal Constitution/WSB-TV of 800 likely voters on Nov. 1 For Georgia Governor

Roy Barnes (D) 51% up 11
Sonny Perdue (R) 40%

** "Official Results" from the 'Diebold Electronic Voting Machines' on Nov. 5

Roy Barnes (D) 46%
Sonny Perdue (R) 51% up 5 - that's a 16-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

----------------------------------

****Poll by Atlanta Journal Constitution Nov. 1 for Georgia Senate

Max Cleland (D) 49% up 5
Saxby Chambliss (R) 44%

**"Official Results" from the 'Diebold Electronic Voting Machines'

Max Cleland (D) 46%
Saxby Chambliss 53% up 7 - that's a 13-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

----------------------------------

****Poll by MSNBC/Zogby on Nov. 3 for Colorado Senate

Tom Strickland (D) 53% up 9
Wayne Allard (R) 44%

** "Official Results"

Tom Strickland (D) 46%
Wayne Allard (R) 51% up 5 - that's a 14-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

---------------------------------

****Minneapolis Star-Tribune Poll on Nov. 3 for Minnesota Senate

Walter Mondale (D) 46% up 5
Norm Coleman (R) 41%

** "Official Results"

Norm Coleman (R) 50%
Walter Mondale (D) 47% up 3 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?
Did they let this one stay close because they knew MN loved Mondale?

--------------------------------

****Poll by St. Louis Dispatch/Zogby on Nov. 3 for Illinois Governor

Rod Blagojevich (D) 52% up 7
Jim Ryan (R) 45%

**"Official Results"

Rod Blagojevich (D) 43%
Jim Ryan (R) 44% up 1 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

---------------------------------

****Poll by Concord, NH Monitor on Nov. 3 for New Hampshire Senate

Jeanne Shaheen (D) 47% up 1
John E. Sununu (R) 46%

**"Official Results"

Jeanne Shaheen (D) 47%
John E. Sununu (R) 51% up 4 that's a 5-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?


Isn't it amazing that all six surprises went to the Republicans?
Did they let Hutchison lose Arkansas because he was dead meat, anyway?





And finally a related article:


http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm

(All usual disclaimers apply)



Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering
by Faun Otter

You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them in.

The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those pesky tracking polls
leading up to the elections have been explained away by a ?late surge to the Republicans? caused by.... hmmmm,
how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results,
this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out.

Previously, election cheating was a complex matter of ballot tampering combined with sample skewing.
That is to say, you screwed up ballots for your opponent with under or over votes, made sure that people likely to
vote against you wouldn't even get that chance (the program of voter disenfranchisement in Florida) and padded
your own vote total with such things as falsified absentee ballots.

In the much more high tech world of Diebold electronics we are seeing a wonderfully efficient vote rigging system,
the long proposed 'black box' technology. Imagine a black box in which you cannot see the workings. The only things
you can discern are an input and an output; in this case votes go in and collated totals come out. There is no paper
record of each individual vote cast to enable any cross check of the collated output. The only information you can
know for sure is the total number of votes cast on the machine. Each vote is stripped of any information as to who
cast that ballot to guarantee anonymity for the voters. You now have a system in which you have no way to check
vote recording, vote collation and transmission of the collated totals out of the black box.

The perfect crime?

Not quite.
Let me suggest an experiment. We take two ?markets? with similar socioeconomic mixtures and a well
established record of moving in the same political direction. We provide them with candidates from party
X and party Y. We then expose them to similar news stories, we spill TV and radio ads over between the
markets to make the effects less ?local? and give them identical weather on election day. The differences
between the markets are 1. the candidates and 2. the method of casting and counting the votes.
We then take a series of tracking polls on the gap between the candidates leading up to election day.

If we express the tracking poll data as the relative preference for the candidates (12 point lead by X, down one
point from last week etc.), any substantial discrepancy between the forecast and actual election outcomes should
arise from major news changes, the weather effects on turn out or a a social tendency to misrepresent voting intent.
Since both groups get the same news, the same weather and have the same social tendencies, any difference
between tracking poll and actual poll data should be in the same direction and of a similar magnitude.

Sooooo...... how come the South Carolina elections had the Democrats doing much better than the tracking
poll data showed and the Georgia elections, in an area with the same weather, same news and same social values,
had a massive swing in a single day after the last tracking poll, in the opposite direction?
Could it be the Diebold touch screen machines in use across the entire state of Georgia but not used at all in SC?

Of course, such a perfect method of mischief has been attempted before,

http://www.votescam.com/frame.html
-- Go to the link marked "Chapters" and read all about it.
Watch how few lines pass before the names Bush and Sununu come up.


You can trim the wheels in mechanical voting machines but that is easier to spot than a computer program set
up to be date sensitive so it causes only to ?misfunction? on November 5. The current problem with virtual ballot
tampering was apparent as long ago as 1989. Jonathan Vankin made this warning in "Metro: Silicon Valley's
Weekly Newspaper," of Sept. 28, 1989

?A single, Berkeley- based firm manufactures the software used in the machines that compile more than
two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes. Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code,"
tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. The experts say the code could be manipulated
without detection. In fact, that may have happened already.?

http://www.conspire.com/vote-fraud.html

After systematic punch card fraud was revealed in the 2000 election, touch screens were proposed as a
panacea and have been rapidly adopted against the warning of experts,

?Critics warn local election officials could be trading one set of problems for another potentially as
bad, or worse, than last year's election debacle. They vigorously argue that fully electronic systems
pose data-security problems and lack a paper trail. "There's no way to independently verify that the
voter's ballot as cast was actually the ballot being recorded by the machine,'' said Rebecca Mercuri, a
computer scientist and visiting lecturer at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.?

http://www.kioskcom.com/article_detail.php?ident=1021

It would be interesting to impound a few machines from the heaviest leaning Democratic areas in Georgia and
reset the date in the machine to November 5, 2002. A hand counted series of inputs could be made to the
machines. Note to James Baker: hand counting is the gold standard against which we check machine counting
efficiency. An input of 500 or so ?dummy? votes could then be tabulated and the outcome checked against the
inputs. Of course, you could just check the software code. Except for one problem; the company refuses to
let anyone see their code on the grounds that is a trade secret.

Oddly enough, Diebold aren?t the only Republican partisans who ?helped? select our candidates for office yesterday:

?According to his press office, in 1995 Chuck Hagel resigned as CEO of American Information Systems (AIS),
the voting machine company that counted the votes in his first Senatorial election in 1996. In January 1996
Hagel resigned as president of McCarthy & Company, part of the McCarthy Group that are one of the current
owners of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), which itself resulted from the merger of AIS and Business
Records Corporation. According to publicist/writer Bev Harris, Hagel is still an investor in the McCarthy
Group. ES&S is now the largest voting machine company in America. One of its largest owners is the
ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald Company.?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articl...des_Ambush.htm


For more background reading on who gets to play with your ballot, see:

http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html


Who are Diebold?
The corporate officers are as thick as thieves with the Republican hard right religious nut division.
For those who have been lucky enough to forget, Senator Faircloth was the protege of Jesse Helms in NC.
It looks like the board and the directors were all putting up money for a Faircloth victory when Edwards
took that senate seat. I wonder if they conspired to put things right.....?

http://www.diebold.com/


[snip]

Why were these pre-election polls in some states so far off?

Could it be simply that people are lying to pollsters, or maybe that polling techniques are behind the times?

Stonewall, I just can't buy this tampering theory completely. A lot of people would have to be in on this thing in multiple jurisdictions.

OTOH, the VNS going down on Tuesday really gave me a bad feeling in my guts when I heard about it.

I'm very glad that we use optical scanners in my area. They are fast, quite accurate, and there is a paper trail left behind. I feel quite comfortable with that system.

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

Why were these pre-election polls in some states so far off?

Could it be simply that people are lying to pollsters, or maybe that polling techniques are behind the times?

Stonewall, I just can't buy this tampering theory completely. A lot of people would have to be in on this thing in multiple jurisdictions.

OTOH, the VNS going down on Tuesday really gave me a bad feeling in my guts when I heard about it.

I'm very glad that we use optical scanners in my area. They are fast, quite accurate, and there is a paper trail left behind. I feel quite comfortable with that system.

This sort of thinking never even remotely entered my consciousness until Election Night 2000 when Karl and Junior immediately got on TV to say, "What do you mean? We won Florida. I know we did," despite the fact that every objective indicator which Karl and Junior had at their disposal indicated that they had lost by 3 or 4 points or 200,000-250,000 votes. The fraud was implicit in their statements. Then of course we were told that the recounts were close, but we were never told that the data in computerized precincts can never be verified anyway which naturally meant that we really had no idea how close or not close the final tally truly was. Yet we did know that the VNS exit polling, the Bush internal exit polling and the Gore internal exit polling all agreed with Zogby's pre-election poll that Gore won by 3 or 4 points or 200,000-250,000. But then many of us did not know this because the media strangely never mentioned it.

Regardless, your point about Georgia was an excellent one because those Georgia results are suspicious all the way around, particularly given the nationally reported incidents statewide all day long concerning "machines" turning out the wrong results. I'll just requote from the article:


Sooooo...... how come the South Carolina elections had the Democrats doing much better than the tracking
poll data showed and the Georgia elections, in an area with the same weather, same news and same social values,
had a massive swing in a single day after the last tracking poll, in the opposite direction?
Could it be the Diebold touch screen machines in use across the entire state of Georgia but not used at all in SC?

H.C.:

A Democrat is also going to be more or less a leftist by national standards

Untrue. Or untrue during the 3T, anyway. The Democrats, at least at the top of the party, have been centrist right down the line ever since their drubbing by Reagan in the 1980s.

It is an error to think that leadership comes from the center. A leader is always a bit ahead of the public in the direction it is going. The Democrats have suffered a failure of leadership (even when they have held the government) precisely because they have not done this. And the Republicans have led, not because they were in the center, but because they were off-center to the right, while the nation was moving right.

But it no longer is. If the Dems manage to figure that one out, they will be able to lead.

This last definition of Left and Right is utter nonsense.

Why? As a matter of fact, it goes back to the origin of the terms in the time of the French Revolution. A rightist then was someone who supported aristocratic privilege and the monarchy, a leftist someone who supported a republic.

Issue by issue, down the years. Labor rights? Conservatives defended the privileges of capital, liberals the rights of labor. Women's suffrage? Conservatives defended male privilege, liberals female rights. Civil rights? Conservatives defended white privilege, liberals equal rights by race.

The only possible exception involves culture war issues, but even there it could be argued that cultural conservatives are defending a privileged position for traditional Christianity, while cultural liberals prefer a more open and heterogeneous culture with a broader distribution of influence.

Stepping away from the culture war, on the current array of economic, political, and foreign policy issues, the same divide holds. Conservatives defend the privileges of corporate power, while liberals would protect the rights of workers, consumers, and those who live on the earth against that power. Conservatives prefer an American empire, with imperial privilege for the U.S. government, while liberals would like to see a global republic of some kind instead.

Conservatives are for the few, liberals for the many. That has always been true, it is still true, and it will always be true.

I hate to break it to you, Brian, but it was the social issues, along with defense and taxes, that hurt the Dems in the 80s.

Right. That's why abortion is now illegal, the Constitution has been amended to allow prayer in schools, gay rights have been deep-sixed, sex education is no more, and the teaching of evolution is punishable by a prison sentence.

Pshaw.

The public was always more or less with them on the economics.

Untrue, and here I think you are again showing your rather narrow focus on the community of cultural conservatives. Among them, you might be right: Evangelical Christians tend, statistically, to be poorer than many other demographic groups, as well as holding to a moral philosophy that lends itself to communalism (by some interpretations, anyway). I imagine that they were, in economic terms, to the left of where most of the country was in the 1980s and 1990s. That was true of poorer people generally, and of believers in community generally.

You've pointed out yourself that there are many cultural conservatives who are more with the Democrats on economic issues. I don't doubt that, but they are no more representative of America in this than they are culturally.

If the public was always with the Democrats on economics, they would have seen no need to move to the right. Yet they did move right, and successfully.

Even the tax issue was driven in part by the perception that the money was being spent in foolish attempts to implement the Left's social agenda.

Ah. Interesting perspective. You are referring to the cultural right's viewpoint as defensive -- yet the "social agenda" of the left was in fact on the defensive, and that of the right on the attack, throughout the Unraveling.

It was a successful defense, because the DLC Democrats rightly perceived that the voting public did not want the cultural gains of the Awakening reversed, and that this distinction could serve to help them against the Republicans. Obviously, they were right. But I don't think they are right any more.

If they can emerge from this electoral loss repositioned to the left of the public, as the public are moving left, they will lead. If they continue trying to hug the absolute center, they will cede leadership to the Republicans, and we may have, not a Gray Champion, but a Dark Champion, a Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin. And very bad times.

Kiff:

Why were these pre-election polls in some states so far off?

My theory is that they did not properly measure the extent to which people did not vote. Disgust with the Democratic Party's lack of backbone meant that more non-voters would have voted Democratic than Republican.

That's yet another reason why the Republicans should be cautious in their crowing. Voter turnout was extremely low, just as it was in the last election won by the GOP, 1994. (Which was also, IMO, the peak of the nation's move to the right.) There is a very substantial pool of discontent in this country, waiting to rally behind a leader who openly and fiercely challenges the emerging plutocracy. Much of that sentiment was not expressed in this election. Any interpretation of the election's "meaning," or of any "mandate" it provides, must grapple with that fact.

I don't believe it provided any mandate whatsoever for anyone, except that the Democratic Party may consider itself mandated to get off its collective tush and re-acquire its courage and convictions.

The total seats changing hands from one party to the other was minimal.This was not a major victory, but it was a major defeat.

The Dems positioned themselves to defeat Bush (a sitting pres. with high approval ratings)and not focusing on real issues and the oppossing canidate. Bush used his popularity and made a 2 min warning run visiting 17 states in the last week prior to the election to motivate the GOP to get out and vote. A final analyse of the vote would most likely show a higher percentage of reg. GOP voting than Dems.. This could explain the huge swing in the polls not a mass scale voter fraud.

The Dems. are definately lost and need to revitalize and reinvent themselves. The final result maybe america shifting to a more dominate three party system. Where are the Federalist and the Whigs?

Is this a 4T election? Certainly seems like one.

Even though the turnout was low, it was still higher than the 1998 mid-term elections.

Where the Republican rout of 1994 resulted in another divided government, the elections of 2002 gave the Republican Party a decisive win. Now, until at least 2004, the GOP has the power to pursue the more potent agenda.

The Democrats who won huge victories over their Republican counterparts showed courage and conviction. The low Democratic turnout was due to the fact that most candidates assumed that Americans were still in a 3T mood.

Even while most Democrats running assumed the same pre-911 mood, the results show otherwise. The GOP, capitalizing on a new demand for action, has won.

The reaction of progressives to the election is also a 4T one. The Democrats will now look for a leader with conviction, courage, and the ability to inspire.

Originally Posted by nd boom '59

The Dems positioned themselves to defeat Bush (a sitting pres. with high approval ratings)and not focusing on real issues and the oppossing canidate. Bush used his popularity and made a 2 min warning run visiting 17 states in the last week prior to the election to motivate the GOP to get out and vote. A final analyse of the vote would most likely show a higher percentage of reg. GOP voting than Dems.. This could explain the huge swing in the polls not a mass scale voter fraud.

You are assuming that this stuttering, stammering buffoon in the White House has the ability to sway voters to his party. I don't see how. Clinton routinely had incredible poll numbers, 70-80%. Does this mean that 70-80% of the country thought Clinton was great and would follow his lead and vote for his party? No. Clinton never could break 49% of the popular vote in any election. All the numbers mean is that 70-80% minimally found the White House occupant tolerable. Clearly less than 50% at any given time thought he was "great" and would follow his lead in voting Democratic.

With Junior, the numbers are lower than with Clinton. A lower percentage of Americans find him minimally tolerable and a higher percentage find him positively intolerable. If all things are proportional, a lower percentage within those "minimally tolerable" popularity numbers would actively support the guy and follow his lead to vote Republican. My best guess is that the actual percentage which actively supports the guy and would follow his lead to vote Republican is around the 38% received by his father back in '92. So how much good could the stuttering, stammering buffoon do for Republican candidates by campaigning around the country? Not much and probably not enough to generate an actual last minute nationwide surge to the Republicans.

And what was the actual turnout? Immediately before the election, there were reports of people lined up for hours to vote early in jurisdictions which permitted this. On election day itself, it was widely reported that turnout was high and a 50% number was bandied about. Then when everything was said and done, we were told that there was a low turnout. It does not make a whole lot of sense. But of course, all day long incidents were reported all over the country where electronic machines were not properly tabulating the number of actual voters. In the case of Broward Co., FL, turnout was revised up from 35% to 45% after "correcting" such an error. And we were told in every case that a person's vote for the candidate always counted even though his actual vote was not added into the grand total of voters. This is possible but how could they state this with such certainty so quickly after finding the problem?

A wise people would remain skeptical of this whole electronic balloting thing and demand a full and immediate investigation. It may just be that we had a good 50% turnout as was etimated all day long, and that the Democrats held steady or picked up a seat. But then we will never know because these machines do not leave us a paper trail. A wise people would not tolerate having this unverifiable electronic voting to any extent whatsoever.

Originally Posted by madscientist

The Democrats who won huge victories over their Republican counterparts showed courage and conviction. The low Democratic turnout was due to the fact that most candidates assumed that Americans were still in a 3T mood.

Can you cite me some examples of this please Robert.

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

Originally Posted by madscientist

The Democrats who won huge victories over their Republican counterparts showed courage and conviction. The low Democratic turnout was due to the fact that most candidates assumed that Americans were still in a 3T mood.

Can you cite me some examples of this please Robert.

I'll have to find it again, but be patient.

Just started on the latest Newsweek, the one with "Top Gun" on the cover. In passing there was an interesting comment about campaigning-that as television ads lose their impact, the Democrats will have to return to older methods: "With TV ads rapidly losing bite, you must go to a ground game. That takes a different kind of work than raising money from rich donors, but it
's ultimately healthier if you want to once more be 'the party of the people.'" I'm trying to imagine both the Republicans and Democrats canvassing neighborhoods.

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

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****Minneapolis Star-Tribune Poll on Nov. 3 for Minnesota Senate

Walter Mondale (D) 46% up 5
Norm Coleman (R) 41%

** "Official Results"

Norm Coleman (R) 50%
Walter Mondale (D) 47% up 3 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?
Did they let this one stay close because they knew MN loved Mondale?

--------------------------------

What about the fact that a Pioneer Press poll at the exact same time had Coleman up by 6 points? What about that? Gee, is Stonewall Patton choosing to display only certain polls and not others? Besides, the disparity between the two polls show how much less reliable polls are than voting machines. Stonewall is also not taking into account all of the undecided voters in these close races.

Stonewall Patton is a kook, Alex. When you read what he writes, you see how a kook thinks. Like some folks are incapable of walking and chewing gum, at the same time, no genuine kook is capable of seeing anything outside a very narrow worldview. A view which, in reality, does not exist.

That said, Alex, be careful when reading their kooky stuff, because there is always enough of a grain of "truth" to it to make the kooky just seem plausible. :wink:

Originally Posted by AlexMnWi

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

---------------------------------

****Minneapolis Star-Tribune Poll on Nov. 3 for Minnesota Senate

Walter Mondale (D) 46% up 5
Norm Coleman (R) 41%

** "Official Results"

Norm Coleman (R) 50%
Walter Mondale (D) 47% up 3 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?
Did they let this one stay close because they knew MN loved Mondale?

--------------------------------

What about the fact that a Pioneer Press poll at the exact same time had Coleman up by 6 points? What about that? Gee, is Stonewall Patton choosing to display only certain polls and not others? Besides, the disparity between the two polls show how much less reliable polls are than voting machines. Stonewall is also not taking into account all of the undecided voters in these close races.

Huh? As I clearly indicated in the post, that was someone else's compilation of data. The only pollster with a proven record I trust is Zogby (as I have pointed out here countless times) and it is not clear to me that all those polls cited on that page were conducted by Zogby. However I certainly do not believe your Pioneer Press poll. But that is not the point. I simply posted somebody else's compilation, for the sake of it being a compilation, given that it contained Zogby data.

There is now another person challenging Pelosi for the Minority Leadership in the House: 10-term Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Boomer c. 53 years old, says she does not want the far-left part of the Democrats to swing things away from the mainstream. She offers ideas like a national high-speed rail system to invigorate the economy, alleviate gridlock in large cities, and lessen dependence on foreign/Arab oil. She is also a long-time opponent of NAFTA.

This means representatives of 3 generations are at odds for the leadership: Pelosi (c. 61 years old), Kaptur, and Howard Ford of Tennessee (c. 30 years old). Things are becoming interesting!