[POL/POST ELECTION] Sure Signs Backfired on Kerry, Democrats

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/5/101226.shtml

<b>Sure Signs Backfired on Kerry, Democrats</b>

Joan Swirsky

Friday, Nov. 5, 2004

All the “sure signs” for a Kerry victory were there. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. The Boston Red Sox exorcised the “Curse of the Bambino.” The Washington Redskins – longtime predictors of presidential races – lost last Sunday, which has meant a loss for the incumbent since 1936. And to add to that trifecta, the stock market was skittish, surely a sign of an incumbent’s defeat at the polls.

But ...

• The bin Laden tape backfired, telling the American electorate that the arch-terrorist was rooting for a Kerry victory.

• The dozens of anti-Bush books that were cranked out for the past three years are now gathering dust.

• The “Bush lied” mantra will go down in history as the catchphrase that failed.

• The Democratic National Committee and its rabble-rousing chieftain, Terry McAuliffe, are now officially retro.

• The headline-grabbing efforts of Joseph Wilson, Richard Clarke and all the other anti-Bush writers failed miserably.

• The pollsters are finished, with Zogby dead last.

• The mainstream media are finished.

As if we needed any more proof of their bias, the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism has now documented that during a two-week period, 59 percent of the stories about Bush (on CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS's "News Hour," CNN and Fox News) and in The Washington Post and the New York Times were negative, compared to only 25 negative stories about John Kerry.

In the print media, 68 percent of the stories were negative on Bush, but only 26 percent were negative on Kerry.

This only proves that the so-called intelligentsia on both the East and Left coasts aren’t so smart after all and that liberal anchors and pundits should now be looking to Al-Jazeera for work.

• Dan Rather – forgeries and all – has been thoroughly discredited.

• “60 Minutes” and “60 Minutes II” and their most biased “reporters” – special mention to Lesley Stahl here – have sacrificed all credibility.

• The Hollywood hucksters have gooey egg on their botoxed faces.

• The rap stars are singing a different tune (or whatever their followers define as a “tune”).

• The trial lawyers lost their case.

• “The Boss” – Bruce Springsteen – flopped miserably.

• The European press is even deader than it was before its arrogant nose- prying into our election.

• The stem-cell research crowd has proven that bogus claims don’t fly with the American electorate.

• The Abu Ghraib “scandal” was recognized by most Americans with a sense of historical perspective as an aberration and not in any way a commentary on the decency and sacrifice of our heroic fighting forces.

• The brouhaha over the president’s Air National Guard service fell flat but will soon be replaced by legitimate questions about Kerry’s “less than honorable” discharge from the Navy.

• The American electorate was not convinced that a “relationship” with fair-weather friends like Germany and France – both of which we know now were deeply involved, philosophically and financially, in the U.N.-Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal – was a prerequisite for a sound foreign policy.

• George Soros has proven that America-hating, socialist-loving moneybags cannot buy an American election.

• The 9/11 Commission’s efforts to place culpability for September 11, 2001, on the president went nowhere, as Americans recognized GWB’s stellar leadership in the War on Terror.

• Michael Moore has proven that anti-American propaganda films have no influence among critical-thinking Americans.

• The attacks on Bush by the secretary-general of the corrupt U.N., Kofi Annan, and the last-minute efforts by the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, to swing the election to Kerry by claiming that American fighting forces lost 1/1000th of the explosives at Al-Qaqaa – information at least 18 months old – was promptly contradicted by more credible experts than those at the New York Times, which gave the story front-page coverage.

• The pre-election bombings in Madrid and subsequent election of a socialist president and his withdrawal of troops from Iraq had no influence on our election, in spite of the socialist on the American ticket and his left-wing backers.

• The American-Arab community has set itself back by voting against the incumbent in huge numbers – one estimate was by 93 percent.

As Rabbi Schmuley Boteach has written: “George Bush has liberated more Arabs and Muslims than any other man in human history. In Saddam he also removed from power the man who murdered more Arabs than any other, a figure numbering, according to The New York Times, at least 800,000 Arabs (not to mention 300,000 Kurds). After 9/11 Bush also defended the Islamic faith eloquently as a religion of peace, even while many Americans were feeling implacable hostility. With all this Arab-Americans still see Bush as their enemy, which makes you wonder whether the Arabs really know who their friends are.”

• The American-Jewish community’s votes, at this point, are unknown. But I suspect that Jews came out in record numbers for Bush because they were convinced that “never again” would they be lead by a demagogue.

They recognized that the Clinton-intoxicated Kerry would not have cut off the terrorist thug Arafat as Bush did, not have supported Israel’s right to defend itself against ongoing terrorism with “the fence,” not have challenged the corrupt, anti-Semitic United Nations, and not have pressured Israel to cede both land and security to a “global test.”

• The late-in-the-campaign release of the Duelfer Report – which repeated ad nauseam Kerry’s claim of “no WMD” – didn’t fool the voting public into either (1) believing it or (2) doubting the president’s rationale for going to war against the terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein.

• The voters of America didn’t buy the preposterous accusations that the president was responsible for the shortage of flu vaccines, would restore the draft, or would dismantle the Social Security system (clearly, they liked his innovative ideas to reform and improve it!).

• The American electorate, in record numbers, watched the debates and, in their votes, decided that they preferred an honest and decisive leader to a slick, golden-tongued waffler whose poor mother, on her deathbed, felt that she had to summon up advice to a son who had clearly never learned the value of “integrity, integrity, integrity.”

• The voters, who turned out in record number, said in no uncertain terms that they didn’t want the fate of their country in the hands of a do-nothing senator with an ignominious post-Vietnam War record or his weird choice for vice president, John Edwards, an even more do-nothing senator, with the dubious distinction of having helped raise medical costs by exacting indefensibly exorbitant malpractice awards for his clients.

• And then there’s the Left’s unending mantra about the evils of Halliburton, yet another canard that voters didn’t buy, given that glib socialists like Kerry and Edwards utterly failed to reach the majority of Americans, who fervently believe in capitalism and free markets.

In times of war, the American public has always been wise in its choice of leaders, except for Vietnam, when a weak wartime president gave weak military leaders weak orders and so lost a war we should have won, no thanks to John Kerry, who betrayed his fellow soldiers and his country, as he did again during his one-and-only presidential campaign.

Americans sensed “the truth” about his weak and hollow man. They took heed of his 20-year Senate record of voting consistently against America’s defense and military and intelligence budgets. They detected the bias in the “mainstream” media that, in spite of their best and most dishonest efforts, could not camouflage their candidate’s fatal character flaws or the stinking whiff of a traitor.

And they ultimately voted for a man – President George W. Bush – by the largest popular vote in American history. A man who embodies the best of America’s values: belief in God, allegiance to country, devotion to family and – most important at this crucial time in our history – the vision to fight the very real war we are in, the war against terrorism that has already taken not only the 3,000 lives that were lost on September 11, 2001, but also the precious lives that were lost to the ravages of al-Qaida during the 1990s, when a narcissistic, ineffectual egomaniac was at our country’s helm.

Congratulations, America! You have done us proud! And congratulations, President Bush! Your decisive victory insures that Americans know and appreciate a good man and a strong leader when they see him. May God give you strength and health and good fortune in the years that lie ahead.

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com
 

Shacknasty Shagrat

Has No Life - Lives on TB
So many Dem losers and so little thought as to how and why they lost BIG. Mr. Clinton, the slime rat, has, as usual, the first and best observation regarding the Dems lack of support for the traditional marriage. If the Dems are unable to be constructive on Social Security reform, they might even lose more next time. Thanks for the read.
 

mistaken1

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Four more years of whining and the "we must come together" ploy. I think Bush should reach out to lib er uhh socialists in the exact same way Clinton reached out to conservatives.
:bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :bwl: :kk2:

The bottom line is they are two sides of the same coin and globalist integration will continue unabated no matter how we feel about it (unless of course the entire country went on strike from Thanksgiving to New Years day, then the NWO will either listen or attack to punish the upstart cattle who are protesting their own slaughter).
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
Shacknasty Shagrat said:
If the Dems are unable to be constructive on Social Security reform, they might even lose more next time.
You mean like using some of the surplus we had in 2000 to fix Social Security? Thank God we don't have to worry about that stupid idea.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
This essay, although making some valid points, is IMO just another hatchet-job, as well as having several missatements in it.
 

timbo

Deceased
Hatchet job? Misstatements? Where are the bad ones Dennis?

I thought the list pretty accurate. It sounded like the 2004 election campaign in Reader's Digest version IMO.
 

MrO

Senior Member
Here's a longish, though I think insightful post from someone who hesitatingly voted for Bush - it's another article that I think that the Dems should take to heart:

http://fromasadamerican.blogspot.com/2004/11/how-you-could-have-had-my-vote.html

---

How You Could Have Had My Vote


It's been two days since John Kerry conceded, and all I am seeing, hearing and reading from the Democratic party is that you guys think you lost on "moral values." You seem to think this means nothing more than opposition to gay marriage. You seem to think that Bush voters waited in line for hours to stick it to the queers, to tell those faggots how much we hate them!

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Many Bush voters, like myself, were not happy to be voting for the President's re-election. Many Bush voters agonized over our decision and cast our vote in fear, trepidation, and trembling. Many of us would have given our left arms for a Democrat we could have supported.

Because I am too young to be as disillusioned as I am, and because I know that one-party rule is not good for my country, and because it is my deepest wish to see the Democratic party change into one I can give my whole-hearted support, I am going to explain why you didn't get my vote, and how you can get it in the future.

First, for context, let me give you a bit about my perspective: I am a single, heterosexual, college-educated woman in my late 20's with an annual income of about $30,000. I live in a solidly red state in the South, the region you guys wrote off entirely without even trying to persuade us to vote for you. I am not an ideologue, and I experience painful ambivalence about many political issues. The notion of an abortion makes me queasy, but I don't want Roe vs. Wade overturned. I have friends who've been impregnated by rape and friends who found out late in their third trimesters that they were carrying babies too malformed to ever have normal lives. The pictures of Iraqi children who've lost arms from the bombs my tax dollars bought make me shed tears, but I recognize that the war was the right thing to do, given the information we had available at the time the decision was made. I had no health insurance for three years, but I'm still, hesitantly, not in favor of socialized medicine. I know people who abuse the social services, but I also have friends who would be dead without the food stamps and SSI checks they collect each month. I believe in God and consider myself a Christian, but I don't go to church, and Falwell, Robertson, and their ilk scare me more than they scare you. I believe that in a perfect world, Roy Moore would have to live with the stench of his own ego, just like the rest of us do.

I have gay friends who are closeted and gay friends who couldn't be more open if they had QUEER tattooed across their foreheads, and I think they should be allowed to get married if they want to. I read The Onion, Dilbert, Dan Savage's sex advice, Salon.com, and quite a few blogs. The local librarians know me on sight. I waited in line until midnight when the fifth Harry Potter book came out. I can't wait to see the new Chucky movie. I will probably shack up before I get married, but I won't be proud of it. I wouldn't buy an SUV, even if I could pay cash for one. I recycle. I shop at Wal-mart, but I feel guilty about it, and if they unionized, I would never cross the picket line. I think FOX News is about as fair and balanced as a seesaw with a gorilla on one end.

President Bush's close relationships to people like John Ashcroft scare me. I hate the PATRIOT Act and am fearful of what might be part of PATRIOT II. The two dumbest trial balloons I've heard floated for his second-term agenda are privatizing Social Security and abolishing the income tax. When he says that God chose him to be President during this time of trial, I am embarrassed. I roll my eyes.

I am a pragmatic, disillusioned, realistic, and entirely ordinary member of the radical middle.

Here is why you didn't get my vote:

1. You didn't give me clear positions on the issues. I followed the news closely all through the campaign, but I still don't understand Kerry's position on Iraq. I know he voted for the IWR, but then he voted against the $87 billion. To you, that seemed to be a symbolic stand against Saddam Hussein (the IWR) but also a principled stand against a President who was out of control (against the $87 billion). To me, that was just confusing. He said he would have done everything different, but he also said that, knowing what he knew today (the day he was asked) he still would have cast the same vote. He said that he would bring allies to our side to share the burden, but he also said he would be sending 40,000 more of our troops. He said that we must finish the job, but he also said it was the wrong war at the wrong place and the wrong time. Huh?

2. You didn't convince me that you would defend America against the threats of terrorism. Kerry seemed to think that terrorism is like any other crime. You catch the people responsible and put them in jail, and that's that. After seeing the destruction – physical, financial, psychological, and emotional -- wrought by the September 11th attacks, I do not understand how he could believe this. The hijackers lived among us, ate at our restaurants, shopped in our malls, and wounded us worse than we have ever been wounded before. How Kerry saw this as a crime, and not as a paradigm-shifting event that deserved a military response, both in direct retaliation and to keep it from ever happening again by going on the offensive, is something I don't understand.

3. You insulted my intelligence by the constant mantra of Kerry's service in Vietnam. Most of the men I know who are older than 50 served in some way, either in country or in the Coast Guard or other non-combat roles. I don't see the relevance, and the drumbeat of "three purple hearts" struck me as manipulation. It was as if you were saying, "These dumbshit hawks want war? We'll give 'em a real war hero! That'll get their votes!"

4. Your constant references to the opinions of the rest of the world scared me, and I'm not talking about the "global test" comment. I don't care what Europeans think about me or my country. I learned in high school that living my life with one eye on the opinions of everyone else leads only to unnecessary turmoil and pointless pain. Why didn't you?

5. You disturbed me with your demonization of the rich. Rich people were talked about in this campaign as though they were all evil cheaters who had wage slaves tied up in the basement to be flogged for minimum wage, and what they didn't earn from the wage slaves' labor, they stole from nursing home residents. I am not rich, but I work hard, am learning about investing money, am continuing to improve my prospects for earning more money in the future, and fully expect to end up at least well-off someday. If I do, it will be because of my efforts and work, not because of winning "life's lottery." I know two millionaires personally. Both are entrepreneurs who took big risks and worked their backsides off for years to get where they are. Given that Kerry is married to a billionaire, this seemed especially hypocritical.

6. Here is something you could work on right about now: I could not stomach to listen to your incessant hatred of President Bush. Bush is stupid, Bush is an idiot, Bush is Hitler, Bush is a Nazi, Bush masturbates to photos of dead Iraqi babies, I'd vote for my dog before I'd vote for Bush, I'd vote for Castro before I'd vote for Bush, the Rethuglicans are fascists, Bush voters are treasonous, Bush should be impeached, blah blah blah blah blah blah. It was old three months after Bush's inauguration, and it's now just tiresome. I don't hate my President, even though I voted for him with more reluctance than I can express and a queasy feeling in my stomach. Language like this makes you seem immature, needlessly vulgar, and obnoxious.

7. Lastly, and I hope this doesn't hurt anyone feelings, because my objective is to make you think, not emote: I don't think you really want my vote. I actively sought out your perspective. I tuned in regularly, for months, to your biggest media project, your serious effort to get your message out: Air America Radio. I listened all day on Good Friday as host after host mocked people like me for believing in Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. I listened as Janeane Garofalo, who was one of my favorite comedians for years, expressed hatred and disgust for Bush voters so vile that I ended my live stream feeling assaulted, as if I'd been vomited on. I listened the night that Mike Malloy told a young Republican to hang up the phone and go open a vein. I listened to pure, unadulterated venom that was so intense I sometimes cut the stream and cried. Tonight, your spokespeople on AAR have been calling people like me "snake-handling evangelicals," and that was about the kindest thing I heard. Um…y'all? I've lived in the South my entire life and have never met a single snake-handler. Your attitudes, language, and behavior toward people like me: reasonable, thinking Christians who are quite moderate politically and who are just as well-informed as you are (yes, I've read all the PNAC essays, too, and yes, they scare me, too) is reminiscent of nothing so much as an abusive ex-lover, a crazy and drunken stalker. "I'll make you love me, or you'll regret it, you worthless bitch! Come here and let me beat you over the head and tell you how stupid and worthless you are! Then you'll see it my way!"


I tried so hard to give you guys a chance. I'm young, I'm not extremely religious, and I'm supportive of liberal ideals like fighting for higher wages, stopping outsourcing of jobs, and standing up for the little guy. I wanted to vote Democratic this time, more than I can possibly put into words. You just didn't give me the option.

President Bush won on values, yes, but not hatred of gays or any other stereotype you have in your head about Bush voters like me.

He won because he has values, clearly defined values, and even though I agree with little of what he believes, at least I know what he believes. At least I know that he really does believe in something. At least I know that he will do what he says he will do.

That's disgustingly little, but unbelievably – you offered me less.

So, if you want my vote next time, and the vote of all my close friends, and the millions more like us that you refuse to believe exists, it's pretty simple: take positions and don't waffle on them. Stand up for America, especially with regard to terrorism. Shut up about what Germany and France think. Stop pretending that the only way to become wealthy in America is to cheat, for the sake of those of us who still want to get there. Treat the President with at least as much civility, if not respect, as you would've wanted right-wingers to give a President Kerry. Most importantly, please, please please, please, please, please stop abusing me. No more verbal and psychological and emotional savagery. Treat me like a voter whose vote you would actually appreciate getting, and you will get it.

Do you maybe, just maybe, see where I'm coming from?

I doubt it. But I had to try.


Sincerely,


A Very Sad American
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
This "Very Sad American" sounds like she learned an awful lot from Bush campaign ads, and not much else, regardless of how informed she claims to be.
 

Oilpatch Hand

3-Bomb General, TB2K Army
PentelPen* said:
This "Very Sad American" sounds like she learned an awful lot from Bush campaign ads, and not much else, regardless of how informed she claims to be.

And yet, the "Very Sad American" has perfectly encapsulated why so many millions could not vote for the Democratic ticket:

Your attitudes, language, and behavior toward people like me: reasonable, thinking Christians who are quite moderate politically and who are just as well-informed as you are (yes, I've read all the PNAC essays, too, and yes, they scare me, too) is reminiscent of nothing so much as an abusive ex-lover, a crazy and drunken stalker. "I'll make you love me, or you'll regret it, you worthless bitch! Come here and let me beat you over the head and tell you how stupid and worthless you are! Then you'll see it my way!"

The Democrats have forgotten (or have never learned) Rule #1 in the Art of Persuasion: "Don't alienate your audience."
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
Oilpatch Hand said:
And yet, the "Very Sad American" has perfectly encapsulated why so many millions could not vote for the Democratic ticket:
It's hard to say whether or not she represents "millions." The point is that she didn't seem to bother to find out anything about either candidate beyond the campaign ads. If she had she wouldn't have been so "confused."

More importantly, though, if she really disliked Bush so much (as she claims), and wasn't convinced that Kerry was a viable choice either, then why didn't she vote for a third party candidate or just not vote at all?
 

Oilpatch Hand

3-Bomb General, TB2K Army
The point is that she didn't seem to bother to find out anything about either candidate beyond the campaign ads. If she had she wouldn't have been so "confused."

Actually, as she sets forth above, she did make an extra effort to discern the Kerry position. You wasted the above glib throwaway line to no avail, I'm afraid.

In the author's final analysis, one cadidate was far less confusing to her than the others. That candidate also avoided insulting her background and intelligence. She voted for that candidate.

Let's face facts. In order to be all things to all people at all times, Kerry set forth multiple positions that were at variance with each other, often on the very same day. The reason he did this is that neither he, nor his running mate, had ever had to make a critical decision about anything in public (or private) life, and their rank inexperience manifested itself as a "platform" that consisted of a set of nebulous, disorganized, nearly incoherent notions, lacking lacking any semblance of concrete planning grounded in everyday realities. This was especially true of the Kerry stand on the war in Iraq, which left even the most passionate Democratic partisans scratching their heads in bewilderment. Toward the end of the campaign, Kerry was left with a position on the war that effectively echoed that of Bush (with some ill-defined "nuances" included,) and such being the case, Kerry offered no compelling reason for leadership change on that basis.

The Bush platform at least had the advantage of being reasonably understandable, even if many disagreed with it. The voters knew where he stood on the Iraq war, and other issues as well.

The other options you offer the author, that of not participating at all or voting third party, are in effect one and the same. The author clearly wanted to participate, and do so meaningfully, and hence, was left with two choices, either Kerry or Bush. Voting third party would have rendered her politically voiceless, as would have not voting at all. (I say this as one who does vote third-party from time to time...and knowing that the recent presidential campaign was certainly not the time to be engaging in what may be admirable, but ultimately futile stands on "principle.")
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
Oilpatch Hand said:
Actually, as she sets forth above, she did make an extra effort to discern the Kerry position. You wasted the above glib throwaway line to no avail, I'm afraid.
Yes, I understand that she claimed to have done some "extra effort," but all she ended up with as reasons were soundbites that came directly from Bush campaign ads like the "$87 billion funding" ad and the "Terrorism as a nuisiance" ad. She wasn't even very good at being subtle about it. I mean she even explained his reasons for the $87 billion vote right there in the article and then proceded to say that it was confusing to her! He explained his position on Iraq several times, both in the debates and in interviews, and yet she didn't even notice, preferring to quote the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" statement he made just like Bush did over and over and over.

The Bush platform at least had the advantage of being reasonably understandable, even if many disagreed with it. The voters knew where he stood on the Iraq war, and other issues as well.
Not according to this report. Even Bush couldn't decide the reasons to invade Iraq. WMDs, al-Queda, Saddam was just a "bad guy," we have to "save the Iraqis," etc. One of my favorites was "He was gaming the system!" Maybe we'll invade Las Vegas next.
 

mbo

Membership Revoked
well gee - there was so much to LIKE about Kerry...

PentelPen* said:
Yes, I understand that she claimed to have done some "extra effort," but all she ended up with as reasons were soundbites that came directly from Bush campaign ads like the "$87 billion funding" ad and the "Terrorism as a nuisiance" ad. She wasn't even very good at being subtle about it. I mean she even explained his reasons for the $87 billion vote right there in the article and then proceded to say that it was confusing to her! He explained his position on Iraq several times, both in the debates and in interviews, and yet she didn't even notice, preferring to quote the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" statement he made just like Bush did over and over and over.


Not according to this report. Even Bush couldn't decide the reasons to invade Iraq. WMDs, al-Queda, Saddam was just a "bad guy," we have to "save the Iraqis," etc. One of my favorites was "He was gaming the system!" Maybe we'll invade Las Vegas next.

and to think we could have had it ALL with Kerry - more troops in Iraq while kinda not liking the war in Iraq; gay marriages forced on the states, while he kinda does not support them; more abortions while he kinda does not support them; assault weapons bans and more anti-2nd Amendment legislation while he kinda likes going hunting himself; higher taxes on the rich, but not himself of course; protecting SS, oh but yeah he's got to raise the taxes on the poor and middle classes just to keep it going -- all in all the middle-of-the-road "red" American just had so much to like and they just threw it away!!!
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
Of course I never said "we could have had it ALL with Kerry." I was simply responding to the original author's supposed premise that she did all this research that she clearly didn't do. If one is going to vote based on a real understanding of the candidates, then one should actually expend the effort to understand them instead of spouting campaign commercial sound bites.
 

mbo

Membership Revoked
uh huh...

PentelPen* said:
Of course I never said "we could have had it ALL with Kerry." I was simply responding to the original author's supposed premise that she did all this research that she clearly didn't do. If one is going to vote based on a real understanding of the candidates, then one should actually expend the effort to understand them instead of spouting campaign commercial sound bites.


I'm just pointing out that all the investigating of Kerry ain't gonna make that sow smell sweet. As much as some here think if there's two bad choices you vote 3rd party, people are pragmatic. They WILL vote for the lesser of two evils.

And the Dems don't get it yet - Kerry was the bigger evil. Maybe they should have re-run Clinton, at least he's not some flaming socialist.
 

PentelPen

Membership Revoked
mbo said:
I'm just pointing out that all the investigating of Kerry ain't gonna make that sow smell sweet.
It may or it may not, but at least it would have been more honest for the author to have done so before writing the piece.
 

mbo

Membership Revoked
what backfired

THE WELL-GROUNDED PANIC OF THE MEDIA

Andy Rooney said it best on "60 Minutes" (Nov. 7):

Television did a good job Tuesday night, I thought. I
know a lot of you believe that most people in the news
business are liberal. Let me tell you I know a lot of
them, and they were almost evenly divided this time.
Half of them liked Sen. Kerry; the other half hated
President Bush. (http://snipurl.com/ah98)

He is old enough not to care what anyone thinks. He is too popular for CBS to fire him. So, he went public with the obvious.

Members of the American Establishment media are now panic- stricken because of "values voters," which to them means "far right evangelical Protestant" voters. They simply cannot believe that Catholics in Peoria, let alone Massachusetts, don't want the civil government to define homosexual unions as marriage.

The success of all eleven state propositions to define marriage as between a man and a woman was, in the eyes of the TV pundits, the mark of the evangelical beast. It does not seem to occur to them that most voters are married heterosexuals:
Latinos, blacks, Catholics, and Protestants. It does not occur to them that these voters don't like it when a minority interest group of maybe 1% of the voters uses the courts to gain public acceptance against the beliefs of the vast majority of voters.
The media's spokesmen are aghast.

The extent to which the media are outside the loop never ceases to amaze me. They are completely out of touch. It is not just that they are self-consciously out of touch. They are persuaded that most Americans share their core values. They are unable to understand the reasons behind the digital handwriting on the wall: "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting." The free market keeps taking subscribers away from the newspapers and viewers away from the Big Three networks.

Why are they so blind? Because they are self-screened.
Like the department of English at a local university, their tight little community is the product of decades of monopoly funding and ideological prejudice. Here is an example. Howard Phillips, who heads up the Constitution Party, used to be co-anchor of a political debate show with the "Crossfire" format. On one occasion, he launched into a critique of homosexuality. He was fired at the end of the show. The producer told him, "Take a look at who is on the other side of the cameras." The producer knew who buttered his bread.

Voters in the voting booths sent a message to people on both sides of the cameras. I call it Anita Bryant's revenge. Anita is no longer selling Florida orange juice for the stand she took, but people in voting booths don't face these sorts of career pressures. In effect, the voters were sticking it to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. And, while they were at it, they stuck it to the junior Senator from Massachusetts. If the courts now reverse these votes, the media can get ready for a Constitutional Amendment.

The Presidential election was about the U.S. Supreme Court.
It always is. That's because a 5-to-4 majority of the unelected Court is really the supreme legislature of the United States.
The Left has used the Supreme Court to extend its political agenda ever since the 1950s. Voters know this. The Democrats are now facing a re-structuring of the Court, and the main political tool they possess is their ability to filibuster the Senate. This is risky. If they begin to be perceived by voters as being minority party obstructionists, they will face the Tom Daschle effect.

Kerry was a mush-mouth. He really is a flip-flopper. This is at the core of his being. "Newsweek" had assigned a reporter to each of the national campaign officers. The two could not say anything until after the election. The reporter assigned to Kerry's staff has now said that it was utter chaos. Kerry kept reversing himself. At one point, his staff took away his cell phone.

Kerry could not publicly oppose the legalization of homosexual marriage without alienating the media. The media are at the heart of the Democrats' power base. So, he had to avoid the issue. Bush did not face this constraint. The media hate him, so he can ignore them. This drives them into a fury.

The Federal Communications Commission can no longer guarantee a monopoly to the networks. New technologies are overcoming the value, both economic and political, of the networks' Federal licensure. Nielsen poll by Nielsen poll, the TV networks are losing market share. The power of the Democratic Party is dribbling away. The Democrats bet on the wrong communications pony, which is fading in the stretch.


BRING US TOGETHER!

Have you noticed how the main theme of the media is "bring us together"? This comes from the people who did their best to tear us apart. John Edwards' stump speech was about the two
Americas: class warfare. He received no challenge from the networks.

"Bring us together" means "vote the Democrats' agenda." It means "don't take advantage of your majority." It means "lay off until we get the votes to stick it to you."

Well, just for the record, the two parties have been voting together since 1949 to stick it to the taxpayers. Both parties have invoked the idea of the State as the great healer, the lender of last resort, the safety net. The total tax burden is in the range of 40% of income -- local, state, and federal. The State's regulations are endless. The bureaucracies are permanent and growing. Roll back the system? Reagan talked the talk, but he vetoed few spending bills. Bush has vetoed none.

The Republicans want to cut taxes, but are unconcerned by the rising deficit. They spend with abandon. The Democrats cry crocodile tears about the huge deficit, but they want to expand spending by the federal government. They want to tax the rich.
No national politician is calling for lower taxes to be matched by lower spending. No national politician is willing to tell the truth about Medicare.

"Bring us together" means "spend more money on the Democrats' special interest groups and raise taxes on Republican interest groups." This is unlikely to happen. Mr. Bush owes nothing to the media. The media understand this, and shudder.


CONFLICTING VALUES AND A GUN IN MY BELLY

The debate was about values: conflicting values. Bottom
line: it was a really debate over the high moral ground of political wealth redistribution. Each party wants to stick a gun in my belly.

On the Sunday morning broadcast of "The Today Show,"
interviewer Campbell Brown -- who, unlike Katie Couric, is beautiful, self-controlled, and does not interrupt people -- asked two spokesmen about the values vote.

William "jackpot" Bennett discounted it. It doesn't mean "right wing evangelicals," he assured her.

Then she asked Jesse Jackson what the Democrats can do about losing the values vote. Jesse got right to the point: values are about feeding the poor. She tried again: What can the Democrats do to recover? Jesse droned on: help the helpless. She tried a third time. Same response. She gave up.

Jesse made it clear: Democratic values are about sticking a gun into a successful person's belly, taking his wallet, removing an unstated percentage of the money, and handing the wallet back.
"See you at the next election."

I had heard another Democrat on TV make the same point immediately after the election. "We are for values: the value of helping the poor." In reality, this is the value of filling immense government bureaucracies with college-educated, mostly white, Civil-Service-protected, union-protected employees, who then extract money from taxpayers, absorbing at least half for administrative costs, and handing out most of the rest to middle- class voters. This procedure is whitewashed -- and I do mean WHITEwashed -- in the name of helping the poor. The middle classes feel good about their compassion, not to mention $270 billion a year to send their kids to college. Not many ghetto kids are in college.

The political problem that the Democrats face is that the official beneficiaries -- welfare State dependents -- tend not to vote. They also tend not to be able to read. The system's actual beneficiaries -- liberal college students -- also do not tend to vote. But they do enjoy free Bruce Springsteen concerts.

The vocal representatives of the Democrats, whose interests alienate married, income-earning, tax-burdened voters, are a liability. These spokesmen represent non-voters. The goal of politics is to represent voters.

The Democrats are now betting the farm on Hispanic voters.
They will lose this bet. Hispanics are either illegal aliens who do not vote or else they are replacing African-Americans in the work force and home ownership. They are also pro-family, and so do not resonate to the social issues selected by the Democrats'
spokesmen. They tend to move into the middle classes after two generations, and so will probably vote Republican in greater numbers. At some point, they are going to figure out that too large a percentage of their wages is being extracted to support a bunch of Anglo retirees. They will begin to ally themselves with younger Anglo workers who have figured out the same thing. When this happens, political defenders of the real welfare State -- the Social Security/Medicare boondoggle -- will come under attack in the voting booth. That will hurt the Democrats more than it will hurt the Republicans.
 

mbo

Membership Revoked
source

intothatgoodnight said:
mbo,

Do you have a URL for above posted article?


intothegoodnight

From a regular email distribution (not a web link)...

Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 394 November 9, 2004
 
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