Asymmetrical Information

Is she a strict, church going Catholic? Those sorts of Catholics, well informed on their Church's teachings, would not vote for Mr. Kerry.
Next, what part of the SwiftVets was discredited by bloggers or anyone else? Beldarblog has a $10,000 reward for anyone who can actually do the discrediting. If you can do it, as they say, down Texas way, it ain't braggin. If you just claim to have done or or seen it done you don't get the $10,000.00
Have enjoyed reading your remarks.

The "women, blacks and gays" coalition that has sustained the Democratic party for so long is disintegrating. Has been for some time.

When women get married, they stop being feminists. They realize then that it is their (white) man who is targetted for punishment by the racial and sexual quota system. It stops looking so appealing.

The black and gay part has become a travesty. Blacks are overwhelmingly Bible thumping Christians. The attempt by gays to insist that they suffer "oppression" just as blacks did in the Jim Crow south is ludicrous, and blacks overwhelmingly find this offensive. In addition, blacks are and have been ascending to the middle class by the tens of thousands.

The only role that the Democratic party can seem to imagine for blacks is race hustling. That blacks might be able to make it on their own seems anathema to Democrats.

The Democratic party is stuck in the past... primarily in its vision of the 1960s, and cannot seem to come unstuck.

I have no suggestion about how to change this.

Mindles - Good to have you back. Hope you are pain-free soon.

Too the substance of your comments, I've been finding it interesting to hear the Kerry supporters lecture the Bush supporters on how we need to "find common ground" or "recognize that we are a divided nation" and need to "govern from the middle." In other words, Bush should ignore his MAJORITY (over 50%) in the popular vote -- the first time since 1988 -- and govern as if Kerry had won. Finding common ground and governing from the middle is code for dropping what Bush campagined on and adopting the liberal's positions.

Or am I misreading their advice? Do you think that they are willing to recognize that MOST of the country disagrees with them and are willing to work with President Bush? Based on what you quoted, I doubt it.

Say what you want about how the nasty liberals have reacted badly to losing. It's nothing to what I've seen of how badly the Republicans have reacted to winning. Just look at these comments here. See the one about defending the Swift Boat Vets? He doesn't even know that it's been shown that the documents they claim were written by Kerry didn't even have his initials. In their minds that was just a successful conspiracy of some kind to hide that he wrote the reports. The hyper-conservative Christians weren't the only people voting for Bush but they did provide the margin of victory. Look at another comment responding here to your post, Mindles, where the poster basically trys to claim that gays aren't oppressed in our society. Is he even aware of what was in some of those amendments supposedly meant to defend marriage? I doubt he cares, really, thus disproving his own post.

Constantly I hear from your side of the political divide how bad those people who criticize America are. While America is a great country please quit trying to pretend it's perfect. Have you forgotten the Klan? Do you think it was some kind of extremist minority in the South? Research it a bit. I remember how shocked I was to watch a film of a Klan march that had thousands of marchers...in Indiana in the '30s. It's not that we've gotten so good that that has gone away. We've gotten a lot better but the impulse still exists. A lot of it still goes towards blacks. Some goes towards Jews. A lot of it now goes towards gays because after all, the Bible says it's OK. Doesn't it?

David, do you really think that ever person that voted for George Bush agrees with every one of his policy agendas? That because he got over 50% of the vote based on lots of things including scaring the bejeesus out of people using the war on terror and the image his campaign created of Kerry that his goal of ignoring every bit of science on the environment (for one example) is embraced by them all?

P.S. If you doubt the comment about the environment a news search on arctic melting shows something.

Jim S's comment goes right to the heart of what is destroying the Democratic Party. He wants to complain about the Klan! The Klan has had no effective political power in decades. It is roundly denounced and hated in the white community.

Gangsterism continues to be a plague upon the black community. The Democratic Party not only refuses to address this plague, it embraces Al Sharpton!

Think about this. If it continues, the Democratic Party will slowly fade out of existence.

Another state that had a big Klan presence was New Jersey, a well-documented fact that some people have a bit of trouble believing. We can't extrapolate the red/blue divide very far before running into counterexamples like that - and as the original post points out, a lot of the "blue" states are 55/45 splits.

County-by-county electoral maps are much better at showing where the fault lines are. But that scale is still a bit coarse: there are Bush voters on the upper East side of Manhattan, just like there are Kerry voters in Salt Lake City.

my wife had an insight that really made sense to me. she said the gay marriage initiatives on the ballot were what motivated Bush's base to come out so strongly. that had they not been an issue, Kerry would have won handily.

Mindles:

Hope you feel better soon and, if its amenable to treatment, your back heals. Hell, even the name of the problem looks painful.

As far as "the woman at the party who keeps her mouth shut when everyone else rants about 'idiot Bush'," we're aware of her. At the moment we'll content ourselves with talking up the virtues of Dallas and Mobile and all the great job opportunities there.

Don't forget Chris Matthews: According to comments I have seen, he was ranting that: people in the southern part of the country don't think analytically.

I can't find a link to a transcript or blog entry on this, other than the comments at LGF..has anyone seen one?

SomeCallMeTim:

Before you knock it, you ought to try it. By reputation, Dallas and Mobile are actually pretty decent places to live.

And I have lived in both red and blue states.

leon dixon,

Good Catholics who follow all the church's teachings aren't supposed to support contraception, the death penalty, or the War in Iraq. The Republicans are the ones who tried to have Kerry excommunicated for holding beliefs contrary to the church. If you care about your right to hold religious beliefs that disagree with John Ashcroft's, don't you have to be a Democrat?

The Klansmen were overwhelmingly Democratic, as well. And one of the reports bolstering Kerry's medal claims was transmitted from a ship where he was the only officer on board, the only man who could have written the report. So how is the lack of initials relevant? Democrats almost self-immolated after refusing to concede Ohio with a margin for Bush larger than the margin for Kerry in Pennsylvania. The media are also big losers. They bought into the exit poll trap, which was designed to raise justiciable issues for a long litigation process.

Now when W nominates a Supreme Court candidate, do you think the Dems are going to be reasonable? They'll fight to the last ditch. Luckily, they'll lose. W should nominate Bork again, if he's still alive!

Oh, yes, and gays are real oppressed, because they have every right everyone else has and feel like they should have more and seventy percent of the people don't agree with them in a free election. What tyranny!

Robert Speirs writes:

"W should nominate Bork again, if he's still alive!"

Robert Bork is still alive and just published a book in Sept. 2003. Since you obviously know nothing about Judge Bork, you appear to be advocating the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice out of spite.

What a perfect example of the Galt rule.

Can I observe that your observation works in reverse? That 40-48% of the voters in many "red" states voted for Kerry? That too is not much commented on, that too you would never know by reading the assessments of the election by conservatives.

The problem here is basically majority rule, and the fact that it allows both sides to forget, if they so choose, the existence of any other constituency which is 49% or less of the population within a particular political boundary. So blue staters can forget that in their own states, there is a substantial voting population who hold very different views; red states can do the same. Now nationally we are doing this as well.

A majority winner-take-all system allows the winner to act without respect for or interest in the views of the minority, no matter how substantial they might be, unless some proportion of the majority is deemed likely to defect or swing to the minority at a future date if particular actions or laws are undertaken.

If you ask people to remember and respect large pluralities of people who think differently than they do, then you have to ask that across the board. One of my objections to the Bush Administration and many of their most ardent supporters is that they show zero inclination to consider any opposing views. I feel little desire to "unite behind the President" since he has shown no interest whatsoever to take any of my views, interests, beliefs or knowledge seriously. But it would be fair to say that much of the opposition to Bush would do the same were they in power. If you find that a lamentable state of affairs, then lament it even-handedly, and work to change it. We would need a model of political process that regarded radically diverse or pluralistic convictions with respect, and tried to incorporate them into the process of decision-making, though not to the extent that bold or decisive action became impossible, and leadership was reduced to merely reflecting in even measure the consensus of all possible views. We do not have that model in place now within the national leadership. It would be hard to burden the opposition to Bush with an obligation to acknowledge the legitimacy of other points of view that Bush and his supporters steadfastly reject. You can't ask someone to play Prisoner's Dilemma in an altruistic mode without demonstrating your own willingness to play it the same way.

This, coming from a conservative Republican in Colorado. The northeast is a blue as the south is red. And the Republicans didn't win by enough to be able to write it off. Just as some intelligent Democrats, like Kristof, understand the need to connect with evangelicals, Republicans had been start figuring out how to reach more urban voters. The old Democratic coalition may no longer be able to elect a president, but there are still a lot of votes there.

At the moment we'll content ourselves with talking up the virtues of Dallas and Mobile and all the great job opportunities there.

Ah, so you advocate encouraging those who don't believe the same things you do to go away?

Party of acceptance and inclusion indeed.

Personally, I'm wondering how Bush can possibly "reach across the aisle" and work with the party whose constituents refer to him as "Chimpy McGod", routinely refer to him a Hitler, and alternately dumb as dirt and an evil conspiratator extraordinare.

I'd advocate big glasses of understanding all around -- but what can you possibly do if all they do is spit in the drink and throw it in your face?

A couple of observations on the red state/blue state divide.

First, despite the belief of some of the above commenters, not all red state Republicans are Christian fundamentalists. Almost all of my friends (in their twenties) voted for Bush. None of them are religious. The war was the issue for us.

Second, if the Dems ever want to successfully win down here again, they might start by not insinuating that Southerners are a bunch of mouth breathing racists. The comments about the Klan? I've lived in the South my whole life and never met a Klansman or anybody who thought that the Klan was a good idea. We're well aware of our racial history and have taken some big strides in that respect. I voted for Bush Tuesday, along with votes for Winsome Sears (a black female Republican) for Congress (and she was beaten by Bobby Scott, a black male Democrat), Doug Wilder for Mayor of Richmond (still the nation's only black elected governor), and Manoli Loupassi for City Council. I have no idea what race/ethnicity Loupassi is and really don't give a damn. Then I had to run off to my Klan meeting.

Third, Robert Bork is still alive and kicking. As a matter of fact I'm going to talk to him this afternoon. I'm a law student at the U. of Richmond, and he teaches a class here on the Constitution and culture, along with our dean, Rod Smolla. Smolla is a famous first amendment guy and a big liberal, so the class is nicely balanced. Most people that have an opinion on Bork, either pro or anti, have no idea what the man really stands for.

"Blacks are overwhelmingly Bible thumping Christians. The attempt by gays to insist that they suffer "oppression" just as blacks did in the Jim Crow south is ludicrous, and blacks overwhelmingly find this offensive."

Yes we are and we do.

"...the poster basically trys to claim that gays aren't oppressed in our society."

Funny, last time I was on a bus I didn't see the sign directing gays to the back. Missed the "gays only" bathrooms and water fountains at the mall. What's that new gay minstrel show called again? Limpwrist and FiFi?

With all due respect, kiss my ass. Blacks were oppressed for a genetic trait that if they could have hidden or removed the vast majority of them would've (as born witness to by the tradition of black who could "pass" abandoning their families to migrate into white society). That doesn't quite equate to the difficulties one encounters when they wish to be relieved of the burden of consequence for their choice of sexual position, partner and orifice of choice.

That was a bit over the top, but frankly the reaction of Democrats isn't helping to bring people like me back. I didn't vote Bush because of gay marriage, I have gay friends and coworkers. I believe in tolerance. But tolerance doesn't equal acceptance, and I personnally don't believe that same sex marriage is acceptable based on my moral code. Do I want my morals carved into law? Of course not. But I don't want someone else's, or the lack thereof, carved into law either. What Democratics say to me when they lump all Christians in as "Bible thumpers" and "religious fanatics" (let's not forget "hyper-conservative") is that 'Yes we want your vote, but we don't really care what you believe in or what your values are.' They lost me on their economic theories a long time ago. So why exactly should I vote for them? I think a lot of people, not just middle class blacks, feel this way. The reason the Dems got beat is because of being very far to one edge of a widening cultural divide, and not the side where the bulk of the population sits. They better figure this out real quick, figure out just how bad a choice Kerry was, and how useless the faction that drove the Kerry decision is, better figure out that Michel Moore isn't a guy who you should be proud to have associated with your party, better figure out why rural areas went red, and the military is going to go 70%+ red; if they ever want to be a viable party again.

"He doesn't even know that it's been shown that the documents they claim were written by Kerry didn't even have his initials."

What a hoot! Yeah, it had the initials of the TYPIST. But it had to be written by one of the Swift Boat skippers. Of the four still alive, three say they didn't write it. Kerry won't talk, and, as another poster noted, he was the only one of the five who was on the Coast Guard Cutter from which it was transmitted.

This whole idea that Bush won only because of the homosexual issue is 100% BS. I didn't even realize that issue was coming up on the ballots until I got mine.

It's the war. Bush takes it seriously, Kerry didn't. That's it for many, many red-staters. We are, after all, the majority of the Americans fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"One of my objections to the Bush Administration and many of their most ardent supporters is that they show zero inclination to consider any opposing views."

Yes, just like the ardent anti-Bush crowd have shown ANY inclination to consider my views. Uh-huh. Like bkw said:

"...I'm wondering how Bush can possibly "reach across the aisle" and work with the party whose constituents refer to him as "Chimpy McGod", routinely refer to him as Hitler..."

And, of course, consistently call me an idiot for supporting him. I'm supposed to treat them with respect and take their views seriously?

"We would need a model of political process that regarded radically diverse or pluralistic convictions with respect, and tried to incorporate them into the process of decision-making, though not to the extent that bold or decisive action became impossible..."

This is a prime example of an oxymoron.

Nicely said, Junyo. I too find it amusing that the very same people that are counting on people's votes to win elections are the very same ones busy hyperventilating about how their opponents are mouth-breathing Bible-thumping homophobic Klan-members. Way to connect with future voters, people. One wonders how it is that the Democrats had control of the House and Senate for decades, and who it was that gave Bill Clinton his margin of victory in 1996 (not to mention Gore his "popular vote victory" in 2000).

And can we please give this "gay marriage" issue a rest? Or, at least, I dunno, get some facts to support it? Bush won Ohio by 137,000 votes, with 2,796,147 votes. The "Define Marriage" proposal in Ohio got 3,242,160 votes -- that's at least 400,000 Kerry voters in its favor, assuming that every Bush voter also voted in its favor. (And there is no reason to assume this, especially as 23% of the gay vote went to Bush, and contrary to what some here would like to claim, not all Bush voters are opposed to gay marriage.)

In case you're wondering, Florida, the other crucial Bush win, did not have gay marriage as a ballot issue at all.

It isn't Red state or Blue state America, it's Purple State America. We ought to remember this.

I dont care what the dem "experts" think, the experts provided the strategy that lost to the dumbest president in US History, including Ford. The first thing the dems have to realize is there are times to be in your face confrontational.

Ive read that the dem leadership actually decided to hand 911 off to M Moore and that was a huge mistake. If a dem would have been President on 911, we would have started hearing "it happened on his watch" on 9-12-01 from ALL the reps. When Ashcroft went before the 911 commission and told lie after lie, about how a government bueraucrats memo somehow created a series of "laws" he dubbed "the Wall", I couldnt believe noone got out there and rebutted that bs. Beyond, Janet Reno, who got very little media in her civics lesson to Ashcroft, and that was a huge disservice to the country. The dems figured that the American people would draw the right conclusions on 911 when they read of the "Bin Laden seeks to Hijack commercial aircraft to strike in US" PDB from Aug 6, 01, the fact that his terror czar Richard Clarke canceled his entire staffs vacation for the month of Aug 01 due to the amount of Al Qaeda to strike in the US "chatter", the fact that Bush didnt even have a terror policy in place on 911, despite Clarke telling him that "the heads of the intell community were running around the Hill with their hair on fire" in an effort to get Bush to coordinate intell the way Clinton and Berger did in thwarting the Millenial terrorists, etc. They figured Moores movies main points on 911 couldn't be rebutted, and therefore had to be accepted as fact. The reps would have ripped a dem Presidents throat out with these facts, but by handing 911 off to M Moore, most likely because no dem wanted to be the hammer, who was then demonized to the point people no longer believed undisputed facts, they turned terror into a Bush positive, despite the fact he completely failed the American people on 911. I kept waiting for J Biden to make 911 his issue, small state, right credentials, in an area hes good at, but ultimately I think messing with C Rice to be to high of a potential political price to do the ugly, but completely justified work that needed done.

The second biggest dem mistake was there timing and presentation of their convention. By having the dem convention a month earlier then the rep convention, they had no money for a month to counter the Swiftys ads, and imo those ads hurt Kerry the most. If Kerry hadnt been so diminished by the Swifty ads, he would have taken a big lead out of the debates. Further, they had to go after Bush at their convention, negative works. They looked soft and stupid for appearing to believe the reps constant claims conventions "shouldnt be hate fests". What the hell type of speech did they expect Zell Miller to give when hes batting for the other side?

I could go on, but Im getting angry...

The dems shouldnt overreact to the southern evangelical vote. This segment of the population isnt turning out in these numbers for any rep but Bush. Bush is an evangelical, he constantly talked god, hell he said jesus was his favorite philosipher(kinda begs the question wwjd as far as Iraq goes). If Rudy G or Maccain is the rep frontrunner, the evangelicals arent showing up. Unless RG or JM talk to Rove, are "born again", and go against abortion, gay rights, etc..

Mindles:

"I sleep with and am head-over-heels in love with a Kerry voter…."

Me too! Gawd, I hope it's not the same person.

Hondo:

"Before you knock it, you ought to try it. By reputation, Dallas and Mobile are actually pretty decent places to live."

FWIW: I grew in a red state, and have since spent time primarily in blue states. I had a happy childhood/young adulthood, but I significantly prefer the blue state experience. The is purely a matter of personal preference - I'm not making a judgment about the relative objective "goodness" or whatever of either place. I wouldn't doubt that Dallas and Mobile are great places, and the proverbial "woman who keeps her mouth shut" might really love them; they're just not for me. As I said before - I'm now all about the federalism, and viva la difference.

Bwk:

"Ah, so you advocate encouraging those who don't believe the same things you do to go away? "

Uh, …she doesn't have to leave, but yeah. Per above, I'm all about the federalism now, and how are we going to get clear models of government experimentation if we keep mixing in red with the blue, and visa-versa? And, if this pseudo-market method of sorting governing principles works, the woman will probably be substantially happier in a red place like Mobile or Dallas.

In any case, I don't particularly need for Dems to be the "party of acceptance and inclusion," though obviously that would be nice. What I need the party to do is to protect the blue areas from red area incursions, because I really, really like the blue areas. I assume Republicans either do or have felt the same way; hence the recent repudiation of the Dems in the Heartland and the South (though, to be fair, we lost the south almost 40 years ago).

Also, can we please stop pretending that "Cbimpy" is worse than "rapist" and "murderer," as Clinton was called?

Sb:

I think two days ago, most Democrats wanted to win in the South, but expected to lose it. But the election demonstrated to us that even that hope was overreaching - the Republicans have a mortal lock on the South, and we need to stop kidding ourselves (and deploying resources) there. For us, the South is best treated as a farm league (in the baseball sense): we get our best players through that system. But that's all. In part, this one hurt particularly badly b/c we lost in Ohio, which is a place we think we should get, rather than Florida, where we could at least claim that it was b/c either (a) FL is part of the South, (b) Jeb delivered it, or (c) we really won it.

Also, it's interesting that the war was the issue for you - when you say "war," do you mean WOT or Iraq? Apparently that answer is predictive of your vote, so we split on the war(s). I think we're smarting still b/c we believe (maybe wrongly - I'd like to see the analysis in a week) that we lost on "values" rather than terrorism or Iraq.

Junyo:

If you feel we are now in an era where African-Americans can trust the Republicans as much as the Democrats, so be it. You might be right - I've got no lock on knowledge, that's for sure. That's why I'm all about the federalism.

Pajamas:

"And, of course, consistently call me an idiot for supporting him."

This is actually the heart of it, and why I really, really am all about the federalism. We weren't calling you an idiot because we're mean by nature, or we thought we could bully you out of your support (well, maybe a little bit that), or b/c you were from a specific part of the country - if we called you an idiot for supporting him, it's b/c we could not (and I still cannot) come up with a comprehensible reason for supporting Bush. So it's impolite, and not very politic, but the problem is we mean it.

That's what bothers us so much, and why we are so willing to understand 3% of the vote, or 137K votes in Ohio, as a mandate for Bush. For the life of me, I can't understand how this race was losable, except on the "support the war" trope, but we lost it, and we (apparently) didn't lose it b/c of the war. Prior to Tuesday, we didn't think we lost in 2000 - we thought either (a) it really was a mistake, or (b) people gave it to Bush b/c Clinton made it seem like a relatively easy job. We thought that, but for the WOT (which is politically difficult), the comparison of the Clinton era ("peace and prosperity," as Barbara Bush termed it) with Bush's term (wild stupidity, to our eyes) was the perfect object lesson. We had moved to the center on economic matters through Clinton; fiscally conservative, socially liberal were today's watchwords (and explain why so many blue states have Republican mayors or governors). So, absent the war, it really did look like a gimmee - we thought you'd pick us.

We were wrong. We overstepped. We deeply, deeply don't understand you. It is entirely possible for you and I (for example) to use the same words and mean completely, totally different things. We should not be involved together in ambitious projects if we can avoid them, because apparently neither of us has any idea what the other side is talking about. We should be as loosely involved as is constitutionally possible while we figure out what the other side is talking about. It's not that we can't agree - it's that we can't negotiate, b/c we don't (for example) understand what it is that you see when you look around at the last four years and see success.

So I say, viva la federalism. Devolution of rights, responsibilities, and benefit guarantees to the states, and big-ass tax cuts across the board. Agreement where required (led by you - the election was fair) and disengagement otherwise. It is entirely possible that you are right about everything; a decade or so of letting the blue and red states grow separately will allow us to recognize what works and what doesn't, and maybe we'll move together after that. It's possible that gun laws that are appropriate in blue states make no sense in red states, where people may be more responsible. It's possible that the various anti-discrimination statutes that we have at the federal level are no longer necessary; I like my blue state the way it is, so I'd like to keep those laws at a state level, but if you want to get rid of them, do so - you might be right. I'm sure we both agree that it's no fair killing people for being gay, but it is entirely reasonable to object to "hate crime" laws; I think that they're useful (in roughly the way laws against treason are useful), but you absolutely shouldn't have them in your state if you don't want them. Ditto abortion. Ditto minimum wage issues.

As I said, I like my blue state experience. You like your red state experience, which I didn't understand. So let's put a standstill agreement in place.

Jeebus. Sorry about the length. SomeCallMeVerbose.

SomeCallMeTim,

This is not practical. I mean, I'm a conservative Democrat whose party has more or less walked away from me, and I also think federalism — some devolution of powers, especially over "social issues" like abortion and gay unions, to the states — is the only way that the Democratic Party can get anywhere at all in the short term. But you cannot just write off the large minorities on the other side in Blue or Red states. At a rough guess, 50 million people or so just voted for the losing candidate in their state. They are not all going to move, and frankly they should not. Much as I love Florence King's famous line about the South ("If at first you don't secede, try, try again"), I'd prefer my country in one piece, thanks.

Tim, your statement, "It's possible that gun laws that are appropriate in blue states make no sense in red states, where people may be more responsible." highlights one of the major differences between you and me. I have the misfortune to live in a blue state at the present time, and one of my main aggravations is that it is such a nanny state, as if no one can think for themselves and everyone has to be protected from their own actions, etc. etc. etc. I lived in a blue state for my childhood, then red states for the next 20 years, and now am back in blue, and I can tell you that I vastly prefer the red state attitude. I happen to think that blue staters are just as responsible as red staters, but blue states don't give them the responsibility.

For example, in metro New York, there appears to be no such thing as an "accident." Everything is someone's fault. Sorry, I don't buy that. While there is a fair amount of negligence out there, there is also a lot of accidental damage, which can't be 100% prevented, so you just have to learn to live with it. But being "spoiled" into thinking that the government has all the solutions simply breeds more dependence. I think it is no accident that the county-level red and blue map shows that urbanites are fairly liberal while ex-urbanites are fairly conservative. I happen not to like big cities, and my 10 years on Long Island were not easy on me. I am a very independent minded person and believe in individual responsiblity more than social responsibility. (There's obviously a need for both, but I think they are a zero sum game, so I am very leery about increasing social responsibility because that automatically decreases individual responsibility. And once individual responsibility is given up, it's very very hard to get back.)

Based on labels, we sound failry close, because I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social moderate, whereas you described yourself as a fiscal conservative but social liberal. I think, however, that our differences are probably a little more fundamental than that indicates, because I have the same view of Kerry voters as you have of the Bush voters--how on earth could anyone vote for Kerry? I still haven't seen one cogent reason for preferring Kerry over Bush. And I suspect that that is because of our different backgrounds and life experiences, even though I don't know what yours are.

But it's nice having a rational discussion with a liberal, because where I live that is all too rare. When I try, the conversation quickly devolves into pointing out how their facts (not opinions) are faulty, at which point they say that they don't want to discuss it. Or they say I am an idiot and don't understand. One thing I do understand and that is the difference between a fact and an opinion. And when I can't even discuss facts with a liberal (I am not referring to you, but Begbee is a good example), there is no hope for meaningful conversation.

"Checking the election results, I see that even here in the non-evangelist, non- 'cracker' tri-state area, Bush won 45% in Connecticut, 46% in New Jersey and 40% in new York."

And he won that much because, again, of religion. Bush won this election because of enormous Republican turn out due to gay marriage and abortion. Full stop.

Rex,

It's entirely reasonable to believe that the blue state you live in should have laws that tend a little more red. I personally think that my (really) red state could use a little more blue.

For example, tenants have literally no legal rights relative to their landlords other than what they are specifically able to negotiate in their rental contract. If you don't think to negotiate a contract that prevents your landlord from coming over some night at three in the morning and kicking you out with no warning, you'd better plan to stay on good terms. I'm not a believer in the nanny state, but I don't think a few more controls than none at all would be a bad idea.

Jason, with all due respect, that's bull. NY, NJ, and CT? Why should they have strong Republican turnout because of "gay marriage and abortion"? Or, rather, why should it be stronger than it was four years ago? Abortion was around four years ago. Gay marriage wasn't, but gay marriage can hardly be a factor in states (like these three) where there was no anti-gay-marriage initiative on the ballot.

I see a new meme blaming this election's result on anti-gay bigots coaxed out of their hovels with promises of gay-marriage bans, but actually most of the states in which there were initiatives on this subject were solidly Bush anyway. The only swing states in there were Michigan (Kerry) and Ohio (Bush — but the initiative got a hell of a lot more votes than he did).

Tim - I read your long post. All of it. I can understand how you must feel like you're in an Alice In Wonderland world when trying to see how someone would vote for Bush. I understand the feeling because that's how I feel (felt) whenever anyone tried to talk me into voting for Kerry. What I don't follow is why your inability to grasp my point of view makes me an idiot in your eyes. Honestly, I don't feel that way about you or your side. I mean, I'm sure that there ARE a few idiots on your side, just as their are on mine, but just because we disagree why do you have to make it personal?

Please don't read that as a holier-than-thou rant on my part. (Something, I admit, it would be very easy to do.) Any tinge of such a message is simply due to my lack of ability to explain things better. There is a common perception on the right that liberals are driven by emotions. They adopt or advocate a policy because it feels good (to advocate the policy) rather than because the policy accomplishes anything worthwhile. I've always thought that was a cop out. Sure, there may be SOME who fall into that camp. But I think that most liberals think their policies are working (or would work). Once they learn the policy causes more harm than good, I think most would drop the policy.

Liberals seem to think the only reason someone disagrees with them is because that person is an idiot (or wants bad things to happen, or is evil, etc.). Why can't the disagreement be caused by a misunderstanding of the facts or of the consequences of the policy rather than the stupidity of your opponent? Seems assuming you are always smarter than the other guy leaves little chance for learning or persuasion.

Sorry for all the typos.

AN, there is always an unbalance out there, and it sounds like too much of an imbalance in your state. But I can speak to Virginia as an example of what I consider to be a good red state. There is a model Landlord/Tenant statue on the books which controls all L/T relations except as modified by contract. So, if no modifications are made by contract, it is basically fair to all parties, and if any modifications are made, the parties are presumed to know what they are doing when they make the modification. In New York, if the modifications are too "egregious", the courts will say that the underdog obviously wasn't capable of understanding what they signed, and that it was somehow "unfair" for the landlord to impose restrictions on the tenant. I really really don't understand that mode of thinking.

I sleep with and am head-over-heels in love with a Kerry voter

I thought Jane voted for Bush...?

Heh-heh...uh, wait...look, I was only kid--OWW!

David,

Back to your first post--sounds like deja vu all over again. I recall hearing calls for bi-partisanship from the democrats after 2000, and their definition of bipartisan wasn't to reach a meeting of the minds with both sides giving up a little bit of what they wanted in order to reach an acommodation, but rather that the republicans should move their positions to the left. Excuse me? Just who won the election? Assuming that both sides should give up a little something to reach an acommodation, it seems to me that the winner doesn't have to give up as much as the loser, but the democrats called that partisanship. I wonder if it will really be different this time around.

I'm also in love with a Kerry supporter. Mindles and I are in bed together only metaphorically speaking.

Rex,

That sounds perfectly serviceable, and Texas (not exactly a hotbed of liberalism) had a standard contract that was relatively similar to what you described. My point was just that it is possible to move too far in either direction.

Really, the main thing I would like to import from blue states is the propensity to avoid going around demonizing groups of American families for lacking values. Of course the apparently common liberal view that anyone who thinks values are important must be Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel isn't all that helpful either.

"Also, it's interesting that the war was the issue for you - when you say "war," do you mean WOT or Iraq? "

Both. Iraq is part of the War on Terror. Our presence there puts us in a good place to reach a number of dangerous, terror-supporting areas (including, but not limited to, Iran). Containment is now a moot point thanks to the invasion - it wasn't going to last forever in any event, and dropping sanctions and inspections with Saddam still in place is just asking for trouble. If we play our cards right, the Iraqi occupation is good PR for us and bad PR for the terrorists that keep blowing things up there (and before you object, I don't expect to win them all over overnight, or even in two or three years). The terrorists, those that have been visible and those that have been biding their time waiting for a good time to strike, have some reason to go absolutely apeshit over our activities in Iraq, which seems to me a good sign. Saddam declared himself an enemy of the United States, violated the cease fire agreements, and shot at American planes that had every right to be there according to those agreements - and now that bin Laden's group showed itself willing to strike the Great Satan directly, I don't see any reason to assume that any declared enemy of the Great Satan is going to just stay in its sandbox forever and content itself with empty talk anymore, even if the entity in question doesn't have bin Laden's brand name on it.

"Prior to Tuesday, we didn't think we lost in 2000 - we thought either (a) it really was a mistake, or (b) people gave it to Bush b/c Clinton made it seem like a relatively easy job. We thought that, but for the WOT (which is politically difficult), the comparison of the Clinton era ("peace and prosperity," as Barbara Bush termed it) with Bush's term (wild stupidity, to our eyes) was the perfect object lesson. We had moved to the center on economic matters through Clinton; fiscally conservative, socially liberal were today's watchwords (and explain why so many blue states have Republican mayors or governors). So, absent the war, it really did look like a gimmee - we thought you'd pick us."

Clinton had to be dragged to fiscal conservatism - as I recall he let the government shut down rather than pass a budget with some modest spending restraints in 1995. He opposed our favored economic agenda (except free trade, which I got to give him kudos for, and not throwing monkey wrenches into the growing computer business, at least until the Microsoft suit), but we came out okay because some of it got passed anyway and the lightly regulated computer business grew like crazy and kept putting out better and cheaper machines and software (feeding productivity improvements everywhere else) faster than anyone thought possible.

I figured with a Republican in place and a Republican Congress, we'd get a lot more fiscal restraint, some sweet deregulation to help counter the downturn already beginning (and generate growth and technological development for decades to come), and a more sensible defense policy. Well, one out of three ain't bad, I guess. :(

Now, of course, Bush's domestic spending habits were criticized by your side - for being inadequate. Thus, his spending, my main domestic complain, wasn't going to be fixed by switching to Kerry. Bush's drug giveaway was blasted by your side because pharmaceutical companies would be paid for the drugs!, which is kind of helpful if we want them to develop more drugs; I'd kind of like them to do that before I get old and decrepit and have to get by with the same old things today's elders are taking. Your side is still pushing for tighter controls and more subsidies in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, when the controls and subsidies are causing the problems in the first place.

So to recap, I had to side with Bush this time around, because of the war and because his underwhelming domestic agenda was marginally better than Kerry's, and I sided with him last time because his party's economic policy and his defense policy were better than the other side was offering.

Jane:

"I'm also in love with a Kerry supporter."

I have to ask - how many times did you write that sentence before you posted it? Did you type out "lov.." and stop, erase it, and then start again? Did you sit there, sentence in field, and work through the permutations: "I'm just going to say it!" or "We already say it a lot, so what's wrong with saying it here?" or "He wrote something like this on his blog, so I owe him," or "Will he write it back?"

Enquiring minds, Jane....

Jane:

Oh, and how come "poor boyfriend" doesn't post here regularly? Or does he? Can we guess at his nom de guerre? (Is it something like Roarke?) Is he tall? I bet he's tall. Does he have a car? ("Tell me more, tell me more, how much dough did he spend. Tell me more, tell me ...").

Mindles - of course, you should also post all the intimate details of your life. But, since you are married with kids, I understand (from friends in similar circs.) that you life is one long endless replay of the same day over and over again. To be fair, those aren't precisely the words they use ... I'm interpreting.

[The editors aren't quite sure how to interpret these rather personal comments. We fear sct's BDS has gotten the better of him. As for Mindles' married life - sure, it gets boring having extra money and regular, better sex...]

Michelle:

I don't know what you mean by "But you cannot just write off the large minorities on the other side in Blue or Red states." The whole problem is that those groups are being "written off" by the election process; and properly so - we have elections so we can impose our wills on people who don't want to do what we want them to do. In such a situation, surely it makes more sense to have a diversity of options out there for losers to potentially move to? How could this be bad? And I'm not sure what the benefit of not disengaging is.

As for "keeping the country in on piece," unless you're talking poetically, I don't know what you're talking about. And if its poetry - I gotta say, I don't really feel like we're "in one piece" in a poetic sense right now.

Rex:

think you are absolutely right about this: "I suspect that [our fundamental differences despite a similarity in self-labeling] is because of our different backgrounds and life experiences, even though I don't know what yours are." The same words mean different things to the two of us. And that is almost guaranteed to lead us to pointless, bootless, silly arguments - we'll be fighting for years about things where we are in agreement. All of this can be avoided by letting different states govern differently. And if one state's method of governance is demonstrably better than another's, the other states will copy (essentially the point presently justifying Iraq, IIRC).

David:

I think the problem is similar to the way you might think, "Friggin idiot" when you go into a store and the recent immigrant's English is fairly bad; I (very unfortunately) do this all the time, despite the fact that someone very close to me speaks English only passably. In this case, since we all speak English, I suspect it's something worse - we can look at the same thing and see different "facts" or "obvious truths." And there's no way around this, because our baseline assumptions are informed by a series of different experiences we assume are common.

Jason that is 100% farm-grade manure you're shoveling. Full stop.

I'm not sure why the winners of the election are expected to reconcile themselves with the losers.

I'm just an idiot college graduate, with a decent intellect, living in Texas. My analytical skills have served me well. I'm well read, and well informed. It's just that I do not agree with any of this left wing blather.

Why must I try to understand some left coaster who has never even bothered to come out here and make an attempt to know my life! I've been to D.C., New York, Boston, etc. Can these people claim to have been to any part of the country that is occupied by the so called middle America.

Condescension is a sickness. It leaves the elitist stuck thinking that he knows everything, when in fact he's never examined an issue, it's merely been bounced off the intellect of everyone that is in total agreement with the same point of view.

I'm fascinated by how many people either didn't read my post, completely misunderstood it or chose to misunderstand. My point about the Klan was that less than a hundred years ago America had a virulently bigoted organization that drew many thousands of members and had hundreds of thousands who didn't belong but thought that they were right and millions who just didn't care because they were racists too, although not as virulent. That sort of thing doesn't go away in less than a century. It can die down significantly or even mostly disappear. It can transform. It can be aimed towards different groups besides (or in addition to) the original target group. But I think history has taught us that it doesn't just up and vanish.

Junyo, do you actually know any gay people? I mean know them, not happen to see them as you walk past them? If you do, have they told you that they chose to be gay? If not, why do you think they did? Did you make a conscious choice to be straight? I know quite a few gay people. Not one of them consciously chose to be gay. As they point out, why would someone choose to be something that got them verbally and physically abused? While society never had formal segregation of gays that's because they could do something that blacks can't. Hide who they are. Pretend they're straight in public and create their own hidden world where they could drop the pretense for a few hours. You're not very different from the bigots who use race to judge by. By telling yourself that gays choose their sexual orientation on purpose you justify considering them as lesser human beings than yourself and rationalize your bigotry. You know what you "know" about them and will never give the possibility of being in error a second thought.

SCMTim, you give some very poignant insights into your thoughts, that I think are well worthy of comment:

if we called you an idiot for supporting him, it's b/c we could not (and I still cannot) come up with a comprehensible reason for supporting Bush.

If this is literally true, then with all due respect, you need to pull out a pin and very slowly, very gingerly, prick the bubble that you apparently have been living in for some time. Find that proverbial "quiet woman," ask her her thoughts someplace non-threatening, and then listen. Don't talk back, don't argue, don't quote The Nation -- just shut up and listen. God knows she's done enough listening to you and your friends ripping on Chimpy McHalliburton for four years. As someone who lives in one of the bluest neighborhoods of a the bluest city of a solidly blue state, and has plenty of friends who voted for Nader in 2000, I know I have.

"Jason, with all due respect, that's bull. NY, NJ, and CT? Why should they have strong Republican turnout because of "gay marriage and abortion"? Or, rather, why should it be stronger than it was four years ago? Abortion was around four years ago. Gay marriage wasn't, but gay marriage can hardly be a factor in states (like these three) where there was no anti-gay-marriage initiative on the ballot."

Because there's evangelicals in those states, too, they'd didn't show up to vote last time, and it doesn't take a gay marriage amendment to get them out - it just helps.

Connecticut exit polls:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/CT/P/00/epolls.0.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.epolls.html

37/30/33 D/R/I electorate this time. Last time, 37/24/38 electorate. That's an huge turnout bump. War in Iraq: 46/52 against going into Iraq, with a near-mirror image party breakdown. Only difference is that 29% of Kerry voters somewhat approve, 21% of Bush voters somewhat disapprove. 55% of the worried by terrorism voters went for Kerry.

Income: 8 point drop for Kerry with 15-30k voters, 5 point drop with 30k-50k voters, 4 point drop with 50k-75k, and a 13(!) point drop with 75-100k. Surprisingly, Kerry's 100k+ share jumped - I shit you not - 12 points.

So where in there is the pro-Bush vote on terrorism, or the pro-Bush vote on economics? It looks like a cultural voting shift to me; I really wish they had gay marriage in that exit poll, or terrorism broken out by income.

"Jason that is 100% farm-grade manure you're shoveling. Full stop."

By all means, provide the polling data that shows I'm wrong then.

If the libertarians think Bush won on something other than social issues, you're in for a big surprise in the next 4 years.

To clarify: Kerry's vote share with the 100k+ people jumped 12 points in Connecticut.

The REPUDIATION has rolled through election day and continues to gain momentum.

Did you hear The President, his name is George W Bush in case you didn't know, at todays news conference. He stuck it in their eyes (the press yabos that is). What a bunch of weenies they and you are.

Tim, Begbee Jim S,etc -- you guys are just so 20th century. Time has passed you by and you still aren't even aware of it.

One more thing, Tim. You seem to be a well-spoken guy, not overprone to partisan bluster. Please leave the "idiot" comments to the Begbees. They are beneath you.

Over half the people in this country chose Bush. They are not all "idiots," just as the nearly-half of those who chose Kerry are not all "idiots." If you are for gay marriage, and if the results from the 11 states in question are representative, something like 2/3 of the country disagrees with you -- even a whole lot of Kerry voters. They are not all idiots, either. Frankly, it's incredibly arrogant, when finding yourself in a minority position, to come to the conclusion that everyone else must be dumber than you. Soothing for the ego, but arrogant.

I'm not saying you're wrong. But the question you should ask yourself is not "Why am I surrounded by idiots?", but rather "Given that most of these people are smart and capable -- and I know they are -- what made them reach a different conclusion?" If you ask yourself this question, honestly and forthrightly, every time you encounter a situation like the past election, I guarantee that you will be rewarded with many new insights, and a much better view of your fellow man.

Plus, actually understanding the other side's arguments makes it much easier to smack them down. :-)

Jason, you're theorizing with no data.

Connecticut did not have a gay marriage amendment proposed, or any other legislation in place related to gays. There was nothing to energize this alleged anti-gay vote that you claim.

Ohio had such an amendment, and the vote in its favor exceeded the Bush margin of victory by an order of magnitude. I gave the link to the data in a post above. Florida -- the other crucial battleground state -- did not have any gay marriage proposals on the ballot, either. Kerry's position on gay marriage was not substantially different from Bush's.

Back to Connecticut. Your proportions of R/D/I simply seem to indicate that a whole lot of people formerly claiming to be "Independents" are now "Republicans." I doubt any nonexistent "gay marriage" issue pushed them in that direction. People who vote "moral issues" are generally solid Republicans. Only 6% of respondents called themselves "conservative Protestants."

46% of Connecticut voters approve of how Bush is doing his job. The same proportion approve of the war in Iraq. The same proportion voted for him.

34% of respondents said their family's financial situation is better than 4 years ago. 71% of those voted for Bush. 38% said it's "the same", but only 40% of those voted Bush. But between them, Only 15% of those "worse off" voted for Bush. Am I to understand that being an Evangelical is financially lucrative in Connecticut? (Clearly not, as the high incomes are, as you said, pro-Kerry.)

Sorry, but I just don't see any evidence that "moral issues" were involved in the high percentage of Connecticut Bush voters. I find it more interesting that, for all the talk of this "bad economy," more people said their family was better off financially than they were four years ago, than said they were worse off. (This is reflected in the national nubmers as well: 32% better, 28% worse, 39% same.)

This election was about exactly what we thought it would be about: terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the economy. Public attitudes on those are more than adequate to explain Bush's numbers in Connecticut and nationwide, without having to resort to anti-Christian bigotry and rumors of sinister plots by those fag-hatin' Evangelicals.

Nough, because the partisan breakdown went from 37/30/33 to 37/24/28 doesn't necessarily mean a bunch of independents decided to become Republicans. It could just as easily mean - and probably does, because the registration data for party today is exactly the same as the 2000 election, nationwide - that a bunch of Republicans that stayed home last time showed up to vote this time.

Ah, here we go: http://www.sots.state.ct.us/ElectionsDivision/ElectResults/ElectionResults.html

On 10/2000, the breakdown was 700k/485k/850k D/R/I, which is 34.4/23.8/41.7%.
On 10/2003, the breakdown was 670k/450k/840k D/R/I, which is 34.2/23.0/42.9%.

The available evdience shows R's actually lost registrations to the independents from 2000 to 2003. It was all a turnout surge, based on the available data.

As to trying to extract implied moral values votes by looking at the economic and terrorism votes, I'm not a pollster, so I don't how know to do that.

But to take a stab at it:

1) In all the other states, the pollsters are saying what drove the huge GOP turnout gains was moral values.
2) How can people have gone for Bush on terrorism if Kerry's margin on those worried about terrorism - 54% of them - was exactly the same as his final vote total? Wouldn't you expect him to be below his final total, and he made up ground to get to his final total with the "not worried about terrorism" voters? The difference between the two is a whopping 5%, and "not worried about terrorism" voters were only 22% of the vote.

I wonder what the explanation of those rich voters goosing for Kerry was.

On the larger point of why voters went for Bush nationwide - Bill Bennett, Robert Novak, Larry Kudrow and all the pollsters I've seen think it was GOP voters that didn't show up last time getting out and voting this time on moral values. Maybe you should take it up with them.

E. Nough:

We may be speaking past each other here. I'm not arguing that, as an objective fact, Bush supporters are idiots (not here anyway). I'm stating, as an objective fact, that my "idiot" light flashes when I hear arguments in his favor. Now the rule flashing that light could be wrong; I've definitely been badly wrong before. But the specific light that goes off is wired in at such a low level that I can't get outside of the system to examine it. I just have to either trust it or trust someone else, and for whatever reason the people who support Bush don't end up overbalancing my natural inclinations plus the weight of those on my side. Again, that doesn't make me "right" in some objective sense. But for all intents, to me support for him is idiotic as an objective matter - b/c I can't figure out a way to get outside of that rule.

I tend to believe that rules that low are built out of a lifetime of experience. I depend upon the fact that others have had similar experience to ensure that my rules match up with those of society, and that I'm not some bizarre loner off killing puppies for fun. By and large, my encoded rules have worked out for me. Here, the mass of people on the other side appear to have very different low level rules. I don't know why, but I assume we had a very different lifetime of experiences. (NB: one of the reasons Jane drives me so nuts is that I can tell we've had very similar experiences, and she's arriving at very different conclusions; either she has badly misunderstood the rules or I have (FYI: it's her)). I'm sure things I say seem idiotic to Bush supporters in the same fashion. And the problem is that the rules being violated by the other side in both cases are at such a low level (what are the most important building blocks of the what we mean by "USA," etc.) that we effectively cannot communicate. It's like asking a question and getting some weird Chinese/English mixture back - you hear a few words you recognize, but that only makes you more frustrated by the process. I really don't think it's bad faith on either of our part, but I don't think it's presently solvable. Hence the strong appeal of federalism for me.

FYI-- Dallas county went for Kerry.

Uh, spider . . . you're wrong.

According to USAToday, Bush carried Dallas County, Texas, by nearly 10,000 votes (345,482 votes for Bush, 335,871 votes for Kerry) with all 720 precints reporting.

Jason:

There are many "moral values" unrelated to gay issues. Kerry appears to treat telling the truth as optional and to be indecisive, which implies a lack of inner principles. He literally seems willing to do or say anything to get elected. Many consider both lying and lack of guiding principles to be serious moral failings.

I believe these - and not anything relating to gay issues - were the moral failings which cost Kerry this election.

Ken,

"Clinton had to be dragged to fiscal conservatism - as I recall he let the government shut down rather than pass a budget with some modest spending restraints in 1995."

Interesting theory, but Clinton passed a major deficit reduction initiative in 1993, when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. At the beginning of his first term, he signed on to Robert Rubin's agenda that real deficit reduction was necessary to reduce long-term interest rates and grow the economy.

He stuck to that agenda pretty closely for most of his two terms, except in 1994 when he turned health care over to a task force of idiot liberals led by Hillary, and got his ass handed to him in the midterm ("Republican Revolution") elections.

You reps with your personal attacks, your blathering about mandates and 20th century thinking, sure use alot of big words constructing stupid arguments, while ignoring the big picture. Consider-

1- No war time President has ever lost an election in the US.

2- No previous President has brought in the evangelical vote like Bush, or will bring in the evangelical vote in the future, unless they hire Rove and are "born again".

3- No decorated war vet has ever been slandered to the extent the Swiftys slandered Kerry, and our Cheerleader in Chief never once defended the US Navys record.

4- The Senate seats the dems lost was because incumbant dem Senators showed no party loyality by choosing to retire without having a shoe in replacement. Incumbants win over 99% of the time in America, a greater re elect rate then the Duma.

You won this election because of bad dem strategy, not because you more represent American values. Get a clue, the most popular reps, Ahrnold and Rudy G, are antigun, proabortion, pro gay rights, pro drug legalization, etc..

I don't think it's so much that I can't come up with a reason to support Bush (though it's hard, and usually when I ask I get a litany of complaints about Kerry that don't really feel substantive to me); it's that there are problems with him that I feel are insurmountable.

Obviously, a majority of the country doesn't feel that way. And given that a lot of these problem areas are issues of personal rights, that's threatening.

"Interesting theory, but Clinton passed a major deficit reduction initiative in 1993, when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. "

Yeah, based on raising taxes. Republicans passed another deficit reduction plan in 1995 based on spending restraint, and Clinton went ballistic.

Sounds like Clinton's commitment to deficit reduction isn't as strong as some like to think.

To clarify a bit: I don't think all of those GOP voters turned out because they want to execute gays. They turned out because the gay marriage battle is just the latest salvo in their culture wars, and specifically, the Massachusets SC decision enraged the hell out of them.

http://www.thecobraslair.com/images/GOP-CHESS.gif

Junyo writes:

>>>With all due respect, kiss my ass. Blacks were oppressed for a genetic trait that if they could have hidden or removed the vast majority of them would've (as born witness to by the tradition of black who could "pass" abandoning their families to migrate into white society).

Who oppressed us, Junyo? WHITE SOCIETY. Do you HONESTLY believe that the vast majority of African Americans want to be white? Are you that much of a narcissist? If African Americans were treated as equals from the beginning, there would have been no need for "passing." It's akin to Jewish immigrants changing their last names to avoid anti-semitic persecution. Have you taken a poll? Who fills your head with this white supremacist nonsense? I understand that white supremacist websites like Stormfront, and Aryan Resistance are gaining popularity, but you take the cake brother.
To be honest, I as a black man prefer dealing with the Klan as opposed to clandestine white racists. The Klan at least has easily identifiable hats and uniforms, and are intellectually honest.
If you represent the new republican movement, is it any wonder 9 out of 10 blacks voted for Kerry this time around?

--Cobra

Ken,

Yes, Clinton raised taxes to reduce the deficit, like Bush the First. He also cut spending to reduce the deficit, also like Bush the First, even in his first, all-Democrat deficit plan. Unlike Bush the First, he actually campaigned on raising the taxes he raised, and the people who voted for him knew what they were getting.

Meanwhile, from today's Washington Post:

"President Bush's news conference yesterday did little to lessen concerns over the deficits, Wall Street analysts and currency traders said. Bush simultaneously promised not to raise taxes under the guise of tax simplification, to pursue a costly restructuring of Social Security and to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009.

"The currency markets aren't buying it, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution."

Of course, if you don't think Kerry would be any better, I can't honestly say I blame you.

By the way, whatever happened to that Balanced Budget Amendment the Republicans in Congress used to claim to be so keen on?

Jason, even if more Republicans simply showed up to the polls in Connecticut, I still fail to see what makes you so convinced it was over gay marriage -- as "enraging" issue or otherwise.

I know a lot of people are saying it's all about "moral values" in this election. I think they are wrong, or at least talking past each other. Left-wingers have interpreted "moral issues" to mean "John Ashcroft will force public school kids to recite the Book of Genesis every Sunday." Most Bush supporters seem to have used "moral values" to mean not having a President who stands for nothing and tells everyone what they want to hear.

Nor do I have any idea what boosted the number of over-$100k voters who picked Kerry. If I had to guess, I'd say wealthy New Yorkers moving into the suburbs. But that's just a guess, nothing more -- kind of like your assertions so far.

You've proven nothing at all, other than that more Republicans voted in Connecticut in 2004 than before. No news there: we've seen this trend across the country.

"I still fail to see what makes you so convinced it was over gay marriage -- as "enraging" issue or otherwise."

Because a) there's no polling data that shows it was on anything else, b) they didn't bother to poll them on it in the first place, which raises interesting possibilities, and c) it's what happened in every other state.

On the culture war in general: see Thomas Frank's book. He pretty much has an exact description that covers both the angry coastal suburban Bill O' Reilly types - the boost in GOP turnout we're talking about here - and the rural guys out in Ohio.

SCMTim,

I'm all for radically expanded federalism; however, it needs to be a real expansion, not a tactic. If you're willing to let everything that was decided at the state level in 1930 be decided at the state level, so am I.

I must add that I really don't trust many who today are arguing for federalism (I'm not putting you in thsi group); they only seem willing to accept federalism where the national position won't be the one they want.

Liberals spent a half-century building Leviathan--taking away all the institutional controls on the Federal government and the Federal judiciary. Southerners and Westerners fought and pled and argued for Federalism for the entire time, while Leviathan ate their liberties. Now the liberals have lost control of the Leviathan, and are afraid it is preparing to eat them as it ate those they opposed.

As a side benefit, somebody may actually succeed in getting Garafalo to STFU now... If we're REALLY REALLY lucky.

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