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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (83569)	11/3/2004 12:31:24 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794468

A "laugher" - INDC journal My favorite? The Philadelphia Enquirer: "Candidate George W. Bush pledged four years ago to govern as 'a uniter, not a divider,' but it was clear Tuesday, as voters cast ballots, that the nation he has governed since 2001 still remains divided. "Nevertheless, President Bush appeared to have a slim advantage over John Kerry early Wednesday morning. Bush, if ultimately victorious, will not have garnered overwhelming popular support, but his survival, in the midst of so much acrimony, would be widely viewed as a testament to his competitive drive and political skills. . . . "The strategy, which was designed to break the 50-50 deadlock and bring him a solid majority of the electorate, required: a quick and relatively bloodless war in Iraq (thereby burnishing his commander-in-chief credentials), a booming economy with major job growth (sparked by his big tax cuts), a major victory on health care (thereby stealing a Democratic issue), and an internally divided Democratic party. "Yet he was close to a narrow victory Tuesday night with virtually no help on any of those fronts. He was the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of private-sector jobs, and he had to defend a war that was based on rationales that were subsequently undercut by U.S. weapons inspectors and the Sept. 11 commission. . . . In short, the 2004 electorate was, once again, a portrait of polarization." Don't you see? An incredibly risky war in Iraq was a political calculation; the electoral victory was a "testament" to Bush's "political skills," not an informed choice by the people; Bush stole "a Democratic issue" (whose final form was rather unpopular, but nevermind) to get elected. Sprinkle in some DNC talking points, mix to taste and one smells gobs of delusional disbelief. The Washington Post actually gets it, however: "Four years later, it is still a divided country -- perhaps more sullenly than ever - but as a long election night bled into morning the evidence was clear that it is becoming a more Republican one. ... Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq war, Bush strategists have also calculated that there is not so much difference between base voters and centrist "swing" voters -- both, they maintained, are concerned above all with national security and lower taxes. The strategy defied the wisdom of many Democrats since Bill Clinton, which held that swing voters were a distinct political entity and would not respond to a president as partisan as Bush." Until the Democrats get serious about this country's defense and purge the Michael Moore wing of their party, they will lose elections. Period.