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

To: LindyBill who wrote (88687)	11/30/2004 1:19:52 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

The Democrats' Marketing Mistake How the Dems insulted the middle-America voters they were trying to court. by Trent Wisecup WEEKLY STANDARD THE NEW FAD in American politics in 2004 was data mining. The Republican and Democratic National Committees invested heavily in building large databases that used consumer marketing information to segment voters into groups for highly customized communications. Given the seriousness of the effort in both parties, it is hard to see how the Democrats ended up being so far off in the messages they delivered to the much ballyhooed NASCAR-dad voter. Clearly, the Democrats attempt to co-opt the marketing techniques of corporate America was undermined by their disdain of big business and the purchasing habits of average Americans. Next to President Bush, few things anger liberals more than Wal-Mart and Detroit's Big Three automakers. The liberal intelligentsia views Wal-Mart as the most frightening force in corporate America because it maintains a non-union workforce. The Big Three are scorned because they make trucks and SUVs that consume copious amounts of gasoline. Liberals believe America would be a much better country if more of us drove Toyota Priuses to Whole Foods each week instead of hopping into Ford F-150s to get our groceries at Wal-Mart. The problem for the left is that the majority of middle class America disagrees. Wal-Mart is the world's largest corporation for a reason. One hundred million Americans shop at its stores to benefit from its everyday low prices. A working family can save more than $500 a year at Wal-Mart on groceries alone. This is latte money for liberals, but it makes a real difference to middle-class families who have to stretch each paycheck to make ends meet. Americans also like to drive big trucks and SUVs. The top three selling vehicles in the United States through October 2004 were the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado, and the Dodge Ram--all pick-up trucks. Despite the best efforts of Tim Robbins, the Prius is a mere blip on the automotive radar screen. There is a reason Democrats are finding it difficult to win anywhere outside of the east and west coasts. The party is scornful of the cultural tastes of the people who live in "fly-over country," the region of the country also known as "Red State Majority America." While it must boggle the imagination of well-heeled liberals in Hollywood and on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that people would actually drive a truck that gets fewer than 20 miles per gallon or that they would shop at a store that refuses to allow unions to drive up its labor costs, every time the Democratic party attacks Wal-Mart or one of the Big Three car companies, it is essentially telling a sizeable chunk of the American electorate that it should feel guilty about making wrong choices. John Kerry could don camouflage, tote a shotgun, and preen for the cameras in a made for Hollywood hunting trip in Ohio. But his effort to look like an ordinary guy came across as contrived because it was. By embracing the anti-corporate rhetoric of liberals who bemoan the Wal-Martization of America and the evils of auto manufacturing, Kerry had already shot himself in the foot. It doesn't take an MBA in marketing to figure out that attacking NASCAR-dad's favorite store and the truck he drives to work every day is not best way to convince him that you share his values. The entertainment, environmental, and academic elites who form the backbone of the modern liberal coalition are driving the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy off the cliff, Thelma and Louise style. Here's to giving Susan Sarandon a starring role in Michael Moore's next movie. Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

To: LindyBill who wrote (88687)	11/30/2004 2:51:28 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

Gertz said on Fox tonight another lab was found today: ~~~Iraqi bomb labs signal attacks in the works washingtontimes.com By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Chemicals and bomb-making literature found at two houses in Fallujah, Iraq, last week show Iraqi rebels are prepared to use chemical and biological weapons in future attacks, a U.S. military spokesman said yesterday. Rebels in Fallujah had materials for making chemical blood agents and also a "cookbook" on how to produce a deadly form of anthrax, said Army Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan in a telephone interview. Col. Boylan said there are no signs to date that the terrorists actually used chemical or biological weapons in homemade bombs that the military calls improvised explosive devices (IEDs). "But this definitely shows that they had the intent and willingness to go down that road," he said. "The intent is there to at least make it and potentially to use it." A U.S. military team trained to handle chemical weapons removed the materials and equipment, and testing is under way, Col. Boylan said. The two houses in Fallujah were used by terrorists linked to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al Qaeda-linked leader who is behind many of the suicide bombings and attacks against Iraqi civilians and U.S. military personnel, Col. Boylan said. Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military uncovered one chemical and bomb-making factory Wednesday, Col. Boylan said. A day later, a second residence was found with bomb-making and chemical-weapons material in another part of the city, he said. The chemical lab was found during house-to-house searches of the city, where some 2,000 terrorists and former fighters for Saddam Hussein's regime were killed in recent battles. "The chemical labs had cookbooks that had formulas for making explosives," Col. Boylan said. "One of them had directions on how to make anthrax. One of them had ingredients and directions on how to make blood agent." Chemicals for the blood agent hydrogen cyanide that were found included potassium cyanide and hydrochloric acid, he said. Hydrogen cyanide, which affects the blood, is extremely poisonous and can be used as a weapon in both vapor and liquid form. In addition to chemical-weapons materials, the troops uncovered other bomb-making materials in the residence, including ammonium nitrate and military explosives that are used in making roadside and vehicle bombs, he said. It is believed the Fallujah rebels had planned to lace their improvised bombs with hydrogen cyanide, he said. Soldiers also found testing kits labeled "Soman, Sarin and V-Gases," which are used to test for the presence of chemical nerve agents. The kits contained vials labeled in English, Russian and German that read, "For working instructions, refer to the instructions leaflet." Col. Boylan noted that the chemical weapons are "indiscriminate" terror weapons that were to be used against Iraqi civilians as well as against U.S., Iraqi and allied troops. He said Fallujah has been neutralized as a center for terrorist bombing operations by the U.S. military's ongoing operation there. "We're finding tons of weapons — caches with hundreds of weapons, ammunition, IEDs and factories," he said. "These locations were being used to do nothing but fabricate IEDs and other weapons." He noted that Fallujah is considered the single largest place for weapons and explosives used by rebels in Iraq. "We're still going house to house" in Fallujah, he said. Troops are fighting to clear buildings of insurgents, but "we still have pockets [of resistance] and sporadic fighting as they find holdouts, and that's to be expected," Col. Boylan said. "It's not an easy process. It's a slow, methodical process that once completed will have cleared the city" of insurgents, he said. Iraqi Minister of State Kassim Daoud said last week that the chemical laboratory "was used to prepare deadly explosives and poisons."