Mickey

I am sure that there will be a ton of advice from all the experts on what the Democratic party needs to do to improve their political fortunes. Such debates make me want to scream as they are so often initiated by those who, if they had their "druthers", would prefer a one party state achieved through the elimenation of the democratic party. I do think a change is in the offing but it isn't the one I think most would recommend. First off, tuesday's result were not that bad. A 3% loss only loos bad in comparison to 2000, the closest election in history. Kerry only lost New Mexico by around 10,000 and Nevada by 21,000 or so. Ohio was obviously close, only about 135,000. Iowa is still in the air but so far Bush's lead is only around 13,000. Those numbers are close enough that they could easily have been the other way around without OBL doing Bush a favor with that tape or without passions being inflamed over gay baiting. Those who claim the democrats have to make fundamental change because they can't capture a southern state are silent about the republicans needing a fundamental change to enable it to carry a northeastern state. It wasn't the failure to take a southern state that lost the election, it was the failure to take Ohio. If Kerry had taken Ohio, we would be talking about the fundamental flaws in the republican party that shut it out of not only the northeast but the lion's share of the Great Lakes states as well. Even so, I think democrats need to face the reality of the situation which is that poor and lower middle class white voters whose economic circumstances are best enhanced by voting for democrats instead vote for republicans because of social issues. Some guy scraping by in a menial job in Alabama is not going to ever vote for a democrat no matter what happens to his economic situation. He is going to church 3 nights a week and he is going to vote for republicans because of their positions on abortion, gay baiting and religion. No matter how many jobs he loses, no matter how much his income erodes and no matter how much his economic opportunities shrink, he is more worried about gay marriage. There is no way on earth for the democrats to ever get through to that kind of voter. That voter is going to find a way excuse the republicans on the economic problems in his life. He can always conclude that if it were not for affirmative action, he would have a better job. Or he can conclude that he has no job because taxes are too high. He might also believe that he is out of a job because of excess regulation. There will always be some rationale that can be used to excuse republicans for economic misery. There is too much of a disconnect between policy and economics to tie a given policy to bad economic times. This voter can't be reached by the democrats. Though his economic situation might dictate that he vote democratic, he doesn't because of social issues. The democratic party is carrying his economic water and getting nothing in return. It is high time the party abandoned this voter to the consequences of their own choices. Whether it is student loans, farm loans, affordable health care, increasing the minimum wage or an extension of unemployment benefits, it doesn't matter. Democrats get whacked in the nose with their support for these things over and over and yet the voters who most benefit vote for the other party because of gay marriage, etc. The party needs to stop catering to these constituencies, it doesn't work. I say we dump them and let them go to the republican party to complain when their plant closes and their unemployment runs out. There are voters that currently vote republican that could easily be presuaded to vote for democrats. There are plenty of social moderates who have no use for gay baiting or religious fundamentalism. These people by and large detest the radical agenda of the right when it comes to gay marriag or abortion. Even so, they vote republican based on tax policy and the effect taxes have on their bottom line. They simply do not care enough about social issues to vote based on those issues. Instead, they vote their pocketbook. The opposition to "tax cuts for the wealthy" by the democrats has got to come to an end. They should do a 180 on this and start proposing on their own massive tax relief to the upper classes. Any such proposals by the republicans should be met with a counter proposal that increases the tax cut. Leave no doubt that the democratic party is for cutting taxes even more that the republican party is. They can't very well fight that after supporting huge tax cuts forever and ever in the past. If it drives up the deficit, who cares? Democrats have made this argument before and it never catches on. People will reach whatever conclusion they need to that justifies reducing their tax burden. The democrats should one-up the republicans at every turn on tax cuts. If they can do that, then moderate republicans and democrats who vote on the issue of taxes more than anything other issue, might be persuaded to vote for the democrats especially since they would no longer have to hide or ignore their opposition to their own party's actions with regard to social issues. They could get the tax relief they want without having to buy in to the gay baiting thing. They are for stem cell research freedom, they are mostly pro-choice, they are environmentally sensitive, they have no problem with civil unions for gays and they are uncomfortable with religious extremism. The problem is, none of those issues are more important to them than taxes. Democrats could get these voters by out cutting the republicans. The repulicans can no longer continue to blame Bill Clinton and "liberals" for everything. They run the show even more so than before the election. The imaginary liberal bogeyman they have jousted for so long is dead. They now acutally have to act like they are in charge by being responsible which sometimes means telling a key constituency that they can't have their candy because it would give the budget a huge cavity. If they propose a tax cut of 5%, the democrats should double it. If they propose a cut of 10%, the democrats should double even that. If it creates a huge deficit, so what? Apparently no one cares about the deficit anymore so why should we? This new philosophy on tax cuts will be very popular in the west in states like Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. It will also play well in states where there are significant numbers of moderate republicans like New Jersey, Virgina and even North Carolina. Democrats have to face the fact that socially conservative middle class voters are not going to vote for them no matter what policies they formulate. They already agree with us on those policies but aren't going to vote for us anyway because of social issues. There is no way the democrats are ever going to out play the republicans on social issues. No matter how right they might move, the republicans will move another step further even more to the right. I say we give up these voters. If they don't care that they don't have health care or a wage that allows them to live comfortably and want to vote based on gay marriage, fine, let them go. We can replace them with new, socially moderate, fiscally conservative voters who only stay away now because they are afraid we are going to raise their taxes. We need to show them the opposite is true and then go after their votes.

\ The problem ICE is that white middle class voters hard hit economically vote Republican because of social issues. Gay baiting, abortion and prayer in schools is more important to them than having a job. I have seen that over and over right here on the board. Peolpe who have lost their jobs, even ones who have lost more than one job during the Bush years, still support him. They don't blame him for the job situation and love him for his anti-gay, anti-abortion anti-separation between church and state positions. They also have a pretty wide martial streak so the flight suit, tough guy thing sells pretty well with them as well. They vote on "moral issues" not based on their economic issues and as such, really can't be reached by the democratic party. On the other end, wealthy and not so wealthy moderate republicans vote their pocket book, not social issues. I know a guy who makes well over 200k/yr for a living. Socially, his views read like a resume for the democratic party. He has no problem with gay marriage, no problem with abortion being safe, legal and rare and he also strongly dislikes mixing religion and politics. Despite these view points, he votes his pocket book because in his bracket, taxes will certainly go up if Kerry were elected. On the one hand, social moderates vote their wallets so democrats can't get their votes and white, economically marginal voters do not vote their wallets but instead vote on social issues so the democrats have a hard time getting their votes as well.

I want to congratulate the President and his supporters here on the PPP for his win last night and offer my best wishes to him during his second term.

If what you are saying is that I refused to conclude willy nilly that thousands of people I do not know must be "terminally stupid" because they disagreed with my political views as you apparently have done, that is true, I did refuse to reach such a conclusion. I also pointed out, if I recall correctly, that the right to vote does not depend on IQ or the ability to manipulate a tiny pin. I did argue that people with arthritis, missing fingers, poor eye sight and other physical disabilities should not have to worry that those disabilies would be the basis for them losing their right to vote. I was not standing up for the "terminally stupid" anymore than you are attacking arthritic amputees.

How would you explain the lack of "poll watchers" in republican precincts, ie, the suburbs? The notion that republicans do better when turnout is low is not exactly a new one hence, the republican party has an interest in suppressing voter turnout in traditionally democratic locations. Republicans have sent "poll watchers" to such precincts ostensibly to prevent voter fraud but for some reason they are not worried about voter fraud in traditionally republican precincts since they aren't dispatching poll watchers to those areas. The democrats have not responded by shipping poll watchers to the suburbs to suppress turnout under the guise of preventing voter fraud but have instead sent their poll watchers to follow the republican poll watchers. It would be silly of them to do otherwise as they have far more to gain by preventing voter suppression in democratic districts by republicans than to try and do the samething themselves in republican districts. Any one with a calculator can figure that out. The first "voter fraud" story of the day on the board turns out to be an example of just what I allege here. Republican poll watchers dispatched to Philly precincts that are democratic strongholds peddling a bs allegation about vote planting in the voter machines. It turns out to be that those poll watchers were either idiots or made a false allegation on purpose. Neither conclusion reflects well on the claim that they are innocently trying to prevent voter fraud rather than to not so innocently suppress turnout in a democratic precinct. I don't mean to say that there are no democrats that would be willing to play dirty pool. When it comes to voter suppression however, they simply have too little to gain trying to accomplish such a thing in republican areas.

That makes them "enfranchisers". The democratic poll watchers are not going to suburbs to "prevent voter fraud". They are going to districts where the republican disenfranchisers are trying to keep as many democrats from voting as possible by any means they can think of. Does it not concern you that these idiots read the wrong counter (I doubt that was an "honest mistake") resulting in the story that ran nationally, even attracting lots of attention here and also causing those machines to be taken out of service while the allegation, crap though it was, was investigated? Either those republican "poll watchers" are morons completely unsuited to be involved with the voting process or they did this on purpose to depress the vote in the city of Philadelphia. Either conclusion, that they are evil or simply stupid, is a real problem.

Would you believe the District Attorney and the Deputy Cuty Commissioner or are they also in on the plot? Here is a story from the local on-line paper in Philly: Officials respond to election complaints Associated Press PHILADELPHIA - An army of zealous, partisan political operatives descended on polling locations around the state Tuesday, looking for any signs of voting irregularities, and election officials planned to spend the day investigating fraud allegations. Republican observers in Philadelphia lodged some of the earliest complaints, claiming that voting machines in the city already had thousands of votes recorded on them when the polls opened at 7 a.m. City election officials and the district attorney rushed to some of the precincts in question, and quickly said the GOP poll watchers had gotten it wrong. Deputy City Commissioner Ed Schulgen and Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham, said the observers had pulled the numbers from an odometer that records every vote ever cast on the machine in every election - and not the counter that records how many votes will be counted for this election. "It's absolutely ridiculous," Schulgen said. Ridiculous or not, rumors of widespread fraud quickly made their way on to the Internet and circulated nationally. The city plans to have four judges on call all day just to field election-related legal challenges. In Mercer County, some voters were apparently having problems with new electronic voting machines that the rural county in western Pennsylvania started using about two years ago, said Commissioner Olivia M. Lazor. Voters using the new voting machines, made by UniLect, apparently were voiding their votes by accident while trying to review them, and having to redo their ballots. The delays caused longer lines than normal. "We have a lot of brand new voters, first time voters and unfamiliarity with the machines," Lazor said. She said officials were giving the voters the option of using analog paper ballots, where people vote by checking boxes. Drudge and the republican poll watchers, aka "disenfranchisers", are wrong and though they are not getting away with it this time anyway, they did manage to dust up 30 or so posts on the subject here.

Meaining that there were no votes on the machines before they arrived at the polling places. In other words, the basic facts reported by Drudge are not true. No need to explain something that didn't happen.

I wish "reporters" like Drudge had to run headlines on their web sites when they were wrong informing their viewers that they screwed up, again. Maybe we would have fewer people posting his every crap story here within seconds of it appearing.

What proof do you have that this was an attempt at fraud? How many machines were involved out of the total number of machines in use statewide in this election? Were the votes on those machines all for one candidate? How long would it take to register 700 votes on one of those machines? When are machines usually reset after an election? Lots of good questions and until they are answered, I don't think a belief one way or the other is justified at all.

I keep forgetting, nothing is GW's fault, nothing at all. From reading the posts here on the right over the last few years, I can only conclude that GW has had the first "perfect presidency" in history, not a single mistake has he made and any bad thing that happened on his watch was not his fault. Comparing the price of gas now with times in the past where it was actually worse doesn't mean that prices aren't bad now, it just means that they are not the highest prices ever. That is hardly cause for praise. By the same token, I could compare the death rate for US soldiers in Iraq with the worst day of WW II and proclaim, "by comparison" that the Iraq war is an unblemished success.

Even if that were so, it doesn't really mean a thing does it? What is more likely, that someone snuck into the machine storage area and one by one entered 700 votes on a machine (wouldn't that take hours to do?) and then snuck away or that someone forgot to reset the machine after the last time it was used? Unless you can show that the votes on those machines are all for one candidate or the other, it would be pretty hard to argue that it is an attempt at fraud rather than simply some sort of goof up.

I know the common "wisdom" on the right is that democratic administrations are bad for business and republican ones are good for business (to reach that conclusion you just have to ignore the depression) but for some reason, the oil markets think differently: Speculators bet on Kerry win, Oil falls The oil markets seem to see a Kerry win as resulting in lower oil prices. Now that would be a good thing for the economy, at least for businesses besides Exxon and such. Let me make it easier to respond to this story for the right. If you think "Economic forces are outside of a President's control, type "A". If you believe that the story is just another example of the left wing media preferring Kerry, type "B". If you think that higher gas prices are good for the economy because they create jobs in the Phillipines, type "C". If you are afraid that lower gas prices will lead to larger government, type "D". If you think that oil prices should be set by God, not man, type "E". If you plan to denounce this story as a hoax right after you call your broker to dump your oil stock, type "F". If you think that terrorists are in favor of lower gas prices, type "G".

I read the Republican Party platform and though they clearly are in favor of the flu, I think they are against death although they are not willing to fund any anti-death efforts. You know, unfunded mandates and all.

No way. I am not one of those lawyers who will represent someone who is obviously guilty as long as the price is right. Seriously, I don't know what the goal of Moore is on this but there is a big difference between a documentary film maker filiming voters standing in line to vote than say a local employer filming them. I would guess that Moore is hoping to catch one of those volunteer poll watchers the Republicans have recruited wrongfully denying or otherwise interfering with someone's right to vote. At the same time, those watchers aren't there for their health. I don't see much difference in the poll watchers wanting to watch to see if things are fair and above board and Moore watching the watchers to see if things are fair and above board. Who would Moore be intimidating? How does filming someone standing in line intimidate them? What Moore is likely looking for is poll watchers from the right engaging in any shenanigans. Voters have a right to vote. I don't know of any constitutionally protected right to poll watch. Poll watching is a dangerous road to go down for both parties. One could bring a polling station to a screeching halt simply by challenging each and every voter's registration, address, etc. Even though the challenges would not work, the slow down in defeating each challenge would prevent people from voting or lead to them going home rather than waiting in line.

Having essentially billed Kerry as the anti-chirst, the right can't side with him on anything should he be elected. How do you go to your constituents and tell them that despite Kerry being the son of the devil, you are voting with him on Bill 343214123413? If Kerry comes out in favor of sunshine, they will have to oppose him. The Republicans, because of their control of the House and Senate, actually have a choice on that while Democrats, in the event of a Bush victory, do not. They will have to find some way to compromise with him because they will have no choice.

No way. If "W" was trying to make it rain I am sure we would be awash in sunshine. I see no reason to think that he reads weather reports any more accurately than he does intelligence reports.

If Bush were to win, he would have an easier time in Congress and with the public in getting support for whatever policy initiatives he might have if he can claim to have won the popular vote. It is pretty hard to claim a voter authorized "mandate" if the other guy got more votes. Your vote does matter, it just doesn't matter as much. It might be time to scrap the electoral college but it hasn't happened yet so that is the best I can come up with apart from appeals to patriotism, sentiment and pride and I won't insult you by bringing those up as I am sure you know them well enough without any help from me. I know you are looking for something more on the pragmatic level.

Dirty trick calls to mislead voters are being made in Michigan. The main allegation is against the Republicans but there is a report or two of incidents the other way. When is someone going to go to jail over this stuff?

There will be no impeachment hearings, the Republican control of the House prevents that. I do agree though that we will remain divided pretty sharply for quite sometime. Sadly, the one thing that might unite us is another terrorist attack. That is why we were all pulling for "W" after 9/11 even if only for a short time, not because of any special ability to unify people on the part of the President. I don't mean that as an insult. The same could be said about FDR and December 7th. I don't know that he rallied the country behind him more than the country rallied itself against our enemies. On the other hand, I think the possibility that we are not nearly as divided as we seem is worth considering. Maybe the reason things are so close is because our positions on the issues as a people are pretty close. If politicians have to reach out in the distance for an extraneous issue like gay marriage to diffentiate themselves from eachother, maybe our views are closer than those who make a living on division and controversey would ever want us to know.

Actually, "him" is a "her". And if you recall the entire line it is "eenie, meenie, minie, moe." There is a "meenie" but as everyone knows, he retired from politics at the ripe old age of 87 at which time he was widely praised for his decades of service. His reputation for being indecisive and casting arbitrary votes was politely not mentioned. Typical Republican, always cutting and pasting to make a point rather than reading the whole thing. Good luck tommorow OG.

For what it's worth, I recommend that you vote for Eenie and Minie but in light of "Tiger by the toe-gate", I can't see how you could possibly vote for Moe.

Most polls, apart from internet polls, are taken via phones but do not include people who do not have land lines and instead have only a cell phone. Cell phone users are left out of all this infernal polling. At least they were until now: "As I have discussed repeatedly, normally people with a cell phone but no landline are not polled. Most of these are in the 18-29 year old group. Up until now, no one has known how their absence from the polling data might affect the results. Zogby has now conducted a very large (N = 6039) poll exclusively on cell phones using SMS messaging to get a feeling of how they will vote. The results are that they go strongly for Kerry, 55% to 40%, with a margin of error of only 1.2%. If they all vote tomorrow, the pollsters are going to spend the rest of the week wiping egg from their faces. But historically, younger voters have a miserable turnout record, so the pollsters need not yet stock up on paper towels." Electoral College thingy If these voters actually show up at the polls and have the predicted effect, future politicians will have to pay a lot more attention to this demographic. That is not necessarily bad news for the country or either party. I think this group may very will pull the lefties back to the right a bit and the righties back to the left a bit. Most of the sources I have read puts this group more in the middle than one might have initially thought. For example, they have no use for the anti-gay stuff that is the bread butter of the far right but at the same time, they are more anti-tax than most groups. They are strong on the environment and defense issues. They also have no fierce party loyalties which makes them hard to predict. That factor also means that you can't take them for granted. All big "ifs" I know but I had to get one more bit of speculation in before the board turns crazy with one side gloating and the other sobbing. Good luck everyone and remember, no matter who wins, neither paradise nor apocalypse will result.

You know better than the commission. Why should I get the facts from a bipartisan group who took an oath and investigated all the evidence for months and months when I can get them from an anonymous poster on the internet? Clinton was speaking off the cuff about events that occurred 6 or 7 years beforehand without a chance to review any thing written besides stories then being written about Erwa's claims. Of course, I suppose the CIA officer involved who actually interviewed Erwa could be lying. I suppose the bipartisan commission could be on the take. Give it up.