Heating Up (Semi-Barf alert)

[Tacos]

Half barf and half warning about complacency...

...

Heating Up John LeBoutillier Monday, Sept. 27, 2004

The 2004 presidential race is finally entering the key stage which will determine not only our next president, but also the direction of the country in the next four years.

Elections are two-way propositions: yes, the people learn about the candidates, but the candidates, too, learn from the voters what they want and what they do not want. Only this way can the president who takes the oath next January 20th lead the country effectively. He must get guidance and direction from the people - and so, too, must the Congress.

This past week the campaign took an important turn: we stopped talking about the past - Vietnam, Swift Boats, National Guard records - and began the most important debate of the decade: how will we proceed in both Iraq and the War on Terror - which ought to be called the War on America by Radical Islamic Fundamentalists? This debate is long overdue because either George Bush or John Kerry is going to be running our foreign policy next year - and they need clarification from the American people over what our real goals are. There have been so many shifting rationales for the Iraqi invasion - and so many lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations on both sides that it is time the nation focused on Iraq and made some crucial decisions.

Thursday’s debate will, indeed, serve to help the American people learn more about these two men, their views - and all the awful things they have heard about them from 30-second commercials.

This debate begins a national debate over the war on Iraq and the efforts against al Qaeda.

Bring it on!

Ground Game:

Here is some campaign news you haven’t heard much of on TV or in the papers: the Democrats - fueled by a white-hot hatred for George Bush and worry over the direction of the country and paid for by billionaire George Soros - have quietly gone out and registered new voters in the key battleground states at an astounding rate. According to the New York Times, in Florida and Ohio, Democrat groups have registered up to 250 percent more new voters in 2004 than they did in 2000; conversely, the GOP has registered new voters at a much more modest rate.

What does this all mean?

Well, it might very well turn out to be the key in a close race. The Democrats clearly intend to vote each and every one of these new voters. So, in a close race, just that increased turnout - as opposed to a more static Bush/GOP vote - could make the difference.

No wonder that Bush daily harangues Karl Rove and his senior campaign staff with the same question, “How are we doing on get-out-the vote operations for Election Day?”

Every weekend the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee are busing volunteers into battleground states to do walk-throughs, more voter registration and door-to-door canvassing.

A recent participant reported that many of these volunteers are ‘first-time’ political workers who have joined up due to an intense dislike of Bush and a fear for the direction of the nation. (The mirror opposite of this would be if Hillary were the Democratic nominee for President; anti-Hillary political ‘novices’ would come out of the woodwork to stop her from getting elected.)

So far this anti-Bush passion is not matched on the GOP side. There is a lethargy among the grassroots about this race; perhaps many conservatives read the polls and believe Bush “can’t lose.”

The risk is that, if the polls get close at the end, that Ground Game turn-out by the Democrats could turn enough ‘on-the-fence’ states into Kerry states - and he could score a narrow win.

This Ground Game operation is old fashioned politics at its best. It may be the ultimate key to this race.

[GLDNGUN]

I see this poor idiot is openly rooting for Kerry to beat Bush. No surprise. He has been a Bush hater for decades.

[Tacos]

No doubt...there is value in warning about complacency, but it's mostly barf material.