Excellent post!! I'm glad to know there are some out there that can relate. You're hitting something on military/foreign policy, social/moral issues, and economic policy. The South is trending Republican because of the military/foreign policies and social/moral issues. And you can add general Republican skepicism of big government, even if all Republican policies don't seem as if they are skepitics of big government. However, the South is not entirely in lock step with the Republicans concerning economic issues. Luckily for the GOP, military/foreign policy and social/moral issues have more or less became the dominate issues in the past several elections and have been used as excellent motivators in the GOTV efforts. And luckily, military/foreign policy and especially social issues were more important to Ohio voters than economic issues; otherwise I believe we would have a President Kerry right now.
Exactly. I know there are two main things that saved the Republican's bacon were the Swift Boat Vets and the homosexual marriage issue, not the economic policies although Senator Kerry was a bit of a "metrosexual" too. I'll be truthful, my reasons for voting for President Bush were on the military, pro-gun and social issues, the homosexual marriage thing and its related issues really fired me up, if it wasn't for that, I'd be more "ho-hum." I'll be truthful, the income tax, and federal spending, I really don't care much about, as long as I and my neighbors are working, have a roof over our heads, food in our tummies and something to show for it (and me tinkering with old electronics stuff), it doesn't matter much to me. I'm a realist here, politicians take our money for whatever reasons they have, always have, always will although I'd like to see better efficiency in the use of that money as well as eliminate programs that are duplicates of each other, that would be a good start and I'd be happy with just that if need be. I do care about some taxes although mainly on the local, county and state level. Where I do care about the economy is our ablity to make things and live self sufficently as possible because there will be a time that we will have to as well as keepimg our national sovereignty. National sovereignty is a key with me and again, economics takes a back seat to that in my mind. I did like what H. Ross Perot's running mate, Admiral Stockdale, said basically where both sides of the issue that we have seen are wrong, neither "trickle down" nor "tax and spend" work yet the proponets of both sides fail to see that. The Republicans do need to get their act together on issues like "borders, language and culture" as well as quit wizzing our jobs, money, technology and sovereignty away, otherwise not even homosexual marriage will save them. Otherwise our only exports to the world will by hip-hop records and porn films. B-P I guess that makes me an "average grunt," or as I like to put it, an average, working class, "Pittsburgh Hunky" in the grand scheme of things, not some high falutin' Wall Street economist or some liberal social elite.
One last thought, when Walter Williams was in for Rush, the economic and CAFTA discussion are so boring, I say, time to shove in some "Quiet Riot." B-) I'd like to make a few Art Bell/Ian Punnett/George Noory tapes for that purpose too. B-) I think I'll get the econo-bots jumping ugly on me now. B-D I do get into the paranormal, I take after my paternal grandmother (her parents came from Russia, Russians tend to be very mystical) on these things. B-)