Only this guy can beat him...
Mr. Unnamed Democrat!
Posted on 11/07/2003 7:12:14 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Nov. 6 (UPI) -- "I hope to have God on my side. But I must have Kentucky," Abraham Lincoln said at the start of the Civil War. President George W. Bush now believes he has both. The Republican Party's decisive gubernatorial election victories in Mississippi and Kentucky Tuesday underlined the uphill struggle facing the pack of Democratic presidential hopefuls led by former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont and retired Gen. Wesley Clark. The president's support is looking dangerously soft in the polls. A Zogby America poll published this week gave his approval rating of "excellent" or "good" at only 48 percent of respondents, with 52 percent of those polled considering his performance "poor" or only "fair." Some 48 percent of respondents said the war in Iraq was not worth the lives it has already cost, with only 42 percent of those polled saying it was. By this reckoning, there should be angst and fear in the White House. But by all accounts, the president and his political master-strategist Karl Rove sleep well at night and their party goes on snapping up one delicious glittering prize after another. First there was Arnold Schwarzenegger's landslide victory in the California gubernatorial recall election last month. Giant California, with its 54 electoral votes, fully one-fifth of those needed to elect, or re-elect, a president, had been a Democratic stronghold through three straight presidential elections. And conventional wisdom held that Bush did not have a prayer of winning it in 2004. But Schwarzenegger's charismatic appeal, moderate policies and exceptionally shrewd political strategy brought the state under GOP control and with the help of federal pork-barrels which had been systematically withheld from his Democratic predecessor, the hapless Gray Davis, the real possibility now exists that Arnold's coattails will carry California for the president next year. Now comes Kentucky, and if ever there were a true-believing Democratic stronghold, that heartland state of tough old mine workers should be it. Also, Kentucky is now a crucial swing state for the Democrats. In November 2000, it was one the four "sure-thing" heartland states -- the others were neighboring West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee -- that should have gone for the Democrats, but didn't. Even with the loss of chad-confused Florida, any one of those four would have pushed Democratic standard-bearer Al Gore over the top. And with Florida still looking more likely than ever to come down decisively in the GOP camp next time after Gov. Jeb Bush's landslide re-election triumph last year, they all now become "must-win" states if the Dems want to have any hope of evicting Bush from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. a year from now. The loss of Kentucky three years ago was supposed to be only a temporary aberration. Gore, after all, was supposed to be a particularly tree-hugging Democrat and therefore exceptionally anathema to the United Mine Workers union and all who followed their lead. But the particularly uncharismatic Gore -- a candidate so ill-starred that while rolling up the greatest vote in Democratic national history he still could not even win his own home state of Tennessee -- was not running this time. Nor could his presence be blamed for dragging down Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Chandler. Yet down Chandler went. It was, in fact, the first time in 36 years that the GOP -- and it is now, thanks to the "Southern strategy" of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, a very different GOP from what it was then -- has won a gubernatorial election in Kentucky. The Vietnam War was still waging and Lyndon Johnson was still in the White House the last time that happened. The fall of Kentucky into Republican hands is not a political revolution in the American heartland. On the contrary, it signals precisely the opposite: a political upheaval has not yet happened. The GOP victory there, as in Haley Barbour's deposing of Mississippi incumbent Gov. Ronnie Musgrove that same night, was part of the slow, onward process, as slow but steady as the progress of a spilled jar of molasses across the tablecloth, that the GOP is moving to consolidate its now 35-year-old Southern strategy of appealing to the social and religious cultural conservatism of white Southern voters. And despite Iraq, despite the ballooning annual federal government budget deficit and extraordinarily enormous annual balance-of-trade deficit, that process continues to gain aground and bring results. That was especially the case in the Kentucky campaign where Rep. Ernie Fletcher, a three-term GOP member of the U.S. House of Representatives, made his enthusiastic support for the Bush administration' economic policies a cornerstone of his campaign. He won in a romp by 55 percent to 48 percent. Kentucky, like the bell that tolls for thee in John Donne's classic, mournful, metaphysical poem, tolls for the Democrats with several mournful lessons. First, it confirms that the congressional and national Democrats' "me-too" strategy of fearfully avoiding confrontation with Bush on many major issues is a recipe for their continued defeats. Second, it confirms that 35 years after Eugene McCarthy's "children's crusade" against the Vietnam War, the Democrats still have no credible defense against a GOP offensive that waves the flag. This may be a boon for retired Gen. Clark in his campaign. But it certainly worked wonders for Fletcher, a former Air Force pilot. Third, it confirmed the bankruptcy of the current Democratic Party establishment's penchant across the nation for running old party hacks forced to punch out of their weight. This was the fate of short, pasty-faced California Lt. Gov. Cruz Busamante against Schwarzenegger in California last month. And it was also the humiliating denouement to the political career of former State Attorney Chandler in Kentucky. After Schwarzenegger cruised to victory in California, we concluded in UPI Analysis that for all the truly terrifying long-term economic indicators, the deepening quagmire in Iraq and the looming crises with Iran and North Korea, the president's re-election strategy was still on track. "The White House is convinced of this," we wrote. "And we think they are right." After Mississippi and Kentucky: now more than ever.
7% GDP growth is truly terrifying? I guess this is why I don't listen to pundits in the mainstream media anymore.
That's just a downright dumb statement.
I thought this was a fairly interesting article, until I got to this part. 55 + 48 = 103. It's indicative of a poorly written, poorly edited article.
Oh, please. Could this stereotype possibly be more out of date and inaccurate? Instead of a "state of tough old mine workers," why not say a state of thoroughbreds and mint julips? If the writer has to resort to a cliché, why not make it a more picturesque one? It would be more accurate to refer to Kentucky as an automobile-manufacturing state (the largest selling wehicle in the U.S., Ford's F Series pickups, are made in Louisville; the largest selling automobile in the U.S., the Toyota Camry, is made in Georgetown); or as a tobacco growing state, or as a bourbon distilling state; or as an appliance manufacturing state. Coal mining, while still important, is certainly not the dominant industry.
Also, Kentucky is now a crucial swing state for the Democrats. In November 2000, it was one the four "sure-thing" heartland states -- the others were neighboring West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee -- that should have gone for the Democrats, but didn't.
Nonsense, again. At the Presidential level, the Republican party candidate has fared better in Kentucky than in the nation as a whole in percentage terms the last five elections in a row. I'm sure the Gore campaign harbored hopes in the other three states mentioned -- his native Tennessee, Clinton's Arkansas, and Dem-leaning West Virginia -- but Kentucky was conceded to Bush early on. He carried the state 57-41. Kentucky isn't even close to being a "swing state" at the Presidential level. And a "sure-thing" state? Is the author off his meds?
That said, it is encouraging to see both Kentucky and Mississippi elect Republican governors in an off-year, with no Republican Presidential or Senatorial candidate atop the ballot. The South has, for several decades, been trending Republican at the Presidential level, and more recently, at the Senatorial level, where nominally Democratic voters can be convinced that the national Democratic Senate agenda is to be avoided. But it has been a tougher sell, generally speaking, at the gubernatorial level, where Democratic candidates have been able to plausibly suggest that they are independent from the national Democratic agenda.
With the notable exception of Louisiana (always different, just for the sake of being different), the GOP has had more success in the South with its Senatorial candidates than with its gubernatorial candidates. But the dam is finally breaking, and increasingly, folks down here are willing to register Republican and to think of themselves as Republicans, leading to down-ballot successes. It's been a frustratingly slow process, but the transition is at last well and truly underway. And that's what was so encouraging about the success of Fletcher and Barbour.
We just love it, thanks to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton for hiring McAwful with the sole purpose of only helping the clintoons and not the party.
Only this guy can beat him...
Mr. Unnamed Democrat!
What's up with this ass clown, is he taking lessons from the Dan Rather Book of Stupid Folkisms?
that the GOP is moving to consolidate its now 35-year-old Southern strategy of appealing to the social and religious cultural conservatism of white Southern voters.
Northeastern liberal indeed. This is their "polite" way of saying, "Republicans played the race card by shamelessly pandering to toothless, Confederate-flag waving Southern male hayseeds."
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