Posted on 01/17/2004 9:32:58 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Edited on 01/17/2004 9:37:41 PM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
In 2000, the American electorate was evenly divided. Now, as we enter another voting season, the Gallup Organization has released a study, based on 40,000 interviews, that shows that 45.5 percent of voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and 45.2 percent identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. So is that it?
After Sept. 11, the Iraq war and the Madonna-Britney kiss, could it really be that we are back to where we started? Since 2000, tens of millions of people have moved, divorced and converted; can it really be that everything in America changes except politics?
Yes and no. Yes, the political divides today do look a lot like the ones that split the nation in 2000. But no. When you look beneath the headline data, you see at least one important change. The events of the past three years have brought to the foreground issues that divide Democrats, and pushed to the background issues that divide Republicans.
The first result is that the Republican Party is more unified than ever before. Ninety-one percent of Republicans approve of the job President Bush is doing. In 1992, Bush's father didn't have anything like that level of support, and even the Reagan administration was split between so-called pragmatists and ideologues. © Copyright 2004 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
It would appear there is some level of sanity among the Demlibs afterall. But I don't know any Republican that would consider voting for Howie Dean.
Was this written before the amnesty thing? I would have believed it 2 weeks ago, but I think the Republicans got one heck of a jolt with the illegal immigrant measure.
Who are they?
That's simply not true and you know it. The immigration reform proposal that PresBush laid out, specifically mentions offering legal status to illegal aliens. There is little difference between what PresReagan signed into law in 1986 and what PresBush proposed recently.
In his speech Bush said:
"This program will offer legal status... to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States..."
"[U]ndocumented men and women..." aka. illegal aliens.
The definitions of pardon and amnesty are quite clear.
pardon: "a release from the legal penalties of an offense"
amnesty: "the act of an authority by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals"
Bush spoke of no legitimate penalty that would fit the crime and in my book, eight million illegal aliens constitutes a large group.
Let's have some intellectual honesty on this issue. Going around misrepresenting the factual truth serves no good purpose.
Here's the thing about Rove pandering to the Hispanic vote. IMO most Hispanics did NOT expect GWB to make a move like that and so would not have resented it if he continued to do nothing ... but boy GWB's base sure resents his doing it. In other words, it wasn't that broke, Karl.
That is VERY different from immediate green card status. The only "amnesty" involved is the opportunity to register as a guest worker and at some point down the line apply for resident alien status which by the way is far from guaranteed. In 1986 almost 6 million illegal immigrants were granted IMMEDIATE permanent residency. There is no comparison.
Anyone who's loosing sleep over Bush's immigration proposal, or whose vote will be affected by the immigration proposal, were never part of Bush's base to begin with. I can understand that it has upset the Buchanan base, but that's not much to worry about.
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