RON REAGAN TO GIVE PRIMETIME SPEECH AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION ON STEM CELL RESEARCH

ABCnews ^ | 07/11/04 | ABC

[Pikamax]

RON REAGAN, JR. TO GIVE PRIMETIME SPEECH AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION ON STEM CELL RESEARCH, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter tells ABC News' Dan Harris...

[Wolfstar]

Why does anyone give a rat's butt what this disloyal twit has to say about anything?!

[A CA Guy]

Yes, he and his beard will be headliners there.

As he speaks of Ronald Reagan not bringing his religion into politics, I sure hope at the Republican election they show a montage of President Reagan that especially shows he in fact never abandoned religion at all during his Presidency.
In fact, I hope they point this out to son by saying, "Some close to President Reagan claimed he never mentioned his faith in politics, but that was not so".
Then go into a montage of clips.

Good for the American people to see as well.

[Corporate Law]

Well put.

[Smartass]

Ron Reagan Jr.

[California Patriot]

Blah, blah, blah. These people always like to say they're independents. I don't care how someone is registered. The question is who they support, with their votes and their speech. Ron clearly intends to attack Bush and help Kerry, and in so doing, he betrays his father's legacy less than a year after his death. Any way you look at it, it's disgraceful. I'm sure part of his motivation is indeed to promote stem-cell research. But that's not all of it, by a long shot. He should have shown far more restraint, and should also find a better way to promote his supposed issue.

But again, he has more "issues" than that, in both senses of the word.

[California Patriot]

That assumes people see him as twit. Not everyone knows what we know. Some people will think Ron is really speaking for his father. Never underestimate the voters' stupidity.
It is a sure way to lose elections.

[California Patriot]

Your prediction is absurd. I'd suggest you come down to planet Earth and look at the facts.

One of those facts is that no president in modern American history has ever received 65 percent of the vote, which you predict for President Bush.

As for Kerry being "so far behind" ... you'll have to come up with a theory for why the polls are off by 10 points.
They rarely are. Sure, some polls oversample Dems and undersample Republicans. But the good polls show a close race. If Republicans continue to show the same complacency you have, or the same despair that some on FR have, we will indeed lose.

[California Patriot]

You are speaking of personal issues. I don't deny that she was very devoted to Reagan in a personal sense. And I don't deny that she conducted herself well during the week of mourning. So what? You are confusing the personal with the political, to an extent that I doubt your ability to understand politics at all.

RR's legacy is not about what Nancy did for him as a person, but about how his political achievements hold up over time. In that respect, I believe Nancy will be of little help. There is a long record to back that judgement up.

[ozzymandus]

I remember when the RATs made fun of jr. and implied he was a homo. The pubs need to drag out some of those old quotes to run when the RATs show off their new boyfriend.

[sanjacjake]

The jerk never voted Republican anyhow..he belongs over
with that hypocritical crowd....we'll take Del Miller at
our convention .....he probably voted against his own Dad..
He is another..opportunist....stem cell research just means
he has it to harp on....Ronald Regan would be taking the
stance on this like President Bush...you want to pepetuate
the horrors of abortion?..that's all that this is about...
young women would be on the market to give up their fetus
for a price...Jake

[California Patriot]

And your point is?

[Terpfen]

"Your prediction is absurd. I'd suggest you come down to planet Earth and look at the facts."

The only absurdity here is the amount of credit you give to the Kerry campaign.

"One of those facts is that no president in modern American history has ever received 65 percent of the vote, which you predict for President Bush."

Care to explain Reagan's landslides? Getting the popular vote is nice, but it's a majority of the Electoral College votes that gets one into the Presidency, and Bush will get 65% of that--my prediction based on what the political scene will look like November 2, not July 12.

"Sure, some polls oversample Dems and undersample Republicans. But the good polls show a close race."

And the good polls in 1988 put Dukakis up by 17 points. Your problem is that you put too much credence in polls, which can be slanted in any way (not just by who is sampled), and not enough into electoral trends of the past 30 years. You seem to also forget that Bush bucked history in 2000 by defeating the vice president of a popular two-term incumbent president; then history was bucked in 2002 when the sitting president's party gained seats in Congress, rather than lost seats. You ignore Bush's electoral abilities exhibited as early as 1994 in his race for Texas governor, where he unseated a popular incumbent governor in a state that at the time still leaned Democrat. You ignore the impact of September 11 on the national consensus. You ignore all of this, and instead choose to believe Gallup and Zogby when they say Kerry has a real shot at the presidency. The only one without a firm grounding here is you.

"If Republicans continue to show the same complacency you have, or the same despair that some on FR have, we will indeed lose."

I am not complacent, and you are the one in despair (though I agree with your point; I merely suggest you look in the mirror). There are plenty of things that could happen to tilt the election in favor of Kerry. The quirk here is that the odds of these things happening aren't worth worrying over. Considering, yes. Worrying, no.

[MeekOneGOP]

hahahaha ! Amen to that. RR2 the Troll !

[AReaganGirl]

Oh, I agree with you that the younger Reagan will vote for Kerry and he is betraying his father's legacy with his upcoming speech to the Democratic Convention. I don't know what happened to cause him to become like he is. The thing about it is he will only hurt himself. Bill Buckley had some choice words for the younger Reagan in Novak's column.

I sense a struggle within the younger Reagan's soul. His dad was a happy man but younger Reagan is not. I suggest that we all pray for him.

[California Patriot]

I think there are better people to pray for.

If Michael Moore's crazy film can fool some people, so can Ron Reagan and the inevitable media hype surrounding him.
We can't just assume that people will see through it or ignore it. We have to fight everything the Dems throw at us.

[California Patriot]

I am not despairing at all. I just think we'll have a damned tough race. We can win, if we work harder than ever and aren't complacent. Indeed, I believe that we will do these things, and therefore will win.

It is quite possible to win by a big margin in the electoral college based on narrow victories in many states. I think there is a chance of that happening for Bush. What will not happen is a blowout (57 percent or better) in the popular vote. Just not in the cards.

You cite Reagan '84, Bush '88, and Bush junior in '94.
I don't know which of these elections is the least like the one we face today, but all are quite different from it.

As for the post-Sept. 11 magic ... it was there two years ago or more, but it's long gone. Look at the polls concerning Iraq. Better yet, look at the polls in which people rate the most important issue facing the country.
Even granted that the real numbers are probably more favorable to Republican candidates and positions than the poll results would indicate, the issue rankings are rather discouraging. They tell me that lots of people would like to stick their heads in the sand and pretend we can turn the clock back 5 years to Clinton-style peacetime. Kerry is appealing very blatantly to this sentiment. It will undoubtedly work with more people than we'd like to expect. The question is whether we can counter it and get the American people to think and vote like adults.

Bush deserves a landslide, especially because of the extreme irresponsibility of the Democrats. But the liberal media and other Democratic forces and institutions are too powerful in this country to permit any more 60 percent landslides by conservative Republican presidential candidates. In addition, cultural and demographic trends have been running against us for decades.

Any political analyst, left, right, or center, would agree with the latter two statements. If you find a serious political analyst who doesn't, tell me. I'm all ears.

[Terpfen]

"I don't know which of these elections is the least like the one we face today, but all are quite different from it."

Not really. Reagan '84 featured a reasonably popular (at the time) incumbent Republican up against a far-left liberal who seemed (at the time) to be gaining ground. Sounds a lot like the 2004 race as it's currently taking shape.
The '88 election is different only in that the Republican running was not an incumbent. The far-left Democrat was a shoo-in according the polls... and lost badly.
The Texas election of '94 is most unlike this year's presidential election except for one detail: I cited it to make a point about Bush's ability to win elections which seem unwinnable.

"As for the post-Sept. 11 magic ... it was there two years ago or more, but it's long gone. Look at the polls concerning Iraq. Better yet, look at the polls in which people rate the most important issue facing the country."

Well, alright. Every poll I've seen has a solid majority of 60%+ saying that even though WMD weren't found in Iraq, the war was still worth it. Every poll I've seen ranks the top two issues in this election with national security as #1, the economy as #2. Every poll I've seen says that voters think Bush would do a better job on both than Kerry.

"In addition, cultural and demographic trends have been running against us for decades."

Actually... the generation of people who are just now hitting legal age to vote, or have been elegible for a couple of years leans strongly conservative. I should know: I'm a part of it. For every liberal 18 year old the news trots out, there are two conservative 18 year olds off-camera. In addition, if cultural trends run against conservatism, why does 80%+ of the public support banning gay marriage?

I'm sorry, I just don't think Kerry is much of a threat. I'm not saying Bush should be complacent. Far from it. Bush's springtime campaign ads successfully defined the image of Kerry in voters' minds as a flipflopping liberal, and most Americans hate politicans who pander regardless of which party they're in. I'm sorry, but unless a catastrophe happens, Bush has this thing won. The closer we get to election day, the more Kerry will have to expose himself, and to cite polling data for you, the more Kerry speaks, the worse his numbers get. When Kerry is off the cameras for a few days, his numbers go back up. With the serious campaign season coming up, and with at least one presidential debate guaranteed, Kerry will not make many in-roads with voters.

Of course, this is all just my opinion, and like Dennis Miller says, I could be wrong.

[Terpfen]

Bush has a new ad out. I don't know if you've seen it or not, but it just came on my TV a couple of minutes ago. It goes something like this:

"John Kerry has missed 2/3rds of all Senate votes this year. He missed a vote to lower health care costs by restricting frivolous lawsuits. He missed a vote to protect our troops. Yet he found time to vote against the Laci Peterson law, which protects pregnant women from violence. John Kerry has his priorities. Are they yours?"