Posted on 08/02/2004 5:34:00 PM PDT by Willie Green
Calling people names does not do anything to help your case. It was the votes of the blue collar workers that gave Reagan the victory in 80, it was also their votes that allowed the GOP to take congress in 94. The biggest reason why Bush is now stuck in the mid 40s is most polls is because of a large loss of support among working class white males. Like it or not, the reality the likes of Limbaugh wants to paint does not exist.
The Reagan thing was 25 years ago. What have they done since then? And have you now or ever lived there? I know, I lived there. They are morons.
They were more like $10-12 hr, good solid work for those trying to get a college education or for a spouse to help pay the bills. Better jobs than $7-8 hr jobs at Wal Mart with less benifits.
I just came back from spending time in North Carolina. What a difference. Here in Massachusetts many of my friends have lost their jobs. It seems like there is full employment in NC and the cost of living is half of what it is in MA.
And again, people wonder why Bush is having problems with working class voters who own guns, go to church and are culturally conservative. Go on, alienate more people and soon the base gets weaker and weaker. One very iornic things is that the professionals who are most helped by these economic chnages such as Doctors, Lawyers and related feilds, are also trending Democratic based on social issues.
The iornic (sic) thing, is all my doctor pals are getting the hell out of PA due to the malpractice insurance charges.
You are correct. This entire issue is yet another area where the Republicans risk losing their own base. The real overarching issue here is globalism. The ruling elite of US business no longer has any loyalty to the United States or its people - people like those described in the article. The upper echelon of management in the Fortune 500 have, for the most part, received a thorough indoctrination in the Gramscian model of progressivism through control of the institutions. Like Bernard Schwartz of Loral, Inc., they will gladly sell anything to anyone. They are the literal embodiment of Marx's dictum: A capitalist will gladly sell you the rope that you'll use to hang him. If all people are to be reduced to mere commodities - individual economic units - it becomes imperative that arcane concepts like nationhood, loyalty, morality, etc. must be done away with.
Free trade with a nation like China - who litereally employs slave labor in the form of millions of political prisoners - is a lie at its core. There's nothing free about it - the slaves certainly aren't allowed the fruit of their labors are they? If the free enterprise system is divorced from transcendent moral concepts like patriotism. honesty, fair play, etc., it rapidly degenerates into a mafia-like system of ever increasing ruthlessness and immorality. In short order, open competition ceases to exist and is replaced by an oligarchical system similar to the one operating in most Latin American countries. That's what is happening to the west now on a global scale. Thus the constant cry from the Wall Street Journal for open-borders, outsourcng, "free-trade", H1B and L-1 visas, etc. Is it any wonder that folks like Kenny Lay and Bernie Ebbers view themselves as being above the law? In many respects, they literally are.
Kerry and Edwards, of course, will make all the noise about being for "the little guy", while their actual record is, if anything, even worse than Bush and the Republicans. Kerry is a "Bonesman" just as much as Bush is. You's never find that out from following the standard media coverage, though.
probably true, although the Democrats don't have any positive agenda or answers either - but indeed they will simply "inherit" these votes because they will be there offering more government programs, funded by more taxes on those who do have higher earnings.
right now, all of my friends who work(ed) in technology - are piling their kids into law schools, finance, real estate, or education (public school teachers), etc. Its an unsupportable trend - the economy can only support so many people working in non-productive jobs - earning a living by swapping real estate or financial securities back and forth, or earning a living through jury verdicts in civil cases, or through government employment.
Tech is dead in the US - if only because the current generation of engineers in the field, aren't letting their college bound children pursue it. So the next generation of engineers are either going to have to come from immigrants into the US (engineering school enrollments are increasingly made up of foreign nationals), or having those jobs exported to China and India (more likely scenario).
I see the Marxists at the DNC continue to outsource their FR propaganda work to you.
Why the attitude? Do you want to alienate voters? Do you like to reward those who will never vote for the GOP based on social issues? The professional class of voters have shifted to the Democratic party in the last 15 years, look at how NJ used to be GOP leaning and now is fairly solidly Democratic, same with Long Island. The GOPs bast chance at counter acting this is getting the votes of socially conservative working class voters, but as more of them are economically displaced, they will vote Democratic.
In my state of Ohio, I have seen this, the professional classes has trended towrds Democrats, and the working class who do not care for social liberalism are economically insecure, and they are fustrated that nothing is being done to stop the export of jobs and stop the importation of cheap labor.
More and more Amish are voting.
They are all card-carrying Unionists (firemen, truck drivers, telephone company). The idea that the middle of the state, where NO ONE lives will carry the state is such crap.
If the Republicans win, it is because York, Lancaster, Lycoming, Blair, Chester, Franklin, Cumberland and Butler put up big numbers for them (those eight can produce a 250,000+ vote Republican margin easily, as they did for Santorum), and they carry the inner Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburban areas. The bulk of the "T" provides a Republican margin, but it is nothing spectacular, since as you note, so few people are there. Most of the so-called "T" votes are the counties SE and SW of Harrisburg plus Altoona, Williamsport, and Butler.
There ain't no one to vote Repub in Philly proper anymore.
Actually, there are about 120,000 of us still in the City. We even have the Speaker of the State Assembly from amongst our number. Port Richmond, Northeast Philadelphia and Roxborough are still Red-America.
again, because the population in NC is increasing - jobs that normally come as a result of the expansion that accompanies population growth are created.
wait until the trend continues - those increased numbers of people will demand more service from government, taxes will rise. government employment will rise to provide those services, those workers will demand higher wages, and taxes will rise.
and very soon - NC will look just like MA does now.
Looks like Lewistown lost focus on its core competencies and lost any competitive advantage it may have had at one time.
What fustrates me is there doesnt seem to be anything that will stop this trend. Anyone who understands history and politics will see that the higher percentage of the population that is economically displaced. the higher the possibility that they will vote for those who promose to protect their standard of living. Now this may have been counter acted in the past when those in the professional classes tended to be Conservative, but that is not true anymore, as examples I have given in my previous post.
Another example is the state of IL. The GOP strongholds of the Chicago suburbs that used to give upwards of 70% of the vote to GOP canidates are now barely give over 50% to statewide GOP canidates. These people have been greatly helped by tax cuts, and their cost of goods have been held down by outsourcing of jobs and the importation of cheap labor, but they are not moving any further towrds the GOP because they vote mainly on issues of being "pro choice" the enviroment, and other "soccer mom" issues.
The working class but socially conservative voters who are in parts of the Chicago area and in downstate IL would be fertile territory to pick up votes, but the economic policies, and to be sure these policies started during the Clinton admin under Robert Rubin, have been continued and have shoved these voters towrds more marginal economic territory, and as this happens, not only do they not move towrds the GOP, but because of economic stress, they move towrds the Democrats.
The new Result, IL is out of reach for the GOP, where before 96, it was a swing state that had a slight GOP lean.
well put.
I am on long island, and that is exactly the trend. The professionals now work in essentially non-productive industries - they make their money off "the system", and seek those in government who will keep feeding that system. Anyone who talks about tort reform, or litigation reform to lower insurance rates, or medical savings accounts, or accountability from wall street - isn't going to play too well here.
I have always felt that if there is a "hidden" vote in this 2004 election that will break against Bush - this is where it is coming from. But then again, Kerry has been so inept at framing even the simplest argument here, that it probably will not materialize.
Well. kudos to you for staying that hell-hole. There are 'pubs in Roxborough? Color me shocked.
and that trend you mention in IL and NJ - what the folks posting about how "things are better in AZ and NC" don't realize is - its coming to where you live also. there is no escaping from it, you can hide for a few years in North Carolina and Georgia, but the same trends from IL and NJ - are coming. Just give it a few years. The suburbs will grow, demand for services will rise, taxes will rise, and the demographics will create Democratic states there.
Except for the newest Gullup Poll, Bush has been at 45% in the polls for months, not great territory for incumbents, and Kerry might be inept, but at least as of yet, he hasnt been as inept as Dukakis was. Going into the details of the polls I have been able to get access to to see their internals, lower income white male voters are the biggest drop off among Bushes supporters. Bush is in the low 50s in the white male vote, he needs it to be at least 10 points higher.
..........Oh Please!
Stop whining. Start a business. Move to a state with a better tax and regulatory environment. Figure out how to automate your industry to make labor rate arbitrage irrelevent. Act like a conservative, not a union socialist.
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