Posted on 11/04/2004 2:33:35 AM PST by kattracks
I guess John Kerry went into the primary without a plan to win the election.
The Democrats threw everything they had at this election. They ran a phony Vietnam War hero and a phony Southerner. They had middle-aged women executives at MTV hawking "Rock the Vote" to entice the most uninformed young people to vote for Kerry. They had Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and New York Times darling Eminem. They had documentaries, books, the universities, Hollywood (and the French!) on their side.
They had liberal thugs ransacking Bush-Cheney headquarters, stealing Bush-Cheney signs and slashing the tires of Bush-Cheney get-out-the-vote vans on Election Day. In Colorado, they traded voter registrations for crack cocaine. In Ohio, they registered Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy. In South Carolina, Emily's List called Republican households and gave them incorrect information about the location of polling places.
The media campaigned heavily for Kerry with endless Abu Ghraib coverage, phony National Guard documents and, days before the election, false news reports that hundreds of tons of munitions had been looted in Iraq.
The Democrats' cheating never stopped. The big story of this election is the fraudulent exit polls on Election Day. Strange as it seems to me, it is well acknowledged that people are more likely to come out and vote for a winner. Early exit polls showing Kerry the clear winner could be expected to depress the vote for Bush.
Stunningly inaccurate exit polls released around noon on Election Day convinced news anchors, talking heads and even the campaigns that Kerry would win walking away. But at 9 p.m., when the first actual results began to come in, the election flipped to Bush. It was the first Kerry flip-flop that actually served the national interest.
The exit polls were absurd: They showed Kerry winning Pennsylvania by 20 points and Bush tied with Kerry in Mississippi. Only monkey business can explain the wildly pro-Kerry exit polls – admittedly hard to believe with a party that has behaved so honorably throughout this campaign. Michael Barone speculates that the sites of exit polling were leaked to the Democrats, and Democrats sent large numbers of voters to those polls to take exit polls and throw the results.
But for all their chicanery, vote-stealing, Hollywood starlets, fake polls and faux patriotism, the Democrats were wiped out on Election Day.
Bush won the largest popular vote in history with a 3.5 million margin. Indeed, simply by getting a majority of the country to vote for him – the left's most hated politician since Richard Nixon – Bush did something "rock star" Bill Clinton never did. Bush maintained or increased his vote in every state but Vermont. Republicans picked up seats in the House and Senate, and continue to dominate state governorships. Also making history of a sort, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle lost his election, marking the first time in half a century a Senate leader has been defeated.
To Michael Moore, George Soros, Terry McAuliffe, Dan Rather, Al Franken and the whole gang at Air America Radio – you were great, guys! Thanks for the help! We couldn't have done it without you!
Of course, we could have done it a lot earlier on election night but for "Boy Genius" Karl Rove. It's absurd that the election was as close as it was. The nation is at war, Bush is a magnificent wartime leader, and the night before the election we didn't know if a liberal tax-and-spend, Vietnam War-protesting senator from Massachusetts would beat him.
If Rove is "the architect" – as Bush called him in his acceptance speech – then he is the architect of high TV ratings, not a Republican victory. By keeping the race so tight, Rove ensured that a race that should have been a runaway Bush victory would not be over until the wee hours of the morning.
As we now know, the most important issue to voters was not terrorism, but moral values. Marriage amendments won by lopsided majorities in all 11 states where they were on the ballot. Even in Oregon, the state targeted by gay marriage advocates as their best shot of defeating a marriage amendment, the amendment passed by 57 percent – a figure noticeable for being larger than the percentage of votes cast for Bush in Oregon. In the great state of Mississippi, the marriage amendment passed with 88 percent of the vote.
Seventy percent to 80 percent of Americans oppose gay marriage and partial-birth abortion. Far from appealing exclusively to a narrow Republican base, opposition to gay marriage is strongest among the Democratic base: blacks, Hispanics, blue-collar workers and the elderly. There were marriage amendments on the ballot in Michigan and Ohio. Bush won Ohio narrowly and lost Michigan by only 2 points. How different might that have been if Bush hadn't run from the issue.
But Rove concluded Bush should stay mum on gay marriage and partial-birth abortion – contravening the politicians' rule of thumb: Talk about your positions that are wildly popular with voters. "Boy Genius" Rove decided Bush shouldn't even run radio ads on gay marriage, and at the last minute, Bush started claiming he was in favor of civil unions, just like John Kerry.
Amazingly, it was the Democrats – the ones who support gay marriage – who used the gay issue for political advantage, most famously when Kerry gay-baited Mary Cheney during the third debate.
The one toss-up Senate seat lost by the Republicans was Pete Coors in Colorado, where the Democrats did not hesitate to run commercials of a bacchanalian gay festival in Canada sponsored by Coors Brewing Co. The most narrow Republican win in a toss-up Senate race was in Alaska, where the Republican candidate was another "progressive" on the social issues.
When contemplating a former New York mayor as their next presidential candidate, Republicans should remember: This election should have been over sometime in August, not 1 a.m. election night.
Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her most recent book is How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).
btt
The purpose of the intentionaly distorted exit polls was to shore up support for the democrats and disheaten the republicans, as well as set up the basis for court challenges to the real election results. The polls were skewed toward women and to urban areas in order to give a false Kerry lead, in this last dirty trick of the campaign.
If the "rats" were stunned, they only have their usual dirty tricks to blame, not the Internet. But then again "rats" never take responsibility, always blame others, and always accuse others of their own dirty tricks.
Professor Fair from Harvard predicted the victory to be in the 57.5% range via the economic model that was written about here on the Freep some 2 months ago.
So the question is how did the Dems Jimmy us out of 6.5%?
"As we now know, the most important issue to voters was not terrorism, but moral values. Marriage amendments won by lopsided majorities in all 11 states......"
Well Ann, Karl concentrated on getting out the voters who stayed home last elction, the fuudamentalist Christians and it worked..
She discounts the effect of the mainstream media showing all bad news all the time on Iraq...and constantly talking about the "bad" economy...
Ann also addresses the need to run a conservative in 08 whi is proud to defend marraiage, PBA, etc. No RINO will defeat the hildebeast.
Actually (as you correctly point out) that is her main point.
Yeah, but I think she slammed Rove a little bit too much...
I don't think the "compassion thing" has quite settled with Ann yet.
I don't know if she's correct or not. I do know that President Bush was reelected, and that's the most important thing.
The top priority of the GOP should be to make sure the Punk McCauliff remains in charge of the DNC. His sleazy tactics will make sure the Dems keep shrinking.
Ann is absolutely right. I've been criticizing Rove for months. Not on the morals issue (though she's absolutely right about that) but on the issue of getting out the word on the DETAILS of Komrad Kerry's Kommie voting record. Rove, Inc let Kerry slide on 95% of the 20 years of anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom voting that Kerry did in the Senate (on those days when he chose to actually appear in the Senate).
It's over. We won. It was a great victory. But whoever runs in 2008 (and 2006) should pay attention to what Ann wrote here. Rove might be a genius on the "ground game" but he was far too squeamish and weak when it came to crafting a clear message about how great George W Bush really is and how exceedingly dangerous Komrad Kerry really was.
As great as our victory is --- and I don't mean to diminish it at all, I am absolutely ecstatic and I feel like kissing the ground, just like someone who's been tossed around on a stormy sea and finally makes it to shore --- I feel a deep resentment to Rove and whatever think-tank he employed that willingly risked our freedom and prosperity on the proposition that he who campaigns the Nicest, campaigns the Best.
This would suggest that the Bush vote was suppressed. I'm willing to believe that he would have won by more than the 3.5% popular margin.
I somewhat agree with Coulter that Rove should have been more forward with the traditional values positions... it should have been test-marketed someplace to see how it was received.
If there's a fear that it can be easily ridiculed and easily dismissed by the one-speak attacks in the news media, then I would agree. The people who want to hear this message in the Repub base heard it on talk radio.
Beyond the base, that's the challenge. How does on step around the media bias and reach those with moderate political views, but who still hold to traditional marriage and family values.
I'm not sure, but I know that you've got to try. Test-marketing in smaller markets is how product promotions are refined.
Right, yes. Unfortunately, these type of columns will kill any groundswell we can create to put her on the U.S. Supremes. :-)
PS: Rove Inc did a very very poor job on getting out the truth about Iraq. How the lives of the people have so greatly improved. They let the media totally define Iraq. I'm not sure what can be done on this issue. The media has all good news about Iraq on total lock-down. But then, I'm not a highly paid (or even lowly paid) campaign advisor or media strategist. Somebody in the whitehouse is. Whoever that somebody is, s/he's doing a very very poor job and is highly highly overpaid.
(((I don't know if she's correct or not. I do know that President Bush was reelected, and that's the most important thing.)))
Thank God for that, it is the important thing. But I think it's important to recognize that the Democrats in this country (or rather should I say the liberal democrats)have turned into thugs, and we need to remember this and start defanging them. They missed the whole point about what an American election is all about.
Great article. I also think that the devisive shenannigans by the Dems also helped to get the "silent majority" out to vote on election day.
So a big thank you to the hollywood leftist, Bruce Springsteen, BonJovi, P.Diddy, et.al. Your values and lack thereof are not representative of the rest of us.....and yesterday we didn't just tell you, we showed you in historic proportions. So go to Canada, go to France...go to he!!, but stop telling us what you think we should do in Iraq, and the economy we don't care what you think and we never have.
A great addition to the % info......in 2000 17% of the 18-24 age group voted.....in 2004 again 17% of the 18-24 age group voted. So all of the money, influence, "Vote or Die" etc., didn't change anything in that targeted group. Glad to see they spent that money wisely....Ahahahaha!
Guys ... (ahem) ... isn't there a rule?
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