Michael Moore finally speaks

MichaelMoore.com ^ | Nov. 5th, 2004 | Michael Moore

[Validus]

Friday, November 5th, 2004 17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists...by Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, “always look on the bright side of life!” There IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of the Americans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), thinks the war is a mistake (51%), and doesn’t approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut. May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress, including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3 chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the 2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53 chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47 chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber (Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a wonderful country -- it doesn't even need a president!'"

But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore MMFlint@aol.com www.michaelmoore.com

[hineybona]

anyone hear anything about Gore since the win >? I saw some pics of him from a few weeks ago sporting the MM fat bastard look.Whats his reaction to the big Bush win ? Must be going insane ( insaner ?)

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I won Illinois with a bunch of dead voters on his side.

[Verginius Rufus]

This may be technically true but meaningless...I guess it is an attempt to make Bush's win seem less impressive than Clinton's in 1996 even though Clinton could not reach the 50% mark of the popular vote. The criterion must be electoral votes rather than the popular vote margin, since Bush's popular vote margin was larger than Truman's in 1948.

The only elections that count in this game are when a sitting president won re-election:

Wilson in 1916
Coolidge in 1924
FDR in 1936, 1940, and 1944
Truman in 1948
Eisenhower in 1956
LBJ in 1964
Nixon in 1972
Reagan in 1984
Clinton in 1996
Bush in 2004

All the other incumbent presidents had at least 300 electoral votes (Truman was lowest with 303, but Dewey had only 189 because of Thurmond); apart from 1948, every successful incumbent president won at least 375 electoral votes. Bush is the first president since McKinley to win twice without ever reaching the 300 mark.

[Byron Norris]

You know Michael Moore is in the business of making money, so what is Mikey going to do? He's going to throw a hissy and then write and make another bad movie about Bush. Hey it makes the blimp money ... so there you have it. I think he wanted Bush to win, so, he can get a bunch of people to look at him and say ... "Hey that Michael Moore has a point!" But you know he doesn't .. this is all about getting attention!

[TomasUSMC]

Lets sell Chicago and Detriot to Canada, San Francisco, New York and Boston to .... well ah somebody.

[hineybona]

AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA too funny..Carter always was hard to swallow ..Not too filling I'd suppose ..All hot air with a hint of peanut .

[beckham]

Or...... #20 - I've got another movie coming out and I still haven't got your 10 bucks yet

[kcvl]

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Lyndon Baines Johnson

Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State: PR: MA; VP: TX
Electoral Votes: 303
Pop. Vote: 34,227,096 (49.7%)


Lyndon Baines
JOHNSON
Hubert Horatio Humphrey
Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State:
.PR: TX; VP: MN
Electoral Votes: 486
Pop. Vote: 42,825,463 (60.6%)



Richard Milhous
NIXON
Spiro Theodore Agnew
Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State:
.PR: NY; VP: MD
Electoral Votes: 301
Pop. Vote: 31,710,470 (43.4%)


Richard Milhous
NIXON
Spiro Theodore Agnew
Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State:
.PR: NY; VP: MD
Electoral Votes: 520
Pop. Vote: 46,740,323 (60.3%)


James Earl
CARTER, Jr.
Walter Frederick Mondale
Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State:
.PR: GA; VP: MN
Electoral Votes: 297
Pop. Vote: 40,830,763 (50.1%)


Ronald Wilson
REAGAN
George Herbert Walker Bush
Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State:
.PR: CA; VP: TX
Electoral Votes: 489
Pop. Vote: 43,898,770 (50.8%)



Ronald Wilson
REAGAN
George Herbert Walker Bush
Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State:
.PR: CA; VP: TX
Electoral Votes: 525
Pop. Vote: 54,451,521 (58.8%)



George Herbert Walker Bush
James Danforth Quayle

Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State: PR: TX; VP: IN
Electoral Votes: 426
Pop. Vote: 48,886,097 (53.4%)


William Jefferson Clinton
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State: PR: AR; VP: TN
Electoral Votes: 370
Pop. Vote: 44,909,326 (43.0%)


William Jefferson Clinton
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Party: DEMOCRATIC
Home State: PR: AR; VP: TN
Electoral Votes: 379
Pop. Vote: 47,401,898 (49.2%)


George Walker Bush
Richard Bruce Cheney

Party: REPUBLICAN
Home State: PR: TX; VP: WY
Electoral Votes: 271
Pop. Vote: 50,461,092 (47.9%)

[datura]

Michael Moore's good natured twin? Since he quotes Python, he should remember Mr Creosote.

[CAluvdubya]

Whatever happened to Algore?

He's feelin' pretty happy, now he's not the biggest loser to George Bush!

[Rocky]

Hey, Mike: Based on the election results after you made Fahrenheit 911, your next film should be based on a lower temperature. How about "Michael Moore, Absolute Zero".

[unspun]

I start to read this and then it seems I smell body odor and want to quit. Michael, toss your pajams in the laundry and take a shower, o-k?

[SirAllen]

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

Hey Mikey, you always claimed Bush was selected not elected so that should mean he can run again in '08 right???

[Mier]

I know many of you root for other college teams. But after what the Buckeye State did for us. Shouldn't we all show our support for the Ohio State Buckeyes just to rub it into that fat toad Morons face any way we can? Coach Jim Tressel seems like a very nice guys too! COME ON! GO BUCKS!

[Time4Atlas2Shrug]

I heard today that he plans to run in 2008.

Yesss!!!!!

[Agrarian]

What would be interesting to know is what the generation of immigrant breakdown is on Bush vs. Kerry voters. I would suspect that 1st generation Hispanics are least likely to vote GOP. Once the shift has maximized, it should be relatively easy from there to calculate the rate of assimilation, and thus the optimum level of immigration to maximize voting for conservative GOP candidates.

I'd also like to see polling data on the political views of Hispanics -- how conservative politically are GOP voters, will they vote for conservative state and local election candidates, how do they vote in primaries.

I don't give a flip about color. I care about our conservative Anglo-American political traditions. And Clarence Thomas is Exhibit A that you don't need to be white to defend them...

[E Rocc]

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

I guess this is an example of that whole "stopped clock" phenomemon...

He has to pander to his imaginary base, younger people. The Kerry kids came off aloof and haughty, the Bush twins come off as normal and cool.

-Eric

[montag813]

Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out

Sure Mike, we'll see if you feel that way on the day bush's Republican pen signs Tort Reform, ANWR, more tax cuts and social security accounts passed by a Republican House and Republican Senate. It will just get BETTER and BETTER from here. And then we get to stack the SCOTUS 7-2 with conservatives, roll back liberal environomental extremism, defeat Hillary Clinton in 2008. Fun fun fun!

[hineybona]

He cant be for real ..Hasent he been beaten witht the looser stick one too many times already ? Love to be a fly on the wall watching him watch the election returns the other night ..HAHHAHAHA he must have gone nuts when Bush won.

[prometheus]

1912 wouldn't count. Wilson was not the sitting President. Taft was.