Posted on 11/06/2004 12:40:44 PM PST by LibWhacker
Bill ClintonJohn Kerry lost the election because Democrats were seen in middle America as “two-dimensional aliens”, Bill Clinton said on Friday.
The party had been “crazy” not to engage voters in the American heartland in a conversation about religion and morality, the former president and party favourite said.
His comments came as demoralised Democrats have begun to search for lessons from an election in which President George W.Bush not only won re-election with a majority of the popular vote, but in which the Republicans also made gains in both houses of Congress.
Mr Clinton, still an influential voice in the party, suggested that too many voters believed Democrats were against family and morality but in favour of abortion and gay marriage.
“If you let people believe that your party doesn't believe in faith or family, doesn't believe in work and freedom that's our fault.”
Mr Kerry had failed to make clear during the campaign that he did not support legalised gay marriage. “He said it once or twice but not a thousand times in small towns,” Mr Clinton said.
During his presidency, Mr Clinton said, he had worked with faith-based organisations and set up an office of religious affairs to reach out to Muslims, Jews and evangelical Christians. In that period, the number of abortions fell by more than 20 per cent and had since risen under the Bush government.
“It would shock people who think we are anti-life to know that,” Mr Clinton told the annual confence of the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit research group, in New York. “But if we don't make that argument, it is not surprising that we are demonised and turned into two-dimensional aliens. It is crazy for one party to not really engage people in this conversation.”
“Most Americans don't live by rationality and don't judge their lives by economic standing...but that is the cartoon that they know well in all those little towns that buried us in this election,” he said.
Mr Clinton urged the re-elected George W. Bush to make the Middle East his key priority during his second term. Solving the Palestinian crisis was the key to preventing more terrorism around the world, including Iraq, he said.
“They would have to think of a new excuse to murder people, it would take them a little time during which time we could get better organised.”
If Yassir Arafat, currently receiving medical treatment in France, was replaced by a new Palestinian leader it could provide the basis for a new peace agreement possible in the next five years, he predicted.
Clinton lecturing the 'rats on values is as funny as Arafat winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
I have been enjoying listening to AirAmerika this past week and it has been fun to hear the meltdown. A comment yesterday struck me - they were talking about this values thing. How can they get some or at least appear to have it.
It's really shocking that they have no idea what values are or where they come from.
I suppose working with Clinton does that to you.
BJ doesn't understand that he was one of the first symptoms of the democrat's moral disease.
That's not true, Bubba. Jimmy Carville is a 3-D space alien.
I agree, assuming he's referring to the Calhoun's Rats that live in the Blue sections....
Yep, appearances are everything. That's why Hanoi John didn't make it.
...POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK!
When will democrats wise up and figure out that it's the Clintons, not the Bushes, that are their worst enemies?
What is AMAZING to me about this, is that Clinton is ADVERTISING that they must PRETEND to believe something...just as he did, but sadly, it worked.
Never. Isn't it wonderful? :-)
Maybe it is just me, but it seems like Bill Clinton has a genuine like for President Bush. He never seems overly vicious or harsh in his criticisms of the President. I could be wrong though.
Hey Bill Clinton - you also shouldn't elect someone as your candidate who doesn't have a history of faith and morality and then expect the electorate to believe him when he says he does. When that same candidate votes for any and all abortion support and doesn't come out against gay marriage (except for his nuanced both for and against stance of the day) then he just doesn't seem to have the moral gravitas that those of us in Wal-Mart land are looking for.
The gimmicrats are so drug addled that they are still reciting talking points about "health care" and "worst employment record since Abe Lincoln," and the rest of the buncombe. Mr. Kerry, when I became self employed, I called Blue Cross and Blue Shield, set up an appointment, and now pay a monthly fee that will enable me to cover catastrophic medical bills should they be incurred. I didn't look for some fictitious "right" to have other people pay for my medicines or hospitalization. These gimmiecrats simply can't address what is important, such as killing those whose favorite sport is blowing up children in pizza parlors. Can't they see themselves as revolting, dangerous and incapable of uttering a sensible sentence? Won't they ever sweep out the psychopaths offer them up to those big tented Greens?
"In the 12 years since the Clintons came to power democrats have taken a serious beating at the polls, in every national election."
One exception: The Clintons got themselves elected and re-elected. They are truly masterful at the portrayal of themselves, near the mainstream.
Clinton's instructions to the losing democrats basically entail a more convincing portrayal of being near the mainstream.
But if you ain't, it isn't so easy to playact, unless you are the real Clinton in the flesh.
It keeps coming out how the dems discover they got beat by stupid, bible church people. Clinton slicked a bunch of votes from those folks, because they saw the folksy Arkansas guy in him.
Kerry doesn;t do folksy Arkansas, or Kansas, or much else. Not a very good actor, at all.
Four years to get the gestures down.
Wanna see good acting. See "Ray."
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