Posted on 01/27/2005 4:53:47 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
In the days and few weeks immediately following the election last year, the media pronounced gloom and doom for the Democratic Party and its constituents, such as gay rights advocates. Journalists and media outlets of the left and the right, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Newsweek, among most others, announced that the Democrats were down and out, and that the evangelical Christians and the Republicans were the rising power. They divided the country into red states and blue states, and offered up glossy maps to show that most states were red and therefore Republican strongholds.
The New York Times, in a special news analysis, announced that “President Bush’s re-election is the clearest confirmation yet that America is a center-right country.” Newsweek was even bolder, reporting not only that the “GOP may be the majority party for the foreseeable future,” but that “red-state Democrats are a diminishing breed.” The media even succeeded in encouraging the venerable Democratic strategist James Carville to say, in an interview only forty-eight hours after the election, “We are an opposition party and not a particularly effective one. The Democratic Party died Tuesday.”
Now that two months have passed, the dust has settled, and the election has finally been concluded (Washington’s gubernatorial election was not decided until December 30), perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at a few of those red states. Did the media get it wrong, or at least exaggerate a bit? Were the Democrats and their values trounced in the election?
(Excerpt) Read more at freepress.org ...
Dang it! Ya beat me to it! lol
It just goes to show that the media is always wrong. This time, it's not because they erroneously portrayed the election as a Republican romp, but rather because they portrayed it as a Republican squeaker and then wrote this story saying that they got it wrong by claiming earlier that it was a Republican blow-out.
I say laugh.
First of all, these jokers are hilarious. They haen't got a clue, and they don't even have a clue about how clueless they really are. If that's not funny, I don't know what is.
Second, it's a real joy to see just how marginal and ineffective these people are making themselves.
Third, laughter is good for the soul.
So, laugh away!
13 new states with Constitutional Amendments banning gay Marriage.
Tom Daschle defeated.
George W. Bush Re elected.
Looks like yes to me.
Activist judge ALERT!
When todays liberal wing of the democrat party has to quote the machinations of an activist judge abusing his power not granted at the ballot box, you know the party is on the way out.
Since when do we give any legitimacy to an extreme left wing blog? Did you look at their other articles?
I am not sure that I voted FOR Bush in 2004 as much as I voted AGAINST Kerry. I did vote FOR Bush in 2000. I did not vote FOR Dole in 1996, I voted against Clinton. You may say that I am playing a semantic game but there was one thing the media got very wrong. The media kept misreading the right track-wrong track question on the polls. They thought the wrong track numbers would translate into a Kerry victory, but there were a lot of people like me who thought the country was on the wrong track and did not need to get farther off track with an effete elitist liberal no nothing snob like Kerry in the White House. That said the Republicans need to accomplish some things in Bush's 2nd term, because they cannot always count on the Democrats doing the stupid thing and nominating the most liberal Senator from the most liberal state. I think the Republicans would have difficulty beating a Birch Bayh from Indiana especially with the lack of talent on the Republican bench and with the media throwing names like McCain and Guliani as serious contenders for the nomination. Bayh and a lot of other Democrats could beat either one of those boys in a general election. My own pick of a conservative candidate for 2008 is the Governor of South Carolina.
They were not trounced. It is more accurate to say they were humiliated, bludgeoned, garrotted, disemboweled, drawn and quartered, mulched, and fed to drooling, emaciated coyotes.
Just a clarification.
Here are the important facts:
1) The Conservative Movement has the White House (twice)
2) The Conservative Movement has a majority in the Senate (twice)
3) The Conservative Movement has a majority in the House (since 1992)
4) The Conservative Movement has the majority of Governorship's across the 50 states.
5) The Conservative Movement has a majority in the majority of state legislatures across the 50 states.
Put simply, todays American liberal should concentrate on running for sherriff races and local school boards untill they can demonstrate a willingness to lead on the issues that define the times.
Todays American liberal, across the federal and local level, lacks a mandate from the people at the ballot box AND THANK GOD !
Shh... Don't give them advice. ;-)
There is a culturally conservative party that is mostly in the GOP. However, some of the cultural conservatives are minorities who presently vote for the Democrats. I'd estimate that this is 35-40% of the electorate.
There is a left-wing party, made up of extreme environmentalists, socialists, and America-haters. I'd guess this is about 15-25% of the electorate. They are almost all Democrats -- or in minor parties to the left of this.
Finally, there is a centrist party, who are generally libertarian to moderate on economic and cultural issues. They are split about 40-50% of the electorate. Whether they tend to vote GOP or Democrat depends on whether the cultural conservatives or the left-wingers scare them more.
Personally, I'm one of these centrists who hates the left and isn't scared of the right; therefore, I am a strong partisan Republican. I think that there is a slight tendency in this direction among the moderates at this time, particularly post-9/11, what with so many of the left blaming America.
The result of this is, in a national election, the GOP may have a stronger hold at present. Particularly since the GOP cannot presently win unless it holds on to its cultural conservatives and the Dems cannot compete without their left-wingers.
However, at the state and local levels, a moderate Democrat can win in red states, as per the examples in this article, when he or she rejects the left. Similarly a moderate Republican, who rejects the cultural conservatives can win in a Blue state, as per Giuliani, Pataki, and Schwarzenegger, to name a few.
It is possible that over the next several decades we might see the parties break apart and reform like this, Cultural conservative blacks and Hispanics leaving the Dems for the GOP could make the GOP large enough and the Democrats weak enough to justify the GOP splitting into two major parties. I don't know how likely it is. There are times I think it's quite likely; others where I don't think there's a chance of it happening. However, I think it would, at least, make politics more reflective of American opinion. Whether it would make it more effective, I don't know.
Therefore an argument based on that predicate is no more than saying that fire is hot, water is wet, or the Pope is Catholic. NO ONE ELSE is making this argument in public where people who read and know things can read it. Maybe there's a reason for that?
Did I miss anything?
Congressman Billybob
It depends on what you mean by "values," don't you think?
Liberals are such political opportunists it's difficult to tell what "values" they have in mind.
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