Failure of the Democrats comes as no surprise

GALVESTON COUNTY DAILY NEWS<BR> Texas' Oldest Newspaper ^ | 11/06/02 | Dolph Tillotson

[BellStar]

The pundits seemed surprised by the election results on
Wednesday, so here are a few reasons the Democrats lost
my vote, most of Texas and the U.S. Senate:

You can’t beat somebody with nobody, and you can’t beat
something with nothing. Agree or not, George Bush and
the Republicans stand for something. The Democrats just
stood in the way.

Democrat leadership — the lack
thereof. Democrats don’t have anybody on the national
level who can compete with a very popular Republican
president.

Obstructionism. The Democrat-led
Senate became the place ideas go to die — prescription
drugs, Homeland Security, economic relief in the form
of tax cuts, you name it.

The courts. It was
obvious no conservative judicial appointments would
make it in spite of their qualifications as long as the
Democrats controlled the Senate.

Racial politics that are mired in an outdated model. To
Democrats, all you have to do to win black votes or
Hispanic votes is field a “dream team” that is racially
and politically correct.

Forget ideas, and forget the fact that minority voters
are fully developed human beings capable of independent
thought. A third of Texas’ minorities voted Republican,
and three black Republicans won statewide office.

That never happened on the Democrats’ watch.

Nasty partisanship. The nation watched Minnesotans as
Democrats there turned a “memorial service” for the
deceased Paul Wellstone into a mean-spirited and
vitriolic campaign rally. It didn’t feel right, and
Walter Mondale lost.

Democrat intellectuals. They may be highly educated,
but somehow they’re not clever enough to understand
that George W. Bush, who they believe to be not too
bright, has outsmarted them at every turn.

George W. Bush. He’s a very, very popular president,
and frankly one of the best and most tireless
campaigners ever. Democrats have ridiculed him and
consistently under-estimated him since he beat Ann
Richards for governor.

Molly Ivins (and many other liberals like her). When
Molly pokes fun at President Bush’s verbal missteps or
Rick Perry’s hair, people laugh, but they still vote Republican.

Such niggling criticisms seem silly, petty and
annoying. Glibness, after all, is not a virtue most voters admire.

Keep it up, Molly. You’ll have the Democrats reduced to
the level of the Libertarians in no time.

Tax policy. If your family’s combined income is over
$70,000, the Democrats think you are “the rich” and
therefore “the enemy.” They think you should pay more.
Yes, it does seem like a suicidal policy, attacking the
very people most likely to vote, but there it is.

Special interests. Lacking broad support in America’s
middle class, Democrats have turned instead for support
to a range of special interest groups — trial lawyers,
big labor unions, and government bureaucracies (like
teachers’ unions). Their interests tend to be highly
specific, not general, and that makes it very hard to
develop national policy that works for all of us.

Money. The Democrats don’t have enough of it. That is why they
want publicly funded elections, and it is precisely why
the rest of us should oppose that idea.

[BellStar]

This guy gets it!

[MissAmericanPie]

He sure does, but he doesn't cover everything. The race card and those who play it seem to be losing ground in a world in which 9-11 calls on all of us to be part of something greater than race, like, being an American for America.

No one wants to become Israel where losing one's family member at a pizza parlor via suicide bomber is considered daily routine. Americans won't live that way, not for any PC agenda and that is the way they voted. I know two democrats that switched over to vote Republican, that tells me alot.

[alloysteel]

NOW we get the Monday-morning quarterbacks all out in force, explaining "the way it was sposed to be". But truth was, the outcome was by no means certain. Before the election, many people were closed-mouthed and perhaps had not yet made up their minds. The "memorial"/political rally in Minnesota was something, that in retrospect, the national news would probably rather have not given so much footage to. That dance on Paul Wellstone's grave galvanized many more people than the rabid liberal-left Democrat activists had realized. Plus the little fandango that went on in New York State, when direction from the top cut the legs out from under the campaign of Carl McCall, as Democrat nominee for Governor of New York State. This was not lost on the Americans of African descent across the nation, in that the "house n****rs" would never be given a position of REAL power and influence within the Democrat party. In contrast, both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have been placed at positions of great honor and trust by the Bush Administration. Many of the automatic Democrat voters in big-city precincts simply stayed home, and if they were predominately persons of color, was that a coincidence? The dead still voted, which NEARLY made up the deficit.

[LurkedLongEnough]

And... some everyday people just got sick of being kicked in the face by rapist hillbillies and carpetbagger socialists.

[BellStar]

You have to know the GCDN is a red rag and it is some sort of Damascus Road experience for this Editor to say this. This is the oldest paper in Texas by the way.

[anymouse]

Texas Republican bump.

[backhoe]

Locator ^

[kcar]

I think we all know what the Democrats stand for. Same old class-envy big-government sound. The tune is becoming tiresome and annoying to even those who once liked it.

[isthisnickcool]

You have to know the GCDN is a red rag and it is some sort of Damascus Road experience for this Editor to say this. This is the oldest paper in Texas by the way.

I know Dolph. He is a bit more than the editor. Seeing him write something like this is not surprising. Pretty normal for him.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

You can?t beat somebody with nobody

By this time GW is somebody.

Can the (D) bunch find somebody in 04?? We know, of course, that journalism will work on it. OTOH the (D) bunch doesn't have much of a stable of executive experience; Gray Davis is a twice-elected Governor of CA but . . .