You just proved Rove's point. Most of the people who feel strongly on this issue did not vote for Bush or Gore either.
What Rove was saying to the author of this diatribe is that he knows you are liars. You did not and will not vote for Bush because you did not and don't see a dimes worth of difference between Bush and Gore. The end result of your position on elections, is your vote does not make a dimes worth of difference in the outcome of an election. Between elections you try to convince politicians that if they just adopted your view you would vote for them. Politicians know that to pick up one vote from people like you, costs 50 other votes. Therefore no politician even needs to be nice to you. He can even pick up a few votes by being very rude to you. Rove was not nice to the author becuase the author of this diatribe will have no effect on the 2004 election.
You are absolutely clueless. You think bluster can influence a pro like Rove. The positions taken by all politicians are designed to get the most votes. If most voters agreed with you, there would be no need to talk to any politian. They would all support and pass into law what you want passed. Since the public does not agree with you, politicians tell you to go hump a tree.
The only thing that influences politial operatives like Rove is votes. And you and your ilk ain't got them.
You say that "most" people who feel strongly about bogus gun bans did not vote for Bush?
Just what UFO stole your brain?
Since the public does not agree with you, politicians tell you to go hump a tree.
Charmingly obnoxious, not to mention ridiculously simplistic and wrong. Plenty of politicians win victories by courting the swing voters, since much of the conservative/liberal base are lemmings (oh, excuse me, "practical folks") who will vote for a Republican/Democrat no matter what, just because they'd die before giving the opposing party any chance of winning. So most elections are won by giving the 10-20% of "swing" voters in the middle a reason to vote for them.
But I digress. The real question, Mr. Go-Hump-A-Tree, is are you *really* this hateful towards people who feel strongly enough about any issue to possibly withhold their vote from a candidate who has spit on it, or is it just those who do so on a given issue that *you* personally don't give a s**t about? Is there truly nothing a Republican could do to lose *your* vote? How about signing/passing an abortion on demand bill into the third trimester? How about enabling homosexual marriage? Removing prayer from schools? Legalizing drugs? Banning alcohol? Socializing healthcare? I could go on, but stop me when I hit one of *your* "line-in-the-sand" issues, so that I can tell *you* to "go hump a tree" for daring to care about it enough to refuse to vote in (or back in) a politician who violates your limits.
And if there really *is* no such issue for you, then there's absolutely no reason for a politician to care about your concerns, because he's *always* got your vote and he knows it. From his view, why *not* position himself just one hair to the right of the Democratic Socialist candidate, and scoop up all the votes in the middle as being the "very slightly closer to the middle" candidate?
There's an old saying that some voters still need to learn: "The more s*** you put up with, the more s*** you're going to get". Sooner or later, it's time to stand up and say, "*That* much is *too* much." Or maybe continue to take it and learn to like eating it.
The only thing that will keep most Republicans on the ranch is the realization that if they stray too far from conservative principles, they're going to lose votes. Don't make the mistake of sending them the signal that "we'll vote for you no matter what", or they'll soon stampede to the RINO corral to pick up the votes that really *are* still in play. There are a few Republicans that won't, because they actually believe in the core conservative principles, but honestly, how many of them are there versus the ones that'll do whatever might get them elected?
The Bush administration better think long nad hard about that then. Bush Sr made the same mistake in possibly selling out gun owners : result - one term.
If the AWB gets to his desk and he signs it you can kiss his re-eelection GOODBYE.
Oooh, smooth; not just this bit, but the whole post. Incorrect, but in a believable way. Did you edit that, or was it really a first draft?
Gun owners who are single-issue voters on gun control (and many of us are) voted for Bush in droves the first time around. Now that we've got our man in the oval office and both houses of congress, it would be nice to actually see some results. For a change. Finally.
If we don't see the result we'd hoped for, well then, why should we stick by the man who won't stick by us?