COUNTDOWN (489 DAYS) TO VICTORY '04 -- JOIN THE BUSH-CHENEY '04 TEAM

Countdown to Victory '04 is Free Republic's daily action center for the grassroots campaign to re-elect Bush-Cheney in 2004 -- the place to visit to find out the latest from the campaign and how you can help right now!

One way is to post on this Daily Thread the local articles from the President's visit to your area in order to give the rest of us a local perspective on his visit instead of what the national media tells us. If you have pictures from the visit, please post on this thread.

When your paper has an editorial or article about the President or one of his opponents, please post it on these daily threads. This will help provide everyone one place to go to see the latest daily campaign news about the President from around the Country.

Please check these threads daily as we tweak and add features in the months ahead as the Grassroots become active in the Reelecton Campaign of President Bush.

Please sign up today to join the Bush-Cheney '04 Team and volunteer any/all of the following:

Endorse Bush Cheney '04
Forward emails to 10 friends
Put a sign in my yard
Volunteer at headquarters
Canvas door to door
Put a bumper sticker on my car
Send 25 postcards to friends
Make get-out-the-vote phone calls
Become an e-Team Leader
Receive the latest Bush Cheney '04 news by email to send to friends

Republican party activists like you stand on the front lines of GOP outreach on the Internet. By organizing, we can learn more about each other, recruit fellow Republicans, help build the party and hopefully have some fun along the way!

This ring helps us show the world the real face of the GOP -the people, organizations and candidates that are the real face of the Republican Party. It can also serve as a way for people to locate Republicans in their areas to get involved.

It's also a great way to give your personal site, campaign or party organization some extra publicity!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's campaign said Tuesday it has raised at least $34.2 million since he announced his 2004 re-election effort in May, with some checks still to be counted.

The Republican's total dwarfs fund-raising by his nine Democratic rivals, including Howard Dean, who racked up more than $800,000 in a daylong Web-a-thon on Monday that put him firmly among his party's money leaders as the second fund-raising quarter ended at midnight.

Bush raised $3 million at fund-raisers in Miami and Tampa, Fla., on Monday while Vice President Dick Cheney helped the campaign collect at least $500,000 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and $600,000 in Akron, Ohio.

The Bush-Cheney campaign had expected to raise around $30 million for the quarter after six weeks of fund raising. Bush entered the race in mid-May."This number represents strong enthusiasm for the president's leadership," campaign manager Ken Mehlman said.
Click for FULL ARTICLE

PHOENIX (AP) -- To hear him talk, you can't tell what most peeves Howard Dean: the U.S.-led war in Iraq or his Democratic presidential rivals inside the Washington Beltway.Either way, Dean's take-no-prisoners' pitch is driving scores of supporters and millions of dollars to his long-shot candidacy.

In the first months of the year, the little-known Dean developed a reputation as the outspoken anti-war candidate - a sharp contrast from his more established Democratic rivals in Congress who supported military action. But the anti-war moniker only captured part of Dean's appeal to some Democrats.Edwards blocks GIs' loan break
Click Here for FULL ARTICLE

Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, is single-handedly blocking Senate action on legislation all but unanimously supported by the House to ease the student-loan burden for soldiers fighting overseas.

In April, the House voted 421-1 to pass the HEROES Act, which essentially would defer student loans for soldiers called into action. The only dissenting vote was cast accidentally by one of the bill's sponsors.

The bill is stalled in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee under a "secret hold," said Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican and chairman of the committee.

Senate tradition allows members to lodge secret, or "anonymous," holds against a bill and block it indefinitely.

Supporters of the bill, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, were mystified for months that anyone would hold up such popular legislation, but couldn't pinpoint the culprit.

"It's frustrating when something has such overwhelming support and then it gets held up like this," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. John Kline, Minnesota Republican.
Click Here for FULL ARTICLE

I have made this point many times but I cannot resist making it one more time.

The political spectrum is made up of four major groups and two minor groups.

The major groups are the left, the right, the center, and the registered but don't vote group. The two minor groups are the left fringe (Greenies etc.) and the right fringe (Libertarians etc).

To put the first group in perspective here are some numbers from the 2000 presidential election 156,421,311 people were registered to vote. Only 105,586,274 of them voted. The turn out was 76%. In other words 24 percent of the people who were registered to vote did not vote in 2000. That non vote category varies from election to election. The non vote category is made up of two groups. First are those that don't care who is president. They vote for or against local tax measures but don't vote for president. That is small number. The others are those that don't care who is president because they see no difference between the two major parties and don't have a fringe party with which they agree. They may vote the next time if a fringe to their liking is on the ballot. Their are a lot in the registered but don't vote group.

Fringe groups are always screaming to the main parties that if they just endorsed the agenda of their fringe group, they would vote for that major candidate. They somehow never figure out that if the major party candidate adopted their positions, the major party candidate would get no more votes than the fringe party candidates do. So the major party candidate will never adopt their views.. since is is a loser position.

As a result the fringe party voters never vote for a major party candidate on issues.

You say hey wait a minute... Ross Perot got 19 million votes in 1992 what about that. Fourteen million more people voted in 1992 than voted in 1988. Fourteen million registered non voters, voted for Perot in 1992 that did not vote at all in 1988. You say wait a minute... what about 1996. Well in 1996 Perot got nine million fewer votes than he did in 1992... and 9 million fewer people voted than did in 1992.

But what about the fringe candidates... wouldn't they vote for a main candidate if he shared their views? Think about this. Al (Earth in the Balance) Gore was Greener than grass. Can you say global warming, ozone layer, destroy your SUV...Cleaner air, cleaner water... that was Al Gore with a capital G. But 2.9 Greenies still voted for Nader. Gore was not Green enough for the Greenies. How green would Gore have had to have been to get the Greenies. I don't know but it is far out shade of green.

The same is true on the right. No Republican can ever be right enough for the far right. For if a Republican ever gave the far right what it wanted, it would cost the Repubican 12 million votes from the center to get a half million votes from the fringe right. That is not going to happen.

What do fringes do when they don't have a candidate that matches their fringe? They do one of two things. Some join the group that does not vote. Like the 9 million perot voters that stayed home in 1996. About one half of the remainder vote for the Democrat and the other half vote for the Republican.

How many times do the fringes have to tell us there is not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties, before we understand that if they do vote for a major party candidate they flip a coin to decide which.

Let me give you some more numbers just over 90 million people voted for president in 1988. Nearly 105 million votes in 1992 and 19 million voted for Perot. Almost 96 million votes in 1996 and 9 million voted for perot.

In 2000 the 105 million were back and they split dead even between Bush and Gore in a virtual tie. Wasn't the 2000 election almost a tie?

If the 104 million who voted in 1992 were nearly the same 105 million that voted in 2000, then the 19 million Perot voters of 1992 were split evenly between Bush and Gore in 2000.

My point is that the fringes don't matter be they 2.9 million for Nader or 19 million for Perot. If they don't vote for the fringe candidate they split their votes between the major two candidates. They never decide a race. It does not matter if they vote or not.. they are not important. They do not decide elections.

What is important is the center. The have decided every race but one in my memory. Gray Davis purposely drove the center away from the polls in california last year. That left only the Democrats and Republicans to vote. Since there are more Democrats then Republicans in california, Davis won. The turn out was 4 million fewer in 2002 than it was in 1998. ONly 6 million voted. The center did not vote.

But in every other race in recent times the center is the deciding factor. If a candidate can get more than half the center, that candidate will win. To win, a candidate must get all his base and more than half the center. Remember FRINGES are not base... count on it they are never base. That means a candidate must run on those issues that appeal to his base and over half the center. Issues that only have base support are not campaigned on in the general election. In office the elected official will try to implement what his base and more than half the center wants done. If a candidate tries to please his base he will lose the center. He has to have the center he can't win with out it.

There is one area that really confuses the base. When the other parties base and all of the center are for an issue, a president will likely endorse that issue too. If it is a defining issue for the center the office holder will do it. He has to have the center. And just as Clinton accepted welfare reform when all the center wanted it, Dubya accepted prescription drugs when all the center wants that.

For the right to win on an issue, it must make that an issue with which over half the center will agree. And arguments that persuade the base do not work on the center. If they worked on the center the center would be part of the base.

So what we and Bush must do, is try to move the center to the right. It takes a ton of time and very good salesmanship to move the center. Presidents can rarely do that. Presidents are in the business of pleasing voters in the center ... not changing their minds.

That is what others must do.

But remember this working to persuade fringe voters or fringe non voters is a waste of time. It is the centrists that decide elections and they must be persuaded. Remember if you can get all the center to your view, it does not matter which party holds the white house, that issue will be made into law.

That is how elections are won and the course of the nation changed.

Why don't all of you out there in the other 49 States elect Senators like my two -- Senators Nickles and Inhofe -- the ONLY two that wouldn't vote to give taxpayer money to people who don't pay taxes!

When all of you elect Senators that think like my two then I will listen to people that don't like President Bush because if he had 51 Senators like Nickles and Inhofe, he wouldn't have to move to the center to get bills passed!

But then I don't see Leaving No Child Behind as being a socialist -- every child in this Country deserves a chance at a good education and if we had 51 Nickles and Inhofes, we would have vouchers.

Before people get mad at President Bush about what he is not doing to suit them, they had better ask themselves in they get out and work in their local Congressional/Senate races to elect more Conservative Republicans or do they sit home and whine they don't like the candidates.

Winning a Congressional race or a Senate takes a ton of money and lot of volunteer work. I know, I was part of a Congressional campaign here in OK for Tom Cole who replaced J.C. He was given additional RAT counties in the redistricting, but we won because we had a lot of volunteers including his 80-year old Mother that day after day would put labels on mailouts to go to people in our district. I brought mailouts home on weekends for my kids and I to label. In the end we sent out over 1 million pieces to our district. We won and another conservative went to Washington because of the number of people that volunteered and believed in Tom Cole!

The day you people that don't appreciate President Bush work day after day and night after night and weekends to elect a candidate, then come back and tell me what an easy job it is to get good conservaties elected. It is anything but because you are up against people that will lie, cheat, and steal to get elected backed by most of the press! Fortunately here in OK, we have The Oklahoman which is conservative and backs conservative candidates but our other papers are not!

The last thing I have to say is to all of you whiners that TLB pinged to this thread all with the same mantra about President Bush -- If you don't vote, then don't whine! If you don't get out and volunteer, then don't complain about the candidates or who is elected.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.