Cuyahoga County looks awfully blue, there. Likewise Washington DC. Just to pick a couple of examples. Do you suppose they will be "Kerry" coloured or "Bush" coloured in November, 2004?
Posted on 07/23/2004 9:45:17 AM PDT by ConservativeStLouisGuy
Cuyahoga County looks awfully blue, there. Likewise Washington DC. Just to pick a couple of examples. Do you suppose they will be "Kerry" coloured or "Bush" coloured in November, 2004?
Bump!
How am I supposed to know? BTW, I live in Texas now.
$710.96... The price of freedom.
Thanks for the tip and bumpus...
Amen to that prayer, sr4402! God-willing, Nov 2 will allow Pres Bush to continue in his fight for life...
Thanks for the bump, friend!
OH! I like that picture! Didn't Bush make the remark that he was going to win just like Armstrong?
Yes, I believe Bush did -- a day or so ago....isn't it nice to have a psychic President? ;-)
At least no one labeled it shameful political pandering.
It wasn't. So your point would be...?
$710.96... The price of freedom.
Gaze into a crystal ball? See which way a toad hops when you set him down at first light? ;')
Seriously, though. There are a few indentifiable population groups in this country which tend to vote in a manner I find baffling. "Exit polls", and the famous red/blue map I posted both suggest that urban Blacks, Catholics, Hispanics, and Jews tend to vote for 'Rats, even though for many reasons doing so would seem not to be in their best interests. The President laid out many of those reasons in his speech, but there's nothing new about them. They've been obvious to anyone capable of observation for years. Will they get a clue this year? Will the big metropolitan areas go for the 'Rats this year, as they almost always have in the past?
Neither of us knows. However, a candidate who really wants to win has to appeal to all the voters. Do you think the President's appeal in this speech will affect folks who've been consistently electing 'Rats for decades? I can't imagine how any sane person could punch the button for Kerry, but I predict that this election will be fairly closely contested. I predict that lots of folks will pull the lever for Kerry simply because they've always voted for the 'Rat, and their parents did before them. I call it inertial voting.
Bush did use some candor and that is refreshing but (and ya'll can shoot me) there is a tone of pandering and the sound of special status granted to simply being a minority.
Everyone does it (even me, I have the kneejerk imulse here to qualify generalizations about blacks and others that I would never feel a need to do when barking about peckerwoods), some worse than others but I don't like it. I fear I sure will never see the end of it....the guilt thing.
Anyhow, like some other posters said....it's nice and all but blacks won't vote conservative till they change themselves. If we do everything necessary to bring them over now we'll have to outpander the Dems.
To you, it was not; opinions vary however.
Only a completely dishonest heart can say that this was pandering. Completely dishonest.
Then again, to you, his showing up to speak with any American blacks constitutes pandering.
$710.96... The price of freedom.
_______________________________________________________
You are likely correct for the over 40 crowd but there are a lot of younger, better educated and more successful Black Americans who are evolving politically.
You're thinking too short term. What President Bush is doing is "prepping the battlefield" by forcing the future debate to be about issues.
His speech today to the Urban League is immediately prior to the Democratic Convention in Boston...a convention in which the Democrats will *flee* from any meaningful debate about faith-based charities (Bush's idea), private school choice vouchers (Bush's idea), national standards for testing students (Bush's idea), mandatory testing of teachers (Bush's idea), the closing of schools that fail year after year (Bush's idea), gay marriage, Privatizing Social Security, crime law enforcement, new jobs from drilling for Alaskan oil, etc.
So Blacks are about to be confronted with a stark contrast. It's something that they haven't seen in decades.
On the one hand, they have a President who is pushing reforms that clearly benefit Blacks (e.g. privatizing social security, faith-based charities, school choice vouchers, no gay marriage), versus a Democratic convention that opposes all of those things and that refuses to give such things any substantive debate.
Now granted, sheer inertia is going to prevent any mass movement over to Bush this year, but his message will be heard. So too will people remember the diversity of his Cabinet (e.g. Condi Rice, Powell, Paige, etc.). More importantly, Blacks will remember the contrast of ideas in the future.
The battlefield has now been prepped. The change, however, will happen more in the future than in this year.
But even in this year, the speech that Bush gave today will win some hearts and minds.
It's a start.
5 Full Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
I concur -- it was VERY IMPORTANT for Pres Bush to explain that it was he/the Republicans who are benefitting the blacks....(and I hate to say this....but) do like Clinton did: have the Republicans pass the legislation and then claim the credit for having done it himself...the only difference is that the Republicans HAVE passed the legislation and the Pres IS right in claiming the credit...
That is only your opinion based on the predisposition that the politician is "completely honest".
Then again, to you, his showing up to speak with any American blacks constitutes pandering.
Speaking with Americans is just fine with me.
Nice repetition on this point (though with varied exact wording) -- although the President was emphasizing issues and initiatives important to black Americans, he kept hammering home that his polices benefit them not because they are black, but because they are Americans.
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