How many flags do you see today compared to just after 9/11? sometimes, unfortunately, only my own...
Posted on 11/01/2004 5:05:06 PM PST by LS
WORD FROM OBI-WAN KENOBI [11/01 07:25 PM]
After a busy day, had a chance to talk with Obi Wan Kenobi, the longtime GOP operative who is rapidly becoming a favorite of Kerry Spot readers.
The very short version: Can Kerry win this?
Obi Wan: I don’t see it… unless there is a sudden and big break to Kerry tonight.
The longer version:
While I (Jim) initially thought the bin Laden tape meant a Bush landslide, Obi Wan had a doubt or two. Not that the tape would hurt Bush, but that it might freeze things in place as the voters mulled over new information - and the bin Laden tape was a big piece of new information. While some folks like myself have been focusing on what bin Laden said, a certain segment of voters were and are just reacting to the reappearance of bin Laden. Their reaction to what he said will come after they have “digested” the fact that he is alive.
More Obi-Wan:
There is not much significance to the fact that many respondents to polls say the bin Laden tape will not affect their vote. A majority of voters said the Bush DUI wouldn’t affect them in 2000, and they were right, in that they were already committed to Bush or to Gore. The important respondents weren’t the ones who said it wouldn’t, it was the four or five percent that it ended up actually effecting.
The ghost of the 2000 DUI has been haunting Republicans throughout this election. It was a traumatic event on Republican expectations - and all year long, Republican voters and analysts have been waiting for some other October surprise that is going to knock down their man another four or five points.
But that was four years and a completely different electorate ago. This is the post-9/11 election world, where Bush is no longer an unknown quantity, but a president who has been tested and proven by the worst crisis to face a president since 1941. Almost no one had terrorism on their mind in 2000.
This weekend, voters were ‘digesting’ the bin Laden tape, a process that continued as they came back to work on Monday, and talked around the water cooler, listened to the radio, talked to coworkers, etc.
Each time there has been a significant event in the campaign - the conventions, each one of the debates - the poll numbers have returned to a small but significant, outside-the-margin of error lead over Kerry within about four or five days. During these initial events, the polls have bounced around, sometimes showing Kerry surging, but the numbers always settle back to the Bush 49ish Kerry 44ish area.
So, the bin Laden tape appears, and is the equivalent of one of the debates, or a vice-presidential pick, or some other event that focuses the public’s attention. They think about it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday - and on Tuesday, were tomorrow to be a normal Election Day, it would return to that Bush ahead by four or five points again.
Having Halloween on a Sunday, and the final weekend of the campaign, complicated matters. You had parents, suburbanites, and all kinds of people out of their houses.
Obi-Wan also wonders if some major pollsters have been “Zogbified.”
Zogby in recent days has discussed how he adjusts his “formula” for turnout when his polls get a result that differs greatly from his expectations. It is a natural instinct when one gets a wacky result (“Bush within four in Illinois? That can’t be!”) but a pollster has to be careful when he decides to start fiddling with which voters are likely to show up on Election Day and how many.
Obi-Wan wonders if the polling industry is going to confront a “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, where their methods are proven out-of-date in a rapidly changing world. When you have polls coming out on the same day showing such massive variance as Quinnipiac showing Bush ahead in Florida by 8 and Fox News showing Kerry ahead in the same state by 5, someone is going to be proven wrong. Rasmussen has Bush up 4 in Ohio while the last Gallup has Kerry up 4. Gallup has Bush up 4 in Pennsylvania while SurveyUSA has Kerry up 4. Mason Dixon has Kerry up 2 in Wisconsin, while Gallup had Bush up 8.
How are people really going to react? Take a look at the internals of the polls, which doesn’t have such wild variances. Obi Wan points to (ironically, in light of many people's opinion of the two organizations) the New York Times/CBS poll out today. The poll showed Bush leading, 49 percent to 46 percent.
But the internals - well, PoliPundit summarized it:
48% of voters will vote on national security issues; only 33% on domestic issues.
By a 54%-29%, voters believe the Bush Administration has made them safer.
53% of voters do not think that Kerry agrees with their priorities, his worst number ever.
48% of voters do not think that Bush agrees with their priorities. 49% believe he does share their priorities.
52% of voters think Kerry has leadership qualities, his lowest number ever.
62% of voters think President Bush has leadership qualities.
57% of voters are uneasy with Kerry’s ability to handle a crisis.
60% believe Kerry says what people want to hear. Only 36% say that about President Bush.
This poll was conducted Friday and Saturday. Is this any sign of a surge to Kerry? Hardly.
So why is this race so close? Because, Obi Wan suspects, voters know the course that Bush has charted is hard, and will have hard moments. They know that bringing democracy to the Middle East and crushing militant Islamists, rogue states and terrorism is going to have frustrations, setbacks, and casualties. If the world didn’t need this task done, Americans would prefer to stay home and re-live the 1990s.
But Americans know the world changed. The sudden reappearance of the bearded psychopath playing pundit in Arabic on Friday was just the latest reminder. And Americans won’t vote for the candidate of the Global Test.
That was 2004, none of which is included on this sad list FYI
Umm...fabian right??? Isn't that an oxymoron. Fabians are socialists...
How many flags do you see today compared to just after 9/11? sometimes, unfortunately, only my own...
The sad, sad fact is that...............
..........the massacre was limited to mostly New York, with the Washington (Pentagon) area thrown in. Liberal strongholds that contribute mega-millions to the Rat Cause, like Santa Monica and San Francisco were left untouched. This was an East Coast 'thing'.
Spielberg, Rob Reiner and Tim Robbbins were left untouched both physically and emotionally. What do they care. Afterall, a group of Jihadists didn't invade the multi-million dollar Spielberg or Streisand compounds overlooking the Pacific and after holding the occupants hostage for a few hours or days, behead them one by one on video camera for the Evening News in LaLa-land.
Instead, the pampered All-knowing Glitterati held major million dollar fund-raising parties for Dean and then JfK.
"The sad, sad fact is that not enough Americans were killed on 9/11. It was not so overwhelmingly traumatic that we became 100% united and determined. That there could still be people out there who don't want to do what is necessary "because it's hard" boggles the mind. Obi-Wan is a very smart man (or woman)."
I seriously think that a large percentage of democrats could never be swayed regardless of the act against us. I think they were truly terrified after 9/11, not of the terrorists, but of patriotism because it is a unifying factor. They have worked for decades to divide this country by race, religion, age, economic level, union vs non-union etc etc etc. The thought of everyone having a common goal is unbearable to them. They just hid in their holes for a while and planned their attacks for when it was politically safe to do so.
I remember talking to someone on-line about the dems holding up the homeland defense dept. for political purposes and he tried every angle to try and convince me that I was wrong. Finally, he was forced to admit he was a union employee for the govt. When I hit him hard for not admitting this he said that I just didn't understand because they needed the union to make sure work was shared evenly etc etc.
I couldn't believe that we were talking about defending our country from another 9-11 and this guy was only worried about not having to do more work than the guy in the cubicle next to him. I think that is kind of what defines a democrat. They just can't think outside of their narrow issue. They can't think outside of their cubicle, their racial issues, their choice issues etc. If they were capable of considering their parties overall platform they wouldn't be a dem b/c they would see that overall they were losing everything just to gain one narrow issue. This is also why it is so frustrating to debate one. They will lie about issues they don't even care about and never admit that they are really just focused on one selfish unrelated issue.
"The sad, sad fact is that not enough Americans were killed on 9/11. It was not so overwhelmingly traumatic that we became 100% united and determined"
If not 3,000 dead, then how many will it take for the vast majority of American's to take this threat seriously? Polls show that 47% or more of the electorate could vote for the man who pines for the days when these animals were just a nuisance. A man who will fight a more sensitive WOT. A man who will make sure any actions against these barbarians pass a global test. A man who voted to cut the military and intelligence every chance he had. Some libs are even suggesting that we should negotiate with OBL (reported by Rush today).
Is is just me? Does anyone else see this for the absurdity and wretchedness it is?!! If 3,000 people (several of whom I grew up with in NJ)being murdered by an Islamofascist who endorses Kerry is not enough to make this a landslide for Bush; then how many will have to die before we support, in an overwhelming fashion, a candidate who, through words and ACTIONS, begins each day working to kill these SOB's?
If not this then what what trauma will be required for this country to become 100% united and determined?
Almost 17 years ago, being a musician on the road, not being very politically astute or involved, I learned about what a liberal really was and stood for.
I was in Little Rock for a New Year's Eve party playing a gig at the Holiday Inn, and met quite a few locals, among them were people who had the goods on their then governor, Slick Willy. They claimed that this drug using murdering governor could end up in the White House someday. I exclaimed, "Yeah, right." One of the them was a relative to Kevin Ives, one of the teenagers that was murdered because of stumbling onto a drug drop operation near the Mena airport, who were seen viewing the operation and run down by state police and taken away.
A few days later Kevin and his friend's gruesome bodies were found on rural railroad tracks, and they were also shot in the head. The local coroner ruled their deaths as 'Died of natural causes'. The third boy, a cousin to one of the other two, was murdered and thrown in a dumpster.
Kevin's mother asked their governor to look into the murders, he promised 'we'll get to the bottom of this, I assure you'. He never got back to her on the matter. Six more friends and relatives stormed into the governor's office a few months later and raised hell about it to Slick. Three to four weeks later all six complaintants were also eventually found murdered in separate incidents.
Since this reply is already long-winded, and since many freepers have this story in their archives or have heard it before, I'll just say that my experience with the liberal mindset of say anything, do anything, no matter what it takes in order to remain in power is what they are truly to the core about. To the death, or ours!
I've coined this phrase here at FR some 7 or 8 years ago when I joined, but I will reiterate it with all my passion that I believe - "they are a cancerous tumor growing on the ass of society that MUST be surgically removed before the body (society) is too sick to recover, and dies."
I am wondering at this point in our history if we as conservatives along with our elected officials have the guts and fortitude to be the surgeons to successfully complete the operation to save the patient (society).
Sorry for the rant. You re-awakened my passion on this subject.
Freegards. SOT
But the point is well taken, the shock of 9/11 was too weak, if any, since it was all experienced through colour television, and we've all become desensitized to violence and death and mayhem on the idiot box. In a deeper sense, subconsciously, for many it was all another moving picture experience. By now the daily Iraq beheadings have reached the same stage. Yawn, say the masses in front of their 36 inch screens.
"Bush 65%, Kerry 34% pv.
Bush 341, Kerry 197 ev."
YES!!!!!!!
Nick
Not so sure about that. They voted for Bill Clinton not once, but twice!!!
what state are you in?
Mississippi
LLS
I agree....Classic.
I was thinking on that same drive to work, as I was passed by a partially-oxidized 4-cylinder hatchback, that liberal's rear windows should be viewed in their entirety. Somewhat like how they want Clinton's presidency to be considered.
Along with the Kerry/Edwards (notice "Edwards" is font-equal) sticker sloppily plastered across the paint, one gets an overall view of what the left stands for. Rarely is the view-impairing collection of free expressions actually positive about anything. I HAVE noticed very few Kerry stickers prominently displayed along with the gold or silver fish, by the way.
Bump
"The War for Infinite Justice MUST BE ESCALATED"
And pursued to unconditional victory.
Great list. It ought to be its own thread so people could suggest additions...Like TWA flight 800, and the Murrah Building.
"I left a little note on his windshield"
I think liberals regard "trying to make a liberal think" as just one category of "thought crime."
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