Posted on 01/29/2008 8:36:09 PM PST by ICE-FLYER
It has been some time since the 1996 Elections where a Bill Clinton won re-election over Robert Dole. While Dole was a leader in the Senate and in many ways a decent guy he would never have been the first choice of people on the right. However, it seemed that it was "his turn" and that he was somehow owed this opportunity.
He could not have been a more lack luster candidate.
Are we to get the same from McCain? The field of candidates does not impress most on the right...but least of all do I see McCain being the one to sweep us off our feet in any general election.
McCain is worse than Dole - his health, CFR, amnesty obsession, foul language and temper tantrums, etc. We cannot afford to have somebody in the White House - Conservative or Liberal - who might have mental problems.
Romey is the only one of them not getting a government check, a government pension or government health care...
Think about that for a minute.
He is soft in the head and soft on the borders. He IS soft on terror in the end result. How do you think those Arabs got in the country?
The MSM does not have the influence of pull that it used to have. Are they biased? Of course... I have no doubt they will back the Dem.. however, the days of them doing 80% pro dem and 20% pro R are over like 1992 are over. 96 was a little better maybe 70% to 30% and 2000 a bit better and 2004 a bit better still.
They cannot demagog national political elections as they have in the past. The landscape has changed too much, their influence has wained to far for them to get away with the same things they could in the 90s. They don’t control the flow of information anymore.
A candidate does something and its posted on YouTube, linked to a spun by bloggers and in the public discussion long before they have even gotten to taping their nightly news. Spin of the event by both sides is already in high gear before the MSM’s news cycle even knows what’s going on.. and by the time it makes tommorrows nightly news, another event has already replaced it.
2008 is not 1996, and comparisons to it are foolish. Dole was the party candidate from day one... McCain certainly has not been. Clinton was an incumbent. Dole chose a poor running mate and ran a weak campaign in a climate where the press still controlled the national conversation. None of these facts are true in 2008 and comparisons I think are just nonsense so talk radio pinheads have fodder to talk about and fear tactics to engage in.
Regardless of who the R nominee is, they will have my vote, because in spite of all the venom and hatred being spit out by some here, the simple fact remains, that any Republican in this race is far superior to any Democrat.
“Romey is the only one of them not getting a government check, a government pension or government health care”
Hahahahaahahha... might want to rethink that, guarantee a lot of his business dealings had direct or indirect government subsidization.
America does very well without you and will continue to.
McCain - “I was the first to actually put controls on speech with during elections.”
Absolutely right. If either Hillary or Crazy John is elected, talk radio and the internet will be under attack.
The first thing a socialist needs to control is the media. The MSM has been a socialist tool for decades, but radio and the internet are beyond their reach. Look for regulations governing content as soon as either of these Stalin-wannabes takes office.
Fred Barnes, is that you?
I do.
No, he won't. The 'Rats are just baiting you with that one. They're doubling down: Obama wins, they win. Hillary wins, they still win. McCain wins the GOP nomination, they still win.
It's called freezing the deck while the gomers are sitting there looking at you with their mouths open, gaping cluelessly.
Hillary's a Communist. McCain's more of a fascist.
Not that having one or the other would make much of a practical difference.
Bob Dole? Hell he’ll be this year’s Walter Mondale.
Might take one state.
I guess we’ll just agree to disagree on this one. I also think that McCain will draw significant democratic support from hawkish democrats. I’m not liking it, but McCain has a much broader and better appeal than Hillary.
In 2005, about the time of the OKC bombing, Clinton and Dick Morris used the reptile money Clinton got from the Chinese to do a lot of focus-group and test-marketing in the so-called "C" markets (Jackson, Mississippi; Cedar Rapids; Chattanooga; Fort Myers-Port Charlotte, etc.), working retail malls to talk to qualified samples of likely voters.
Upshot of the number-crunching and feedback: Bob Dole was the weakest candidate the GOP could run against Clinton, and therefore Clinton's best matchup.
So that summer, what did we hear? A media drumbeat about Bob Dole, the wise, the eminent Old Man of the GOP, it was Bob's turn, Bob would lead the Party back from the brink, retrieve its sullied reputation from the nastiness of Newtification.
And Jonathan Alter wrote an essay in his newsrag that simply told future GOP delegates, that they would have to nominate Dole if the GOP were ever to be taken seriously again. This, with a straight face, from an ink-stained wretch.
Now, what are the odds that Alter knew about Dick Morris's polling work? That Dole was the one the Clintons wanted? What would you wager me, against that proposition?
I remember it that way too. I remember Reagan, Bush, and Bush all coming to rallys in or near my area (a very conservative part of Mid Wisconsin), I saw them all (even though I was too young to vote for Reagan), but I am honestly racking my brain trying to remember if Dole ever campaigned in my backyard. If he did, I didn’t go, and don’t know of anyone else that did. I have seen Reagan, Bush, and GWBush (twice).
I agree. And they'll do it under the banner of "governing from the middle".
Look for the Million Moms to be back, too, and all the Left pressure groups. That's when the gays and atheists will try to drive the Baptists underground. They'll try to start a bigotry campaign against conservative religionists, similar to the one that grew up against Jews in the 1870's in the tonier parts of society, under cover of a "campaign against hate and divisiveness" -- "hate must have affirmative consequences", they'll intone.
Another thing he would have going for him, perversely, is that the Dems control Congress. I think one reason people were willing to stay with the likable rogue Clinton is that they knew the Republican Congress would restrain him. So, even if the public is down on Republicans, the fact of a Dem Congress may make it easier for people p.o.'d at Bush to vote for McCain.
Ahh, I see you've been down this road before.
If either of these two . . . individuals is elected, I'm betting it will take six months to get the Fairness Doctrine back in place.
More like Fred Flintstone...
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