Very conceivable, but only if Dubyuh and the GOP begin to make a solid case to the American people that we've got a positive agenda we look to enact if given the opportunity. Bush has slid steadily to the Left with his domestic Legislative duties (aka to Veto or Not To Veto and Capitol Hill-arm-twistin'), and he must work to re-energize his sizable conservative base that is increasingly wondering whether it's worth the effort to re-elect Republicans when they seem to grow the Size and Scope of the Federal Leviathan every bit as quickly as the DemonRATS. We need to pick 4-5 issues that the entire Party agrees to hammer on...then keep hammerin' and hammerin' and hammerin'!!! Education Vouchers and the de-linking of the Federal Bureaucracy and Teacher's Unions from our Education System should be one...Personal Retirement Accounts for younger Americans who choose not to depend upon the Ponzi-schemed Social Security System should be another...Increased Energy Independence is another...Medical Savings Accounts that protect us from major medical calamities but compel rational decisions with regards to our medical necessities for the first couple thousand dollars are needed instead of a more bureaucRATized Socialized Medicine the Leftists prefer...we need to distinguish the Left from the Right and run on exactly those issues, my FRiends!!
The time to compromise with the Left is past...now we need to take the battle to them!!
FReegards...MUD
Freedom of choice in education, Freedom of choice over Social Security, Energy Independence (time to deregulate ethanol), Freedom of choice over Medicare. Top domestic issues today. Hope you don't mind a little formatting to make your list easier to read.
It may come as a shock to some, but in a two party system the winner has to get more than half the votes. That means a party must get most of its side of the spectrum and some of the other sides votes in order to win. The object is to restrict your apponents to his side of the middle line and then take some of his side.
Their are many on the left that really believe they could get the Right to vote for them if the Right just understood their wonderful arguments. Silly HUH??? Well the Right is full of people who believe that the Left would change their ways if they just understood what the Right has to offer.
The truth is the party that garners support on the other side of center always wins. Of couse when a candidate or party does that, he has to go far enough to recover the part of the base this tactic loses. Democrats are better at math. They rarely attack their guys for trying to get support from the other side. Clinton says end welfare as we know it and they applaud. They know that failure to support him could end the left as they know it. The right always says "Give me liberty or give me death!" while handing Tom Daschle their loaded 45.
Our entire political system was based on the dominance of the center. It takes 60 votes in the Senate. It takes the Senate, the House, the President, and Supreme Court to make major changes in our nation. We have a stable government because it is biased for the views of the center.
Clinton won as a new democrat. He moved to pick up some of those to the right of center. Welfare reform was done to pick up some to the right of center.
Gore lost because he stayed to the left of center. He was afraid of losing his base. Nearly all of the base comes home by election day. Both parties to win have reach out for the votes of some on the other side. It is the only way to win. It is the only way to make change. Even then the only changes made are small and incremental.
Nixon was right on one thing. To get the nomination Democrats run to the left and Republicans run to the right. To win in fall they have to run to the center. In this most evenly divided political time in our history, the candidates and party that most runs to the center will win.The winner will then move the nation slightly left or slightly right depending on who wins.
Hopes of any other outcome can not be logically held by anyone who read the 2,000 election returns.
LOL, this is wonderful. Thanks Mud.