Posted on 11/09/2002 4:42:38 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Living out in the sticks has its advantages. For one thing, there's at least a slim chance that the wildly incompetent person screwing up your life behind the counter may get fired. For another, we're not stunned by election results that demonstrate Americans can think. When Republicans swept the elections Tuesday, official punditry fell into paroxysms of self-doubt. How did so many get it so wrong? What did we miss? With hindsight, the answer seemed clear and went something like this: Democrats criticized Republicans but offered no substantive alternatives. Seems simple enough, but the truer answer may be even simpler. It's the grown-ups, silly. Even Democrats, many of whom confess to having voted Republican this time, prefer grown-ups in times of trouble. With notable exceptions -- senatorial candidate Alex Sanders in South Carolina and gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride in Florida, to name a couple -- Democrats have acted like he-got-a-bigger-cookie brats, throwing tantrums and otherwise behaving badly. Most recently and writ large, they behaved inexcusably at Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone's memorial service. Much already has been written and said about the service, so there's no need to belabor details here. Suffice it to say that Americans got to see up close how not to behave and whom not to emulate. Most offensive and inappropriate were the ovations for Democratic celebrities -- Bill Clinton, former vice presidents Walter Mondale and Al Gore, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. It was like a reunion of aging Mouseketeers mournfully singing M-O-U-S-E for a boomer crowd that was thinking only of war and the possibility of sending their own kids to the sickest ends of Earth. In a word: irrelevant. Serious times demand serious people, and voters, if not pundits, clearly get that. And then there's the matter of style, which matters. And forgive me, but class. We may not know what "it" is, but we know what it ain't. Fix again on the Wellstone memorial, which evolved into a ranting, jacket-shedding, foot-stomping political rally. Now picture the Bush White House reserved, dignified, quietly passionate. Vive la difference. Tuesday's "stunning" Republican victory was as simple as voters handing the reins of government to the adults. If you're having trouble with this, return to the list of those applauded at the Wellstone memorial and jot down by each name the first word that comes to mind. And your vote would be? Americans with war and national security on their minds have wearied, too, of partisan bickering. Sibling rivalry has no place on the battlefield where we either work together or die. Voting to give the president greater support at a critical historical juncture was as easy as stabbing a chad. Finally, and not insignificantly, people are fundamentally sick of the continuous bratty assault from the left on the leader of the Free World. That would be their leader. They don't like it. Name-calling is unfair, unsportsmanlike and juvenile. Besides, beyond the Beltway are millions of people who see George W. Bush not as a bumbling fool, but as a thoroughly nice guy with a good heart and a good-enough brain. So his syntax slips. Whose doesn't except those smarty-pantses on TV? So he misses a few syllables or adds one here and there. Down at the Jiffy Lube at the corner of Snake Fork and Timbuck Lane, people don't much worry about that kind of thing. They worry: Does the man look you in the eye when he shakes your hand? Does his upper lip sweat? Are his tears for human loss or for cameras? Bush passes the real-people test, and real people outnumber pundits on Election Day. People trust him. They recognize him. They know he won't try to seduce their daughters or play games that don't involve a ball, a bat or a hoop. The Republican sweep was something, all right, but it wasn't mysterious. At least not out here in the sticks where, after all, George W. Bush is most comfortable of all. Kathleen Parker
The "good-enough brain" part is actually understatement. People with President Bush's academic and other accomplishments (dullards don't graduate from Harvard's Business School, can't learn to fly a fighter jet and don't have a net worth of some $16 million earned by themselves) have very high IQ's.
This country is at war. The adults are back in charge. The dems think that we're just a bunch a racist, anti-poor, anti-homeless, anti-black, anti-minority, anti-queer, anti-welfare, anti-environment, anti-union rednecks. Then it comes to saving the country, all those groups and their incessant "gimmie, gimmie" whining are irrevelant.
Just some food for thought - Which 20th century presidents had/have the highest IQs?
Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon.
Not meaning to slight the intelligent here, but the author says Bush is intelligent enough, and it clearly bears out in the analysis.
The fact is, little changed. the different camps are so even that most of the Congress remained the same as it was.
The Republican attack across the country was focused on those areas where an attack with maximum available resources was possible and given some measure of potential success. Maximum available is different from overwhelming force/resources that was not possible. Some of those focused attacks were successful and some were repulsed.
The success rate was barely adequate. A followon attack will be made in LA to increase the total success.
Where the attacks were successful, the number of minds changed was small. Most voters voted the previously entrenched positions. A few voters were in fact frightened and voted for personal physical security over personal economic security.
The Republicans did not win an overwhelming victory. They gained control and now must act to change the minds of entrenched Rats as well as more of those in the middle with no permanent convictions.
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Why is it that even the lowest form of animals learn from their mistakes, yet the Dumb-O-Loser can't learn from theirs?
I believe that they believe that the American voters are all morons and need to be told how to vote.
The same tired,old tricks that worked for the perverted klinton era is still being used. They are allowing this vile, lying, perverted pig to make fools of them while he continues to recieve huge sums of money. They are also setting themselve up to again make the same mistakes by fawning over his also perverted "wife".
They have no new ideas, programs or direction.
I can only recommemnd that all Dumb-O-Loser leadership be required to study the lower form of life, see how they learn from their mistakes and see if they can also learn.
But then again, never mind it's to much fun watching you eat your own and totally destroy yourselves.
"Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon."
You missed one. Jimmuh Cahtah was right up there in the brains department (in fact, Walter Crankcase said that ole Jimmuh was the smartest president he had ever seen, being able to digest and retain huge masses of detail). Of course, Jimmuh was an incompetent president....which just goes to show that leadership ability doesn't necessarily accrue to the smartest lad on the block.
No. That implies that voting democrat would somehow be good for the economy and voting Republican would somehow be harmful to the economy. That's just a democrat myth.
The understatement of the month. --SB (from The Middle of Nowhere)
5.56mm
You are correct in this statement but may misunderstand my other point. I am considering the microeconomy of personal finances. Macro economic considerations are irrelevant for the few I think are involved in the recent election.
The challange on the macroeconomy is more fundamental and moves the base. That is, to change the 43% entrenched in addition to the 12% in the middle.
Having a high IQ doesn't mean diddly squat without the common sense to drive it. My cousin's IQ is off the charts... but he works at Pizza Hut (40 yrs old). He was one semester away from a Master's in Physics before dropping out of the "establishment". Now......most people I know would call that STUPID. *chuckle*
Bush is “the millionaire next door” sort of guy. Everyone knows he has it but he acts just like the rest of us. He doesn’t make us feel small or carry even a whiff of an “I am SO much better then you” attitude. Your nice middle class son probably could ask his daughter for a date without daddy getting upset.
To put it in a nutshell, he likes us and we return the favor high IQ, big bank account and all. As opposed to those mentioned who have very high IQ’s (maybe) but give us the impression that they hold us in contempt.
a.cricket
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