<p>Cangel: It always mystifies me that a candidate from Massachusetts is always portrayed in a negative light. Can you not "hear" the message? Are you still hung up with mega-tax mania that you cannot understand how to keep America free you need to be able to choose? Whether it be partial birth abortion or allowing monies for stem cell research? Did you not listen to the debates and realize our billions of dollars going to a frivolous war could end the national debt? and maybe bail out our kids from a shrinking social security fund? I cannot understand the narrow-mindedness of those who consider themselves a member of the moral majority whose main focus is keeping either "gays" from marrying or who consider political discourse with European countries as acquiescence to their demands?</p>
<p>The war is not frivolous.
The billions spent on it are dwarfed by the national debt and the SS trust fund liability.
I don't know a soul who voted for the president on the issue of gay marriage.
Stem cell research was federally funded for the first time by Bush, and there is no ban.
Discourse with Europeans is fine, as long as you don't acquiesce to their demands.</p>
<p>The National Debt was incurred by this president I might add...and HOORAY for California who just voted to allocate lots of money to stem cell research in defiance of George W. There is a GOD.</p>
<p>sgiovinc, I feel your pain, but did you really think Kerry was going to fix all of these things? Clinton tried and failed to reform health care. Globalization and outsourcing was in motion long before Bush and Dems support this. Education in this Country has been a disaster for some time and we need to put more money there whether for NCLB or some other strategy. The social serurity debacle is not W's making and many people think his solution is a good one though Dems oppose it. How the heck was Kerry going to assure social security without raising payroll taxes? Impossible according to every economist I've read on the subject. Was Kerry going to assure every Harvard and Penn kid a good job? While that would be nice I'm not planning on a politician doing that for me. And as someone looking for a job, there is no doubt in my mind that Bush's pro business agenda is much better for me than Kerry's agenda. No one will stop outsourcing, we now live in a globalized world and need to adjust our sites to new economy opportunities. No candidate was going to stop the pain of our adjusting to the new economy. So stop pouting, the Country's ills were not going to dissapear overnight had Kerry won despite his ridiculous claims.</p>
<p>Up is down, black is white and the world is flat. </p>
<p>Sjovinc, I'll be drinking a toast to you tonight in a group of friends we call "French Club" half of whom are evil members of the teachers union. We got together because our sons and daughters were involved in music and drama together in high school. We have french names , sip and sometimes gulp champagne, eat hors doeuvres and discuss politics among other things. Thanks for being a teacher and caring about what is wrong with our country. </p>
<p>Au Revoir ( I have to quit being a mouse potato and get something done)</p>
<p>A vote for Kerry was a vote against BUSH. You are too young to know, but our lives were better when there was a democrat in office. We had enough money for gasoline, we could take vacations, and YES, I could send my two children to IVYleague schools even being a mere member of the middle class. Could not do that now! My savings accts are earning next to nothing in interest yet the IVYleague college tuition is escalating close to 8% a year. Why shouldn't my kids reap the benefit of an IVY league education if they are smart enough to get in? Why should tuition costs prevent me from sending them? Why? because my school taxes are $6000/year and Harvard does not take that into consideration when deciding what Expect Family Contribution should be. And why are school taxes so high???? No federal funding for NCLB mandates....most of the cost comes from real estate taxes in NY. I make a six figure salary...have to carpool to work because want to be fiscally prudent re: gas costs. And my H grad son, he bikes to work in Cambridge. Yes, an IVY leaguer who cannot use his car! He used to make 6 figures too. Was unemployed for 8 months due to job cuts in the computer industry...hope it doesn't happen to you. Let me know how you do when you graduate. I'd be curious. His roommate from college just bought a house in Somerville, Ma. How? Not because he earned the money. His dad had a trust fund for him and he was able to put down a substantial down payment. Do you think you will be able to buy a house in the NE without one?? Don't think so. My hope is that the educated young people begin their lives in affordable parts of the country and perhaps infiltrate the narrow-minded country bumpkins. Just a thought. It's evolutionary.</p>
<p>Lizschup: Thank G-d for Minnesota and the ladies of the "French" club!!!!!!What a breath of fresh air in the midwest! Love to join you tonight but have to run to Carnegie Mellon to drink lots of Diet Pepsi with rum with her (she drinks the Diet Pepsi, I drink the rum!) so we can commiserate on our state of affairs! Nice to have kids who really CARE about the country and where it is headed. Therein lies the future for us! GOD BLESS THEM! I hope they do a better job than we have. CHEERS!</p>
<p>I feel Sjovinc's pain as well. But, rather than be angry at the Republicans, I'm furious with the Democrats. They have lost touch with the voters. It was clear to me after the last election that the party poo-bahs were clueless and making decisions that would continue to cost them elections. I'm actually surprised the election was a close as it was with a very poor candidate and the same crew of failed Dukakis and Gore strategists calling the shots. The Newsweek wrap up article lays out what I suspected all along...the Kerry campaign organization was a complete disaster.</p>
<p>The response to the election on Tuesday by the Democrats has been even more disturbing. You will never win elections thinking that the voting public consists of "dumb rednecks" who "aren't smart enough to see it our way".</p>
<p>Apparently, the Democratic Party has to keep getting their butt kicked for a few more election cycles before they begin to look at why their message is not selling.</p>
<p>This is interesting thread. I will make few observations. Those who claim to be moderate are not moderates at all. Many of them usually vote conservative, but are ashamed to call themselves conservatives. It is easy to rationalize your vote for Bush by saying that Kerry was a weak candidate. Perhaps he was a weak candidate, but how about the message itself? President relies a lot on the people he picks. By voting for Bush you subscribed to the following:</p>
<p>(1) It is OK to invade other countries pre-emptively.
(2) It is OK to mis-lead the people about the rationale.
(3) It is OK to be a bully in the world.
(4) You dont want middle class tax relief.
(5) You dont want college tax credit.
(6) You like to pay higher medical costs.
(7) It is OK to bankrupt the US treasury.
(8) It is OK to bankrupt the SS trust fund.
(9) It is OK to rape the environment, and our forests and other natural resource.
(10) It is OK to take away womans right to choose and stem cell research under the guise of protecting human life, but on the other hand it is OK to kill and maim more than 100 K Iraqis (many of them were babies too).
(11) In Iran and other Middle Eastern countries Mullahs impose their views, now we have Pastors and Bishops doing the same, and it is OK.
(12) It is OK to overtly discriminate people based on their sexual preferences
..Who will they pick next? Those who do not share their religion?</p>
<p>Now about privatizing SS. It is a wonderful sound bite, but let us see the facts. The SS trust fund is pay as you go, it is not a pool of money that the current retires have saved up and their checks are distributed from it. Now if portion of workers dont pay and have their private accounts the trust fund income wont be enough. Folks like me in late fifties or the current retires wont have to worry, my son when he starts paying he wont have to worry. But, folks if you are in late 30s or early forties better start saving up. The trust fund income stream will dry up if a portion is diverted. I will give you a simple formula, if you are expecting $ X/month in your retirement income, you need about 175X 200X as your personal pool of money to generate that much in your monthly income stream. </p>
<p>Bush won by catering to religious conservatives (Remember Faith Based Initiatives? Code words for bribing ministers and pastors), exploiting tragedy, exploiting moral fault lines, fear mongering and bribing Florida ($8 billion in disaster relief).</p>
<p>I find it interesting that Bush can earn criticism for having caused our national debt and, at the same time, for refusing to blindly throw federal money at research. President Bush's policy does not ban stem cell research, it simply limits the use of federal funds. Is it so wrong to believe that the venture capitalists of the world would not jump at the chance to fund the research, if it had shown ANY chance of success? Has exploratory scientific and medical research become an obligation of our government? We could, maybe, pay closer attention to Mini's criticism of the federal funding that benfits drug companies, and draw a parallel to the current need to throw federal money at stem-cell research. As far as applauding Arnold's decision, let's see where he finds the non-federal money IN California. </p>
<p>Now, when it comes to Federal Debt, let's see if poor George really created it:</p>
<p>2004 (Estimate) $6,033,583 million
2003 (Estimate) $5,946,792 million
2002 (Estimate) $5,854,990 million
2001 (Estimate) $5,768,957 million
2000 (Estimate) $5,686,338 million >>>>>> Clinton's Last Year
1999 $5,606,087 million
1998 $5,478,711 million
1997 $5,369,694 million
1996 $5,181,921 million
1995 $4,921,005 million
1994 $4,643,691 million
1993 $4,351,403 million >>>>>>>>> Clinton First Year</p>
<p>Increase under Bush $349,407 million
Increase under Clinton Second Term $399,263 million
Increase under Clinton First Term $1,018,291 million
Total Increase under Clinton $1,417,554 million</p>
<p>And no, the figures do not come from Fox News, here's the source:
<a href="http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/fed-debt.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/fed-debt.shtml</a></p>
<p>Xiggi=the man</p>
<p>Look at the rate of increase. The absolute numbers obscure the facts. Clinton balaced the budget and even had surplus.</p>
<p>People who voted for Bush did not "suscribe" to your list, or better said, to your interpretation of the facts. </p>
<p>Also, you are still in denial about a basic fact: the voters who reelected Bush are not ashamed to be considered conservative. </p>
<p>There is a certain voice on this forum that keeps repeating that Bush's supporters should be ashamed or apologetic. Rather than deriding the positions of the winning side, you should focus your attention to analyzing the reasons why a majority of the voters rejected the losing ticket.</p>
<p>Deleted by poster</p>
<p>do a yearly trend and future projections</p>
<p>Social Security will go bust only if the country restricts the flow of illegal workers. Each year, illegal workers pay billions into Social Security without ever collecting a dime. Over time, it has mounted up (and will continue to mount up) big time!</p>
<p>Liz, my point is that Democrats (and I'm not one, currently) need to change their policies. Some of the unpopular ones need to be abandoned even though it hurts a bit. You asked for examples...well, one easy one: how about if the Democrats stopped making "business" out to be inherently evil. I mean really, most of us work at some point in the private sector, and business is not evil. There are criminal nutballs in every field of human endeavor (like the guys who perpetrated the business scandals of the late 1990's), but business as an institution should not be a target for hatred and disdain. A lot of the rhetoric of the left is infused with anti-business language.</p>
<p>A second thought would be for the "blue state" media to stop referring to the red state inhabitants as stupid rednecks. Voters are not stupid for disagreeing with the left. (The same is true here: a lot of very smart Liberals are on this thread, trying to make sense of the election results. I don't think you are dumb for disagreeing with me. I just think your party will be unsuccessful without change. That's different). See this article for a blue state media example:</p>
<p><a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218/%5B/url%5D">http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218/</a></p>
<p>Third, how about a reversal away from the embrace of extreme environmentalism? Now I'm not talking about some absurd "freedom to pollute," or something. Reasonable environmentalism which seeks to make the environment cleaner in each generation is a great thing, but we have some limits. Kyoto, for example was rejected by the Senate on a completely bipartisan basis (good work) because it was incredibly expensive, almost completely ineffective given the scale of the issue, and inherently unfair (we bear a huge burden, Europe pays next to nothing, and China/India are excluded).</p>
<p>I won't propose changes to hot buttons like abortion on demand, making social security actuarially sound, installing a flat income tax rate without deductions, eliminating corporate taxes, imposing Federal right-to-work laws, making school funding follow the child (vouchers), and taxing punitive damages at 100% (which eliminates the tort lawyers en mass) because to do this would re-locate the Democratic Party to the right of the Repbulican Party, and the last six guys willing to make the move would be a pretty small party.</p>
<p>By the way, I also see Al Qaeda as the enemy, not my fellow citizens of the other party, and I'm not happy at all about the rising deficit (sorry, I am OK with the Iraq war as I think it has worked out well...I know, I know, I'm one of about three guys who think this...).</p>
<p>I don't think anyone needs to use anti-business language to see what has happened to jobs in this country, or that Clinton's embrace of the WTO was the single most destructive move done to the global environment in the nation's history. But the problems for neo-liberals is this: since they are resigned to business-as-usual, their only hope is that the economy grows enough that they can rake off some of the margin for their beloved safety nets. Conservatives actually believe the same thing, except that instead of safety nets maintained by government, they believe that growth itself can serve as its own safety net. Except even that is too stark. They still believe in aid to disabled children, etc., keeping national parks as national parks as long as there can be logging and snowmobiles, etc., as long as the bulk of welfare goes into corporate pockets (because, after all, that is what creates the safety net.) The conservative critique is internally consistent (I think it is wrong, but it is consistent), but the neo-liberal one is one giant mass deception.</p>
<p>There are other alternatives. No Democrats are willing to talk about them. That's why college students and single women with children stayed home from the polls. They left seven million votes on the table, and if they lost (which I find highly doubtful, but that's hardly a discussion worth having) it is their own fault.</p>
<p><a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218/%5B/url%5D">http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218/</a></p>
<p>Wow...I cannot believe someone had the nerve to publish that...that kind of attitude (which comes across in the elite media, too) is exactly why John Kerry won't be sworn in next January. He should have had an easy victory this year.</p>
<p>Bernard Goldberg said of the media's role:
"When they cover breaking news they do a pretty good job. But I have a totally different take on coverage of the campaign, where even a casual viewer would say they were relentlessly negative towards George W. Bush." Goldberg claimed the major media, based mainly in New York and Washington, look down on the people in middle America, and issued a warning: "This arrogance is going to be the end of them. If they continue making believe that they're invincible, every month their ratings go lower and lower."</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Clinton balaced the budget and even had surplus.</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Bingo. Aside from his zipper problem, Clinton provided 2 of the 3 parts necessary for viable Democratic Party: an economic message that included fiscal responsibility and a message of inclusiveness that was presented in the language of traditional American values. Clinton had a winning economic pitch and a cultural values pitch that was at least a draw (and, given the fundamental inclusiveness in American society, perhaps a win). I would say that the only place where Clinton came up short was on security issues, where I don't think he was perceived as being tough enough for today's situation. But, you even had THAT third rail of a winning strategy until the Dems drove the Sam Nunns out by leaving them defenseless in their own states.</p>
<p>So, it begs the question: Why in the heck did the Democrats choose a Massachusetts liberal candidate and turn the campaign over to people like Ted Kennedy's Chief of Staff to run the campaign? Pure idiocy. </p>
<p>Folks, this isn't about John Kerry's policy proposals. It isn't even about John Kerry, who I suspect is a fairly thoughtful guy. It's about the fact that this "wing" of the Democratic Party presents a caracature to the centrist voters. This is no longer a Hubert Humphrey Union Shop country. Union stewards and precinct captains can't deliver the vote in sunbelt suburbs. Those candidates are no longer viable on national scope. </p>
<p>The frustration is that, if they could remove the shackle of their vocal fringe constituents (much in the way the Republicans pushed Jerry Falwell into the shadows), the Democrats have the makings of a platform with broad appeal. But, they insist on trotting out "blue state" liberals who, to be blunt, frighten the voters. Stop having Barbara Streisand host gala tributes to Michael Moore. Then, to make matter even worse, they pontificate about "dumb, redneck voters" when they lose elections.</p>
<p>See this analysis:</p>