How could this be?????? Just saw this on the local news. Didn't sound right to me, but that's what I heard. Maybe I misunderstood Not that I don't expect this to be the case by next November, but now? Already? Peace, RS
RS, I have seen 10 different polls with 10 different results. However the one thing they all have in common is that the race between Kerry and Bush is very very tight. I have said this for months on ET that Bush would blow away Dean but Kerry would give him a tight race. And why shouldn't he? He is going to play himself as a moderate, a war hero, and unlike Dean, he is not going to appeal all of Bush's tax cuts. However having said all that, apparently the dirt is starting to come out on Mr. Kerry. Due to his 4 terms of US Senator he has quite a long and established voting record. And it appears that this man may just be king of the flip floppers. It's already starting to leak to the press. He is all over the place on the issues. I mean one year he is for this and the next year he is against it, then back for it again the following year. That is not going to sit well with the American people. But I do not believe that Bush will blow Kerry away. It will be a very tight race. Where are all the Dean supporters in here? You liberals were worshipping this guy the last year when he had that big lead, now you guys are selling him out for the next hot guy. What a bunch of fair weather liberals we have on this site. Too bad, I thought you guys had some conviction in your politics. Guess not.
Well, after his State of the Union address, he seems to be intent on granting you your hope. Peace, RS
These polls mean nothing. The election is by state, not by percentage of voters. Also, these polls were not limited to "likely voters", which tends to skew the poll in the Dem's favor. Kerry will lose every single southern state. He will also lose all the "red" states that Gore lost in the midwest and west. Kerry is enjoying a slight bounce based on the breathless media reporting from Iowa. When Kerry's record of farout liberal stands on social issues, foreign policy and defense appeasement, soft on crime, service as Lt. Gov. of Mass. under Dukakis and support for tax increases comes out, he will be toast in the general election. I don't see his pompous demeanor playing well either, and his rich wife is abrasive and outspoken.
Well folks, it was fun while it lasted. Kerry has just given up 10 pts in the poll to Dean and they are now running neck and neck for a dead heat tie in New Hampshire. Apparently as soon as he opened his mouth and started attacking Bush his momentum came to a screeching halt. Funny how attacking Bush causes such a negative reaction to voters even democrats. But Dean has closed the 13 pt lead down to 3 pts now from Kerry over the weekend. Go Dean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I understand your post. I agree with you that Dean is the more likely weaker candidate in the general election against Bush. So your rooting for him makes perfect sense from your perspective. But, of course this is all predicated on today's perceptions. Things change dramatically over the times between now and the conventions (or end of the primaries, as the case may be). And then again between then and the election. Dean indeed seems too liberal at this point in time to carry the Dems back to the Whitehouse. And of course he will have to live down his cartoonish exuberance in his concession speech in Iowa. But that will fade. The bottom line seems to me at this point to be this: Bush, despite what any of us feel as to his qualifications, or his competence or the results of his actions and inaction while in office has just lied to the American public about too many things. His State of the Union Address was ridiculous. He barely even addressed the actual "state of the union". It was a speech intended to justify his invasion of Iraq. And even that was full of inaccuracies and more lies. I just recently spoke with a soldier who is stationed in Iraq still. The American troops are NOT being treated with the adoration of "liberators". This is NOT France in 1945. The jobs situation is still bad here. 9/11 happened under Bush's watch. We have a right wing extremist as our Attorney General. We went to war because of a family feud. Now I know you will say that 9/11 was somehow Clinton's fault. But while none of us have the kind of real knowledge to know what really happened, the facts remain as they are. When Clinton was in office, the plot to hijack 11 airliners simultaneously was thwarted (sorry I have forgotten the name of that foiled Al Qada plot). The millennium attacks were thwarted. The economy was good (certainly perhaps more due to Bill Gates than to Clinton, but are we better off now than we were 4 years ago? as the Gipper said)? But all of this still probably means almost nothing. What DOES mean something is that GWB cannot possibly look good in the Presidential debates. His temperament and his lack of polish will certainly make him look bad. If the Democrats learned ANYTHING, they learned only a statue like Gore could give Bush a chance. What is the likelihood that could happen again? (and still, Gore did do better than Bush despite his "wooden" persona, and lack of "likeability". Bush will be called on his misstatements (if phrased politely, and lies if not). and he will lose his temper. This is too obvious. And of course if he is sedated to prevent that, well, that too will have disastrous results. There are probably not many Ivy League debating team members that could not annihilate Bush in a debate on any topic given either side of the issue to argue. This is one of Bush's biggest chinks in his armor. It will surely be exploited. Dean, if he is nominated would probably have a very slim chance of winning the election. I grant you that. But despite his (in my view as well as your's) seemingly unelectable characteristics and positions, would still make Bush look very foolish in debates. And clearly a Wesley Clark, who has the West Point kind of demeanor would be best at making Bush seem small. But of course, Kerry or half the teenagers in America could do the same thing (to a less severe degree). And make no mistake about this: What GWB did during the Vietnam War WILL become a major issue. His lying to the public about Iraq's WMDs WILL become a major issue. His handling of he economy WILL become a major issue if not resolved in the next 6-10 months. Everything that was used by the Republicans to besmirch Clinton...every insinuation, every accusation, and every distasteful tactic WILL be used. Politics is a dirty game. And there is a lot of dirt to be dug up and refined and used against Bush in the upcoming election. Is it right? No, I find it as distasteful to use it against any candidate regardless of party or politics. But it is the way the system works. It is about attacking the record of the incumbent. And sadly for the Republicans, at this point there is just too much to attack. Having said this, I still believe Bush will probably be re-elected. Because he will wrap himself in the flag, and insinuate that anyone opposed to his policies is not patriotic, blah, blah, blah. But it will be a tough race. The "tax cuts" are not working. The deficit is a joke. The war is not a popular cause, and the WMDs were not found. The American public WANTS to believe we were in a just cause. But the way we did it....the reasons given before the war are not the reasons given now....etc., will all add up to possibly too many obstacles for Bush to overcome. Of course, there is always the somewhat obvious "October Surprise" that UBL will be "captured" right before the election. Sort of like the 44 days that Reagan had made a deal with to keep US hostages in Iran to win the 1980 election. Many of the same players are still involved. I predict it will be a very nasty and bitter election. I only pray it does not irreparably damage our system. Anything is possible. And the groundwork has certainly been laid for a dirty election. And no matter what you say, the FACTS remain that it WAS and HAS BEEN the mentality of the REPUBLICAN PARTY that has created this atmosphere. Watergate, Iran, Florida, Supreme Court intervention to name a few instances. (OK, now let's hear about how Kennedy stole Illinois). Peace, RS
RS, I was going to critique your post line by line but I don't have the time now. All I will say is this in summary. The economy is strong thanks to Bush's tax cuts. We have the strongest GDP growth in two decades. Productivity growth the fastest it has ever been. The Dow is within striking distance of all time highs. Yeah you heard me right, all time highs. The job situation is not Bush's fault. We had thousands of dot com's fall by the way side in 2000 and those jobs are not coming back. We never should have that them to begin with. The manufacturing jobs simply cannot be maintained in this country. Like it or not, this is not 1900 anymore. We are no longer in the industrial revolution. One hundred years ago 50% of Americans worked in factories, today less then 5%. As our economy changes, so does the does the jobs landscape. It will take time to create new jobs and new sectors. I think NASA is a good start. A lot of people on this board are bitching about NASA but let me tell you something, when Jack Kennedy made the ridiculous statement that he wanted to put a man on the moon it created a surge in mathematical and scientific studies among young people. We have a society today of young people whose idea of an education is business management. They learn no skills. And you wonder why everytime when we go through a paradigm shift so many people are out of work. They are not economically viable. We need to get back to the hard sciences and math. Europe and Asia has been doing this for decades. Why do you think they come over here and take all of our jobs? So Bush gave NASA some nice funding and maybe, just maybe, we might get some young people excited again about math and science instead of business and marketing classes. Other growth areas are in the biotech field and biosciences. Oops, came back to that science word again. See we just don't have enough people to fill these voids. This is where the jobs are. Of course these sectors are very dependent on risk taking and venture capital and tax cuts but democrats cry foul everytime you talk about corporate tax breaks. What they don't understand is without giving these companies the incentive to take risks, they won't, pure and simple. So they don't hire and jobs are not created. Is this Bush's fault? Nope, he is trying. But most people don't get it. Businesses are not churches. They are not there for the good of all people, they exist to make money. They need money. The more you tax them the less money they have, the less money they have, the fewer jobs they will create. Then lets move on to the healthcare sector. Now Bush is trying his best to keep this sector private so these companies can grow and flourish. But then you have the democrats who think these companies are evil and want to regulate the healthcare industry and put a ceiling on how much money these companies can make. Once again that is stunting job growth. How can you create jobs in this sector if you don't allow these companies to grow. I could go on and on all day but I think you get the point. The bottom line is you can't blame Bush for the jobs. In fact it was during the Clinton years all these fake artificial dot com jobs were created. Those jobs were not real and never should have even existed. Clinton didn't create any real jobs. Now as for war on terror. I'll go on record as saying that before the next election we will have Bin Laden and we will have located a stack of WMD which is now believed to be in Syria. We will have both of these before next november. It will be very difficult to attack Bush on Iraq then and by the way, remember those pesky little Al Qaida guys that wanted to destroy our country? Remember them? Well as of today Bush has captured or killed 70% of them. Yup, you heard me right, 70% of them have been captured or killed. Now these are the people that you believe were behind 9/11 right? Right? You agree on this right? Well Bush has gotten 70% of them and most of the upper level guys. We have shut down their camps and taken their money. I'm sure by election day that number will be above 80% and maybe even closer to 90%. Do I feel safer then I was 4 years ago? You bet your ass I do. And as for the economy do I feel better today then 4 years ago? F*ck yeah I do. Four years ago at the height of the internet bubble I was scared as shit. Anyone with half a brain knew this thing was going to crash hard. I was scared out of my mind. Now I sit here looking at the market, nasdaq at 2 year highs and the dow within all time highs. Yeah I feel much better about the market now. Not to mention rates are at all time lows and we now have the highest rate of home ownership in our nations history. On a side not, drug use is hitting 20 year lows, abortion rates are down across the board. I think our country is in pretty good shape right now. Yes, I do feel better then I did four years ago, a lot better. Bush will be a very hard man to beat come November. He liberated a country that was under brutal dictatorship for 30 years, he almost completely eliminated the entire terror force behind 9/11. He successfully brought the market back to within reach of its all time highs after the Clinton bubble 90's and has made the dream of american home ownership a reality. Something Clinton could never do even when the nasdaq was at 5000. Well, I guess this did turn out to be a long post. Good thing I can type about 80 words a minute.