We're just scared
The Gazette Poll came out today showing bush, as is to be expected, with a big lead in the state, particularly in the down and out counties of eastern Montana. The small towns seem to think that the Republicans will come out like the cavalry to save them. Dream on. The Democrats probably wouldn't either, at least not from Washington although a Democrat in Helena would probably be a big plus. Washington is too busy spending money it hasn't got to do much for us.
When I see the figures that indicate that our economy has gained enough in the last year or so, so that we're closer than ever to whoever is 49th in earnings, and then see these poll figures, I have to assume that Montanans are so afraid of losing what little they have that they will vote for the Devil they know out of habit rather out of thinking.
We're also so close to the border that maybe they think that they are in danger from someone coming over with a nuclear bomb, although 20 could probably go off in eastern Montana and just finish off the job that big business and Bush's economic policies are keeping well underway. Not that I want it to happen; I have a daughter out there. But it's more likely to happen now than before Bush went into Iraq.
It's a little bit like the man who keeps whacking his head into a wall because the blood running down his face keeps his chin warm.
When I see the figures that indicate that our economy has gained enough in the last year or so, so that we're closer than ever to whoever is 49th in earnings, and then see these poll figures, I have to assume that Montanans are so afraid of losing what little they have that they will vote for the Devil they know out of habit rather out of thinking.
We're also so close to the border that maybe they think that they are in danger from someone coming over with a nuclear bomb, although 20 could probably go off in eastern Montana and just finish off the job that big business and Bush's economic policies are keeping well underway. Not that I want it to happen; I have a daughter out there. But it's more likely to happen now than before Bush went into Iraq.
It's a little bit like the man who keeps whacking his head into a wall because the blood running down his face keeps his chin warm.
posted by Chuck Rightmire at 10:09 PM
18 Comments:
Chuck the larger towns in Montana-aren't they substantially populated by people locating there in the past 20 years or so-mainly Californians?
No, Bedrock, Billings, the largest isn't, at least not so much. But the towns in the western part of the state where the kerry-bush race is a little closer, not much but a tiny bit, is where the outsiders settled.
Welcome to my site Recovering Liberal. I expect it is frustration. i used to hear a lot from people in eastern Montana who were so busy battling the government that they didn't realize that they were cutting their own throats by the way they voted the straight ticket. I'd see people on both sides of COOL, for instance, voting for the same people and wonder whom they thought was going to win? I suspect my agenda is more open than most and may hurt my cause, but that's also why I use my own name rather than an alias. I will take responsibility for what I post. And what I post is based on what I see in D.C., not what other people tell me.
And if defecation is what's causing greener grass then I would think that what Bush and Cheney are egesting would make their side of the fence a lot greener than anything else around.
Chuck - the Democrats put themselves in this position. They are on the verge of collapsing. Why? Brcause the Roosevelt-era Democrats are dying off, and the party has no clear base, or a clear message.
As long as they play the same tired politics of class warfare, gay rights, gun control, affirmative action, more taxes & entitlements, they will continue to decline.
Nationally, when Kerry loses, the National Party will collapse, and the Clintons will re-assemble it for a run in 2008. In Montana, whether-or-not Bob Brown or Brian Schweitzer wins, I think we're looking at 4 more years of staus-quo.
The Democrats are the party of my father, but I haven't seen any reason to vote for them.
Just my .02 worth!
Same here, Eric and a lot of other former Democrats agree. That party has got to crank it back to center at least or it's going to keep losing seats. Clinton, for all his other failings, did a reasonably good job of that.
If the Swifties don't get Kerry, surely and hopefully his 92% liberal voting record and his positions on national security, gun control, taxes and other issues will............
Bedrock, the only reason Kerry is seen as a liberal is that the political spectrum as swung so far the other way that what was once the center is now the left. Get your head up and look around. Read some history and some science and see how poor this current bunch in Washington is. I don't think Clinton was that good but he was a hell of a lot better than anyone else we've had since 1980.
"BedrockHead, have all failed to address your point." One final question: Bedrocktruth (as if)" "You might find some awful truths in that bedrock."
Pretty snotty Wulfur, but what the hell?
I was a "yeller dog" Democrat for about 45 years and that was almost 30 years ago. I think I might have stumbled across a few "truths" along the way.
In the morning, Sonny. When I'm not quite as likely to answer you in the same asshole fashion that you addressed your comments to me.....
Hey, Bedrock, you've seen it before and the way you post you'll see it again. You bring out the worst. But at least now I know the truth. You've said you were a Liberal and changed your ways, but I didn't think that a Yellow Dog Democrat was ever a liberal but a southern Democrat.
"Please explain, if you will or can, how 4 years of a Republican Congress, Republican administration, and Republican friendly Supreme Court has shown you that the Democrats have fled to the extreme and scary left."
It's the other way around, Wulfgar. The Democrat party, my party for most of my life, started moving to the left in the 60's and 70's and remains there today. I'm not saying it's all that extreme or scary-although some radical elements are- but it's the reason that the Democrats have lost what was at one time "the solid South" along with the rest of the heartland-the areas that liberals like to call "fly over" states.
You can more accurately say, if you'd like, that people like me "fled to the right"-probably extreme and scary for folks like you and Chuck.
The Democrat party simply doesn't reflect their values any longer.
And, Chuck, "yeller dog" is just the description southerners use for people who always vote the straight Democrat ticket, meaning they would vote for a yeller dog before they'd vote for a Republican. There are plenty of other yeller dog states out there right now-California, Massachusetts, New York, Washington pop to mind-but I don't know what term they use for it in those states.
But honestly I can't even look at Kerry objectively or dispassionately-as just a certified senatorial vote recorded ultra liberal(92%).
To me he symbolizes everything that has gone wrong with this country in his Vietnam war protests and turn coat activities after the war; in his rapprochement with our enemies as he is continuing today with his 8th position on the war in Iraq and his dismissive comments about Ayad Allawi and the leadership in Iraq.
But as you've pointed out before Chuck, people from the South (with possible exception of Jimmy Carter) aren't all that bright anyway. We're mostly beer guzzling, NASCARing, fiercely patriotic, God fearing fools totally devoid of nuance-or at least the kind of nuance that people like John Kerry offer.
And Wulfgar, please don't respond with the standard "close minded, racist, religious nut" description too many people use for conservatives and southerners. My family knows that I'm not all that religious and my black friends know that I'm not a racist. Close minded at this point maybe, at least as regards people like John Kerry, but I was liberal enough and my mind was open for enough years for me to finally form some opinions that aren't going to change very much. I consider it a rite of passage to my curmudgeon years I suppose.
Finally, though I've never considered George Bush very Churchillian, I think Bush's position on our response to 9/11 and the continuing war on terror is a lot closer to what Americans want to see than Kerry's constant waffling.......
Winston Churchill's comments in his first speech to the House of Commons after assuming the office of Prime Minister in 1940. From Powerline..........
"You ask, what is our policy?
I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air.
War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.
That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim?
I can answer in one word.
It is victory.
Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."
Period-and thank God for people like him.......
Bedrock, as much as I hate to disagree with you, I have to say that you are just flat wrong except in your definition of many deep southerners from the black piney woods. You say the party left you. Yet you were born while the New Deal was underway and had to have accepted what happened there. But the Yellow Dog Democrats of the South were part of the Dixiecrats, which never were a liberal group. So, the party didn't leave you. What you did in the South was find out that your so-called conservatism was actually about holding people back and so you moved over to the party that thinks the same way.
You are scary, because you don't think out the issues. You were a "yellow dog" not because you were part of the party, except as an anchor that tried to keep it from going where there was progress for the country, but because you were close minded and unable to change your vote until something like Civil Rights came along and you realized that you couldn't stomach it. And since the Democratic party was now the party of Civil Rights, you abandoned it much as you had never accept the Republican party of Civil Rights after the War Between the States.
I think your posting on victory at any costs indicates that you are not thinking out the issues at all. We are not looking for victory at any costs, because we are not fighting the "war" that needs to be fought. Iraq is an irrelevancy that should never have occurred. The war was against the terrorists who brought about 9/11 and their allies, of which Iraq was not one. As a result of being in Iraq, as some of the Chickenhawks have come to realize, we have not done our best against the terrorists and they are going to hit us again. The President had no reason to attack Iraq except his desire to, as you posted yourself in your analogy on the Liberal Avenger's site.
So I suggest you are a fraud. The party didn't move away from you. You moved away from the party.
"So I suggest you are a fraud. The party didn't move away from you. You moved away from the party."
Pretty tough there my friend. I tangled myself up on a technicality with the yeller dog comment. I was never a Dixiecrat or shared their views. My last Democratic vote was for Jimmy Carter, so it's not fair to say that I abandoned the party because of civil rights. That was never a problem for me as I think I've explained in earlier comments........
But the fact remains that you moved away from the party while the party moved even farther to the right. It did not leave you; you left it.
Chuck - the war in Iraq didn't need to be fought?
It would be like having a nest of rattlesnakes out near your backyard. Do you go clean them out, or wait until your dog/kids/grandchildren get bit?
Anybody who is our sworn enemy needs to be dealt with. Before they come over here after us again. Look what Russia got for showing weakness, car bombs on their streets, airliners crashed, mass murders in schoolyards.
'Nuff said.
Eric, that's just babble and you know it. You're right and even muslims are admitting that almost 100% of terrorists are muslims, but only about 10% of muslims are terrorists and they would like to stop it, too. The terrorists are killing them, as well.
If you had read any history of the Middle East, you would know that Christians, Jews, and Muslims were living in relative peace during the time while pogroms and ghettos as well as religious wars of all kinds were going on in Europe. So now Europe seems to have attained a level where there is no religious war, but the muslim world has backslid. And the Koran, I've heard, says more about helping the unfortunate than the bible, particularly as the bible is interpreted by believers in the Puritan ethic. Christians who lived peaceably in Hussein's Iraq are now being forced out because we've unsettled the region and turned loose the savages of terrorism.
Iraq did not have to be fought. It was just easy because baby bush thought we would run over the top of the Iraqis (as we did) and they'd then lie down and let us install his secular beliefs, which he seems to have abandoned in this country. But they didn't and now we're stuck in another Vietnam. Don't you read anything except right wing magazines?
I actually don't read magazines, except an occasional NEWSWEEK or the like in one of the kids Doctors offices, or I'll page though a few magazines at WALMART when I'm waiting for the family.
I do however watch CNN, MSNBC, and FOX news. How else could I keep up with John Kerry's positions on the war?
"Also, you keep making grandious claims that you can't support. A right wing think tank lables Kerry's positions as 92% liberal, and you swallow that as some kind of "certification". YOU keep regurgitating that factoid as if you know what it means. So, please show your advanced wisdom, and tell us all, what IS Kerry's stance on National Security, or taxes, or the National Debt that your hero has ballooned out of all control? What is his stance on gun control, that differs so greatly from your beloved Bush?"
I know exactly what it means, sport.And I'll dump the full load for your enlightenment when I get the time.
I think you saw some of Kerry's "stance" on National Security in last night's debate. "Whatever Bush is doing is wrong, too late, too little and I can do it all much better-whatever it is". Taxes? They'll increase by about 4 trillion dollars if his "plans" whatever they are, are put into effect. Gun control?
Maybe you need to read up on his statements about Bush failing to sign the extension on the assault weapons bill. Whatever his position is, he's got the NRA mad as hell with him and Dianne Feinstein singing his praises. So what do YOU think his stance is?
I'll respond with more "factoids" later, after you've had a chance to read up.
Actually, Bedrock, Bush didn't fail to sign the extension of the Brady Bill, he just didn't use his Presidential clout to push for Congress to do so. I'm sure he would have signed it had it gotten to his desk since the polls show 68% of the public wanted it and he does believe in polls. Does anybody really believe in the NRA anymore now that Moses is no longer the president? When you start answering Wulfgar, remember you're on my site and I'll also be looking at your post. And you are getting awfully easy to refute these days even if you don't accept it.
Point 1, Yep-misspoke(the political term for screwed up)
Point 2, Not so sure. If we were talking about the human weather vane I might agree..............
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