Reflections on Post-Election Rhetoric

There's been lots of talk about "values" in the last couple of days.

I don't have any problem with George Bush having a set of personal values. In fact, it was in some large part the difficulty I had in understanding Kerry's fundamental motivation that led me to vote for Bush.

I simply didn't have confidence in how Kerry would react to a 9-11-like challenge. I couldn't see the consistency in his simultaneouly touting his own strong security posture while playing the anti-war critic and arguing for a Spain-style reversal of course.

Up until the day of the election, the foremost issue was Iraq. The broader context was the changes the world has undergone since September 11, 2001, and each man's suitability to lead in that environment. Frankly, I was surprised that issues like the economy didn't get more campaign attention.

The day after the election, I awoke to discover that both the left and right media were insisting that the issues had really been abortion and gay rights, and that the motivator for Bush voters had been religion. The whole thing suddenly became 100% domestic culture-war.

Politics famously makes for strange bed-fellows, and the trendy media left and the religious right joined together in common cause to spin the election for all it's worth, one side hoping to scare America to death, the other hoping to move its issues to the front of the agenda.

Millions of people like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Powell (and me) dropped right off the radar screen. Moderate and secular Bush voters no longer existed. In fact, the issues of the campaign right up till the election no longer existed.

But...

The left's base will always vote left. The right's base will always vote right. That's simply a given. That's what defines them as the base in the first place.

The people who actually move elections, the ones who have the power to change a 55-45 landslide for one side into a 45-55 landslide for the other, aren't the fanatics, the true-believers, the one-issue militants, the ideologues.

If either side takes the moderates, the independents, the free-thinkers for granted, and believes that election victory is a license for the extremist agenda so beloved by the base, then that hubris is going to destroy them.

That was the secret of Bill Clinton's peculiar success: you win majorities by seizing the middle.

And in a nation split down the middle like contemporary America so obviously is, the electoral middle doesn't coincide with the cherished agenda of either party's committed base. That's just a fact.

Michael Moore and Pat Robertson are masturbators. They cheerlead in crowds composed of people exactly like them. They are totally incapable of reaching out to people who are seriously considering voting for the other side.

If the Republican right starts masturbating now, if they fall prey to triumphalist hubris, forgetting that Bush only won by two percentage points in a very close election, they will crash and burn in the next election because they turned their back on moderates and chose to speak only to their true believers. They can't push America farther right than the middle is willing to go. They have to reach out and lead, they can't just rule by decree.

 

Since you chose to use the word, the only Republican I'd pay to see masturbating is Ann Coulter.....

 

Well said and thought out Bill.

Carl: While Ann has some outside beauty, I would probalby vomit watching her masterbate. She would probably ruin the moment with her babbling. I suspect she is the type of woman that stares at you with "gleaking" eyes while giving you head (you know - the deer in the headlight look)

 

Bill,

I am a Christian and have been all my life. Going to church is not a social event for me, I truely go because I believe in Jesus who was sent by God my Father to save the world from sin and death(just trying to give you my prospective).

Its funny how Christains get labeled as one issue voters when the far left is the exact same way. Do you think they would vote for a pro-life (D) canidate, HECK NO!

So they should point their bony hypicritical "one issue" finger at the wall or themselves, not Christains.

As for moderates (like yourself ) all I can say is thank you!

I do relieze that moderates helped give Bush the victory and I don't think it was the Christains voting only that saved the day.

The media is just saying that to scare people who hate Christians (many in the far left) and Christains are saying to make people feel as though they have political power. Its just a silly game, don't let it bother you.

If you could, please tell me on what issues do you feel left out on, or are their any?

 

Carl, I seldom agree with you, but you got me here.

 

As long as shes giving me head, I don't care what she looks at.
BTW shouldn't you have used this instead of this

 

peace in our time

It's a simple process, really.

Strip Ann Coulter naked.
Strip Michael Moore naked.
Tie them to each other--back to back.
Duct tape their mouths.
Play polka music.

It's kinda like the original dimorph in Plato's Symposium. Or not.

 

Good post, Bill. Actually, it's an excellent post. But..........

51-48 is 3 not 2.

 

What I wanna know is what the hell is wrong with Iowa and New Mexico.
Somebody swipe their abacuses?

 

Re: peace in our time

I believe stickthin Ann would be engulfed by Moore's gelatinous ass crack.

 

Ya know, while we're on the subject of naked commentators. The reason FoxNews is so popular is not because of O'Reilly, or Hannity, or Colmes....It's because they have the best babes. Give me a newsbreak with Laurie Dhue anyday.

 

Sorry Bill...!

Amazing how we managed to turn Bill Dayson's thoughtful commentary into a juvenile display of fantasizing about babes and naked commentators is it not? I guess that word "masturbation" brought up some deep seated emotions....

 

"Ya know, while we're on the subject of naked commentators. The reason FoxNews is so popular is not because of O'Reilly, or Hannity, or Colmes....It's because they have the best babes. Give me a newsbreak with Laurie Dhue anyday."

Oh puh-leeze! Patti Ann Browne is the one who puts the fox in FOX!

http://www.pattiannbrowne.com/_wsn/page4.html

 

Re: Sorry Bill...!

Carl, I'm not gonna beat around the bush. You stop jackin' around. Keep it up and the moderators will jerk you off this board. It can be done with one stroke of key. So take your hand off the joystick and pull yourself away from the computer.

 

Uncle,

We here in New Mexico are wondering the same thing. After all, our glorious Governor claimed to speak for the entire Spanish speaking population of these United States but he couldn't even deliver crummy little New Mexico.

 

Sorry jugador, Patti Ann Browne is engaged and so is Laurie Dhue for that matter.

But I agree, PAB is the most attractive woman on Fox followed closely by Dari Alexander, Martha McCallum, and Jane Skinner.

 

This thread has become a little too colorful for my taste but I am wondering what the wives of some of the posters would think if they read these.

 

Re: peace in our time

No thanks! I would rather not look at ribs, bones, and a sunken chest.

Neither would I want to see a man who, in my opinion, is a fat slob who should swallow himself whole!

 

going for baroque

I was recommending something for the good of the republic and as a kind of philosophical tableau vivant.

 

Re: going for baroque

Well Uncle Janko, I generally don't knock anything pro bono but, in this case.............