I don't want to necessarily pile on to Gallup on the party ID thing. It's hard to tell exactly how you reweight for party-id if at all. I've seen statewide private polling in Georgia that clearly had an improportional sample, for instance more Republicans in DeKalb County than Democrats. In that example, maybe reweighting isn't the remedy but you clearly take that into account when you're looking at the poll results.
Instead of attacking party ID weighting, my aim is to attack the screen. Here are the seven questions that Gallup asks.
OK. Now imagine two voters. One is ex-military, has lived in Pierce County Georgia his entire life. He answers yes to 1,2,3,4,6 and 7. He's disgusted with the way things are going in Iraq, is disgusted with Bush but also thinks John Kerry is a communist traitor. So he just plans on skipping the election for President but will show up to vote in the US Senate race and for his friend running for county commissioner. After he gets through the screen (getting 6 of 7 questions right) he tells the pollster that he would choose Bush if he had to make a choice, but doesn't plan on voting in that race.
The other voter is a 25 year old African American woman who just moved to South DeKalb county from rural Alabama. She has voted once before, so she can answer yes to question #4, she's following the race closely and plans to vote so she can answer yes to 1,5 and 7 also. At the present time, she doesn't know where her precinct is (no to 2) and obviously hasn't voted there before (no to 3) and the first time she voted was in 2002 so she didn't vote for President last time (no to 6). However, she absolutely intends to vote for John Kerry this time, and a friend told her about early voting so she'll just go to the county election office on Memorial Drive (next to the jail) instead of finding out where her precinct is.
So, voter #1 got a score of 86% on the likely voter screen, and voter #2 got a score of just 57%. Voter #1 is considered more of a likely voter than voter #2 even though when asked if he was planning to vote in this election he said NO.
This may have been a good way to do it in 1948 when mobility wasn't as high as it is now. But the idea that because 55% of the population votes you can just take the top 55% in some arbitrary 7 question survey should raise serious red flags -- especially for someone who is an expert in statistics.
The Kerry campaign releases a new ad that criticizes President Bush for not having a plan in Iraq. And then a CNN analyst (not sure who) more or less says 'but that's not true. Bush wants to hold elections, turn over security to Iraqis and stabilize the country.'
Furthermore, according to CNN (and Bush adviser Terry Holt), that plan sounds a lot like Kerry's. Well, fine. What CNN should report is that two people can have the same basic plan but one of them could be utterly incompetent at carrying it out.
This is more or less the pattern that every single governor's race in the history of the United States has played out. Neither candidate really proposes anything radical and oftentimes the challenger's message is wholly summed up with "I'll do the things this guy says he'll do better."
But when John Kerry says it all of a sudden he's being a disingenous liar. To CNN, Iraq is a multiplication problem. George Bush isn't good at multiplication, John Kerry is. But hey, since they are both trying to multiply, what's the difference?
What's with that yellow armband Kerry wears. I noticed that his advisers wear it too. Anybody know?
UPDATE: My commentor is correct: It is a Lance Armstrong bracelet.
From a strategic standpoint, I'm not sure that Kerry's all out focus on Iraq is the way to win the election. Then again, I'm not sure that an all out focus on the economy and the middle class squeeze is either. But I do think that focusing on the huge f*ck up that is Iraq is the right thing to do.
History is littered with people who stood for the right thing at the wrong time. Maxing out on lies and cynicism will backfire on you eventually, but in Bush's case it might not backfire before November 2nd. If it doesn't, and I'm John Kerry, I think I'd want to look back on this whole bizarre year and say that I did what was right, and presented to the American people a choice that, regardless of who wins, years from now will seem so much better than the alternative.
Here is Kerry's speech to NYU from September 20th. It's pretty solid. According to some recent polling Americans overwhelmingly expect Bush to prevail in the debates. Here's some cautious optimism that they might be wrong.
I think it's neat that what remains of the Dean campaign is going to adopt a Senate campaign in order to raise money for them and I guess donate volunteer hours. What I don't think is neat is that Barack Obama is one of their choices and, I'm guessing, has a good shot of winning. I think he could stop campaigning today and still get at the very least 55% of the vote on election day. People might feel good about giving money to a guaranteed winner but it's about as useful as giving money to someone you know is going to lose.
On the other hand, Denise Majette in Georgia could really use the money. She hasn't benefited from nearly a year of running (virtually) unopposed like Brad Carson, Inez Tennenbaum, Erskine Bowles, Ken Salazar and Tony Knowles have. Picking Majette would also fulfill Dean's primary campaign desire to remain competitive in the South.
Now that it looks like the DSCC is trying to run away from a winnable race in Georgia, it's also the perfect time to stick it to the man/entrenched party apparatus by boosting up Majette. Help us out in Georgia and stick it to the DSCC. What a great way to spend a dollar, or $2,000! It's something to think about...
So we know that "Buckhead" posted anonymously about the memos on FreeRepublic.com within four hours of CBS airing them. We also know that someone named Liz Macdougald began e-mailing conservative blogs like Powerline telling people that they needed to read Buckhead's post. Later we learned that "Buckhead" was an Atlanta lawyer named Harry MacDougald who writes non-anonymous letters to the editor of the AJC and has even been profiled as a Republican "people's lawyer."
Now I can report that MacDougald's wife is named Jane E Francis. AKA Jane E MacDougald. AKA Jane Elizabeth Francis. Or Liz MacDougald. So why would MacDougald post anonymously and then use his wife's name and email to generate traffic to his post. Why not just post using his real name?
Republicans including the top dog, George W. Bush make a point of talking about Kerry's record, legislative votes, policy records etc and point out how sometimes Kerry's positions (especially at various times) echoed Bush, sometimes not, sometimes both (at different periods). It's ridiculous. Here is a war that is not popular with the American people, and the Republicans criticize Kerry for voting for it (as if President Bush looked to John Kerry alone for the go-ahead) and later raising doubts.
Kerry's problem is that he has let himself be dragged into this debate and it's not really a debate he can win. What he should have done, and maybe still can, is say should go something like this
George Bush has gotten his way on every single issue every single time these last 4 years. We went to war exactly how he wanted to, the postwar has gone exactly according to his plan, on domestic policy issues like tax cuts and education reforms the President has gotten his way 9 times out of 10.And now, the President would like to shift the responsibility for the results of his policy decisions to someone, anyone else. George Bush and I both want to defeat terrorism, stop job losses and build a strong Democratic Iraq. Sometimes we agree on what the best thing to do is, many times we haven't. But George Bush has gotten his way everytime. When I have voted against the President's policies, he tries to blame me for the results. And when I voted to support the President, as with the war authorization, instead of his gratitude I've gotten his scorn.
We've been doing things George Bush's way for the last 4 years. Today he wants to blame others for his own faults. And now he's asking America for another blank check. And when things go wrong, he's going to tell you that it's someone else's fault and that someone else has to clean up the mess. If your definition of a strong leader is someone who never takes the responsibility for being wrong no matter what, then by all means vote for George W. Bush.
But if you want someone who means what he says and says what he means, someone who'll share the credit when things go right and accept his responsibility when they don't, then vote for John Kerry.
One thing that upsets me is that the media and the GOP claim that the DNC got the name "Fortunate Son" from a discredited book that was released during the Bush/Gore campaign.
Sorry, but "Fortunate Son" is a song by Credence about draft avoidance for rich kids during the Vietnam war. That's where the book author got the name from. To suggest that the DNC is cribbing this title from some book that came out in 2000 tries to paint them as co-conspirators when actually it just happens to be a good name for what Bush is.
CNN should at least point out that it was a song title 30 years before it was a discredited book. But, what will more likely happen is that by next week most Americans will think Burkett is the author of a book called "Fortunate Son" that contains forged national guard documents.
It's possible to dislike John Kerry without endorsing George Bush. Here's Zell's advice to Georgia Democrats.
Now, I would ask Zell: In 1972 when you brag about distancing yourself from George McGovern, does that mean you voted and worked to elect Richard Nixon? Because it seems to me that, being a national figure, if you gave two cents about the Democratic Party, maybe back in 2003 you would have championed a candidate you liked, or barring their existence, run for the nomination yourself. But instead, you announced early your support for George W. Bush.
And even though you don't understand this logic, that's why a lot of Democrats don't take you seriously anymore. When practically everyone at the Democratic Party of Georgia was working publicly or privately for a John Edwards win, you were nowhere. And my guess is, in late 2005 or early 2006, without doing anything to help champion a Democratic candidate, you will offer your endorsement to Sonny Perdue. And then you will lambast the Democratic Party of Georgia for not embracing Sonny Perdue.
And in a way, you have a point. Distancing ourselves from one of our candidates is not always a bad idea. I can think of a candidate we should have distanced ourselves from in 2000, 1994, 1990, 1986, 1982, 1980, 1978, 1974, 1966, 1964 and 1962.
UPDATE: Another thing I'd ask Zell is, do you think you did the right thing in 1972?
Go check out Drudge Report today.
Not a single mention of the LATimes story and not a SINGLE mention of Rathergate. Drudge has been obsessed with this story for 2 weeks...and now that it's starting to unravel he doesn't want to talk about it at all.
Here is a link to what Drudge was pushing yesterday before the LAT piece came out.
DIG DEEPER
Some people don't seem to think MacDougald's anonymity is a big deal. Well, normally this guy has no problem putting his name on what he writes. Here is a link to a typical right wing rant that the guy posted a few years ago, surrender monkeys etc it's all there!
Additionally, the guy writes letters to the editor of what was the Atlanta Constitution and is now the AJC:
Columnist is Clueless About Morality
AJC - Wednesday May 13 1998
Syndicated columnist David Broder's assertion of moral equivalence between House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Clinton proved that one of the grand pooh-bahs of the chattering class in Washington is utterly bereft of any moral discernment. What Gingrich has said about Clinton is true, and everybody with half a brain knows it. Virtually every utterance by Clinton on the subject of his scandals is a lie. For insisting that the American people have a right to know the truth and that Bill Clinton be subjected to the rule of law, Gingrich is accused of making bitter personal, partisan attacks. Yet the orchestrated vilification of Ken Starr, the shrill attacks on Dan Burton and Gingrich, the abusive claims of executive privilege to cover up a sexual tryst, and the lock-step stonewalling and obstruction by Democrats in every congressional investigation of Clinton draw nary a discouraging word from Broder. Broder is a fatuous nitwit, and that he is regarded as a wise man of Washington only illustrates how perverse the culture of the mainstream media has become. HARRY MACDOUGALD Atlanta
And here's more:
Another Sleazeball
AJC Wednesday December 29 1993
The most entertaining aspect of the furor over the president's alleged sexual peccadillos has been watching the anguished contortions of his supporters. For 12 years, liberals and the media have treated the slightest whiff of Republican scandal with all the decorum of starving hyenas chasing a meat wagon. Now, with strong evidence that President Clinton lied on "60 Minutes" and that he has abused the powers of his office to cover up personal scandal, you have said, presumably with a straight face, that none of this is relevant. You will just have to get used to the fact that Clinton is not the prince you dreamt of lo these many years. He is just another sleazeball.
Harry W. MacDougald Atlanta
Look, the point is that this guy is not usually shy. He's practically a local media whore. So why would he previously seek attention in "Lawyer's quest for good government bittersweet" and write letters to the editor, be in the AJC Political Insider earlier this year filing a complaint about electronic voting machines and now all of a sudden on what will be the biggest story of his life he wishes to remain anonymous and not comment on it.
In the extended entry I've included a transcript of "Lawyer's Quest for Good Government Bittersweet" which appeared in the AJC on April 18, 2002. I pulled this and the lettters to the editor off Nexis.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 18, 2002 Thursday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro News; Pg. 2G
LENGTH: 563 words
HEADLINE: Lawyer's quest for good government bittersweet
BYLINE: COLIN CAMPBELL
SOURCE: AJC
BODY:
Harry MacDougald is a wiry 43-year-old lawyer with a messy little office in downtown's Fairlie-Poplar district and an attitude that reminds some people of a terrier.
Since 1995, he has been suing the city of Atlanta on behalf of various city employees who've been fired after they blew the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse. MacDougald has taken detailed depositions from Bill Campbell and many others, and he has learned some curious things about how city government works.
He has also made enemies, grown tired and, through federal court judgments and settlements, relieved the city of about $2 million in back pay for his clients, legal fees, etc.
Obviously $2 million is a tiny fraction of the money the Campbell administration squandered. But it helped support MacDougald's family, it meant justice for a bunch of fired whistle-blowers (most recently Odette Florence of the recreation bureau) and it gave MacDougald a peek into some of the nastier corners of city government.
What that government became, MacDougald said over lunch at the handsome City Grill (where ex-city officials still occasionally dine, some no doubt looking for jobs) was akin to a corrupt enterprise. City Hall turned into a kind of racket. It enriched friends, maintained control, and punished and resisted critics.
"Basically the government was operated as a naked spoils system, and every lever of government was in their hands," MacDougald observed. Contracts and employment delivered goods to loyalists, and the Department of Administrative Services and the Office of Contract Compliance (the latter working from the mayor's office) helped grease the wheels. If you crossed this system, your job or contract might well end. Meanwhile, the law department and outside lawyers could usually be counted on to "defend the system from all external and internal threats."
For several years the city's business establishment tried to get along with, and defend the mayor when necessary. As late as 1999, 33 "civic and business leaders" signed a public letter criticizing an editorial in The Atlanta Constitution that had lambasted Campbell.
That letter --- which deplored the editorial's focus on Campbell himself, and which opined that "a vibrant, successful Atlanta depends on business, government, media and civic leaders working together as we tackle the tough issues" --- irritated and depressed MacDougald "tremendously," he said. But the letter was another facet of how the city worked. Even after business leaders had begun trashing Campbell in private, they felt called upon to assume a unified and vaguely flattering front.
MacDougald was born and raised in Atlanta. He majored in American civilization at Brown University, got his law degree at Georgia and worked, on occasion, for conservative causes, including the Southeastern Legal Foundation. He's a Southern white Republican --- yet most of his whistle-blowing clients have been black.
MacDougald's efforts against the Campbell administration's bitter resistance made his life "extremely difficult," the lawyer recalled. He's proud of his clients, but he doesn't want to do such work again.
Luckily, Atlanta's new mayor, Shirley Franklin, wanted two of his cases settled, and the law department saw to it that she got her wish.
"She has done unmistakably good things," he said. ccampbell@ajc.com
LOAD-DATE: April 18, 2002
So What's the Deal With the Rather Memos?
As everyone knows, Dan Rather presented memos which are clearly forgeries on CBS' 60 Minutes II last week. Within only 4 hours, an unidentified blogger named "Buckhead" posted the following detailed analysis of the memos:
Howlin, every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.Buckhead is anonymous no longer, thanks to the work of the LA Times' Peter Wallsten. Wallsten somehow determined that "Buckhead" graduated from Brown University sometime near the late '70's (actually 1980) and then the University of Georgia law school (in 1985). With this information Wallsten was able to determine that Buckhead is actually a man named Harry W. MacDougald, who is an Atlanta area lawyer that is well connected to state and national Republican and conservative causes.In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.
This should be pursued aggressively.
MacDougald now says he isn't commenting and won't answer any questions from reporters. So Rather's refusal to come clean is starting to make more sense. MacDougald, by the way, is hardly an anonymous hero of the rightwing blogosphere.
Among other things, MacDougald is a member of the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation, which is closely associated to both Bob Barr and Ralph Reed. Reed was the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party during the last election cycle, and now works for the Bush campaign. MacDougald donated money to the Georgia GOP Unity fund during that cycle. He is also the GOP designee to the Fulton County Board of Elections in Georgia. Additionally, he represented Mitch McConnell in his lawsuit against the McCain-Feingold bill and the state of Utah when they sued North Carolina in an attempt to get an extra Congressional District after reapportionment.
MacDougald also brags that he drafted the petition to disbar William Jefferson Clinton filed by L. Lynn Hogue in his law firm bio page found here.
Here's what probably happened...this is textbook Rove btw:
Ben Barnes is set to appear on CBS to reveal that he pulled strings to get George W. Bush in the past. For some reason, the White House decides that they don't want to attack Barnes's credibility. Maybe they feel his story will stand up or maybe there is something else in his background that is also unfavorable to Bush, when he was governor Barnes was a top capitol lobbyist in Texas. For whatever reason, the White House decides that they need to make the story Rather's credibility.
So, someone connected to the Bush campaign drafts these forged memos, and then either they gave them to CBS or they gave them to a third party and the memos found their way to CBS, possibly through the DNC.
At the same time, the people who did the forgeries are looking for a well connected Republican activist who, upon CBS showing the documents, can come forward with some specific criticisms to raise doubts about the validity of the documents. MacDougald fits that profile to a T.
The media picks up on the story of the forgery. MacDougald's original claims about proportional fonts may or may not hold up, but it's a very detailed complaint that it would be unlikely for someone with MacDougald's background to notice, and it isn't likely a professional document guy would notice it either since it turns out that typewriters could do proportional fonts back then. But "Buckhead" gets the ball rolling.
Then the media picks up on it, there are doubts about the validity of the memos, no one is talking about Barnes and everyone is talking about how Rather is going down the tubes. A victory for the blogosphere!
Or it would be -- if the person who first raised questions about the memos wasn't the EXACT SAME GUY who tried to get Clinton disbarred, a member of the Federalist Society and Southeastern Legal Foundation with ties to Ralph Reed.
Think about it this way, if you caught Bush (or Kerry) in the middle of a huge scandal, you'd come forward. You wouldn't hide in the shadows. And the only reason to stay anonymous is because you are part of the scandal. This is what MacDougald nows says:
"You can ask the questions but I'm not going to answer them," he told The Times. "I'm just going to stick to doing no interviews."
SCANDAL SCANDAL SCANDAL!!!
No, not that Bush. I refer to Jeb Bush, distinguished Governor of Florida, has been for the role of family scion. Ralph Nader cynically tried to revive the corpse that is the Reform Party as a shortcut to get on Florida's ballot -- he has not bothered to collect the 90,000 signatures necessary.
A state court judge ruled that Nader's ruse was just that and denied him ballot access. The ruling has been appealed, and the Secretary of State, under Jeb Bush's direction has ordered counties to add Nader to their ballots just in case, which is kind of like adding mint-chocolate chip ice cream to the ballot just in case the flavor collects 90,000 signatures between now and Friday or gets nominated by some party that existed 30 years ago but hasn't fielded a candidate since.
Now you may think this is no big deal, since it's likely the judge in the state court and then the Supreme Court will uphold the earlier ruling barring Nader from the ballot. And you would be right, except for the fact that the ballots will likely have already been printed, and I'm sure Jeb, having caused this affair, will say that due to the hurricane(s) they can't afford/don't have the time to reprint the ballots. So then Ralph's name will be on the ballot -- but his votes won't count. And knowing the general intelligence level of his supporters, I'm going to guess (and I presume Jeb already has) that they will vote for Nader instead of Kerry, even though the votes will be thrown out.
For all the talk among Republicans about strict constructionism and the rule of law during the Florida fiasco in 2000, this case provides a clear example to the ignorant that the Republicans don't really care about anything but winning. The rule of law is great when a narrow reading of it will help you win...it's not so convenient when all but the loosest interpretation won't.
I hate to get all Ruy Texiera on y'all, but the new Newsweek Poll seems a little skewed Republican. Their overall RV number is 49-43 Bush (in a 3 way race). But their sample size is 41% Republican, 31% Democratic and 28% Independent. If the much maligned LA Times poll from a few months ago with reversed numbers was off then this one is probably off too, or else Democrats are in big trouble (which is also possibility).
Anyway, the split for Kerry in the subsamples is 4-93 among Republican respondents, 87-7 among Democrats, and 45-39 among independents. If you reweight all these subgroups equally (33-33-33) then the new Bush-Kerry number is 46-45. Which is not bad. There are a higher number of undecideds among Democrats and Independents.
If you reweight 40-40-20 then the new number is 48-46 in Bush's favor, which is closer to the Zogby and Gallup results (it doesn't look like Newsweek is using much of a screen, which should be similar to Gallup's RV numbers).
So why do I think the poll skews Republican and not think that there is a massive shift going on, ala the week before the 2002 General Election? Well part of it is that Southern whites are choosing Bush 66-28. In Georgia, if Bush gets 66% of the white vote, 10% of the black vote and splits the non-black, non-white vote 50/50, it's projected that the final results would be Bush 52, Kerry 48. Even if half of the undecided Southern whites break for Bush it's 54-46.
That's no improvement over Al Gore, and the previous result (52-48) makes Georgia seem very competitive. And if Georgia is in play, then this is not a good poll for George W. Bush. On the other hand, it is not a good poll for Kerry either. But here is a comparison with this poll's internals and the previous week's "huge Bush bounce" poll in ():
| Group | Bush | Kerry | Other/Undecided |
| Republicans | 93 (94) | 4 (4) | 3 (2) |
| Democrats | 7 (14) | 87 (82) | 6 (4) |
| Independents | 39 (45) | 45 (40) | 16 (15) |
So, no Bush improvement on any measure. This week's Newsweek poll was much more Republican (3 points more) and much less independent (3 points less). Like I said, this is bad news for Bush but not good news for Kerry. If those undecideds swing against Bush he's toast. It's not likely that they'll swing for him -- and when you consider that the Bush strategy seems to be to ramp up cynicism to get the undecideds to stay home or skip the top race, this poll pretty much confirms why the B/C campaign is doing that.
People have said before that George Bush thinks he hit a triple in life when in actuality he was born on 3rd base. It's true. Getting elected Governor, President, etc are no small feats, but surely not just anyone can get in the position where it's even possible. It usually takes a lot of hard work to even have the chance.
I don't mean to suggest that Bush isn't a skilled politician, or even intelligent. If he had been born Tom Smith then Tom Smith might be President today. Who knows. But surely he has benefited from a priviledged upbringing and one of the ways he benefited was getting a much sought after Texas Air National Guard slot without having to wait or do much else at all.
Had I been 25 years old in 1968 I probably would have wanted to get in the National Guard and I may even have slacked off on duty if I thought I could get away with it. I don't think Americans really care about this. But what surprises me is that they don't seem to care about the fact that Bush is obviously lying when he insists he got no special treatment.
Of course he did! And that should tell you everything you need to know about George W. Bush and his political handlers. When faced with even a potential problem, like what Americans will think of someone who was young and irresponsible when he was young and irresponsible, they'd rather try and get away with a lie then just own up to the truth. It's kind of ironic...I doubt that the National Guard Story will ultimately bring down Bush, but what could have been a 1 day story in 1994 or 1999 now has legs.
It really is amazing that we've let Bush frame this entire election through the prism of consistency. We've got one candidate who changes his mind, and over a period of nearly 40 years has modified or abandoned his stance on a number of issues -- haven't you? Certainly Zell Miller has changed his tune and nobody seems to mind. And we've got another candidate who is so consistent he won't even stop being disingenous about a mistruth so petty that no one would even care. And we must elect that man! Because he knows exactly what he wants to do. It doesn't even matter what it is he wants to do, or that actually his opponent has some really good ideas. But whatever.
One thing I don't understand is how you could self-ID as a partisan Democrat and then say you are supporting Bush. Of course I don't deny the existence of ticket splitting or the feeling of disgruntlement with your own party's nominee (in fact I encourage my Republican friends to embrace that nagging feeling).
The thing about Bush though is that he is the most partisan President to come along in probably close to 100 years. Whether it's just devoting enormous among of time and money to campaigning for the defeat of Democrats or cynically manipulating national issues for partisan gain, winning elections for Republicans is about the only thing that Bush seems really genuinely into.
And then there's redistricting. I suspect most of the Democratic support that Bush has comes from "Charlie Stenholm" Democrats -- conservative whites from rural areas. The big problem with this of course is that Bush, Rove and DeLay are doing literally everything in their power to get rid of white, conservative Democrats from rural areas. First they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to beat them in the midterm elections, and when that didn't work they made a much better investment in the Texas Legislature to redraw the districts more favorable to their own team.
The Justice Department said "A-OK with us!" even though a number of incumbents were paired in unusually shaped districts. In fact, the Bush justice department has been unusually inconsistent when it comes to partisan redistricting -- fighting and intimidating Democratic legislatures and states that enganged in it while putting a rush on approval to states like Colorado and Texas who didn't just gerrymandered but went an extra step and did it in a non dicennial year.
Some Democrats for Bush, like Zell Miller clearly don't want the Democratic Party to exist after this election. But if you do you should think twice about supporting a man who will do everything he can to destroy your party over the next four years.
CNN's Bill Schneider just gave John Kerry some advice: "stop talking about Vietnam. Voters don't want to hear about it!" Which is probably good advice. Tell me how many times has CNN shown the Swift Boat ads for free?
From the Washington Post:
Adam Schibley, 19, of Lebanon, N.H., voted for Kerry in the state's January primary but is still making up his mind about November."Both conventions have been convincing and pretty powerful, but I think they are too much about the past and not enough about what the candidates are going to do if they win," he said before Bush spoke. Afterward, he said he thought the president's self-deprecation made him seem "more likable."
"I was looking for him to acknowledge that the war in Iraq was costing American lives, and he did that. I was looking for him to talk about issues that are important to college students, and he did that, but not enough," Schibley said. "I didn't like how negative the Republican convention was. It seemed like Kerry made an effort not to smear Bush, but that didn't happen here. Why can't they just point out differences and move on?"
The Daily Show makes the case against a second term for Bush way better than those losers in the Kerry campaign have.
I disagree with others who welcome the onslaught of big government now that both major candidates have allegedly endorsed it. I don't want big government, but I do want government to play a sufficient role where it really doesn't make sense for the market to -- a social safety net but not really more than that.
You can't just throw money at a problem (or private companies who have the best lobbyists) and hope it gets better. Clinton understood this. Bush's compassionate conservatism does not.
Just watching Karen Hughes on CNN's replay of the pre-speech coverage. And it's amazing how for the first time I think in American history, the incumbent is advocating a vote for himself as a vote for change. Even he realizes how unpopular George W. Bush's record is.
PS: I recommend Andrew Sullivan's very sober writeup of the speech. He acknowledges how great it sounds and also how out of touch with reality it actually is. As someone who was more or less a Republican until the party nominated this man that they love with a religious fervor, I can retroactively empathize with Andrew Sullivan.
I thought Bush gave a great speech tonight. His vision for the future sure sounds wonderful, of course the problem is that half of it sounded great four years ago and hasn't happened and the other half is totally impractical.
He proposes massive new spending and also says that the tax code will be "reformed" and simplified. I think "simple" probably means that the great majority of us will pay more than we currently do in a higher flat tax or a 30% (not 23%) national sales tax.
Look, the average person in this country makes less than $40,000 a year and incurs more and more debt annually -- that means they aren't saving anything and they are spending more money than they make. Currently, they pay a certain percentage on their income that maybe, and this is a maybe, totals 15% (we're talking averages).
When you include payroll and state taxes that may total 30%. And now they want to get rid of just the income portion of taxes (keeping payroll, state and local taxes) and put a 30% flat tax on consumption. 98% of Americans will pay more in taxes and many of them will pay taxes each year on more money than they make because of the spiral of debt that the President's own policies encourage.
Simplifying the tax code does not necessarily make it better. And that pretty much sums up the Bush philosophy -- doing anything is always preferable to doing nothing regardless of what is done. And if results matter in only the most superficial of ways to you, then he's your man. Otherwise, you've got options. I'm voting for John Kerry, but you've also got Nader, Badnarik and others. If you're not happy with the direction of this country, check them all out and make an informed decision.
Zell Miller's speech to the RNC was the worst speech that I have ever seen in my life. The man has become a very sad joke. If you missed it, the basic theme was that we shouldn't have an election during a war and that if John Kerry were a true patriot he'd just support George Bush and let him win the election.
But there was more, too. Zell spent the entire speech lying about Kerry's record, claiming that Kerry wouldn't attack another country without UN approval. Kerry's recent answer to how he would vote on giving the President the authority to go to war, while I thought it was a poor answer, pretty much closes the door on Kerry needed permission to attack. Then just in case that was too subtle for you, Zell insisted that Kerry would ask Paris if it were OK, just to get some good French bashing in there too.
Then in what I think is one of the most confused logical jumps I've ever seen, Zell talks about how American troops are "liberators", not "occupiers" and then slams John Kerry for voting against a bunch of fighter jets that dropped thousands of bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, good lord Zell we support our troops and want them to be seen as liberators, but maybe talking about how great it is to drop bombs on Iraq (where more than 10,000 "grateful" Iraqis have died since the war started) is not the best way to do it.
David Gergen on CNN said it's important to remember that Zell started his career working for the racist and hateful Lester Maddox and now he's come full circle.
Literally, every single decision Zell and his speechwriters had to make was made incorrectly. There are very legitimate criticisms of both parties (although Zell can't deliver them because only the Democrats can do wrong in his eyes) and there are things you can say about John Kerry that aren't below the belt or just outright lies (Dick Cheney, when in Congress, voted against many of the military programs that Zell chastises Kerry for opposing). Why send Zell up there to be a fountain of anger and then list a bunch of weapons systems?
The man has truly lost it. The Republicans painted a caricature of Howard Dean during the primaries as crazy and hateful, but tonight Zell Miller showed the world that he is 100 times worse. After tonight, the fact that Zell Miller and I aren't voting for the same person for President is oddly reassuring.
