okieinexile
Well-Known Member
The Wake-up call
By Bobby Neal Winters
The Democratic Party has been given a wake-up call. That is the only way I can see it. Though John Kerry ran a good campaign that gave him a better showing in the electoral college than he had any right to expect, he was beat in the popular vote by George W. Bush, a man who lost votes anytime he tried to speak in a public forum at the same time as Kerry. While it is doubtful Bush is actually the slobbering idiot his enemies portray him as, it is a hard charge to defend him against when he speaks.
The indisputable fact is that the most the Democrats were asking for was someone that was not George W. Bush, but being not Bush was not enough.
The Democratic Party’s main problem might be closely connected to the image it paints of George W. Bush. He simply isn’t as smart as members of the Democratic leadership, and therefore he is viewed with contempt. It doesn’t take much imagination for a voter to think, “If they hold him in contempt, then what do they think of me?”
You are not likely to vote for someone who finds you loathsome and lets you know it.
One can look at the map on election night and notice the core of each side’s base. It was generally conceded that Bush could count on the Solid South and that Kerry could count on New York and California.
The South has been the standard example of backwardness is trotted out for display. “Thank God for Mississippi,” is what they say.
On the other hand, New York and California are self-described as progressive. They consider themselves to be the places the country will, or at least should, emulate. How could you possibly NOT want to be like them? As smart as they say they are, they can’t understand it.
The National Democratic Party has this attitude itself. It is tainted with the yeast of elitism. This is seen most easily with the issue of abortion. Abortion is fed with elitist attitudes. It is argued that children are better of being aborted than being born into poor families. This is the sort of attitude I used to like to try to stain the Republicans with, but it is coming out of my own party.
No matter how thin you slice it, it’s saying that a poor man’s life just ain’t worth living. While the Republicans tend to begrudge the poor every cent they give them, at least they would let them live.
Abortion has been a costly issue for the Democrats. It has lost them the South, rural areas, and a lot of Catholics, but “a woman’s right to choose” is something they won’t give up. One might picture the party as a collective saying, “Well it’s not the sort of thing we want to happen, but it’s not like they are real humans, you know. If you were as smart as we are, then you’d understand.”
The trouble is that elites, by their very nature, are small groups, and the United States is some flavor of democracy. Elites lose in a democracy if they don’t attract allies, and it’s hard to be attractive to those you hold in contempt.
I urge the national Democratic leadership to heed the following and make it their mantra. Even if you are smart, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are right, and even if you are right, that doesn’t mean you should get your way.
We are now in a war with Iraq I believe was unjustified. We have killed tens-of-thousands of people and have made enemies for our children and our grandchildren, we have squandered our good will in the rest of the world, and we have put our nation’s finest in harm’s way.
This is why so many wanted “anybody but Bush.” But it is a balance between the blood of the Iraqi’s and the blood of the unborn. I had to weigh this myself, among other factors. When push came to shove, I believed voting for Bush and the Republicans wouldn’t slacken the killing of the unborn, but voting for Kerry might slacken the killing of the Iraqis and the risk to our own soldiers. I’ll now find out if I was right about the first.
The National Democratic Party has received a wake-up call. The question is whether they are capable of understanding it. If they do understand it and take it to heart, they must, among other things, begin the process of moving away from thinking of abortion as an entitlement to thinking of it as something that is wrong and our country should work to curtail. Until they do that, and until they rediscover they are the party of the middle-class and the poor, they will continue to lose by larger and larger margins.
At least that is my opinion.
By Bobby Neal Winters
The Democratic Party has been given a wake-up call. That is the only way I can see it. Though John Kerry ran a good campaign that gave him a better showing in the electoral college than he had any right to expect, he was beat in the popular vote by George W. Bush, a man who lost votes anytime he tried to speak in a public forum at the same time as Kerry. While it is doubtful Bush is actually the slobbering idiot his enemies portray him as, it is a hard charge to defend him against when he speaks.
The indisputable fact is that the most the Democrats were asking for was someone that was not George W. Bush, but being not Bush was not enough.
The Democratic Party’s main problem might be closely connected to the image it paints of George W. Bush. He simply isn’t as smart as members of the Democratic leadership, and therefore he is viewed with contempt. It doesn’t take much imagination for a voter to think, “If they hold him in contempt, then what do they think of me?”
You are not likely to vote for someone who finds you loathsome and lets you know it.
One can look at the map on election night and notice the core of each side’s base. It was generally conceded that Bush could count on the Solid South and that Kerry could count on New York and California.
The South has been the standard example of backwardness is trotted out for display. “Thank God for Mississippi,” is what they say.
On the other hand, New York and California are self-described as progressive. They consider themselves to be the places the country will, or at least should, emulate. How could you possibly NOT want to be like them? As smart as they say they are, they can’t understand it.
The National Democratic Party has this attitude itself. It is tainted with the yeast of elitism. This is seen most easily with the issue of abortion. Abortion is fed with elitist attitudes. It is argued that children are better of being aborted than being born into poor families. This is the sort of attitude I used to like to try to stain the Republicans with, but it is coming out of my own party.
No matter how thin you slice it, it’s saying that a poor man’s life just ain’t worth living. While the Republicans tend to begrudge the poor every cent they give them, at least they would let them live.
Abortion has been a costly issue for the Democrats. It has lost them the South, rural areas, and a lot of Catholics, but “a woman’s right to choose” is something they won’t give up. One might picture the party as a collective saying, “Well it’s not the sort of thing we want to happen, but it’s not like they are real humans, you know. If you were as smart as we are, then you’d understand.”
The trouble is that elites, by their very nature, are small groups, and the United States is some flavor of democracy. Elites lose in a democracy if they don’t attract allies, and it’s hard to be attractive to those you hold in contempt.
I urge the national Democratic leadership to heed the following and make it their mantra. Even if you are smart, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are right, and even if you are right, that doesn’t mean you should get your way.
We are now in a war with Iraq I believe was unjustified. We have killed tens-of-thousands of people and have made enemies for our children and our grandchildren, we have squandered our good will in the rest of the world, and we have put our nation’s finest in harm’s way.
This is why so many wanted “anybody but Bush.” But it is a balance between the blood of the Iraqi’s and the blood of the unborn. I had to weigh this myself, among other factors. When push came to shove, I believed voting for Bush and the Republicans wouldn’t slacken the killing of the unborn, but voting for Kerry might slacken the killing of the Iraqis and the risk to our own soldiers. I’ll now find out if I was right about the first.
The National Democratic Party has received a wake-up call. The question is whether they are capable of understanding it. If they do understand it and take it to heart, they must, among other things, begin the process of moving away from thinking of abortion as an entitlement to thinking of it as something that is wrong and our country should work to curtail. Until they do that, and until they rediscover they are the party of the middle-class and the poor, they will continue to lose by larger and larger margins.
At least that is my opinion.
