[ihc] Re: [offtopic] Vote 2004

["Allan Ericson" <lowvolt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Welty" <rwelty@domain.elided>
To: "Offtopic list" <offtopic@domain.elided>
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: [offtopic] Vote 2004



> On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 18:50:29 -0500 Dan Nees <cookiedan@domain.elided> wrote:
>
> > I've got your illegitimate President right here!
> > G.W. got the most popular votes ever in history for President.
> > G.W. also won Ohio by more votes than John Kennedy won his whole first
> > term by.
> > Illegitimate my ass!
> this is periously close to gloating on a list where it is know that
> there are a significant number of folks who are not bush fans. let's
> tone it down a little, ok?
I would have to agree. It's time to talk about ways to move forward, and 
which direction, and to analyze this election season. With luck, rules of 
conduct might be formed for the media and for the political parties in this 
country. I am already seeing the BS talking points on the news programs on 
both sides of the aisle, and it's pretty aggravating.


> i'd also point out that this was still a very close election, not really
> a resounding mandate sort of affair. it seems to me that it's been
> quite a while since we saw a sitting president reelected with 60%+
> of the popular vote. if you're getting all worked up over 51%, i
> suggest that a reality check may be in order.
Actually, Jimmy Carter was the last president on the democratic side, and 
the only one in the last 40 years to get 50%.
Reagan won by a landslide, but he didn't get 60%. 49 states against Mondale, 
but not 60%. Such a margin is very unlikely to occur unless the times get a 
whole lot worse than they were under Carter.
Bill Clinton got what, 43 and 46%? Bush 41 got 51%. Gore and Bush 43 both 
got more than Clinton got. "Third party candidate" isn't an adequate 
description of what happened in these 4 elections. Nader was not the spoiler 
the democrats feared, and certainly had less impact than he did last time, 
and far less impact than Perot.
This election proved that a candidate could win the popular vote by 4 
million votes and still lose. 100,000 people vote the other way, Kerry is 
president elect. Campaigning mattered a lot.
This election was won and lost on several major issues. They are all still 
important issues.
Voter disenfranchisement did not turn out to be anything but a scare tactic 
and a way to mask voter fraud issues. The "rest of the story" on the 35,000 
returned ballots in Ohio is pretty interesting, too. They were sent out 
"return requested" (at the request of the republicans), which is NOT 
standard proceedure, because there was strong reason to suspect voter fraud. 
This turned out to be the case, and the "possible" scenarios put forward by 
the democrats turned out to be so much crap. This WAS a voter fraud attempt, 
and it would probably have worked.  The system handled the situation 
properly, and the lawyers and other vermin did not affect the outcome. The 
people who didn't get ballots for whatever reason got provisionals, and they 
will be officially counted. The people who didn't exist, didn't.

The rest of the lawyers for both sides (a scenario I still find disgusting) 
had to go home. Very few problems, most of them technical. Some assholes on 
both sides of the spectrum.

Of interest to me will be the accountability for the bias in the media. This 
was so blatant during this last cycle that the major media outlets will not 
be respected for a long time to come. Kerry's record was never scrutinized 
by the media. His military record, which shows he had to have his discharge 
upgraded, was never scrutinized by the media, although they re-hashed false 
charges against Bush many times. The swift boat vets were treated like party 
hacks rather than vets with a strong bias against a former peer. Communists 
spent many millions of dollars on democratic 527 organizations, as did 
foreigners.  The polling was skewed, and has been skewed, and used to 
generate news rather than report it. The exit polling was deliberately 
skewed to make it look like an early landslide for Kerry.

The shrill, hateful speech was nothing less than revolting. Although both 
sides are guilty of this, there was much more from the left prior to 
November first.

The European leaders are making loud noises about kiss and make up. They 
tried to interfere with our processes, but did not ultimately succeed, but 
this president will not speak of it, because to do so would be 
counter-productive and classless. Bin Laden re-surfaced, but with a tape 
rather than a bomb. It appears as though the American people were not 
impressed, and not amused, and refused to change their votes when 
threatened.

There are many issues that will soon be seen in a different light. Fallujah 
is now under attack, and will be pounded for a while. Elections will be held 
in Iraq. The middle east will be in turmoil for years to come, but there 
will be thousands less terrorists. They will die killing Iraqis instead of 
Americans, for the most part. Our casualty rate is low, and our kill ratio 
is high.

The unemployment rate is still lower than when Clinton ran for office. There 
were 195,000 jobs created last month, according to the economists. This 
brings the total to 2 million in the last 15 months. The recession ended, 
and the jobs finally started to follow. The price of oil is high, but the 
job increases continue. There is no dot com boom to mask the flow of factory 
jobs out of the country, and they still continue, just as they have for many 
years.

We have a lot of work to do, and many issues to address. Passion is good. 
Idealism is good. Sarcasm and taking false positions are bad. Being wrong 
about opinions is okay. Being deliberately dishonest is not. Now is a good 
time to be respectful toward one another.

-Allan