I frankly think it's a silly thing for you or anyone else (i.e. either party) to focus on. I've never even noticed it until you brought it up and if I had I'd have thought it was illiterate, not pejorative.
Does anyone believe that calling the Democratic party the Democrat party is going to sway voters? It's not. It's part of the echo chamber and the only people who care about it are those in the echo chamber.
If you want to have discussions on issues, starting with a presumptive pejorative isn't going to get you there. If you want to talk in the echo chamber of whatever philosophy you subscribe to, then you can do that, have fun, and feel good about venting, but it won't get help get America any closer to solutions.
dave
· 1 year ago
It's not about swaying voters, a lot of thought is subconscious, disrupting neural pathways. Well-understood science. So even if you don't notice it, your memory of the name of that party gets confused. And that's an important marketing thing, and that's what they're doing -- marketing.
If it's not deliberate, explain McCain just started doing it...
evanwolf
· 1 year ago
I've already heard the "Hussein" injected in everyday right talk radio.
Phil Windley
· 1 year ago
If McCain has started doing it then he's being silly too. :-)
Like I said, I think it's about playing to the base or echo chamber. It's detrimental to a serious, respectful discussion of issues. If you're not after that, then no worries. I'd assumed you were.
dave
· 1 year ago
you're entitled to your opinion, but in this case i don't agree.
why not write a letter to your republican congressperson and senators, if you can get them all to stop doing it, then i will stop.
seems like a reasonable offer to me.
alain
· 1 year ago
There is a pettiness to politics that consistently amazes me when our elected leaders and their followers or true believers fall into it. The Republicans do it for the same reason my three year old teases her five year old sister - because it gets a reaction. They know that their target, the Democrats, will become enraged. It has nothing to do with trying to sway voters because the only people who notice and respond to it are the true believers. If nothing else it is a coded thumb to the nose with a sputtering raspberry attached. The very fact that you respond to it means they have succeeded. If you're not careful, you immediately fall into a trap of being responsive to shadows in the night and looking for offenses at every turn rather than focusing on what your message ought to be. As Phil says, this quickly pulls the whole dialogue down the drain and isn't really helpful to solving problems. Politics isn't and shouldn't be about scoring points on the other team, but instead on actually implementing policies that make a difference.
dave
· 1 year ago
You couldn't be more wrong about that.
John Kerry parsed it mostly the way you did and he didn't respond to the swiftboat attacks.
Guess who got to give the concession speech on the first Tuesday of November?
You may understand the politics of your kids, but you don't understand American politics.
alain
· 1 year ago
You missed my point. What I offered was an analysis of recognizing what types of issues matter and which ones are just inside baseball. Calling it the Democrat Party is inside baseball. Going after Kerry with the Swift Boat ad is a PR firestorm that needs to be put out. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who has been there on the ground working and responding to what happens. I worked 3 successful political campaigns - two for Senate and one for Congress - so I'm not speaking from ignorance here. When you're in the midst of the fray, it's important to remember that while you do need to develop a response to the things that matter, getting worked up about comments like "the Democrat Party" are not the kinds of issue you should be spending limited energy and resources responding to.
dave
· 1 year ago
Now you're saying something different, and sorry this is wrong too.
First, I am not an insider.
Second, if you read the previous messages in this thread, the point has already been made, this is not just about insiders.
Jason Lefkowitz
· 1 year ago
No, you are missing the point.
Republicans don't say "Democrat Party" to directly sway voters. They do it because it's disrespectful.
The idea is to make your opponent appear weak by doing something disrespectful to him right to his face, and then having him do nothing in return.
When you do this, you send the message that your opponent is weak. If he was strong, he'd stop you from disrespecting him. But he doesn't, so he isn't.
One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.
...and it explains a lot about GOP tactics in the modern era.
fdsa
· 1 year ago
John Kerry also had about the same charisma as Al Gore.
At least Barack Hussein Obama's handlers have seen American Idol.
Darrell Moore
· 1 year ago
The only way to fight this is to keep it a contest between two SIDES, not two individuals. Each side will have to own their own behavior. McCain and every other Republican will be obligated to "denounce and reject" all unseemly actions taken on their side's behalf. And equally so for Obama and the Democrats.
This is quickly going to devolve into that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George want to proclaim that they're not gay, but everytime they do they have to preface it with "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." It may sound silly, but that's the only way to defuse the power of the whisper campaign.
ehs
· 1 year ago
Yanky doodle ( a term of derision used by the British, coopted by the revolutionaries). Lenny Bruce.
Its time to take the power of the word away from the republiks.
We could all adopt it as our honorary middle names.. We can force it on Karl Husseiin Rove, John Hussein McCain, Rush Hussein Limbaugh, Matt Hussein Drudge.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
You *really* want me to change my middle name from "the N word"?
william
· 1 year ago
Dave,
McCain is one foot from the grave, he isn't going to care that he smeared Obama if it means he is the oldest human being ever elected President. Don't hold your breath that he will do any of the things you suggest.
dave
· 1 year ago
I don't agree with your premise about having one foot in the grave, I know plenty of people his age and much older who are still active. In any case, that doesn't change the fact that I agree with your belief that he won't do these things, I don't think he will. I'm talking mainly to my fellow Obama supporters and will-be-soon Obama supporters, that we shouldn't let what happened in 2004 happen in 2008. We must be ready to fight fire with fire. It isn't about telling the truth or lying as some have suggested, it's about whether you'll go deep into places that make you feel as dirty as the person you're shitting on. If you want to win against these dickheads, there's no doubt in my mind that you have to get that dirty. They aren't going to let you pass any other way, because there's no doubt that they are dishonorable enough to do it.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
It's astonishingly naive to think that a presidential candidate can "take control of his party." Political party members aren't computers: They don't do exactly, and only, what their programmer tells them to do.
Also, from what I read, McCain didn't hear Bill Cunningham's warmup, and thus had no reason to scold him during his speech.
dave
· 1 year ago
Don't believe everything you read. :-)
And if he can't take control of his party what good will he be as Commander In Chief.
Tell me that oh Anonymous one! :-)
Anon
· 1 year ago
When was the last time ANY presidential candidate was able to "control" their party?
Bush obviously can't (nor could his father). Clinton couldn't. Reagan maybe, but I doubt it. And those are just the winners... could Kerry, Dean, or Kucinich control the Dems last year? Heh.
Just saying so doesn't make it true. Parties make the candidates, not vice versa.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
"Again, if you want extra credit, bring Obama on stage with you, and Hillary Clinton, and all three of you say that this isn't the America you want, and that swiftboating will not be part of this election."
You say it's the hardest part, but the one that really matters. I'd say that the Democrats would be damnable fools were they to make it easy for McCain to look as uncommonly decent as Barack looks. That's the biggest single thing Barack has going for him, that he's unlike all those politicians he's been running against. The reason Hillary can't get traction is that she keeps demonstrating that she's fractious, petty, and combative.
If McCain can show himself the match of Barack in terms of being a decent human being, there is still plenty to distinguish the two candidates. The Democratic platform is inevitably going to say that we need to have more government because we're unable to take care of ourselves, and the Republican platform is inevitably going to say we need less government, because we're quite capable of doing things the way *we* want to do things. There's a reason why there are red states and blue states: if you're stacked like cordwood, the Democratic point of view makes more sense, and if you have lots of elbow room, the Republican POV makes more sense.
McCain's doing extraordinarily well in the polls, considering that he's in the same party as Dubya. If he runs a smart campaign, he can win by a respectable majority. If the independent groups start to run swiftboating ads, he's sunk.
dave
· 1 year ago
Now there's an interesting point. I'll have to think about that.
Swiftboating took all the oxygen out of the campaign in 2004, maybe that won't happen this time around. Maybe this is it for the "Hussein" bit?
What do you think? Did they shoot their wad too early?
Mark Forman
· 1 year ago
Keep going Dave-appreciate the passion and the focus here.
Derek
· 1 year ago
One wonders if you experienced the same level of outrage when Mitt Romney was smeared for being gasp, a Mormon. I loved the subtlety of it all. The "Does Mitt have a Mormon Problem?" stories. A great way to put it out there without really putting it out there.
dave
· 1 year ago
no outrage, in either case. obama is my choice. if necessary, i'll help sling mud back at him if it'll help my candidate.
evanwolf
· 1 year ago
What do you think of the Nader candidacy? He knows he cannot win. He knows most of his votes will come from Democrats. He accepts no responsibility for the 2000 election results and and declines the "spoiler" label.
dave
· 1 year ago
I question all these assumptions. I'm sure he thinks he has a chance to win, truth is that he does have a chance to win. May not be very big, but it's his. And people who vote for him aren't owned by anyone, not even him. Votes don't belong to anyone. You should really formulate these ideas more carefully and try to find what you're really saying but I agree with him, he's not responsible for what happened in 2000, he's a candidate for office, and our form of government anticipates that many people may run for office, and I tend to agree with him that it would be better if parties came and went more frequently. This sense of entitlement by the Dems and Reps is not a good thing for us.
Jasperjed
· 1 year ago
Thank you very much! And isn't the point to vote your ideals, and not just try to pick the winner?
evanwolf
· 1 year ago
There *is* such a thing as a "wasted vote." When you vote for "Donald Duck", you know your vote won't affect the outcome. So you force yourself to choose among viable candidates, even write-in ones.
This is realpolitik, I think. If you're voting for a Republican, you want a candidate that can beat whoever the Dems throw against you. Ability to win is a valid criterion, if not a prerequisite, for how I invest my vote.
And while you're right, that nobody is entitled to my vote, isn't it willful blindness to ignore that your appeal reaches into one of the existing parties? And that, based on experience, you might earn enough votes to swing an election?
As for the "chance to win", the dems and republicans have over 100k electeds in local, state, and national offices. They have local committees and clubs in every city. They will spend over $500 million in ad bucks.
As voters and as candidates, we serve democracy by acting to elect the best candidate within the system we have.
Effectively, a vote for Nader which would have gone to a Democrat is a vote for McCain. Nader knows it. And doesn't care. The same logic elected George Bush. I wonder if any of the people who voted for Ralph last time will vote for him again.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
When's the last time you voted for a candidate who won by *one* vote?
The only wasted vote is the one that's not counted. Maybe you stayed home. Maybe you didn't RTFM, and your vote was discarded. If you write in a vote for "Donald Duck" and he hasn't been registered as a write-in candidate, your vote doesn't get counted. (And Donald Duck isn't just a cartoon character. He was a guest on Johnny Carson one night. His parents named his that before Walt Disney came up with the character you're thnking of.)
Huckabee hasn't dropped from the contest, even though he has no realistic chance to win, because when people vote for him, it *does* change things. People have a right to express their idea, and calling their candidate a "spoiler" is a feeble-minded insult to both the candidate, and those who favor his ideas.
In the '68 national Democratic convention, one of the delegates voted for Julian Bond in the first round. He wasn't yet 35 at the time; even if the Electoral College chose him, he couldn't have assumed the office. Never the less, it wasn't a wasted vote.
I've been a Nancy Nall fan since the 1980s, and after watching the events unfold yesterday, I'm even more of a fan. I'm thinking about writing in her name on my Pennsylvania GOP primary ballot. It won't be counted; among other things Nancy is a flaming liberal of a Democratic, bless her sharp pen, but then, the GOP ticket is pretty well determined already.
(I don't care *what* you say, Dave, it looks *stupid* to call someone a Democratic. If the Republican party members are Republicans, then the party made up of Democrats should be the Democrat party.)
davidlynch79
· 1 year ago
nader is a spoiler, lacks compromise, for strict ideal, should have run as democrat. bushcain is unethical, and so are bushcain voters.
BDP
· 1 year ago
Incidentally, John Sidney McCain III has his own "Swift Boat" storyline.
Republican operatives will come up with something better than Hussein, if they haven't already. Using that name just reinforces Obama's central message of being a uniter, and it's not 2002 any more, our culture is actually more interested in the mideast than every before, eg McCain's own daughter wears a keffiyeh. Trying to be divisive in this manner is not only outdated by highlights exactly the thing Obama wants highlighted -- that Republicans are (allegedly) divisive fearmongers.
No, it'll probably be something to do with Obama being an amateur. Here is former McCain adviser Dan Schnur in the NYT yday
(Schnur is a former prof of mine and I'm not saying his above essay is unfair or fair or good or bad, though I enjoyed reading it)
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
They'll also attack him by mentioning that he's going to raise taxes and increase protectionism.
Both of which are true.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
Both Obama and McCain will raise taxes. They're both aware that running a deficit is highly corrosive of the American economy, destroying jobs and lowering the standard of living, especially among those who are least able to switch jobs.
Attacking NAFTA is important in the midwest is important, because it's a bad law. The concept is good, but the law itself is bad. Both McCain and Obama are historically free-traders, and they both recognize that free trade improves our economy. They also both realize that if a Mexican is going to take your job away, it's better that he do so by working in the US as a legal resident, so that he can pay taxes, and join the melting pot, rather than by working in a Mexican factory owned by a US corporation.
There are two ways to force companies to behave responsibly, in the public interest. One is by imposing regulations. The other is to allow individuals to force responsibility upon them, by suing for damages, and inflicting enough pain in the form of punitive damages to get the behavior to change. (That is, the day after McDonald's lost to Stella, they lowered the coffee temperature from an outrageous 190F to a scalding 148F.) McCain will excoriate Obama for favoring regulations, because regulations are often poorly written to the point of being counterproductive, and regulatory oversight is a bureaucratic nightmare that is a major drag on the economy, and McCain will be right about that. Obama will likely never consider excoriating McCain about "tort reform", a GOP favorite, in which victims of irresponsible or malicious acts are forced to accept the economic burdens without recourse.
This election should be a slam-dunk for the Democratics, but it won't be, in part because they are always so incensed by social injustice that they can't explain themselves in simple terms to the voters. If the Democrats could learn how to couch issues in the proper language - "the death tax", the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act" or the "defense of marriage act" - they'd have a better chance of succeeding, but in the long term, the population is moving from blue cities to maroon suburbs and to red rural areas, and that means individual liberties are going to triumph over group rights.
Michael Markman (Mickeleh)
· 1 year ago
I appreciate your passion on countering the contempt that Republicans show in mislabeling the Democratic party. If what they are doing is wrong, then why should we also do it? Is this the Sean Connery speech from "The Untouchables"
"You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. And that's how you get Capone!"
Even if we adopt the insult-for-insult stragegy, there's another problem with calling them "the Republics" The United States is a Republic. "Republican" is a faction. "Rebublic" is all of us. They'd love us to concede that they are the Republic party. But they're not. If anything, they're the unreconstructed Confederacy Party.
Michael Markman (Mickeleh)
· 1 year ago
If you want to insult Republicans by refusing to use their full name, calling them Publicans. That's way nastier than calling them Republics. See Wikipedia In Rome, they were contract tax collectors. In the New Testament, they're villains. In the Renaissance, publicans were saloon keepers "and by extension a slang term for a pimp."
nando
· 1 year ago
I guess you already saw this, but there's a video of Bill Clinton talking "how to choose" a candidate, and apparently, well, he's talking about Obama.
It's ironic that you're saying on the one hand it's a Republican insult when they don't use the full name of the Democratic Party, and on the other hand it is also a Republican insult when they do use the full name of the leading Democratic candidate. You're joining the very kind of non-substantive, non-policy arguments you claim to dislike.
In our present climate of nasty partisanship over the most irrelevant points, McCain is attacked by the right for not defending his supporter who used Obama's full name and at the same time is attacked by the left for not denouncing that supporter strongly enough. This incident raises a very important question for this election cycle: does the country really prefer a moderate as many people have claimed? Or will McCain get killed in the cross-fire between two groups of partisans who enjoy the fight too much to notice what they're doing to the country?
pbump
· 1 year ago
Something of an aside: being curious about the reliability of the polling firms doing work around the election, I put together a spreadsheet of their past predictions (gleaned from Pollster.com).
Seems Survey USA has the lowest deviance from the actual results over the course of the primaries so far. As of polling last week, They have Obama up 4 in Texas, and Hillary up 6 in Ohio.
Somebody sent me this. It Has Begun. I'm especially impressed by the snopes.com reference, it's sort of like using random phrases to bust spam filters. Also the way the first half of the article is about Obama, and there's suddenly this context switch to Radical Wahabism. And the all-caps MUSLIM... ================================= The Bible has warned us that 'A man will come from the East that will be charismatic in nature and have proposed solutions for all our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'
When will our pathetic Nation quit turning their back on God and understand that this man is 'A Muslim'....First, Last and always....and we are AT WAR with the Muslim Nation, whether our bleeding-heart, secular, Liberal friends believe it or not. This man fits every description from the Bible of the 'Anti-Christ'!
I'm just glad to know that there are others that are frightened by this man!
Who is Barack Obama?
Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.
If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.
snopes.com ..' confirms this is factual. Check for yourself.
Who is Barack Obama?
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita , Kansas.
Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.
When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.
When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, 'He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.'
Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that that he is not a radical.
Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.
Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.
Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches. Do you want someone like this as your PRESIDENT?
Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.
The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!
Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME! =================================
Mike
· 1 year ago
How is "Democrat Party" trashing the Democrats?
"Democratic" and "Republican" are adjectives. "Democrat" and "Republican" are nouns. "He's a Democrat, she's a Repubican."
Saying "Democrat Party" is just using it as an attributive noun, a common English usage, like with the Peace and Freedom Party. Is "freedom" an adjective?
"Republic Party" just makes you look retarded. Republicans aren't insulted or chastened -- they're simply bewildered.
Michael Markman (Mickeleh)
· 1 year ago
Calling the Democratic Party is disrespectful. it's done to annoy. I was given the name Michael. I'm guessing you were too. People who respect us should ask if we go by Mike or Michael and then they follow our preference. if we don't care, we can tell them that. Members of the Democratic Party has made it very clear that we care what we are called. Republicans don't care about that. So they are, at best, inconsiderate, and more likely deliberately nasty.
They also don't want to allow that the Democratic Party might be actually be a democratic party.
If you don't mind what Republicans call our party, you don't have much standing to object to what Dave calls the Republican party.
I wish that Dave would show the Republicans the respect that he expects them to show us. I'll use your comment as an occasion to present one more argument to Dave: Dave when you say "the Republics" you are just adding noise to your own signal. People stop and and go "huh?" instead of following the thread of your argument.
Michael Markman (Mickeleh)
· 1 year ago
typo: first sentence should read: Calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party" is disrespectful.
David G
· 1 year ago
Mr. Winer, Could you please start start a separate blog for your purely political commentary? Or is there an RSS feed for technical topics? Sincerely, David G.
All Comments
Does anyone believe that calling the Democratic party the Democrat party is going to sway voters? It's not. It's part of the echo chamber and the only people who care about it are those in the echo chamber.
If you want to have discussions on issues, starting with a presumptive pejorative isn't going to get you there. If you want to talk in the echo chamber of whatever philosophy you subscribe to, then you can do that, have fun, and feel good about venting, but it won't get help get America any closer to solutions.
If it's not deliberate, explain McCain just started doing it...
Like I said, I think it's about playing to the base or echo chamber. It's detrimental to a serious, respectful discussion of issues. If you're not after that, then no worries. I'd assumed you were.
why not write a letter to your republican congressperson and senators, if you can get them all to stop doing it, then i will stop.
seems like a reasonable offer to me.
John Kerry parsed it mostly the way you did and he didn't respond to the swiftboat attacks.
Guess who got to give the concession speech on the first Tuesday of November?
You may understand the politics of your kids, but you don't understand American politics.
First, I am not an insider.
Second, if you read the previous messages in this thread, the point has already been made, this is not just about insiders.
Republicans don't say "Democrat Party" to directly sway voters. They do it because it's disrespectful.
The idea is to make your opponent appear weak by doing something disrespectful to him right to his face, and then having him do nothing in return.
When you do this, you send the message that your opponent is weak. If he was strong, he'd stop you from disrespecting him. But he doesn't, so he isn't.
Josh Marshall calls this the "Bitch-slap theory of politics":
...and it explains a lot about GOP tactics in the modern era.
At least Barack Hussein Obama's handlers have seen American Idol.
This is quickly going to devolve into that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George want to proclaim that they're not gay, but everytime they do they have to preface it with "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." It may sound silly, but that's the only way to defuse the power of the whisper campaign.
Lenny Bruce.
Its time to take the power of the word away from the republiks.
We could all adopt it as our honorary middle names.. We can force it on Karl Husseiin Rove, John Hussein McCain, Rush Hussein Limbaugh, Matt Hussein Drudge.
McCain is one foot from the grave, he isn't going to care that he smeared Obama if it means he is the oldest human being ever elected President. Don't hold your breath that he will do any of the things you suggest.
Also, from what I read, McCain didn't hear Bill Cunningham's warmup, and thus had no reason to scold him during his speech.
And if he can't take control of his party what good will he be as Commander In Chief.
Tell me that oh Anonymous one! :-)
Bush obviously can't (nor could his father). Clinton couldn't. Reagan maybe, but I doubt it. And those are just the winners... could Kerry, Dean, or Kucinich control the Dems last year? Heh.
Just saying so doesn't make it true. Parties make the candidates, not vice versa.
You say it's the hardest part, but the one that really matters. I'd say that the Democrats would be damnable fools were they to make it easy for McCain to look as uncommonly decent as Barack looks. That's the biggest single thing Barack has going for him, that he's unlike all those politicians he's been running against. The reason Hillary can't get traction is that she keeps demonstrating that she's fractious, petty, and combative.
If McCain can show himself the match of Barack in terms of being a decent human being, there is still plenty to distinguish the two candidates. The Democratic platform is inevitably going to say that we need to have more government because we're unable to take care of ourselves, and the Republican platform is inevitably going to say we need less government, because we're quite capable of doing things the way *we* want to do things. There's a reason why there are red states and blue states: if you're stacked like cordwood, the Democratic point of view makes more sense, and if you have lots of elbow room, the Republican POV makes more sense.
McCain's doing extraordinarily well in the polls, considering that he's in the same party as Dubya. If he runs a smart campaign, he can win by a respectable majority. If the independent groups start to run swiftboating ads, he's sunk.
Swiftboating took all the oxygen out of the campaign in 2004, maybe that won't happen this time around. Maybe this is it for the "Hussein" bit?
What do you think? Did they shoot their wad too early?
This is realpolitik, I think. If you're voting for a Republican, you want a candidate that can beat whoever the Dems throw against you. Ability to win is a valid criterion, if not a prerequisite, for how I invest my vote.
And while you're right, that nobody is entitled to my vote, isn't it willful blindness to ignore that your appeal reaches into one of the existing parties? And that, based on experience, you might earn enough votes to swing an election?
As for the "chance to win", the dems and republicans have over 100k electeds in local, state, and national offices. They have local committees and clubs in every city. They will spend over $500 million in ad bucks.
As voters and as candidates, we serve democracy by acting to elect the best candidate within the system we have.
Effectively, a vote for Nader which would have gone to a Democrat is a vote for McCain.
Nader knows it.
And doesn't care.
The same logic elected George Bush.
I wonder if any of the people who voted for Ralph last time will vote for him again.
The only wasted vote is the one that's not counted. Maybe you stayed home. Maybe you didn't RTFM, and your vote was discarded. If you write in a vote for "Donald Duck" and he hasn't been registered as a write-in candidate, your vote doesn't get counted. (And Donald Duck isn't just a cartoon character. He was a guest on Johnny Carson one night. His parents named his that before Walt Disney came up with the character you're thnking of.)
Huckabee hasn't dropped from the contest, even though he has no realistic chance to win, because when people vote for him, it *does* change things. People have a right to express their idea, and calling their candidate a "spoiler" is a feeble-minded insult to both the candidate, and those who favor his ideas.
In the '68 national Democratic convention, one of the delegates voted for Julian Bond in the first round. He wasn't yet 35 at the time; even if the Electoral College chose him, he couldn't have assumed the office. Never the less, it wasn't a wasted vote.
I've been a Nancy Nall fan since the 1980s, and after watching the events unfold yesterday, I'm even more of a fan. I'm thinking about writing in her name on my Pennsylvania GOP primary ballot. It won't be counted; among other things Nancy is a flaming liberal of a Democratic, bless her sharp pen, but then, the GOP ticket is pretty well determined already.
(I don't care *what* you say, Dave, it looks *stupid* to call someone a Democratic. If the Republican party members are Republicans, then the party made up of Democrats should be the Democrat party.)
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
No, it'll probably be something to do with Obama being an amateur. Here is former McCain adviser Dan Schnur in the NYT yday
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/...
(Schnur is a former prof of mine and I'm not saying his above essay is unfair or fair or good or bad, though I enjoyed reading it)
Both of which are true.
Attacking NAFTA is important in the midwest is important, because it's a bad law. The concept is good, but the law itself is bad. Both McCain and Obama are historically free-traders, and they both recognize that free trade improves our economy. They also both realize that if a Mexican is going to take your job away, it's better that he do so by working in the US as a legal resident, so that he can pay taxes, and join the melting pot, rather than by working in a Mexican factory owned by a US corporation.
There are two ways to force companies to behave responsibly, in the public interest. One is by imposing regulations. The other is to allow individuals to force responsibility upon them, by suing for damages, and inflicting enough pain in the form of punitive damages to get the behavior to change. (That is, the day after McDonald's lost to Stella, they lowered the coffee temperature from an outrageous 190F to a scalding 148F.) McCain will excoriate Obama for favoring regulations, because regulations are often poorly written to the point of being counterproductive, and regulatory oversight is a bureaucratic nightmare that is a major drag on the economy, and McCain will be right about that. Obama will likely never consider excoriating McCain about "tort reform", a GOP favorite, in which victims of irresponsible or malicious acts are forced to accept the economic burdens without recourse.
This election should be a slam-dunk for the Democratics, but it won't be, in part because they are always so incensed by social injustice that they can't explain themselves in simple terms to the voters. If the Democrats could learn how to couch issues in the proper language - "the death tax", the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act" or the "defense of marriage act" - they'd have a better chance of succeeding, but in the long term, the population is moving from blue cities to maroon suburbs and to red rural areas, and that means individual liberties are going to triumph over group rights.
Even if we adopt the insult-for-insult stragegy, there's another problem with calling them "the Republics" The United States is a Republic. "Republican" is a faction. "Rebublic" is all of us. They'd love us to concede that they are the Republic party. But they're not. If anything, they're the unreconstructed Confederacy Party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe0BPwWAxnk
In our present climate of nasty partisanship over the most irrelevant points, McCain is attacked by the right for not defending his supporter who used Obama's full name and at the same time is attacked by the left for not denouncing that supporter strongly enough. This incident raises a very important question for this election cycle: does the country really prefer a moderate as many people have claimed? Or will McCain get killed in the cross-fire between two groups of partisans who enjoy the fight too much to notice what they're doing to the country?
Seems Survey USA has the lowest deviance from the actual results over the course of the primaries so far. As of polling last week, They have Obama up 4 in Texas, and Hillary up 6 in Ohio.
More info, and the Excel file, are at http://www.pbump.net/index.php?show=7931 - if folks are interested.
it's sort of like using random phrases to bust spam filters. Also the way the first half of the article is about Obama, and there's suddenly this context switch to Radical Wahabism. And the all-caps MUSLIM...
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The Bible has warned us that 'A man will come from the East that will be charismatic in nature and have proposed solutions for all our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'
When will our pathetic Nation quit turning their back on God and understand that this man is 'A Muslim'....First, Last and always....and we are AT WAR with the Muslim Nation, whether our bleeding-heart, secular, Liberal friends believe it or not. This man fits every description from the Bible of the 'Anti-Christ'!
I'm just glad to know that there are others that are frightened by this man!
Who is Barack Obama?
Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.
If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.
snopes.com ..' confirms this is factual. Check for yourself.
Who is Barack Obama?
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita , Kansas.
Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.
When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.
When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, 'He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.'
Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that that he is not a radical.
Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.
Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.
Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches. Do you want someone like this as your PRESIDENT?
Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.
The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!
Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME!
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"Democratic" and "Republican" are adjectives. "Democrat" and "Republican" are nouns. "He's a Democrat, she's a Repubican."
Saying "Democrat Party" is just using it as an attributive noun, a common English usage, like with the Peace and Freedom Party. Is "freedom" an adjective?
"Republic Party" just makes you look retarded. Republicans aren't insulted or chastened -- they're simply bewildered.
They also don't want to allow that the Democratic Party might be actually be a democratic party.
If you don't mind what Republicans call our party, you don't have much standing to object to what Dave calls the Republican party.
I wish that Dave would show the Republicans the respect that he expects them to show us. I'll use your comment as an occasion to present one more argument to Dave: Dave when you say "the Republics" you are just adding noise to your own signal. People stop and and go "huh?" instead of following the thread of your argument.
Could you please start start a separate blog for your purely political commentary? Or is there an RSS feed for technical topics?
Sincerely, David G.