Will 2008 be a turning-point election?

Amazing what age does to our eyes, isn't it?

Let me toss this out and see what happens.

My presumption is that whatever change is in the works such as Joe speaks to is a consequence not so much of anything Dems have done or become but rather what their opposition has done and has become. Conservatism and the GOP, modernly, is quite different from what it was even in Nixon's time. Present Dem advantage accrues by contrast.

In this discussion of AEI panelists following the election, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02WeZ81D-nA , Henry Olsen notes that exit polling found that voters who chose the answer "someone who cares about me" from the options of what they most wanted in a President, Romney lost by 18 to 82.

To the degree that conservatives hold to an ideology of self-sufficiency as the primary "principle" of proper citizenship and hold to an ideology that insists government must therefore retreat from the ideas and values of the "welfare state", to that degree they erase citizens' ability to reformulate the social contract as they perceive that is needed, for the well being of the nation and of their communities and of their families and selves. They perceive, quite correctly, that such a rigid and unrelenting ideology places compassion either very low on the scale of importances or refuses to place it on that scale at all.

We need to know how many chose that option above the others and whether they were the sort of people who were more receptive to Mr Obama's rhetoric rather than to any reality.

It also begs the question of whether a President who does care about people a great deal is a better leader than one who is more realistic.

And Dem advantage was only of the order of 2.5% anyway and has not extended itself to the House where a Rep leader has the power to play hardball and may well have the decisive say.

Not everyone wishes to be the subject of compassion strategies. Nor that such strategies be followed out to their logical conclusion.

This is a post I put on the Newtown shooting thread--



Have you a view on that Bernie?

To your latter post re guns.

The increase in gun sales can't be imagined, rationally, as caused by anything Obama said. You are either immersed in a cynicism of some depth or you're playing games.

If a political figure announced an intent to increase the jail time for the rapes of young children and then those men who have a zest for the thing decide they'd better get it done before the penalties change, you're going to fault the politicians public announcement?

I don't consider that a satisfactory response Bernie.

In fact I think it quite foolish.

I'd had you on ignore for reasons which I'd quite forgotten. I'm sorry but I'm going to return to that relationship. Wishing you the best.