2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

ican711nm wrote:

I'm guilty as charged. I had to edit my post twice and now thanks to you, I must edit it again.

LOL! Aww ... sorry. Anyway, it looks interesting now. PD may be right and polls may be toilet paper, but that doesnt make speculations like this any less the stuff political punditry is made of ...

anyway, I'm just browsing through right now, its 6 AM here, I'll have to get back to your post later!

PDiddie - "how bout them Dodgers, huh ... yeh, I heard they went to the Superbowl!" <grins>

timberlandko wrote:

Quote:
Hint: the total electorate does not actually break up into equal parts of Dems, Reps and Independents.

Ahhh, but it does, Grasshopper. Observe:

Trip out! Whodathunk.

(Well, whoever was paying attention, nimh, that's who. <grins>)

Well, I'm done blushing for the day, but that's really interesting. Especially how, while the Reps stayed roughly stable from the mid-80s to the late-90s, the Dems have basically just kept falling and falling. Huh. Thanks for the stat update!

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Oh, as for my personal bit of expertise-fueled punditry on what happened tonight:

nimh wrote:

hot DAMN!

<nimh was working the past five hours or so, and hadnt checked the web anymore ...>

Daaaammmnnn ....

<grins>

OK .. I'll go for one prediction. Apart from Gephardt (poor guy - I liked him) and Dean, isn't the third loser tonight Wesley Clark?

Clark was surging nicely in NH last week, benefiting from the doubts about Dean to become the one "reasonable alternative" left standing ... and darn, suddenly there's another two! Suddenly there's an awful LOT of "reasonable alternatives", in fact ...

Mapleleaf wrote:

Sooooooooooooooooooo....why did Kerry rise to the top? The TV folks suggested the people wanted someone who was electable...could beat Bush.

Harrumph. And Kerry is electable?

He seems wholly superficial to me, or it may just have been his campaign ... opportunistic and unclear. What has this guy been running on other than his biography? Like some poster said here, brilliantly, Gephardt likes unions, Dean is against Bush and Kerry ... is for Kerry. <smirk>

I like Edwards, myself ... I never, thus far, could make up my mind about it, but I've liked Dean, Gephardt and Edwards - go figure. I was fi-nally starting to get around on Clark (whom I didn't like, at all, originally) - but who knows where he's going now.

Oh, and I found this interesting factoid:

Quote:

Tradition holds that a victory in Iowa can be worth a bounce of several percentage points in New Hampshire. But the two states have had different winners in all but 3 of the 13 competitive nominating contests since 1972.

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ican711nm wrote:

ye110man wrote:
I'm against raising taxes for the very rich but I'm also against making the very poor pay more. In my hypothetical world, there would be a progressive tax structure up to say, $150,000. Above that it should be flat.

This can be achieved with a flat income tax rate on all income (i.e., no deductions) not exempted from income tax. Consider the total net income of all those who are dependent on those filing a joint return (that includes the filers themselves). Supose the exemption is $5,000 per dependent person and the tax rate is 13%. Families of four earning $20,000 or less would pay zero income tax. Families of four earning $21,000 would pay $130. Families of four earning $1,020,000 would pay $130,000.

ye110man wrote:
Second there is a balance. If we have a 1% flat tax, you can be sure that tax revenue will decrease dramatically no matter how much the economy grows. Tax revenue grew faster under Clinton than it did under Reagan.

I estimate 17% is that tax rate (i.e., the optimum tax rate) which will produce the greatest tax revenue about 2 years after adopted.

Tax revenue under Clinton first began a substantial increase in 1998 and began providing a surplus. Then in 2000 the economy, still under Clinton, began to decline. Bush's deficits in 2001 and 2002 were first inherited and then only slightly aggravated by small tax cuts. But the major tax cuts were adopted in 2002. I'm betting on major tax revenue increases by 2004 to 2005 as the economy improves substantially.

I started a thread dedicated to this topic in the Business section to avoid getting off topic here.

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That maniacal rant Dean went into after the results last nite was scary, it's the straight jacket for him.

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Mapleleaf wrote:

Sooooooooooooooooooo....why did Kerry rise to the top? The TV folks suggested the people wanted someone who was electable...could beat Bush.

I suspect that's the reason, prodded somewhat by the media and the DNC party elders pushing the notion that Dean is not electable.

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Mapleleaf wrote:

Sooooooooooooooooooo....why did Kerry rise to the top? The TV folks suggested the people wanted someone who was electable...could beat Bush.

A lot of the press pundits are saying that people like Dean's message but don't like Dean the man. Kerry and Edwards took some of Dean's ideas/comments and made them a part of their campaign message so people got the same message but witout the angry over-tones which they seemed to have liked better.

But we'll have to see how things come out in the wash in a few weeks.

So folks - predictions on NH? Does Iowa give Kerry a big enough bounce to overcome Clark and Dean there? Does Edward's performance in Iowa give reason for voters in NH to take another look at him (he's been just a blip on the NH radar thusfar..)? Does Iowa force a shift in Dean's strategy? If Kerry and/or Edwards gain ground in NH where does that come from? Only from the undecideds? From Clark or Dean?

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As I pointed out here some while back, it should be borne in mind that the Iowa winner rarely achieves the Party Nomination, let alone the Whitehouse. Typically, if the nomination race is contested, whichever party one considers, the eventual successful candidate came out of Iowa in 2cnd or 3rd place. Again with the "Its early" caveat, I would say the big beneficiary here was Edwards. Kerry, emerging as frontrunner, becomes the targe-of-necessity for all the other hopefuls, while prior to the unknown of NH, Clark, and to a lesser extent Lieberman, remain targets-of-opportunity. A radical shift in Dean's campaign style, unlikely in view of his Wellstonian Memorial performance in front of his minions last night, could nonetheless occur, bringing him once more to the forefront. If nothing else, Dean has demonstrated an ability to surmount significant obstacles and emerge from relative obscurity. He may be expected to really ramp up his efforts in NH, and attempt to appeal to a more centrist constituency. I dunno how that will play; New Englanders are a sceptical lot, and not much given to flash and fury, which have been the chief substance of Dean's campaign. In NH, Kerry's relatively civilized approach would be expected to prove the more poular approach, but Edwards does civilized real well too. Its still a horse race ... or, perhaps more appropriately, a jackass scramble.

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>Only 5 people chose to play the predict-the-Iowa-outcome. That surprised me until I realized that there are only about 7 or 8 people regularly posting here. Timber "won" Iowa, correctly getting Kerry and Edwards as # 1 and # 2.
Can we play again in NH?
>Dean's "manical rant" -described by Brand X-was indeed scary to hear on my radio last night. The sound he made at the end was just plain wierd
>I'm wondering if Lieberman and Clark are going to be left at the starting line. The "horse-race" coming out of Iowa may be such a big story that they get left behind.
Thanks. -rjb-

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Yeah, that Dean rant seemed too maniacal. Marbles anyone?

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Already outdated - but still on-target - and mostly just funny: off-hand remarks on Dean and religion:

Quote:

Like Saul on the bike path to Damascus, Howard Dean found God, and so God decided to take another look at Wes Clark. Then Clark announced that he has studied "Catholicism, Protestantism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, [and] Kabbalism," and God, Who, after all those parted waters and halted suns and multiplied loaves, expects people to recognize that Catholicism and Protestantism are forms of Christianity and that Kabbalism is a form of Judaism, and Who does not take kindly to having the secret knowledge of the true divinity represented in the sub-lunar sphere by a Clark-supporting culturally obsolete pop star with a fetish for red string, thought to shine His countenance upon Joe Lieberman. It was the right thing to do; the senator had earned the endorsement. But He understood, in His wisdom, that this would be too predictable and too Jewish, and so He directed His spirit toward Virginia Beach, where He revealed the outcome of the election to Pat Robertson, thereby demonstrating to a country captiously obsessed with the imperfections of its notables that the Almighty sometimes has a purpose for broken vessels.

I do not doubt that the revelation to Robertson will come to pass. George W. Bush will crush Howard Dean in November. The Democrats have decided to squander yet another historical opportunity on yet another Peter, Paul, and Mary concert. [The Democrats] are taking the Republican bait. Howard Dean personifies the new Democratic excitability, the titillation of solidarity, the all-encompassing moral certainty, the diabolization of all who beg to differ. He is bringing the mentality of a sect to the leadership of a party. Who needs Nader, when there is Dean? Certainly not Bush.

Dean is admired for his honesty, which is indeed a virtue, because it exposes his features more efficiently. Consider his recent remarks on theology. [..] "I'm still learning a lot about faith and the South and how important it is," he told reporters, cheerfully admitting to an attitude of perfect expediency about the meaning of life. [..] Then he began to expound, piously and shallowly, upon the Book of Job, which he attributed to the wrong (excuse me, to the other) Testament. Not long afterward he remembered a visit to the Galilee this way: "If you know much about the Bible--which I do ... ." [..]

Read the rest ...

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fishin' wrote:

A lot of the press pundits are saying that people like Dean's message but don't like Dean the man. Kerry and Edwards took some of Dean's ideas/comments and made them a part of their campaign message so people got the same message but witout the angry over-tones which they seemed to have liked better.

I completely disagree. I think Dean the man connects with voters. His direct approach, telling the voters exactly what he feels. But once he became big, the media stepped in and overcritized everythign he said. The people were pushed into believing he was unelectable and a goof up.

But the whole time, he was saying what he thought. People always connected to this till the media started calling him a goof up.

Then flew in all the attacks against him, and Dean was forced on the defensive and even more importantly forced to tone down his direct approach that voters responded to. That's what hurt him. Not his approach.

Now the real question is, will the fact that he's now the insurgent again help him or hurt him?

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Centroles wrote:

I completely disagree. I think Dean the man connects with voters. His direct approach, telling the voters exactly what he feels. [..] People always connected to this till the media started calling him a goof up. [..] That's what hurt him. Not his approach.

Not this approach? Of "connecting with voters"?

Quote:

The former Vermont governor, taking a question from the audience after his standard stump speech, found himself being criticized for condemning the policies of President Bush [..]

"It just makes me furious when the political media and the columnists slam, bam, and bash Bush," contended Dale Ungerer, 67, a registered Republican from Hawkeye. [..]

Dean, who listened quietly, immediately replied, "George Bush is not my neighbor." When Ungerer tried to interrupt, the former governor shouted: "You sit down! You had your say, and now I'm going to have my say."

(link)

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Centroles, I find it illuminative, and confirmatory of personal suspicions, that the Deanie Babies leaped immediately to victimology as an evasion mechanism to excuse themselves from the reality that their message, and their means of promoting that message, failed to resonate with the Iowa electorate. Nobody "ganged up" on Dean, the fact is that The Dean Team was unable to engage a majority. Whether or not there is merit to Dean's position, Dean, by his own word and deed, was and is responsible for the promotion of his position. He got what he earned. To hearten you, I'll point out that second and third place finishers in Iowa have better records of eventually garnering their party's nomination than do outright winners of that particular contest. Of course, on the other hand, as Gephardt recognized, an unexpectedly disappointing finish in Iowa almost uniformly has spelt the end for a would-be candidate. NH now becomes absolutely pivotal for Dean; anything less than a convincing, outright victory for him renders his ongoing prospects dubious at best. As one committed in principle to opposing the Democrat's agenda, I personally am disappointed by Dean's apparent faltering. While yet confident none of the other footnotes-to-be present any substantive challenge to The Current Administration and its continuance, trouncing anyone other than Dean will prove somehow less sweet and satisfying a triumphal vindication. It is no less probable, it simply will be not nearly so much fun. I suppose its always possible Dean may recover with regard to the support of The Democratic Party. Go for it. Bring it on. Lets roll.

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Centroles wrote:

I completely disagree. I think Dean the man connects with voters. His direct approach, telling the voters exactly what he feels. But once he became big, the media stepped in and overcritized everythign he said. The people were pushed into believing he was unelectable and a goof up.

But the whole time, he was saying what he thought. People always connected to this till the media started calling him a goof up.

Ironic isn't it? Dean was more than happy to court the press as long as they only had nice things to say about him and didn't question what he was saying. As soon as the press started flipping over the rocks and digging into how Dean previous comments matched up with what he's been saying lately the press became evil incarnate. The press didn't create Dean's faux-pas - Dean did. Was the press supposed to hide those for him?

You may disagree with the pundits but it seems that the results in Iowa work against your position.

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<grins>

As you'll know (if only just by watching me), the Dutch have an opinion about everything.

Q.E.D.:

Quote:

Who should become president in the elections in November 2004?

Bush 8%
Another Republican 4%
Dean 13%
Kerry 8%
Edwards 5%
Another Democrat 34%

To which American party do you feel most attracted?

Republicans 12%
Democrats 67%
Don't know/no opinion 22%

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It's an interesting thing there nimh. I suspect that if most of the Dutch actually came here to the states and lived here for a while they'd figure out that they really don't know where they stand on the US political map.

I identify myself as a conservative (mostly libertarian) and I live in MA where the overwhelming majority identify themselves as Democrats but there are a whole lot of people around here that are waaaaayyy to the right of me on a lot of issues.

It's like it's "normal" to be a Democrat here even if the thoughts are far right of people in other parts of the country that identify themselves as Republicans.

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nimh, Interesting stats on the Dutch about American politics. Do you have any idea how other countries in Europe see our next election?

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How do you tell the difference between liberals,
conservatives, and southerners?

Answer:

Pose the following question:

You're walking down a deserted street with your wife
and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man
with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with
you, screams obscenities, raises the knife, and charges.
You are carrying a Glock .40, and you are an expert shot.
You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your
family. What do you do?

Liberal Answer:

Well, that's not enough information to answer the
question! Does the man look poor or oppressed? Have I
ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
Could we run away? What does my wife think? What about
the kids? Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and
knock the knife out of his hand? What does the law say
about this situation? Does the Glock have appropriate
safety built into it? Why am I carrying a loaded gun
anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society
and to my children? Is it possible he'd be happy with just
killing me? Does he definitely want to kill me, or would
he be content just to wound me? If I were to grab his
knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was
stabbing me? Should I call 9-1-1? Why is this street so
deserted? We need to raise taxes, have a paint and weed
day and make this a happier, healthier street that would
discourage such behavior.
This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with
some friends for a few days and try to come to a consensus!

Conservative Answer:

BANG!

Southerner's Answer:

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
click....(sounds of reloading).
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
click.

Daughter: "Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the
Winchester Silver Tips??

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We watched the Caucuses with interest--and were glad the kids were actually sitting there, asking questions.

Jeff Greenfeild voiced my concerns--making your choices, in front of other people (neighbors, perhaps a boss...) seemed a bit wrong to me. A vote should be private, non-transferrable... So much room is left for rigging, vote buying...

I was sorry to see Gep so shocked. That is a sad way to end a long career.

Dean just revealed very aptly and often in the ten or so days before the caucuses that he is not ready for prime time. His words came back to bite in the ass too many times, and I think the final straw with Iowa was Dean's own criticisms of them and their caucuses in the clip from the Editor's TV show. Moreso now, it is pretty clear he's unstable.

I've never seen such a crazed performance as Dean's Caucus Night speech. Even when he's pretending to be happy, he looks like a recent escapee from an angry asylum. The anchors, Leno, Conan et al had a blast with it. He looked like he was trying to bite someone. He's just a very unhappy man.

Anyone notice him throw open his arms to hug his wife (who showed up for a sterilized cameo), and she just turned away from him.

Judy's Diagnosis: He's an asshole.

Anyway--not to pile on him--but the news making the rounds is that he is prone to panic attacks and mentally unstable. Now--I've had a couple of panic attacks myself, so I wouldn't hold that against anyone... BUT, the office of the President is more than a little pressured. I'm pretty sure no one would want someone who can't handle stress to have what can be the most stressful job in the free world.

He's over. Clark will crash and burn next.

I am loving the beginning of political season.

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Oh crap. I didn't say Dean was a ****. Are we really being edited for profanity?

<heavy sigh>

What happened?

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2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

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