Bush supporters' aftermath thread

I'd just like to see more parties.

So would I but you'd need a constitutional ammendment requiring runoff elections.

One primary reason for Bill Clinton's amazing success, even apart from having a great stage presence and talent for schmooze, was that he transformed himself into a not-so-liberal Republican for eight years and therefore did not seriously thwart a GOP congress's initiative to reform welfare, balance the budget, etc. It is possible that John Kerry, also a pure wonder devoid of any convincing convictions, would have done the same.

But the GOP is lacking the strong, focused Congressional leadership it had during the Clinton years too. Whatever Newt Gingrich's shortcomings are, he deserves a lot of the credit for leadership of the GOP revolution during that time.

The GOP needs to raise up new Congressional leaders with vision and conviction and the courage to act on themm especially in fiscal responsibility. Whatever his shortcomings, George Bush has such a vision, but he's not a good detail man and has let Congress run amuck on spending.

Like I said, we have to hold their feet to the fire. It can truly be a great four years.

I left the web totally as of late (and this is the only forum I participate in...) due to the media coverage and all of the misrepresentations of Bush and his supporters...

I am glad the election is over. I am glad that Bush was re-elected, of course...but I have enjoyed reading the conversations amongst both sides in the process as well. I will always be conservative...it's just who and what I am.

November 03, 2004
Targeted Gloating
YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!

At the time of writing ?- 1:45 A.M. Wednesday morning ?- George W. Bush needs just one Electoral College vote to get him over the top. I'm going to take this as a done deal, and start gloating.

Now, gloating is of course bad ?- coarse, heartless, insensitive, and ill-mannered. Magnanimity in victory, that's the thing. Humility, grace, gentlemanly forbearance, there but for the grace of God...

YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!

Sorry, sorry. I was saying... Yes, gloating. Definitely uncouth, undoubtedly bad manners. Still, the fact that the good Lord gave us the capacity for bad manners suggest to me that He meant us to use that capacity ?- in a properly measured and carefully targeted way, of course. So let's talk about targeted gloating, precision gloating. There are, I mean to say, people who deserve to be gloated at, and people who don't.

John Kerry is in the latter category. He wasn't my guy, and I think he would have been a lousy president. What he did back in '71 was disgraceful and inexcusable. He's a pompous, stuck up, do-you-know-who-I-am? walking entitlement catalog. Still, he campaigned with energy and determination, and mainly with good manners. Nice try, John. No gloating at you.

No gloating at John Edwards, either. He trod lightly on the electoral earth, not even delivering his own state for Kerry. I feel his name and face slipping from my mental inventory already. John who? Not worth a gloat.

I'm not even much inclined to gloat at the media shills who, under the cloak of high-minded, objective journalistic professionalism, did all they could to help Kerry get elected. Sure, they are dishonest. It's the kind of dishonesty that mostly consists of deceiving yourself, though. These aren't fundamentally bad people. I'll even allow that they are patriotic, by their own lights. And, they are pitiful in a way ?- the way the dinosaurs were pitiful when the sharp-witted little mammals who would eventually inherit the earth were scampering around between their feet, no doubt annoying the heck out of them. Watching the bloggers bring down Dan Rather was of course royal fun, but it was also a spectacle tinged with melancholy.

In fact, I can't even summon up much of a gloat for the Hollywood lefties. They are too stupid, their opinions too vaporous. Who really cares about them? "Vagabonds and strumpets," was the old English view of the acting profession, and I think this is one we got right back then.

That still leaves us plenty of gloat-worthy targets, though. I am going to have no compunction about gloating at Michael Moore, who has done more to boost anti-Americanism world-wide than Farrah Fawcett did for big hair. I was talking to some young English people the other day. They didn't know much about U.S. politics, and half of what they knew came from watching Fahrenheit 911. They knew there was something fishy about that movie, and giggled in a slightly embarrassed way as they played back the opinions they had picked up from it; but those were in fact their opinions faute de mieux, and some of them will stick. In cultures yet further removed from our own ?- in China, in Latin America, in India, in the Muslim Middle East ?- Moore's poisonous brew is swallowed without a hiccup, and has become the stuff that "everybody knows..."

Nor do I have any reservations about gloating at George Soros, who has squandered stupendous sums of money in a lost cause.

Then there's the foreigners: the Guardian and Independent newspapers and the BBC in England, the French and the Greeks, Kofi Annan and Mohammed El Baradei...and of course that Friendly Giant to the North. How incredible it must seem to them, to these self-styled sophisticates, that a crude, swaggering boor like George W. Bush should retain the affections of his countrymen after all his crimes and blunders! Well, deal. You're stuck with an honest to God (literally) American conservative ?- and a conservative America ?- for another four years. Get used to it.

The big gloat, though, must be directed at our enemies. How they wanted Kerry to win! How they must be sunk in gloom in their caves and hideouts and seedy rented rooms! They knew that, for all his podium salutes and tough talk, Kerry would be another Jimmy Carter, another groveller, another guilt-addled cringing apologizer for America's sins, past and present. Now, instead of a boneless wonder, they are faced with a resolute and determined opponent, a commander-in-chief who actually inspires his troops, and who knows that, as Winston Churchill usefully noted, you can't win wars without fighting.

O.K., Iowa looks good. We're home and dry. There might be some lawyering in our future, but I don't believe the country will stand for much of it ?- and look at the popular vote. We've won; we're over the top. Let the gloating begin!

I'm not gloating so much as feeling very relieved and quite satisfied.

Unlike some of my friends on this thread, I like Bush, and I voted for him rather than against Kerry.

He thinks big, and I like big thinkers.

It's always seemed ironic to me that members of the Left who so often preach that we must attack the roots of terrorism as much or more than we attack the terrorists, have been incapable of seeing that this is precisely what Bush is doing in Iraq.

I look for more big things from Bush over the next four years, and in the event that someone derides this notion, I will be more than happy to gloat.

Deride, no. Hope you're right? You betcha! Not even the VP needs to worry about the next election.

Finn - I actually like George Bush, too, so was happy to read your post and know I'm not the only one on A2K who does. I only got to see part of his "victory" speech, but found it touching and so "him".

I'm reminded of that old truism that how we are in defeat is an indication of who we are. I think it's probably true of our behavior in victory, also, and I've decided to not let anyone make me feel guilty about my few moments of joy. That's not gloating.

We're Americans first and Republicans, Democrats, or whatever else second and it's time to remember who the real losers were yesterday...Zarqawi, Zawahiri, Bin Laden, the Mullahs of Iran, etc.

Kerry impressed me with his concession speech and I'm glad he did the right thing.

PamO writes:


Like Finn, I like George Bush. He's made me madder than anything more than once, but I appreciate his vision, I appreciate his character, and I appreciate that he may not tell all he knows, but he hasn't lied to us.

So don't be a stranger here, PamO. There's plenty on A2K who will keep right on bashing him, but there's plenty here who think supporting the President when he's right is the right thing to do.

I'm on that list as well.

There are many Republicans online. Maybe we tend to be quieter and more polite than the left wing, but I don't see that as a disadvantage.

The people have spoken, and I, too, am happy with the result

President Bush will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents this nation has ever had.
If - he can overcome the greatest threat to this nation - Islamic fascist jihaddist death cultists.
I sincerely hope, now that he has a mandate from the people, that we can stop fighting a war against "terrorism" and fight Islamic fascist death cultists.
Why?
Because these people will not change unless we help them to change. And unless we identify them as to who they are.

Nonetheless, George W Bush is a fine man and a great President.

Not sure the link will work for non-AOLers and I couldn't get into the Reuters site this morning, but thought you guys would get a smile out of this. You wonder with so much against him how Bush could have won. Providence? Good sense? Practicality? We may never know.

Many Election Omens Failed Kerry
But Halloween Mask Sales As an Indicator Proved to Be Correct
By Patricia Zengerle, Reuters

Not even ending 'the Curse of the Bambino' helped Kerry.

WASHINGTON (Nov. 3) - Forget misleading exit polls. The Washington Redskins, Burke's Peerage and even the candidate's height fell short when it came to forecasting the outcome of Campaign 2004.

President George W. Bush's victory over Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in the U.S. presidential race took the wind from the sails of a whole host of beloved election superstitions.

The taller candidate usually wins. But Kerry, at 6 feet, 4 inches, towers over Bush, at 5 feet, 11 inches.

In every presidential election since 1936, the White House has changed hands if the Redskins lost their final home game before Election Day, and the National Football League team lost to the Green Bay Packers by 28-14, at home, on Oct. 31.

But the sporting omen was no touchdown for Kerry.

Burke's Peerage said Kerry was a distant cousin to Britain's Queen Elizabeth and had more royal blood than any presidential candidate in U.S. history, including Bush, who has plenty of blue blood of his own. Burke's also said the candidate with more royal blood wins.

Some omens are so unusual they're hard to ignore. Democratic pulses ran high when Boston's -- and Kerry's -- beloved Red Sox baseball team cast off a stigma more dire even than the "liberal" label days before the vote.


Surely the team's first World Series victory in 86 years, breaking the "Curse of the Bambino" said to have been inflicted when the team sold the legendary Babe Ruth to the Yankees, would have augured well for a senator from Boston?

SOME OMENS WERE RIGHT

Of course, some indicators were right on the mark: Bush Halloween masks outsold Kerry ones, proving he would be re-elected.

One venerable omen almost pinpointed the popular vote. Scholastic News, a children's magazine that has conducted student presidential election polls since 1940, and been right in all but two of them, said its readers had picked Bush with 52 percent -- he nabbed about 51 percent on Tuesday.

The real soothsaying may involve domestic policy of an apolitical sort: the U.S. magazine "Family Circle" holds a first-lady cookie recipe contest in honor of each presidential election.

This year, Laura Bush's oatmeal-chocolate-chunk cookies triumphed over Teresa Heinz Kerry's pumpkin spice ones.

11/03/04 20:09 ET

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/elections/article.adp?id=20041103201009990001

Tico - something tells me that you aren't a religious right-wing fanatic any more than I am (being a somewhat backsliding Lutheran, I can recognize the "signs" LOL)! Neither is Foxfyre from reading her posts.

According to some here on the left, that leaves us with the labels of "stupid" or "simple-minded", but my opinion is they only make themselves sound simple by repeating that over and over.

They clearly lost, some rather ungraciously, and have yet to learn that that only alienates more voters, and further sinks their party into irrelevancy.

JW, several on the 'right' side are religious and I suppose I am, but right wing fanatical nutcase? No, I don't think so nor do I think any of our other religious members are.

I do recall a thread started by McGentrix--a non Chrsitian--awhile back though that the left disparages and demeans the religious at their peril. When national polls indicate that more than 90% of Americans believe in God and a reasonable percentage of those do regularly practice some religion, it would seem reasonable that trashing a candidate because he was a man of faith would not be a good idea.

Having worked for and in the Church or faith based organizations a good part of my adult life, I have seen my share of religious nuts. George W. Bush and most religious members of A2K are not religious nuts.

But there are religious nuts out there, and without them, Kerry would have won.

And there are "non-religious nuts" out there as well. And similarly, without us, Kerry would have won.


I am a Christian (perhaps another "backsliding Lutheran"), and I am certainly either a "non-religious nut" or a "non-religious" nut.

No Kicky I dont believe that for a second.. people like me... "Agnostic" voted for him, as did my moderately christian husband. As did our athiest neighbors.

Here is the problem. The democrats had constantly been bashing bush on his religious believes then when they traveled to different states tried to convince people they were christians, god fearing religious people. People like that are not ashamed to talk about being a christian, and maybe, just maybe their part time faith in god was seen through by those that make their lives based in faith values?

I dont care what people believe in, just dont try to be something you are not...

On moral issues.. I myself do not support gay marriages, partial birth abortions, and welfare in its present form... so I couldnt vote for Kerry for those 3 reasons. Had nothing to do with religion.

I am not willing to accept Kicky's assertion that it was religious nuts who put Bush over the top. (Hey Kicky....this is a designated pro Bush thread) because I don't believe there are more than a few thousand at most of them out there and Bush won by 3.5 million give or take a few.

Exactly! I let myself in for some seriously obscene name-calling when I said this a few weeks ago in another thread, but the Democrats will never win by "bringing out the vote"! They refuse to recognize they "could" win by seizing the center from the Republicans.

ArmyVet - I also think the Dems making Roe vs. Wade a litmus test for their party was a huge mistake. They still don't get that the vast majority of Americans - even those that are so-called "pro-choice" do not LIKE abortion, but don't look for them to open their eyes to this any time soon.

Kicky - there are many reasons the Democratic party was clobbered two days ago, but it wasn't all about "religious" nuts. The party leadership may or may not figure this out in the next four years.