Americans must now unite

Oh, nonsense!

Here's someone with a bit of historical perspective on this election:

http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/11/06/history/index.html

It ain't a one party system yet, so relax. The Repubs are neither as correct as you would pretend, nor the Dems as "wrong." Neither was this election any sort of "mandate". It's just another battle in the eternal war of politics.

Hmmm, an article from Salon.......

Hold on, I'll find an article from www.rightwingnews.com to counter your argument.......

How about an original thought, smitty??????.....

Hmm. A kneejerk reaction...

How about a thought there yourself? Or are you only comfortable while ranting?

I do, but I'll keep it to myself.......you should either be polite or back off though.....

oh, come on, Bear.........tell us your metaphor......pleeeeease

Sorry, smitty. Bear was right, I was rather rude in my response. It was

Hmm. I also apologize, as I wasn't aware that you simply couldn't view it as any other link. Here it is in it's entirety, I hope.

Nov. 6, 2004 | In the dark post-election mood that lingers, the defeated should find history both restorative and instructive. Restorative because the past reminds us that both victors and vanquished tend to mistake the dimensions of the immediate event, whose true significance cannot be known until years or even decades later. Instructive because the past tells us so much about how the conditions of our present distress came to exist -- and, most important, how we can change them.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath.

Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, in the post-election autopsy. Sweeping pronouncements about this year's close, hotly contested campaign should be considered skeptically, especially when Republican propagandists start to talk about their "mandate" and their "permanent majority." Such claims are convincing only to citizens (and journalists) suffering from amnesia.

Only six years ago, the self-appointed guardians of "moral values" wailed their despair when midterm voters rejected the Republican impeachment jihad, and pundits pondered the political demise of the religious right. Paul Weyrich, architect of the modern religious right, described Bill Clinton's escape from judgment in near-apocalyptic terms, as a signal for the "godly" to withdraw from politics. The Republican House members defenestrated the outspoken proponent of "moral values" then serving as speaker, and his would-be successor, too. But in the next election two years later, the Republicans came back to win the White House (with the assistance of Florida state officials and the Supreme Court), and kept control of both houses of Congress.

Twelve years ago, Clinton won the presidency and ousted a Republican president whose humiliation included receiving only 37 percent of the popular vote. The Democrats began the Clinton administration with control of both House and Senate. Two years later, they lost both houses in the stunning "Contract With America" midterm, which brought Newt Gingrich to power as speaker. (We all know what soon happened to him -- see 1998 above.) The great minds of the nation declared Clinton "irrelevant," predicting in their wisdom that he could not possibly win reelection and must be replaced by the Democrats. They were wrong, of course.

Even true landslides -- which this election certainly was not -- have usually proved to be less ruinous for the losers than they seemed to be at the time. In 1988, George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by more than 300 electoral votes, 426 to 112. Four years later the voters dumped him despite a victorious war, an enormous financial advantage and all the power of incumbency. In 1984, Ronald Reagan carried 49 states with 525 electoral votes, and nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. Yet within the four years that followed, his party forfeited control of the Senate, again despite huge advantages in organization, funding and ideological infrastructure. In 1972, Richard Nixon inflicted similar devastation on the Democrats -- who bounced back in the 1974 midterm and went on to win back the White House in 1976.

Perhaps the most instructive landslide, however, was that suffered by conservatives in 1964, when Barry Goldwater won only six states against Lyndon Johnson. Conservatives rightly look back on that election as the beginning of their renewal, although few could have known then how and when they would eventually recover from Johnson's crushing 16 million-vote victory. Nor could they have known that the seemingly invincible president, one of the most brilliant politicians of the century, would find himself unable to run for a second term in 1968.

While the Goldwater campaign failed as an electoral machine, his movement laid the foundations for future success. As Richard Viguerie explains in "America's Right Turn," his recent memoir of four decades as a right-wing activist and entrepreneur, those bleak days marked the turning point for conservatives. At the grass roots, millions of Americans who had never been involved in politics joined the Goldwater movement and were transformed by their experience. Moreover, those activists pioneered new techniques in fundraising and mobilization. They felt their candidate had been maligned and cheated, but they didn't retreat from their principles and commitments.

Forty years later, after an election that saw the greatest mobilization of progressive activists and grass-roots funding in many decades, the analogy is plain. The biggest difference is that the Goldwaterites lost badly, while the Kerry supporters came very close to winning.

There are, of course, many differences between all those past elections and this one. None of this historical review is meant to suggest that Democrats shouldn't reassess their message, their vision, and their means of communicating with voters -- or that the nation and the world won't suffer the effects of another four years of misrule by the Republicans. Both tone and substance obviously require improvement. It is meant to suggest, however, that the Democratic Party and its progressive allies began this year to create the conditions for future advances -- and that with resources, determination and commitment, those advances may be much nearer than they seem. Building for the future is also the best and only way to resist the worst excesses of the next four years.



Now, you can carry on about the source, as I'm sure you will, but the source doesn't render the point invalid. Taking the long view, the Repubs are neither as "correct" as they want to make themselves out to be (although it's perfectly understandable why they'd wish to have everybody believing that nonsense) nor the Dems as "wrong" as you would like to make them out. As I stated previously, this is just one more battle in the irresolvable war that is politics. It's hardly a "final victory" or "final defeat" for any side. Indeed, a final victory for one side or the other would be the death knell of democracy in this country.

Thanks for posting the article in its entirety. I do have a couple of concerns in trying to take this article seriously. For example:



Kerry waged an honorable campaign, and Bush was unscrupulous? I think even the most partisan observer would say that both campaigns were nasty.

Normally, I would quit reading such nonsense right about here, as the author seems to have checked his objectivity at the door. But since you asked me to read it, I will carry on.



A longer perspective is needed, I will agree with the author here. But in the next sentence, he fails to point out that in addition to the 3% and 'couple dozen electoral votes, the Republicans extended their margin in the House and Senate, which hasn't happened in the recent past. So if the tables were turned, the MSM would surely be talking of the death of conservatism.



Looks like he answers that question here. So the Left will move further left? In one way, I hope they do, as this will allow even more Republican success. But in other ways, I hope they do not, as explained below.

Regarding your statements:



Tell me where I am wrong in examining the Democrats approach to foreign policy. I used three examples; the first Gulf War, the Cold War, and the Iran Hostage Crisis. In all of these issues, the Dems were on the wrong side of history.

If you think differently, tell me why. Or use your own examples of Democratic leadership in foreign policy since 1980.



Very true. I especially agree that a 'final victory' would be the death knell of democracy.

But tell me, do you think the Democrats will be more successful in moving to the middle, or becoming even more extreme in their liberal leanings? The Dems had success with Clinton, but I believe that was because Clinton portrayed himself as a 'New Democrat", and could attract moderate voters.

But moving even further left?...............................

They would be more successful offering a clear alternative and not a shallow echo, IMO.

Pre-election polls consistently showed that voters were concerned about the direction the country was headed and similarly that they felt Kerry would do a better job on domestic issues than Bush. Likewise, polling post election demonstrated that a focus on domestic issues would've been likely to help voters make up their collective minds in favor of Kerry. That this was not done, or was performed haphazardly and insufficiently, represents a tactical failing on the part of the Kerry campaign and not a strategic failing on the part of the Democratic Party, vis-a-vis some perceived (as opposed to actual) "leftward tilt" of the party platform.

In any case, the battle continues and the pendulum having swung to what will surely prove to be it's rightmost apogee will now undoubtedly commence it's swing back in the other direction.

Re: Americans must now unite


First of all, I don't accept the legitimacy of this election, Even if the count is correct, and even without the voter suppression, Bush won by lying and smearing his opponent and by appealing to the fears of bible thumpers like yourself. Your post seems so typical of the thought process of the avearge misinformed Bush voter that I question if this post is a sincere one or a parody.

Of course I agree with the majority here.

Unite, ha!

Thats the spirit, it's working if we keep all the democrats worried about 2004 instead of 2008 we can have our way again.

You should be worrying about 2006. Bush managed to delay the consequences of his incompetence to fool enough people to get him elected (maybe) but he won't be able to do it for much longer. The sh&t is about to hit the fan in Iraq, the economy still sucks, the debt is getting bigger, the dollar continues to slide, the stock market will continue with little or no growth etc. The election of George Bush will be looked upon by historians as one of the greatest electoral blunders of all time.

You mean the re-election or the election? It seems that no matter what the doom-and-gloomers say, Americans just know how to elect the proper leader.

I think if we give them enough rope while they are riding high on the hog they will hog tie themselves without any help from us.

election

That's what the dems were thinking 8 months ago. It didn't work then and it won't work next time.

Until the Dem's get a solid message and a solid bearer of that message, the Democratic party will be doomed to being a minority party. Right now the whole party rest on the shoulders of Hillary and Obama. Hillary has too much going against her and Obama's star is still rising.

Doomed! Doomed I say!

the sky is NOT falling, the ground is coming up.

Election, assuming it stands.

It didn't work because we had to start campaigning and that took the spotlight off of President Bush and his failed policies.

If we just complain without running for anything then they can't really start digging up things to throw at the opponent to distract from the issues.