althouse and swing voters
althouse and swing voters
Ann Althouse offers herself as an example of a swing voter, and in a way this goes back to the talk of "South Park Republicans," such as Dennis Miller.
I'm one of the people whose politics were changed by 9/11. Prior to 9/11, my disagreement with the social conservatives kept me from having much of any interest in Republican presidential candidates. After 9/11, I became quite bonded to George Bush. If I had to vote today, I would vote for Bush, because at this point, I cannot trust Kerry on security matters. She wishes the Republicans would make room for people who are liberal or libertarian on social issues, and that Democrats would be better on national security. She dislikes both parties when they appeal to their cores. She predicts a Bush landslide, and if she actually does vote for Bush, this will be unusual because she usually votes Democrat, but even more because she has almost always voted for the loser. I'm not sure Kerry supporters are seeing the extent of the problem for Kerry here. Bush has gone through a dramatic conversion from the isolationist of 2000--almost proudly ignorant and apathetic about most of the world--to someone who will re-make entire continents by a combination of diplomacy and force. This may be an unlikely change--one may still feel Bush in his heart is too ignorant and apathetic to be good at what he is trying to do--but many Americans feel his heart is in the right place, and he has a track record of real effort. The Democrats are trying to show a reverse or parallel transformation. Now they totally support the Senate vote that authorized the use of force--they just think Bush moved too soon. They want to use Kerry's Vietnam service to show they are not soft on defence; but they have been the party most inclined to say the whole Vietnam war was a mistake, in contrast to Republicans led by Reagan saying it was a noble cause. The U.S. effort in Vietnam was escalated more by Democrats Kennedy and Johnson than by Republicans Eisenhower and Nixon, but Republicans have ended up owning it, and this works well at least with their base. Are Democrats believable in suddenly being pro-war, or being willing to do the tough, messy, often bloody work of making the world safer for Americans? UPDATE: It seems obvious that Kerry wanted to say he was in Cambodia specifically, and when Nixon was president specifically, so as to blame the excesses of the Vietnam war on Nixon rather than Johnson (who remained president until late January 1969). What's not clear is whether Kerry fully realized that setting the date at "Christmas Eve, 1968" would spoil this picture a bit. Pro-Kerry bloggers say Karl Rove has failed in his schemes to win over blocs of voters who did not vote for Bush in 2000. But what about the swing voters who care about national security or "the war" (allegedly all one war, even Iraq) most of all? Meanwhile, the "social issues" have a resonance in the U.S. that is unique in Western democracies, and suggests at least some common ground with the world's theocracies. On homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, evolution, I suppose law and order and the death penalty, many Americans look to the teaching of some Christian church, with the idea that such teachings do not change to keep up with the times. Democrats in general have difficulty in hiding their impatience with such matters. They do seem to aspire to a kind of European intellectual's secularism, cynicism, and indifference to corny, old-fashioned "values." I have enormous sympathy for intelligent conservatism, but I doubt whether it can be found by going back to the Scopes "monkey" trial. Someone wrote recently that before that trial, many Americans who considered themselves "evangelical" or "fundamentalist" were on the left politically, at least on some issues. After the famous trial, they tended to oppose the welfare state, universal health care, liberalizing of criminal law, etc. |
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Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:38 am MST by Lakers Tickets
What about Kerry's scheme to tax the rich and give to the poor? Many people are voting for him on this "Robin Hood" issue alone. What those same people don't realize is that robbing from the entrepenuers to give to the lazy, or wilfully uneducated will actually degrade our economy. All those people will just buy foreign goods, and not bother to seek an education or healthcare with the money. So, Kerry will have to rob more from the rich and create a national healthcare system that will alienate the hard-working doctors and nurses of this country. If you're not poor, lazy, or uneducated, why do you want this? I certainly don't. At least Bush won't steal from the entrepenuers.
Wed Aug 18, 2004 9:22 am MST by Anonymous
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