ABB Goes Mainstream
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, General Politics, Polls
There was an acute sickness that hit the Democratic party last election. It was called ABB Syndrome or Anybody But Bush Syndrome. Yes, I was stricken by this bug on more than one occasion, but thankfully it never fully developed into full blown BDS. It came close. I wrote a scathing newsletter every week detailing my distaste for the man, his administration and his policies. I didn’t want to believe that an administration who I felt was borderline incompetent and incredibly intellectually dishonest could be so popular among so many. What did the American public see in these people?
Now, in the spirit of “vote the bums out”, I still think that the ABB Syndrome was completely justified. If you don’t like a certain administration so much, replacing them with anybody who promises to do things differently is sometimes the only alternative. Kerry wasn’t any prize, but I supported him because, well, he was liberal and I thought we needed new credibility and new vision in the war on terror. And it almost happened. Almost…
But now it looks like new polls are really showing that ABB is back. Well, should I say it’s mutated. This new strain is called ABTWSB (or Anybody But Those Who Support Bush) and this one is hitting the red states too.
Intense and widespread opposition to President Bush is likely to be a sharp spur driving voters to the polls in this fall’s midterm elections, according to strategists in both parties, a phenomenon that could give Democrats a turnout advantage over Republicans for the first time in recent years.Polls have reflected voter discontent with Bush for many months, but as the election nears, operatives are paying special attention to one subset of the numbers. It is the wide disparity between the number of people who are passionate in their dislike of Bush vs. those who support him with equal fervor.
Incompetence is the word now, and it’s sticking like glue. And not just to Bush. The Iraq War could very well be lost, and yet he doesn’t replace Rumsfeld. He skirts around laws left and right, all under the auspices of “Trust, it’s what’s best for the country,” while providing no evidence to support that claim. There’s seemingly no accountability in his administration for anything and people are sick and tired of it.
And so ABB could hit the GOP at the polls and it could hit ‘em hard.
“Angry voters turn out and vote their anger,” said Glen Bolger, a pollster for several Republican congressional candidates. “Democrats will have an easier time of getting out their vote because of their intense disapproval of the president. That means we Republicans are going to have to bring our ‘A’ turnout game in November.”The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 47 percent of voters “strongly” disapprove of Bush’s job performance, vs. 20 percent who said they “strongly approve.”
Nearly half of the country “strongly” disapproves of this President. Those numbers are, in a word, insane, because those are numbers that show distrust, dislike and the startings of pretty serious contempt for Bush. And do know that this brings me no comfort. I’m not a big fan of the Democratic party right now either. But if I had to pick between the two, well, I think having a Congress that will seriously challenge and question this President’s policies (i.e. check and balances) is a good thing, and maybe even exactly what we need right now.
Who knew that what was a sickness of the left could become the pandemic de jour of the nation…
This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, General Politics, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:47 am
I’ve been a proud ABB’er since the beginning. I never did understand what the fuss was about when people complained that someone “just hated Bush� and therefore they could ignore their criticism of Bush.
If GWB was just some guy that worked in my mailroom, he would have been fired pretty quickly. He just doesn’t have the skills I need for an entry level employee. Ability to answer the phone if needed. Look at all angles of a problem and come up with a solution. Respect the other members of the company. Change his mind when the facts change. Etc.
So why would hating such an incompetent, that has somehow managed to become the leader of our country, not be justified? Of course people are passionate about having someone in the job that can do so much damage.
50 years from now I suspect he will be, hands down, regarded as the worst president ever. 20 years from now I bet you will be hard pressed to find anyone who said they voted for him.
April 17th, 2006 at 10:24 am
This, is exactly what I thought would happen. (No Cal, I do not have documentation to support this claim). It’s just that I thought it wouldn’t take so long. And, it seems like there is still a healthy percentage of people (many who comment on this blog it seems) who support everything he does no matter what it is. Shouldn’t we have some type of acronym for them?
April 17th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Huh? Republicans are passionate about their leaders destroying their country? Explain this, because at first glance it smacks of hackery to me.
Sure, BIK or Bush Is King. I mean, if what I’m to believe is true, these people support Bush’s policies no matter what he does. Because he’s the President, and because it’s during “war” time (even if it is a war without end…), he can do whatever he want. Therefore, Bush doesn’t need to answer to anybody. And therefore, he is King, not President.
But do know, I think you’d find a comparable number of people on the left too that would excuse a Dem’s actions. I mean, regardless of whether or not you think the Clinton thing was justified, he did lie under oath, and yet people supported him anyway. He was granted near King-like status from many on the left too.
What this all boils down to is honesty. Our leaders are politicians, and as such, we must demand accountability from them. Otherwise we’re going to keep getting the same kind of thing, only wrapped in a more deceptive package. And that goes for both sides.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Of course people are passionate about having someone in the job that can do so much damage.
Huh? Republicans are passionate about their leaders destroying their country? Explain this, because at first glance it smacks of hackery to me.
Not sure what you think I meant.
I was saying that people in the ABB crowd are labeled “Bush haters”; but what they really are, are people that are passionate about having (I’m not sure how to phrase it with out being accused of hackery) someone who can negotiate / respects our national forests / cares for our long term interests := maybe it boils down to competent leadership.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:18 am
Somehow I messed up the blockquote. The first two paragraphs are blockquoted.
And := is supposed to be just : (writting too much pascal I guess, I automatically type a ‘=’ after a ‘:’)
April 17th, 2006 at 11:19 am
It just sounded like you’re talking about people wanting the President to purposefully hurt the country. That’s why I asked the question.
And yes, at the end of the day I think it is about competence, and this administration needs a healthy booster shot of it, and quick.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Fortunately I do have documentation for the fact that I said (and said, and said) that the best line of attack on Bush was “incompetence.” I railed at tiresome length against the “liar, liar” attack line. I said incompetence would stick, it stuck.
And while I’m doing told-you-so’s, I said Feingold’s censure motion was a good idea, not a bad idea. Almost half the public strongly disapproves of Mr. Bush. Strongly. There was no downside to censure. It would have united the Dems and forced every Republican in the Senate to step up and be counted as a Bush defender just as we go into mid-terms.
Oh, Lord, why don’t they hear me and obey?
April 17th, 2006 at 11:53 am
And, by the way, I said gay marriage would trend “pro” faster than people thought - and it did. This issue needs to be pushed hard as soon as the mid-terms are over and cast as a civi rights issue. Long term it’s a winner. Call me crazy, I don’t care, this issue is ready to tip.
April 17th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
For me, it’s been a matter of: as bad as Bush would turn out to be, Kerry would be worse.
Had Kerry been president, Katrina would have still happened. FEMA might have had a better head, but the levee would have still broke, NOLA flooded, and thousands homeless.
I highly suspect, but cannot prove, that either Kerry’s numbers would be in the low 30s right now, or low 40s, with most of that number sustained by a crowd of (to borrow your acronym) KIKs. The problem is not so much the Bush administration as it is the huge government bureaucracy that exists independently of party leadership. So that’s a wash to me.
However, Kerry’s SecDef would have stood as good a chance of doing a poor job as Rumsfeld is perceived to be doing. Worse, I suspect Kerry would have tried like hell to pull the US out of Iraq by now, and what is now sporadic bomb attacks would instead be close to the warlord stage. Qaddafi would still be working on a weapons program. (You can bet Iran would be, too.) Syria would still be in Lebanon. And I’d be looking forward to a bloodier nose in the future, in the sense of a worse terrorist attack than 9/11, from an organization other than Al’Qaeda, emboldened by the US pullout, and by the time it happened, Kerry would have safely left office and any need for accountability.
April 17th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
To be a bit more clear: I’m not thrilled about Bush’s performance. But I don’t think it’s his fault that he’s not cut out to be a Washington-class President. I looked at the menu, saw a choice between C-grade and D-grade, and chose C-grade.
If I were to blame anyone, it would be a movement of politics in both major parties to think in the short term, and think more about winning elections than about leading a nation.
Politics has become too much of a sports business.
April 17th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Paul:
How is it the fault of the bureaucracy? Mr. Bush’s negligence precipitated a brain drain out of FEMA. Yes, the levees would have broken, but the backlash didn’t come as a result of a levee break, it came from federal incompetence and indifference. No rational person is demanding that disaster be somehow outlawed, we’re asking that when disaster occurs the government handle it with some skill.
And on what basis to you leap to the conclusion that Kerry would have been as bad? You’re using pure supposition to justify the worst president certainly since Jimmy Carter, maybe the worst since Nixon.
I’m sorry, but there is simply no reason to assume that anyone would have managed to screw this up as badly. And if we start down the path of shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Oh, they all suck,” we reward the fools and crooks and incompetents, and punish the capable and the honest and the hardworking. Are you as sanguine and accepting about medical professionals, or cars, or phone service, or anything other than government?
We have to demand better. And when we don’t get it, we need to punish the people and parties responsible. We don’t have the option of accepting stupidity and corruption in government.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Michael,
Any stock tips you want to hand out while you’re at it?
April 17th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Paul:
Ditto what Michael Reynolds said. Kerry “would have” done a worse job? You just don’t know that. What you did know, however, is what kind of job Bush had been doing since he already had been in office for 4 years. Granted, this second term has been infinitely worse than the first, but still . . . . And, I’m wondering why you think Kerry would have been more incompetent, especially in handling the Katrina disaster, which you cite specifically. That just doesn’t seem logical.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
If anything, Kerry would have probably been more involved in the FEMA disaster because he has something to prove. Bush was off in Cali fundraising. And nobody would have blamed Kerry for the NOLA disaster since FEMA’s incompetence is firmly embedded into Bush’s legacy.
Sorry Paul, like the leeves, your arguments simply don’t hold water.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I’m claiming that a great deal of the disapproval over Bush that is grounded in the Katrina disaster, would not be there had New Orleans not flooded. Had that levee not broken, mismanagement would still have occurred, but it wouldn’t have been as big a news item, and there would have been much less outrage. Had Kerry been in office, and Orleans flooded, it would have been quite easy to pin the blame on him. (Or maybe not. Maybe Kerry, being Kerry, would have rushed to the scene to do something symbolic yet unimportant, and enjoy higher approval ratings as a result.)
So in summary WRT Katrina: Kerry would come out smelling either as bad as Bush due to government (not party) incompetence, or slightly better, being a better showman. Does that make more sense?
Now on to the rest. Upon what do you base your supposition that Bush is the “worst since Carter, maybe Nixon”? (I suppose I should feel grateful you didn’t say “worse than Hitler”.) FEMA? Iraq? 9/11? Gay marriage? The deficit? The budget? A recession? Roberts? Alito?
I realize this is a uphill battle I’m fighting here. But if you take away the bits moderates disagree on, and add the good things that happened, the bottom line looks only drab to me, not nightmarish.
Perhaps you didn’t notice why I said I felt Kerry would have been worse. It was right there in my first comment, last paragraph. To me, Bush was a troublesome choice, but nonetheless right on one thing - and a very big one thing.
Furthermore - and this addresses Meredith’s comment, too - I don’t know for sure how Kerry would do, but I didn’t know what Bush would do badly in his second term, either. Remember. FEMA had not happened yet. The Iraq war was less than two years old. It was seen very differently.
Finally, Michael, I’d like better government as much as you, I’m sure. But you and I seem to have different notions of what the problem is. I don’t think it’s Bush - and the theme of this thread is ABB, the belief that Vlad the Impaler (or the more realistic choice I chose to address: Kerry) would have done a better job in the Oval Office. I don’t think throwing Bush out, or never giving him a second term in the first place, would have magically solved our problems.
In any case, demanding a better government is a separate issue. Please don’t change the goalposts on me.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
“Sorry Paul, like the leeves, your arguments simply don’t hold water.”
First: it’s levees.
Second: what, just glib rhetoric now? Which way is this site going?
April 17th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Or maybe not. Maybe Kerry, being Kerry, would have rushed to the scene to do something symbolic yet unimportant, and enjoy higher approval ratings as a result.
Would that symbolic act involve a bullhorn, or perhaps a flight suit?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)
April 17th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Bullhorn, yes. Flight suit, no. Purple hearts, yes.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
- P.J. O’Rourke
I’m sorry Paul, but in addition to your “Kerry would be worse” argument being based on complete (and vague) speculation, you exoneration of Bush based on “the bureaucracy” is unsupportable. Who appoints the heads of departments and gives the their marching orders? Who, if the spirit so moved them, can knock a few heads together and say ‘enough of this wrangling BS, I want results’ and mean it? The leadership has nothing to do with the FDA failing to approve drugs on thinly-veiled political basis? Leadership has nothing to do with career DoJ lawyers being overruled by political appointees on techinical voting rights matters (see both Texas residistricting and Georgia’s voter ID law)? Leadership has nothing to do with dissenting voices in the OLC being not only silenced but circumvented?
I’m sorry, but you don’t get a pass there. These are problems of policy not execution.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Are you sure that ABB didn’t turn into full-out BDS?
Incompetence? Would have been nice if Governor Katie allowed Bush in BEFORE the Hurricane hit, or if Ray-Ray hadn’t left 200 buses sitting in a parking lot. But why let facts get in the way of the “Bush is incompetent” meme?
At least Bush can throw a fricking baseball, Kerry is a duplicitous coward who drops to his knees for every other country on earth. He’s a socialist **** whose sole desire appears to be destroying Massachusetts, nay, America, as an economically viable entity. If Kerry had his way we’d be France West, with the accompanying riots, failed social programs, and double-digit unemployment. Kerry can’t communicate his thoughts competently, never mind run a government. Kerry routinely states our troops are terrorizing people or makes other idiotic statements. Kerry is a man you cannot trust, he has no balls, no integrity, married up, is a rich elitist brat, and is a disgrace to the human race.
Trust me, I live in Massachusetts. Just be glad he’s only wasting space and screwing this state, not the entire nation.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Paul says:
“I realize this is a uphill battle I’m fighting here. But if you take away the bits moderates disagree on, and add the good things that happened, the bottom line looks only drab to me, not nightmarish.”
If you take away rampant inflation, hostages, oil shortages, general malaise, and killer rabbits, then Jimmy Carter was the best president ever.
Maybe you can ignore warrantless wiretaps, horrendous disaster management, continued lack of progress in the middle east, exploding defecits, ballooning trade imbalances, selective leaking, and everything else that has happened IN THIS TERM ALONE, let alone 2001-2005, then yes, I can see why one might think that Bush is a pretty good president. Unfortunately, I can’t do that.
April 17th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Brian,
There you go again. It’s getting really, REALLY old. Calling Kerry names is a great way to make your point. I wish you would stop commenting on this blog. Seriously, grow up.
April 17th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
No one knows how Kerry would or wouldn’t have done if he’d been President.
Those who voted for Bush believes Kerry wouldn’t have done better and those that voted for Kerry are convinced that he would’ve done better. The whole conversation is bizarre. There is no evidence for either side, only each person’s bias and hypothetical story to support it.
Regarding the point of the post…
If the Dems win later this year I believe it will be because Republicans aren’t happy with their party leaders - not because the public is happy with the Democrats. If the Dems win - the Republicans will come out fighting, thus creating more dirty politics and the sick cycle will continue on. Same thing will happen if the Republicans win. The Dems will continue to attack the Republicans, ugly politics will continue on and on.
Either way, it seems like the US people lose.
April 17th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
My observations of “the bureaucracy” are based on my having worked there or near there for over ten years now. There’s a saying: if you don’t like what the current head of your organization is making you do, just drag your feet and wait a few years; his term will run out, but you’ll still be there.
The only leaders you really have to pay attention to are the ones who stay for decades, or the ones who can fire you. And as long as you’re several steps down in the chain of command, it is very, very hard for you to get fired from the government, as long as you avoid the obvious stuff (spying, other felonies, faking timesheets, etc.).
Again, I initially brought this up in regard to FEMA’s problems during the Katrina aftermath (which by the way I don’t even consider that staggering). These problems -can- be mitigated by great leadership and clear policy. The greater the leadership and clearer the policy, the fewer the problems. And I will freely admit that there are Bush policy bullets that I have disagreements with.
However, I wasn’t getting the impression from Kerry that his leadership would have been much greater, nor his policy much clearer. (”We can do better”??) Moreover, I got a strong impression that his policy, vague or clear as it might have been, would have leaned toward Iraq withdrawal at the first sign of trouble. (Would anyone disagree?) I felt (and still feel) that would be disastrous.
And - yet again - I should reiterate that “Kerry would be worse” was indeed my speculation. And hence, it motivated my vote in 2004. Not yours. What was the problem you were having here?
April 17th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Brian in MA: Meredith has a point; you’re not helping. (Some of your
points might stick, if you made them less insultingly.)
Tim: Libya backing down. Syria leaving Lebanon. Saddam brought to trial.
No terrorist attack on US soil since 2001. An attempt at immigration
reform. 4.7% unemployment rate. One of these refutes one of yours. And
if you get to say “everything else that has happened”, without support,
then so do I, without support, about everything good that has happened. I
stand by my claim: drab, but not nightmarish.
And I didn’t even have to resort to all caps.
April 17th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Monica: I understand your despair - and the tone of the rest this discussion doesn’t seem to be alleviating it. I can’t help but feel like everyone else in the thread is trying to run me out of town, along with everyone who might share my concerns.
I’ll ask again: which way is this site going?
April 17th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Paul Brinkley:
Personally, I don’t believe you should stop commenting on this blog. Differing views are important.
I’m not sure what’s up with Meredith wishing/asking you to stop commenting here. I’m not in agreement with her, and maybe she is just having a bad day? Who knows.
Justin tends to lean to the Left - as his admitted case of ABB would suggest - but I wouldn’t say that this makes Donkeplant a so called “Left” site. Sometimes I agree with Justin, sometimes I don’t - but I appreciate hearing all sides of an argument and I’d say he does that fairly well.
BTW - I agree with your ‘what’s gone right with this administration’ list above.
April 17th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Justin,
Off topic, but why the picture of Bush with a band-aid on his face? Because it makes him look E-vile? As usual, nice choice of pictures.
Paul,
I, for one, am not trying to run you out of town. I guess I just don’t understand what is wrong with calling a bad president a bad president. It seems like you are either disregarding the crap he has pulled, or you don’t really think it’s that bad. Do you really, truly think that Kerry would have been worse? I guess I (and maybe others on this thread) are just wondering if you suffer from BIK? (see Justin’s comment above). Or maybe RAAR Syndrome? (Republicans Are Always Right).
April 17th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Paul,
BTW, I promise that I have (and will) criticize democrats for being stupid and/or bad, etc. when they f*** up as well. Even though I don’t agree with Bush’s politics, I would still give him props for doing a good job in a general presidential way, if he deserved it.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Monica,
I was under the impression that Brian’s use of name-calling and invectives is severely frowned upon on this site, and that’s why I like it. Many people have been banned from this site because of continually commenting in that manner. The first few sentences of his comment are fine, but the rest of it is completely worthless. It adds nothing to the conversation, and he continually posts comments of this nature. That is why I wish he would go away. I know that sounds immature (because it is), but it’s very frustrating when you want to engage in a legitimate debate of serious issues. Maybe I should amend my comment to say, “I wish he would stop commenting on this blog, IF that’s all he’s going to do. Fair enough?
April 17th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Monica,
I just re-read your comment. Did you think I was saying that to Paul ’cause I wasn’t. You might still have a beef with me addressing it to Brian, but I just wanted to clarify.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Meredith -
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like I was calling you out on it. I’ve been frustrated and typed/said things I didn’t ultimately mean, and thought this might be what was happening.
And yes, I did think you were talking to Paul. I guess I got that all messed up. I’m not in the best place mentally today, as my earlier posts might suggest.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Bush administration positives are murky in the eye of the guy who honestly gave Bush a chance several years ago, but has long since been turned off.
The unemployment rate you cite is a non-issue to me. With the exception of a jump in unemployment up to 6% after the downturn in the economy post 2001 (which, yes, was not Bush’s fault), the unemployment rate has been trending steadily downward since the end of the early ’90s recession. We had unemployment rates lower than this and balanced budgets a few years ago, thanks to bipartisan budgeting. It’s hard to convince me that cutting taxes during war is sound economic policy; that debt clock seems to tell me otherwise.
Unfortuantely, for every Lybia backing down, we have an Iran ratcheting up. Saddam on trial, yes, that’s a good thing. The war we are continuing to fight that got him on trial, the thousands of allied casualties and many thousands of civilian casualties, not so much. (For the record, I do not support pullout. We made a hell of a mess there, and it’s our responsibility to clean it up.)
Regarding the lack of terrorist attacks, allow me to quote one of my favorite conversations from the Simpsons. I’m going from memory here, so please feel free to look up the exact wording and then disregard my argument because I didn’t reproduce it exactly:
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm.
Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you dear.
Lisa (annoyed): By that logic, I could say that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It’s just a stupid rock. But I don’t see any tigers.
Homer: Lisa, I’d like to buy your rock.
In other less funny words, the lack of a terrorist attack does not mean that the president has successfully thwarted attacks. It just means that nothing on the scale of Sept 11 has been attempted. I’ll admit, that’s unfair for the president since he can’t win. However, it can’t be a positive.
To do my own math on this administration, I see few positives, and what I do see is on the short term alone. However, I see many long term problems. That’s a net negative to me. But hey, you’re free to disagree and explain why you disagree. Just don’t be surprised that in an era in which more than two-thirds of independents do not approve of the president that you’re going to find that people tend to disagree with you.
That doesn’t mean anyone is trying to pull this site to one side. It just means that a lot of people are fed up with Bush. It’s not because they’re still sore over the 2000 election, nor because all Republicans are evil, nor because all Democrats are golden angels with haloes over their head. We’re fed up with Bush because he’s a lousy president, and we arrived at that conclusion without any help from the liberal media, the DNC, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, or any of the other bogeymen.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I have my problems with Bush but I don’t consider myself an ABB’er. As I suggested in the linked post, we could have had a Democrat in the White House now if that party could have come up with a more compelling nominee than John Kerry in 2004. Joe Lieberman could have beaten him, not only by appealing to centrists but even taking some cultural-conservative votes away from Bush.
As for congressional Republicans, between pork-barrel politics and daft legislation on immigration and a few other fronts (I’m trying not to turn this comment into another rant on the online-gaming bill, though I think it could blow up in the GOP’s face just as badly as the immigration stuff), many of them aren’t exactly helping their standing with their own performances, their identification with Bush notwithstanding.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
I’m not sure why a discussion of Bush’s struggling presidency has to judged purely on the basis of “would Kerry have been better?” Bush is a bad president regardless of what you think of Kerry. I happen to think Kerry also would have terrible. My point is that we deserved better but we wont get better until both parties get back to courting the middle. Not sure how that’s going to happen though
April 17th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Joshua -
I agree with you about Kerry being a bad nominee. I could’ve easily voted for a Dem, just not Kerry. I didn’t watch the primaries, so my first introduction to Kerry was when I watched the Democrat’s convention. I wasn’t impressed with his message (I disagreed with his opinions on the war and he didn’t say anything about supporting gay marriage) and I was completely appalled by what seemed to be Michael Moore’s status with the party. It was disheartening. Personally - I think the ABB of the Dem party caused them to fail to choose a worthy candidate.
Next time, I’ll be following the primaries of both parties. From what my brother in law tells me, that’s when you really learn what the candidates are about.
April 17th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
If Lieberman had won the Democratic nomination, I suspect 2004 would have been a classier campaign year. (I remember at least one pundit describing the 2000 VP debate as a relatively quiet, reasoned discourse between two experienced DC politicians (Lieberman and Cheney).) Speaking for myself, I would have felt comfortable with him as President in 2004. Today, I still would have. If he ran in 2008, I’d give him serious thought.
I have theories for why he didn’t win the nomination, but that’s a digression for another thread.
Tim: I like your latest points. What I don’t like (and this isn’t your fault) is that I’m not seeing anything offered as an alternative. The only alternative being offered is a Democrat - and I’m not liking the front runners so far.
Taking this idea and running with it: I’m tired of just “throwing the bastards out”. I’m tired of voting against someone instead of voting for someone. I don’t think I’m alone on this.
April 17th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Just wanted to second a couple of the points I saw made here. One, we all seem to agree the Bush is not good, at least. After that it’s a matter of degrees. Second “I’m tired of just throwing the bastards out” from Paul. Throw the bastards out might win the dems some seats in 2006 but it will do nothing to improve political dialogue and it will not win them the presidency in 2008.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
I guess I get particularly annoyed when people excuse incompetence. I don’t know what kind of jobs you all have, but if I don’t do my little job well I don’t get work. No one wants to hear why I didn’t succeed, or how badly someone else might have done my job. We don’t make excuses for failed doctors, cops, lawyers, businessmen, chefs, scientists or writers. Why do we make excuses for political screw-ups?
Don’t tell me it’s a tough job being president. No one held a gun to Mr. Bush’s head and forced him to run. These guys want the job desperately. They’ll walk over their feeble grandmothers to get the job. They’ll sell their shriveled little souls to Satan to get the job. Then when they screw up we’re supposed to feel sorry for them? STFU! (Since we’re doing acronyms, this is a Soprano acronym: Shut The F— Up.)
Some obsessive, power-mad egomaniac gets a job that comes with a house, 24 hour security, a private 747, and a lifetime pension after as little as four years on the job and we cut him more slack than the Starbucks barrista trying to pay for her kid’s dialysis on $8 an hour? STFU! We’ll get pissy that Ms. mimimum wage didn’t give us enough foam, but we make excuses for some out-of-his-depth jackass who screws up a war?
Bush asked for the job, he said he could do it, he screwed up, so screw him. Next!
April 18th, 2006 at 1:14 am
…but who’s next, Michael?
April 18th, 2006 at 2:06 am
Paul, thank you for correcting my speeling. Seriousley.
And as far as the glib rhetoric goes, yeah, there’s gonna be some of that too. I didn’t call you names, I just said your argument was paper thin…like paper that…ahh, never mind.