SwiftVets.com

[Me#1You#10]

I was wrong and am glad to admit it
Wednesday, November 03, 2004 9:07 AM

I was pessimistic about this election. My heart kept hoping that a miracle would occur on election day, but my head told me the odds were just too great. I thought the relentless, unanswered attacks on the credibility of the commander-in-chief from July 2003 until the election really got under way a year later had taken an insuperable toll. I thought the rabid anti-Bush, anti-war sentiment in the leftwing media (50 days of Abu Ghraib on the front page of the New York Times) would be impossible to overcome. I thought the hundreds of millions of dollars from leftwing unions and the Soros operation plus the army of paid campaign workers, plus the rock the vote crowd, plus the high turnout would combine with the Democrats standard operating proceedure of stealing votes in inner city districts to put Kerry over the top.

In the end, I misunderestimated the sound sense of the American people.

What this election shows is that the reign of the Cronkite media is over. Maybe it's talk radio; maybe it's Fox; maybe it's the Internet. But whatever it is, the American people have an alternative information source to the leftwing fog machine that has dominated our national life since the war in Vietnam. This is good news for the American future. The Republican Party has also changed. It has begun to make inroads into the Democratic base, small gains in the black vote, larger among Hispanics, substantial among women. This has ramifications for the future as well.

Above all, as our editorial today notes, this election was not a referendum on the war, but on how to fight it. Under enormous pressure both domestic and international Americans have voted to stay the course. This sends a powerful message to our implacable enemies, and also to our wayward friends. This is good news for all of us.

FrontPageMag.com

[sevry]

I was also wrong. I thought Bush would easily take 8% in the popular vote. I thought it would be a landslide.

I think what happened is that he DID get the numbers. But the Dem also did get out the vote. I think if hadn't been for all of it, and the registrations, and high turnout in states that didn't matter, like CA, that Bush would have come in 7-8% in the national vote.

It was a lousy campaign, really. Even at the last, Bush was going on about 'gay partnerships', or whatever. It seemed the GOP was going out of its way to lose the election. Rove is NOT some kind of genius. But the anger at Kerry united the American people. And now a united leftwing mainstream insists that we be divided according to their preferences.

In this, too, Bush might threaten to cave, rather than realize that he stands for something - and they don't. Cooperation, yes. But towards the right purpose, and with the right plan. Compromise for its own sake is no kind of strategy. Pray for powers equal to the task. Don't dumb down the task.

[Kimmymac]

sevry: if it is any consolation, the OIM gave massive support to the kerrorist. We know that, of course. But what we are perhaps not understanding is how that translates. The OIM gave the kerrorist 10-15 points. So, backing out the OIM electioneering, you can see it really was a landslide for Bush. But oh no, not more arm chair Monday morning quarterbacking. Campaigns are like landings, sevry; any one you can walk away from was a good one.

I am negating the effects of the 527's because ultimately I think all they managed to do was cancel each other out, with the exception of the Swifties. I hesitate to put the Swifties in the same category, simply because of their relentless insistence upon travelling the high road.

The victory over the kerrorist was a miracle, and nothing less. Perhaps Mr. Horowitz was wrong because he has a lack of faith in miracles...

He should have read the prayer thread in Geedunk; no one on that thread ever doubted the outcome of this election.
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The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz

[sevry]

[USAF66-70]

A “lousy typical Bush family campaign”? You second-guess a win? Undoubtedly morality mattered, but don’t ride that horse to Hell.

[GIaunt]

I doubted and feared.... and I prayed....
I did not pray for a Bush victory, I prayed that God would touch hearts and minds and have the right thing happen....

And I know that sometimes God answers prayers with a "no, I'm sorry, but no my child"

So, I have an even greater sense that this "government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." (A. Lincoln, Gettysburg, 1864)

[sleeplessinseattle]

[zinfella]

Point #1 is that John F-ing Kerry will NOT be President. For the purposes of this forum, there is no downside to that outcome, so no other points concerning the election are relevant here.
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No whiners!

[sround]

[debewley]

The Bush team increased their percentage of the vote in 47 of 50 states. As Mr. Horowitz noted they increased their vote in typically Democratic constituecies such as blacks, hispanics, and women. Many of the Reagan Democrats came back to support Bush.

In the 22 counties of the Florida Panhandle where I live, the number of registered Democrats actually declined by over 1,500 registrants. At the same time the Republicans were able to register an additional 71,000 people. THE GOTV effort was a thing of beauty. I must have received no less than 15 phone calls urging me to vote including a recorded message from Laura Bush and Jeb.

Mr. Bush won! And was able to add 4 more Republican senators and more seats in the house.

Was it a perfect campaign? Of course not. But I don't see how any campaign concieved by mortal man could have done any better.

The glass is way over half-full. Let's celebrate that and not worry about the little that is empty.

Dave
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Served with US Army in Americal Division 2/69 to 9/70.

[sevry]

[Steve Z]

It was clearly a mistake for Bush not to be prepared for the first debate, and Cheney deserves a lot of credit for blowing Edwards out of the water during the vice-presidential debate.

In the 2000 election, Bush lost the popular vote, but was saved by the skin of his teeth by the Electoral College and 537 votes in Florida. In this election, he won the popular vote by 3.5 million votes, but was still only one state away (Ohio) from losing the election, although this time his margin was 136,000 votes. Despite the popular-vote margin, narrow losses in PA, WI, MI, and MN made the Electoral College close.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20041108-094913-8345r.htm

In the linked article, Terence P. Jeffrey found an amazing statistic, which gives us hope for the future. Married people with children preferred Bush by 59% to 40%. These parents are probably teaching their children to vote as they do (the Weekly Reader kids preferred Bush 65-35), so the near future will probably see large numbers of new young conservative voters, whereas Democrats have been killing many of their children in the womb.

The problem will be to keep Hillary and Kerry out of the White House, while waiting for these kids to grow up, and the Democrats will face a candidate other than George W. Bush.

In the meantime, W and his new Senators must get busy setting this country straight, while they have the chance! The Supreme Court is getting old, and might need some new blood...
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The traitor will crater!

[Theresa Alwood]

Some people always see the glass as half empty rather than half full...guess I am one of those people who try to look at the glass as half full. Bush won and it was against all odds with Kerry having the MSM in his pocket (we have CBS and the forged documents; we have ABC and memogate; we have NBC reairing the Kerry interview deleting out certain statements Kerry made both in the 2nd airing and on the transcripts on the website) we have CNN (aka Clinton News Network) and even Fox near the end seemed to be have swung more to the left of Kerry issues; we have the swiftvets being dismissed by most new (I really hate to call them news sources these days) sources; we had George Soros who spent BILLIONS to defeat Bush; we had Bruce Springstein and "Rock the Vote" along with "Die or Vote; and the likes of the NYT, Boston Globe; Chicago Tribune; LA Times and all kinds of left wing newspapers who did nothing but bash President Bush.

So all in all I feel pretty good about this election. More people in voted and the "average American" did vote and speak. It is a red country and I live in Illinois and the county I lived it went overwelmingly for Kerry...sad but true...yet I can not feel anything but a sense of relief that Kerry did not get elected and no matter how hard the press tried to slant this election it DID NOT work.

The DNC must either realize that they need to regoup and move towards the center or yet again loose another election. I am going to look at this as a victory and be happy that the man I voted for won. But I am OK if they keep their heads buried in the sand yet another 4 years from now. I am hoping for a Guiliani/Rice ticket...how sweet that would be to run against Hiliary. In 4 years a lot could happen between now and then.
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Born to raise a little hell!

[Hondo]

sevry:


You might want to reconsider your opinion of Bush as a campaigner. See

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/08/watson.policy/index.html

3 for 3 - with the deck at least partly stacked him in each case - ain't too damn bad.
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"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
-- John Stuart Mill

[sore loser]

I wonder how many people like me didn't want Kerry, more than they wanted Bush. Bush is not a bad guy, I got some stories from a couple of guys on the Ike when Bush was there, how he stopped a Chief in the passageway, and chatted with him for about 5 minutes, and how he told his secret service to back off, he was being guarded by 5000 men now. You can't help but like a guy like that. When was the last time any prez did that??? He's not a bad leader, but he's also not the leader I would've chosen if I were king. I don't know off hand who I would've chosen, maybe in the end I'd find he is the best, but he didn't really energize me. I liked his reaction to 9/11, but wasn't real sold on the need for Iraq at the time. We're there now and it doesn't matter anymore, we need to finish it. Certainly before we go after the rest of those,,,,, those,,,, (times like this I could use a lot less admin intervention and editing), those cowardly low life animals, and go after them we should, until they all get their 70 virgins. Would to God that I were 30 years younger.

check out the following link for a possible candidate

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41549


I guess in my alleged mind, Reagan set the bar pretty high for the CINC, and maybe I just oughta get over it, there aren't anymore like him out there, at least anyone willing to put themselves through that meatgrinder called an election.
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