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Post by Greg Carter on Oct 26, 2004 22:30:46 GMT -5
Fellows,
I just thought I would remind everyone of the elections coming up on 2 November. People the world over are amazed at how many Americans don't vote, a right that cost so many lives to achieve.
Anyway, I don't care who you vote for, since that is none of my business. Just get out there and do it.
GMC
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Post by Robert Braun on Nov 3, 2004 13:35:01 GMT -5
Greg's comments were both timely and well-stated. Now that the election is FINALLY over... I want to offer my opinion on two enduring media cliches (there are more, but I'll confine this installment to two). The first is the "deeply split nation;" the second is the "undecided voter." Proof of the continued media propaganda regarding the "deeply split nation" is this take, from this morning's round of press "reporting" from the Los Angeles Times-- The National Fissure Remains Deep and Wide By Ronald Brownstein Times Staff Writer
After four turbulent and tumultuous years, President Bush expanded his support but still divided the country along many of the same lines as in his narrow and disputed victory in 2000, exit polls of voters found Tuesday night.
With the final result in Ohio on hold until officials counted large numbers of provisional ballots, Bush stood on the brink of victory over Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry in another photo-finish election that sharpened the cultural divides that have increasingly defined American politics over the last generation.
With Republicans maintaining control of both chambers of Congress, Bush could be in position to aggressively press his agenda if the final states fall his way.
Whichever way the race tilts in the end, the result in the presidential race appears to have changed remarkably little from the historically narrow split in 2000. When all the votes are counted, it appears possible that as few as three or four states may switch from one party to the other since the last election.
Once again the electoral map was starkly separated into red and blue, with Bush dominating the South, the Great Plains and the mountain West and Kerry, like Al Gore in 2000, romping through the Northeast and the Pacific coast. The Midwest remained the most contested, with Kerry clinging to a narrow lead in Wisconsin and Bush slightly ahead in Iowa. The president was holding a larger lead in Ohio — but one that Democrats said could still be reversed by provisional ballots yet to be counted. The race underscored the strength of the regional and cultural divisions shaping modern American politics. After losing the popular vote in 2000, Bush appeared certain to win it this time, and likely to become the first president since 1988 to cross the 50% vote threshold....News flash for Brownstein-- America is "deeply divided" as the results of... what? That President Bush is perceived as a contentious wartime president? And history records that Abraham (the "original gorilla") Lincoln and FDR were NOT contentious wartime presidents? Perhaps it was the political campaign that divided the nation? Does Mr. Brownstein TRULY think that the electorate in 2004 is more deeply divided than it was say during the Adams/Jefferson campaign? The Jackson/Q. Adams campaign (where some historians claim that Rachel Jackson DIED as a partial result of the campaign vitriol?) More contentious than the Grover Cleavland and James G. Blaine election? Nixon and McGovern? By these comparisons, the last six months have been tame, indeed! Rather than focus on the political "fringes," perhaps Mr. Brownstein and his collegues in the prestige media should shift their gaze to the larger electoral "middle"-- where, as the Wall Street Journal suggested on Tuesday, the differences "tend to be narrow, not deep." Of course, a more cerebral and inclusive examination might deny them the sensational "most divided since the Civil War" headlines they crave! More to the point... if the nation and its media-inspired "red" and "blue" terndancies have changed so little (in Mr. Brownstein's opinion) since 2000, then any division had to have occured BEFORE that time, and not since! =============== On to my other rant... the "undecided voter." I have recently traveled thousands of miles and met dozens of people I had never seen before, from perhaps a dozen states all told. I have yet to run into someone that described him or herself as an "undecided." After more than 6 months of near-constant campaign rhetoric from both sides, I personally don't see how in those six months how anyone could logically be seperated from some kind of opinion-forming. Some radio commentators (no... not the one you are thinking!) have suggested that so-called "undecideds" must be lacking something in the "mental agility" department. I tended to agree with that opinion for a while, until I watched more coverage and "interviews" with so-called "undecideds." I settled on the conclusion that these people I saw on TV were undecided because they WANTED to be so. They WORKED at it. They nurtured their ambiguity like one nurtures a seedling--except this seedling should not grow. In short, it was a game. =========== Time for the media to move on to other cliches...! Bob Braun.
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Post by Mike Thorson on Nov 3, 2004 19:48:54 GMT -5
Agree with you wholeheartedly Bob.
I think the reason the major media claims that we are bitterly divided is that they don't like the election results, and that if the majority of Americans don't think like THEY do - well, then there's a problem by gum!
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