The Election's Over. Kerry Lost.
Thanks to all of you that did so much to help the Democrats. We did so much work for the cause.
I am rarely in a gloom and doom mood. Today strikes me as a great time to get it out of my system.
As I like to feel positive, I am looking forward to Bush helping to provide our means to get our Republican friends out of office in the next election.
The Election
- Demographics changed, more electoral votes in the states Bush did win. With Kerry winning basically the same states that Gore won in 2000, the electoral votes come out to favor Bush. Kerry needed to win more states than Gore did in 2000.
- Hurricanes in FL - Floridians were happy about Bush's leadership during their catastrophe. But then again, would any other president have done things different? That state moved steadily toward Bush following the hurricane season.
- Younger voters - did NOT turn out to vote. WHY? Are they really happy with Bush? Young voters turned out to vote with the same percentage as previous elections. I thought that there would be a surge of young support.
- Blacks. I have not seen statistics as to their participation.
- Those who feel that they are religious and have a feeling of faith, voted overwhelmingly for Bush. Artificial issues added to the agenda to help divide our nation, particularly on 'moral values'.
- Those frightened by the big, bad world around us like Bush. They did not want to see a leader change in the middle of crises (even though he helped to facilitate the crises).
Following Bush's narrow lead, in addition to increasing leads in both houses of congress, Bush will certainly claim that Americans have given him a mandate for his second term. Here is what we can expect:
Appointments
Odds are that Bush will select replacements for most of the supreme court justices over the next four years. Bush has been reviewing judges with two qualities that presidents of the past did not use as part of their qualifications: 1) specific issues; 2) belief that the judicial decisions made in the 20th century did not follow our founder's original direction - and need to be remedied. This attitude can be dangerous for many rights that we now consider important.
Successor to Alan Greenspan.
Moral Values
This election was won largely on the people's perception of moral values.
My take is that most of the moral issues in this election were designed to pull at supporter's hearts. However, most are religious issues - not public policy issues. Unfortunately, that line seems to have been blurred.
Many people think that the 'values' issues put Bush over the top. Values include issues such as gay civil unions.
I look at morality as belonging to issues such as how we got into Iraq and do we really treat our own poor and aged well.
Homeland Security
You can expect Bush will start to do what Kerry proposed: improving security for incoming cargo, borders, etc.
The Patriot Act (one of the most un-patriotic bills ever enacted) has a sunset clause for this coming year. You can expect that it will be re-issued as a permanent fixture in American law.
Privacy and personal rights. Goodbye.
Writ of Habeas Corpus and other difficult to understand concepts. Goodbye. I guess they are too difficult for us to understand that we do not deserve to have these rights.
Are we really getting rid of terrorists? I would suspect that we ourselves are creating the next batch of terrorists that will flood the world due to our actions in the Mideast.
Economy
Short term, I expect the economy will grow. However, I do not think that the benefit of growth will reach most people.
The flow of jobs for overseas outsourcing will grow. There will be a push to lower wages in the United States - to be more competitive. Individuals will agree. After all, if they don't, they will lose whatever income they have. Profits of companies that push down labor costs will grow.
The tax cuts will become permanent. i.e., the wealthy will no longer pay estate taxes, and will be able to roll over non-taxed capital gains for generations. i.e., one can expect massing of wealth like in no other period of American history. The middle class will pay for these tax cuts over the coming years through a difficult to use and understand concept: Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). With this tax - which has been on the books for years - those that have deductions (medical, housing, etc), will see the deductions disappear if they do not pay a minimal amount of tax. Of course, since the tax rates have been lowered but the AMT threshold has not changed, you will be paying alternative tax, more than making up for whatever gains that you may have had in income tax reductions.
In the meantime, the deficit will continue to grow. Who will pay? The middle class (those that really pay the most taxes) and our future generations (you know, the ones that did not show up to vote)
Education
I fully agree with No Child Left Behind - that all children should be tested to ensure that we know where they are in the education spectrum. However, I firmly disagree with what are done with the results of testing.
Kids are placed into groups for the purpose of testing, where the schools have little control over the results. There are no resources to help if problems are discovered. And if problems persist - parents can take their children from the public school system, using vouchers to pay for their children to attend private school. Who pays for the vouchers? The public school system that was already in trouble, that really needed more money.
The real kicker is that the private schools do not need to face the same standards. We pay for kids to go to those schools. Yet, they do not need to pass the same tests. Nor are they required to produce the same services. For example, one of the most expensive programs, required by Federal laws, is public school handling of special education needs. This program, never fully funded, is required for all public schools. Private schools do not have to deal with special ed. If they have a student that needs these services, they ship them to the public school. Private schools can also pick and choose among applicants. They do not have to include in their rolls students that do not match whatever demographics they are looking for. Public schools have to accept all students.
There has been no funding to pay for No Child Left Behind. Oh - yes, there has been an increase to the education budget. However, that really just pays for administering the program in Washington. Yes - bigger government with no real returns to the tax payer.
If we create legislation that claims to improve education, we have to pay for it.
Foreign policy
War in Iraq.
Individuals from other counties used to view US Citizens as different than the hated US government. Well, we have shown that we truly do like how our government behaves.
Question: where will our next set of military inductees come from? Many of the National Guard are already being forced with extended tours of duty. That is just not right. Who will relieve these soldiers? When can they come home?
Health
Health Insurance. Expect rates to continue to climb. Expect drug costs to continue to climb. Expect millions of additional families to no longer afford the cost of basic health.
Stem cell research. Goodbye! It was nice knowing that there was a potential to rid fragile human existence of many forms of cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, many nerve diseases, and so much more.
There will be an initiative for a health saving's plan. Very useful if you already have money to save.
Environment
New senators are looking forward to making independent of Middle East oil. By ruining some of the last remaining untouched wilderness areas.
Global warming? Have we forgotten? In a just released report, after four years of study, the North Pole ice sheet has been shown to be melting at twice the historic rate. If melting continues at an accelerated rate, the Artic may be free of ice by as early as 2070! Some European scientists have gone on record that this report has been delayed until today so it would not influence the United States election.
Expect expanded logging in national forests.
Expect further decreases in water and air quality. Long term, look for attendant increases in health problems due to pollution. From cancer to asthma.
John Edwards Rally. Maple Grove, Minnesota.
Except for Hubert Humphrey, there have been few visits of presidential candidates to Minnesota. It was just was not worth it for them to come here to gain votes. Now that we are a 'battleground' state, we get tons of attention. Yesterday, Bush made yet another stop in Chanhassen, MN. Today, John Edwards came for a visit.
John Edwards came to a rally at the Maple Grove High School (Minnesota). Was actually fun. Waited in line with about five thousand of supporters. The entire Maple Grove police department turned out to direct traffic (borrowing some members of neighboring Plymouth).
Hawkers went up and down the rows of people selling tee shirts and buttons.
Was such a gorgeous day. I wonder how it would have worked out if it was cold or rainy? As it was, the weather was perfect to enjoy waiting outside.
Everything ran late of course. We finally started to enter the building. The first 2,500 of us were herded into an overcrowded gym. The others went to an auditorium and then some other places.
There were some speakers that were supposed to get us excited. Deborah Watt (running for 3rd congressional district) gave a nice speech. Klobuchar gave a rousing speech. The others were pretty dismal.
Edwards speech was dynamic. He was great to listen to. Very personable. Actually, exciting. Expressionable. Very animated. The speech itself was the usual. Attacks on Bush and Cheney. Lots of reference to the Cheney / Edwards debate.
What really struck me was that he was not nasty in anything that he said. All that he talked about was presented in a positive light. Even his attacks on the Republicans was very nice compared to what one expects from a Vice Presidential candidate (in campaigns, VP candidates are usually considered the 'attack dogs' to tear down the opposition).
Was a nice way to spend a portion of a beautiful Sunday.
George the Menace
Can't get lawn signs?
One group of about twenty Minneapolis neighbors decided to do something unique to support their candidate. They decided to create a television ad.
These neighbors, middle class, not wealthy, decided to start their own 527 group. You know, the famous loophole in the campaign finance laws that permitted the Swift Boat lies. The difference is this group has little in the way of money. No secret funding by wealthy individuals. Together, they scrounged up about a thousand dollars. Apparently this is the first 527 that was put together by a group of disgruntled neighbors without money.
The ad is a humorous voice over of Osama Bin Laden supporting the Bush campaign. Osama tells us how Bush has dramatically helped their recruitment efforts.
The ad may or may not ever get on television. It costs a lot of money to run the ad. Even if they do get the money, television stations are not required to accept the ad.
But you can view it. Go to http://www.georgethemenace.org/index.html.
Of course, the Kerry campaign has denounced this effort as not presenting facts in a positive light.
VP Debates
Funny thing w/the VP debates.
During the debate, Cheney made a statement that an independent group sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania that checks the validity of candidate claims, has verified that he has done nothing wrong. He then went on to say that anyone could call in to http://www.factcheck.com.
Factcheck.com was inundated with literally millions of people attempting to view their site. However, factcheck.com was the wrong web site!!! Factcheck.com, owned by an offshore company, forwards web sites requests to sponsored services. These services pay factcheck.com a fee for click through to their sites. Because of the Cheney gaff, factcheck.com was billing these sponsored services a fortune for click throughs. To avoid making their customers angry, factcheck.com started to forward all requests to another web site: http://www.georgesoros.com. George Soros is a multi-billionaire that hates Bush! Imagine people's surprise when they ended up at that site (by the way, I was going to send you the Soros site before this even happened).
The proper site that Cheney should have mentioned was http://www.factcheck.org.
However, if you go to that site, you will find that Cheney is only partially exonerated for his influence to help Halliburton. And, of course, the site includes Cheney's gaff in it's list of inaccuracies that the candidate made. Much of the site seems to call attention to Bush / Cheney misrepresentation of facts! I have no idea why Cheney would have referenced this type of site as they certainly do not present the Bush / Cheney campaign in a positive light. If I have time, when access to that site is down, I'll copy some text that is interesting. Right now, trying to even get near that site only produces timeouts - they do not have the capacity to handle all of this web traffic.
All in all, the news post analysis of the vice president debate was fascinating. I read a bunch of articles. Amazing how vicious Cheney was in some and Edwards was in others. There were even those that called the debate a draw.
http://news.google.com/?hl=en&ncl=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12901-2004Oct6.html
Other news of interest:
The commission that looked into whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction presented a thousand page paper to their congressional oversight committee. Their conclusion: there was not any indication that there were weapons of mass destruction.
http://news.google.com/?hl=en&ncl=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DtopNews%26storyID%3D6433959
Again, with the news, there are many who say 'so what' - that we should have been in this war anyhow. Boy, is that gung-ho, given that was the main reason why our president got us into this war.
For you volcano watchers .. geologists are lowering expectations that Mt. St. Helens will erupt. Everyone is disappointed. It is always fun to watch nature do it's thing when no one would get hurt.
More Political Stuff
Sorry about this .. but going through this wealth of stuff will take some time. So, relax, read, learn, argue, and let me know your thoughts.
The first item is funny. The next two are actually fairly deep (if you follow the threads of information). The fourth and fifth items are keepers (will go on our link home page). Excellent summary of current polls. The sixth is for us conspiracy theorists. The last is a link to the latest Zogby editorial. These guys are ones that I wrote to you about before - that are often far different than all other polls in how they view things - yet are more often then not right on.
Make your own Bush Stump Speech
The following is funny. Make your own Bush stump speech!
http://mrsun.us/2004/09/make-your-own-george-w-bush-stump.html
Kerry Haters for Kerry
This site is for the vast majority of Kerry supports. Those that do not like Kerry, but HATE Bush! They try to find things that will make them like Kerry more.
http://www.kerryhatersforkerry.com/
Sample comments from an individual posting his reason for voting for Kerry:
"I agree completely. I was a Bush 41 delegate and a strong McCain supporter. Kerry sucks, but I'm casting an institutional vote for gridlock. Kerry will veto an extension of Bush's tax cuts and Republicans will filibuster his programs. Result: fiscal discipline."
" I agree with nearly everything Kerry says, but can not bring myself to watch this man on TV."
When I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, all I could think was "If the Republicans tried to do a film like this about John Kerry, it would be unwatchable. It would be the biggest bomb in motion picture history, because no one would pay money to spend 2 hrs. looking at John Kerry."
"I concurred with everything Michael Moore said in this movie, and part of its appeal was seeing Bush acting like an idiot. That quality is great for comedians, actors and Survivor contestants. But it does not belong in the leader of the free world. Bush is not the only reason America is hated overseas, but he's a large part of it. It's time to kick this appealing idiot out of the White House. "
John Kerry is a Douche Bag - But I 'm Voting for him Anyway
This person actually likes Kerry, and argues that the way Kerry is pictured is wrong.
http://johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com/
After all, Kerry loves riding his motorcycle, wind surfing, skeet shooting, snow boards
Electoral Vote
Excellent analysis. Concentration on potential for achieving electoral votes (rather than popular). Kerry is far behind getting the electoral votes.
When starting this site .. it will attempt a connection on another port with your computer. DENY THE CONNECTION. No harm, but I don't like the idea of sites doing that.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com
Talks about many political issues. Has reference to many of the daily polls around the country.
Current polls put Bush slightly ahead or just about tied with Kerry. However, translating these to electoral votes, Bush is very much in the lead.
Much of the site seems to support Bush - i.e., I do not think it is even handed. However, stats are useful.
Interested in Halliburton conspiracy theories?
http://www.geocities.com/francis_uy/halliburton.html.
Zogby editorial
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=873
Very positive about the chances for Kerry. 9/30/2004.
