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Author Topic: Primary Wars  (Read 45915 times)

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Classic

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #200 on: April 22, 2008, 10:31:58 PM »

To :thad: :

It's difficult to respect your political commentary when they are mixed with insults or being patronizing. Whatever irritation you have with Guild seems to be getting in the way of making your words palatable to your audience.

On an unrelated note, and it does not change the commentary at all, your words sound like something I once read from a political-commentator-blogger. I don't suppose you remember offhand reading something that sparked making this connection about McCain's personal leanings?
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #201 on: April 22, 2008, 10:59:24 PM »

It's difficult to respect your political commentary when they are mixed with insults or being patronizing. Whatever irritation you have with Guild seems to be getting in the way of making your words palatable to your audience.

Guild doesn't want a serious conversation, he just wants to troll and see how much effort I spend responding to posts he puts none into.

The mistake is mine for responding to him.  I knew as soon as I did it that I'd made the wrong decision.  Chalk this one up to the fact that I just miss Clutch and am so desperate for a contrarian viewpoint that "I'll hold the football and you run up and kick it" actually sounded like a reasonable proposition.

I'm happy to continue the conversation with any of the rest of you who are actually serious about it and, to that end, would like to extend my thanks to SCD for some posts that manage to disagree with me AND actually prove themselves to be well-thought-out and insightful.  More like that, please.

On an unrelated note, and it does not change the commentary at all, your words sound like something I once read from a political-commentator-blogger. I don't suppose you remember offhand reading something that sparked making this connection about McCain's personal leanings?

I can't think of a particular source offhand, but I know lots of bloggers, both liberal and conservative, have connected the dots the way I have.  I believe his record speaks for itself.

The media has its own narrative about McCain, and it's an affectionate one.  He is far friendlier to the press than most politicians, and they love him for it; he's also a charming, funny, likable guy.  Of course, the payoff is that the press just gushes over him and presents the public with a skewed image of him; as Chris Matthews remarked, "The press loves McCain. We're his base."

While I never really believed the "maverick" label, I DID believe McCain was a man of principle, that rarest of things, the honest politician, until a few short years back.  I even voted for him in '04, back when he was putting up real resistance to Bush on the torture issue.  I believe, however, that, knowing this is his last chance to get the Presidency, and having the bitter experience of 2000 behind him, he has compromised that integrity for the sake of winning.

Barry Goldwater was wrong about a lot of things.  His efforts to dismantle the New Deal and his rabid anti-communist militarism are obviously stances I disagree with, as was his filibuster of the Equal Rights Amendment.  But he said what he thought, and he voted how he felt, and he never compromised his integrity.  And, all right, he got his clock cleaned by LBJ for it.

McCain sits in Goldwater's chair (when he bothers to show up for a vote), but he has turned his back on his legacy.
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #202 on: April 22, 2008, 11:01:13 PM »

Classic, don't make politics personal. There's enough of that in the thread already. See, this was the first time I've done it this whole thread and Thad nearly blew a gasket and Thad just now blew a gasket.
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Brentai

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #203 on: April 22, 2008, 11:11:32 PM »

Is it at all possible that McCain's just going to suck everyone's cock right up until he gets sworn in, at which point he'll turn around, say "Fuck you all" and do what he thinks is right?

Because if I could be at all sure that that's the case, fuck, I'll vote for him over Obama.  That is the only sort of man who could ever make something good out of the past decade.
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #204 on: April 22, 2008, 11:34:05 PM »

Is it at all possible that McCain's just going to suck everyone's cock right up until he gets sworn in, at which point he'll turn around, say "Fuck you all" and do what he thinks is right?

Well, the first thing you have to keep in mind is once he's in, he'll probably want to get a second term.

The second thing is that even if he DID actually do what he thought was right instead of what was popular, well, I direct you back to the "bomb Iran" point.

I said Goldwater had integrity.  I didn't say he would have made a good President.
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #205 on: April 22, 2008, 11:56:21 PM »

Quote from: Thad
I can't think of a particular source offhand, but I know lots of bloggers, both liberal and conservative, have connected the dots the way I have.  I believe his record speaks for itself.

WHO is putting no effort into their posts?

Quote from: Thad
The media has its own narrative about McCain, and it's an affectionate one.  He is far friendlier to the press than most politicians, and they love him for it; he's also a charming, funny, likable guy.  Of course, the payoff is that the press just gushes over him and presents the public with a skewed image of him; as Chris Matthews remarked, "The press loves McCain. We're his base."

Please tell me what this skewed image is. As far as I can tell it's that he's a likeable people person with a tenacious attitude towards the things he believes in. This view is not, imho, skewed, as it is accurate to what EVERYONE, including YOU, says about him.

Quote
The second thing is that even if he DID actually do what he thought was right instead of what was popular, well, I direct you back to the "bomb Iran" point.

He did change his mind on border security. Precedent.

Quote from: Thad saying stuff that I didn't see earlier
Stop paying attention to the media portrayal of the man for one goddamn minute and look at his record.

He's not a maverick.

He's moderate on immigration, has his name on a campaign finance reform law from 6 years ago, and voted against the anti-gay marriage amendment.  Somehow, this makes him a maverick who breaks with his party all the time.

Never mind the fact that he's in lockstep with the Republican Party on abortion, healthcare, education, and, most importantly, bombing everything that moves.  Never mind that he has abandoned his principles on the religious right, Bush's tax cuts, and torture (TORTURE!) in order to win an election (something which, in your world, is somehow a positive trait).  No, he's a man of principle who doesn't care what his party or his base thinks of him.

Maverick is your word, not mine. I said rebel. A rebel can spit in the face of a captor by refusing to leave when his men are retained.

See, I'm not voting McCain to piss you off personally. I'm voting McCain because I agree with all those things you dump him into the company of the dirty, dirty Republican party for believing in. Stop being so sensitive.
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Arc

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #206 on: April 23, 2008, 09:06:59 AM »

Not that I do any actual research on the FOX propaganda machine, but I am given the impression that Obama is busy fighting both the Clinton (who is, according to Obama supporters, Republican-lite) and Republican smear campaigns.

Echoing the sentiment that this is not only a good point, but would further elaborate that Obama is currently running against Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and the Media, who wish to see a horse race into the convention. I still maintain that the Primary is the true test of difficulty for Obama, and that the General will become far more Black & White, in more ways than one.
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Mongrel

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #207 on: April 23, 2008, 03:04:53 PM »

I just hope Captain O can keep the bitter sniping from the losing camp to a bare minimum after the primaries are over.
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #208 on: April 23, 2008, 04:29:07 PM »

I don't think that's a concern from the Clintons themselves.  I really don't see them criticizing him once he gets the nomination.

As for their surrogates?  That's more of a wildcard, but I still see the majority of Democrats falling in behind Obama.

The bitterest of them, the people bitching on the blogs that Obama is the devil, are too small a group to swing the election, IMO.  But the moderates, the swing voters, the ones who think Obama's too liberal or too inexperienced, may decide the election.
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Brentai

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #209 on: April 23, 2008, 04:36:30 PM »

Every year I hear that swing voters are going to decide the election, but have they really?  Did Dubya really win the swing voters in 2004 and 2000 enough of the swing voters in 2000 to put him within margin?  Or did his base just come out in full force?

This is an actual question, because I don't know, and it's tricky to find out.
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #210 on: April 23, 2008, 04:54:19 PM »

I don't think it's either-or.  You need the base AND the center to win an election.

What skews it is that the Republican base is bigger than the Democratic.  This creates a catch-22: the Democrats are perpetually trying to win over the center, which is why they have trouble growing their base.

The fact that the "center" is traditionally depicted as somewhere far to the right of where it actually is doesn't help.  Clinton was more of a fiscal conservative and less of an environmentalist than Nixon.  Howard Dean, depicted as a loony liberal, had a pretty moderate record.  The press still treats universal healthcare like it's a far-left issue, when polls show the majority of the country wants it.

Bush won in '04 because he got the base out (with the anti-gay marriage bill) AND managed to convince the swing voters that John Kerry was a pussy.  Neither one would have been enough by itself.

...Which is what I've been trying to say about McCain for the past two pages.  Yes, he needs to get the pro-war base on his side, but he has to win over a good chunk of the anti-war swing votes too.

And the best way for him to do that is for the Democrats to fuck it up.  That's how Bush won his last term and stole the one before it.

The problem is that he has to maintain an uncomfortable balance here: he has to convince the swing voters that he's moderate, and he has to convince the base that he's right-wing.  Bush did a great job of that in 2000; the illusion of moderation was gone by '04, but he managed to make up for it by smearing the other guy.
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Brentai

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #211 on: April 23, 2008, 05:20:33 PM »

Bush actually managed to turn moderation into a bad thing in '04.  If McCain can make that shit happen again he'll be ahead of the races by a lap.

It's kind of doubtful, but I didn't believe it could happen four years ago either.
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #212 on: April 23, 2008, 05:42:01 PM »

It's an EASY thing to do when there's a war on.  It's just like in the oft-quoted Goering line, "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Or, alternately, to invoke Goldwater again, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

The problem, once again, is that public opinion is overwhelmingly against the war now, where it was somewhere in the middle four years ago.  Most people no longer believe that the war is making us any safer, so Goering's advice is no longer operative, and most people likewise no longer believe that the war is just or noble, which throws out the Goldwater quote.

Fostering blind patriotism through perpetual war is harder than Orwell made it look.  Some people can be kept in a state of perpetual fear and paranoia, but most can't.  So, from Goering to Goldwater to Orwell, I'm going to close with Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
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Kazz

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #213 on: April 23, 2008, 05:47:16 PM »

As I understand it, Big Brother killed the ones he couldn't fool.
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Thad

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #214 on: April 23, 2008, 05:56:06 PM »

No, that was Stalin's mistake -- killing dissenters makes martyrs.

In 1984, dissenters were tortured and brainwashed until they recanted their earlier beliefs -- not just in word, but actually no longer believed them.

And THEN they were killed.
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #215 on: April 23, 2008, 06:04:04 PM »

On why there are more Republicans than Democrats:

Democrats are essentially people who want the rest of us to help the worst of us and I think that's why they lose; a humans natural instinct is to let the other guy sink or swim. Is it right? Probably not morally, but if you use a crutch too long your legs get soft. It's just an unfortunate truism of life.

That having been said I donate my time volunteering and give money to the homeless. I just don't think it should be the evil, nasty government's job to do these things since that bloats it.

Me: MCCAIN 08! MCCAIN 08! MCCAIN-
Everyone: *bang*
Me: *burble*choke*die*
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Royal☭

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #216 on: April 23, 2008, 06:17:40 PM »

It's not that we fault you for having an opinion of your own, it's just we're a forum of goddamn liberals who happen to think McCain is the devil.


Plus, while you've supported McCain, you haven't given us any reason other than a war hawk reason.  And seeing as how the economy is slowly slipping towards a second Great Depression, McCain reassures us that he doesn't know anything about the economy and pretty much indicates he'll just follow Bush's example.

Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #217 on: April 23, 2008, 06:24:11 PM »

That's because the economy isn't the government's concern.

See, another problem I'm having is that I don't think the government SHOULD handle all these things. It's basically like saying "I believe red is a great color!" and I go "Color has no place in this issue."

It seems like many of my supposedly fellow Republicans have forgotten that GOVERNMENT = BAD BAD BAD. I find myself yelling in anger at Bill OReilly almost as often as Jon Stewart.

(and that BANG thing was just me being facetious - you can ignore it ...OR YOU CAN DIE)
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #218 on: April 23, 2008, 06:28:41 PM »

Anyway nobody's playing ball with me anymore so I guess I win or something.

Back to non-political stuff. For now.
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Kazz

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #219 on: April 23, 2008, 06:29:14 PM »

Guild, I've been trying to get you to recognize the reality of the relationship between the two parties.  You seem to be clinging to a pretty general and frankly outdated party concept.

The current Republican party has been hijacked by cronies, apologists, and accessories to a criminal administration.  Their principles bear little resemblance to the sort of conservatism that the party was once known for; New Hampshire is made up of old conservatives like my father, and they're no fans of the sort of gay marriage, torture, unwarranted spying garbage that the current administration has been all up ons.

Meanwhile, the Democratic has either been powerless or has just acted it for the past 7 years.  If you asked me last year what the average Democratic congressman stands for, I'd have said "Re-election."  They haven't made me proud; very few have had the cojones to get in the way of Bush's many attempts to crap on the constitution.  Let's just say I'm very glad I registered as an independent when I was 18.

I'd argue that Clinton and Obama represent conservatism more closely than most modern Republicans.
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