<p>I’d say that a candidate who is too lefty for the righties and too righty for the lefties is probably in a pretty good place for the general election.</p>
<p>If I were laying out a hypothetical ideal position for a national election, that’s where I would want to be.</p>
<p>novelisto:</p>
<p>Thanks. Yes, I was being slightly tongue in cheek about DailyKos. However, I think it is fair to say that the overall political views of DailyKOS posters are far to the left of maintream Democrats (as indicated by national primary polling).</p>
<p>I cannot disagree with post 320, particularly the last paragraph. I just want to re-emphasize that I don’t personally have a problem with her gender, or even many of her policies – nor do I think that is where most of the problem is in the voting public. It is, again, with what she seems to represent, which for some people sometimes unfairly includes associations with her husband and with their lifestyle both as they represented it and as the media sometimes distorted it. This is one of the things people refer to when they talk about her ‘baggage,’ but she contributed much to that with both earlier and more current rhetoric and choices. It is also about with whom she surrounds herself on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Voters can agree with a candidate’s policies yet have such distaste for a personality or a lifestyle that they cannot bring themselves to vote for the candidate. Not all decisions are cooly logical or intellectual.</p>
<p>I very much disagree with post 321. That’s the problem. If you appeal to The Center politically, but turn off many segments personally, you have a problem. It’s not just about policies, i-dad. You’re voting for a person, too.</p>
<p>I was not aware that the Bush family and the Clinton family were related.</p>
<p>As for the progression being “bad for the country”. He was a bit of a caretaker, but the first Bush wasn’t a “bad” President. He handled the major challenge of his administration (Sadaam’s invasion of Kuwait) effectively and responsibly. IMO, Bill Clinton’s presidency was a positive period for the United States overall. It’s really only the third in the string who has been an unmitigated disaster. I don’t believe it is reasonable to tar George Bush I, Bill Clinton, or Hillary Clinton with W’s failures.</p>
<p>The Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton argument doesn’t work for me. </p>
<p>In the first place, it should have been Bush-Clinton-Gore. In the second place, shrug. </p>
<p>There has been only one poll showing Hillary’s numbers as being extremely difficult in a general election and, given all the other polling, it sure looks like an outlier. Moreover, there’s the structural problem in that the numbers are at this point at time comparing a well-known, well-defined candidate vs. blank slates…as those blank slates get filled in with detail, some of those numbers are going to change, e.g., “I said I’d never vote for her but I never thought <em>he</em> would be the candidate.” </p>
<p>I don’t think the GOP is going to have much more luck shrieking–I think that’s the correct verb–“Clinton! Clinton! Clinton!” any more than “Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!” will work this time around. </p>
<p>Independents have swung away from the GOP and a significant fraction of the GOP looks to be just plain dispirited…some block or another is going to sit out the election depending upon who is nominated.</p>
<p>Even among Kossacks, there’s a sense of “our preference is X, but we’ll vote for whomever gets the Democratic nomination.” And among rank-and-file Democrats, the sentiment is overwhelming. (Some good things pop up on Kos but their collective weakness is that they think they reflect the Democratic party as a whole. When you’re a faction, it aids your effectiveness when you know that you’re a faction.)</p>
<p>In the case of Clinton, it’s even beyond that. It’s comparing a characature of a candidate painted a decade ago against blank slates.</p>
<p>The reality is that campaigns matter. Voters get to watch candidates, for an extended period of time, under the harsh and brutal glare of the campaign trail. The collective appraisals of the candidates and the campaigns they wage determine the results of an election.</p>
<p>So true. The hysteria that Hillary will somehow overturn the Constitution and force evangelicals to close down their pre-schools and “turn over their 4 year olds to the state” is just part and parcel of the same.</p>
<p>Reminds me of the the time Falwell made that mockumentary alleging that the Clintons were killing journalists, tried to pretend he wasn’t involved, then ultimately had to admit he made the movie and that he had no reason to believe any of it was true, and parts of it were definitely false. </p>
<p>It’s true that these folks won’t vote for HRC under any circumstances, but I’m not sure how much impact their hostility against her is going to have in the election. No way these folks are voting for a Democrat, no matter who is running.</p>
Well, he’s a smooth talker, so maybe, but I hope not. This is where it gets sticky. Newt would support all the things that Protestant evangelicals want supported. He’d nominate conservative judges, too. But…he’s a phony. This where a conflict would come among evangelicals between the pragmatists and the idealists.</p>
<p>
Mitt and Fred claim to be pro-life (though their credentials are a bit shaky), so evangelicals might hold their noses and vote for one of them (though I think the Mormon thing will make them lean towards Thompson).</p>
<p>I think this statistic could be deceiving. I know evangelical Christians who had abortions <em>before</em> they were Christians, and they would likely be included in this number. I am not saying that a practicing evangelical Christian would not have an abortion, but 1 in 5 abortions? I find that hard to believe. So, if the pollster asked, “Have you ever had an abortion,” and the answer was “yes”, then asked “do you consider yourself a born-again Christian” and the answer was also “yes”, it would be impossible to connect these 2 things, yet the statistics would make it appear as if evangelical Christians are having lots of abortions. The Guttmacher article doesn’t say how the questions were asked. Maybe I’ll try to write them and get an answer on that.</p>
<p>However, I think in this thread, we are discussing voting behavior of pro-life, Protestant evangelical Christians.</p>
<p>Most of us can remember the days when kindergarten was voluntary. It is now mandatory in 14 states and the NEA is urging that it be made mandatory in all states (big surprise).</p>
<p>As a Democratic partisan in this particular election, I want Thompson to be the nominee so badly I can taste it.</p>
<p>A word of caution from somebody who voted for Mitt Romney in the Massachusetts governor’s race: if the evangelicals believe a word that comes out of his mouth, they are fools.</p>
<p>Romney is the biggest fraud I’ve ever seen in American politics…and that’s saying a lot. The man doesn’t have a conviction in his body.</p>
<p>And, don’t believe that nonsense about being a good governor. Mitt Romney single-handedly destroyed Massachusetts schools, to the point where many of them can no longer teach languages or offer sports programs. Due to restrictions in the Massachusetts property tax laws that prevent raising assessements even to keep up with property values, towns are unable to fund their schools. For the last thirty years, the schools have been largely funded by distributions from the state (to a large extent generated from the state lottery). Romney “balanced the state budget” by gutting the state distributions to the towns that funded the schools. It’s a disgrace to see a good public school system destroyed.</p>
<p>He’s like a corporate raider who finishes the leveraged buyout and then closes the plants and fires the workers.</p>
I am very clear on that point as are all the pro-life people that I know. “Anti-choice” was an amusing term to me, as I had not heard it before. In the beginning, “we” were anti-abortion and “they” were pro-abortion. They wanted to clarify the choice thing, so they began calling themselves pro-choice. We jumped on the bandwagon and began calling ourselves pro-life (it has a nice ring to it, but I think we should have stuck with anti-abortion). I guess “they” thought pro-life had too nice a ring to it also, because now we are being called “anti-choice”. I just think a group should be allowed to define for themselves what they are called, rather than allowing the opposing view to define them.</p>
<p>
You will get no argument from me on this. People get so off track on this issue with all the various ramifications. The only salient point is whether an embryo/fetus/unborn child is a human being with rights under our constitution. That’s it. If it is, then all the laws pertaining to an infant would also pertain to an embryo/fetus/unborn child. If it’s not, and it’s just part of the mother’s body, then it’s her decision what to do with it.</p>
<p>I feel surprised that you thought I needed this explanation. Just because Protestant evangelicals disagree with those who are pro-choice, it doesn’t mean we are uneducated yahoos (well, some of us are…but not most). Don’t misunderestimate us. ;)</p>
<p>
I don’t understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that we want to be careful not to let the govt decide other areas of personal morality or that the govt does do that all the time, but we don’t want them to in the area of abortion?</p>
<p>I really, really do not want to hijack this quite interesting thread with a discussion of abortion. If someone wants to PM me concerning abortion, that’s fine. You aren’t going to change my mind and I’m not going to change yours, so I think that’s kind of pointless, but I will certainly be willing to listen.</p>
<p>I will be happy to discuss here the implications of being pro-life on voting behavior and how that affects the Democratic candidates and their platforms, however.</p>
<p>Why, i-dad? I don’t get it. Why would you prefer Thompson (quasi-pro-life) as the candidate, to Giuliani, who is pro-choice? Wouldn’t Thompson turn out more evangelicals (who dominate the party under Rove?). Hmmm? ;)</p>
<p>It is legal to homeschool in all 50 states, however judges routinely require that children be enrolled in public school (custody disputes, foster children, anonymous CPS reports, and in cases of a juveniles who have had run-ins with the law, for example).</p>
<p>Also, some states have quite burdensome regulations for homeschooling.
<a href=“http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp[/url]”>http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp</a> In Massachusetts the superintendent or local school committee must give approval for a family to homeschool. The New York law contains the following: “File, with the local superintendent, an annual assessment by June 30; must be from a standardized test every other year in grades 4-8, and every year in grades 9-12; the child should score above the 33rd percentile or their home instruction program could be placed on probation”.</p>
<p>Good point, HH. If Thompson is the nominee, I think most of the pro-life crowd will vote for him, even if they don’t like him. If it’s Guiliani though, I think they’ll vote their conscience with a 3rd party candidate, even though that means they’ll be giving it to the Democrats.</p>
<p>timely, I most definitely do not consider you an uneducated yahoo; nor do I presume such of evangelicals in general, of conservatives, of Republicans, etc. (However, I do think that HRC is sometimes viewed as having that assumption, not by her statements, but by her manner of<br>
t a l k i n g v e r y s l o w l y a n d c a r e f u l l y to general audiences, but normally to audiences she happens to know are educated, & supportive of her.) I only provided some clarification of the non-choice term because you seemed puzzled & used question marks when I-dad used it, that’s all.</p>
<p>No, pro-choice was never pro-abortion in itself. The term wasn’t changed to “sound softer” against “pro-life,” but to denote accuracy. </p>
<p>The confusion you asked about: There are many people who are rigorously principled about a separation not only between Church (institutionally) and State, but about personal morality & State. They are loathe to see precedents set which can be abused in either direction. Many of those people are church-goers & synagogue-goers with strong beliefs and strong personal morality. They believe that American principles support maximum personal religious freedom to worship and not to worship, and to let both religious institutions and personal principles decide morality, not the gov’t.</p>
<p>Richard Nixon had it right on the recently released “Nixon tape” of the oval office conversation when Nixon was informed that Howard Baker had hired Thompson as a staff attorney to defend Nixon on the Watergate committee.</p>
<p>Nixon’s immediate response:</p>
<p>“Oh s—, that kid” </p>
<p>He then added “he’s dumb as hell”.</p>
<p>Given that he described [Republican] Cuban immigrants in crucial swing state Florida as terrorists who might have suitcase nuclear weapons in his second stump speech, I’m salivating at Clinton going up against this guy.</p>
<p>I’d prefer not to face Guiliani. Remember, the deep south is irrelevant in the general election, it’s all about swing states. Because he’s a “lib-ur-al”, there are fewer disctinctions to draw with Guiliani. So the campaign would have to focus on his culture of cronyism and corruption and generally despicable personality.</p>
<p>I don’t really care that much. It’s like the NFL. To win the SuperBowl, you have to beat the best, so whatever…</p>
<p>Romney hasn’t got a prayer of winning the nomination, but I agree with Idad 100%. I live in MA, and have watched, in horror, as he has singlehandedly destroyed public education in our state. It is a travesty, and it is the more affluent towns that have been decimated the most. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible to ruin what he has managed to do in five years.</p>
<p>Then…I am also always puzzled by the evangelicals’ acceptance (and in fact, heralding) of the government into the abortion or other social wedge issues debate. It seems to be only in “THESE” issues, that conservatives want government intervention. On issues that bother liberals (ok, that bother me) like gun control, conservatives are all about personal or individual responsibility. Similarly, on most broader conservative issues, from education to health care, the emphasis of the platforms are on non-government intervention altogether, moving completing towards privatization.</p>
<p>So…do conservatives LIKE big government interference, or not? Seems like there is no consistency in the role you all want government to play, or is it simply issue dependent? Why do you want government out of most decisions, but in on some? Where are privacy and individuality as it relates to women and their health?</p>
In general, conservatives do not like big government interference. On the abortion issue, pro-life conservatives believe that an embryo/fetus/unborn child is a human being and deserves to be protected by the government just like any other human being. We don’t see this as being different from the government passing laws to “interfere with” child predators. In both cases, the government would be protecting innocent human beings from those who want to hurt them.</p>
<p>I understand that you probably don’t agree with the position that an embryo/fetus/unborn child is a human being, but do you understand how a conservative views government interference concerning this issue?</p>
<p>It’s like Epiphany said in her post today, that it all depends on when you believe life begins. So, if a conservative believed the embryo/fetus/unborn child is not a human being, then he would believe that the government needs to stay out of it.</p>