Which issue will hurt J.Kerry the most?

[12th Doctor]

I voted Northeasterner, but I would have to say that the image of an insider and a constant flip-flopper on the issues will hurt him BIG esspecially amoung Independents.  He has been on all sides of every major issue.

Interestingly enough.  I have been home in Reynoldsville for the past week now.  I've been talking to a number of people that I haven't talked to since before Iowa and asking them about who they support in the election.  Many people who swore that they wouldn't vote for Bush back at Christmas time now say that they will NEVER vote for Kerry and will probably end up voting for Bush.  These people range accross the board from Republican's who felt un-easy about the president in December, to independents, to luke-warm Democrats and EVEN a guy who voted for Gore, Clinton twice and DUKAKAS!!!!!  I was privilaged to read in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review last Sunday that this is not an isolated phenomina and seems to be the case around Pittsburgh, in eastern and southern Ohio and in West Virginia as well.

I must say, though I can only report having observed this personally in my small town, this is a BIG deal.  The shift is dramatic.

[12th Doctor]

Gay Marriage -- For the most part Kerry is avoiding this issue while Bush is talking about a Constituitional Amendment.  Traditionally the voters punish whomever makes a strong stand on such a divisive issue, regardless of which way the individual taking the stand leans.  So although I think most Americans do not like the issue of gay marriage, they would rather it go through the courts before they have to deal with it.  I think voters will punish Bush for pressing his side.

Bush has, thus far, not made much of a deal about it in the and it will only become a big deal if Kerry makes it one.  If this happens, a majority of the voters will side with Bush.

Flipflopping -- The GOP attacks Kerry on what is perceived to be his playing both sides of issues.  But I think many Americans are uneasy with Bush's "over-simplification" of the world.  And if the Kerry camp can play up Bush's flipflops on "Nation Building" and "Large Govt Budgets" (2 things he attacked Gore on but seems big on himself)  then this could bite Bush in the butt.

Bush didn't condeme nation building.  He said that he was for it when it was done right.  "Large Govt Budgets" were created by all of the things that Bush promised in the 2000 campaign.  Though the right may be unhappy with it the average voter won't punish Bush for coming through on his promises.

Also, you blame Bush for 'over-simplification' and say that it is the same as Kerry's flipflopps.  I ask you, are all the issues so complicated that you need to change your possition on them every time a vote comes-up?  I have a question:  Is Kerry for or against NAFTA?  Was he for or against the first Gulf War?  Is he for or against our involvment in Iraq now?  Is he for or against the troops there?  Is he for or against 'No Child Left Behind'?  Is he for or against abortion?  I don't know, I can never tell.  Throughout his career, he as consistently taken opposing standes on the same issues and has a long history of contradictory public statments and voting on all sides of key issues.  If the chioce is between that and 'over-simplification' as you call it, I will take over simplification any day of the week.  When I am voting for someone, I like to know that he will acctually stand for a certain set of priciples.

Jane Fonda -- The phoney picture just goes to show how low certain Bush backers will go.  I think dirty tricks are a major turnoff to the American people.

What's important here is that the image of John Kerry astride a North Vietnamese AA gun having sex with Jane Fonda probably wouldn't be out of the question in the minds of most people in this country, and that is the problem that Kerry has here, most of the American people are MORE than aware of his conduct after the war and it offends many American citizens and certainly those who served PROUDLY in Vietnam of which my step-grandfather is one.  Kerry has a history of helping out the people who spat on my step-grandfather and called him a 'baby-killer' when he came home from service.  Many Americans (especially in the heart-land) are terribly offended by this and will make sure that he never sits in the oval office.

Someday a month or two from now, many of you Dems will wake-up, see John Kerry on TV and wonder 'what the Hell were we thinking'.

[12th Doctor]

Gustaf,

As someone who has lived in both places, I can tell you that the North is perhaps more anti-South than vice versa...they just do it in a more subtle, condescending fashion.

I agree completely.  Northeasterns love to pat themselves on the back for their presumed cultural and intellectual superiority over southerners, and southerners pick up on this condescension.  Howard Dean positively reeked of it, and John Kerry will probably have a hard time suppressing it.

As someone who lives in the South, but whose parents are from NYC, I don't condone either direction of regional prejudice. However, I do believe that anti-South Northerners are more understandable than visa versa. Northerners may be condescending to the South because of its [the South's] lower education, higher crime rate, lesser cultural diversity, lesser respect for minorities of race, gender, and lifestyle, etc. Southerners detesting the North tends to be more of an emotional bias, which is usually related to historical events.

'Unrelated to historical events'?  What universe are you living in?  I already debated this before on another thread, so I won't get too deep into it.  What reason do northerners have to look down on southerners other than they are conservative.  So you justify dipicting 1/3 of our nations population as a bunch of ignorant barbarians just because they are conservative and you are liberal?  I know you are from NC.  Who cares.  You clearly have sided with the arrogant New Englanders, so I will treat you as one of them.  As a southerner, you should know that the modern south is far different from the south of 40 years ago on the lines of culture (art, theater), economics and civil rights, yet you say that ivory-tower north-easterners still have the right to look down on the south.  And most of the problems that existed in the south after the Civil War were caused by Reconstruction and northern expliotation that lasted straight-up until the start of WWII.  Southerners have every right to be suspisious of Northeasterners and Northeasterners only look-down on southerners because without having someone to feel better than, most of them would lose their reason for existing.

[12th Doctor]

When Liddy Dole ran for Senate here, I once heard an ad where she said somethinglike "I'm a Southern woman who grew up in Salisbury [N.C.]." Can anyone even imagine a candidate for Senate from Connecticut saying "I'm a Northern woman who grew up in Bridgeport."??

No, but that's because all they care about is wether you went to Harvard or Priceton, or Yale or one of those other white-shoe ivory tower schools and whether or not you are one of them which is to say not one of us back-woods hick, trailer park trash, inbreeds from the south or someother rural area, like the PA 'T'.  After all, wasn't in James Caravelle(sp) who said that PA 'consisted of Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in the middle.

[12th Doctor]

You have no idea how emotional class/cultural/regional issues are in the US.  Basically rural areas in most of the country, and the South as a whole, resent, even hate, the liberal urban elites (and coincidentally their poor racial dependents).  

I don't feel any resentment toward urban racial minorities in the least.  I acctually feel bad for them.  They are being horribly duped by the left-wing elites.

[12th Doctor]

Soulty you are so on the money.

Dependence = Slavery

Amen.  And thanks for the compliment.

[12th Doctor]

I'm glad to see their are Yankees with common sense.







(just ribbing yall)

I'm really not much of a yankee.  Though born and bred in PA the political region selector said that my #1 political region was 'Peripheral South'.

[12th Doctor]

I'm really not much of a yankee.  Though born and bred in PA the political region selector said that my #1 political region was 'Peripheral South'.

Where did you find that selector at?

It's at selectsmart.com

Soulty, do you happen to know what states the 13 regions match up with? After each region it gives a link for explanation, but it's never opened correctly for me.

For example, Mid Atlantic

It says:
 
Copy & Paste
Results Code:  <Li>My #4 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, <a href="http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=PoliticalRegion"><B>U.S. Political Region Selector</A></B>, is <I>Mid Atlantic</I><P>

What specifically is meant to be copied?

Hmmm.  That I cannot say.  I don't know if we had that problem before.

As for your question, I think that it is up for interpetation.  I know that mid-Atlantic would be Maryland, Eastern PA, Deleware, New Jersey.  That area.  

The Rust Belt is Western PA, East Ohio, Eastern New York and probably Detriot and Northern West Virginia as well.  

I'll pull it up and take a look at some of the other ones.