How did this happen?
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Author Topic: How did this happen?  (Read 4778 times)
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Chuck Hagel 08
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« on: April 21, 2007, 06:37:51 PM »

Okay, let's say you have two candidates:

The first candidate is a moderate southern democrat. He has been a congressman, senator, and vice-president for 25 years. His party is the incumbent party, during which the president was impeached but found innocent by the Senate. He nominates a moderate Jewish senator from the northeast as his running mate.

The second candidate is a far-right Republican from Texas. He has been governor for only 6 years, and his father was a controversial former President. He is essentially the result of nepotism. He nominates an ailing crony from Wyoming as his running mate.

Would you believe me if I were to tell you that the second ticket won? How did Al Gore do so badly? I'm not advocating Al Gore or anything, but I'm just wondering how this happened.
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jfern
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« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2007, 06:51:51 PM »

You underestimate the so called media at your own peril. They wouldn't STFU about claiming that Gore couldn't be trusted because he said he invented the Internet (a total lie), while they fawned over Bush.
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nclib
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« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2007, 07:18:51 PM »

And of course had all the votes been counted, the first candidate would have won. Smiley
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SPC
Chuck Hagel 08
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« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2007, 07:24:48 PM »

And of course had all the votes been counted, the first candidate would have won. Smiley

Even if that were true, why would it have been close in the first place?
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nclib
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« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2007, 07:31:05 PM »

And of course had all the votes been counted, the first candidate would have won. Smiley

Even if that were true, why would it have been close in the first place?

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.
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HardRCafé
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« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2007, 08:37:51 PM »

The first candidate is a moderate southern democrat. He has been a congressman, senator, and vice-president for 25 years. His party is the incumbent party, during which the president was impeached but found innocent by the Senate. He nominates a moderate Jewish senator from the northeast as his running mate.

The second candidate is a far-right Republican from Texas. He has been governor for only 6 years, and his father was a controversial former President. He is essentially the result of nepotism. He nominates an ailing crony from Wyoming as his running mate.

1. Gore long since had ceased to be Moderate.
2. Bush I was not controversial.
3. It is debatable Bush II was far Right.
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jokerman
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« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2007, 09:20:49 PM »

Okay, let's say you have two candidates:

The first candidate is a moderate southern democrat.
In 2000 Gore was seen as neither "moderate" nor "southern" by the average voter.
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memphis
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« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2007, 12:05:31 AM »

Gore refused to run on "Clinton prosperity." Gore has this understandable, though stupid hang-up about not running in somebody's shadow. He refused to let his father (who had also held his senate seat) campaign for him for Senate, and he didn't want Bill Clinton's help running for president. Gore completely overestimated the anti-Clinton sentiment in the country and nominated one of Clinton's sharpest Democratic critics for the post of Vice President. This same man added nothing to the ticket as he represented a state and an ethnic group that were going to vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway. Distance from the popular Bill Clinton and the very poor choice of the NE unlikable, moralizing Lieberman were the two biggest factors in Gore's inability to win the presidency.  Nonetheless, his margin of victory in the popular vote was still more than FOUR TIMES that of JFK in 1960.
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Rob
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« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2007, 01:19:41 AM »

In 2000 Gore was seen as neither "moderate" nor "southern" by the average voter.

Which says a lot about your "average voter."
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muon2
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« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2007, 10:11:14 PM »

The second candidate is a far-right Republican from Texas. He has been governor for only 6 years, and his father was a controversial former President. He is essentially the result of nepotism. He nominates an ailing crony from Wyoming as his running mate.

Don't view the past too much through the lens of today.

GWB did not have a record that would characterize him as "far right" in 1999-2000. HIs track record was in fact one of accomodation with the Democrats who controlled the Texas legislature. It surprised more than one observer that Washington took on a polarity that was inconsistent with Bush's governance from 1994-2000.

Bush 41 at one time had popularity that mached his son after 9/11. He failed to turn his attention to looming domestic issues and relied too much on his foreign policy successes. There was almost a deficit of controversy during his term compared to the presidents that preceded or followed him.
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StatesRights
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« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2007, 10:23:36 AM »

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

Get your nose out of the air.
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elcorazon
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« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2007, 10:52:37 AM »

Okay, let's say you have two candidates:

The first candidate is a moderate southern democrat. He has been a congressman, senator, and vice-president for 25 years. His party is the incumbent party, during which the president was impeached but found innocent by the Senate. He nominates a moderate Jewish senator from the northeast as his running mate.

The second candidate is a far-right Republican from Texas. He has been governor for only 6 years, and his father was a controversial former President. He is essentially the result of nepotism. He nominates an ailing crony from Wyoming as his running mate.

Would you believe me if I were to tell you that the second ticket won? How did Al Gore do so badly? I'm not advocating Al Gore or anything, but I'm just wondering how this happened.
mostly because most of the "facts" you site have little relevance to who one votes for for President.  Plus some of the "facts" you site are either inaccurate or were not perceived that way at the time.  Elections aren't won by resumes.  They are won by people.

Silly idea for a thread.
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memphis
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« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2007, 01:14:10 AM »
« Edited: April 24, 2007, 02:06:14 AM by memphis »

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

Get your nose out of the air.

Yeah, I'd characterize these people more as willfully ignorant rather than uneducated. :-) Seriously though, both parties have their share of this type of people. South Memphis, for instance, is probably 95%+ Democratic (super-Christian as well) and I don't think too many voters there are terribly informed. It's just the nature of democracy.
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nclib
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« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2007, 07:37:00 PM »

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

Get your nose out of the air.

Yeah, I'd characterize these people more as willfully ignorant rather than uneducated. :-) Seriously though, both parties have their share of this type of people. South Memphis, for instance, is probably 95%+ Democratic (super-Christian as well) and I don't think too many voters there are terribly informed. It's just the nature of democracy.

Yeah, I'll admit it does happen on both sides. What is interesting, though, is that among white voters, there is a significant positive relationship between education level and support for liberal ideas and Democratic politicians.
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memphis
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« Reply #14 on: April 25, 2007, 12:54:44 AM »

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

Get your nose out of the air.

Yeah, I'd characterize these people more as willfully ignorant rather than uneducated. :-) Seriously though, both parties have their share of this type of people. South Memphis, for instance, is probably 95%+ Democratic (super-Christian as well) and I don't think too many voters there are terribly informed. It's just the nature of democracy.

Yeah, I'll admit it does happen on both sides. What is interesting, though, is that among white voters, there is a significant positive relationship between education level and support for liberal ideas and Democratic politicians.

I'm not so sure. The business wing of the Republican party is very well educated, often at private schools. Union blue collar Dems may not even have a high school diploma. Social liberalism may be popular among the well educated, but economic liberalism is not. These folks are much more inclined to support corporate welfare and subsidising Social Security. You really can't believe the media hype about the red state/blue state crap.
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DanielX
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« Reply #15 on: April 25, 2007, 01:01:49 PM »

George W. Bush is not far-right. If you ignore his stance on social issues (which is, in my opinion, more populist than anything), he's not a conservative at all (I'd call him something like moderate christian socialist).

- He supported expanding Medicare to include prescription drug coverage.
- He oversaw the fastest increase in non-defense spending since the Johnson administration.
- He has, for during his first six years in office, not vetoed a single spending bill, including some simply outrageous ones.
- He supports spending countless billions of dollars in pork-barrel spending (the fact that many so-called conservatives do so does not make this conservative, it makes them assholes - just as it does on their counterparts on the left; both should be shot on general principle.).
- He supports the existence of all of the following: the Department of Education (not to mention Public Schools), mandatory Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, and most welfare programs. Any "Far-right" candidate would have to oppose most or all of these.

Of course, I'm a "radical liberal conservative" (or is it "Radical conservative liberal"? or just "right-libertarian"?) so my views may be skewed somewhat.

And of course, Gore isn't exactly a moderate either, he's just center-left on some issues and radical-left on others (like the environment). 

And then, some so-called "liberals" are really socialist-populists, like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman (supporting morals regulations on video games...)
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Chuck Hagel 08
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« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2007, 07:26:28 PM »

George W. Bush is not far-right. If you ignore his stance on social issues (which is, in my opinion, more populist than anything), he's not a conservative at all (I'd call him something like moderate christian socialist).

- He supported expanding Medicare to include prescription drug coverage.
- He oversaw the fastest increase in non-defense spending since the Johnson administration.
- He has, for during his first six years in office, not vetoed a single spending bill, including some simply outrageous ones.
- He supports spending countless billions of dollars in pork-barrel spending (the fact that many so-called conservatives do so does not make this conservative, it makes them assholes - just as it does on their counterparts on the left; both should be shot on general principle.).
- He supports the existence of all of the following: the Department of Education (not to mention Public Schools), mandatory Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, and most welfare programs. Any "Far-right" candidate would have to oppose most or all of these.

Of course, I'm a "radical liberal conservative" (or is it "Radical conservative liberal"? or just "right-libertarian"?) so my views may be skewed somewhat.

And of course, Gore isn't exactly a moderate either, he's just center-left on some issues and radical-left on others (like the environment). 

And then, some so-called "liberals" are really socialist-populists, like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman (supporting morals regulations on video games...)

I know that in reality, Bush is a populist, but his public perception was a far-rght conservative.
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nclib
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« Reply #17 on: April 25, 2007, 09:14:28 PM »
« Edited: April 25, 2007, 09:16:20 PM by nclib »

Social liberalism may be popular among the well educated, but economic liberalism is not.

Definitely some social issues like gay rights have a strong relationship with educational attainment. Most state's exit polls on gay marriage bans show a direct, linear relationship between the two variables.

Part of the issue with economic liberalism is that the well-educated tend to also be high-income. I would wager that even economic liberalism is more popular (though not as dramatically as social liberalism), among the highly educated once income is controlled for.
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Adlai Stevenson
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« Reply #18 on: April 26, 2007, 11:45:47 AM »

I don't care - Bush is right-wing.  He's anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-death penalty and a warmonger.  He is also running one of the most incompetent administrations in history and will go down as one of the worst Presidents.  Just my opinio, but how did this happen?  Gore did win Florida but should have won Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia and New Hampshire. 
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #19 on: April 26, 2007, 02:57:07 PM »

(I'd call him something like moderate christian socialist).

Angry

Man, you are going to burn for even suggesting that...
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #20 on: April 26, 2007, 03:04:27 PM »

I would wager that even economic liberalism is more popular (though not as dramatically as social liberalism), among the highly educated once income is controlled for.

But to do that would be pointless, utterly pointless as the (main) reason why poorer people usually support leftish economic policies is because of their economic position (and vice versa, obviously).

More interesting might be to look at just high-to-higher income voters and compare their views to their levels of education.
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DanielX
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« Reply #21 on: April 26, 2007, 05:26:19 PM »

(I'd call him something like moderate christian socialist).

Angry

Man, you are going to burn for even suggesting that...

Hey, in Germany one of the big right-populist parties is the Christian Socialist Union Tongue.

That, and I do not see how any economic capitalist could support the variety of government programs that Bush, or for that matter the majority of Republicans, do. I am skewed (in the opposite direction of opebo), but to me the Bush administration's economic policies have been, on the whole, center-to-center-left (even if everyone in Europe and most of the US would disagree with me on that point), using 'center' as the mean between an authoritarian-communist level of economic control by the government on one end ('radical left') and an anarcho-capitalist lack of economic control by the government ('radical right') on the other (and not 'middle of the road', which in the US is distinctly center-left or mixed-economy and in most of Europe left or socialist/social democratic). On this scale, I am probably a center-right or 'limited government capitalist' akin to, say, Milton Friedman (Ideally I would go for far-right, but I recognize that anarcho-capitalism is only slightly more practical than true communism i.e. not very). Friedrich Hayek would be 'right' or 'primarily lasseiz-faire capitalist'; this definition's 'radical right' would be represented by Murray Rothbard. John Maynard Keynes is center-left-to-left, Galbraith would be left, and most communists (excluding the more anarchist variety) would be far-left.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #22 on: May 10, 2007, 08:03:26 PM »

Hey, in Germany one of the big right-populist parties is the Christian Socialist Union Tongue.

Christian Social Union. Not Christian Socialist Union. The CSU is many things, but Socialist it isn't.
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jokerman
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« Reply #23 on: May 12, 2007, 05:54:49 PM »

In 2000 Gore was seen as neither "moderate" nor "southern" by the average voter.

Which says a lot about your "average voter."
It shows that the average voter remembered Clintonian prosperity well enough that it still narrowly delivered the popular vote to Gore, inspite of Gore not carrying those two qualities.  Also, terms like "moderate" and "southern" cannot be applied in absolute terms, mind you.

Nice try turning that around, though.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #24 on: April 26, 2009, 03:12:54 PM »

Simple explanation: masterful  marketing.
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