I have confidence, people. Bush's win was a last gasp of the Reagan era past.

i don't think you are.

yr right about obama though, he won by huge margin right?

I'm with Gear in terms of the larger outlook.

i mean, i think obama is great and i would be happy to have him as our president. i would be so proud; this afternoon i re-read his dnc speech and cried and felt proud. but i think his margin of victory yesterday would have been a lot smaller if he'd been running in another state, or against another candidate. (remember when the IL republicans wanted to run ditka?) i mean, shit, look at oklahoma or kentucky and who they elected.

* Unless Bush manages to somehow completely and utterly destroy the nation in all ways possible in four years.

xposttttt

I was feeling despondent about this election a long time ago, really, when the usual old names I listed above were being trotted out. Obama represents fresh blood, which is what Clinton was, and which was maybe one reason he won. Gore, Gep, Dean, Kerry...good guys, but not good candidates.

(Jeb Bush is a possibility btw, but 1) he's said he's not running in '08 and I think he probably means and 2) I think even middle America may have had enough of Bush's by that point.)

I know that is really irrational but it's really how I feel.

I could see Frist. They need to get a new majority leader either way. As much as Daschle was a liability he could run circles around Frist.

You can't base Obama's potential upon this race, because the Republicans put up a fool in order to discredit his victory. You base his potential on his personal charecteristics. That said, I think the idea of Obama being president, and the idea of him being Dem candidate, are rediculous ant time in the foreseeable future. I think he'll make a great statesman though.

And if so, does it matter?

(Asking earnestly, not rhetorically)

(not including Ford, as he was merely concluding a resigned president's term, and was never elected)

Um zip (Clinton was a bit of a surprise, I guess, but that was a weird election cuz none of the Dem favorites decided to run--not counting Ford obv.) I will admit I know jack about governors, but if Republicans or Dems have any ringers there, I haven't heard about them yet.

Bush II: didn't know about him until 1999 or so
Clinton: didn't knoow about him until 1991 or so
Bush I: knew who he was since 1980
Reagan: was too young, but was well known for being California governer (albeit "famous" for "acting".. best new meme ever, btw)
Carter: don't know
Nixon: established, goes back a decade or so
LBJ: don't know
Kennedy: don't know
Eisenhower: not sure but i'm guessing established
Truman: don't know

scrap those posts... sorry for wasting your time.

But I'm glad we got a potential "Famous" for "acting" meme out of this... I hope this continues..

This wasn't about weak or strong candidates. It was about agendas. And the country is in the mood for some good old fashioned fascism right now.

The question isn't who will the Dems run in '08, but can they, their allies, and/or events shift the culture in four years.

White male Southern Democrats groomed for the executive branch are an endangered species. Maybe most Dems should just completely abandon certain states like Alabama, Mississippi,and South Carolina. Those godforsaken places are not worth it anyway.

Racism and bigotry are still winning.

(Semi-related recommended reading, Kenneth Ackerman's The Dark Horse.)

Optimism, people!

You clearly aren't paying attention to the House and the Senate and the Judiciary then, because the Republicans NEVER controlled all three and the Presidency.

If Bush's win was a last gasp of the Reagan era past, that's because the neocon, evangelical movement is a radical departure from Reagan-era politics. Most alarmingly, it seems like the charade of religion being separate from government is over.

I think '08 and to a lesser extent '06 will determine even more the direction our country is headed. Honestly, if the right-wingers entrench themselves in more deeply and certain social groups and further pushed to the wayside, then I just might move on over to Europe! which I plan to do someday anyway.

I'm certainly moving.

This is so right on. Obviously we are going to need some huge, ongoing calamity or event that affects people very very personally for this to change, like 50,000 dead in Iraq (sadly, 1,100 doesn't seem to be enough for the American people to wake up) or the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Of course, 9/11 was a horrible thing, but the reality of that is that it directly affected people in New York City and New Jersey but most Americans, although certainly affected by it emotionally, didn't feel it as intensely and personally. But if more people's sons, fathers, brothers, mothers, husbands and wives die, then there may be a change. Or if all women everywhere have their reproductive rights taken away. Et cetera. I don't want to see something awful like that happen, but I'm afraid that's exactly what it will take to shift America back to the middle, if not slightly to the left.

The threat of it overturning is a way for Bush to get out the evangelical vote.

Bush WILL stand against partial birth abortions - because people agree that those should go (and the truth is far too nuanced for anyone to argue).

Whole-heartedly agree. Any more right and it would be totally fascist. I'm looking forward to Bush having a meltdown in his second term and going back to drinking.

I wouldn't be so sure - they have been chipping away at it for a while now, and one day it just might go.

President Bush has made his antichoice political agenda apparent. Since his inauguration two years ago, he has taken 36 antichoice actions. He endorsed the removal of medical information deemed contrary to an abstinence-only platform - like how to use a condom - from government Web sites, including the Centers for Disease Control. He sacrificed vital health care policy in an attempt to attribute personhood to a fetus, even going so far as to provide fetuses with health insurance instead of providing pregnant women with pre-natal care. On the international front, he eliminated funding from the UNFPA, the largest multilateral family planning association providing family planning services to more than 150 countries. On his first day in office, he reinstated the onerous Global Gag Rule, preventing foreign organizations that accept US financial assistance from counseling their own patients about abortion, even in a country where it is legal.

I just don't know if he'd actually DO it.

Basically - the conservative movement has used social conservatism as a vehicle for economic conservatism.
Most presidents havn't made much headway on the socially conservative side of things.

Look how the gay marriage issue was manipulated to make sure evangelicals would come out to vote for Bush.

Its all about manipulation.

Bush's only major and entirely successful conservative law change was the TAX CUTS.

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), November 3rd, 2004.

i heard a much more prosaic, but still amusing, version of this story, in which bush simply did a double-blink at the button until he figured out what it was.

the version jaymc relates seems a little too script-doctored to me.

anyway i hope obama serves two terms at least before he runs for anything else. i think illinois could use him for a while, and he'll still only be what? 55 years old in 2012?

anyway yeah hillary is a dead end. she's been a dead end since day one.

also for what it's worth reagan may have been a B-*level* actor but he was by no means exclusively a B-*movie* actor, i.e. he was in more than a few A-level productions.

interesting to see how otm some people were on this thread

yes, very interesting

^___^

WOW

lol you were otm!!! thanks for not quitting on us bro!

Gear so otm, it must make up for being haunted by couch references for years and years.

http://www.seattlechoralcompany.org/Images/applause.jpg

CLINTON/OBAMA IN 2008!
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 3 November 2004

Obviously we are going to need some huge, ongoing calamity or event that affects people very very personally for this to change

hahahaha Obama v McCain: moderates all over the world find their heads exploding.
― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Wednesday, November 3, 2004 1:04 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

-_-

The zen master of prediction.

Mind you, this guy claims to have predicted something too.

http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/blog/g/f80c9922-5e13-47b9-baa4-2f1657115733

Not as fun to read though.

http://www.christianmontoya.com/wp-content/randoms/props.jpg

http://www.edu-negev.gov.il/bs/makif7/english/nostradamus2.jpg