|
|
| Author |
Message |
lauren000
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 3510
Location: colorado springs
|
 Posted: 08/30/04 - 00:06 Post subject: A Bush Defeat would be in the best interest of the GOP
|
|
|
| Quote: | Republicans for Kerry
Bush's defeat would be good for the GOP.
BY NIALL FERGUSON
Saturday, August 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
It is doubtless not the most tactful question to ask on the eve of the Republican convention, but might it not be better for American conservatism if George W. Bush failed to win a second term?
Yes, I know, the official GOP line is that nothing could possibly be as bad for the U.S. as a Kerry presidency. According to the Bush campaign, John Kerry's record of vacillation and inconsistency in the Senate would make him a disastrously indecisive POTUS--an IMPOTUS, as it were. By contrast, they insist, Mr. Bush is decisiveness incarnate. And when this president makes a decision, he sticks to it with Texan tenacity (no matter how wrong it turns out to be).
It is a mistake, however, to conceive of each presidential contest as an entirely discrete event, a simple, categorical choice between two individuals, with consequences stretching no further than four years.
To be sure, there are many tendencies in American political life that will not be fundamentally affected by the outcome of November's election. For example, contrary to what Mr. Kerry claimed in his convention speech, there are profound structural causes for the widening rift between the U.S. and its erstwhile allies on the European Continent that no new president could possibly counteract. And regardless of whether Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry is in the White House next year, the U.S. will still be stuck with the dirty work of policing post-Saddam Iraq with minimal European assistance other than from Britain--which, by the same token, will remain America's most reliable military ally regardless of whether Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry is in the White House.
Nor would the election of Mr. Kerry have the slightest impact on the ambition of al Qaeda to inflict harm on the U.S. Even if Americans elected Michael Moore as president, Osama bin Laden would remain implacable.
In geopolitical terms, at least, what happens on Nov. 2 will change very little indeed. Yet in other respects--and particularly in terms of party politics--the election's consequences could be far-reaching. It is not too much to claim that the result could shape American political life for a decade or more.
Fourteen years ago, in another English-speaking country, an unpopular and in many respects incompetent conservative leader secured re-election by the narrowest of margins and against the run of opinion polls. His name was John Major, and his subsequent period in office, marred as it was by a staggering range of economic, diplomatic and political errors of judgment, doomed the British Conservative Party to (so far) seven years in the political wilderness. I say "so far" because the damage done to the Tories' reputation by the Major government of 1992-97 was such that there is still no sign whatsoever of its ever returning to power.
Many Conservatives today would now agree that it would have been far better for their party if Mr. Major had lost the election of 1992. For one thing, the government deserved to lose. The decision to take the United Kingdom into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism had plunged the British economy into a severe recession, characterized by a painful housing market bust. For another, the Labour candidate for the premiership, Neil Kinnock, had all the hallmarks of a one-term prime minister. It was Mr. Kinnock's weakness as a candidate that enabled Mr. Major to scrape home with a tiny majority of 21 out of 651 seats in the Commons. Had Mr. Kinnock won, the exchange rate crisis of September 1992 would have engulfed an inexperienced Labour government, and the Conservatives, having replaced Mr. Major with a more credible leader, could have looked forward to an early return to office.
Instead, the next five years were a kind of Tory dance of death, in which the party not only tore itself apart over Europe, but also helped to tear Bosnia apart by refusing all assistance to those resisting Serbian aggression. Meanwhile, a spate of petty **** and financial scandals discredited one minister after another, making a mockery of Mr. Major's call for a return to traditional family values ("Back to Basics"). All of this provided the perfect seedbed for the advent of New Labour and the election by a landslide of Tony Blair in May 1997. Well, Mr. Blair is still in Downing Street and, having weathered the worst of the political storm over Iraq, seems likely to remain there for some years to come.
Could something similar be about to happen in the U.S.? In my view, the Bush administration, too, does not deserve to be re-elected. Its idée fixe about regime change in Iraq was not a logical response to the crisis of 9/11. Its fiscal policy has been an orgy of irresponsibility. Given the hesitations of independent voters in the swing states, polls currently point to a narrow Bush defeat. Yet Mr. Kerry, like Mr. Kinnock, is the kind who can blow an election in a single sound bite. It's still all too easy to imagine George W. Bush, like John Major, scraping home by the narrowest of margins (not least, of course, because Mr. Bush did just that four years ago).
But then what? The lesson of British history is that a second Bush term could be more damaging to the Republicans and more beneficial to the Democrats than a Bush defeat. If he secures re-election, President Bush can be relied upon to press on with a foreign policy based on pre-emptive military force, to ignore the impending fiscal crisis (on the Cheney principle that "deficits don't matter") and to pursue socially conservative objectives like the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Anyone who thinks this combination will serve to maintain Republican unity is dreaming; it will do the opposite. Meanwhile, the Dems will have another four years to figure out what the Labour Party finally figured out: It's the candidate, stupid. And when the 2008 Republican candidate goes head-to-head with the American Tony Blair, he will get wiped out.
The obvious retort is that American politics is not British politics. No? Go back half a century, to 1956, and recall the events that led up to the re-election of another Republican incumbent. Sure, Eisenhower didn't have much in common personally with George W. Bush, except perhaps the relaxed work rate. But Ike was no slouch when it came to regime change. In 1953 a CIA-sponsored coup in Iran installed as dictator Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. In 1954 Ike enunciated the "domino theory," following the defeat of France in Vietnam and invaded Guatemala to install another pro-American dictator. In 1955 he shelled the Chinese isles of Quemoy and Matsu.
Yet Eisenhower's refusal to back the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt following Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal, and his acquiescence in the Soviet invasion of Hungary, should have alerted American voters to the lack of coherence in his strategy. Predictably, Ike's re-election was followed by a string of foreign-policy reverses--not least the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, Castro's takeover of Cuba and the shooting down of Gary Powers's U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. These were the setbacks that lent credibility to JFK's hawkish campaign in 1960: And Kennedy's victory handed the rest of the decade to the Democrats.
Like Adlai Stevenson before him, Mr. Kerry has an aura of unelectability that may yet prove fatal to his hopes. But a Stevenson win in 1956 would have transformed the subsequent course of American political history. Conservatives may ask themselves with good reason whether defeat then might ultimately have averted the much bigger defeats they suffered in the '60s. In just the same way, moderate Republicans today may justly wonder if a second Bush term is really in their best interests. Might four years of Mr. Kerry not be preferable to eight years or more of really effective Democratic leadership?
Mr. Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is author of "Colossus: The Price of America's Empire" (Penguin, 2004). |
[/quote]
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
|
|
 |
lauren000
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 3510
Location: colorado springs
|
|
Posted: 08/30/04 - 00:08 Post subject:
|
|
|
Posted by "Paint CHiPs" of http://www.asylumnation.com
| Quote: | Republicans find themselves in a pretty bad position these days, and President Bush offers a double-proned wedge for his party.
The first wedge is what one might call the neo-con wing. Putting aside the actual policy implications of that, the problem that Republicans face is there is very little room to disagree with Bush and remain in good graces with the party, but at the same time, agreeing too strongly with President Bush is going to taint any candidate who does it, I believe. President Bush is a credibility-chewing machine. Powell, Rice, even Ridge, had very bright political futures before Bush. Now, they pretty much live and die with him, and unless some sort of remarkable turnaround occurs in the next four years (should Bush get reelected), have pretty much rendered themselves unelectable for future elections (I expect two of those three will resign in the next four years if Bush wins, the turnover rate in his next administration, should he have it, will be remarkable). To a degree that is also true of McCain, Schwarzenegger, and their ilk, who enjoy a fairly bipartisan cross-section of support. The problem with that is Bush is a lightening rod for all kinds of things, and as far as at least half of that bipartisan support is considered, has rendered himself radioactive. Essentially, there is a wing of the Republican party that believes you must be behind Bush or be against him. And, there is a large segment of voters that will never vote for people they see as Bush stooges (particularly in mixed constituencies like New York, Arizona, California, etc). So, Republicans who have a chance at transcending party support are in a pretty s****y position, a constant balancing act of supporting Bush, but at arm's length. This is only going to get worse in a second Bush term, where these Republicans are going to start looking at their own electoral futures now that Bush's is assured, and decide whether they will be better served by standing behind Bush, or somewhere else entirely.
The second is almost an age-old Republican problem, that being the forces of the religious right (or whatever name you want to use). Bush has decided to keep these guys as close as he can to avoid catching any heat from them, a strategy with limited success, but in doing so, he's given them a large amount of clout, and done a fairly good job of energizing them. Even worse, from a Republican standpoint, Bush continually inserts wedge issues and votes on issues near and dear to these guys, votes that are losing to the public at large, and serve basically to force other Republicans in the position of siding with the far right, or siding with the middle. If they side with the far right on issues like the gay marriage ban, stem cell ban, **** ed ban, etc etc, they again lose a LARGE amount of moderate and independent clout. But, if they side with the middle, they face a fairly rabid wing of the Republican party whose EXPLICIT GOAL is to discover which Republicans are with them, and work to oust all those that aren't. The gulf between what works in primaries and what works in general elections is going to become larger and larger, putting what I consider to be cooler heads in a really s****y position.
I've become convinced that as important as this election is generally, it is equally important in terms of the fight for the heart and soul of the Republican party. A Bush win will solidify the neocon forces that believe in preemptive war, deficits don't matter, lack of concern for civil liberites, and, worse yet, that anybody who opposes these things is somehow anti-American or weak on defense or whatever. But, at BEST Bush only has another 4 and a half years in office, and how generally popular are those necon ideals going to be to a bipartisan public when their figurehead, Bush himself, is gone? But, what are the risks of standing up against them? A Bush LOSS, on the other hand, allows the party to take back all that and redecide where it stands on those issues, to have that debate over again amongst themselves without having it under the heavy shadow of a very tentative administration. Essentially, the way Bush has conducted himself, he has for four years nearly single-handedly radically redefined Republicanism, and most Republicans can only sit back and watch. If he losses, the GOP will be able to take back those issues and define them for themselves. If you like the direction the GOP has been taking under Bush, by all means vote for him, as he will continue to press it and those under him in the party will have to continue mouthing it. If you think perhaps the GOP has lost its way, give them a fighting chance to find it again, vote against Bush.
On the far right issues, a Bush win will again ensure that the religious right will be front and center in defining the party agenda. There is already a behind the scenes struggle going on at this very minute, as moderate Republicans are trying to change the party platform to even ACKNOWLEDGE that Republicans MIGHT disagree on how to handle same-**** marriage, stem cell research, and the like. There are two ways that debate can end (and it's not going to end this week). The first is the collective decision that any Republican who doesn't toe the religious right's line is going to be subject to expulsion. The second is the decision that Republicans can have broad disagreements on these things and remain electable within the party framework. A Bush win cements, at least for the next four-six years, the former. The latter decision is in part reached when Bush loses and, electorally, things like banning stem cell research or amending the constitution to ban gay marriage are shown conclusively to be bad for general elections in all but the most conservative of districts, so maybe the party would be better off allowing it.
I don't think I'm expressing this as well as I should be (I'm sick ), but here is what you can expect if Bush wins: As the article says, you can expect the Republicans to become flacid as a party, and will probably lose spectacularly in 2008, 2012, and beyond, and everybody that was forced, in the short term, to pony up to Bush is going to be smeared in his shit for years, and that includes the party at large. You can also expect a constant barrage of Republican wedge issues to be introduced and a reinvigorated far-right wing to take them and use them to try and expel the moderates and social-liberals from the party entirely, with a large number of very mean and very competitive Republican primaries in 2006, 2008, and beyond, and if the anti-moderate forces win that, the party will continue to j**k to the right because nobody can get out of primaries any other way, and in so doing will continue to become less and less electable to a general public that is becoming more, not less, socially liberal.
In terms of the Democratic party, I think a Kerry win will be good for them. The Democrats were already demoralized with Al Gore, and then in 2002 they were electorally shat on. I think they've already learned all the lessons they're going to from spectacularly losing. The lesson they need to learn is that the public rewards fighters, spirited campaigners, and that rather than laying down like whipped puppies, they can cut themselves pretty good slices by having backbones and standing up for themselves (and the country). I don't want the lesson of 2004 to be, for them "We should have just nominated Lieberman or Gephardt". I want it to be "f**k, we could have won with DEAN!"
I'll accept that, as the converse of a Bush win being bad for Republicans, it means a Bush win will, in many ways, be good for Democrats long term, for much the same reasons that the author of the article mentions. However, I'm not sure I'm willing to pay that price. I'd just assume that Bush lose, within the Republican party people like McCain and Schwarzenegger start taking back the reigns, and within the Democratic party they realize that all they have to do is stand up and fight, and people like Dean, Edwards, etc, rise to party leadership and candidates like Obama start coming on strong. |
[/quote]
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
Docter
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 21 Oct 2002
Posts: 3420
|
|
Posted: 08/30/04 - 00:15 Post subject:
|
|
|
 
Oh, you were serious?!?!?!
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
Wily
Can't Stop Posting
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 657
|
|
Posted: 08/30/04 - 00:21 Post subject:
|
|
|
The World's Hamster Fair
***NOTE: The Hamster Fair has been POSTPONED until further notice. Please check back here for updates. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. ***
Hamster Fair '97, like its predecessor Fair in '95, will be located in Wilmington, DE. About 250 people and 55 hamsters attended the Fair in '95, which was held at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, DE. The Fair is expected to draw 300-500 hamster fanciers from all over Pennsylvania and the Delmarva peninsula. The Fair will feature races, games, shows, supplies and hamsters for sale, and more. For more information about any of these, link to the topics below:
Index
Hamster Grand Prix - the hamster race of the century!
Hamster Show
Raffle
Hamster Supplies
Our Mascot Return to main page
Hamster Grand Prix
The Hamster Grand Prix is perhaps the most ambitious hamster racing contest ever undertaken in this country. Brave and speedy hamsters will compete in qualifiers to determine who will race in the semifinals to be held at the Hamster Fair.
The prizes at stake are enormous: an SAM Country Club Duplex for the winner, the huge SAM Jungle Gym for second place, cages and such for the qualifier champs. The entry fee is only $1.00 per hamster per race.
In case you're asking, just what is a hamster race, anyway? we'd like to educate you a bit. The hamsters are placed in plastic exercise balls of standard size and build (ie, what you can buy in a pet shop - no hand made racers allowed), which may be provided either by the club or by the hamster's owner, if he or she chooses to bring one. Club-owned racers are cleaned with a mild disinfectant after each run, or "heat." Before the heat, the balls are placed on our track, which is a Hamtrac kindly donated by the Super Pet company. This track has four lanes designed to fit a hamster ball, and each lane is eight feet long. We may also make the track six lanes wide and four feet long. A wooden divider keeps the hamsters from starting until the signal, when the divider is removed. Most hamsters then run down the track, but often it is luck or smarts that wins a race over speed, for some hamsters have a predisposition to stop and groom themselves in the middle of the track! Dwarf hamsters have their own prizes, since they too must race alone and can't always turn the heavy plastic ball. Animals other than hamsters (gerbils, mice, etc.) are strictly prohibited. Registration is strongly advised at noon, with the opening of the Fair. Package deals will be available for $3 including race and show entry and hamstersittting priveleges (we watch your hamster while you browse). Return to Index
Hamster Show
In the 1997 HFA Hamster Show, hamsters from the area will be competing for the judge's eye and the great prizes, including a SAM Fifth Avenue Duplex kit, hamster grooming supplies, and other prizes. The hamsters involved are mainly pets from the local area, but several breeders may attend. The judge, HFA judge Samantha Pettingill (who presided over the '95 show), will look for good grooming, health, and friendliness in prospective winners. Classes include: golden, white, cream, grey, patterned (banded, pied, or dominant spot), longhair, satin, dwarf, and any other colors (mink, blonde, etc.). The entry fee is $2 due to the time-consuming nature of the event, and judging will begin after registration is finished, about 12:30 pm. However, contestants are advised to come early to register, as registration will begin with the opening of the fair at 12 pm. Package deals, in which the race and show may be entered, will be available for $3 with hamstersitting included. Hamstersitting allows you to leave your pet with a competent watcher while you browse the raffle, sales, and games tables. Return to Index
Raffle
Raffle chances will be offered as follows:
3 for $1.00 chances
* hamster food for one hamster for one month
* a hamster food sampler (six brands!)
* grooming kit
* hamster walk kit
* Speed Streak hamster racer
* and much more!!
$1.00 each chances
* Safeguard fully equipped cage (ARV: $55)
* Pointer Hill Pet Products fully equipped cage (ARV: $55)
* One Year's Supply Hamster Food (ARV:$50)
Sorry, we cannot guarantee that all these prizes will be at the Fair. We deal with corporate sponsors and rely upon their support for this event to be made possible. Return to Index
Hamster Supplies
Our popular Hamster Trading Post will be open again this year, with items like those found in the raffle available, as well as hamster food, treats, bedding, toys, and hamster paraphernalia such as tee shirts, handpainted jeans, and more. Hamsters will also be available for sale, including rare cinnamon dwarf hamsters and breathtaking satin longhairs. These, of course, are provided by member breeders, so we may not have a wide selection depending on what is currently available. Return to Index
Our Mascot
Our local club spokeshamster and current unofficial mascot is Kashyyk's Tanis Half-Elven of Paws, a rescued hamster who was being caged with a female in a pet store in order to keep her constantly pregnant. Of course, both were rescued. Tanis is a golden male with a light cream stomach and a gorgeous thick (shorthair) coat. We chose him because he, in the world of hamsters, is "everyhamster." All of us hamster lovers either currently own a golden or kept one as a pet as a child. We felt everyone could identify him, not as a fancy mutant show hamster bred for its long pedigree, but as a simple pet that anyone can love. Tanis goes out walking on a leash through his home, has no aversion to people, and has never even attempted to bite. Pictures will hopefully be available of him here soon, along with scans of some of the posters he's appeared on to advertise the Hamster Fair to children. Return to Index
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
|
