From The Loonatic Left

Democratic Rural Strategy...Condescension

John Kerry and John Edwards spent the entire election telling voters that there were two Americas.  One America was rich and then there were the regular folks who made up the other America.  The regular folks were worried about Health care, worried about losing their job and John Kerry was the guy who would fight for them.

This message was probably delivered to the largest audience during the second debate when John Kerry told the audience that his tax plan was only going to raise taxes on people making more than $200,000 per year and that he could tell by looking around at the audience that only himself, Bush and the moderator were going to be affected by this.  I winced sitting at home at the tone of Kerry's remarks, but sadly this is how the Democratic Party thinks about voters.  We just are dumb schleps who need help from the wealthy and powerful elites.

In the post mortem of this campaign, some Democrats are asking what they can do to reach voters in the 'red states'.  Well one clear idea might be to quit thinking about the them as dumb schleps looking for government handouts.  Frankly I don't think there are huge differences in voters in the blue and red states; the differences are between urban and rural voters.  There are more urban areas in the blue states and a larger percentage of those urban voters vote Democratic hence the entire state is blue.  Reality, however, seldom seems to be part of the Democrat's election analysis.

The latest theory is that the Democrats need to get religious to reach fundamentalist Christian voters who really only care about moral values.  The economic message needs to be reworded as an appeal to values.  This is silly.  In rural areas the Democratic parties problem is at least as much about economics as it is religion or morals, despite what it is currently popular to claim.  Implementing this religious strategy will have no impact on the voters preferences except to further convince the rural voters that the liberals have lost their minds.

The liberal urban types espousing these theories make a huge mistake when they think of rural America as simplistic and naive.  The Democratic Party is primarily run by urban elites and absolutely drips condescension whenever rural America is mentioned as an issue.  This unmistakable contempt is the primary reason for the red and blue divide but there are also clear policy problems that for some reason have never been identified by Democrats.  Maybe there is something in the urban parts of this country which makes the policy positions of the Democratic Party appealing, but it is not simply voter ignorance or a low educational attainment that provides for the Republican popularity in rural America; economics is a big factor as well.

The truth is that rural America is made up of a combination of entrepreneurs and small business employees; while urban America is made up of primarily employees of primarily larger businesses.  A Democratic Party promoting policies designed to support employees at the expense of businesses falls flat in rural America.  Just based upon this economic reality the Democratic Party will continue to find it difficult to make in roads in rural America.

Another factor that highlights the absurdity of the Democratic Party is the rural/urban income gap that they routinely try to exploit.  The Democratic party looks at the income level in rural America and misreads it terribly.  A family that they think of as having a modest income might actually be quite well off by rural standards.  To appeal to this family as though they are poor and struggling will not be well received.  To understand why this fails so often for them consider the following differences in the cost of living:

4 Bedroom House in urban Massachusetts on one half acre of land - $750,000

4 Bedroom House in rural Kentucky on one half acre of land - $150,000

Now all you need to complete this picture is to understand that one of these two homeowners has more disposable income than the other even though they have a far lower salary.  Care to guess which is which?

The modest income resident in a rural area typically owns their own home.  The modest income residents in urban Massachusetts can't even afford a home and are probably ripe for the Democrat's message.  The irony is that the modest income Massachusetts urban resident probably has a much higher income than the Kentucky rural resident but is undoubtedly economically poorer and thinks of themselves in that way.  That is not the case with the rural resident.

The difference between the way a renter and a homeowner think of themselves is huge.  It is no accident that Bush has been a huge advocate for more homeownership.  A rural homeowner with disposable income thinks of themselves as well off.  An urban renter with the exact same income thinks of themselves as not well off.  One will respond to a 'two Americas' message, the other will think it sounds pretty dumb.

That just highlights the impact of the high cost of housing.  There are huge differences between prices in rural and urban areas for nearly every aspect of living expenses.  In short, the incomes of rural America go far further than the incomes in urban areas.  The Democratic Parties problems are deeper than that however, they also reflect a misunderstanding of how people in rural areas earn their living.

Many rural residents own a business, have a business on the side, work for a small business or aspire to own a business.  The Democrats seem to completely misunderstand the rural demographic.  These are often pretty bright business people who can see through the silly pandering, enjoy a great standard of living and are downright offended at the attitude of the self styled liberal elites.

This is today's rural America.  It does not resemble the cartoon that the liberal media so often tries to portray and apparently the national Democratic party has bought into.  Yes there are deep and strong religious values, values not shared by the Democratic Party, but there are also economic policy differences that have been misread by Democrats for many years. 

All is not dark for the Democrats however, the cost of medication and health care is an issue in rural America, just as it is in urban America.  Bush and the Repulicans ignore this issue at their peril.

Dick Cheney Really Likes Campaigning

This is the famous photo that has been making the rounds.  I've been wrestling with a decent caption for this photograph.  I've tried "Dick Cheney tries Viagra."  I've tried "If you think he's happy you should see Lynn."  But none of these seem to capture the spirit or the temperment of the photo. (Click to umm enlarge)

If anyone has any suggestions to help provide a worthy caption to this photo, I would encourage you to add them in the comments section.

A final thought...a friend upon seeing the photo remarked, "And this is just our Vice-President."  Tacky of me I know, but news is news.

Theo van Gogh's Murder

What a way to die.  Theo Van Gogh was a Dutch film maker.  He lived in Holland and was an outspoken critic of Islam.  He put together a movie that shined a rather critical light on the treatment of women in Islam.  His film was controversial, probably because it was an honest treatment of the issue.

He's dead.  He was shot while riding his bike; fell off, pleading for his life.  Then his throat was cut.  Then his murderer stabbed him in the chest with a knife pinning a note explaining why he was murdered and threatening several politicians.  It's that 'peaceful' religion of Islam again.  Can we dispense yet with the oft repeated claim that Islam is a religion of peace?  Most of the practitioners are not peaceful.  They are intolerant thugs, oppressors of women and ignorant savages.

Predictably the United States and European media have suddenly developed amnesia about the United States Patriot Act.  Why?  Have a look at this quote from a Dutch Politician:

"It's better to have 10 possibly innocent people temporarily in jail than one with a bomb on the street."

I suggest that we send the ACLU over to Holland to help the media and the politicians overcome this unfair treatment of Muslims.  Or maybe the Dutch, who were extremely critical of Guatanamo Bay would like to borrow the facility now?  The Dutch legislature is passing laws that will restrict the free practice of religion and is going to start arresting people for the crime of being Muslim.  I applaud their recovery from the coma that has been afflicting them the past three years.  As for the rest of Europe's liberals, they are in denial.

If a conservative is just a liberal who was mugged, what happens to a liberal country when they have a terrorist act?  Well we can now answer that question.  The Dutch are ideologically somewhere to the right of Wyoming today.  Jerry Faldwell and the moral majority would not dare use the kind of language being spouted by this liberal European countries politicians.  There is a sense of shock in the liberal European media and total silence in the liberal U.S. media.  If you want coverage of this massive shift toward intolerance in one of the most permissive European societies, you will need to get that coverage on-line.  It might even be good to speak Dutch, because you are getting zero attention in any English speaking periodical.

I think that is about to change.  Blogs have grabbed this issue and are going to start forcing the U.S. media to deal with reality again.

The media and liberals are really having a problem with this for two reasons; first the reaction of this European nation to terrorism is far more extreme than anything the United States ever dreamt of, even following the far more horrific events of 9/11.  That of course violates the media rule that Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and other Bush administation officials are the extremists.  Second, all of the finger wagging and America bashing by the liberal European press has just been exposed as a sham.  If this is how they react to a single murder, what will they do when they are actually attacked?

Many of us have been quietly saying for the better part of three years that appeasement of Islamic jihad is utter lunacy.  The Europeans have sniffed at this U.S. attitude and smuggly assumed that they did not need to fight terrorism; they could appease confident that the U.S. alone would be the target.  We remember the huge peace demonstrations against the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq.  We remember the support for the Palestinian terrorists who have been blowing up Israeli civilians.  I guess that strategy isn't going to work out for them after all.

The bad part is that this is probably only the start for the European nations.  The acts of terror are going to escalate.  The truth is that they have populations chock full of terrorist sympathizers now.  Muslims, including radical Muslims, have been flooding into these countries for the past two decades.  As the car bombs start exploding and civilians start dying in Europe, I will feel pity; far more than any liberal European nation has felt for the United States, but pity is all I will feel.  I will feel no obligation to help.  There is a message that needs to be heard in Europe and let me articulate it for Europeans very clearly:

We WILL NOT be coming over to bail your ass out ever again.  Not even if you beg.

Attention Conservatives...Please Give What You Can

Hey Bush supporters...this is surely the best use of all of those tax cuts that you have been receiving.  We really need to keep this organization in operation if we want to do well during the mid-term elections and those are only two years away.

Look at what kind of value you will get for your donation:

"Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know — was it or wasn't it?" the organization asked in a recent Internet posting, which also appeals for a donation. "We need to show Congress that hundreds of thousands of Americans are serious about protecting the integrity of the vote," the note said."

I mean you can't buy better publicity for George W. Bush and the Conservatives in Congress than to keep these loonies hard at it.  But that is not all you get, look at what these folks have provided you in the past!

1. "MoveOn.org was begun in 1998 by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who organized an Internet-based advocacy group to protest the "waste of tax dollars" in the impeachment of President Clinton, calling for the country to "move on to more pressing issues facing the nation."
2. Later, the organization vigorously opposed U.S. intervention in Iraq, a position that drew the attention of Mr. Soros, who, with business partner Peter Lewis, pledged a $5 million matching grant — a dollar for every two raised by MoveOn.org members — to put together a $15 million war chest to defeat Mr. Bush.
3. In 2002, Mr. Boyd and Mrs. Blades hired a computer programmer, Zack Exley, as MoveOn.org's organizing director. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Exley programmed GWBush.com, a Web page that featured doctored photographs portraying Mr. Bush as a drug addict."

These folks have been offering this incredible value to conservatives for years, all while sucking up resources that could have been devoted to mainstream Democrat causes.  Can you imagine what it would have cost for Bush's campaign to try and convince voters that his opponents were this unbalanced.  These folks provide that service for free!

So respond to this fundraiser with whatever you can give.  Don't give until it hurts, just give until it makes you feel good...

Election Post Mortem

"The King is Dead, Long Live the King"  Megadeath Lyrics to Kill the King

The experts have come out of the woodwork to explain to us how come John Kerry lost the Presidential election.  Is this the final stage of grief?...acceptance?  I am surprised at how many of John Kerry's supporters have now become his detractors.  People who voted for John Kerry can hardly stand the guy now.  A campaign that they believed was going to destroy Bush, is now recognized for being completely inept.  I'm getting whip lash just reading some of these pundits.

This would not be so bad if it were not for both the speed of the change, and vitriol with which both of these opinions have been offered.  We are not talking about people who disagree with each other here, these are the exact same people offering these contrasting views within days of each other.  The ferventness of the Kerry support in the media was nothing short of astounding.  One poll indicated that he had the unswerving support of nearly 90% of the members of the mainstream media.  The initial reaction of these media luminaries was to blame the voters, claim the Bush campaign misled voters, in some extreme cases to look for election fraud, anything but face the fact that Kerry actually lost on the issues.  Well to listen to this same group now, they all had a horribly low opinion of the guy's campaign right along.

While that provides an interesting but perplexing backdrop to read the newly minted conventional wisdom that John Kerry ran an awful campaign; my concern is that, if this is true, there looks to be some serious deception involved in the Kerry campaign coverage.  Many news stories now being reported about Kerry's campaign can only be described as 'uncomplimentary' of the candidate.  For example today we learn that the campaign was in disarray, was poorly organized and Kerry was horribly indecisive about his positions on issues.  If these stories are accurate and the media chose not to report them it reflects a shocking level of deception.  Howard Kutz reports:

"There were hints in the daily coverage that Kerry had problems with being decisive and Teresa was not completely helpful," says Evan Thomas, who wrote the Newsweek article. "But I don't think anybody tried to step back and look at the pattern of it. The press has gotten so consumed with the day-to-day that they've forgotten about or become uninterested in the whole Teddy White approach to reconstruction."

Hints?  Which hints were those pray tell?  But wait, it gets even worse:

"Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.) got special access for seven reporters segregated from its regular coverage by promising not to publish the article -- part of a forthcoming book -- until after Election Day. President Bush's campaign granted less access and periodically booted Newsweek staffers from its Arlington headquarters, once for reporting on an off-the-record campaign party."

This special access was granted when reporters promised not to publish until after the election.  So the news media, agreeing to those conditions, sold out the voters and readers in exchange for an exclusive story on the inside of the Kerry campaign.  So what you say?  Look you may not think that this matters but the media are the only source that the voters can go to for information about the candidates.  This is a huge responsibility and it is being borne with a rather callous disregard for the obligation.

Look at what the magazine found out but decided that voters didn't need to know:

"Among the magazine's findings:

• Kerry was both "cranky" and more indecisive than he was portrayed by the media. "I couldn't get the man to make decisions," said former campaign manager Jim Jordan. As late as days before the Democratic convention, Kerry was still "dithering" and presiding over endless discussions on whether to abandon public financing for the fall campaign before deciding against private fundraising. Top aides grew so tired of Kerry continuing to seek advice on issues they considered settled that they took away his cell phone."

Good lord, can you picture that trait being in charge of a response to a terrorist attack?  Am I being unfair?  Maybe only slightly.  The public depend entirely upon the media to tell us the truth.  Candidates depend upon the media to carry their message to the voters and the voters depend upon the media to tell us what is really going on.  It would be hard to argue that this is taking place when this kind of information is being withheld from voters.

• Kerry "never did learn how to deliver a speech" and was privately counseled by Washington speech coach Michael Sheehan on shifting to "a more conversational style." Ted Kennedy told Kerry he used "too much Senatese," and the candidate's daughter, Alexandra, tried to get Steven Spielberg to intervene. Kerry would cross out his speechwriters' most pithy lines as too "slogany."

• Teresa Kerry was a major "distraction" who "demanded everyone's attention, including her husband's." During the primaries she told Jordan: "I want you to issue a challenge for me to debate Howard Dean." On a Grand Canyon hike meant to provide footage of a happy family vacation, "Teresa was soon complaining of migraines" as the candidate kept pulling along "his sullen wife and children." Later, Kerry confidant John Sasso told her that she was being too critical of her husband and depressing his spirits. Reporters said last week that the billionaire heiress was banished to travel on her own before they could write about her impact.

• By the fall, Kerry was "unhappy" with senior advisers Robert Shrum and Tad Devine and "annoyed" with communications director Stephanie Cutter, described as too slow-moving and the target of frequent complaints by the traveling press corps. Several Kerry aides call the depiction of Cutter unfair, with senior adviser Joe Lockhart saying: "She had a Herculean task and overall did a very good job."

Surely there is some part of this that is in keeping with the new Democrat tradition of slaying their losers, but this information about a poorly run campaign and a campaign that is marred by a poorly performing candidate falls within the category of relevant information the press should be reporting.  At some point there is an ethical consideration involved for reporters to sit on information that the public needs to know.  This information was covered up by the media and is only now being released.

The list of newly disastified media elites grows every day.  Apparently these folks knew that Kerry was an awful candidate and chose not to inform the public.  I'm taking them at their word that they have known all along that Kerry was bad news.

Although one alternative theory suggests itself...this theory is almost too wacky for me to share.  I feel though it is my obligation to suggest this just might be the motivation behind all of these anti-Kerry stories.  Well, here goes: 

Perhaps the media can't stand the thought that the public did understand the liberal message. I mean, good heavens, if that were the case then the vote reflects:

• The complete rejection of the United Nations as a vehicle to implement US foreign policy;
• Opposition to a tax increase for any income level;
• The rejection of a Government Run Health Care Plan;
• Support for the Patriot Act; and
• Social Security reform.

The media elites might rather believe anything but that. 

I know this is wacky, but maybe Kerry did get his message out...and that was exactly his problem.