Bush sets all time record low

[1dumbdude]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9137364/

 

haha, maybe he is doing something wrong??

[JPQuiceno]

ABC Polls never lie !

[Pangloss]

Shouldn't this be on the politics board?

[Dave]

Moved.

[Dave]

My own slant on this is that it would only be a matter of time before the descending situation in Iraq and, indeed, domestic things such as petrol prices pushed the American populace over the edge. Interestingly, the article reports that opinions on Iraq haven't changed much - it seems to be Bush and moreover the entire Republican party that's getting to the public at the moment.

 

Having said that, this is an ideal opportunity for the Democrats. This is a heck of an opportunity for them to come back strongly and prove that they could have managed this entire situation better than the current administration. More importantly, any democratic system needs a strong opposition party, and anyone can see that they've been more than a little limp-wristed over the past few years.

 

I suppose the real question for the Republicans is how they're going to improve the situation. This is an area where I don't have any real expertise, and not knowing much about American current affairs doesn't really help.

[Phi for All]

Until the voting public stops listening to the spin at election time and votes with its head, special interests will continue to influence the politicians more than the voters. Right now business is happy with the way things are. Money is being made from the war, the oil crunch and heightened terrorist security.

 

The Republicans don't have to worry about Bush getting re-elected, and it will be fairly easy for them to spin off why the Bush presidency might have ended unpopularly. The Democrats have not been an opposition party for a long time and I still say it's because American voters are easily swayed by spin-doctoring from PACs and special interests. They vote emotionally and don't take the time to get informed, so they listen to the TV ads come election time.

[Dave]

Well, in my eyes, this is an ideal opportunity for the Democrats to change things. People are obviously unhappy with their current Government, and I think it would be well worth the while for Democrats to at least attempt to educate the public. Unfortunately I can't see this happening any time soon.

[1dumbdude]

Until the voting public stops listening to the spin at election time and votes with its head, special interests will continue to influence the politicians more than the voters. Right now business is happy with the way things are. Money is being made from the war, the oil crunch and heightened terrorist security. The Republicans don't have to worry about Bush getting re-elected, and it will be fairly easy for them to spin off why the Bush presidency might have ended unpopularly. The Democrats have not been an opposition party for a long time and I still say it's because American voters are easily swayed by spin-doctoring from PACs and special interests. They vote emotionally and don't take the time to get informed, so they listen to the TV ads come election time.

 

preachin the truth

[SorceressPol]

Until the voting public stops listening to the spin at election time and votes with its head' date=' special interests will continue to influence the politicians more than the voters. Right now business is happy with the way things are. Money is being made from the war, the oil crunch and heightened terrorist security.

 

The Republicans don't have to worry about Bush getting re-elected, and it will be fairly easy for them to spin off why the Bush presidency might have ended unpopularly. The Democrats have not been an opposition party for a long time and I still say it's because American voters are easily swayed by spin-doctoring from PACs and special interests. They vote emotionally and don't take the time to get informed, so they listen to the TV ads come election time.[/quote']

 

I voted Bush and I did not vote because of the crap I heard on tv. This was my first time voting, and it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. Both Republicans and democrats annoy me, but when the best the democrats could come up with was Kerry, that made my vote a lot easier.

[john5746]

We are actually having gas stations running out of gas here in South Carolina. I think they will soon get some shipments, but it will be costly!

 

I don't think Bush could have done much with the oil prices. He has tapped into the reserves and I think he should ask the public to try and only use what is necessary and possibly reduce federal taxation on the gas for a short while.

[john5746]

I voted Bush and I did not vote because of the crap I heard on tv. This was my first time voting, and it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made. Both Republicans and democrats annoy me, but when the best the democrats could come up with was Kerry, that made my vote a lot easier.

 

So, what was the major problem with Kerry?

[Pangloss]

I think Iraq has been a steady drain on Bush's support, but two other factors have come into play: The lack of immediate threat to the president (that's the "liberals are attacking him!" support) (or as Phi put it, they don't have to worry about getting him re-elected), and the high price of energy.

 

One of the funkier things at work here is this:

 

Liberal/left spin: Everyone is deep in debt because they lost their jobs thanks to Bush. The economy is miserable, there are no jobs to be found, and so nobody can afford gasoline.

 

Conservative/right spin: People have foolishly sunk themselves into debt because they're busy trying to keep up with the Jonses by buying SUVs, expensive houses they don't need, and home electronics out the wazoo, and so nobody can afford gasoline.

 

Either way you spin it, everyone's upset. It's a "perfect storm".

[Phi for All]

So, what was the major problem with Kerry?

Don't even go there.

 

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who makes an informed choice and doesn't simply "vote the family party" (or against it, just for cussedness sake), or let the bulk of their political decisions be made for them by TV ads at election time, has voted well. I hate that the two party system in the USA has become a dividing line for voters. Most partisan voters are clinging to ideals that the Reps and Dems abondoned long ago.

 

Raise your hand if you voted for the "moderate Republican" in 2000.

 

Raise your hand if you voted for Clinton the Democrat and got Clinton the Republican.

[CPL.Luke]

the current democratic party has become impotent, all the republicans have to do is use the word liberal and it kills them, the irony is that the republicans are now the liberal party in most instances (especially in foreign policy) while the democrats have become farely conservative on most issues.

 

Also, the democratic party has gotten so obsessed with regaining some semblance of power that most people voted for kerry just because they didn't want bush anymore. The primary system also failed in the 2004 election because the news spent s much time on the iowa caucuses that once kerry won those everyone just fell in behind him, I actually heard one pundit (forgot his name) say "I liked dean alot, but I'm being a good democrat and getting behind kerry" (paraphrased). This thinking essentially got the democratic party to get behind someone they didn't really back (I can't tell you how many times I heard the phrase "he's the lesser of two evils" in relation to kerry), then they all complained about it in the election. If you don't like a candidate take it upon yourself to vote in the primaries.

 

also Bush's tactic of winning the election was just to appeal to faith while not blatantly preaching, this is what has won therepublicans the plain states (50 years ago those were democrat). Furthermore after making the appeal to faith all he does is run off talking points, case and point being his rapid repition of the words "freedom" and "liberty" and "war on terror" etc. these amount to little more than talking points, but in a twenty four hour news cycle the inevitable effect is that the people who we are supposed to turn to for advice and coverage of these events don't have anything to analyze without coming across as blatantly attacking bush. So, these phrases get plastered all over the news without any analysys, and since a large number of people are bent slightly towards bush because of faith, they take them as real incite and use them to argue for why bush is doing a good job.

 

When the democrats try and use this tactic against bush they are left with phrases such as "religion should not be in schools" and while the minority democrats will say that that is a great point, the majority of americans who do heavily believe in the bible (especially in the south and the plain states) it comes across as "god doesn't exist" or "the bible is evil". This coupled with The bush administrations ability to have 3rd party lobbyists create ads that blatantly slander kerry and implant ideas into the general public, such as the infamous gun boat veterans against kerry ad, can turn a candidate who is otherwise really no worse than any other, into a horrible candidate that people are only voting for to get rid of the other guy.

 

The two main factors I see influencing the next election are that people are getting fundamentally tired of hearing talking points, for instance the republicans successfully changed the reason why we went into iraq no less than three times, and the possibility that future democratic candidates (assuming most of the party leaders get booted out) actually sit down and talk about the issues rather than just giving out talking points. Kerry claimed on multiple occasions that he had a plan that would essentially be a miracle cure for the american economy, but never really allowed the votig populace to see it in all its detail. What would truly be effective in a future candidate is just for him to be blatantly honest and use every republican attempt to slander his image to hit them back, ie. responding with a full press conference and explain away any criticism of his in all of the boring detail.

 

 

 

Also one thing that I would like to see is the arrival of the british method for questioning the prime minister candidates. I saw a talk blair gave to a crowd that practicly attacked him with questions that did detract from his case. In america all conferences are so heavily screened that you have people litterally standing up just to say what a good job the president is doing.

[Pangloss]

The two main factors I see influencing the next election are that people are getting fundamentally tired of hearing talking points, for instance the republicans successfully changed the reason why we went into iraq no less than three times, and the possibility that future democratic candidates (assuming most of the party leaders get booted out) actually sit down and talk about the issues rather than just giving out talking points.

 

Interesting perspective.

[john5746]

The two main factors I see influencing the next election are that people are getting fundamentally tired of hearing talking points' date=' for instance the republicans successfully changed the reason why we went into iraq no less than three times, and the possibility that future democratic candidates (assuming most of the party leaders get booted out) actually sit down and talk about the issues rather than just giving out talking points. Kerry claimed on multiple occasions that he had a plan that would essentially be a miracle cure for the american economy, but never really allowed the votig populace to see it in all its detail. What would truly be effective in a future candidate is just for him to be blatantly honest and use every republican attempt to slander his image to hit them back, ie. responding with a full press conference and explain away any criticism of his in all of the boring detail.

[/quote']

Hope you are correct. Also, I hope they pay attention to leadership skills. I think people dream that the president will come in with all the good ideas in place and whip the country in shape. Really, they need to be able to work with congress to get things done and talk intelligently.

[j_p]

So, what was the major problem with Kerry?

 

He's wicked smart. Americans prefer charm.

 

Please contradict me with your votes.

 

I think the U.S. system, unlike parlimentary systems, would benefit from a strong third party.

[CPL.Luke]

eh I wouldn't go as far as to say that, a third party in the US usually has the effect of diminsishing the effectiveness of one of the parties and in effect, making one of the three parties a majority interest even though it only has half the senate floor.

 

I personally would be fearful of a democratic system in which 3 or more parties have roughly equal footing, because it allows for the population to be governed by a very small minority. For instance two of the three parties has 33 seats on the senate floor, one party would hve 34 seats, that coupled with the presidency essentially makes the entire populace governed by a 33% minority.

 

democratic systems really can only have 2 parties on equal footing.

 

 

Also as for kerry, he wasn't that good. I personnally feel that while he was better than bush (although lets face it the dead rabbit in my back yard is better than him ) he was put into the place he was in more because the democratic voters failed to turn out in the primaries and actallly vote on who they wanted rather than just on who they thought could win.

[j_p]

I think that a tripartate republic is the only system that would benefit from a strong third party. [They certainly play hell in a parlimentary system.]

 

Two parties create a false dualism; I think that a strong third party would force the two main parties to work toward consenus. The Libertarian Party should find a way to be that third party, as its core philosophy appeals to those on both the Left and the Right. Unfortunately, it appeals most to those who have given up on government.

[Skye]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9137364/

 

haha' date=' maybe he is doing something wrong?? [/quote']

Maybe, but the article also says the Democrats are faring no better. I suppose there is general dissatisfaction that is directed at both parties.

[1dumbdude]

Maybe, but the article also says the Democrats are faring no better. I suppose there is general dissatisfaction that is directed at both parties.

 

i agree, people here are just so fustrated and aggravated we dont know what to think or who to support (this is a generalization please dont flame me for that statement, i know this isnt true for everybody)

[CPL.Luke]

1 interesting thing that coul happen (although very unlikely) would be for a number of standing senators and such toform a new party just to try and distance themselves from the current two parties stance. They would probably do very well in the next two elections if they did that.

[Edisonian]

Now it's below 40%.