| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"thereactionary" |
| Date: |
21 Oct 2004 09:51:05 AM |
| Object: |
What do the polls tell us at this point. |
These are the latest poll from all the organizations.
I took the liberty of updating the Zogby results to
what they show today.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm?track=rss
10/20/04
What the polls are telling us
By Michael Barone
One week after the third and final presidential debate, there are
enough post-debate polls to tell us where the election stands today.
Here the results are gathered together by realclearpolitics.com. These
are for the three-way pairings, plus the two-way pairings by
Rasmussen, which doesn't ask a three-way question. Bush's percentages
are listed first.
Fox News 49-42
Washington Post/ABC 51-46
Zogby 46-45
TIPP 48-46
CBS News 47-45
CNN/USAT/Gallup 52-44
Time 48-47
Newsweek 50-44
Rasmussen 48-47
Average 49-45
Note that George W. Bush's percentages range from 46 to 52 percent
while John Kerry's percentages range from 42 to 47 percent. In only
one poll does Bush fall below 47 percent, which is Kerry's highest
percentage.
It seems highly likely that Bush emerged from the debates a little bit
ahead. Some Kerry backers argue that voters who are still undecided
are likely to end up voting against the incumbent. But it's also
possible that many of these will just not vote. And in any case, Bush
is bumping up against the magic number of 50 percent. The debates
helped John Kerry but evidently not enough to put him ahead.
Of course, these numbers are not etched in stone. They could change
over the last two weeks. And John Kerry is close enough that it will
take only a shift of a few percentage points to put him ahead. But he
is not likely again to speak to as broad an audience as he did at the
Democratic National Convention in Boston or the three debates in
Miami, St. Louis, and Tempe.
These numbers are something of a rebuke to conventional wisdom. Most
political insiders supposed that if Kerry was judged the winner of the
three debates he would wind up leading Bush. Most political insiders
thought Kerry did win all the debates (I didn't; I thought Bush won
the second and the third). But, as with his convention, he didn't get
the bounce they expected.
But there is something else that is curious about the numbers in the
polls, when viewed over the whole course of the campaign since John
Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination on March 2. Blogger Steven
Den Beste has prepared an interesting chart. Den Beste charges that
pollsters "deliberately gimmicked" the results, "in hopes of helping
Kerry." I don't agree with that at all. But he has made another
interesting observation. Eliminating some of the peaks and valleys of
the Bush and Kerry percentages in realclearpolitics.com's average of
recent polls, Den Beste shows that Bush's percentages have tended to
rise over time while Kerry's have risen much less if at all.
He draws the Bush long-term trend line from a low point around 43
percent in May, when the media were full of stories about the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal, to higher numbers around 45 percent in July and
August, then up to the 49 percent level he has reached today. His
long-term Kerry trend line runs through the 44 to 45 percent level in
the spring to the 45 to 46 percent level in August, after the
Democratic National Convention, to the same 45 to 46 percent level of
today.
.
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
21 Oct 2004 04:41:36 PM |
|
|
(thereactionary) wrote in message news:<831523e4.0410210651.4335217@posting.google.com>...
These are the latest poll from all the organizations.
I took the liberty of updating the Zogby results to
what they show today.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm?track=rss
10/20/04
What the polls are telling us
By Michael Barone
One week after the third and final presidential debate, there are
enough post-debate polls to tell us where the election stands today.
Here the results are gathered together by realclearpolitics.com. These
are for the three-way pairings, plus the two-way pairings by
Rasmussen, which doesn't ask a three-way question. Bush's percentages
are listed first.
Fox News 49-42
Washington Post/ABC 51-46
Zogby 46-45
TIPP 48-46
CBS News 47-45
CNN/USAT/Gallup 52-44
Time 48-47
Newsweek 50-44
Rasmussen 48-47
Average 49-45
Note that George W. Bush's percentages range from 46 to 52 percent
while John Kerry's percentages range from 42 to 47 percent. In only
one poll does Bush fall below 47 percent, which is Kerry's highest
percentage.
It seems highly likely that Bush emerged from the debates a little bit
ahead. Some Kerry backers argue that voters who are still undecided
are likely to end up voting against the incumbent. But it's also
possible that many of these will just not vote. And in any case, Bush
is bumping up against the magic number of 50 percent. The debates
helped John Kerry but evidently not enough to put him ahead.
Of course, these numbers are not etched in stone. They could change
over the last two weeks. And John Kerry is close enough that it will
take only a shift of a few percentage points to put him ahead. But he
is not likely again to speak to as broad an audience as he did at the
Democratic National Convention in Boston or the three debates in
Miami, St. Louis, and Tempe.
These numbers are something of a rebuke to conventional wisdom. Most
political insiders supposed that if Kerry was judged the winner of the
three debates he would wind up leading Bush. Most political insiders
thought Kerry did win all the debates (I didn't; I thought Bush won
the second and the third). But, as with his convention, he didn't get
the bounce they expected.
But there is something else that is curious about the numbers in the
polls, when viewed over the whole course of the campaign since John
Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination on March 2. Blogger Steven
Den Beste has prepared an interesting chart. Den Beste charges that
pollsters "deliberately gimmicked" the results, "in hopes of helping
Kerry." I don't agree with that at all. But he has made another
interesting observation. Eliminating some of the peaks and valleys of
the Bush and Kerry percentages in realclearpolitics.com's average of
recent polls, Den Beste shows that Bush's percentages have tended to
rise over time while Kerry's have risen much less if at all.
He draws the Bush long-term trend line from a low point around 43
percent in May, when the media were full of stories about the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal, to higher numbers around 45 percent in July and
August, then up to the 49 percent level he has reached today. His
long-term Kerry trend line runs through the 44 to 45 percent level in
the spring to the 45 to 46 percent level in August, after the
Democratic National Convention, to the same 45 to 46 percent level of
today.
Most polls are likely to be wrong unless they include a fair number of
cell telephone users. Most don't. Here's a columnfrom Jimmy Breslin
discussing it:
On Sept. 15, there were 168,900,019 cell phones in America, according
to the cell phone institute in Washington. Not one phone user was
called by the political pollsters reporting with such marvelous
accuracy on the Bush-Kerry race.
A month later, on yesterday afternoon, there now were 170,475,160 cell
phones in America, according to the cell phone institute. In one
month, 1,575,000 new cell phones have been bought. Not one cell phone
has been called [in polls]during the presidential campaign. This is
because there
is no method for polling cell phones. Nobody has their numbers. Nor do
they know who the users are, where they live and what they do. You
have 170 million phones and you talk to none of them and then try to
say you know what the public is thinking.
A month ago, pollster John Zogby said he had discontinued telephone
polls because cell phones had made any and all results meaningless.
Now if you pay attention to polls, you are insane.
Yesterday, the polls showed a Bush surge. It never happened because
they were basing it on thin air. There also were figures showing Kerry
winning states like Ohio in the Midwest. They came up with the
percentages without calling one cell phone of the millions and
millions of them in the area. I believe nothing.
Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead
heat. Nobody knows that. With a huge number of new registered voters,
overwhelmingly of color, and young, and with 40 million using cell
phones, the only thing going on in this election is how many times
George Bush goes under before he drowns on Election Day. As he should.
He is the
worst president we have had, maybe ever.
.
|
|
|
| User: "TR" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
21 Oct 2004 10:34:39 PM |
|
|
The majority of those 170 million cell phones users can
also be contacted by regular phone.
There is no reason to think that cell phone use is
higher among liberals than among conservatives.
Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead
heat.
Only liberals unwilling to face reality maintain that it is a
dead heat. All polls taken together show Bush with a
4% lead. And the margin of error is greatly reduced when
you consider 10,000 samples instead of 1,000.
By the way, Bush's lead increased from one point to two
in the Rassmussen poll today.
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410211341.46449ce3@posting.google.com...
thereactionary@mindspring.com (thereactionary) wrote in message
news:<831523e4.0410210651.4335217@posting.google.com>...
These are the latest poll from all the organizations.
I took the liberty of updating the Zogby results to
what they show today.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm?track=rss
10/20/04
What the polls are telling us
By Michael Barone
One week after the third and final presidential debate, there are
enough post-debate polls to tell us where the election stands today.
Here the results are gathered together by realclearpolitics.com. These
are for the three-way pairings, plus the two-way pairings by
Rasmussen, which doesn't ask a three-way question. Bush's percentages
are listed first.
Fox News 49-42
Washington Post/ABC 51-46
Zogby 46-45
TIPP 48-46
CBS News 47-45
CNN/USAT/Gallup 52-44
Time 48-47
Newsweek 50-44
Rasmussen 48-47
Average 49-45
Note that George W. Bush's percentages range from 46 to 52 percent
while John Kerry's percentages range from 42 to 47 percent. In only
one poll does Bush fall below 47 percent, which is Kerry's highest
percentage.
It seems highly likely that Bush emerged from the debates a little bit
ahead. Some Kerry backers argue that voters who are still undecided
are likely to end up voting against the incumbent. But it's also
possible that many of these will just not vote. And in any case, Bush
is bumping up against the magic number of 50 percent. The debates
helped John Kerry but evidently not enough to put him ahead.
Of course, these numbers are not etched in stone. They could change
over the last two weeks. And John Kerry is close enough that it will
take only a shift of a few percentage points to put him ahead. But he
is not likely again to speak to as broad an audience as he did at the
Democratic National Convention in Boston or the three debates in
Miami, St. Louis, and Tempe.
These numbers are something of a rebuke to conventional wisdom. Most
political insiders supposed that if Kerry was judged the winner of the
three debates he would wind up leading Bush. Most political insiders
thought Kerry did win all the debates (I didn't; I thought Bush won
the second and the third). But, as with his convention, he didn't get
the bounce they expected.
But there is something else that is curious about the numbers in the
polls, when viewed over the whole course of the campaign since John
Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination on March 2. Blogger Steven
Den Beste has prepared an interesting chart. Den Beste charges that
pollsters "deliberately gimmicked" the results, "in hopes of helping
Kerry." I don't agree with that at all. But he has made another
interesting observation. Eliminating some of the peaks and valleys of
the Bush and Kerry percentages in realclearpolitics.com's average of
recent polls, Den Beste shows that Bush's percentages have tended to
rise over time while Kerry's have risen much less if at all.
He draws the Bush long-term trend line from a low point around 43
percent in May, when the media were full of stories about the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal, to higher numbers around 45 percent in July and
August, then up to the 49 percent level he has reached today. His
long-term Kerry trend line runs through the 44 to 45 percent level in
the spring to the 45 to 46 percent level in August, after the
Democratic National Convention, to the same 45 to 46 percent level of
today.
Most polls are likely to be wrong unless they include a fair number of
cell telephone users. Most don't. Here's a columnfrom Jimmy Breslin
discussing it:
On Sept. 15, there were 168,900,019 cell phones in America, according
to the cell phone institute in Washington. Not one phone user was
called by the political pollsters reporting with such marvelous
accuracy on the Bush-Kerry race.
A month later, on yesterday afternoon, there now were 170,475,160 cell
phones in America, according to the cell phone institute. In one
month, 1,575,000 new cell phones have been bought. Not one cell phone
has been called [in polls]during the presidential campaign. This is
because there
is no method for polling cell phones. Nobody has their numbers. Nor do
they know who the users are, where they live and what they do. You
have 170 million phones and you talk to none of them and then try to
say you know what the public is thinking.
A month ago, pollster John Zogby said he had discontinued telephone
polls because cell phones had made any and all results meaningless.
Now if you pay attention to polls, you are insane.
Yesterday, the polls showed a Bush surge. It never happened because
they were basing it on thin air. There also were figures showing Kerry
winning states like Ohio in the Midwest. They came up with the
percentages without calling one cell phone of the millions and
millions of them in the area. I believe nothing.
Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead
heat. Nobody knows that. With a huge number of new registered voters,
overwhelmingly of color, and young, and with 40 million using cell
phones, the only thing going on in this election is how many times
George Bush goes under before he drowns on Election Day. As he should.
He is the
worst president we have had, maybe ever.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
22 Oct 2004 08:56:32 AM |
|
|
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<jd%dd.3857$%h1.754@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
The majority of those 170 million cell phones users can
also be contacted by regular phone.
There is no reason to think that cell phone use is
higher among liberals than among conservatives.
Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead
heat.
Only liberals unwilling to face reality maintain that it is a
dead heat. All polls taken together show Bush with a
4% lead. And the margin of error is greatly reduced when
you consider 10,000 samples instead of 1,000.
By the way, Bush's lead increased from one point to two
in the Rassmussen poll today.
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410211341.46449ce3@posting.google.com...
thereactionary@mindspring.com (thereactionary) wrote in message
news:<831523e4.0410210651.4335217@posting.google.com>...
These are the latest poll from all the organizations.
I took the liberty of updating the Zogby results to
what they show today.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm?track=rss
10/20/04
What the polls are telling us
By Michael Barone
One week after the third and final presidential debate, there are
enough post-debate polls to tell us where the election stands today.
Here the results are gathered together by realclearpolitics.com. These
are for the three-way pairings, plus the two-way pairings by
Rasmussen, which doesn't ask a three-way question. Bush's percentages
are listed first.
Fox News 49-42
Washington Post/ABC 51-46
Zogby 46-45
TIPP 48-46
CBS News 47-45
CNN/USAT/Gallup 52-44
Time 48-47
Newsweek 50-44
Rasmussen 48-47
Average 49-45
Note that George W. Bush's percentages range from 46 to 52 percent
while John Kerry's percentages range from 42 to 47 percent. In only
one poll does Bush fall below 47 percent, which is Kerry's highest
percentage.
It seems highly likely that Bush emerged from the debates a little bit
ahead. Some Kerry backers argue that voters who are still undecided
are likely to end up voting against the incumbent. But it's also
possible that many of these will just not vote. And in any case, Bush
is bumping up against the magic number of 50 percent. The debates
helped John Kerry but evidently not enough to put him ahead.
Of course, these numbers are not etched in stone. They could change
over the last two weeks. And John Kerry is close enough that it will
take only a shift of a few percentage points to put him ahead. But he
is not likely again to speak to as broad an audience as he did at the
Democratic National Convention in Boston or the three debates in
Miami, St. Louis, and Tempe.
These numbers are something of a rebuke to conventional wisdom. Most
political insiders supposed that if Kerry was judged the winner of the
three debates he would wind up leading Bush. Most political insiders
thought Kerry did win all the debates (I didn't; I thought Bush won
the second and the third). But, as with his convention, he didn't get
the bounce they expected.
But there is something else that is curious about the numbers in the
polls, when viewed over the whole course of the campaign since John
Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination on March 2. Blogger Steven
Den Beste has prepared an interesting chart. Den Beste charges that
pollsters "deliberately gimmicked" the results, "in hopes of helping
Kerry." I don't agree with that at all. But he has made another
interesting observation. Eliminating some of the peaks and valleys of
the Bush and Kerry percentages in realclearpolitics.com's average of
recent polls, Den Beste shows that Bush's percentages have tended to
rise over time while Kerry's have risen much less if at all.
He draws the Bush long-term trend line from a low point around 43
percent in May, when the media were full of stories about the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal, to higher numbers around 45 percent in July and
August, then up to the 49 percent level he has reached today. His
long-term Kerry trend line runs through the 44 to 45 percent level in
the spring to the 45 to 46 percent level in August, after the
Democratic National Convention, to the same 45 to 46 percent level of
today.
Most polls are likely to be wrong unless they include a fair number of
cell telephone users. Most don't. Here's a columnfrom Jimmy Breslin
discussing it:
On Sept. 15, there were 168,900,019 cell phones in America, according
to the cell phone institute in Washington. Not one phone user was
called by the political pollsters reporting with such marvelous
accuracy on the Bush-Kerry race.
A month later, on yesterday afternoon, there now were 170,475,160 cell
phones in America, according to the cell phone institute. In one
month, 1,575,000 new cell phones have been bought. Not one cell phone
has been called [in polls]during the presidential campaign. This is
because there
is no method for polling cell phones. Nobody has their numbers. Nor do
they know who the users are, where they live and what they do. You
have 170 million phones and you talk to none of them and then try to
say you know what the public is thinking.
A month ago, pollster John Zogby said he had discontinued telephone
polls because cell phones had made any and all results meaningless.
Now if you pay attention to polls, you are insane.
Yesterday, the polls showed a Bush surge. It never happened because
they were basing it on thin air. There also were figures showing Kerry
winning states like Ohio in the Midwest. They came up with the
percentages without calling one cell phone of the millions and
millions of them in the area. I believe nothing.
Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead
heat. Nobody knows that. With a huge number of new registered voters,
overwhelmingly of color, and young, and with 40 million using cell
phones, the only thing going on in this election is how many times
George Bush goes under before he drowns on Election Day. As he should.
He is the
worst president we have had, maybe ever.
.
|
|
|
| User: "TR" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
23 Oct 2004 11:02:12 PM |
|
|
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
24 Oct 2004 02:00:25 PM |
|
|
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
Regardless, a president who takes the nation to war has an obligation
to win that war as quickly, efficiently and painlessly as possible.
Bush has not done that. The management of the conflict in Iraq is
abysmal. The United States went into Iraq without enough international
support and brought too few of our own troops to complete the job. "
And that is what I am saying. I also backed the war, but I feel that I
was mislead, and I feel that the war has been mismanaged. I don't like
Kerry either, but I cannot vote for this kind of mismanagement.
.
|
|
|
| User: "TR" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
24 Oct 2004 07:42:37 PM |
|
|
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
--
http://thereactionary.home.mindspring.com
.
|
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
25 Oct 2004 09:00:03 AM |
|
|
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1_Xed.800$kM.687@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
It was the Detroit News who said that it might be avoided. I
just posted the quotation. I can uderstand their feeling however. I
supported the war initially largely because of WMD. I still think it
is right morally to have removed Saddam. But if the Bush
administration
lied to us about WMD and about the urgency of invading--that it had to
be
done at that time, not later, and that a delay of a month or three or
six was impossible--then I regard what they did as immoral. It is not
moral to lie to us even for good purposes. We citizens deserve to be
treated honestly.
But, some way that it wasn't a lie. Maybe it wasn't a lie. Maybe it
was only a series of enormous mistakes. The Detroit News is right
about the bungling in the period after the war--failing to seal off
the borders and to employ the army, etc. This is reason enough to vote
against the Bush team. If they
mislead us, or mislead themselves by failing to be critical on the
intelligence estimates, or believed "there's not going to be
casualties" -- that's all extra, meaning additional reasons on top of
the bungling to vote against them.
As to whether other countries will aide in Iraq now. Maybe not. But we
always have to try and keep on trying. Recent reports indicate that a
lot of Muslims living in Europe are being attracted to Iraq to fight
us, and the Europeans worry that those fighters will eventually go
back to Europe. So, we can ask nicely for their help and remind them
that it is in their interest to stop the attacks--or just to help us
seal the borders against terrorists. Bust can try to do this as well
as Kerry, but there is certainly personal animosity
against him and against the Bush administration. Remember all the
Rumsfeld talk about "old Europe?"
The Detroit News simply says that we have to have decent alliances,
not animosity. We need their help on a lot of other things besides
Iraq--such as intelligence about terrorists elsewhere. They need our
help too. Unfortunately, right now neither side can see past their
anger.
I notice you do not comment on the Detroit News's comments about how
the Bush adminstration looked at the intelligence: "Acting on
intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by the
administration to match its agenda.." and the way that the war is
being run: "The management of the conflict in Iraq is abysmal." And
this: "There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi
army, leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi
nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a
stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass."
What a mess! Why should we reward the team that dumped us into this
mess?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
25 Oct 2004 08:55:29 AM |
|
|
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1_Xed.800$kM.687@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
Remember it was the Detroit News who said that it might be avoided. I
just put the quotation. I can uderstand their feeling however. I
supported the war initially largely because of WMD. I still think it
is right morally to have emoved Saddam. But if the Bush administration
lied to us about WMD and about the urgency of invading--it had to be
done at that time, not later--then I regard what they did as immoral.
It is not moral to lie to us even for good purposes. We citizens
deserve to be treated honestly.
Now, maybe it wasn't a lie. Maybe it was only a series of enormous
mistakes. The Detroit News is right about the bungling in the period
after the war--failing to seal off the borders and to employ the army,
etc. This is reason enough to vote against the Bush team. If they
mislead us, or mislead themselves by failing to be critical on the
intelligence estimates, or believed "there's not going to be
casualties" -- that's all extra, meaning additional reasons on top of
the bungling.
As to whether other countries will aide in Iraq now. Maybe not. But of
course we always have to try and keep on trying. Recent reports
indicate that a lot of Muslims living in Europe are being attracted to
Iraq to fight us, and the Europeans worry that those fighters will
eventually go back to Europe. So, we can ask nicely for their help and
remind them that it is in their interest to stop the attacks--or just
to help us seal the borders against terrorists. Bust can try to do
this as well as Kerry, but there is certainly personal animosity
against him and against the Bus administration. Remember all the
Rumsfeld talk about "old Europe?"
The Detroit News simply says that we have to have decent alliances,
not animosity. We need their help on a lot of other things besides
Iraq--such as intelligence about terrorists elsewhere. They need our
help too. Unfortunately, right now neither side can see past their
anger.
I notice you do not comment on the Detroit News's comments about how
the Bush adminstration looked at the intelligence: "Acting on
intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by the
administration to match its agenda.." and the way that the war is
being run: "The management of the conflict in Iraq is abysmal." And
this: "There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi
army, leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi
nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a
stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass."
What a mess! Why should we reward the team that dumped us into this
mess?
.
|
|
|
| User: "thereactionary" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
25 Oct 2004 06:27:05 PM |
|
|
(Paul) wrote in message news:<1ac4db3e.0410250555.6becfb6@posting.google.com>...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1_Xed.800$kM.687@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" < > wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" < > wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
Remember it was the Detroit News who said that it might be avoided. I
just put the quotation. I can uderstand their feeling however. I
supported the war initially largely because of WMD. I still think it
is right morally to have emoved Saddam. But if the Bush administration
lied to us about WMD and about the urgency of invading--it had to be
done at that time, not later--then I regard what they did as immoral.
It is not moral to lie to us even for good purposes. We citizens
deserve to be treated honestly.
Now, maybe it wasn't a lie. Maybe it was only a series of enormous
mistakes. The Detroit News is right about the bungling in the period
after the war--failing to seal off the borders and to employ the army,
etc.
Some of these things don't make any sense at all.
You couldn't seal off the borders if you had a million
troops in Iraq.
This is reason enough to vote against the Bush team. If they
mislead us, or mislead themselves by failing to be critical on the
intelligence estimates, or believed "there's not going to be
casualties" -- that's all extra, meaning additional reasons on top of
the bungling.
The estimates of much of the left were that half
a million would die in the war. Their estimates
were even further off. The left also predicted that
Afghanistan would treat us the same as it treated the
Russians. Are you of the opinion that a president
must have a crystal ball regarding a war. Have you
ever looked at all of the things that were bungled in
WWI and WWII. And Bush never said that there would
not be casualties.
As to whether other countries will aide in Iraq now. Maybe not. But of
course we always have to try and keep on trying.
We tried and we have kept on trying. But what can you
do when countries like France say that they want people
like Zaraqawi at the negotiating table. The French
clearly want to impose conditions that guarantee the
failures of any such meetings.
Recent reports
indicate that a lot of Muslims living in Europe are being attracted to
Iraq to fight us, and the Europeans worry that those fighters will
eventually go back to Europe. So, we can ask nicely for their help and
remind them that it is in their interest to stop the attacks--or just
to help us seal the borders against terrorists. Bust can try to do
this as well as Kerry, but there is certainly personal animosity
against him and against the Bus administration. Remember all the
Rumsfeld talk about "old Europe?"
Rumsfeld's remark came after European politicians in
high places said much worse about us.
The Detroit News simply says that we have to have decent alliances,
not animosity.
How can you have decent alliances against indecent
allies that have sold out to Saddam.
We need their help on a lot of other things besides
Iraq--such as intelligence about terrorists elsewhere. They need our
help too. Unfortunately, right now neither side can see past their
anger.
I notice you do not comment on the Detroit News's comments about how
the Bush adminstration looked at the intelligence: "Acting on
intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by the
administration to match its agenda.." and the way that the war is
being run: "The management of the conflict in Iraq is abysmal."
That is simply an opinion. If conducting a war was like
baking cookies then you could say that it was abysmal. But
the News seems to forget that there is another side who is
trying to do everything in their power to prevent our
success. We are in fact succeeding in Iraq. We will have
elections in all districts. There are going to be a lot
of Islamofacsists along the way that have to be killed, and
it will take time, but we are going to get it done. Did
you see that there was not a singe successful attack that
was made against the Afghanistan elections?
And
this: "There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi
army,
That was an excellent call. There is a very high
probability that many in the Iraqi Army would have
stayed loyal to the Baath party and that they would
have undermined our efforts from the inside. You can
always make a monday morning quarterback call and
claim that it would have been better. But it may
just have been worse.
leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi
nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a
stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass."
What a mess! Why should we reward the team that dumped us into this
mess?
What would you and the News have said after we had lost
400,000 in WWII and we had still not won? What would
you have said after we had lost many thousands of troops
taking the barren Island of Iwo Jima?
When you call Iraq a mess, what are you comparing it
to. What standard are you using? You are only comparing
it to an imaginary standard of people saying that they
could have done things better, fast, cheaper, cleaner, etc.
But that is all BS. Their plan may well have been worse.
Compare the initial war to other wars. Compare the guerilla
war to other guerilla wars.
Take a look at this.
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page01.htm
And with regard to your question about Bush lying
to us look at these quotes:
Quotes from Kerry (and others)
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation . And now he is miscalculating America's ! response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction So
the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" -
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That
is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear we
want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal
here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest
security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time
since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18,1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US
Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,
air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI),
Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry (D - MA), and others Oct. 9,1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass
destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he
has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass
destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton
Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that .. Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons
programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs
continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam
continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a
licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten
the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by
Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat
to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the
United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of
delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical
weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in
power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing
weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), S! ept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are
confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to
build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd
(D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority
to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe
that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real
and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively
to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the
next five years .. We also should remember we have always underestimated the
progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."-
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every
significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has
refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that
Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons
stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also
given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda
members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will
continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare,
and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D,
NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam
Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for
the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob
Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
.
|
|
|
| User: "Paul" |
|
| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
26 Oct 2004 08:57:30 AM |
|
|
(thereactionary) wrote in message news:<831523e4.0410251527.4ef32999@posting.google.com>...
smrstrauss@aol.com (Paul) wrote in message news:<1ac4db3e.0410250555.6becfb6@posting.google.com>...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1_Xed.800$kM.687@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
Remember it was the Detroit News who said that it might be avoided. I
just put the quotation. I can uderstand their feeling however. I
supported the war initially largely because of WMD. I still think it
is right morally to have emoved Saddam. But if the Bush administration
lied to us about WMD and about the urgency of invading--it had to be
done at that time, not later--then I regard what they did as immoral.
It is not moral to lie to us even for good purposes. We citizens
deserve to be treated honestly.
Now, maybe it wasn't a lie. Maybe it was only a series of enormous
mistakes. The Detroit News is right about the bungling in the period
after the war--failing to seal off the borders and to employ the army,
etc.
Some of these things don't make any sense at all.
You couldn't seal off the borders if you had a million
troops in Iraq.
This is reason enough to vote against the Bush team. If they
mislead us, or mislead themselves by failing to be critical on the
intelligence estimates, or believed "there's not going to be
casualties" -- that's all extra, meaning additional reasons on top of
the bungling.
The estimates of much of the left were that half
a million would die in the war. Their estimates
were even further off. The left also predicted that
Afghanistan would treat us the same as it treated the
Russians. Are you of the opinion that a president
must have a crystal ball regarding a war. Have you
ever looked at all of the things that were bungled in
WWI and WWII. And Bush never said that there would
not be casualties.
As to whether other countries will aide in Iraq now. Maybe not. But of
course we always have to try and keep on trying.
We tried and we have kept on trying. But what can you
do when countries like France say that they want people
like Zaraqawi at the negotiating table. The French
clearly want to impose conditions that guarantee the
failures of any such meetings.
Recent reports
indicate that a lot of Muslims living in Europe are being attracted to
Iraq to fight us, and the Europeans worry that those fighters will
eventually go back to Europe. So, we can ask nicely for their help and
remind them that it is in their interest to stop the attacks--or just
to help us seal the borders against terrorists. Bust can try to do
this as well as Kerry, but there is certainly personal animosity
against him and against the Bus administration. Remember all the
Rumsfeld talk about "old Europe?"
Rumsfeld's remark came after European politicians in
high places said much worse about us.
The Detroit News simply says that we have to have decent alliances,
not animosity.
How can you have decent alliances against indecent
allies that have sold out to Saddam.
We need their help on a lot of other things besides
Iraq--such as intelligence about terrorists elsewhere. They need our
help too. Unfortunately, right now neither side can see past their
anger.
I notice you do not comment on the Detroit News's comments about how
the Bush adminstration looked at the intelligence: "Acting on
intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by the
administration to match its agenda.." and the way that the war is
being run: "The management of the conflict in Iraq is abysmal."
That is simply an opinion. If conducting a war was like
baking cookies then you could say that it was abysmal. But
the News seems to forget that there is another side who is
trying to do everything in their power to prevent our
success. We are in fact succeeding in Iraq. We will have
elections in all districts. There are going to be a lot
of Islamofacsists along the way that have to be killed, and
it will take time, but we are going to get it done. Did
you see that there was not a singe successful attack that
was made against the Afghanistan elections?
And
this: "There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi
army,
That was an excellent call. There is a very high
probability that many in the Iraqi Army would have
stayed loyal to the Baath party and that they would
have undermined our efforts from the inside. You can
always make a monday morning quarterback call and
claim that it would have been better. But it may
just have been worse.
leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi
nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a
stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass."
What a mess! Why should we reward the team that dumped us into this
mess?
What would you and the News have said after we had lost
400,000 in WWII and we had still not won? What would
you have said after we had lost many thousands of troops
taking the barren Island of Iwo Jima?
When you call Iraq a mess, what are you comparing it
to. What standard are you using? You are only comparing
it to an imaginary standard of people saying that they
could have done things better, fast, cheaper, cleaner, etc.
But that is all BS. Their plan may well have been worse.
Compare the initial war to other wars. Compare the guerilla
war to other guerilla wars.
Take a look at this.
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page01.htm
And with regard to your question about Bush lying
to us look at these quotes:
Quotes from Kerry (and others)
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation . And now he is miscalculating America's ! response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction So
the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" -
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That
is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear we
want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal
here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest
security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time
since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18,1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US
Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,
air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI),
Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry (D - MA), and others Oct. 9,1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass
destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he
has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass
destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton
Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that .. Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons
programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs
continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam
continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a
licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten
the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by
Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat
to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the
United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of
delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical
weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in
power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing
weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), S! ept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are
confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to
build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd
(D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority
to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe
that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real
and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively
to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the
next five years .. We also should remember we have always underestimated the
progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."-
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every
significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has
refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that
Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons
stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also
given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda
members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will
continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare,
and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D,
NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam
Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for
the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob
Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
All of these senators and congressmen would say today that they were
wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes, when they
reverse themselves and say that they were wrong before, they are
criticized for "flip flopping." I notice that even recently neither
Bush nor Cheney has come right out and said "there are no WMD in
Iraq." Until very recently they were saying things like "it's a big
country and they still can be found."
I'm sure that many of the congressmen and senators who said that there
was WMD now feel that they were mislead because they were given only
one side of the intelligence story and not the other side. They should
be praised for believing the president--part of the non-partisan
tradition--and now many of them feel that they were mislead by not
having been given the whole story.
But, I agree, even on a remote chance that Saddam had WMD we had to
act. It was morally right to remove him because he was a brutal
dictator and, if he had WMD, that would simply have made it more
important. But the top generals said that we should have gone into
Iraq with far more troops in order to protect ourselves and the
Iraquis in the time after the victory. That was rejected by the top
leaders in the Defense Department--Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. We did win
with a relatively small force. But are we winning the peace?
I notice that you have admitted that mistakes were made and then said
that mistakes were made in other wars too, such as WWII. Yes we did
make mistakes in WWII, but we had to win. But Iraq is not like WWII.
It is like a fast-moving version of Vietnam in which the mistakes we
make simply make the war longer and longer. In every war there will be
civilian casualties. In Vietnam and Iraq those civilian casualties
increased the strength of our opponents. We were not seen as
liberators but as invaders and killers.
In the case of Iraq we had three logical alternatives. We could have
gone in and taken control, arrested as many Baathists as possible, and
then gone right out again. We could have gone in with overwhelming
force to hold the country even in the case of looting and
insurgency--enough force to blow up all the munitions plants and to
protect against looting (including 380 tons of high grade explosives).
Or we could have done just what we did, something in the middle.
I believe that you said that we are "winning" in Iraq. No at best it
will look a little better. It will be like Vietnam, where there were
waves of it looking better and looking worse. In the case of the
recent killings of Iraqui police we can see something very much like
Vietnam. They were captured and killed because the Iraqui defense
forces had been infiltrated and where they were going was sent to the
insurgents.
On Afghanistan, it is true that there was an election. This does not
mean victory. It may mean some signs of success--nothing definate.
Afghanistan is the world's largest heroin-making country in the world,
and it is still largely ruled by warlords, and in some areas the
Taliban may be coming back. I hope that there is success in
Afghanistan, but it is not Iraq. In Afghanistan we are largely loved.
A couple of million people returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban
were crushed. In Iraq, we may have been loved for a while, respected
for a while longer, and now our presence helps to inspire the attacks.
Also, in Iraq now we are forced to fight against any opponents of the
Iraq government. In mean we do not only fight Al Z. and the other
terrorists. We also fight forces like Al Saddar, who has said that we
should get out and that we are not good people--but is not really our
enemy. It's his country so he has every right to tell us to get out.
He has agreed to disarm now, and maybe that is a good thing. But was
it really good to risk American deaths and to certainly kill Saddar's
troops and civilians in the area just to disarm him?
If there is a civil war in Iraq will we have to kill both Sunnis and
Shiites just to prevent them from killing each other?
Is it going to cost 700-1000 American deaths a year and $80-$100
billion a year forever?
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| User: "Paul" |
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| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
26 Oct 2004 07:17:07 PM |
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(thereactionary) wrote in message news:<831523e4.0410251527.4ef32999@posting.google.com>...
smrstrauss@aol.com (Paul) wrote in message news:<1ac4db3e.0410250555.6becfb6@posting.google.com>...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1_Xed.800$kM.687@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410241100.61eaff09@posting.google.com...
"TR" <TR@aol.com> wrote in message
news:<8PFed.17$kM.16@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
"Paul" <smrstrauss@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1ac4db3e.0410220556.72aaa447@posting.google.com...
If you are saying that the majority can also be contacted by regular
telephones you may be right, 51% is a majority, so maybe 80 million
cannot be contacted. Or maybe only 40 million? Who cares. It's an
awful lot. The election will turn on whether this group is
motivated--it is--and whether the pro-Kerry forces can get them to the
polls.
When I say that the majority can be contacted by regular phone I'm
talking about 80%. And there is no evidence that there are more Kerry
voters among cell phone users than there are Bush supporters.
What you say is precisely true. There is no evidence that there are
more Bush supporters or more Kerry supporters among this group. That
is the point. They are not and cannot be surveyed. The point is that
in any state that is very close with many undecided, you can make any
speculation you want about how the undecided will actually vote--for
the incumbent for the opponent or in the same proportion as the
general poll. You can do this for the cell telephone vote as well. BUT
IT IS ALL SPECULATION. Not real statistically valid research.
I just saw the editorial of the Detroit News today, a conservative
newspaper that has never endorsed a Democrat and has only failed to
endorse any presidential candidate three times since the Depression.
This was one of the three times. The newspaper does not like Kerry,
and hence did not endorse him, but what it said about Bush was
scathing.
"This president has a knack for squandering success.
With the nation and the world firmly behind his operation in
Afghanistan, he turned his sights too quickly to Iraq and Saddam
Hussein, his family's old nemesis.
Acting on intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by
the administration to match its agenda, Bush moved against Iraq
without the support of key allies.
Is the Detroit News still stupid enough to think that our
"key allies" were going to be brought into the fight when they
had obviously allowed themselves to be bought off by Saddam.
Are liberals so ignorant that they are going to ignore the facts
about what our supposed key allies were doing?
We backed the invasion of Iraq, accepting the Bush assertion that
Saddam's weapons programs presented a gathering threat to the United
States. While America, the world and the Iraqi people are better off
with Saddam gone, we now believe that Iraq was a fight that might have
waited, or been avoided altogether.
How was it going to be avoided altogether? We know that Saddam had
every intention to return to nuclear development the minute that he got
the sanctions removed. Were we going to try to keep them on sanctions
forever with the French, Russians and Chinese fighting to get him off
sanctions and with the Iraqi population suffering greatly from them.
Remember it was the Detroit News who said that it might be avoided. I
just put the quotation. I can uderstand their feeling however. I
supported the war initially largely because of WMD. I still think it
is right morally to have emoved Saddam. But if the Bush administration
lied to us about WMD and about the urgency of invading--it had to be
done at that time, not later--then I regard what they did as immoral.
It is not moral to lie to us even for good purposes. We citizens
deserve to be treated honestly.
Now, maybe it wasn't a lie. Maybe it was only a series of enormous
mistakes. The Detroit News is right about the bungling in the period
after the war--failing to seal off the borders and to employ the army,
etc.
Some of these things don't make any sense at all.
You couldn't seal off the borders if you had a million
troops in Iraq.
This is reason enough to vote against the Bush team. If they
mislead us, or mislead themselves by failing to be critical on the
intelligence estimates, or believed "there's not going to be
casualties" -- that's all extra, meaning additional reasons on top of
the bungling.
The estimates of much of the left were that half
a million would die in the war. Their estimates
were even further off. The left also predicted that
Afghanistan would treat us the same as it treated the
Russians. Are you of the opinion that a president
must have a crystal ball regarding a war. Have you
ever looked at all of the things that were bungled in
WWI and WWII. And Bush never said that there would
not be casualties.
As to whether other countries will aide in Iraq now. Maybe not. But of
course we always have to try and keep on trying.
We tried and we have kept on trying. But what can you
do when countries like France say that they want people
like Zaraqawi at the negotiating table. The French
clearly want to impose conditions that guarantee the
failures of any such meetings.
Recent reports
indicate that a lot of Muslims living in Europe are being attracted to
Iraq to fight us, and the Europeans worry that those fighters will
eventually go back to Europe. So, we can ask nicely for their help and
remind them that it is in their interest to stop the attacks--or just
to help us seal the borders against terrorists. Bust can try to do
this as well as Kerry, but there is certainly personal animosity
against him and against the Bus administration. Remember all the
Rumsfeld talk about "old Europe?"
Rumsfeld's remark came after European politicians in
high places said much worse about us.
The Detroit News simply says that we have to have decent alliances,
not animosity.
How can you have decent alliances against indecent
allies that have sold out to Saddam.
We need their help on a lot of other things besides
Iraq--such as intelligence about terrorists elsewhere. They need our
help too. Unfortunately, right now neither side can see past their
anger.
I notice you do not comment on the Detroit News's comments about how
the Bush adminstration looked at the intelligence: "Acting on
intelligence that was faulty and too eagerly interpreted by the
administration to match its agenda.." and the way that the war is
being run: "The management of the conflict in Iraq is abysmal."
That is simply an opinion. If conducting a war was like
baking cookies then you could say that it was abysmal. But
the News seems to forget that there is another side who is
trying to do everything in their power to prevent our
success. We are in fact succeeding in Iraq. We will have
elections in all districts. There are going to be a lot
of Islamofacsists along the way that have to be killed, and
it will take time, but we are going to get it done. Did
you see that there was not a singe successful attack that
was made against the Afghanistan elections?
And
this: "There were too many poor calls, including disbanding the Iraqi
army,
That was an excellent call. There is a very high
probability that many in the Iraqi Army would have
stayed loyal to the Baath party and that they would
have undermined our efforts from the inside. You can
always make a monday morning quarterback call and
claim that it would have been better. But it may
just have been worse.
leaving the borders undefended and trusting shady Iraqi
nationals, all of which combined to turn what could have been a
stunning liberation into a still uncertain, nation-building morass."
What a mess! Why should we reward the team that dumped us into this
mess?
What would you and the News have said after we had lost
400,000 in WWII and we had still not won? What would
you have said after we had lost many thousands of troops
taking the barren Island of Iwo Jima?
When you call Iraq a mess, what are you comparing it
to. What standard are you using? You are only comparing
it to an imaginary standard of people saying that they
could have done things better, fast, cheaper, cleaner, etc.
But that is all BS. Their plan may well have been worse.
Compare the initial war to other wars. Compare the guerilla
war to other guerilla wars.
Take a look at this.
http://www.kultursmog.com/Life-Page01.htm
And with regard to your question about Bush lying
to us look at these quotes:
Quotes from Kerry (and others)
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation . And now he is miscalculating America's ! response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction So
the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" -
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That
is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear we
want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal
here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest
security threat we face." - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time
since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18,1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US
Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,
air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
programs." - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI),
Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry (D - MA), and others Oct. 9,1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass
destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he
has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass
destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton
Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that .. Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons
programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs
continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam
continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a
licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten
the United States and our allies." - Letter to President Bush, Signed by
Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat
to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the
United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of
delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical
weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in
power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing
weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), S! ept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are
confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to
build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd
(D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority
to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe
that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real
and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively
to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the
next five years .. We also should remember we have always underestimated the
progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."-
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every
significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has
refused to do" - Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that
Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons
stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also
given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda
members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will
continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare,
and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D,
NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam
Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for
the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob
Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
It is true that all those senators, congressmen and others thought
that Iraq had weapons of mass distruction, as did many in the press.
They all were wrong, and they admit it. The Bush team has kept on
saying that it continues to look for WMI. And, many of the leaders you
quote now say that they were mislead by the Bush team, who did not
give them ALL the evidence, but only some of it.
Now as to there being mistakes in all wars and your citing of WWII as
an example. To be sure. But we try not to encourage them. And I think
it should be stressed that Iraq is far more like Vietnam, in which the
problem is insurgency, and not like WWII. Iraq is like a very fast
moving version of Vietnam, in which we did not realize that we were in
a guagmire for years. Initially we kept believing the government.
Things were getting better. We were "turning the corner." We saw the
"light at the end of the tunnel."
I note that you insist that things ARE getting better in Iraq. I
thbink that is only one of the short waves where things seem to be
getting better before another downturn. The Iraqui forces who we hope
can run the country are likely to be infiltrated by insurgents, as
were the South Vietnamese forces.
On the economy. To be sure the 9/11 attack was far worse than a
recession. But in fact there was signs of recovery, before we went
into Iraq--and during that period of uncertainty the stock market and
the economy cooled off again. Moreover, we simply must hold our
presidents responsible for the economy. If we do not, over time they
will grow sloppy and ignore the situation. The really sloppy ones are
the second term presidents, who do not really worry about the economy
since it can't hurt their chances of being re-elected.
We differ on the tax cut for the rich, but in addition to cutting
taxes on the rich, the Bush team also cancelled a proposed extension
of unemployment benefits at a time when the unemployment rate was much
higher than now. Extending unemployment benefits would not merely have
been good for the families of the unemployed, it would have put money
to work in the economy--a much faster economic benefit than a tax cut
on the wealthy. The Bush staement that the tax cut on the wealthy goes
mainly to small businesses is deliberately misleading. The truth is
that virtually all of those small businesses are investment vehicles
so that rich people can get additional tax benefits.
Most of all I question the Bush teams' MOTIVES. Did they cut taxes on
the wealthy mainly to improve the economy or to improve the economy of
their friends and supporters? Did the proposal to cut overtime
benefits benefit the workers or the employers?
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| User: "cLIeNUX user" |
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| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point. |
23 Oct 2004 11:36:30 PM |
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Nothing. That's why you hear so much about them on TV.
--
Rick (Richard Allen) Hohensee
write-in candidate, President of the United States of America
platform ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/interim/platform2
personal webpage http://linux01.gwdg.de/~rhohen
active in Usenet alt.politics colorg on IRC
humbubba@smart.net Maryland, USA
Ground troops out of Iraq Put the CIA under INS Save Darfur
Semi-legalize drugs Prosecute Bush Tighten the borders
Isolate Israel Tax churches halve military aquisitions
government jobs for Iraq-wounded soldiers and 9-11 survivors
please email my platform to friends, blogs and countrymen
-------------------------------------------------------------
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| User: "Dharmananda" |
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| Title: Re: What do the polls tell us at this point? Vote! |
21 Oct 2004 01:43:14 PM |
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A challenger doesn't have to do as well as an incumbent in polls to win the
election. If an incumbent's rating drops below 50% in polls, he's in
trouble.
What these polls tell us is what we already knew: it's a close race, and
the outcome is unknown.
Vote for the candidate of your choice on:
-------------------> PAYBACK DAY <--------------------
thereactionary wrote:
These are the latest poll from all the organizations.
I took the liberty of updating the Zogby results to
what they show today.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm?track=rss
10/20/04
What the polls are telling us
By Michael Barone
One week after the third and final presidential debate, there are
enough post-debate polls to tell us where the election stands today.
Here the results are gathered together by realclearpolitics.com. These
are for the three-way pairings, plus the two-way pairings by
Rasmussen, which doesn't ask a three-way question. Bush's percentages
are listed first.
Fox News 49-42
Washington Post/ABC 51-46
Zogby 46-45
TIPP 48-46
CBS News 47-45
CNN/USAT/Gallup 52-44
Time 48-47
Newsweek 50-44
Rasmussen 48-47
Average 49-45
Note that George W. Bush's percentages range from 46 to 52 percent
while John Kerry's percentages range from 42 to 47 percent. In only
one poll does Bush fall below 47 percent, which is Kerry's highest
percentage.
It seems highly likely that Bush emerged from the debates a little bit
ahead. Some Kerry backers argue that | |
