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Ten Reasons for Liberals to Vote for Bush, Really

With the Republican National Convention about to begin in New York City, the "right wing noise machine" wants to convince everyone why the Grand Old Party is really inclusive. So inclusive that racial minorities, union labor, and educators should consider themselves as covered under the big tent. Nevertheless, there does appear to be at least a few good reasons for liberals to vote for the incumbent this year:

If Al-Qaida attacks the White House, you won't feel as bad. Seriously now, if these "extremists" want nothing more than to destroy our symbols of power, do you really want John Kerry and John Edwards to have to give the ultimate sacrifice? Most liberals would mourn the loss of the building more than any dead Bush Administration staffer.

Another term means there?s still hope Bush can be the first President to be convicted of an impeachment trial. It is true that so far 100% of all American Presidents who have been impeached were Democrats. But would not?t it be great if Bush was the first President who actually lost his job out of the ordeal? Plus, it decreases the chances a future Commander in Chief will put the troops in harm's way citing "need-to-know" evidence about weapons of mass destruction.

You like that the news is dominated by important, thoughtful discussions on pressing issues. Did you really like the days when the biggest news story was how much nudity there was in the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog? At least now your friends don?t call you a dork for talking about foreign policy at lunch anymore, or reading British media sources to get unbiased reporting.

You want there to be a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9-11". Admit it. You had more fun standing in line, showing your liberal pride waiting for Moore?s tirade than any time since you were in college. You sang songs, chatted with other like-minded, intelligent people, had both homeless and Kerry volunteers ask you for donations, and even got to see a movie worth watching. No more Bush means Moore might get away from his ad hominem style and go for something more like ?Roger and Me? again.

Other nations could use a regime change. Certainly, we failed to expel the Taliban or capture any important Al Qaida figures in Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was not't exactly a "clear and present danger". Still, if the second term Bush Administration stays as trigger-happy we might actually get around to disposing of even more Cold War relics like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Myanmar's Than Shwe, and Kazakhstan's, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. No one will mistake Dubya for Woodrow Wilson, but at least the oppressed nations of the world can find comfort in the fact that their "fearless leader" could be the next to find himself sharing a cell with Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

You do fundraising for the National Organization of Women. Tired of expiring memberships, dwindling income, and lessened prestige? Just wait until President Bush nominates and the Senate confirms a far-right judge like Priscilla Owen for the US Supreme Court. As soon as the balance tips toward overturning Roe v. Wade watch the money come roaring in like a Texas flash flood through the Bush ranch in Crawford. After gaining national lobby prominence, everyone will want to hire you, not mention all the numerous book offers and face time requests.

You think 2020 is too long to wait for a woman President. Kerry?s victory ensures that unless he or Edwards loses an election, Hillary Clinton won't get a crack to throw down against Liddy Dole until both of them are so old they might have to yield to Chelsea and Jenna. After all, Chelsea certainly has the genes to be Commander in Chief, but Jenna, like her father might have other qualities which might be of more interest to the American electorate.

You always wanted a reason to buy a Prius. Nevermind the fact that the Bush "energy policy" is $2 a gallon gas and drilling in natural reserves in every state but Florida. Also, disregard the "Walmart" effect of increased long-distance traffic on highways and roads by trucks, clogging urban and suburban thoroughfares overwhelmed by sport utility vehicles and three-car families. Try the fact that most of the national homeland security money for your state came from the National Highway Transportation Fund. Not only do you face more congestion than ever before, but now there is no federal money to fix things. Sure, maybe this apocalyptic gridlock will convince concerned citizens to lobby hard for public transportation, or even turn in their Ford Excursions for Honda Pilots. Perhaps even America?s car companies will voluntarily raise the consumer auto fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) standards. Just in case that does not happen though, you can feel good "doing your part" by getting Toyota's milk-carton sized hybrid vehicle.

It's a secret ballot. Better than any romantic tryst, imagine standing in front of your friends and them never knowing you voted for 43. No one will ever find out, and even better, people expect you to vote. Straying with a paramour leaves unwieldy evidence, whereas we all get the same "I Voted" sticker. Plus, should anyone find out in twenty years and confront you about, you could always use the highly effective "youthful indiscretion" defense.

Nader got denied ballot access. After all, some voters are not swayed by the "strength in numbers" strategy for electoral voting. It's one thing to sabotage Howard Dean, but it's another thing to keep a non-factor off the ballot because you have so betrayed the progressive wing of your own party that any candidate who even imitates a true liberal gets completely shouted down. Should Bush narrowly beat Gore again in Florida, Terry McAuliffe is not likely to blame Howard Phillips and the Constitutional Law Party. But if Vermont goes Republican, who are they going to blame?

posted by Thomas at 6:08 PM 0 comments

 
An Atheist Out of His Foxhole?

Ever since the Club for Growth ran advertisements against Howard Dean in Iowa, the Democratic Party seems to be baited, all too assiduously, by conservative-oriented interest groups. Most successful have been the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Their original ad was very well received by veterans, who (analysts like Frank Lutz would tell us) began to defect in support for Kerry. The ad was only run in Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania. There is a particular electoral calculus to this. Michigan and Pennsylvania were “blue” states in 2000, while Ohio was “red”. The hope of Bush campaign czar Karl Rove being that Pennsylvania and Ohio would be enough to cement Bush’s victory in 2004. All three states though have been beset by major losses in manufacturing jobs. Now even Ohio polls for Kerry. But then on August 20, 2004, word leaked out that a new “Swift Vets” ad was about to be released and that it had been even more effective on veteran test audiences. Why were the pundits so sure?
Unlike the Club for Growth ad against Dean, there are no “code words” or “talking points”. Instead, a key part of Kerry’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April of 1971. However the sentence used in the commercial is abridged and certain parts are left out.
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
But who is “they” that John Kerry refers to reciting the “stories”. It refers to the “Winter Soldier Investigation” where Vietnam Veterans Against the War (a group which Kerry was a member) staged a mock trial of their superiors in Detroit, Michigan from January 31, 1971 to February 2. VVAW attempted to get Congressional oversight involved, but Kerry did not imagine the “stories”…members of his groups testified, however truthfully.
And this is precisely why it works so well against veteran audiences. In a war where nearly half a million men served simultaneously, no one has a complete picture of the entire conflict. So the presumption that Kerry is speaking like Jane Fonda, accusing all parties of war crimes is exactly how the Swift Boat Veterans react as if hearing the testimony for the first time. Still, that is not true; Kerry is stating what other members of his conference admitted to in Detroit. The Swift Boat veterans know this, but they still evoke emotion because Kerry’s words with no context sound like a blanket criticism of all parties. So what is so significant about the words chosen?
In the order they appear in the ad:
“they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads: While rape seemingly is a horrific crime, Kerry mentions the “cutting off ears” as a sign of early, premodern warfare and the taking of prizes (teeth, ears, noses) as a sign of dominance. The idea with this is to demonstrate that Kerry believed US military treatment of the Vietnamese was to consider them a sub-human race. Considering that African-Americans would often serve alongside whites but with blacks barely having received equal rights at home.
“randomly shot at civilians” : This is designed to say in no uncertain terms a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It also echoes the behavior Lieutenant Calley was court-martialed for.
“cut off limbs, blown up bodies”: Showing little or no remorse for burial laws, or killing with discrimination.
“razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan”: the classic reference to a historical barbarian. Khan was nomadic, but his culture was seen as barbarian solely because the Chinese Empire considered it so.
“crimes committed on a day to day basis”: this is not part of the same sentence, the sentence taken actually was:
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
This sentence comes before any of the other descriptions, and if anything sums up the misunderstanding. Kerry is not saying he believes war crimes were ordered on down, he is saying others told him this was a deliberate policy. But there’s one more pearl.
“ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam”: Again this is a serious bow to history and shows you the parallels Kerry sought to draw. South Vietnam was an ally, and before the invention of the railroad, supply lines were sporadically effective. Often it was the case the presence of the army required the locals to supply their own army with provisions. Kerry is effectively calling the US Army an operation more in place from the 18th century than the 20th. Nevertheless, a country that had fought so hard against the Nazi regime could not bear to think it had committed acts just as depraved. During World War II Americans had been welcome liberators, how could it be now they were the oppressors?
But the most important thing that the Swift Vet ad demonstrates is Kerry’s purported cynicism. That is exactly the contrast Bush wants, traditional, prideful, moral, and optimistic America with him, and the doubters with the Democrats.

posted by Thomas at 9:55 PM 0 comments

 
Stem Cells' Shadow

If you drive north from Boston on the interstate you will cross the stateline and enter a town called Nashua. Nashua narrowly went for George W. Bush in 2000, and took the entire state of New Hampshire with it. And it is here, you would think that the debate on stem cells could impact the most. While California has the country's largest stable of biotechnology research, Masschusetts is a close second. Further, new campuses now spring up much farther away from Cambridge, home to Harvard University, the Massachusettes Institutes of Technology, and the city with the largest number of biotechnology companies in the US. During the 1990s, urban sprawl meant that now towns like Nashua, NH are becoming bedroom communities to suburban businesses in the Greater Boston area. And for this reason, some of those well off biotech workers may switch sides and cost Bush the entire election.

But it may not be in New Hampshire. Instead, where Bush could be hit the hardest is Iowa. The Hawkeye State is not one he carried in 2000. However, with popular Republican senator (and hog farmer) Charles Grassely running for reelection, Iowa is a state that could slip away. Yet, even here, the new economy has come to mean the sound of hogs being replaced with the sound of a centrifuge. Spurred on by Democratic governor, Tom Vilsack, Iowa has a burgeoning biotechnology industry. What is more signficant though is the rising strength of the biotechnology lobby nationally.

Biotech is big business. And as people consume more drugs, and as Medicare begins to subsidize the cost of those drugs, the profile of those multinationals like Glaxo or Pfizer grows. The difference is that unlike other white collar jobs, biotech is not as likely to be exported. The biotech sector needs the strong patent laws the US confers to protect its product. It is for this reason that firms looking to cut labor costs and move their workers from the expensive real estate of Boston to the endless potential of Iowa City. Still, this doesn't answer why firms are so eager to have stem cell research proceed.

In a word, protein. Proteins bridge the world of individual molecular components and active biological agents. Though everyone jokes about "cold fusion", stem cell research is the "cold fusion" of the biotech world. It's not that the stem cells themselves are needed for protein research, it's that suddenly proteins can be harvested from stem cells lines. All this means that even if the current election is unmoved by the stem cell debate, the Republican Party especially is vulnerable to being split by the issue.

Still, there was a time and a place when many believed Bush's toughest administrative decision would be his edict on stem cells. In terms of electoral politics, that could still be true. With the economy and foreign policy producing ambivalence, Bush has strove to maintain his values. Now it seems, stem cells will test that strategy.

posted by Thomas at 12:07 AM 0 comments

 
Where's my Carpetbag?

How electrified is the Illinois Republican Party? Why don't you ask Alan Keyes, who will challenge rising star Barrack Obama for the state's open Senate seat in November. The GOP originally thought that the Southern Democrats retiring this year (John Edwards, Zell Miller, Fritz Hollings, John Breaux, and Bob Graham) would ensure that there would be no chance of the Democrats retaking the Senate. Nevertheless, John Edwards' seat in North Carolina is no longer looking so available. Breaux's Louisiana seat is a toss-up, along with Graham's in Florida. But with the GOP already up a seat 50-49-1, the only thing that could cause sweat on the brow would be several races all turning the other way outside of the South.

At first, it was just the retirement of Illinois Senator Pete Fitzgerald, which on it's own didn't seem to matter all that much. But that was followed by the retirement of Majority Whip Don Nickles in Oklahoma. And then there's Alaska, where Governor Frank Murkowksi appointed his daughter when he went left the Senate for the Juneau.

Like it or not, the GOP has to contend with Obama in Illinois, and Mike Ditka wasn't up for the challenge. But Keyes knows why he is doing this. He ran twice in his home state of Maryland and lost both times. He ran for President and lost twice in the primaries. Even so, Keyes could still win the Land of Lincoln.

Keyes is articulate and Harvard-educated, just as Obama is. However, despite Chicago and the rest of Illinois having a large Catholic population, the former ambassador won't win on gay marriage or his usually tough stance on abortion. Instead, he's going to focus on trade. Manufacturing job loses to China have caused tremendous unhappiness in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the President desperately wants to hold on. But while Illinois's economy is diversifying, unions remain a force to be reckoned with. If Keyes comes out hard against "job loss" and "ending the WTO" he may not sway any of the traditional, rank and file union voters. But Obama is vulnerable here...Keyes is an ardent critic of China, Keyes is black, and Keyes is a Catholic. And the Democrat core constituency in Illinois are China-wary unions, blacks, and Catholics.

And then there's Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert who hails from Illinois. His recent book leaked plans under wraps for the next Congress which would have the GOP majority abolish the income tax and replace it with a national sales income tax. With Hastert's re-election pretty secure, he has the ability to open doors for Keyes among his backers. The biggest being Morgan Stanley, with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange second. If the former ambassador sounds like he's making sense to them...Obama will have to cancel the coronation.

Friday: The Politics of Stem Cells

posted by Thomas at 2:04 PM 0 comments

 
Test.

posted by Thomas at 1:22 PM 0 comments