Posted on 11/04/2004 9:18:09 PM PST by Caged in Canuckistan
A COUPLE of weeks ago, Michael Moore was touring the US offering unregistered voters incentives such as free "clean underwear" in return for a promise that they would show up at the polls. I'm not sure whose underwear he was giving away - his own or someone else's - but, if it was the former, the grateful recipients evidently accepted a pair, went and camped out in them up in the Rockies, and forgot to return to town for election day.
The swollen turn-out on Tuesday -- the biggest since 1968 -- killed one of Moore's most cherished myths: that if only more people voted, the natural "liberal" "progressive" nature of the American people would manifest itself. "Slackers are going to rise up in this election," he predicted. "The slacker motto is: Sleep till noon, drink beer, vote Kerry."
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
According to Moore, there are hardly any conservatives in the US, but they do a great job of persuading all the progressives to stay away from the polling booths by putting obstacles in their path, like not giving them free underwear. So the long queues reported at polls were assumed by the media to be proof of that big pro-John Kerry youth vote we always hear about.
But, as always, the "youth vote" never showed up. Last year, I saw some patronising BBC documentary (aired on Your ABC) claiming that George W. Bush was controlled by fanatical Christian fundamentalists who believe in the Rapture. The "youth vote" is the Left's equivalent of the Rapture: it may happen one day, but not on any schedule you want to put money on.
If you had to pick a picture that summed up what went wrong for Kerry, it would be the shot of Moore and Jimmy Carter in the presidential box at the Democratic national convention. All you needed was P.Diddy, aka Puff Daddy (or vice-versa), of the Vote or Die mythical youth movement and it would have been the Democrats' equivalent of those Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin wartime summits. That picture is the Dems in a nutshell: yesterday's politicians, today's show-biz colossi. It's the other way round at the Republican Party: yesterday's show-biz colossi (well, Pat Boone) and today's politicians -- Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani. On the whole, that's a better combo.
The Michael Mooronification of the Democratic Party proved a fatal error. Moore is the chief promoter of what's now the received opinion of Bush among the condescending Left -- Chimpy Bushitler the World's Dumbest Fascist. There are some takers for this view, but not enough. By running a campaign fuelled by Moore's caricature of Bush, the Democrats were doomed to defeat.
Granted, Kerry was more nuanced about Chimpy: he ran an over-cautious campaign putting up his supposed "competence" against Bush's "incompetence", which naturally degenerated into reflexive anti-Bush oppositionism. Meanwhile, everyone around Kerry sounded like they'd OD-ed on Moore: his stepson, Chris Heinz, called Bush a "cokehead" and John Edwards went on about war profiteering.
Happily, The Guardian, the fever chart of the British Left, decided to arrange a controlled experiment in the effectiveness of the Bush-hating strategy. They targeted the voters of Clark County, Ohio, one of the swingiest counties in a critical swing state, by getting Guardian readers to send them letters explaining why they shouldn't vote for Bush. Antonia Fraser, John Le Carre and other celebrated Guardianistas put pen to paper and marshalled their arguments.
Richard Dawkins demonstrated the incisive forensic analysis of Bush one expects from one of Oxford's most celebrated professors: "An idiot he may be, but he is also sly, mendacious and vindictive ... thuggish ... pariah state ... brazenly lying ... cynical mendacity." Gloomy film-maker Ken Loach, who makes Moore look like Busby Berkeley, began: "Today, your country is reviled across continents as never before ..."
In return, The Guardian received many responses, saying things like "real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions", which was one of the more polite replies in that it eschewed observations on the defects of British dentistry. In 2000, Clark County went narrowly for Al Gore. On Tuesday, it went decisively for Bush. The local Republican chairman claimed that Fraser and co had done a grand job of rallying the county's Bush voters and getting them to the poll. Thank you, Guardian lefties! Had they launched Operation Massachusetts, Kerry would have lost his own state.
Bush hatred flopped big on Tuesday. That's not a problem for The Guardian's editors, who have to sell papers in Britain, but it is for a Democratic Party that has to sell itself in the US. Michael Mooronification damages everyone who gets it.
Look at the recently resurrected Osama bin Laden. Three years ago he was Mr Jihad, demanding the restoration of the caliphate, the return of Andalucia, the conversion of every infidel to Islam, the imposition of sharia and an end to fornication, homosexuality and alcoholic beverages. In his latest video he sounds like some elderly Berkeley sociology student making lame jokes about Halliburton and Bush reading My Pet Goat.
The lesson of Moore's underwear, P.Diddy's "Vote or Die", Bruce Springsteen's "Rock the Vote" and all the other celebrity props of the Democratic Party is very simple: having the most popular figures in popular culture on your side does nothing for your popularity. Every time Kerry was seen cavorting with Hollywood A-listers, he was alienating the Z-listers -- the American people.
On election day, I was driving through Vermont and found myself behind a car with a Kerry-Edwards sticker and an Instead of Being Born Again, Why Not Grow Up? sticker. Fair enough, the feeling's mutual: the secular, coastal, libertine Democratic Party has zero appeal to born-again Christians. The problem is the crude numbers: 40 per cent of Americans identify themselves as born-again. So right there you've written off 40 per cent of the electorate. What have you got in return? The gay vote? Five per cent? And Bush got a quarter of that.
Another significant sliver of their vote doesn't care much for the holy rollers but recognises that on the big issue -- the war -- the Republicans are right.
Feisty internet blogger Michele Catalano put it very well in her election day declaration: "I voted for George Bush. I am not a redneck. I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track while I drink cheap beer and slap my woman on the ass. I am not a Bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist. I am not a homophobe."
In their desperation, the Democrats have wound up damning a big chunk of the American people as stupid, bigoted and a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'ida. This is ridiculous. As Catalano continues: "You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal. Your child's public school will not suddenly turn into a centre for Christian brainwashing. Your favourite bookstore will not turn into puritan central."
She didn't add to that list of phony terrors my own choice gem from this election season, courtesy of that eminent political analyst Cameron Diaz, who advised Oprah Winfrey's viewers: "Women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, then you should vote." Poor Cameron. The scary people won. She's just lost all rights to her body. Unlike Alec Baldwin, she can't even move to France. Her body was grounded in Terminal D.
As long as Democrats prefer phantom enemies to real ones, they will be increasingly irrelevant. If I were a Dem, I'd support any candidate who pledged to de-celebrify the party and disown the paranoid Left. That's the big lesson of this election: on Tuesday, the bottom dropped out of Moore's underpants
I am deeply concerned that the next generation, the video game generation, the me-first generation, the generation that will forever be tied to their parents' hard work, will be the ones responsible for ceding the remarkable advances of Western civilization. I only hope that with this mandate Bush will undeniably prove once and for all that Western democracy, and the freedom that entails, is humanity's greatest achievement.
NOVEMBER SUPRISE!:
Could M. Moore be actually working for the Prez??
I'm a young person (college junior) as well, and I'm not worried about my generation.
Why? Because I can see conservatism growing in many of my peers as they get older. I know people who hated George Bush when they were freshmen, only to realize the benefit of his policies and convictions as they grew older and wiser.
I am I an a strong Red state, so this "sample" isn't worth an Ohio exit poll (*G*), but the young GOP around here is much stronger, more organized, and better informed than the young Democrats.
I love it! Great find.
BTTT
Excuse my newbie-ness, what does BTTT mean?
Terrific wit and stinging hit on Moore and leftist celibralties.
Don't despair, I saw quite a few young high schoolers come over to out local republican headquarters to volunteer. We also had a group of home schooled kids come over to help out.
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>>>Excuse my newbie-ness, what does BTTT mean?
Answer is at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1219813/posts
Best one yet, thanks.
Yesterday morning I heard an ABC radio (Old Media) "Hollywood" type reporter say that all the Hollywood and recording industry stars that came out strong and public for Kerry had had "absolutely no effect" on the election.
Clueless! (pssst! I think I'll help them out:)
Hey Hollywood, here's a tip for the 2008 elections; The reason they had "no effect" is that the people you sent out to be seen weren't weird, anti-establishment, ignorant, egotistical, evil, or disgusting enough. In 2008 you have to send out the 2004 crew AND your very, very "best" examples of the left and east coast personality, to campaign for the Democratic presidential candidate. Don't forget to get them all "coked up" before they go on TV, 'cause then they say things mid-American parents want their kids to hear. And don't bother getting them cleaned up because midwestern farmers really like that "dirt"-ty look, especially on those Hollywood women wearing see-thru blouses. And if you can get one of those women to stand next to the Dem candidate's spouse, while the spouse is holding two open beers and a cigar, well that would be really, really COOL MAN, REALLY COOL! About the only thing you could do to beat that would be to have them standing in front of one of those buildings with a steeple, on one of those mornings after "Saturday Night Live". I know you guys don't like to do the "morning" thing man but after SNL, if you could just lay off the liquor and keep hitting uppers for a few more hours it would all be for a good cause man. BE'cause the country really needs to see you and hear you dissin' the Republicans and everything they stand for. I just can't tell you what a great thing you would be doing for the country guys. Guys, I'd really love you for it! If you did that I'd really like to "just wrap you up in my arms and embrace each and every one of you individually". Hollywood, you are GREAT, GREAT, GREAT! Everybody in the country just loves you! You are GREAT!
BTTT = Bump to the top
I read that here first on freerepublic.
This was a TERRIFIC piece of journalism!
Somebody owes the author a VB.
The Youth vote was the Christian youth vote. The Rock (of ages)vote.
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