Posted on 12/13/2001 7:50:35 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
STAYAWAY CHRISTIANS ALMOST COST ELECTION
Many Christians believe that prayer played a major role in sending George W. Bush to the White House, but stayaway believers came close to losing him the election, according to his chief political adviser, Karl Rove.
Rove said that one reason the 2000 election was so tight was that as many as 4 million Christian conservatives did not go to the polls, reported "The Chicago Tribune." Although the Bush campaign had expected 19 million evangelical voters to vote for their man, election returns revealed only 15 million turned out to cast ballots.
Speaking yesterday at an American Enterprise Institute seminar, Rove said the Bush campaign "probably failed to marshal support of the base as well as we should have," said the "Tribune." Rove added: "But we may also be returning to the point in America where fundamentalists and evangelicals remain true to their beliefs and think politics is corrupt and, therefore, they shouldn't participate."
Rove said that if the "process of withdrawal" went on it would be bad for the country as well as conservatives and Republicans. "It's something we have to spend a lot of time and energy on."
The majority of Democrats thought Bill Clinton was a scumbag. But that didn't stop them from going out there on election day 1996 to keep their party in power. Many of them didn't like Algore either but nevertheless, they made it out to the polls in huge numbers and came thisclose to winning the election again while stubborn conservative Christians sat on their hands because they were miffed that Bush wasn't "100% pure." It didn't matter to them that Bush was probably the most genuine Christian to run since Jimmy Carter. If Bush wasn't perfect, by golly, they were going to stay home and listen to Anita Bryant records. Or burn Harry Potter books. Or vote Buchanan just for spite.
Guess what? We are never going to have a perfect candidate for president. I don't think there is even an electable person out there who will please these fundamentalist Christians.
So long as these single-issue, all-or-nothing conservative voters fold their arms and refuse to vote for anybody who is not 100% lock-step with their beliefs, we are going to continue to see Democrats or RINOS get elected.
If all the conservatives could suck it in and vote for their party, the Republicans will gain a large majority in this country. Then we can focus on making the candidates more pure once we obtain power. Until then, we are going to struggle just to avoid losing the White House in 2004, while the Democrats rally around whatever smooth-talking, disingenous slimeball they dredge up for next time.
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU ON?
I guess you thought the smoking canon tape was faked?
So your saying...let's NOT roll?
I have never understood this Harry Browne style foreign policy.
Please recall for me how many times the Republicans passed or voted on bills to outlaw it? I do recall somebody named clinton (Do you remember him?)vetoing their attempts to outlaw it.
The dominant political faction in this country, the largest plurality, is leftism. It dominates our culture today, and the hard left is able - through environmentalism, through "the children", through entertainment, through celebrity, through media, and through "feel-your-pain" comfortable (meaning not too close to the ground) "support" for the "poor working people" -- pull along a solid plurality of the great mass of people who almost never think about or consider political issues.
Minority -- meaning out of the mainstream -- political positions, which is what conservatism is in this generation, need to find allies wherever they can and chip away at the support of the "establishment" position. This means that no particular faction in the minority position will get what it wants. Just to win an election, you are fighting a guerrila war against a more-powerful enemy. That means that all you can do is come together for the sole purpose of winning -- because enough victories strung together will start moving the ball down the field in your direction. You don't win one election and expect the whole world to change to your point of view -- even the Giant Reagan was unable to do that.
These people who claim that Bush would have won easily had be been more conservative are simply fooling themselves. For every vote Bush would have gained by being more conservative, he'd have lost one and a quarter votes on the more left side of the spectrum. There simply aren't enough conservatives to elect a President by themselves in this generation. Nader outpolled all of the far right candidates combined by an easy margin. And, apparently, Gore outpolled Bush overall by reaping huge (and maybe illegal in many cases) votes in inner-cities.
The plurality of opinion in our society, on a great host of issues that people vote on, is on the left. Hell, people now even think that good economies come only from high taxes! All of this sniping on the right about some candidate being not "quite" perfect enough for them is the extreme height of stupidity. The ONLY thing that matters in an election is winning it. And sitting out because a candidate has some particular position on a marginal issue simply ensures that you will never WIN, and your point of view will never receive any consideration in government decisions. And we'll all get to be very happy writing about how much we hate President Hillary.
(sorry for the long post, this kind of thing just sends me...)
No, but you must since you think OBL is innocent.
And you are so correct!!!! Needlepoint it and put it up in every home!
Do you believe that only "Christian" holidays should be celebrated and allowed in the "sacred White House"?
Excuse me, but are you insinuating that because I exercised my RIGHT to vote and voted for George W. Bush I am unprincipled?
Falwell and Robertson both have their faults, but don't blaine them for being mad a Bush. They were both avid Bush supporters.
Correct! An "all-or-nothing" attitude guarantees you'll get nothing.
In the meantime, the other side incrementally aquires exactly what it wants.
Are you posting from a cave? That's the ONLY way you could even pretend to think they weren't guilty as hell.
There's that same old assumption that a given party or candidate was owed those votes.
As long as any party or candidate assumes that they own votes, there will never be significant changes. They will not be accountable to the voters and then will blame the voters for not voting even when the voters are displeased with the party of candidate.
Candidates that don't assume they are owed votes tend to work harder to earn those votes.
Not only that, but he wears "dresses" and hangs around with a lot of guys......*wink* *wink* .....if you get my drift.
Plus his parents weren't marrried.
You KNOW they'd find fautl with Jesus.
yep,, that pretty much sums it up,,,
how else do you explain half the voters supporting the vice perpetraitor ?
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