Posted on 11/07/2004 4:37:22 PM PST by BellStar
On Nov. 2, I did something I’ve never done before and may never do again — I voted a straight Republican ticket.
I wasn’t the only Galveston County voter to do so. In fact, for the first time in history, more Republicans voted a straight ticket than Democrats, nearly 30,000 of them.
So, President Bush carried Galveston County by a wide margin. In two out of three countywide races, Republicans won. In the sheriff’s race, the popular incumbent Democrat Gean Leonard won a surprisingly close victory over a Republican who wasn’t widely known in the county.
In the past, I’ve viewed straight-ticket voting as mindless. But this year many voters, including me, wanted to send the county’s Democratic Party leadership a message. Moreover, I simply agreed with Republicans more than the Democrats.
For example, Republican Cheryl Johnson, our newly elected tax assessor-collector, was the only candidate in the race aggressively talking about property tax relief in her campaign. Spiraling property taxes are a huge issue that local Democrats have largely ignored. Galveston County voters will grant power in the future to the party that establishes itself as the party of property tax relief.
Taxes are a national issue, too. I grew up in a lower middle class home where we struggled to get by. I worked hard, succeeded materially and for years I’ve paid my government what seems to me a huge amount in federal income taxes. That’s not what bothers me. I pay a lot because I earn a lot, and I’m very grateful.
What irks me is when Democrats employ class-warfare rhetoric to portray even medium-income taxpayers as the “rich,” people unfairly benefiting from reductions in taxes.
The rhetoric is pandering, insulting and divisive.
There is more, and it relates to values, about which we’ve heard so much this week.
Examples: John Kerry spoke glowingly of his faith (Catholicism), yet he and his party vigorously oppose church doctrine. They favor unrestricted abortion and resolutely argue in favor even of partial-birth abortion, a practice opposed by nearly 70 percent of the rest of us (Gallup).
Amendments banning gay marriage appeared on the ballots of 11 states on Nov. 2. Democrats often opposed them, and they all passed by wide margins.
Personally, I’m more liberal on these two issues than most Republicans, and I don’t want to repeal Roe v. Wade.
Still, I’m offended by the comfortable moral superiority of filmmaker Michael Moore and his kind, by the editorial page of The New York Times and by Sen. Hillary Clinton. She sees millions of Americans as part of a dangerously kooky “vast right-wing conspiracy” because they dare to question the moral imperatives of the left, vaporous as they are.
I know my Democrat friends are equally put off by the moral certainties of zealots on the religious right. Honestly, I often feel the same way. But it’s an inescapable fact of political life that change is called for most urgently among those who lose.
Writing in the New York Times on Friday, Democrat Andrei Cherny acknowledged the obvious: “We (Democrats) are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party.”
That much was true, but like most Democrats these days the Times columnist went on to state his misunderstanding in classic terms: “The overarching problem Democrats have today is the lack of a clear sense of what the party stands for.”
I think the problem for Democrats is far worse than a lack of clarity. It is, instead, the opposite — the party’s message is clear, and it is unshakably unacceptable to a majority of Americans.
Did you read this today!
One thing I found interesting was that the Bush campaign didn't make a bigger issue out of the fact that Kerry even opposed the Laci Peterson law. Talk about being out of the mainstream.
Is there another option?
I also voted the straight Republican ticket in Galveston County, but I always do, is what I meant to write.
Ping!
We need a Galveston Co. Freeper Group!
Also voted straight-Republican (though in Bexar, not Galveston...Bush and most of the judicial candidates cruised, but most of my legislative votes lost), also largely as a "message vote" to the Democrat party that it better shape up and take control back from it's far-left nutjobs if it EVER wants me to even contemplate sending a vote their way. In an odd way, I guess I voted straight-Pub so that there would be a chance in the future that I wouldn't be forced into it (not that I was at all forced to do so this time, but you kwim?)
They got their message out and the country REJECTED that message.
Lone Star ping!
It's embarassing and aggravating to me to hear Kerry called a Catholic. I decided that with Kerry, Kennedy, Daschle, Leahy and that bunch calling themselves Catholics, I would call myself "Senator" since I'm as much a senator as they are Catholics
Am looking forward to meeting my fellow Galveston Country freepers!
There are a few of us FReepers down in Galveston County. Maye we can get together in Kemah sometime soon. Not a lot of FReep-worthy things going on down here, but we do our part.
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