Thanks to GayPatriotWest over on GayPatriot for providing me the link to kick-start this post. :)
If you've been following the news of late, you've noticed that it's been a pretty busy week for Senators Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy, as well as their apparent new lieutenant Mark Dayton, as they spent hours trying to rip Condi Rice to shreds. Evidently these folks are living out Ted Kennedy's theory (registration required), as stated in his January 12th address to the National Press Club, "We as Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans."
Aside from the obvious -- like the fact that, as the article points out, there are four less Democratic Senators than there were on November 1 -- what Kennedy seems to be missing is the fact that he and his own party leadership don't even speak the views of THEIR voters. During the Democratic National Convention, a poll of various issues was taken of convention delegates -- aka the Democratic Party's local, national, and community leadership -- while identical questions were asked of Democratic voters.
Among the more striking results:
-- 64% of the delegates favored no restrictions on abortion, but only 37% of voters did.
-- 12% of the delegates favored allowing abortions only in the case of rape/incest/save the life of the mother, or only to save the life of the mother; 43% of voters did.
-- 48% of voters said immigration should be decreased, compared to 14% of delegates.
-- When asked whether all or most of the Bush tax cuts should be made permanent, 33% of Democratic voters said YES....compared to 8% of delegates.
-- Finally, the ultimate kicker: when asked, "Which comes closer to your view...Government should do more to solve national problems, or government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals?", 79% of delegates chose "do more", 12% "does too much"; among voters, only 48% said "do more", and a whopping 45% said "does too much".
So how did John Kerry manage to grab as much of the vote as he did? If you look at the exit polls, such as they are, I believe the answer lies in the results of asking the question, "Your vote for President was mostly....For your candidate or Against his opponent". 25% of voters chose "Against his opponent", and of them, a whopping 70% chose Kerry.
Think about that -- if you consider that over 17% of the electorate was voting for Kerry as a vote against Bush (25% of voters x 70% for Kerry) and that Kerry received 48% of the vote, over a third (35%) of the votes that Kerry received could be considered protest votes against Bush. Had Bush been even half as polarizing, the word "landslide" is not adequate for what very likely would have happened.
One of the truisms among those experienced in politics is that Republicans are never silent unless they have something up their sleeves. This week, they were astonishingly quiet, considering what the Democrats were doing to Rice. I can't help but speculate that this was a deliberate tactic on the Republicans' part to allow the moonbats enough of a "victory" that the moonbats could consolidate their grip on the Democratic Party....and, in the process, drive it even farther to the left and away from the voters. Throw in a bit of spring 2006 thaw on a few key issues, and I'm thinking "60 Senate seats" -- not to mention the fun coming up in 2008, when Al Franken takes on John McCain for the Presidency. (grin)
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