Averett

Although last night's election isn't quite done just yet, I'm going on the hunch that Bush well keep the presidency.

So, what's going to happen in 2008? What needs to happen?

We won't have the "Anybody but Bush" people. I think that's what killed the Democrats. It's hard to win an election on an "Anyone but the Other Guy" stance. It needs to be "We love our candidate!" It just wasn't that way for Kerry. The Democrats need to really use these next 4 years and find/groom somebody for 2008. Will that be Hillary Clinton? Maybe. Will that be a smart move? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if this country is ready yet to elect a woman president.

Looking at that Red/Blue map, it seems pretty clear to me. The Democrats need to head South. Kerry tried that with picking Edwards as his running mate, but it didn't quite work out. Apparently Edwards didn't even stand a chance of getting back his own senate seat. The Dems need to find a Southerner with that drawl to attract the voters in southern Ohio, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, among other states.

I think we also need to have election reform. We can't have so many different counties in so many different states voting in different ways. Some using old school pencil and paper, some using punch cards, some using electronic touch screens, others still using lever systems. It needs to be the same, universally across the entire country. What system should be used? Whatever is the most effective. Of course they all have their flaws, but wouldn't it be better for everyone to use the same system?

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Superbelt

+note+ I am still not conceding this race.

I don't think we need a southerner, we need a populist centrist.

IF Kerry ends up losing Ohio, we need someone who can project this image. That person most likely comes out of the MidWest, Howard Dean has that image and, I believe would have pulled off the election. Unfortunately most democrats who had the opportunity to vote in the primary disagreed and went with what was perceived as the safe choice and known factor.
I'd like to see him run again, if Bush pulls out the election, and Barack Obama should mull it over, depending on how his freshman Senate career is going.

Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, or Missouri + Dean (Plus POSSIBLY the SWern states of New Mexico Arizona, or Nevada). That is where our candidate should come from.

ShaniFaye

I have always said....if Zell Miller ran for president I would consider voting democratic.

No way I'd vote for Hilary, Id write myself in before I'd vote for her, maybe the Libs can get it together enuff next time to have someone run that actually might have a chance of winning.

I also believe that they should change it where absentee ballots have to have ARRIVED at wherever they have to by BY election day.

I dont see why they cant figure someway to to electronic voting online

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Booboo

I think Obama would be awsome. From all the speeches I've seen him give I've been really impressed with him.

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archer2371

Rumor is that Jeb is next in line.

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Averett

Obama is really impressive.

But - Is America ready for a Black president?


And Jeb? Good God. Hell, in 2008 I'll be in Canada trying to figure out their goofy election system

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silent_jay

how is our electin system goofy Ave? We always know who won our elections, and the PM is actually voted into office.lol

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Charlatan

Hell, ours is a cake walk compared to what's going on in the US right now... But you are more than welcome to c'mon up and enjoy our bagged milk!

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Superbelt

If Zell Miller ran for President, Cobb would have won the NorthEast and Western Coast, and the Republican won everything else. Well, Dems MAY have won Georgia, but that's literally it.

Bill Richardson/ New Mexico
Howard Dean/ Vermont
Tom Vilsack/ Ohio
Barack Obama/ Illinois

That is my personal shortlist for the next election (Without a Kerry Incumbency)

I think Barack has a great shot at it, honestly. His elloquence is enough to get people to look past his color, he doesn't run campaigns on his color either. We would not win any southern states, hell the margin would go greater towards the Republicans, if Obama was the candidate, than ever before. But we would carry all of our base states and easily route the midwest. I really believe that.
Arizona, New Mex, Nevada, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri. We'd win them all, and that's the election. We'd probrably even take Forida with it's high hispanic population who would identify with him.

ShaniFaye

My only point was that there WAS at least one person that could run that would make me switch my party vote. I wouldnt vote for Dean...I dont know any of the others on your list....I'd have to check them out

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Superbelt

...Offset by so many Moderate and Liberal democrats who could never bring themselves to vote for someone like Zell.
Richardson and Vilsack are the Governors of their states.

mreman4u

I think Colin Powell would make a great President. He is well respected by foreign countries and the american people.

Go BUSH!

ShaniFaye

or.....Zell could switch parties and go republican, that wouldnt surprise me a bit

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

cthulu23

2008! Already?!

*runs screaming from the room*

SiNai

If Vilsack ran, I would probably vote for him, he's a great governor! But, you have your Iowas/Ohios mixed up

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Mephisto2

Why is there so much antipathy towards Hillary Clinton?

From a foreigner's perspective, she comes across as being an excellent candidate.

Mr Mephisto

shakran

I think we need an attitude shift across the country. Let's look at what we've voted for. For this thread I'm assuming Bush won because that's the way it's looking right now.

-Gay marriage bans in states all over the country. We've voted to restrict freedoms. Gay people are now officially the segregated society. We think we've advanced so much in the tolerance department because we no longer call black people niggers, but really all we've done is shift our vitriolic hate over to another group of people.

-We now officially approve of the war in Iraq, which means we like the idea of invading a county that hasn't done anything to us, just for the pure sake of starting a war.

-We believe the rich should get tax breaks while the poor and middle class are bled dry by the government.

-We believe that if people are going to break a law, we should simply get rid of the law (Bush: "We can't tax rich people because they'll just get out of it.")

-We believe having a liar in the whitehouse is OK, as long as he doesn't lie about sex.

-We believe it's a good idea to keep a president who changes his story every five minutes on why he's invading a county. (WMD's. Oh, no WMDs but he's connected to terrorism. Oh, he's not connected to terrorism, but he's a really mean old man!)



In short, we've turned away from the founding prinicpals that once made this nation great.

I've said for the past 4 years that I'm not ashamed to be an American because 1) we didn't put our leader there and 2) even if we did we had no clue he'd commit the atrocities he did.

Now that he appears to be about to be officially elected, I AM ashamed to be an American.

Averett

I like her, I think she would make a fine president, but unfortuantly I don't think the rest of the country feels that way.

I live in New York, and she's done a great job as a senator.

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gcbrowni

It's pretty clear what's wrong, the Democrats to not appeal to a broad part of America. That big swath of red on the US election results map that runs from the south, through the midwest and all the way till it reaches the left coast is what's wrong. The dems seem to have forgotten that the rest of the country counts as much as the northeast and the west coast. They need to start appealing to the common people in the rest of the country. Their positions on a large number of topics indicate they don't give a damn about the south, midwest and west.

They can win when they get their ultra-liberal subjets off the table and move closer to the center: the center being defined as middle america.

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ShaniFaye

Shakran just for the record.....Myself and many other Bush voters I know, unfortunately not enuff, voted NO on the marriage ban

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

aberkok

See, the media have poisoned minds AGAIN! The huge swath of red across the middle of the country WAS very intimidating, but if almost the whole country was red, then how come the vote ended up 50/50? POPULATION. That's why. That huge swath of red is mostly desert. The North East and California seem to be all that Kerry had, and yet he almost got it.

People need to intelligently process what they see.

One thing's for sure: change is inevitable...inev-inevitable...THINGS ARE INEVITABLY GOING TO CHANGE!

You Americans are OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWNED!

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Averett

Gee, thanks for that analysis, aberkok.

We know all about POPULATION. But we also know that just getting the the majority of the most populated states WASN'T ENOUGH. Something else has to be done.

And thansks for the 13 year old hacker Owned screaming

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ShaniFaye

It is? How do you figure that?

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Bill O'Rights

2008? 2008?!?

Here I thought I'd get a brief reprieve from all of the hyperbole and diatribe of the past year. Here it is...the day after the election, and already here we go again.

*glares mock menacingly at Averett*
C'mere...

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Averett

Bad move?

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gcbrowni

I suspect this is what the Democratic party leadership thinks also. If they go liberal they can pick up the west coast and northeast, and maybe the manufacturing pocket in the great lakes.

Unfortunatly, that turns off the rest of America, and the rest of America is a very large place. Flyover country likes the northeast and the west coast, but the values in those two places are not the same as ours. (A lesson the rest of the world could learn as well.)

As a Democrat, looking at that map embarasses me.

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martinguerre

The blue states of the 2000 election have nearly 65% of the population of the US, and nearly 70% of the GDP. While "desert" might an over statement "Desert, Corn, and cotton fields" might not be totally innacurate.

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roachboy

i have no idea about 2008.

because i think the absolute worst of bush, and because i think that his re-election, if it happens--which appears likely, to my horror---will unleash the most right tendencies that the first term had kept in check to some extent---i find it difficult to imagine what level of damage bush will be able to do.
damage in the supreme court.
damage economically
damage politically
damage in terms of foreign policy.


but i do feel slipping away that slight degree of hope for the states that i had maintained for years.
and that is far more difficult to process that i would have imagined, had i allowed myself to imagine it.

it is like watching someone you love set themselves on fire
and you are unable to do anything but watch.
and while that person is burning, you ask yourself "what about next time"?

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it make you sick.

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Locobot

In four years we can expect Jeb Bush to take over the presidency and inherit an even more commanding position in the House and Senate. By 2016 you can damn well expect his son Prescott Bush to make a run, scoring big with his Latin genes. They're seriously talking about a Chief Justice Thomas, seriously. We've basically just seen the end of abortion, embrionic stem-cell research, and any hope of gay marriage in America.

It's pretty much doom and gloom for American progressives. You can say the Democrats should have picked a more rural-friendly candidate, but remember that Kerry was largely picked by Iowa. For the last two weeks Kerry has been out hunting and wearing his carhardtt jacket. I guess voters found that side of him disingenuous. It's sad that rural Americans seem unable to cast such a discerning eye on Bush and the Republicans.

Lebell

I sincerely appreciate this remark and wish more Democrats felt this way.

Kerry is out of touch with the heartland, which has consistently rejected what it perceives as an intellectual snobbery in the North East and a sea of crime, immorality and new-age chicanary in LA-LA land (California) in the west. If Hillary is picked in 2008, I predict the same result for the same reasons.

No, the Dems need to field someone who can be a centrist and attract those of us who voted not for Bush, but against Kerry.

Unfortunately, such a candidate is unlikely to be popular with the two controlling groups of the Democratic party mentioned above.

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rukkyg

Holy shit, I forgot about the supreme court. This country is sooooo fucked. I wanna leave. Oh my god. When i read that it felt like my dad died or something. OMG. So bad so bad bad bad bad.

ubertuber

Perhaps we need to concede that America is not the country that we have thought it is. The real story isn't in the state electoral maps - it is in the county electoral maps. This country IS sharply divided between the parties, and it has to do with whether one lives in a rural area or an urban one even more than which coast one lives on, how rich or poor one is, or even whether one is a midwesterner northeasterner or southerner. It may be time to admit that this country is less urban than we think, and that there is more political power in the extra urban areas than we have assumed. The party that understands this and knows what to make of the suburban and exurban demographic shift is the one that will be effective in 2008.

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rukkyg

It seems somehow ironic that most people living in rural communities have neighbors that all look like them (ie they're all white) and that they're so sheltered from the world. The term "sheltered lives" comes to mind. People in the city seem to be so affected by economic faliure, seeing homeless people sleeping under newspapers on a bench doesn't happen in Hicksville, Mississippi.

roachboy

uber:

personally, i think the analytic question might end up involving as much suburban as rural america.
and in that, it may well turn out that people had, if anything, underestimated the power of television in shaping views of the world in both spaces.
maybe. the last might be too simple.

i keep thinking of robert musil's "man without qualities" which is about the hapsburg empire slipping into fiasco while the population dances in its habitual circles, unable and unwilling to look.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Locobot

Florida-Ohio-Louisiana-Georgia these are all states with a fairly high population density:

I think Bush voters tend to identify as rural even when they might not be.

Seaver

Wow.. you've never been to a small town have you? Maybe up north in those rural places but down south whites tend NOT to be the majority. And we do have the downtrodden too, but due to (for the most part) a better sense of community people will band together to help those in need. That's my experience coming from a small town to a big city, people in the city dont give a shit about each other as opposed to everyone knowing and saying hi to everyone else.

Locobot

It's true what you say Seaver, let's avoid the sweeping generalizations like that.

ubertuber

rukkyg,

I think it goes both ways though. I live in NYC, which is admittedly quite a stronghold for the democrats (at least in presidential politics). What struck about the election cycle is that my neighbors didn't just want Kerry to win - they were unable to conceive of a scenario in which Kerry would not win. So, just as people in non-urban America live in a sheltered country, so do those in urban America. People in the city are certainly waking up this morning to find out that there ARE opinions outside of NY that count, and they matter more than we have given them credit for. The challenge will be to see that whether or not you agree with them, a 3.5 million vote majority in the popular count is the voice of America and then use that to formulate a strategy. Self-righteous indignation and looking down one's nose at poor, sheltered white people (talking about my neighbors, not you) won't further an understanding of the electorate that will capture more votes. Looking at the maps shows where the democrats can go looking for new votes (where they aren't currently getting them), and it leads me to believe that the character of this countries electorate is at least to some degree misperceived.

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Stompy

Exactly why over the past 24 hours I've changed my perspective. I no longer support this country in any way, shape, or form.

Anything and everything that happens to us from now till 2008, we deserve. It's what we get for allowing people to let this happen. You'd figure people would learn from history, but (cliche cliche), history is bound to repeat itself.

For a near 50/50 outcome that this election had, you'd think there would be a bit more fairness within representation elsewhere (Supreme Court, Senate, etc..), but this isn't the case.

This country is sad.

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ubertuber

Locobot,

I don't want to hijack the discussion by belaboring a point, but I'd just point out that the difference is more stark when you look at counties. Truly, FL and OH have reasonably high population densities as states, but that population density is centered on cities. When you look at electoral maps of counties, you see a huge swath of red for Bush in FL with areas around Miami going for Kerry. Ohio looks similar, with the exception of Cincinatti, which went to Bush. Even in NY, a county map shows that the entire state goes republican with the exceptions of NYC, Buffalo and Rochester. If you were to laugh and say "what else is there in NY?" (not that you are or will say that) then you would be reinforcing my point - that there is a lot more to a state than its cities, which is why most of America's landmass is republican territory while our elections are still decided by margins of less than 5%.

Roachboy - I think you are right on in saying that we may be allowing ourselves to paint an unrealistic picture of the electorate based on media exposure. I also agree that the future belongs to the party that can decipher the suburban and exurban (suburb-of-suburbs, like Northern VA) populations, which are increasingly large in terms of population.

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