On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Doug Pensinger wrote:
>
>
> "Marvin Long, Jr." wrote:
> >
> > A few thoughts from the peanut gallery....
>
> Great post Marvin, agree with you almost 100%. Perhaps we should figure out
> why so many rural people vote for the party of privilege.
Pretty simple--the Republican party is also the party of good
old-fashioned down-home folks; at least it spins itself that way.
Democrats have failed to make the argument that rural and urban
"non-affluent" people should make common cause, except in the case of
several minority groups. The challenge is to convince non-affluent white
men that liberalism offers them something more than castration, communism,
and religious betrayal...the very things that conservatives have worked
very hard for decades to equate with the word "liberal" in the public
consciousness.
> One thing I'm not sure I agree with - that it was the Democrat's election to
> loose. I think Gore was probably outspent by better that 2-1 (just a guess)
> and the Impeachment stuff probably made up a lot of peoples minds well in
> advance of the election. Further, this contrived energy crisis probably made
> enough people uncertain enough about the economy to make a significant
> difference.
Well, I see it this way: in spite of the impeachment and and the money,
Gore won the popular vote, meaning that, taken as a whole, the nation
doesn't really want to be defined as "Republican," at least not in the
White House. There were a lot of close states that might have swung his
way (and made Florida moot) if Gore had just run a better campagin, stayed
on message, and used the medium of television better. I think that this
year we had a case where the medium was enough of the message that using
it well or poorly made the difference, and Gore used it poorly.
> Look for W to use the "crisis" as a springboard to implement his energy policy
> - read opening up the wilderness in Alaska for drilling. I intend to join in
> the fight against that initiative. I hope that Clinton makes it difficult for
> W to do that in the closing days of his administration.
Absolutely.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
