larchmont
02-19-2004, 12:12 PM
So, Howard Dean gave up yesterday. It was about a week and a half overdue.
As uber-world-commentator of the TSX forums :rolleyes: I would like to take full credit :soapbox: for being (maybe) the first one :ikno: to say that Dean was toast -- actually said it a couple of hours before the "I have a scream" speech, when everybody was still assuming he was the guy even though he wasn't even doing what he needed to do in Iowa and what was thought to be a piece of cake for him.
Eeeeeeeyyaaahhhhhhhhh! :mardi:
Not that I have anything against Dean, but he just was never going to get anywhere, unless people were complete idiots, which they're not. In essence he based his campaign on complete opposition to going into Iraq, which wasn't going to do it.
It's become clear, I think, that most Americans realize it's a lot more complicated than that. Kerry and Edwards (and others) have come under fire for seeming to take different positions at different times, like voting to authorize the use of force in the first place but then not voting for the extra $87 billion or whatever it was. But the fact seems to be that most Americans are quite ambivalent about the war, and that they themselves have felt different things at different times, depending on the situation and what exactly was the question that came up. When I'd see these polls that show the percentage of people "for" or "against" the war, I didn't know what I would say, and I didn't know if that meant I was smarter or stupider than all the people who could just say yes or no. At first my answer would have been, "Well, FOR, I guess," and later it would have been, "Well, AGAINST, I guess."
And it's seeming more and more like maybe that's really where most Americans are. That's a big part of why Dean was never going to get anywhere, and why people like Kerry and Edwards haven't been skewered. And I doubt that this ambivalence is just among Democrats.
Unless the Bush people can acknowledge this and find a way to take it into their message, I think they're going to have a big problem in November. They're coming from the total opposite direction of Dean, but their position seems no more tenable.
Oh, almost forgot -- "Just my 1.5 cents of course."
(In this instance, please ignore my sig.)
As uber-world-commentator of the TSX forums :rolleyes: I would like to take full credit :soapbox: for being (maybe) the first one :ikno: to say that Dean was toast -- actually said it a couple of hours before the "I have a scream" speech, when everybody was still assuming he was the guy even though he wasn't even doing what he needed to do in Iowa and what was thought to be a piece of cake for him.
Eeeeeeeyyaaahhhhhhhhh! :mardi:
Not that I have anything against Dean, but he just was never going to get anywhere, unless people were complete idiots, which they're not. In essence he based his campaign on complete opposition to going into Iraq, which wasn't going to do it.
It's become clear, I think, that most Americans realize it's a lot more complicated than that. Kerry and Edwards (and others) have come under fire for seeming to take different positions at different times, like voting to authorize the use of force in the first place but then not voting for the extra $87 billion or whatever it was. But the fact seems to be that most Americans are quite ambivalent about the war, and that they themselves have felt different things at different times, depending on the situation and what exactly was the question that came up. When I'd see these polls that show the percentage of people "for" or "against" the war, I didn't know what I would say, and I didn't know if that meant I was smarter or stupider than all the people who could just say yes or no. At first my answer would have been, "Well, FOR, I guess," and later it would have been, "Well, AGAINST, I guess."
And it's seeming more and more like maybe that's really where most Americans are. That's a big part of why Dean was never going to get anywhere, and why people like Kerry and Edwards haven't been skewered. And I doubt that this ambivalence is just among Democrats.
Unless the Bush people can acknowledge this and find a way to take it into their message, I think they're going to have a big problem in November. They're coming from the total opposite direction of Dean, but their position seems no more tenable.
Oh, almost forgot -- "Just my 1.5 cents of course."
(In this instance, please ignore my sig.)