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Kevin Drum on the new NYT article/chart :
The theory behind it, I guess, is that the political climate when you're age 20 affects your party preference for your entire life. The hypothesis would go something like this: popular presidents produce a swing among 20-year-olds to their own party, and unpopular ones produce a swing in the other direction.
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It looks to me like the Christian right's social neanderthalism is causing the Republican Party to lose a generation forever.
I came of age politically during Carter/Reagan, and I remember walking around muttering "Ronald Reagan is the devil" like that was as bad as it could get. Little did I know the plans others were laying to compete for that title at that very moment. Here's hoping that BushCo. has so radicalized a whole generation that they are willing to stand up and say "never again" for decades to come.
How about you?
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Pach!
Pach, I reread some of our disagreement on Clinton from last night. I see from whence you were coming and tend to agree.
Yep, VietNam.
BTW, I should have known I would get EPU’d- but I just left a post here:
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ent-336658
I wish I had lot’s of $$$ for give for worthy candidates, but sometimes I just don’t.
But, ET’s article was great, and she (Benson) looks like a great candidate.
Double up!!! Okay, here’s a modest proposal- I will put $20 into the Benson pot at egregious’s ActBlue page- when someone *who has not already donated* does the same- just drop me a note here on this thread (Face the Snark), then donate, and I’ll do the same. I can only match one donation at this point tho!
I came of age politically during Carter/Reagan, and I remember walking around muttering “Ronald Reagan is the devil” like that was as bad as it could get. Little did I know the plans others were laying to compete for that title at that very moment.
Yep, same here. I couldn’t imagine that many of the folks who were behind the Reagan era would lay low for 12-15 years and then come back to finish the job, discarding what few scruples they had left along the way.
Swopa @
4
I like Swopa because he gets my Robin Trower jokes.
The same reason I finally decided to start dating men my own age.
Karl Rove…”Say Bye, Bye”
“How sweet it is”
But, there will always be ‘Roves in our midst’.
“The theory behind it, I guess, is that the political climate when you’re age 20 affects your party preference for your entire life. The hypothesis would go something like this: popular presidents produce a swing among 20-year-olds to their own party, and unpopular ones produce a swing in the other direction.”
When I was twenty, I supported the Vietnam war. Things have changed. I have changed.
Jane Hamsher @ 5
“Jokes”? Plural? How many jokes about Robin Trower can there be?
The first campaign I followed was Henry Wallace (not George). He lost to Truman (I was six at the time). I’ve been picking losers ever since.
Living in NY there is no chance that my vote will matter so I always try to support a minor party candidate so that the range of political viewpoints being expressed will be greater.
One of the problems these days is that the difference between the two parties on the core issues like militarism or “free” trade is almost the same. Neither side is prepared to deal with looming raw material shortages, over population and climate change. So getting ideas from Greens or the like might inject some fresh ideas into the political arena.
Swopa @ 7
Oh I can do 10 minutes on Bridge of Sighs alone.
I was born in 1947. What a year! The HUAC hearings, Chuck Yeager flies into outer space, Good News, Desert Fury, and Gore Vidal summers in the Bahamas with boytoy supreme Harold Lang.
I came of age in the era of the Great Golfer and was in High School during the Kennedy administration. In 1962 he played brinksmanship with the Soviet Union and nearly brought the world as we know it to an end.
Consequently I wasn’t upset when he was offed in Dallas. The sonofabitch tried to kill me — fuck him!
Came out in High school (Communist Martyrs High, Class of ‘64) and neevr looked back. Got into gay politics right after Stonewall.
Met my boyfriend Bill in ‘71 and we’ve been together ever since.
Me, I wasn’t old enough to vote against Goldwater, who I thought was a dangerous lunatic (you had to be 21 then, I missed by a year) and I was raised by a Rock-Ribbed-Maine-Republican mother. I’m not sure where that puts me. I know my mother was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat by the time she died, however. I doubt that the “when were you born” chart means much at all. I’d much rather see a “how many years were you in school” chart, or a “how many kids do you have to raise” chart, etc., etc., etc… …
Jane Hamsher @ 5
As opposed to older men or younger? :)
Swopa @
4
I’m of the same generation you both are. A couple of years ago, I realized that Rove and his buddies are those humorless young Republicans I used to laugh at on campus. Little did I know that the same fools who annoyed me then would grow up to try to dismantle the Constitution and establish a morally bankrupt shell of a theocracy.
Jane Hamsher @ 9
(*cowers in corner*)
Damn, if TRex knew that, he’d realize that tasering him was downright merciful.
In my 20s I reacted to Kennedy and then Vietnam by moving very far to the left. I am slightly less left now, but not much. My kids have come of political age during Bush era and are also now confirmed in their left views in response. How could anyone with even a breath of hope regarding the world’s collective future not react in horror to what this regime has done to the world.
This generation of Americans is negative on Bush and the right, but the rest of the owrld (I live in Canada) is horrified, the negative reaction is almost universal, any age, any position on the ideological spectrum.
Could Baby Jesus love us that much? One can only hope.
(BTW, Jimmy Carter signed my first driver’s license… not literally though.)
I was a communication major, a freshmen in college when Bush/Reagan came into office. I was appalled by his “evil empire” speech and completely undone by his taking credit for the changes in the soviet union. I had been a big follower of Armand Hammer and all his work with many “hostile” countries. I think what he did and our undercover cia did, had a lot more to do with the fall of the soviet union that anything Reagan did. But so many people bought it. Also he did the same crap as Bush in that he hurt the little guy in the interest of corporate america. He pretended to be a christian as he literally took food out of the mouths of babes. It affected me deeply. The Clinton years were such a reprieve from that trickle down era that never trickled down.
Let’s swing this thing and make life better for everyone!!
egregious @
12
Uh….ask Pach.
He does a good analysis of how this reflects all my narcissism and control issues.
(Note to self: number of shrinks on staff probably sufficient.)
If truth be known, I came of political age around the dinner table about the age of 12 or so. Listening to the folks discuss JFK, unions and the Democratic party. Oh yes. And how bad the Republicans were. The old folks were right then, and as it turns out, they’d be right tonight.
Valley Girl @ 3
And we are waiting for your contributions here at:
http://www.actblue.com/page/egregious
We can DEFEAT these Abramoff/Marianas forced abortion/forced labor monsters. Give generously to help offset travel expenses for Diane Benson to travel to all of Alaska! The whole state is one gigantic Congressional district.
Thank you for your help.
Swopa @ 4
Reagan? Try Nixon-Ford*. The same bad apples, back once again. Let’s get the stake THROUGH the heart this time, ‘kay?
*unless you want to count GHWB and November 1963. History will not be kind to the Bush crime family. You think we are exaggerating when we speak of crime. But no.
Mine was not a generational thing. I liked Carter when I was a kid. Voted for Daddy Bush once. Voted for Clinton twice and voted for Gore and Kerry.
I never became actively involved until the shock in 2000 that George W was going to be president. I had always hated him because I thought he was a lying, silver spoon fed, coward and of course I he had to prove me correct without a shadow of a doubt.
As Jane said…George W and his minions are as bad or worse than anything Satan has produced…IMHO.
Thanks egregious!!!! I’m still awaitin’ someone to take me up on the “double up” offer. Yeah, I could have just put in $40, but I thought I’d try this out as a way to coax donors (a donor) out of the closet!!!! ;) We’ll see
My first ever vote was for Jimmy Carter in 1976… I was so very proud…
I actually choked up for a moment during Reagan’s funeral… as if somewhere deep in my heart I felt nostalgic for those days when I only thought he was the devil… before I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what ghouls the next generation of Republicans had in store for us…
Recent history has taught me to remain vigilant and not celebrate their demise prematurely, but slowly but surely, I’m starting to believe we’ll bury these assholes once and for all this time… or perhaps I should say, we’ll bury them with a great deal of assistance from… well… them…
Online, everybody seems focused (rightly or wrongly), but in real life I typically run into twentysomethings who have grown up acclimated to such a dumbed-down world of ideas that they’re seriously blinkered and disconnected from the dangers taking place around them. Mainstream news is a joke and education is being shifted away from analysis-based learning with every complaint made by reactionary parents objecting to their kids having to consider new ideas.
The young people I speak to have a vague sense that’s something’s not right, but don’t seem to have developed the habit of probing for detail. We have to create a framework where nuance can be appreciated, since the Republicans have certainly exploited the benefits of simplistic arguments long enough.
egregious @ 21
Yes, I didn’t realize that until much later, too…
Valley Girl @ 23
VG-
Does it count that I made my first donation to Diane Benson last night at egreege’s ActBlue page?
katie Jensen @ 17
What I am happy to admit: Reagan had little to do w the fall of the Soviet Union. They collapsed of their own internal rot [remember I work there and have talked w a lot of people.] What is more painful to admit: I was totally wrong about Communism. Always thought their evil was being hyped for political reasons. Well it was, but in fact Communism, in how it was expressed in the Soviet Union, WAS IN FACT EVIL. I saw with my own eyes the soul-killing and nation-killing effects of Communism. So I was wrong.
The truth: often complex, often painful. Let’s remember that when Democrats or even progressives go astray in the future. Have some sympathy for conservative true believers who are starting to feel like Martin Luther. Be kind to them as they blindly stumble back towards the light.
dr nobody @ 16
Mine too!!!
I’ll never forget seeing Jimmy Carter enter the Omni in Atlanta as Governor being lead to his seat at the Bob Dylan/Band concert…
persiflage & piffle @ 27
Where’s egregious’ Act Blue page? I’ll donate.
persiflage & piffle @ 27
Good for you!!!! But right now, I’m trying coax another donor (some reluctant donor) out of the closet. But Benson is a great candidate, and you did well. xxxooo
Never again.
Jane Hamsher @ 30
http://www.actblue.com/page/egregious
at http://mcegregious.blogspot.com
usually a home for rants about mental illness and politics.
How about you?
Well Jane, I’m 52, but I’m in…
Valley Girl @ 31
Valley Girl @ 31
I’m in…
http://www.actblue.com/page/egregious#11475
Jane!!! Did you make the first offer? Text is sorta scrambled… Let me know…
whoopee- do we have two? Thatsinger, and Jane? Okay, if so, despite what I said about only one, I’ll match 2 this time, bec. Benson is a great candidate!
p.s. just let me know when you’ve completed the transaction(s)!!!!! And then I’m good to go. xxooo.
Jesse was my first vote for Prez I was still in highschool, unfortantly my county gave more votes to David Duke.
Above all, when Arianna speaks, I do listen. She tells us:
Remember Ned Lamont? He was that guy who came out of nowhere to beat Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary in 2006, only to turn around and lose to him in the general election when he got too cautious and stopped running the hard-charging campaign that had excited everyone in the first place.
I really thought he was going to win there for a while. He probably could have, but, hey, hindsight is 20/20 — too late to do anything about it now.”
That’s not a real quote — yet. But if things keep going the way they’re going in the Senate race in Connecticut, you’re likely to hear many variations on it in the years to come. Which would be too bad — especially because it’s so preventable.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also have clear-eyed foresight. It would be a shame if Ned Lamont lost. And not just for Lamont. Returning Joe Lieberman to the Senate would be a loss for all Americans — and a loss for the Constitution (see Lieberman’s disgraceful vote in support of the recent torture bill). And yet I fear that’s exactly what’s going to happen if Lamont doesn’t regain the passion and purpose that propelled him to his victory over Lieberman in the primary.
It is bitterly ironic that instead of building on that momentum by continuing to make his case against Lieberman, Lamont has let himself become enmeshed in the same consultant-driven culture of caution and blandness that has produced a steady stream of modern candidates more worried about stepping on the land mines laid out by their opponents’ campaign teams than stepping forward to lead. The addition to the Lamont campaign after the primary of Democratic insiders Howard Wolfson, Doug Schoen, and Stephanie Cutter has been part of the problem. According to their poll-driven culture, one must move to the center and appeal to those in the middle. And, as a result, once-promising politicians are insidiously encouraged to lose their moral bearing — and the authenticity that made them so compelling in the first place. In the attempt to appeal to everyone, they end up losing their appeal. As Bill Curry puts it in the Hartford Courant , “Inundated with insider advice, [Lamont] grew more cautious; his message became blurred and ineffective…Three televised debates in the next eight days may tell the outcome. To win, Lamont must come off the ropes and go on the attack.
egregious- do the page totals $$ update automatically? Time lag?
I came of age during the Reagan/Bush era. Disliked them both. The midwest was turning into the Rust Belt at that time, with all the manufacturing jobs being shipped to Mexico. I saw then only the rich did well and knew conservatives were full of crap.
I love that graphic, and really, really hope it’s true. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Rove’s election engineering to get Bush 43 in office set up the dynamics to get R’s out of power for decades? :)
When GWB ran in 2000, he tried to appear moderate, then after the selection by the court, hired all of Nixon’s leftovers! After the mess is cleaned up, we must make sure Americans all know HOW the mess was made. Pardons will not wipe away the stains on our country left by these fools.
They’re called Millennials and go here for an overview of who these kids are today:
http://www.generationsatwork.c…..enials.htm
I was a young teen during Viet Nam but started to pay attention during Watergate. To this day I can remember Judge Sirica demanding Nixon turn over his tapes. My father was stunned.
From that day on I was a news junky.
there’s the problem Jane, I ALSO couldn’t stomach Reagan and ALWAYS thought he was dim witted
for some reason I CANNOT understand, the raised a generation of republicans…my generation LIKED him, and I just couldn’t get it.
I saw the middle class turning into nothing, stores closing every single weak, rich people getting more wealth while lower class were getting turned into the street
mom and pop stores open for two generations being closed down
it was SICK but my generation turned into republicans because of that idiot
right now, for some unknown reason, people who’s intelligence I USED to respect think this whole hate thing for bush is “liberal media”, they REFUSE to hold him to account for ANYTHING
everything that has ever happened bad was “Clinton’s fault”, and everything that looks even remotely good is “see”..I TOLD you things were going GREAT”
this president has created a division that I never ever thought I would see among Americans
he has created ” a great divide”
though I always thought Reagan was a TERRIBLE “communicator”, for some reason the media tagged him “the great communicator”
I think we should tag Bush;
“the great divider”
kind of catchy
My first vote; Shirley Chisholm.
My political hero, Lawton Chiles, Mr government in the sunshine.
But looking at the Graph the Dems should never lose, but Karl knows how to get the most out of the least.
We have a long way to go.
me to me @ 44
Valley Girl @
38
Okay VG I did it. Just gave $$$ to Benson via egregious.
Hey thanks you two!!!! I just did my $40 matching contribution to Benson at
http://www.actblue.com/page/egregious
Online shopping really IS fun!!!! xxooo
Jane Hamsher @ 47
Jane- thanks- also saw another $20 (thatsinger, I assume) so I matched them both.
Back in 2000 after the debacle know as the election, I was saying give Bush 2 years and he’ll destroy the Republican party once and for all.
I was a little optimistic with the 2 year window.
katie Jensen @
17
Ah, trickle down economics. I remember it well. The memory trigger for a cascade is the image of Ronald Regan standing on the Empire State Building, pissing into the street.
me to me @
44
Reagan almost destroyed the English language and we have not yet recovered. When he began calling missiles “peacekeepers,” as an English major I almost put my head through a wall. Twisting language into a pretzel and subverting meaning to political ends became the art of the modern Republican party.
Everyone who contributed to spreading the notion that Reagan was a “great communicator” should be wearing sack cloth and ashes. He’s a great communicator like Howie Mandel is a great communicator. They’re both actors, and just barely. They read their lines effectively. The end.
Jane Hamsher @
5
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Jane Hamsher @ 52
I wonder if they might have meant nonverbal communication. Reagan was very good at conveying an affable, benevolent vibe, which served to sugarcoat his awful policies.
Of course, “The Great Obfuscator” probably would have been more appropriate…
here’s the platform the next democratic candidate for President shoudl use
it takes a little from gincgrich, it takes a whole bunch from roosevlet;
“America’s Deal and our promise to American’s”
1) In the future, there will be profit in self defense ONLY when we are not at war, at time of war the defense industry federalizes and produces for our soldiers at cost
In this way it will be in big bussiness’s best interest to maintain the PEACE, not in there best interest to promote war
2) a man who works 40 hours a week;
Should be able to raise a family without using public assistance and when he needs public assistancce for everyday family expenses the middle class is subsidizing the company that hires this individual
that has to stop, corporations have to pay their OWN bills WITHOUT relying on the middle class to fend for the corporations workforce
NO WELLFARE FOR PROFITABLE CORPORATIONS
there will be exceptions, for instanuce unincorporated bussiness would be able to hire according to what the market will bare
a man who works 40 hours a week should be ably to put healthy food on the table without using pubic assistance
He should be able to afford health care for his wife and children, without using public assistance
He should be able to get his kids teeth fixed, without using public assistance
He should be able to put all of his children through college if they are eleigable scholastically, without using public assistance
He should be able to take a vacation once a year, without using public assistance
If ANY company pays so little that these needs have to be assumed with public assistance, that company is STEALING from the middle class and contributing to the great divide
if a company uses foreign labor for their workforce and there is no collective bargaining agreement in that country a tarriff will be added to the price of the goods so that Americans do not promote child abuse, starvation and slave labor.
it’s a work in progress, feel free to contribute
Eli @ 53
The first scream, of many hearts breaking across the internets . . .
Organic George @
45
Me too! But it was in my 9th grade straw poll. :-)
I watched the 1968 Democratic Convention and that did it for me. Martin Luther King Jr. made a huge impression on me…so many events of the time had an influence, I’m sure.
BTW, Jane, can you fix the link to the larger version of the graphic? The “ht” in the “http” is missing.
Thanks.
here’s an idea!!!
how about a “ten things we need to do as the next president of America”
we’d make a GREAT friggin list the progressives could use in their campaigns
I remember when Reagan pranced out onto the GOP Convention stage in his ice-cream-man suit to make Nixon’s 1968 nomination unanimous — watching on teevee with my dear gramma, who turned to me and said, “If that man ever becomes President, we’ll have to leave the country.”
Well, he did and we didn’t.
I will never forgive him and his horrible wife for their stalling on AIDS — allowing a catastrophe to become a disaster, now a global shame. I’m just glad to see Nancy denied her precious stem-cell research. This is how it feels, lady.
I joined the navy in 1961. When the Cuba ballon went up I was on a submarine, in port, with all the main diesel piston liners pulled and sitting on the weather deck waiting to get surveyed.
We were underway and and 20 miles at sea within 12 hours. JFK was the man, with integrity to spare, and I still think so after all these years.
I never got to Vietnam and I didn’t support any war over there, but I would have gone. Not much use for submarines in Vietnam. In fact I voluntered for dive school and EOD, which unbeknownst to me at the time would have put me there. I didn’t go because I was on new construction. Mere chance.
Bush is a jerk, and a dangerous jerk at that. I’ve never thought otherwise.
Jane, you’re so right about how we thought Reagan was the worst thing ever back then. Being in the punk scene, there was a *lot* of talk about that. Well, there was a lot of talk about how bad US government in general was, but Reagan in particular. I remember a comment by Biafra (in Slash magazine, as I recall) about how Carter was evil (”You can tell by his eyes…”). I think I need to ask him about that the next time I see him, heh. Little did we know just how bad it could really get. There’s times when I look back on George HW Bush’s admin. and think that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought at the time. Of course, it *was* really bad, but nothing compared to what we have now. While I do think that the era of Reagan made many (then) young people into firm anti-GOPers, I’m ocassionaly surprised by finding out someone has gone over to that side. Though it seems like most of them are recent (as in post 9-11) converts, so there is *that* explanation. They were scared and bought into the fear-mongering that the Republicans do so well.
Eli @
53
Only because you’re taken and don’t think I didn’t take that into consideration, Eli.
I turned 20 during the first Bush administration, but I was a Democrat long before that. For as long as I can remember, in fact – going back to at least age 11, and possibly age 7.
hey guys, I could SWEAR in the run up to the war there was a bush quote;
“this isn’t about regime change it’s about wmd’s
is that quote just a figment of my imagination?
Jane Hamsher @ 64
Well… okay. Jeez, you women are picky.
Jane Hamsher @ 52
I think you can thank people like Peggy Noonan for that pretzeling of the language. Reagan, as with a lot of actors, wasn’t exactly a wizard at writing his own lines. But, he could hit his marks and read those written by others.
The real problem, I suspect, was that he was a bit ornery about having his ideas translated into the speeches and, given his thought processes, there was, therefore, no hope of the prose coming out in anything resembling standard English.
Kent State -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
4 Students
killedmurdered by their government, 9 Wounded. . . doing exactly what my 17 year old self was doing the day before
Jane Hamsher @ 47
Yay Jane! Yay VG! Yay ThatSinger! This site is offered for your political consumption, since Benson is not on the BlueAmerica list. Am not trying to be in competition with fdl, not having a death wish, but simply offering alternatives for (1) friends of mine who don’t know fdl well (2) candidates not on BlueAmerica like Walz, that guy in Minnesota whose ad we all loved, and Diane Benson, with luck the next Congressional Rep. for the entire state of Alaska.
Re men one’s own age, I have always gone for the younger men, as they appreciate independent and strong-willed women. Thank you gentlemen of any age for your willingness to appreciate us as PEOPLE. You WILL be rewarded :)
Howard C. Kveck @ 63
That is so funny that you mention that, Howard, because that was the first thing I thought of when I saw that chart — how Biafra & I used to bitch about how bad Jimmy Carter was. History would certainly provide strange context for those sentiments. Remember all that Jerry Brown/”California Uber Alles” stuff? It all seems like a dream world.
Jane Hamsher @ 64
Eli is taken? Now I’m depressed.
I think the operative verb is not “compete” but “complete”. Everything we’re seeing now started under Reagan — with the involvement of a lot of the same people. It’s rather like the First World War and the Second — two interconnected periods of insanity and atrocity with a brief respite in between…
egregious @ 72
And you should be. Eli’s hot.
Jane Hamsher @ 74
I know, I was online when he posted rare photos of himself. Lucky girl.
I supported Nixon in 1960, and Goldwater in 1964 — but as child born into a family of Lincoln Republicans, and seeing how I was 14 in ‘64, I have an excuse.
In High School, I subscribed to the news magazines, National Review, and TransAction. In my junior year reality began to intrude, and I came over to to the bright side of the road after Tet.
I became a Democrat, and supported McCarthy, Kennedy, and Humphrey — but in November 1968, I was old enough to die, but too young to vote.
Jane Hamsher @
9
OK, go
…After that comes the Mahogany Rush monologue, right?
;>)
darkblack @
77
You stole my encore!
egregious @ 75
All this objectification of the male form is rather sexist.
(*G*).
Carry on, ladies….
Bill Clinton was at the end of his first term when I was 20.
Those were great times.
My children will never know such times. And that’s sad.
Valley Girl @ 41
Not sure about a lag, but earlier today it was $2,495 and now it’s $2,665. Yay us!
egregious @ 75
I’m pretty sure you both must have me confused with someone else…
Jane Hamsher @ 78
Hey, I saved you Bachman Turner Overdrive
;>)
Jane Hamsher @ 52
At the end of his last presidential debate, Reagan blithered off into incoherence. It was clear then and there that he had alzheimers syndrome. The man all but drooled on himself. Yet the press talked as though he had had delivered a virtuoso performance.
Unfortunately, America’s press is every bit as compliant as were Pravda and Tass. And they are ten times more dangerous, since Soviet citizens knew of that their press was compliant. But the U.S. press is so cleverly controlled that even the participants don’t get it. They are like a school of fish. Each fish individually has full freedom of action, but never chooses to exercise it. (Reminds me of my uncle, who insisted that he could walk on the ceiling any time he felt like it.)
I’ve long believed tthat the blogs and vlogs will have to drive traditional news media out of business before there can be real reform, but I have to admit that Stewart, Colbert, and Olberman may have found another way.
egregious @ 81
And now it’s $2,715. Keep ‘em coming, folks! OUT with the forced abortion people! Regardless of your position on abortion, I think we can all agree that FORCED abortions in the Marianas, and coverup by the committee headed by incumbent Don Young-R Alaska, are TRUE EVIL. The Bible kind of evil.
http://www.actblue.com/page/egregious
FIGHT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!
From Les Payne:
“Let’s go to the body count. President George W. Bush doesn’t like numbers – or fancy words for that matter. At his ah-shucks press conference Wednesday in the Rose Garden, he declared: “Nobody has accused me of having a real sophisticated vocabulary.”
This “Ozark Ike” shtick by our 43rd president has run its course. This wayward scion of one of the ranking ruling-class families has made a career of getting himself underestimated, then collecting on his family name big-time. Every job coming his way unduly, from Air National Guard lieutenant to owner of the baseball Texas Rangers, has been squandered. Now, this middle-aged Prodigal Son, who “wasted his substance in riotous living,” has been empowered to oversee the ship of state, its treasure, honor and the future of its young.”
http://www.newsday.com/news/op…..-headlines
Oklahoma kiddo @ 85
Did you see the NY Daily News story about the war between Bush I and Bush II staffers?
darkblack @ 83
(*runs screaming from room due to attack of traumatically repressed memories*)
Robin Trower
egregious- re: Benson- I see this as an extension of FDL, not competition. If I didn’t know you and P*** M***** via FDL, I might not have paid attention to Benson. And, that does not prevent me from supporting ActBlue candidates. Howie has been incredible in finding and writing about great candidates for ActBlue, but geez, he only has so many hours in a day, and he is amazing with that! I can’t help but imagine that all things being perfect, Benson would have been an ActBlue candidate. And, I have to confess, I am *slightly* biased towards giving the $$$ to really good female candidates.
Swopa @ 87
Just as long as we stay away from Emerson, Lake & Palmer lyrics, I should be okay…
yes Eli – caught it over at your place – along with that hilarious and indeed prescient SNL sketch – had never seen it – thanks !!!
http://multimedium.blogspot.com
egregious @ 81
egregious- I think it does update automatically- could have answered that question myself- I was watching the totals, and saw them go up by $40 (2 $20) and again by $40 when I added my match. As I said, online shopping is fun!
Valley Girl @ 90
Howie has an article on Diane Benson at his own site Down With Tyranny. [racing over to pickup the linky]
Here tis:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspo…..g-for.html
Thing is, I don’t even KNOW e.t. Was just inspired by his passion, just as I was inspired by Nate quitting his job and moving from Hawaii to California to work for Charlie Brown.
We can do work not only immediately, but also by INSPIRING others. Keep up the good work people!!
cbl @ 91
My pleasure. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that that sketch was on the intertubes – I thought I was the only one who remembered it. Actually, all I really remembered was the ending, but the rest of it turned out to be even better.
Eli’s photos…hmmm…
Ahem. Returning to the serious business at hand :)
Goopers have won under Clusterfuck because of the “odd couple” arrangement between wealthy plutocrats and evangelical christians.
What’s about to happen is that because of Clusterfuck’s boneheaded policy in Iraq- goopers are about to lose an election. When that happens- the plutocrats- who hated the evangelicals all along- will unload on em- and the fabric of the party will be ripped in two.
Humptey Dumptey won’t be able to put it all back together again.
In the meantime- the numbed of younger people embracing the used car approach to christianity favored by blue collar Clusterfuck supporters is cratering- the young hate “the movement” and all the dumb ass things that go with it including the attacks on gay marriage.
As the evangelical movement dies- so will gooperism as we know it.
I admit I’m a pessimist. There were only about 6 years between Nixon and Reagan and 8 years between Bush 1 and 2. Everyone always says never again and then the Republicans put forward some empty suit or take an old suit and dust it off and it happens again. The odds are it will happen again. The Democrats in name only and the Liebermans who aren’t even that still look and act a lot like their Republican peers just not so criminal. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement and not a sign of generational change.
Then there is the swing MFM vote that can be detached from its Republican roots for an election cycle or two but as the disasters of the Republicans fade a little from memory and the country begins to recover, they tend to return to their addiction to kool-aid and Republican sloganeering.
I would love to be proved wrong about all this but I felt the same way about it the last time too, and the time before that.
egregious @ 95
Most people just make fun of the shirt…
Jane Hamsher @
71
Anybody who was establishment was going to get it in the neck in that era. ‘Leaders’ like that laid the groundwork for what was to come…No feel-good ‘looking back with love’ image rehab here, period – They were bad then, and their successors are worse on an exponential scale.
Swopa @ 87
You can run, but you can’t hide from such majestic patchouli-soaked bombast..It will find you, cowering under your English punk vinyl and drag you out to the rainbow sunshine elvenworld…
;>)
egregious- the Benson article at DWT is by our own ET. And it is a great article- that’s what made me pull out the credit card!
http://downwithtyranny.blogspo…..g-for.html
Hugh @ 97
That’s what I keep coming back to. Nixon and Watergate should have discredited the Republicans for a generation, and it barely even slowed them down.
Of course, the 70s Republicans cut their ties to their shitty president a lot more decisively than the 00s Republicans have, or will.
Jane,
What do you think about Arianna’s atricle?
Eli @ 91
ELP have lyrics?? Wow I must have missed more than I thot in the 70’s :)
For my son’s 21st birthday, we went to Vegas for a week. Before we left, we stopped by the tag agency; I made him register to vote before I let him get on the plane. He asked me if I heard Dubya’s presser the other day, and I said I caught part of it, what did he say? I asked. My boy said “I dunno, I can’t hardly stand to listen to him.”
The leaders of the “Christian Coalition” are all about ready to check into retirement homes. There are undoubtedly some younger faces who are ready to jump on that gravy train- but the fact is- that movement is about to enter the adult pampers era- and there is nothin much to replace em with.
That’s the grimest scene in the future of the gooper party.
egregious @ 103
“Touch and go, friend or foe, caught without a warning like a UFO.”
Oy.
Eli @ 87
I will go and look at it now.
Oilfieldguy @ 105
Congratulations, Dad, your work here on earth is done.
Anything else is extra bonus points.
Eli @ 107
Good thing I wasn’t listening :D
Mickey @ 103
Well, I read it. She sounds pissed. Hope the Lamont campaign gets the message.
I was only 17 in 1980 so I voted by sicking Reagan’s picture on the bottom of a glass ashtray. My Republican roommate wasn’t thrilled. And she was old enough to really vote, dammit.
From EPU:
Jane — a recent kos post suggested that Dean needs to create a “national ad” that articulates the national issue(s) from a Dem perspective. I’d go futher and say we need a national statement — and the 30-second ads merely highlight the themes. — I’d suggest the vision we are talking about here. I strongly feel we need a national statement quickly, from a national figure, articulating this vision. It would frame the choice for this entire election, and in doing so, it would define the mandate the Dems will have post election, if (as now seems possible), they win big. Oh, and it might just help them win big.
It such a statement were forthcoming, it could then be endorsed by all elements of the Dem party, including the critical labor leaders like Andy Stern.
btw — I assume you know about what Arianna is doing. What next?
om EPU:
Eli @ 102
IIRC both Rumsfeld and Cheney worked in the Nixon White House. In fact, Rummy hired Dick and a lot of Dick’s later assertion of the unitary executive can be seen as a reaction to what he saw happen to Nixon. For Cheney, the problem was that Nixon hadn’t gone far enough. Cheney decided to correct all that. Just as these guys were drawn to refight the First Gulf War because they thought we had gotten it wrong, they also wanted to overturn all those “nasty” checks on Presidential power set by Watergate.
Valley Girl @ 110
The “influx of Democratic insiders” seriously worries me – wasn’t Stephanie Cutter one of the geniuses of passivity on the Kerry campaign?
Is the Democratic establishment ineptly trying to help Lamont, or cleverly trying to help Lieberman?
Hey y’all,
Just want to say that Esten came through his first day of recovery Friday beautifully. He had , among other things, a spinal tap and marrow biopsy, as well as his first dose of chemo and steroids. There was no Leukemia in his spinal fluid. All of his blook work looks great, with white blood cell counts approaching normal.
He’s rambunctious and pissed at being there, which is encouraging! Looks like they might send him home in the next few days to begin what will be three years of treatment.
Thank you, more than words, for your outpouring of kindness and support. I’m going (back) to bed, having been laid low by a head cold for the past couple days.
tommy yum @ 115
Huzzah! I hope the treatment goes well.
Yeah, could be some truth to this. I was drafted by Nixon in ‘71 and have hated Republicans ever since.
tommy yum @ 116
Tommy- it is so great to hear from you. You have been missed greatly. Thanks for the update, and for the good news.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 86
Bush has been outsmarted by every person in the Axis of Evil except one. And that one gave him credit for too much intelligence (of both kinds).
egregious @ 104
They do indeed. Here are some of my favourites:
Oooooooh, waaaaaahhh, ooooooh
Wheedededy, wheededey,
Wheedededy, wheededey, dededey.
tommy yum, thanks very much for the update.
I came of political age during Nixon. I just hated the prick. I took a year off between high school and college, worked in a factory for the winter, then moved to Tempe. That was the summer of ‘74 and Watergate was on the front burner.
In, like, June, Nixon tried a last desperate tour of right wing cites and he came to Phoenix. We the scruffy and scroty showed up outside the event and got to flip Nixon off and sing, “Jail to the Chief” as his limo drove away.
In July, I quit my job and took to the highway. I hitchiked from Tempe, through Las Vegas, through Salt Lake City, camping in the mountains of northern Utah. Then I thumbed my way across Colorado, through Rocky Mountain National Park and on to Boulder, which at that time was a very hip place. I’d been out in the wilderness and on the highway for like two weeks and I caught a quick shower at a U.C. campus dorm, then headed for the main drag.
All the newspaper boxes had headlines about the Supreme Court telling Nixon he had to turn over the tapes.
I rode my thumb back home to Milwaukee and the day I got home, Nixon resigned. My folks had a big resignation party.
Three weeks later I started college.
But I also remember a stencil someone made, spray painting the sidewalks of Madison during the Reagan era. It said, “Shoot Bush First.”
Would it were so. But I have my doubts.
Nevertheless, I did contribute to Benson via egregrious. I trust your instincts.
The current crop of “culture of corruption” Republicans are going after (indoctrinating? brainwashing?) those much younger than our nation’s 20-year-olds.
Remember, Scholastic Inc joined the efforts of the Republicans and ABC/Disney to produce a slanderous miniseries called “The Path to 9/11,” in which the attempt was made to deflect blame for the 9/11 attacks succeeding away from the Bush administration and onto the Clinton administration, even though by my estimates the Clinton administration was at least 100 times more aggressive in addressing the right-wing al Qaeda terrorist threat than the Bush administration.
And why was Scholastic Inc recruited in this nefarious Republican plot to rewrite history? So Scholastic Inc could spread this lying filth (”The Path to 9/11″) among out nation’s schoolchildren, thus poisoning their young minds.
One has to really wonder how a bunch of so-called Christians, those identifying themselves as evangelicals, got hooked up with the utter evil that permeates the current “culture of corruption” Republican Party? Did they totally ignore Jesus’ warning about “thieves” stealing in in the middle of the night and robbing people blind? Based on the power-mad, money-mad antics of the current “culture of corruption” Republican Party, I’m certain Jesus was referring to them.
Therefore, a vote on November 7th for a Democratic Party candidate is really a vote for true Christianity.
This whole Bush 41 vs. 43 thing is weird. Some sort of Freudian-Oedipal bizarreness. I’m fed up with both these guys. And Babs Bush too.
“In fact, the 41s suggest a singular irony: the unpopularity of the son’s administration may be rehabilitating the father’s.”
Responding to the original post, I have to say absolutely.
I’m 24. The religious right (and Joe Lieberman) spent the 90s making my blood boil while I was in middle and high school. Then, in my first presidential election after turning 18, I voted for Gore. 4 years later, Kerry. If, through voter intimidation and fraud, the Republicans manage to eke out another victory – or worse, if the Democrats manage to steal defeat from the jaws of victory again – the time for political solutions will be over.
If the national party can’t sort itself out by 2008, then it will be up to the rest of us to just march on Washington. And I’m not talking about just packing people into the Mall. I mean the whole 9 yards: pitchforks, shotguns, and forcibly occupying the halls of Congress.
The Oracle @ 123
It’s not so much Scholastic specifically as the educational system in general. The Republicans have every incentive to break it, because the less knowledge and critical thinking ability young Americans have, the more likely they are to become Republican-leaning “low-information voters”.
I think I’m the same age as Jane…
One memory seared into my brain listening to GHWB on TV, and calling him a fascist.
Mother was NOT pleased.
Wrt Arianna’s article, it sounded a little simplistic to me. Joe knew before the first debate that he was in touble with primary voters. That’s why he announced he would run as an indy if he lost it. Ned won the liberal vote in the primary, but from the polling it sounds as though he hasn’t been able to hold onto conservative Dems and CT Republicans have gone with Joe. I think as the situation in Iraq continues south, you’ll see more defections from Joe. The debates also give Ned a great chance. Joe’s place on the ballot, south of Schlessinger, is important too. Every vote for Schlessinger is a vote for Ned. Who will do Joe’s GOTV? I know the numbers don’t look good, but Ned’s position on Iraq looks better every day. CT Bob videotaping Joe’s lie about the Hastertgate “partisan frenzy,” will help too.
(((((((Esten and Tommy)))))))
Sending prayers and much love your way.
We had a Governor in NH who wanted tactical nuclear weapons back in the day. Mad Mel Thompson.
One can certainly wonder how a US civil war would have cooked out if the US allowed individual states to control their own nuclear weapons.
Being from Red to Blue NH I was always allured by the Republican rap on “fiscal conservatism” but I was aware of just how much of a simple base appeal that was and that the true believers wanted to control alot more of the private aspects of private citizens.
That has kept me to the left of the aisle for a long time.
-GSD
I was born in ‘68. Ford was the first person I recognized as the president that wasn’t named Bert or Ernie. I actually voted for GHWB in ‘88 as an uninformed sophomore in college who didn’t know much of anything about politics. The first politician that made an impression on me was Ann Richards – which means the first politician I ever loathed was Dubya as Gov. of Texas for everything good that he turned upside down. I finally awakened to politics in 2000 out of concern. I distinctly remember in 2000 telling a mentor of mine in Chapel Hill that W was the ‘antichrist’. It’s strange that I used that kind of gut level description then. Even more strange how accurate that has turned out to be.
Not only will I never support the GOP, I have turned the corner on wanting to actively help build a stronger Democratic party over the long haul.
I still haven’t read all the posts. Seems like I’m always in catch-up mode these days, but DAMN, Jane.
Sure is fun to be sitting here, reading you in the comments.
Quite delicious, in fact.
OT Hey egregious- the extra Benson $$ were from another FDLer- see the end of the Face the Snark thread.
Interesting article and graph up top there. I would like to see it combine somehow with information about the size of the age cohorts – All those lovely Dem young ‘uns, but there aren’t as many of them. What’s the impact of an aging population on this? What about the proportion of people at different ages who actually vote?
scarecrow @ 124
Scarecrow, you are very high on MY list :)
When I first started reading fdl I would read your comments and think, YES that’s EXACTLY what I think, it would be great to meet this man. Nothing has changed since my original assessment.
Intelligence and passion at any age are very sexy!!
John Casper @ 130
Lamont will win. But to say I am disappointed in his performance since winning the primary would be an understatement.
I come from a Democratic family, what my parents self-identified as the party of the ‘working people’. I’m just old enough to remember them crying when FDR died. I was four at the time, and didn’t know why. We were always Democrats. I came of age, however, during the Civil Rights movement, participating in the early sit-ins. MLK moved me beyond words, and his strength has been my guide ever since.
persiflage & piffle @ 83
p&p—
THANK YOU!!! And on behalf of the women in the Marianas who have been forced to have abortions, and the people in the Marianas who are there as forced labor—slavery, to my mind—WE WILL OVERCOME.
Let’s send these Abramoff/Doolittle/Pombo/Young EVIL MEN to the dust bin of history.
Victory is ours if we want it!
FIGHT BACK!!!!!!!!
new thread- Gilliard on torture and Hillary.
HotFlash @ 121
Oh! I remember sitting in my backyard, listening to that very bit as they were performing live at the Ontario Motor Speedway. California Jam’!
The sounds carried up to the foothills behind our house and we could hear the whole thing.
Muzzy @
133
He is actually Satan’s dupe. Rove is the truly menacing one that has used a dissipated Chimp to his advantage and to the nations peril.
-GSD
Oklahoma kiddo @ 138
I left this comment at HuffPo on Arianna’s post:
Valley Girl @ 141
But I just got here! *g*
Go Diane Benson!
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 144
I saw your earlier comment that you had contributed to the Benson campaign- thanks much.
Oklahoma Kiddo at 138 -
It has nothing to do with Lamont’s performance – he has been great at every event I have seen him at since the primary.
His campaign sucks. They have stuck to the belief that ads have no impact and no role to play in an effective campaign. Much less negative ads. That’s been the real downfall. Most of the blog comments are Lamont supporters begging for some negative ads to slam Lieberman. But they end up being lectured by someone in the campaign saying ads don’t make a difference.
Who ever is making that decision should be shot.
The fact is – he needs to make himself known to Unaffiliated and Republicans. Door to door and phone calls can only do so much.
I think he will win – in spite of his campaign. And then I hope we finally find out what the f*ck has been going on behind closed doors.
I knew what we were in for when Reagan squashed the air traffic controllers’ union. It was an act of unbridled arrogance: he was willing to risk the safety of the flying public to start the process of crushing the American worker.
One of the best things about this site is the Jordan Barab posts. I rarely get to comment on them, but when I read them, I remember what I learned in the anti-war struggle: the connection between my theoretical, intellectual focus and the real lives of the soldiers in my unit. The first rule of successful leadership is that no one likes or trusts an elitist.
Barab also remind us that big money not only hates paying workers, it generally hates paying for the safety of workers, the health care of workers, retirement benefits for workers. In fact, big money, huge corporations can talk all they want to about how their workers are the foundation of their business, but what they mean is that they hate workers.
Barab is writing about the reasons that progressives want to govern. Progressives believe that an economy exists not to serve money, but to make people’s lives better.
scarecrow @ 144
Scarecrow – thanks for posting that response. You and I are on the same wavelength. I wish whomever in his campaign doesn’t think ads work should be lined up against a wall and shot. That’s the only thing wrong with the campaign.
Lieberman is fighting for his political life and he is vicious and unprincipled. Lamont is a good and decent guy. His campaign is letting him down. I thought Tom Swan was a street fighter – so…what happened? Let Tom be Tom.
Coming to the thread late… turned 20 late in 99, seeing the big right wing conspiracy against Clinton in full swing, though I’d been a watcher of politics for some time before that… hell, even before I could vote.
Their actions were repulsive then, and they’re repulsive now…
masaccio @ 148
The Dead Kennedys said it all, with regard to the Raygunites.
Reading through all these posts, I am reconfirmed in the belief that we have had some real fuckin’ slugs in the White House over the last few decades, haven’t we?
That would suggest a systemic problem, yes?
Too much big money in politics, maybe?
TeddySanFran @ 61
Actually, Teddy, it feels pretty damned lousy. And my name is not Reagan. However I care deeply about stem cell research because it may one day mean life or death for someone in my family. And I took offense at your cavalier comment.
dab from CT @
147
The John Kerry campaign strategy of not hitting back hard.
If you won’t fight in a campaign…..
-GSD
I came of politcal awareness before puberty. My mother loved politcs and we discussed the evil Nixon at the kitchen table. So, I grew up with a bad view of republicans.
Like you it was Reagan who as a young adult I cursed everyday.
And then, last thanksgiving I was saying to my family, wow. Who’d ever think we would think Reagan wasn’t so bad?
As then Gov. of Cali, Ronald Reagan gave the commencement speech to graduating seniors at my high school in Dallas in the late 70’s. I was a soprano in the choir at the time. Sat behind W at a Rangers game in the early 90’s and even was the date to a homecoming dance the of the daughter of his Rangers business parter (now manhattan designer lela rose). A few weeks ago, I was back in Texas and had a Sunday brunch at the Perrini Ranch in Buffalo Gap where we were regaled by stories by Tom and Lisa Perrini about their stay in the Lincoln Bedroom (amazing what being a great cook can do, idn’it ?) Even had to hear my dad tell about his past visit to the Armstrong ranch where Dick shot a man in the face.
Anybody need a mole ? ;-)
.
How about me? I can sum it up in two words, one of them a nod to our current Veep:
Fuck yes.
I came of age politically at a very young chronological age. I was the child of what I would describe as a limousine liberal mother – from Maine, lived just up the coast from the Bush compound at Kennebunkport, always had enough money to say “sure, raise my taxes, it won’t hurt;” a traditional New Deal Democrat – and a father who’d grown up the youngest of three sons on a farm in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants: not exactly “bedrock Republicans,” but as close as rural Wisconsin afforded at that time, and bolstered by a stint in the US Navy in Korea and then various jobs at defense firms whose major client was the United States government (Lockheed, etc.). If I hadda guess, I’d put him (politically) somewhere between Idi Amin and Godzilla, if that gives you a clear enough picture.
I learned at a very young age that for an evening’s worth of entertainment, all I had to do was lean back in my chair at the dinner table after a respectable period of eating following the blessing, and ingenuously (and with wide, innocent eyes) toss a rhetorical incendiary device the likes of which would have made comrade Molotov himself proud into the usual empty conversational space of the family dinner table, such as: “Mom, Dad says that Nixon was the best President we ever had.”
Fun for the whole family.
My earliest memory, I kid you not, is of watching the diagonal slash of white, black and orange of the Apollo moonshot in 1969 against the blue, then black as the cameras followed it as far as it could go into the atmosphere. I can remember my family suspending dinner to check the TV (which we never did after that as I was growing up) because this was such a momentous event. And I can clearly remember Watergate, despite being only eight years old when it was going down. I remember Nixon as a President, I remember the Ford pardon of Nixon. I remember Carter and the “I have lusted in my heart” fiasco. I remember seeing a bumper-sticker on a Cadillac (no, not a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, LOL) that said “Keep the Canal – Give ‘em Carter!) in San Diego (where I grew up). I remember Reagan’s first election when I was only in 9th grade, and I can remember casting my very first vote in a national election for Walter Mondale only two weeks and change after my eighteenth birthday during my first semester at Berkeley. I was young enough at the time to believe that because literally everyone I knew in my little milieu was voting for Mondale (or the Peace and Freedom candidate, whoever the heck he or she was at the time), that there was going to be a landslide come election night. Imagine my surprise at discovering that indeed there was a landslide….only not quite the one I’d envisioned.
I had the privilege of hearing Mario Savio speak on the steps of Sproul Plaza on the 20th anniversary of the Free Speech movement in Berkeley in 1984, and I was one of the people who, at Berkeley and Columbia and a few other American institutions around the country (soon to be lots more) protested American investment in the apartheid regime in South Africa. To this day, I reflexively refer to Bank of America as “Bank of Apartheid.” I can’t help it. I spent almost three years in the late ’80s working for under $15,000 a year canvassing in California for progressive ballot initiatives, including Proposition 103, and then directing campaign offices.
Now, I’m looking at 40 in about a week. 40. I can’t believe it. I just had my tenth wedding anniversary last week. My wife and I moved from the Bay Area (which we loved and were heartbroken to leave) to the deep south – suburban Atlanta – because we could not afford to raise children in a housing market gone mad after the rise of Silicon Valley and the dotbombs, er, “coms.” They may be as dead as dinosaurs and the dodo, but their legacy lives on in the cost of Bay Area real estate. :o/ I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for the past five years, spending my time vacuuming, washing dishes and beating back the flood-tide of idiocy on the internets in my spare time. I feel like the narrator of Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime.”
But I read, I keep up – as best I can. And one thing I’ve come to believe is that it matters less what era people come of age in than it does (in each individual life) what experiences they’re exposed to. Sure, a positive progressive age creates progressives; in the ’60s, the truly contrarian thing may well have been to be a conservative, and I don’t doubt that this current doom-struck era of Dubya (a negative conservative era) may well prove to be the crucible which forges a new era of committed progressives, but in every era, it matters more who speaks to the unfulfilled needs of the emerging youth than it does what they see on TV or in their national political culture. The people who were hippies because that’s simply what everyone else was doing at the time are people who had no stronger influence in their lives during those times. Likewise the Reagan youth (Sieg Heil!).
Thank you, Jane and Christy and yes, even that ol’ hound-dinosaur TRex, for being a public presence that can express and channel the frustration that anyone can feel at the current state of things. Thank you for being, with your combined input here at firedoglake, one of the forces giving voice and direction to that dissatisfaction and clarifying those realizations into the sorts of beliefs and willingness to act that lasts a lifetime. Old hacks like me already had it, but we stood on the shoulders of giants just as you did, and now, you all are some of those giants that others will look to – or, rather, look BACK upon and remember what and who first gave them voice.
Shorter me: “you guys f***in’ rock!” ;o)
My first vote was for George McGovern. And I’m still pissed he lost.
Born in 1966. Reagan was a violent shock to my system, having been raised on Fred Rogers, Free to Be You and Me, and Pete Seeger. I’m still steaming mad about the Reagan years – they were just uncalled for. Everyone was supposed to know better by then.
I came of impressionisitc age, oddly at age ten when Watergate was the news, and though my parents were lifelong republicans I’m not aware of a time after then that they ever voted for a republican for the presidency. I became a democrat only in ‘04 but I’ve been a lifelong liberal Independent in the meantime. My parents taught me well to see and know my community and to define what was needed, what was doable and what was just and to work for the latter while realizing the former.
The Bush WH knows that they are going to lose both Houses. So what are they going to do?
Attack Iran!
Not as an October surprise, though. Do you really think that the public would beleive that the act was independent of the election? Of course not, Bush, Rove etc are not that stupid. What they will do is attack in order to “control the investigations of Iraq.”
By attacking Iran, they will say they were stopping the mushroom cloud. Yes, they will say, they got in wrong in Iraq, but not in Iran. Even all the Blue Staters believe beleive Iran is developing nukes. And the N Korea thing raises the stakes. So any investigation on Iraq will be muddled by “our intelligence was wrong because we got it confused with Iraq.” Call it cover up by obscuring everything. After all, four dimensions are more difficult to explain than three.
Phenobarbarella – thanks for the post. Your remark “but in every era, it matters more who speaks to the unfulfilled needs of the emerging youth than it does what they see on TV or in their national political culture” rings true with me.
Eli @
115
I wonder about the latter suggestion. It’s like somebody said “do something else” and it amounted to “shut up.” This race should’ve been ours to win. It’s certainly no fault of Jane’s. She’s kept up the message. Unfortunately, Ned hasn’t been able to.
What’s he got to lose to come out swinging now?
carsick @
160
Sounds like you had good parents and learned well. Can I borrow that? Words to live by.
Mine was for $40… but who’s counting???
Y’all rock…
BTW, here’s a singular scream from someone(roughly) Jane’s own age who happens to already be married at the time she decided to start dating guys her own age…
I got no timing… I got NOT timing…
A quote from a member of the Bush 41 staff, via the NY Daily News:
“By comparison, the old man looks better and better,” a senior 41 hand said, with undisguised satisfaction.
http://tinyurl.com/y62cfs
I guess every mushroom cloud has a silver lining.
I came of age during the Nixon/Ford administrations. I recall that when i went in to register to vote, I was asked which party and I said “Democratic.” It was too late to vote in the Democratic primary but not the Republican, so the lady there suggested I register as a Republican so I could vote in it. My response was “Nixon was a Republican, right?”
Sadly ,the current clown makes Nixon look good.
15% undecideds in the poll plus 37% = 52%, same as Dems
Mustn’t count our chickens
In some ways, Reagan was more dangerous because he was good at it. He left an entire generation worshipping his every disastrous policy, and still believing all his lies.
He was expert at using fear – he actually convinced people that places like Nicaragua and Grenada (population less than a good sized state university) were serious security threats – without overdoing it (as Rove appears to have done).
He invented the “welfare queen”.
Probably more importantly, he presided over the transformation of the economy from productive / innovative to financial / concentrative – so basically the end of the road for the middle class.
I was 8 yrs old in 1960, living in a Republican NJ suburb of NYC. I hated Nixon the moment I saw him (so complete opposite of Rove).
dr nobody @ 57
I had just turned 18, 2 weeks before the election, got to the polls 30 min before they opened, convinced the poll watchers to let me into a booth early so I could pull the lever the second the polls opened.
Ya think I’m a political junkie ?
Reagan was absolutely awful for blue states, which saw the steel industry die while he never lifted a finger. When Jeb Bush was recently cornered by some Pittsburgh steelworkers, it reminded me of the day Reagan left a Pittsburgh hotel by a side door to escape steelworkers protesting their lost jobs. People fondly remember his nice smile, but his policies were a stab in the backs of working men and women.
The last decent Republican president was Ike, who must have had foresight when he warned us all of the military-industrial complex.
My first presidential vote was George McGovern. The 18-year-old vote was not here yet. Before that I did volunteer work in RFK campaign and before that wrote JFK slogans in chalk on the sidewalk.
I thought Nixon was the worst we could ever get – ’til now.
I am a 50 yr. old college professor who has been teaching 20 year olds for a long time. This graph rings very true for me – I take the political pulse of my intro economics students every year with various questions, surveys, informal votes, etc. They were indeed distressingly republican in the late 80’s and are as liberal as I have ever seen right now. The only thing that is lacking to make more of them focus on politics is the spur that drove me during high school – The politicians might draft me and get me shot. As it happened I escaped the draft (though not by much) but these days they cant even imagine the reality of what that would mean. To them military service is something other people do and has no realtionship whatever to their own lives. I think Bush et. al. know this, which is why they only “draft” specific categories so that the general pop can remain secure that it isnt them who will go get blown up in Baghdad. But if they ever do try to do a general draft – they will seal the demise of their party for a very very long time.