Did anyone watch Real Time with Bill Maher tonight?

[Mill]

What do you think of Sullivan's points, and then what do you think about what Mahrer said? Sullivan said Bush won because everyone denigrates and ridicules the Christian Right and those in the Red States. Mahrer said that didn't matter because the Christian Right hates gays, and because they aren't too fond of the Blue states either. Furthermore, he suggested that the Democrats lost the election because they were not liberal enough. He said they tried too hard to pander to "undecided" voters -- who were not really undecided -- and said that we have to create a more liberal party, and create new Democrats. Now, I can see the point that both of them have. However, is Mahrer kidding himself? How are you going to create new Democrats? By making the party more liberal??? That just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps someone can explain this...

 

[chess9]

If Howard Dean had been the nominee, I would have worked as hard for him as I worked for Kerry, but Dean would have lost by 8-10%, particularly during a war. Now, if Bush makes mush of the war and the economy, then in 2008 the liberals have a chance to run an attractive liberal candidate. That wouldn't be Hillary. More like Obama, or Barbara Boxer, or Nancy Pelosi, or possibly Edwards (a moderate).

-Robert

 

[Pliablemoose]

I'm really starting to get concerned that some of the Democrats/liberals are going to continue to marginalize & dehumanize the evangelicals/conservative christians, it's an effective strategy to encourage a sense of cohesiveness among a group.

I began to notice several years ago, that without a centrist/popoulist candidate, the Democrats can't energize voters unless it's in a population center or previously heavily historically Democratic region.

Check out this thread I started with qoutes from what's left of the Democratic leadership: Soul Searching by the Democratic Leadership

Mahrer is having difficulty realizing that the Democrats need to leave loons like him behind.

I guess the oddest thing is that I have anticipated a culture war for some time now, but always assumed I'd be on the losing side.

 

[Mill]

Bill seems to think that he can just "create" new Democrats by making the Party even more to the left. Perhaps that would have been a logical strategy after the 2000 election(in which Nader siphoned votes), but I do not think it makes much sense for 2008. They just TRIED that, does he not pay any attention? The whole Anti-Bush and Anti-War attack failed. They felt they could bring the lunatic fringe(the left of the left) in with others and make that the issue for this election. It didn't happen, so why does Maher feel it would work in 2008?


I do SEE Bill's point that he doesn't think people like me exist, but he is wrong. The far-left is always going to vote for the left candidate, and the far right is always going to vote for the right candidate. You cannot attempt to sway votes from either column, and if you do you will be met with failure. Bill(and others) seem to think that they will attract me by becoming more liberal? Perhaps he is high(ad-hom, I know), but that simply doesn't make any sense. He's made up his mind that independent voters simply don't exist, and that it efforts should be focused on wooing the extreme left. Pardon me, but which part of the extreme left didn't vote for Kerry? I hate to reiterate, but this isn't the 2000 election. Nader was wholly insignificant in this election, and anyone with a working brain on the left voted for Kerry.

Where are these "new liberal" votes going to come from? Well, I'll say this much: The Democrats can continue to ignore me because I live in a Red State, and because I do have a Conservative stance on some issues. I went to church until I was 18, and now I infrequently go. However, I didn't stop because of the church, but because of me. Thus, whenever Bill chooses to attack my friends and family by calling them nuts it inflames me. He can share an anecdote about college and use pejoratives about Christians and others on the Right, and it isn't going to help him any. I'm sick and tired of people referencing the Red States as hick states, country bumpkins, or that we aren't logical. Hey, I am fvcking logical, and that's the reason I understand you cannot just "create" new voters where they don't exist. In being logical that doesn't mean I have to denigrate my opponents. I believe in Evolution, but I don't have to call Creationists -- lunatics -- or write them off. Bill Maher is engaging in EXACTLY the same type of behavior as Falwell and Robertson. He is demonizing the other side for political gain. Both are wrong, and whoever realizes it first will probably win the next election. If Bill is logical, rational, and such a scientist, then surely he sees that he is hypocritical for attacking them for the same thing he is doing!

 

[Pliablemoose]

The funniest (saddest) thing is that Robertson/Faldwell/Bob Jones University are @ least smart enough to pick on a group that's statistically small enough to be insignificant, ie: gays are a single digit percentage of the population.

The Democrats are attempting to demonize a much larger group numerically & it's going to backfire.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Mill
What do you think of Sullivan's points, and then what do you think about what Mahrer said? Sullivan said Bush won because everyone denigrates and ridicules the Christian Right and those in the Red States. Mahrer said that didn't matter because the Christian Right hates gays, and because they aren't too fond of the Blue states either. Furthermore, he suggested that the Democrats lost the election because they were not liberal enough. He said they tried too hard to pander to "undecided" voters -- who were not really undecided -- and said that we have to create a more liberal party, and create new Democrats. Now, I can see the point that both of them have. However, is Mahrer kidding himself? How are you going to create new Democrats? By making the party more liberal??? That just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps someone can explain this...

I agree with Maher. The Democrats need to profile itself and get on message. No more Republican lite.

Bush won the election by staying focused on a very simple and clear message that he repeated over and over again. Never mind that the message was a deliberate distortion of the truth. Just look at the Republican convention and have many "millions" to times the Republicans repeated the same theme over and over again - "9/11" "terrorism" "threat". It clearly worked. Many people voted for Bush basically because they saw him as more clear on the issues and because they bought the corollary spin on Kerry - he's a flipflopper. Never mind the fact that Bush did not have a record to run on even after four years as President.

Bush won the election on God, Guns and Gays and Fear and Terrorism. He knew exactly which buttons to push.

Many people have complained that the Democrats never had any real fire in the campaign. I think that was because the campaign simply was not liberal enough. The Democrats are not going to be able to turn the red states into democratic states if they are running on issues defined by the right. The Democrats have tens of millions of people who are not voting that they can turn to for creating "new democrats" and also the youth who will be the future voters. The right has been defining the issues for the last few decades. Time for the Democrats to take up that fight.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
I'm really starting to get concerned that some of the Democrats/liberals are going to continue to marginalize & dehumanize the evangelicals/conservative christians, it's an effective strategy to encourage a sense of cohesiveness among a group.

I began to notice several years ago, that without a centrist/popoulist candidate, the Democrats can't energize voters unless it's in a population center or previously heavily historically Democratic region.

Check out this thread I started with qoutes from what's left of the Democratic leadership: Soul Searching by the Democratic Leadership

Mahrer is having difficulty realizing that the Democrats need to leave loons like him behind.

I guess the oddest thing is that I have anticipated a culture war for some time now, but always assumed I'd be on the losing side.

Are you saying that the democrats should embrace homophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and rabid religiousness only to win elections? Imo it is pointless to run against such notions. The democrats have to find other issues to run on to get these peoples votes.

Let's face it. The democrats cannot win the red states running on issues like God, Guns and Gays. They will have to find other issues that connect with people. Or are the red states truly that shallow that God, Guns and Gays combined with a heavy militaristic bent are the only real issues?

 

[Mill]

GrGr, read this article please

Secondly, where are the "new" voters going to come from? How is being more liberal going to attrack more liberals? I mean, did that not all already vote for Kerry? He lost, right? So how are they going to get more? By going further out from the center?

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: GrGr

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
I'm really starting to get concerned that some of the Democrats/liberals are going to continue to marginalize & dehumanize the evangelicals/conservative christians, it's an effective strategy to encourage a sense of cohesiveness among a group.

I began to notice several years ago, that without a centrist/popoulist candidate, the Democrats can't energize voters unless it's in a population center or previously heavily historically Democratic region.

Check out this thread I started with qoutes from what's left of the Democratic leadership: Soul Searching by the Democratic Leadership

Mahrer is having difficulty realizing that the Democrats need to leave loons like him behind.

I guess the oddest thing is that I have anticipated a culture war for some time now, but always assumed I'd be on the losing side.

Are you saying that the democrats should embrace homophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and rabid religiousness only to win elections? Imo it is pointless to run against such notions. The democrats have to find other issues to run on to get these peoples votes.

Let's face it. The democrats cannot win the red states running on issues like God, Guns and Gays. They will have to find other issues that connect with people. Or are the red states truly that shallow that God, Guns and Gays combined with a heavy militaristic bent are the only real issues?

Question. If gays were such an issue, then why didn't it really help Bush? Let me repost this E-mail of the day from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"So lots of pundits, including you, have been attributing Bush's success nationally to his having excited the base over the gay marriage issue. In particular, the strategy of using the ballot initiatives in 11 states, thereby dragging religious conservatives to the polls to vote against marriage and at the same time check the box next to Bush, is regarded as having been particularly effective.

That is, of course, fiction. Bush improved his share of the popular vote by 3.2% from 2000 to 2004 (47.9 in 2000, 51.1 in 2004). Now how did he do in the states which had anti-marriage ballot initiatives?

Arkansas +3.0%
Georgia +3.3%
Kentucky +3.1%
Michigan +1.8%
Mississippi +2.2%
Montana +0.7%
North Dakota +2.2%
Ohio +1.0%
Oklahoma +5.3%
Oregon +0.8%
Utah +4.2%

Only in two states (Utah and Oklahoma) did he gain a significantly higher vote share than he did nationwide. Maybe comparing to the national popular vote is misleading, so let's compare each of those states to a neighboring, politically-similar state which did not have an anti-marriage initiative on the ballot:

Missouri +2.9 (AR +3.0)
Florida +3.4 (GA +3.3)
Tennessee +5.7 (KY +3.1)
Wisconsin +1.5 (MI +1.8)
Alabama +6.0 (MS +2.2)
Idaho +1.2 (MT +0.7)
South Dakota -0.4 (ND +2.2)
Pennsylvania +2.0 (OH +1.0)
Texas +1.8 (OK +5.3)
Washington +1.2 (OR +0.8)
Wyoming +1.2 (UT +4.2)

Again, not much. In only 3 cases (UT-WY, ND-SD, and OK-TX) did Bush improve a lot more in a state with an anti-marriage initiative than he did in the state with which it was paired. And, in the case of North Dakota, the hotly contested Senate race in South Dakota may have skewed things a bit; a better comparison might be Nebraska, where Bush was +3.0% better in 2004 than in 2000, a better improvement than what he got in North Dakota.
That leaves two states, Oklahoma and Utah, which had an anti-marriage initiative on the ballot and in which Bush's vote share improved more both relative to the nation as a whole and relative to the neighboring state selected.
It is certainly possible that the fact that the Bush administration raised the issue to the level to which did led to increased turnout among religious conservatives nationwide, which then resulted in Bush's overall improved vote share over his 2000 performance. However, one would also expect that this vote share improvement would have been particularly high in states in which the marriage issue was particularly relevant. On the contrary, there is no evidence that suggests that the strategy of putting the anti-marriage initiatives on the ballot in several states did anything to improve Bush's performance in those states."

The confusing thing is that you've read right past what I just said. It wasn't an issue of God. It was an issue of morality. You can have morality without believing in God. You can believe in God without being moral. The exit polls said "morality" and a clear distinction was made tonight on Bill Maher's show between morality and religion. Guns? Shoot, you actually think that matters for more than 1% of the voters? It only slightly pushed me toward Bush, because he would have renewed the AWB if it would have gotten to his desk.

You have ignored everything this thread is about. It wasn't about God, guns, and gays. It was about people writing off the Red States as ignorant hicks that only care about God, guns, and gays. So you have now become part of the problem. Congrats.

 

[0roo0roo]

look, 17% of young voters voted in 2000, only 17% voted on tuesday. repubs only got 1/3 of elegible votes. there are plenty who do not agree, but are either lazy or unmotivated or just turned off somehow.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
look, 17% of young voters voted in 2000, only 17% voted on tuesday. repubs only got 1/3 of elegible votes. there are plenty who do not agree, but are either lazy or unmotivated or just turned off somehow.

So, you believe that tilting the Democratic Party further left will increase turn out in election? Didn't Moore try that with his "Slacker Tour" already? Wasn't his message decidely left of Kerry's to begin with? Let me get this straight... You want to improve the turnout to get more people to vote Dem. Ok, was that not tried this year? Not saying it couldn't work, but was it not tried? Heavily too if I might add. Tons of get out the vote campaigns by Stars and on TV networks. Why is going after people who still won't vote better than going after those that WILL vote. There is no question about who voted in this election. I'd rather convince current voters to vote my way, than to convince non-voters to vote, and to vote my way. Seems much easier...

 

[Kilgor]

When you think about it he is right in a way, when you look at the base of the Democratic Party and the way the country is heading. You have union workers that want to be paid high wages for inferior work that can be done better and cheaper overseas, Older people that want Social Security for 40 years when they only paid into it for 30 and see no reason why they should have to pay for healthcare and don?t really care about what future generations are going to do. Then you have the inner city populations that have been raised by the Government and don?t want to stop sucking off the rest of the country. Then you have the Elitist Hollywood types that basically contribute nothing but propaganda to keep the masses happy and themselves shielded from the real world. Then you have the intellectual College people who have never done anything but dream of a Utopian Socialist Paradise where the little people plow the fields and everybody is equal but them because they are the smart ones someone has to be in charge. Then you have a have a growing population of immigrants who have never known any thing but Government control.
Now I?m not saying that?s the whole base of the Democratic Party it?s a large part and growing. So the farther left the party goes the more you make that part happy. The vilification of religions or any type of Nationalism by the left on the younger generations just helps the Party grow larger. Soon all the Old Democrats like Zell Miller or even Bill Clinton will be gone replaced by so called New Democrats which are the Green and Socialist today.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Mill

Originally posted by: GrGr

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
I'm really starting to get concerned that some of the Democrats/liberals are going to continue to marginalize & dehumanize the evangelicals/conservative christians, it's an effective strategy to encourage a sense of cohesiveness among a group.

I began to notice several years ago, that without a centrist/popoulist candidate, the Democrats can't energize voters unless it's in a population center or previously heavily historically Democratic region.

Check out this thread I started with qoutes from what's left of the Democratic leadership: Soul Searching by the Democratic Leadership

Mahrer is having difficulty realizing that the Democrats need to leave loons like him behind.

I guess the oddest thing is that I have anticipated a culture war for some time now, but always assumed I'd be on the losing side.

Are you saying that the democrats should embrace homophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and rabid religiousness only to win elections? Imo it is pointless to run against such notions. The democrats have to find other issues to run on to get these peoples votes.

Let's face it. The democrats cannot win the red states running on issues like God, Guns and Gays. They will have to find other issues that connect with people. Or are the red states truly that shallow that God, Guns and Gays combined with a heavy militaristic bent are the only real issues?

Question. If gays were such an issue, then why didn't it really help Bush? Let me repost this E-mail of the day from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"So lots of pundits, including you, have been attributing Bush's success nationally to his having excited the base over the gay marriage issue. In particular, the strategy of using the ballot initiatives in 11 states, thereby dragging religious conservatives to the polls to vote against marriage and at the same time check the box next to Bush, is regarded as having been particularly effective.

That is, of course, fiction. Bush improved his share of the popular vote by 3.2% from 2000 to 2004 (47.9 in 2000, 51.1 in 2004). Now how did he do in the states which had anti-marriage ballot initiatives?

Arkansas +3.0%
Georgia +3.3%
Kentucky +3.1%
Michigan +1.8%
Mississippi +2.2%
Montana +0.7%
North Dakota +2.2%
Ohio +1.0%
Oklahoma +5.3%
Oregon +0.8%
Utah +4.2%

Only in two states (Utah and Oklahoma) did he gain a significantly higher vote share than he did nationwide. Maybe comparing to the national popular vote is misleading, so let's compare each of those states to a neighboring, politically-similar state which did not have an anti-marriage initiative on the ballot:

Missouri +2.9 (AR +3.0)
Florida +3.4 (GA +3.3)
Tennessee +5.7 (KY +3.1)
Wisconsin +1.5 (MI +1.8)
Alabama +6.0 (MS +2.2)
Idaho +1.2 (MT +0.7)
South Dakota -0.4 (ND +2.2)
Pennsylvania +2.0 (OH +1.0)
Texas +1.8 (OK +5.3)
Washington +1.2 (OR +0.8)
Wyoming +1.2 (UT +4.2)

Again, not much. In only 3 cases (UT-WY, ND-SD, and OK-TX) did Bush improve a lot more in a state with an anti-marriage initiative than he did in the state with which it was paired. And, in the case of North Dakota, the hotly contested Senate race in South Dakota may have skewed things a bit; a better comparison might be Nebraska, where Bush was +3.0% better in 2004 than in 2000, a better improvement than what he got in North Dakota.
That leaves two states, Oklahoma and Utah, which had an anti-marriage initiative on the ballot and in which Bush's vote share improved more both relative to the nation as a whole and relative to the neighboring state selected.
It is certainly possible that the fact that the Bush administration raised the issue to the level to which did led to increased turnout among religious conservatives nationwide, which then resulted in Bush's overall improved vote share over his 2000 performance. However, one would also expect that this vote share improvement would have been particularly high in states in which the marriage issue was particularly relevant. On the contrary, there is no evidence that suggests that the strategy of putting the anti-marriage initiatives on the ballot in several states did anything to improve Bush's performance in those states."

The confusing thing is that you've read right past what I just said. It wasn't an issue of God. It was an issue of morality. You can have morality without believing in God. You can believe in God without being moral. The exit polls said "morality" and a clear distinction was made tonight on Bill Maher's show between morality and religion. Guns? Shoot, you actually think that matters for more than 1% of the voters? It only slightly pushed me toward Bush, because he would have renewed the AWB if it would have gotten to his desk.

You have ignored everything this thread is about. It wasn't about God, guns, and gays. It was about people writing off the Red States as ignorant hicks that only care about God, guns, and gays. So you have now become part of the problem. Congrats.

Quit creating strawmen. I wasn't talking to you in this answer. If you read what I posted I said that the deomoctrats cannot run on the issues of God, Guns and Gays but have to look at the larger picture.

I said:

Are you saying that the democrats should embrace homophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and rabid religiousness only to win elections? Imo it is pointless to run against such notions. The democrats have to find other issues to run on to get these peoples votes.

Let's face it. The democrats cannot win the red states running on issues like God, Guns and Gays. They will have to find other issues that connect with people. Or are the red states truly that shallow that God, Guns and Gays combined with a heavy militaristic bent are the only real issues?

Explain the "moral values" issue to me. Exactly what is meant by that? What part of the Bush vote in the red states were not in some way connected to God (religion, faith), Guns (guns, militarism, war) and Gays (homophobia, strange city folks, hollywood people etc).

 

[Mill]

GrGr, I posted an article above for you to read. God, guns and gays didn't have quite the impact on the election as you think. That's not a strawman. Perhaps you can explain what you felt I made a strawman out of? Then I can not repeat it in the future since I'm not seeing it.

 

[Mill]

Are you saying that the democrats should embrace homophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and rabid religiousness only to win elections?

And that's exactly why I said you are part of the problem.

 

[StageLeft]

If they go further left they'll go further away from victory next time around.

 

[Moonbeam]

I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

edit: Just for example Kerry was against gay marriage and voted for the war. F*ck Kerry.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

edit: Just for example Kerry was against gay marriage and voted for the war. F*ck Kerry.

Moonbeam, I actually agree with most of your post:thumbsup:

In particular, about the Progressives being actually all about morality.

 

[randym431]

What was it Clinton suggested to Kerry? I think, to support the 11 state Gay Marriage laws? Didnt Clinton ask Kerry to show support for the marriage ban? But Kerry said "no way". If I have that right, I really admire Kerry for his courage. But Clinton is right too, Dem's have to shift or pander to those relig-right-ers, or find a new way. I think Dem's should NOT give in on this issue. Its a civil rights issue and civil rights will always win out, in time, some day.

 

[chess9]

Yeah, well. Clinton is the best Republican President we've ever had. He got 8 years because he co-opted the Republican agenda.

-Robert

 

[Caminetto]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

edit: Just for example Kerry was against gay marriage and voted for the war. F*ck Kerry.

Also agree. I think what Maher is basically saying is that you should stand for your ideals and be willing to get hammered for them. And I believe they will get hammered because the present political climate has everything to do with sales and little to do with truth.
Too, I have always thought that the right express their view of morality through religion and the left express it through politics.

 

[Gen Stonewall]

I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

Conservatives' values are those of Satan? :roll:

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Gen Stonewall

I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

Conservatives' values are those of Satan? :roll:

Yup, upside down to real morality or morality by prescription without any inner insight into what morality is. A robot is formulaic. Real values are a byproduct of the development intellectually and emotionally and physically of personal character.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Caminetto

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I believe the confusion here is that further left means something different to Progressives than it does to and traditional Democrats and Conservatives. The latter two may see the issue as more governmental control or collectivism and such nonsense, but to real Progressives the issue IS morality. The Conservatives talk values but their values are the values of Satin not of God. The progressive movement is about real values and the Democrats never run on that. That is why they loose. And naturally you cannot espouse what you do not have. The sick are in control of both parties.

edit: Just for example Kerry was against gay marriage and voted for the war. F*ck Kerry.

Also agree. I think what Maher is basically saying is that you should stand for your ideals and be willing to get hammered for them. And I believe they will get hammered because the present political climate has everything to do with sales and little to do with truth.
Too, I have always thought that the right express their view of morality through religion and the left express it through politics.

Ain't that the truth Moonbeam.

Caminetto: Excellent point about the ideals and the politics of sales and truth. I think the Democrats have compromised their ideals too much in an effort to cling on to power.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Mill
GrGr, I posted an article above for you to read. God, guns and gays didn't have quite the impact on the election as you think. That's not a strawman. Perhaps you can explain what you felt I made a strawman out of? Then I can not repeat it in the future since I'm not seeing it.

I think you misconstrued my answer that is all. I'll be back later and explain my position further.