To Set
the Record Straight: If John Kerry had been elected President of the United States in November
2004, especially with the incoming majority Democrat Congress, it is highly likely that Iraq would be in the
midst of a civil war, Iran's regional influence would have increased, Israel would be in more jeopardy than
it is now, two Supreme Court seats would be occupied by clones of John Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead
of by John Roberts and Samuel Alito, judicial decisions would have given even more "rights" to enemy combatants,
domestic entitlements and earmarks would have skyrocketed, the Bush tax cuts would be history. And more!
Edwards Campaign and Arkansas Lawyer Fined For
Illegal Contributions. The campaign of former presidential candidate John Edwards has agreed
along with an Arkansas lawyer and his firm to pay $59,500 in fines for violating campaign finance law,
according to the Federal Election Commission.
The Left promotes assertions
that turn out to be false. Writing in Rolling Stone, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assures us
that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. … This may not be breaking news, but if an assertion
reflects a widely shared emotion, it can make great headway in this culture without any need to prove its
truth. We have been through this many times. The 2000 election was allegedly stolen, though no
credible investigation backed up the claim, not even the one by the Civil Rights Commission, which was then
firmly in Democratic hands.
Kerry Seems to Be Positioning Himself
for a 2008 Presidential Bid. The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists
it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning
himself for another shot at the White House.
Officer accused of
damaging pro-Bush cars. The Air Force Reserve plans to discharge a lieutenant
colonel accused of defacing cars that had pro-Bush bumper stickers, the military said
Friday [12/16/2005]. Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, a pilot with 500 combat hours in the
first Persian Gulf war and the Balkans, is charged with criminal mischief for allegedly
using paint stripper to write a profanity about Bush in 18-inch-high letters on cars at
Denver International Airport.
Five Democratic campaign workers
on trial in criminal damage case. Prosecutors accused the five of slashing 40 tires on
get-out-the-vote vans at a Republican campaign office in the early hours before the Nov. 2, 2004,
election, causing more than $5,000 in damage.
Update:
Sudden plea deals in tire-slashing
case. In an unexpected twist in the Election Day tire-slashing trial, four former
Kerry-Edwards campaign staffers, including the sons of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and
former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, have agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanors.
Another update:
Four get jail time in election day tire
slashing. Tossing aside a plea agreement that called for probation, Milwaukee County Circuit
Judge Michael B. Brennan sentenced four Democratic Party workers to jail Wednesday [4/26/2006] for
slashing tires on 25 vans rented by Republicans to take voters to polls for the 2004 presidential election.
[That only took 17 months.]
Who hates the other
more – liberals or conservatives?. During the 2004 elections, which car was more
likely to be "keyed," i.e., deliberately scratched — a car with a "John Kerry" bumper sticker in
an overwhelmingly conservative area, or a car with a "George W. Bush" sticker in an overwhelmingly
liberal area?
Kerry says no
changes are needed in the Democratic Party. In a variation of "the operation
was a success but the patient died," Sen. John Kerry gave an upbeat assessment of his
losing 2004 campaign for the White House during a brief Seattle visit Friday [8/19/2005].
Bush Made
Better Grades in College than Kerry. Why didn't Kerry release his records
during the campaign? After all, his refusal seemed like a cover-up. Now we
know. Kerry's military records also include his college grades. (The New
Yorker printed Bush's grades in 1999, but Kerry consistently refused to release
his.) It turns out that "dummy" and fellow Yalie George W. Bush
made better grades than did brainy, intellectual John Kerry.
How not to
deal with a threat: Do you remember North Korea? It's the country
Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats kept asserting was more of a threat than Saddam's Iraq
during the campaign of 2004. Funny, they haven't mentioned it since.
Move Afoot To Fire U.N. Staffer Who
Worked for Kerry. Staffers at the United Nations Development Program
have demanded that the agency's outgoing administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, fire an
employee who they say has violated rules designed to assure the world body's neutrality
by working for the Democratic presidential campaign.
Kerry
campaign cash pays for parking tickets and BoSox seats. If you donated
money to John Kerry's Senate campaign committee recently, your money might have gone
to pay the Massachusetts politician's parking tickets. If you donated money to
his presidential campaign last year, your money might have purchased tickets to a
Boston Red Sox game.
Nader
campaign aide pleads guilty to fraud. The coordinator for Ralph Nader's 2004
presidential campaign in Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday [6/28/2005] to election fraud. He
was accused of illegally certifying petitions to get Nader, an independent candidate, on
the ballot.
George Soros and the
Press: "The media consistently ignore the fact that this so-called
'philanthropist' has had several brushes with the law," including a conviction in
France for insider trading. On March 24, that insider trading conviction
was upheld. … This is the perfect opportunity for our media to finally start
examining this billionaire's business and financial connections. Remember
this is the man who tried to buy the White House for John Kerry.
Kerry
Loves the Mainstream Media and has contempt for the American people. America
is not doctrinaire. It's hard for an American politician to come up with an
ideological position that is permanently unforgivable. Henry Wallace never quite
managed, or George Wallace either. But Kerry's done it. [He apparently believes] American
free speech needs to be submitted to arbitration because Americans aren't smart enough to have a First
Amendment, and you can tell this is so, because Americans weren't smart enough to vote for John
Kerry.
Bush
Wins, and the Left Cries "Eek" at Religion. Two things surprise me about
the Democratic Left's public response to their bitter election
disappointment — and the shattering of their illusions. The
first is how little they know about Christians and Christian faith; the second
is the ugly stereotypes that govern their descriptions of Christians. At
the same time, two things please me. First, they are repeating the same
mistakes they made before the election, virtually guaranteeing themselves
still more shattered illusions; second, they are verifying that voters were
not mistaken about the Left's distorted moral vision, a vision they try to
force on us.
Inquiry
into 4 possible cases of ballot fraud. The King County [Washington] Prosecutor's
Office has asked the King County sheriff to investigate four possible cases of voter
fraud: three in which county residents are suspected of having voted for dead
relatives and one case in which a person is suspected of voting twice. … Washington
Republicans — who are suing to have the results of the governor's race
thrown out — say ballots cast for dead voters and by felons, along with
other previously reported problems, could easily have affected the
outcome of the election. Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi by
129 votes in a hand recount of almost 2.9 million ballots statewide.
Lawmaker's
son charged in tire-slashing. Five Democratic "activists" — all
employees of the John Kerry campaign — are accused of
flattening the tires on 25 vehicles rented by the state Republican Party
to get out the vote and deliver poll watchers 11/2/2004.
Environmentalists
are Becoming Less and Less Relevant. Environmental activists wanted two things
to happen on Election Day — they wanted President Bush to lose and their cause to be
a big reason why. They got neither, and that may bode well for the future of environmental
policy reform.
Scores
of felons voted illegally. Scores of convicted felons voted illegally in [Washington]
state's 2004 general election, and officials never noticed because of serious flaws in the system for
tracking them, The Seattle Times has found.
Kerry
reminds voters why they rejected him. Ted Kennedy's contemptible foreign
policy speech deliberately timed just prior to the Iraqi election was bad enough. But
Kennedy didn't just come within one state's electors of becoming president. John
Kerry did, and his regrettable remarks on "Meet the Press" demonstrate
how scary that is.
Kerry on Meet the Press on the Day of the Iraq
Election. John Kerry appeared on NBC News' Meet the Press [1/30/2005] and MSNBC
has posted the transcript. On the matter of today's election and our efforts in Iraq it makes
predictably painful reading.
Canadian Alternative: Disappointed
with the outcome of the 2004 election? By all means, if you're an unemployed,
tree-hugging, dope smoking, homosexual war protester, please do renounce
your US citizenship and leave the country. Canada is your kind of place. They
welcome you. (And don't come back.)
Going,
going, still here. In those annoying television commercials, that pink bunny keeps
going and going but never seems to get anywhere. Kind of like all those folks who vowed
last November to move to Canada if President Bush was re-elected. Most are still
here. But — some promise — not for long.
What
will Alec Baldwin find in Canada? Some 10,000 to 20,000 Americans,
unable to come to terms with the re-election of President Bush, are believed poised
to leave the United States and become Canadians. Many, of course, will remain
permanently in the poised position, just like Alec Baldwin, who has apparently been
on the tarmac for four years awaiting a plane to some other country. But suppose
the disaffected 10,000 to 20,000 actually depart. Will they find happiness?
Update:
Democrats
didn't migrate to Canada after Bush win. The rush to move to Canada in the
wake of President Bush's re-election has not materialized, despite an initial surge of interest.
Being
John Kerry: In nearly every way, John Kerry seemed born to the
presidency. Straight out of central casting, he had the right looks, the
right resume, the Purple Hearts. Everything but "it." The je ne
sais quoi of love and politics. We have a hard time defining "it,"
whateveritis – warmth, humility, sincerity? – but we
know when it's absent.
Sharpton Was Paid to
Campaign for Kerry. All of John Kerry's one-time rivals in the Democratic
presidential primary eventually lined up to support him as the nominee, but only one
got paid for it Al Sharpton. The Democratic National Committee paid Sharpton
$86,715 in travel and consulting fees to compensate for his campaigning for Kerry
and other Democratic candidates, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission.
Doc
Holliday Democrats: Don't miss the double dose of hypocrisy here. Democrats,
while denying Bush has a mandate after his decisive victory, are, essentially, claiming one
themselves, after their decisive loss. And while demanding Bush demonstrate bipartisanship,
they are vowing to redouble their commitment to bitter partisanship.
If every vote counts, why does the Democratic party ignore pro-life Democrats?
A Pro-Choice
Party No More. Pro-life Democrats are not surprised by the outcome of
this year's election. In fact, pro-life Democrats have been pleading with their
party to be respectfully included. Unfortunately, the "big-tent" Democratic party
has allowed itself to be controlled by pro-choice forces and suffered as a result. For
the past 25 years, pro-life Democrats have been leaving the party over the issue
of abortion.
For
politics' sake: Artists can't fathom why John Kerry lost. The
prize for the most unintentionally humorous reason given by a liberal for why President
Bush defeated John Kerry — in a contest with many entries — has to go
to Alan Woods, an Ohio State drama professor quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "We are now
reaping, in election results, the consequences of the colossal reductions in art
education." Mr. Woods was trying to figure out why Americans reelected the
president even though the nation's artists told them not to.
Red and blue
generosity, state by state: The Catalogue of Philanthropy keeps a yearly Generosity Index
which measures "not just how much you give, but how much you give in relation to how much
you have." Notice that the states where generosity prevails are the states where
President Bush prevailed in the 2004 election.
Taliban
west? Secularits are in a state of panic about the role of evangelical
Christians in the reelection of George Bush. They actually believe that American
democracy is in danger, that we are on the verge of becoming a theocracy. "Putting
God in the public square runs the risk of turning our democracy into a theocracy," frets
DeWayne Wickham in USA Today. Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald warns darkly of "the
soldiers of the new American theocracy who want to force 'creation science' on the schools."
I'm just an orthodox
Jewish hillbilly from Los Angeles. The left sure knows how to recover from an electoral
defeat: slander the electorate. For some strange reason, liberal activists believe that after
60 million Americans pulled the lever for George W. Bush, the best strategy to win back power
is to call those voters stupid.
The Ten Worst Media
Distortions of Campaign 2004. [For example] Dan Rather's forgery fiasco; ignoring,
then attacking, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; spinning a good economy into bad news; and
swooning over John Edwards' image [while] ignoring his liberalism.
Ohio
lunacy. Jesse Jackson has now joined the "Ohio was stolen" team with a
rally in Columbus, while civil-rights and left-wing groups are filing lawsuits. They
all demand a recount! Get ready for Ohio 2004 to take an honored place in fevered
left-wing lore. Speculation about Bush stealing Ohio was fueled by a voting machine
in the small city of Gahanna in Franklin County that mistakenly recorded 3,800 votes for
the president. It was a software error that was caught and corrected as the normal
process of certifying the vote was proceeding.
Lawsuits
are not the answer in disputed elections. If we learned anything this year, it
is that there clearly is much wrong with the American electoral system. Both sides
are armed to the teeth with a cadre of lawyers ready to do battle. The Democratic
National Committee has deployed 10,000 lawyers in battleground states, with six "SWAT
squads" ready to deploy on orders from nominee John Kerry. Bush-Cheney has
countered with as many as 30,000 lawyers ready to challenge any voter whose
registration seems suspect.
Misunderestimated
... again. Despite the talk of "moral values" as voters' primary concern,
examination of the numbers shows voters believed Bush more capable at keeping us
safe. Most voters do not hold the president accountable for "outsourcing." Most
did not believe he has presided over the "worst economy since the Great Depression." The
latest jobs report shows that, in October, the nation created 337,000 jobs, or nearly twice
what analysts expected. Rate of inflation for the third quarter of 2004
is .021 percent (that's one-fifth of 1 percent). Interest rates remain
low. Since August 2004, the economy generated 2.4 million jobs. In the
last two years, our annual growth in GDP averaged 3.4 percent, or nearly two times
faster than the European Union at 1.75 percent.
Why I can't
stop being happy about the election result. I think Mr. Bush, the better
man in terms of character, was also the more normal man. And we like normal. He
loves sports and business and politics, and speaks their language. Normal. His
wife is important to him, and his kids seem a bit of a mystery to him, and perhaps even to
some degree intimidating. Normal. He thinks if bad guys attack New York City
and the Pentagon, we go after them and kill them — normal. He thinks
marriage is between a man and a woman — normal.
The loss
that keeps on giving! As we wait for CBS to concede the election, Democrats are
claiming Kerry lost because Americans are stupid — and if there's one thing
voters respond to, it's crude insults.
Tax-and-Spend Policies
Costing Politicians Their Careers. During this year's election primary
season, the issue of taxation was a decisive factor in races across the
country. Numerous incumbents who had voted to raise taxes, or had
refused to clearly rule out the option of tax increases, saw their careers
come to an abrupt end. Voters continued their rejection of politicians
who taxed them at irregular rates, and they continued a trend that began
earlier in the decade with voters taking to the polls to reject tax hikes
by large margins at the ballot box.
For
politics' sake: Artists can't fathom why John Kerry lost. The
prize for the most unintentionally humorous reason given by a liberal for why President
Bush defeated John Kerry — in a contest with many entries — has to go
to Alan Woods, an Ohio State drama professor quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "We are now
reaping, in election results, the consequences of the colossal reductions in art
education." Mr. Woods was trying to figure out why Americans reelected the
president even though the nation's artists told them not to.
A very big thank you to Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Rob Reiner, Bill Maher,
Barbra Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Al Franken and Jon Stewart for your involvement. You
certainly energized the base. Now, please have the courage of your convictions
and leave the country.
On the use
and abuse of labels. We deliberately called John Kerry a liberal during the
presidential campaign because the objective evidence indicates he's a liberal. We
believe that if more voters realized that, fewer would have voted for him — not
because we had unfairly depicted Kerry (we don't have to cheat to win), but because we had
accurately portrayed him as the liberal that he is. He spent most of his time trying
to pass himself off as anything other than a liberal.
"Supporting
the troops"? During the recent election campaign, it has been a liberal
mantra that they "support the troops" while opposing the war in Iraq. Just what does
supporting the troops mean — other than just a throwaway line to escape
the political consequences of a long history of being anti-military?
Why
Democrats are tagged as the party without values: To most Americans,
a man who wears women's clothing to work is a pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To
the Democratic Party, he is a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of
multiculturalism. The California legislature, which is entirely controlled by
Democrats, passed a law prohibiting any employer from firing a man who shows up to work
wearing women's clothing.
The Sore-Loser
Party. The first resort of a sore loser is to gripe about how the game itself
was unfair, how the other team doesn't play nice, how the very act of winning is all the proof
necessary that the other side will "do anything" to win. The second resort is to
simply make junk up about the other guy that makes you feel better about yourself.
We the
people: In 11 of 11 states, including liberal Oregon, voters by generally
huge majorities declared their belief that it should be between a man and a woman. "We
the people" clearly are unwilling to bow before the preferences of "we the judges" — and
if some judges don't back off from arrogantly trying to write their beliefs into law, their
authority is likely to be circumscribed one way or another.
On
uniting, healing and mandates: It's time for Democrats to quit
berating [President Bush] and falsely accusing him of lying. It's time for
them to start heeding their own advice and getting used to the fact that he won,
fairly and squarely. They would do well to understand that the highest goal
in politics and governance is not to hold hands and get along, but to govern
according to the principles and positions upon which you were elected.
Post-election
reflections: This election has clarified to a remarkable degree which party
is actually the party of ordinary Americans. George Soros, Michael Moore, moveon.org,
Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Affleck and a few other plutocrats spent a reported $200 million
attempting to defeat George W. Bush. They had the energetic assistance of The New
York Times, ABC, NBC, NPR, CNN and particularly CBS.
Opportunities
ahead. The American people spoke loud and clear on [Election Day], and the
so-called mainstream media still haven't heard them. With nearly 60 million,
President Bush received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history.
Voters
endorse term limits... and integrity. It is worth noting that those who have
kept their word on term limits have gone on to become governors and senators, while not a
single pledge-breaker has won higher office. Voters like term limits and they
like integrity. When will the media read that memo?
Why
we need to defend the Electoral College: [The Electoral College] is
archaic, undemocratic and indirect. And that's why I love the musty old thing. The
mere fact that it has been around for a very long time stands in its favor.
Political
demagoguery: Our unemployment rate, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
put at 5.4 percent in September, is one of the lowest in the world and in our history. France's
unemployment rate is 9.4 percent, Germany's 9.9 percent and Italy's 8.6 percent. Our
Canadian neighbor's is 6.6 percent. The only reason for today's hysteria over jobs is
because it is an election year, and one of the ways politicians gain power is to create
fear among the electorate. The next time you hear a politician whining about our "awful"
job climate, ask him which European country we should look to for guidance in job creation.
Election
night sweats: For about six hours on Election Day, the Kerry camp was positively
giddy and the Bush folks were forlorn as word spread of exit polls indicating not a Kerry win,
but a Kerry landslide. All of those emotions were utterly wasted. Among other
things, the expert exit pollsters had oversampled Democrats and women, and when the real
vote came in, Kerry was on the short end in one key battleground state after another.
Billionaires' Great Bungles
Doomed the Democrats. As the first step in their 12-step recovery
program, defeated Democrats need to kick their addiction to billionaires. This
year Dems picked their first-ever billionaire (by marriage) candidate in John Kerry
and they relied on Bush-hating billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis to cough up
record wads of cash for ads and get-out-the-vote operations. Why is anyone surprised
they ended up with a campaign short on "authenticity" and more than a tad out of touch
with Middle American values?
I wish I had seen
this before the election. Good thing he didn't win.
Kerry
Plans National ID Card. I wish everyone could read "Brave New World" by
Aldous Huxley before election day, and then think about what we're facing now, because
in order to get to a society like that, from a free one like we've had, you need to do
things like ban private ownership of firearms, like Kerry secretly plans to do, and you
need tracking systems like a national ID card. What Americans don't understand is
that once you're track-able, without any alternatives, then you are in an electronic prison.
Post-election
reflections: This election has clarified to a remarkable degree which party
is actually the party of ordinary Americans. George Soros, Michael Moore, moveon.org,
Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Affleck and a few other plutocrats spent a reported $200 million
attempting to defeat George W. Bush. They had the energetic assistance of The New
York Times, ABC, NBC, NPR, CNN and particularly CBS.
The Democrats spoke too easily of people injured by fate or economic transition or social
injustice, while scanting the positive things that people can and will do to change their
own circumstances, to beat the odds, to rise above their own limitations. They had a trial
lawyer as vice-presidential nominee and a candidate who had spent a lifetime in politics
achieving very little, even by the standards of the U.S. Senate. ...The truth is, there
is a conservative majority in this country not because the religious right is a majority
but because Republicans have been able to corner the market on the themes of achievement,
individualism, energy, and action. And they have also won over those who disdain the politics
of resentment, whining, and permanent criticism.
Shrillometer
readings: Since 1980, Democrats have tended to blame their losing candidates
for not being tough enough. They somehow believe their attacks on Republicans were
not sufficiently sharp and that Republicans are more focused on winning and more willing
to do whatever it takes to win. I think this is nonsense generally, but especially
so this year. There is no question that, on the shrillness meter, Democrats have
won hands-down.
Fantasy
candidate goes "poof". If the Republicans ran such a ludicrous
fantasist as the snooty football-throwing, bicycling Renaissance man, Sen. John
Kerry, everyone in the world would be made aware of his shortcomings. As
it was, the Democrats and their secretarial staff at CBS, the New York Times
and elsewhere in the media ignored Mr. Kerry's every botch and every flight
into bizarre pretentiousness. Thus they still cannot understand how
the president won.
No contest. President
Bush has won a convincing re-election in terms of the popular vote. His margin is in the millions,
and he has won an absolute majority, something Bill Clinton never did. The Electoral College total,
absent provisional ballots, also appears to have given him a win. Those Democrats who piously declared
in 2000 that "Gore won" because of his narrow popular vote plurality are finding that their shoes don't
fit very well when put on the other foot.
Poll
Watchers Banned in Ohio. Judges Bar Party Challengers at Ohio Polls
Two federal judges on Monday [11/01/2004] barred political party representatives from
challenging voters at polling places throughout Ohio, saying poll workers, not outsiders,
should determine voter eligibility. State Republicans planned to appeal.
Fraud alert: The
mice are in charge of the cheese if this ruling is allowed to stand.
County-by-county
map of the 2004 election.
County-by-county
map of the 2000 election.
The Democrat
failure. Never in this marathon did Kerry himself do anything to change the
campaign's dynamics. He counted on events in Iraq, and on the power of his party's
unconcealed belief that Bush is an imbecile. But Democrats cannot disguise from the
country their bewilderment about how to appeal to a country that is so backward, they think,
that it finds Bush appealing.
Kerry Daughters
React to Defeat with "F-word" Tirade. The New York Post reports: "Following
the speech, the frustration of Kerry's daughters ... exploded backstage in a
diatribe of F-words."
Free
Pass. Amid the uproar over the ads run by the "Section 527" political
committee known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Establishment media have remained
eerily silent about the massive union-funded 527s that are spending exponentially
more resources.
Flashback to 2000:
Let the Sunshine In. The same old
myths live on about Florida, November, 2000. … These charges have been rebutted before, but
with so much misinformation and people's short memories simply accepting the charges, many risk
believing that they are true. There has also been new research — of which most
people may not be aware — which helps replace myth with reality.
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