Hangin' With Republicans
If you live in a blue state like I do, or simply hang out with mostly liberals or at the very least - moderate Democrats - it's easy to believe that John Kerry has a shot to win this election. Then, reality hits when you actually spend time behind enemy lines.
I attended my first President Bush rally in Colorado Springs last week for a story I am doing on the Colorado Senate Race. 10,000 people showed up in World Arena at 7am - 3 hours before a scheduled 10am speech by President Bush. For those of you who don't know, Colorado Springs is home of the Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family and lots of churches - in other words, prime Republican territory.
The energy and enthusiasm in the arena was electric, and that was before President Bush came on stage. When he appeared in the corner of arena, it was as though Elvis had just entered the building. People were shaking and crying as they shook hands with the President like he was Paul, John, George or even Ringo.
They laughed at all of his jokes. They cheered every time he paused for effect. They even booed every time he mentioned the United Nations. When they weren't busy giving me and my media colleagues the "evil eye", they were chanting "4 more years" without being prompted. It was very impressive in a scary, fascist kind of way.
I doubt you would see the same energy and enthusiasm at a Kerry rally. I just don't sense that anyone is embracing him. Most Democrats are just happy to have a choice other than President Bush.
Is a dislike of President Bush enough to draw non-Republicans to the polls on election day? I'd love to hear what some of you think, especially anyone in a swing state.
I attended my first President Bush rally in Colorado Springs last week for a story I am doing on the Colorado Senate Race. 10,000 people showed up in World Arena at 7am - 3 hours before a scheduled 10am speech by President Bush. For those of you who don't know, Colorado Springs is home of the Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family and lots of churches - in other words, prime Republican territory.
The energy and enthusiasm in the arena was electric, and that was before President Bush came on stage. When he appeared in the corner of arena, it was as though Elvis had just entered the building. People were shaking and crying as they shook hands with the President like he was Paul, John, George or even Ringo.
They laughed at all of his jokes. They cheered every time he paused for effect. They even booed every time he mentioned the United Nations. When they weren't busy giving me and my media colleagues the "evil eye", they were chanting "4 more years" without being prompted. It was very impressive in a scary, fascist kind of way.
I doubt you would see the same energy and enthusiasm at a Kerry rally. I just don't sense that anyone is embracing him. Most Democrats are just happy to have a choice other than President Bush.
Is a dislike of President Bush enough to draw non-Republicans to the polls on election day? I'd love to hear what some of you think, especially anyone in a swing state.
posted by cvo @ 1:07 AM
9 Comments:
At 7:12 AM,
R said…
With nothing more than the evangelical vote you may be able win gov. of Tx. against a popular member of the minority party who doesn't take you seriously, or get a tie for President when the opposition is disenchanted and divided, but it won't be enough this time around. The reason that the far right is so energized is that Bush has shown his true colors. I think when the election is over we will find that Kerry gets a lot of votes from non-wacky Republicans.
At 2:11 PM,
Unknown said…
Perhaps Russell is right about Bush's having shown his true colors. Still, as to Curtis' thoughts on dislike for Bush, I, for one, happen to dislike Kerry even more than I dislike Bush. I know that it's probably hard for you to imagine my disgust, but Kerry's masquerading as a Catholic plainly indicates either (1) his complete lack of moral integrity or, despite his obvious intelligence, (2) his complete lack of philosophical integrity.
At 9:24 PM,
R said…
The real problem is that IMHO the Catholic Church has been taken over by a powerful group of conservative weirdos. If Kerry had the guts he had in the early 70s, he would just stand up for his own beliefs, which might be something along the lines of it being possible to view oneself as a Christian in the Catholic tradition without necessarily agreeing with all the Church's statements. After all, they'v been wrong before: viz. Galileo, Bruno, etc.
At 2:30 PM,
Unknown said…
OK, Russell, I'll bite.
First of all, it's nonsense to say that "the Catholic Church has been taken over by a powerful group of conservative weirdos". There are many levels of error in that statement:
(a) The Church's teaching is essentially the same now as it has been for 2000 years. Yes, that's the very definition of conservatism (in its truest sense), but no one of a substantially new character has recently "taken over".
(b) Although, among those who claim for themselves the name "Catholic", there are some whom I should call "weirdos", the magisterium does, IMHO, have a substantially lower fraction of weirdos than the general population.
(c) The Church's teaching happens to coincide with the American conservative agenda on the defense of babies and on the sanctity of marriage, but the Church's teaching also runs against the American conservative agenda on things like capital punishment and Bush's screwy theory of the just preemptive war. The only real reason that there is the tendency to think of the Catholic position as leaning toward the politically conservative side is that the promotion of abortion and of homosexual behavior are, as they have been for 2000 years, viewed by the Church as being more serious than many other issues. In the 1950s and 1960s, before the Democrats started advocating legalized abortion and the giving of marital privileges to those who engage in homosexual behavior, the civil rights movement landed the Catholic agenda squarely in the politcally liberal camp.
Second, the Church teaches now and has always taught the primacy of conscience. One whose conscience leads him to disagree with what the Church teaches must follow his conscience instead of the Church. That is, the Church teaches that if one follows the Church against his own conscience, then one commits a mortal sin, warranting eternal damnation; it is always better to follow the conscience. A good Catholic, however, must always work to move his conscience into line with Church teaching, and his disagreement should not lead him to convince others of the Church's error. Moreover, if the matter be serious enough, then one's following his conscience against the Church must necessarily lead him out of communion with the Church. The basic idea, then, is that if the matter be serious enough, and if one's conscience lead one to disagree with the Church, then one must properly admit that one is no longer Catholic. Kerry is doing what you suggest, but he is wrong to do so.
Finally, the Church was not wrong in its judgments against Galileo and Bruno. With respect to Galileo the real issue was that Galileo thought that science could prove an hypothesis true. In his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo flatly claims that science gives man the ability to know nature as well as God Himself in depth, even if not in breadth. Galileo was completely convinced that the planets orbited in perfectly circular orbits, and that was the end of it. Period. He even ignored Kepler's evidence to the contrary. For Galileo, the case was closed, and science had proved Copernicus' model as the truth. The Inquisitors told Galileo that he would need to offer the Copernican model as one possible hypothesis. Galileo refused. It would do you well to read some of what Cardinal Bellarmine, the lead Inquisitor, wrote on the matter. Since the time of Bacon, we have become increasingly aware that Galileo was wrong and that science can be definitive only in the ruling out of an hypothesis, never ruling one in. As for Bruno, he was using his credentials as a Catholic priest to teach things such as that Christ was a skilled magician and not God. I should say that the secular authority, who burned him at the stake, was wrong to execute such a barbaric sentence, but the Church was not wrong in her evaluation of his case.
At 11:26 PM,
Michelle said…
Well..I was going to publish on the Demographic thread, but it has vanished at the moment. I probably have a different view than a few of you who have voiced so far as I am coming from an evangelical Christian stance. I don't view myself as a right-wing wacko, however I do believe that line is being drawn closer to the center than it used to be. I would put in the wacko club those who bomb abortion clinics, have home arsenals, advocate racist agendas...(thoughts?) I do not put the President on a pedestal as you described at the Colorado speech, but I do support his positions on such things as abortion, the sanctity of marriage... That being said, there are matters that I do not believe either candidate has given satisfying answers to such as reeling in the defecit. Kerry keeps saying he will fix the problem, but then he throws out a bundle of initiatives that would have to be paid for in some manner, and I don't think repealing the tax credit is going to hack it. Bush has not given an answer that appeases me either. I do not understand why my household and businesses I have been involved with must be solvent to survive, but we don't hold our leaders to the same degree of accountability. Having dealt with Medicare and Medicaid in both the private and public sector for a number of years however, I am not the most optimistic about government financial decisions by either party. As for the war in Iraq, I have yet to be steadfast on either side. Not finding WMD has made this a sticky issue for me. I believe Saddam was an evil man, and from what Chris and I hear from our friends and family in the military there is a lot of good being done there despite what we hear, but there are a lot of places where there are evil oppressive rulers, and it is not America's place to attack each one. I guess overall, I would fall in line more with the old Democratic party that was more socially conservative, and for that matter fiscally responsible, but I have not found that candidate on the ballot. Just as an aside, I do like this idea, and line up with you guys more on the sports, enjoy the science (though I will not pretend to understand a ton of it since I went the financial direction) and actually read, enjoyed and agreed with some of the Harper's article.
At 11:27 PM,
Michelle said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 11:57 PM,
Michelle said…
Can someone let me know how to delete my comment since it published twice? I see no trashcan icon.
At 9:48 AM,
cvo said…
Thanks for your comment, Michelle. I think there are a lot of people who don't believe that either candidate truly represents their belief system or idea of what government should be doing right now.
I think there are a lot of Democrats or former Democrats feeling a little lost because the party's major candidates have drifted so far to the center.
I posted that thread mainly because that Colorado Springs rally was the first time I had been in the middle of thousands of Bush supporters and I could really FEEL their enthusiasm for him.
I don't doubt their emotions and feelings for him, I just wish I had a candidate that I felt that way about.
At 1:58 PM,
R said…
Probably "wacko" is too inflammatory, especially as I do not attend a Catholic church, but only hear about these issues from folks like my neighbors, friends, and parents. The general idea I've got is that there is a strong backlash against Vatican II, especially among the younger generation of priests. Most of the complaints I hear are that this takes the form of preaching that is strict and intolerant by the standard of the kinds of things we grew up with.
The most egregious example I've come across recently is that they were apparently handing out flyers in church this weekend that list "non-negotiable" issues on the basis of which every Catholic is "morally obligated" to cast a vote. It also listed "issues of concern" that do not carry the same onus. The former category included abortion, same-sex unions, stem-cell research, and euthanasia. The latter category included the death penalty, the war, and the economy. I'm not sure if it came straight out and said "you will go to hell if you vote for Kerry," but my mother told Carol that a lot of her Democrat friends are really conflicted because they are afraid of this.
Concerning what I believe to be the main issue: it seems to me that you are always going to have some folks who believe on the basis of faith that an immortal soul is created at the moment of conception, and others who don't believe so. To the first group, abortion is murder. To the others, destruction of a blastocyst or embryo is not eqivalent with the murder of a fully developed human. Where to draw the line is always going to be a matter of faith, it seems to me. Therefore, I am unwilling to impose my views on others. I think this is Kerry's position as well.
This was essentially my point about Gallileo and Bruno as well. Just because the Catholic church says abortion is murder, doesn't make it so. Maybe it is, but the only way we can have a civil society is when decisions that affect us all are made on the basis of something other than doctrines we don't all necessarily hold, like religious faith. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter that Gallileo and Bruno advocated silly views, the problem is that the Church forced one of them on pain of torture and death to recant, and burned up the other one alive, and these are only two of countless examples that come right down to today, when they are (apparently) threatening the equivalent for the souls, if not anymore these days the physical bodies, of Kerry voters.
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