Myself and a mate at work have been digging through the writings of, and commentary on the foreign policies of the leading Presidential election candidates for 2008, thinking about trying to write something on it. We drew lots on who was going to read which of the candidates' major foreign policy papers that have been published this year in Foreign Affairs. I got Rudy, Mitt and Hilary. Charly is reading Barack, Edwards, and McCain. You can read them all for free here if you really can't think of something more important you should be doing, like defrosting the
freezer or similar.But anyway George Packer has done at least my work for me in summing up the Republicans in the latest New Yorker magazine. Read it, weep and buy a "vote Hilary/Barack" badge even if you can't:
As the tide goes out on President Bush’s foreign policy, the mass of flotsam left behind includes a Republican Party that no longer knows how to be reasonable. Whenever its leading Presidential candidates appear before partisan audiences, they try to outdo one another in pledging loyalty oaths to the use of force, pandering to the war lobby as if they were Democrats addressing the teachers’ union.
All this proves is that the Dems still cling to a pre-9/11 mentality. John Edwards quip that "The War on Terror (a badly misnamed title) is "Not Real, Merely an Ideological "Bumper sticker" speaks volumes in the lost grasp on reality effecting the Democratic party.
ReplyDeleteThe only ones that "get it" are currently running as Republicans, except for the droid Ron Paul, who cannot manage over 7% in the polls.
Face it Toby, the next president will be Republican and the world will just have to bear it. I will most certainly do my part in seeing that a Dem will not be elected, as will the overwhelming majority of Americans.
If the Dems continue to be the party whose base of support is exclusively female...they won't be getting any of their candidates into the Oval Office any time soon.
It proves nothing of sort, but perhaps what the Dems do get is that current U.S. foreign policy is a disaster and it needs some new thinking beyond "bomb... someone".
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure where you get the idea of Democrats support base being "exclusively female" from? The 2006 arse-kicking of the GOP suggests otherwise.
Oh really?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democrats.org/a/2007/10/our_survival_de.php
"When Wome Vote Democrats Win"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.emilyslist.org/do/women-vote/
Thanks for the links, but one points out the anti-women policies of the Bush administration, and one that women are an important part of the voting public. Neither show that, as you said, "the Dems continue to be the party whose base of support is exclusively female". Obviously women voters are important to them, but some women are republicans and many men vote Democrat.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce64/01gender.htm
ReplyDeleteAlthough women generally favor Democrats at the polls, Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley do not even register on the list until fourth and fifth place, with 32.8 percent and 32.2 percent of large individual contributions respectively from women.
When candidates are ranked by total dollars they received from women giving at least $200, Gore places first with $2.6 million, Bush is second at $2.3 million, and Bradley is third at $1.2 million. Bauer ranks a distant fifth at $381,084.
[...]
Since 1964, more women have voted than men in every presidential election. And since 1980, the proportion of eligible women who voted in presidential elections has exceeded that of eligible males. Polls show that women favored Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, helping him defeat President George Bush, then win re-election.
[...]
In a study sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, Herrnson and his colleagues surveyed more than 1,100 large donors to 1996 congressional candidates. Donors were grouped by motive, social characteristics, and giving patterns by gender (www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/herrnson/women.html).
The Center's study identified the gender of $200+ during the 1990s and analyzed the patterns.
Female Democratic candidates typically received the biggest share of $200+ individual contributions from women in the 1998 campaign, at 42.7 percent, the Center found. Male Democrats received 25.8 percent of large individual contributions from women, female Republicans received 29.4 percent, and male Republicans received 23.8 percent.
it's gone 2-2 in England Croatia. Crouch just scored from a Beckham cross and it's a nailbiting second half.
ReplyDeleteCan someone buy kgs a dictionary and point him in the direction of the word 'exclusively'?
ReplyDeleteEngland out; Austrians and Swiss... er... people can sleep easier tonight.
Oh say it isn't so! :-)
ReplyDelete"Women represent roughly six in 10 Democratic caucusgoers, according to the new poll."
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071201/NEWS09/71201009/-1/caucus
I also admit it isn't "exclusive", it's traditionally a majority.
"Face it Toby, the next president will be Republican and the world will just have to bear it. I will most certainly do my part in seeing that a Dem will not be elected, as will the overwhelming majority of Americans."
ReplyDeleteJob done. Carry on. Pity about that overwhelming majority of Americans, who clearly let the side down badly. They were probably women.