MY ELECTION REFLECTIONS

The heavy-duty pontificating about what the election result means is already well underway so let me try to spoil the party by pointing out the obvious: In 2000 GWB tried to learn from Clinton's apparently very successful centrist policies and campaigned as a "compassionate conservative". He lost the popular vote by half a million but thanks to the small-state bias of the electoral college he still got the job. In 2004, by contrast, he campaigned on security and morality -- classic conservative causes. And what a difference it made! He won the popular vote by over 3 million. So can anybody doubt that in voting for Bush it was good solid conservatism that was being chosen and that the Anglosphere is basically conservative? It was the conservative element in Clinton's appeal that turned the tide for him; it is the conservative element in Tony Blair's appeal that will continue to win the day for him and it was certainly thoroughly conservative policies that recently won the day for John Howard in Australia.

The case of Australia is particularly useful in seeing how it all works. For over a decade the Australian Labor Party followed policies (privatization, tariff reduction etc.) that were in many ways more conservative than the policies of our nominal conservatives. And that got the Labor party a long term as the government of Australia. Eventually, however, John Howard came along with even more conservative policies and tossed Labor out. And he has recently won his fourth election in a row. Howard was never successful enough to gain control of the Senate, however -- until the last election. In the last election the Labor party took a lurch to the Left (more socialized medicine, attacking private schools, bringing home the troops etc) and got the lowest share of the vote for over 70 years. So now Australian conservatives DO control our Senate.

So what it all shows is that Leftist parties in the Anglosphere can only succeed at elections by being an alternative conservative party. Which is also why John Kerry pretended to be a gun-lover and a Christian -- when he clearly knew nothing about either.

The predominant Leftist "explanation" for the defeat of Kerry seems to be that it can only have been a big turnout by those dreadful religious "hicks" that did it -- virtually claiming that there is no such thing as an intelligent Christian and quite ignoring the fact that the born-again Christian in the White House has an MBA from Harvard. Let me note again that the Australian comparison is instructive. In the recent Australian elections, the conservatives did at least as well as George Bush -- even grabbing complete control of our Senate for the first time. But very few Australians are religious so there is no Left/Right religious polarization in Australia to explain all the new conservative voters. All the outspoken church leaders in Australia were in fact AGAINST John Howard, as far as I can recollect (Who noticed?). But if the major conservative parties were not particularly representative of Christians, there WAS another party that DID represent Christians -- the Family First party. And it got only 2% of the vote! So with such a tiny Christian vote, Australia should, on Leftist reasoning, have elected a bunch of near-Communists. In fact, of course, Australia is in many ways more conservative than the USA -- with BOTH major political parties (Left and Right) completely ruling out any form of homosexual marriage long before the election (as just one instance of that). So you DON'T need a big "homophobic" and "fundamentalist" turnout to get a big conservative win in Australia and it would be pretty surprising if the American result could realistically be explained that way -- given the great similarities between the two countries on everything but religion. The big swing to GWB seems to have been among the Hispanics, in fact. See below.

But let the American Left continue with their febrile Christian-bashing. It will only entrench them as losers -- and Christians have had 20 centuries of experience in putting up with ignorant abuse.

***********************************

MORE ELECTION REFLECTIONS

My vote for the most amusing post-election comment so far -- from the NYT, of course: "Caving in to depression and a sense of helplessness should not be an option when the country is speeding toward an abyss" (Thanks to Dick McDonald for the link)

There is another amusing NYT article by Garry Wills that is apparently very popular in Leftist circles. Wills claims that America is as intolerant, oppressive and irrational as the Muslim countries. Anybody who is so far out of touch with reality as that would have to be an American college professor. If he told such falsehoods about his own society in a real Islamic country he would be dead. As it is, I am sure he was handsomely paid for his delusions.

The Times of London shows a lot better perspective than the rubbish the NYT prints: "It is absurd to believe that Bush's re-election represents the triumph of a Christian fundamentalism... The world did not end on Tuesday. A great darkness did not descend across civilisation. America is not about to embark on a biblically-mandated jihad against the enemies of evangelical Christianity around the world. American soldiers will not be enforcing Washington's imperium on your towns and villages any time soon".

Hispanics: "The biggest reason for Bush's victory was that he finally cracked the Democratic stranglehold on the Hispanic vote. While Gore won 65 percent of the Latino community, holding Bush to a mere 35 percent, Kerry only carried the Hispanic vote by 55-45, paving the way for the Bush victory. Since Hispanics cast 12 percent of the vote in 2004, their ten point movement to the GOP gave the president an additional 1.2 percent of the national vote. Take a similar amount away from Kerry and the Latinos gave Bush a 2.4 percent edge in the general election balloting".

"Healing? "After conceding the election to President Bush, John Kerry encouraged the American people to "begin the healing" and said it was time for us to come together and unite. It is not that easy, Johnny Boy. Who are we suppose to unite with? The people who vandalized Republican headquarters around the nation? Those who sprayed bullets through GOP offices, hurled rocks and cinder blocks through windows, sprayed racist and anti-Bush graffiti on walls outside and broke laptops and other equipment inside? Or just unite with those large groups of unkempt hippies who attempted to overtake Republican headquarters around the nation? What about the people who vandalized and egged cars that had Republican bumper stickers on them, or those who slashed the tires of dozens of GOP Campaign vehicles election morning? Is this what we are suppose to unite with?"

Lots of people liked the county map of the election results. It shows that even within States, it is mostly the big city areas that voted for Kerry. The map is reproduced here together with some comments. Michelle Malkin has the map up too.

Hee hee!: "European leaders struggled to prevent tensions over Iraq and transatlantic relations flaring out of control last night as President Bush's election victory dominated an EU summit. While Tony Blair accused Europe of being in denial about America, President Chirac of France withdrew from a lunch with Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi leader, who accused France of being a "spectator" refusing to get involved in his country's reconstruction. President Bush's re-election has upset his critics in Europe, particularly in France, which had led the anti-war effort. Yesterday French politicians insisted that Mr Bush's re-election showed the need to turn the EU into a superpower to counteract the US."

The big "October Surprise" that the Left intended for the election was the story about the lost Iraqi explosives. The L.A. Times says that the "explosives" removed from Al QaQaa in Iraq "are powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon". A professor of chemistry, however, says that the chemicals concerned were not explosives at all. See here for details. Though why the Left ever thought a possible army stuff-up was the fault of GWB has always escaped me. Do they think he is there in Iraq every day supervising every single platoon of soldiers?

The election has put my Leftists as Elitists site into high gear. I have recently put up some more great quotes there.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

**************************

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They have put up a man whose policies seem to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though they have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************