[dd74]

Fear didn't win it. Values won it for Bush. I said earlier that we have become a conservative country - and we have. At best, this is cyclical, though I don't know how long that cycle will last.

As far as fear, war, Iraq - nope. That made very little impact. The exit polls were very unreliable on those terms. In fact, the exit polls were taken for a loop when it came to moral values as the impetus for Bush's win.

Truth is this was Kerry's race to win. He had it all - but to address Glenn's question about strategy, Kerry was a miserable failure on one front; communicating with America. Hindsight being 20-20, what Bush said more in action than words is that you cannot take the non-affluent middle class rural America for naught, and rely only on the democratic so-called "elitists" who live in big cities as a basis of strategy. This is proven via the election map; it looks just like Gore vs. Bush in '00. What does that say? That the Dems learned nothing and have now dropped the ball twice by not doing through Kerry what Clinton was so apt to do well.

The Dems are a hopeless lot these days. They have no sense of the country leaning to the right because their heads are on appeasement of traditional democratic notions. They suffer a huge disconnection.

Big changes will come upon the dems. Here are my thoughts:

1) Clinton may become the new DNC chairman, which will be a big step forward.
2) No more Hollywood B.S. in campaigns - that impressed no one, it seems.
3) Michael Moore won't be listened to as closely - a good thing. He or someone like him might even be squelched in the future.
4) I wholeheartedly doubt the dems will anytime soon pick a Northeasterner to run for president.
5) Conversely, the Dems might get a good 'ol boy sort like Bush, though who in this rash of "boutique liberalism," that person might be, I have no idea.