Voted for Gore -- Plans to vote for Bush

[HamdenRice]

One idea that I often hear from democrats and progressives, I guess because it is comforting, is that Kerry will win because Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and some people who voted for Bush are so upset by miserable failure's record that they won't vote for him again, and it is inconceivable that anyone who voted for Gore will vote for Bush.

This is dangerously overconfident. In conversations around liberal NYC, I've talked to a surprising number of people who voted for Gore in 2000, but who are planning to vote for Bush. This is a summary of a few conversations, but I wonder if they represent various voting blocks or demographic groups and how to reach them. Their votes in NY State, which is safe for Kerry, don't matter, but I wonder whether some of their thinking is what is at play in other states?

First is a working class, mid 20s Latina who has always voted Democratic. In fact, you would expect her to be core Democrat. But she was in NYC on 9/11 and her husband is in the military. Her basic motivation is anger about 9/11. To put it crudely her rationale was something along the lines of "those Arab f**kers are trying to blow us up, we should bomb the sh*t out of them." Almost everyone on DU looks at the war as a disaster. She looks at it as a great opportunity to kill Arabs.

Second, is a liberal Jewish couple I know in Manhattan. They are in the arts and have almost always voted Democratic. When it comes to Israel, however, they are far RW. They are happy that Bush has unleashed Sharon on the Palestinians, and hope that eventually all Palestinians will be expelled to Jordan. This may sound extreme, but leading pro-Israel liberals are openly advocating ethnic cleansing. It's unbelievable but Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz and leading civil rights/human rights professor Burt Neuborne have both openly called for ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and this can only happen under Bush.

Third, an older Irish Catholic veteran who has almost always voted democratic basically argued that you don't vote against the commander in chief during wartime. You know the drill -- "we've got to get behind the president".

I wonder how many people there are like this in the swing states, and how to convince them not to vote for Bush in the remaining 46 days?

[WI_DEM]

1. Of course some people who voted for Gore will vote for Bush

but then some people, and I think a larger number, of Bush supporters in 2000 will vote for Kerry. I think our trump card will be new voters and people who voted for Nader and regret it now.

[Lex]

6. And, there are a LOT of people who just didn't vote in 2000

because they didn't care so much between Gore or Bush.

NOW they are voting because Bush has scared the beejeezus out of them.

I think that demographic is a LARGE number.

[HamdenRice]

12. I agree -- that should have been the focus

The Democrats have an automatic majority if we get the number of registered voters way up. The big mistake we make every four years is to try to chip away undecideds, rather than have a massive voter registration drive.

[PittLib]

2. Jesus ...

this is misguided and scary.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. If you can talk to her

raise the following points

YOur husband is in the military, remember Bush tried to cut combat pay from 226 a month to 100

You have to send supplies such as razor blades to the theater becasue they do not exist in theater, and we have run out of bullets

Why?

Poor planing by the administration

make it personal

Ask her, do you think your husband is going to get what he truly needs under this administration, and if he should get injured you think the VA will be there for him? (They are getting closed right and left).

Also ask her, did you know that Rumsfeld wanted to close YOUR PX (Point her to the Army Times article on that)

I could go on.

My husband just got out of the Navy....

Oh my favorite one, her housing is substandard... and no relief anytime soon

Now to the jewsih couple I have no idea what to tell you wiht them? I, as a Jew, lock horns wiht that type

[vi5]

4. I agree with you. I think these numbers are higher than we think..

maybe not enough to offset the reverse but enough so that it isn't a slam dunk and that we shouldn't be over confident.

[Melodybe]

5. Well I'm in Ms and I have talked to plenty of Bush supporters that

are voting for Kerry.

So I guess we are even, although poor folks in the South are a lot madder at Bush than people think.

So did you convince those that you talked to to not vote for Bush?

Did you tell them to watch f9/11 and the Daily Show?

Did you tell them about the draft?

Did you tell them about Kerry's healthcare plans?

Did you tell them that 95% of shippments coming into the United States are unchecked?

Did you tell them that the media does nothing but lie?

[HamdenRice]

13. With both the Latin and the Jewish couple

I think I made a lot of headway. With my Jewish friends I was so upset and I said, something like, no, no no -- your too nice to be saying these things. And I think I convinced the wife.

I also really try to convince people to see F9/11

It just feels a little helpless here in NY, because despite these types, Kerry will carry NY anyway. We've scarcely seen a campaign ad for either candidate -- except for the RNC convention. It's like NYS is sleeping through this election and we've been written off by both sides.

[bobbyboucher]

7. That's good news.

Thanks for posting.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

8. The "older Irish" person is a Facsist.

We are a Democracy and we have elections on a regular basis.
There is nothing that says we must support the President in a time of war!!!

:grr:

[HamdenRice]

14. Please don't call him a fascist ...

My Dad was a WWII veteran, and he often voiced this opinion, and it's just the way a lot of veterans think. It doesn't mean that they blindly follow the leader, but there is this really strong principle that you don't vote out the president during war. It has almost never happened in this country -- Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, (4 terms! was when these older veterans had that principle instilled in them), Truman.

[blm]

9. TWO Bush administrations blocked probes into terrorism and its funding.

Bush1 thugs tried to stop Kerry's investigations into BCCI, the terrorists' bank and Bush2 tried to block the investigation into 9-11 and its funding by their Saudi friends.


Maybe they need to read this article. Print it our for them. No Republican has an answer for WHY the investigations into terrorism and its funding was fought by Republicans tooth and nail for years. They are TRAITORS and should be in jail. THEY killed those people on 9-11 because they were more concerned with covering up their own covert money-making deals in arms and drugs and corporate crookery.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html

September 2004
Follow the Money
How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.
By David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

More than a decade later, Kerry is his party's nominee for president, and terrorist financing is anything but a back-burner issue. The Bush campaign has settled on a new strategy for attacking Kerry: Portray him as a do-nothing senator who's weak on fighting terrorism. "After 19 years in the Senate, he's had thousands of votes, but few signature achievements," President Bush charged recently at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh; spin that's been echoed by Bush's surrogates, conservative pundits, and mainstream reporters alike, and by a steady barrage of campaign ads suggesting that the one thing Kerry did do in Congress was prove he knew nothing about terrorism. Ridiculing the senator for not mentioning al Qaeda in his 1997 book on terrorism, one ad asks: "How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't know the enemy?"
>>>>>>>>>
But legislation is only one facet of a senator's record. As the BCCI investigation shows, Kerry developed a very different record of accomplishment--one often as vital, if not more so, than passage of bills. Kerry's probe didn't create any popular new governmental programs, reform the tax code, or eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. Instead, he shrewdly used the Senate's oversight powers to address the threat of terrorism well before it was in vogue, and dismantled a key terrorist weapon. In the process, observers saw a senator with tremendous fortitude, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of his own career. Those qualities might be hard to communicate to voters via one-line sound bites, but they would surely aid Kerry as president in his attempts to battle the threat of terrorism.
>>>>>>>>

[Township75]

10. I am glad you posted this...

this is the first I have heard of anyone voting for Gore that will now vote for Bush. I think outside of NYC and northern NJ where 9/11 had the largest impact there will be very few Gore-to-Bush voters. More encouraging for the Dems is that the turn in NYC is not going to effect the outcome in that state.

I am willing to bet you are in the highest concentration of Gore-to-Bush voters in the country, and oustide of where you live there will be very few crossovers against the Dems.

[TNOE]

11. You wonder how? Here's how, get busy!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x826631

[atreides1]

15. Good Luck Trying to Change Thier Minds

1. The mid 20s Latina just proves that bigots come in all colors, I guess she forgets that the Hispanic community at one time was only one step above blacks in the eyes of most whites.

2. If the "liberal" Jewish couple truly feel that killing Palestinians
is the right way to go, then I would invite them to move to Israel so that they can be directly involved, and take the same chances as the Israeli people have to take. Instead of hiding 5,000 miles away, where
it's nice and safe. Seems very strange that a people who were almost cleansed out of existence would forget what happened to them.

3. As for the older Irish Catholic veteran, maybe you should point out that his belief is the same as people who support dictators and tyrants.

I personally don't know if you can change the mind of a Latina bigot, a liberal Jewish couple who advocate ethnic cleansing, or an Irish Catholic who fought for freedom, but marches in lockstep with forces that will probably try to take that freedom away.

If there are others like this, good luck. If you can change their minds then you are definitely a better person then I.

[HamdenRice]

16. What I'm trying to get at though ...

is that their views are not really as far out of the mainstream as maybe we would like to believe. I don't think the Latina is a general bigot -- she's just mad as hell, as are a lot of people who experienced 9/11. It's like war time hatred.

I really think that the only way in the long term to get at these constituencies is to de-program American from 40+ years of universally sanctioned Arab-hatred.

[zulchzulu]

17. No shortage of twits

How anyone who voted for Gore in 2000 could vote for Bush with all that's on the line is simply a stupid idiot.

[rockymountaindem]

18. You should definately tell the Jewish couple

that Bush is the only President to tell Israel to stop conducting a military offensive while the offensive was ongoing. He did this during operation Defensive Shield during 2001.

Actually, I think that if you're going to vote on that issue alone, Kerry is probably your guy.

As for the veteran, ask him if he thinks it's wise to get behind a commander who is yet to make the right decision on ANYTHING.

[NoBorders]

19. Well, I recently met Repub Mormons voting for Kerry

b/c they think * has f*cked up so bad in Iraq. When hear about republican mormons voting for Kerry, I wonder who the hell is still voting for * ?????