If George W. Bush was running five points ahead (or more) three days prior to the election here, and God forbid there was an attack accompanied by terrorist warnings that this was reciprocity for Iraq, would it turn the election around for the less popular party (as it apparently turned the election around in Spain)…or would it cause Bush to win by an even wider margain?
PAD
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**I wonder if Republicans have the ability to express any emotion aside from greed and disgust…**
Yes. Yes they do. Glad to help you with this. Back to your room now, little one.
[i]I wonder if Republicans have the ability to express any emotion aside from greed and disgust…[/i]
Sure they do.
Just not any that are good or useful.
I wonder if Republicans have the ability to express any emotion aside from greed and disgust.
While I certainly do my share of Republican-bashing, I think this is substantially over the top.
There are certainly Republicans here on this blog whose views I’ll take seriously and respect. (There are also those whose opinions I won’t, of course, but the same is true on the Democratic side.)
There are even quite a few Republicans in public life who I think are perfectly good people, even if there are issues we disagree on. John McCain is pretty high up on that list, for example — I have fond memories of the alternate reality where the 2000 election was Bradley/McCain and turnout wasn’t a joke.
Now, make it “members of the current administration” and I’m going to find this harder to rebut…
TWL
Hi, I’m from Asturias, in Spain, and I’m sorry I’ve gotten late to this topic… I really would like to thank you all and Mr Peter David (even if he doesn’t remember, I’m one of the “smiling folks” he met in Spain, and I had the chance to introduce him in a great chat at one convention here) for your concern and support.
Just to add another view on the political upheaval in Spain after the terrorist attack on 11-M and the general election on 14-M…
First, no way would socialists have won without the tragic events, that’s for sure… but without the government’s clumsy, at best, handling of the information concerning the crime, the victory would have been less important or even both the socialists and the right-wing party would have tied… or even Mr Aznar’s party would have won (having lost their majority at Congress, of course).
Spanish people voted on a gut level, not so much with fear or hate, but with the convinction (mistaken or not) that the government was trying to deceive them once again, and that now they had the chance to make them pay for it.
I would say, against the idea that one of the Spanish posters notes above, that Mr Aznar did blame ETA for the attack from the very beginning. He did not mention the name of the organization as far as I can remember, but I do remind he said that the victims had died “just because they were Spanish”, a clear reference to ETA’s hate of everything Spanish.
Mr Aznar was not to blame for this, of course. The logical thing was to think of ETA as responsible. We all did. But when doubts started to arise and finally reached certitude against the first opinion, the government insisted on their first version, realizing that any islamist relation to the crime would play against them in the general election the next Sunday.
However, I do not think that the government’s involvement in the Iraq War had so much to do with 14-M results… Last year, just a few weeks after some of the biggest demonstrations ever in all Spanish towns, against Iraq War, the right-wing Popular Party won with nearly no difficulty the regional and council election. People were against the war, but did not feel this was an important issue at the time of voting.
I think that a lot of Spanish people (basically disappointed left-wingers) who don’t normally vote because of their disenchantment with the liberal policy of the Socialist Party (not to speak of the corruption of the former socialist president Mr Felipe Gonzalez’s last years of rule)have finally got fed up with Mr Aznar’s lies (more than his policy) and punished him and his party at this election.
Concerning the idea that these events may convince terrorists that attacking prior to general elections may result in their benefit… I sadly think that’s giving these so-called people a motivation they lack… Their only intent is to kill and arise terror. Unfortunately, I always thought that before Iraq War Spain was a possible objective of terrorists (in fact there was a Yihad attack a few years ago)and I think that it will still be even with a socialist government or without Spanish troops in Iraq.
Thanks for reading this.
You know im 12 years old I probably know more about politics then Bush ever will!
This man is like deadly wild fire to our economy.
He can’t make more jobs, try and stop the war on Iraq, and probably increase our national security
because of terrorism.