I think there's a double standard in play here. You know R's will accept a Kerry victory, and you know a large number of D's won't accept a Bush victory.

Aren't you legitimizing these D's, and rewarding them, in giving them that much influence in how you vote and think about voting?

Also compare to the pledge thing that was going around the 'sphere a month or so ago, about supporting the next C-in-C. Same thing there; it was only aimed at asking R's to promise to support Kerry if he's elected. Nobody expect the D's to support Bush if he is re-elected; on the contrary, we expect the same kind of behavior that we've seen the past four years.

I don't understand rooting for 1 candidate but voting for another, unless you've decided to vote for a candidate with no chance of winning; that's like a fan of the Marlins rooting for the Astros.

This sounds to me more like a Yankee/Bosox fan rooting for the other team to win.

The last election was the closest in recent history, yet after the Supreme Court intervened Gore spoke forcefully about the need to bridge the divide and support the newly elected leader.

Democrats reached out to Bush and supported him strongly in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban.

The increase in partisanship can be traced forward from a short time after this point when Bush began his efforts to shift the nations attention to Saddam.

Bush utterly squandered the good will of the world and the bipartisan suppport he had enjoyed to enforce a highly radical agenda.

I agree that it would be nice to have a clear victor in the upcoming election in the hopes that either side will grant them legitimacy. But to suggest that it is only the Dems who will complain if such an outcome is not realized is ignorant.

Perhaps students will be demonstrating on campuses against Bush if his victory is controversial, but I'm more concerned that the incumbents might express their disbelief of the outcome by attempting to excercise control over the balancing mechanisms of government for their own purposes. Let's wait and see what happens.

In the meantime, I'm glad you live in blue CA where such tortured (and highly dubious) voting preference logic will not damage Kerry's chances too much.

Even a large majority for one candidate or another will not make a difference to the self-styled "dissidents" as Gonzalo Rodriguez calls them. A Bush majority victory would still lead to allegations of an improper election--I would think that the dissidents have taken themselves out of the political process.

Well, if you accept the logic that you don't vote for someone because of what the jihadis want, why would you vote for someone because of what the lunatic left (or right, for that matter) wants???

"Democrats reached out to Bush and supported him strongly in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban."

You have failed to mention that before then many on the Left referred to Bush as "not our President."

He was hated, detested, and still was after 9/11. But it was politically incorrect to say those things, except in small, "safe", circles. They were just biding their time. Bush never threw away that support, he never had it in the first place. It was an illusion.

As for the Left acting up, well, its been a while says the Tree of Liberty has been watered...

Landslide? Not. Gonna. Happen. For either candidate.

Sayeth Drudge:

The Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee are advising election operatives to declare voter intimidation — even if none exists, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. A 66-page mobilization plan to be issued by the Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee states: “If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a ‘pre-emptive strike.’”

The story of the year might be America's divided reaction to its own election. Not looking forward to it.

Dream on. This election is going to be decided by "activist judges."

Not so fast...

The smarter'n'average, fence-straddling American looks, and listens, listens and looks, thinks, ponders and tries to see a rationale behind all the smokescreen rhetoric.

I'm lucky enough to be part of the Berkeley community, frequenting the local Peet's, engaging in ad hoc political discussions frequently. Bearded men (that being the 'style' in Berkeley amongst the intelligensia), earthy but attractive women all engage in the discourse.

What I have found is incredible: that the Berkeley liberals from republicans to democrats, genuinely believe that the current president is simply illegitimate, is a chimera that has infested the Oval Office, and is a pox upon all true American values and ideologies. Bush is vilified for having "squandered World good will" (whatever that means), yet when presented with facts from the Dahlfur report showing France to have been selling missile parts and munitions to the Iraqis only but 3 weeks from the invasion, it is all pooh-poo'ed as fabrications from the military-industrial complex.

I sometimes feel that I've been transported back to the 1950's and 1960's, where the radicals nearly in unison decried the state as an evil beast, that needed to be overthrown by revolution. It isn't even that infrequently when I hear "class struggle", and "real-politic", or "fascist commercialism", or "bourgoise and proletariat". The old ways are persistent memes, to be sure.

But the most interesting notions that are afloat in the meme-pool of the Berkeley Liberal [which we must assume is representitive of liberals across the land, if but a bit amplified and concentrated], are that any electoral win by Bush cannot be anything except corrupt politics, bought constituencies, fear-induced coercion of the macho masses, illegal campaign tactics, carefully orchestrated fiction legitimizing the war, legitamizing scoffing the noble, and frankly far ahead Europeans, further delegitamizing our country's very democratic basis for existence.

A win by Kerry, of course, is vindication of everything that has gone rotten in the intervening 4 years. Kerry will save our troops. Kerry will get the economy restarted. Kerry will reverse the deficit and bring a surplus again. Kerry will save the rights of the Mothers of the Unborn, Kerry will never let a Draft happen. Kerry will control gas prices, Kerry will rapidly introduce the programs that we need for alternate energy sources, vehicles, tax credits. Kerry will bring up educational standards, will put the cap on medical expenses, will provide inexpensive and easily obtainable drugs to the poor and elderly. Kerry will break the back of a Republican dominate Senate and Congress. Kerry will save the trees, will get tough on the Japanese whale fisheries. Kerry will restore cod to the North Slope, will bring the horrible unemployment situation down. Kerry will not give into international interests, when it comes to our prosperity, and Kerry will restore American Good Will in the eyes of the World (especially the E.U.). Kerry will return America to the U.N. as an equal, not a superior, and Kerry will never back down to terrorism. Kerry's plan for Dialog with the DPRK will solve its nuclear-proliferation issues, Kerry will see that trade with China is secure, and that India and Pakistan become friends. Kerry will....

Oddly, whenever I hear all these things, I'm struck with the same sense of incredulity that I have when reading old sales literature touting the benefits of "patent medicine" from the early 1900's. Kerry Cures Warts! The only patent medicine to cure dyspepsia, malaria, age spots, bad teeth, hair loss, crooked toenails, corns, the gout, and lost libido. Kerry's amazing secret formula must be tried to be believed! Results depend on strictly adhering to the regimen.

But this IS the world of marketing, isn't it? We much prefer to believe in space-aliens (at least for amusement, a la Star or Enquirer), we prefer to believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, that the Patent Democratic Candidate can oust bogeymen (by neutering their bogey-ness), can cure economies from malaise (what malaise?), will give candy to the elderly, the young, the poor, the middle class. Only the damned rich need to pay for it, the bastards. Only the damned business men, the military, the wasteful enterprises, the corrupt and the grifters need to be ferreted out, pilloried, and made to pay.

That is the Berkeley Message. Liberal to the core.

The heady part of it is that the academics also openly talk of armed resistance, of some very anti-societal behavior. Do we want to encourage that? Is it healthy for society as a whole? Might not the same feelings in the al Queda be just as legitimate, if they can be justified for the Democratic Liberals?

GoatGuy

GoatGuy;

Thanks for the warning about those Berkeley Liberals.

But don't worry, the rest of us on the Left will do our best to make sure that it doesn't come down to armed resistance if Bush wins.

Of course we have no control over the response of the Radical Right, who are generally better armed than the average American, to a Kerry victory.

If Bush wins I personally am willing to give him another chance to bring us together, despite his recent track record of divisiveness. What other choice would I have? Do you really believe most Americans want a revolution???

Leadership comes from the top down, not from the bottom up.

Trying to propogate the idea that the left will rise up in armed revolution if Bush wins seems like nothing more than an effort to attach the stigma of "Anti-American Activities" to anti-Bush sentiments.

Radical opinions are not all that uncommon, perhaps less so in Berkeley, but they come from both sides.

Im not particularly worried. Does the uber-liberal wing of the democratic party strike anyone as being particularly intimidating? Now when the AFL-CIO storms your local RNC chapter, thats something to be concerned about. But the mal-nurished tree huggers against the NRA crowd? Im not concerned. What this country hasnt had in a while is an old fashioned hippy whomping.

Kerry will save our troops. Kerry will get the economy restarted. Kerry will reverse the deficit and bring a surplus again. Kerry will save the rights of the Mothers of the Unborn, Kerry will never let a Draft happen. ...

You left out "and make the blind to see and the lame to walk" by funding more embryo-based stem cell research -- the most shameless pitch I've heard in decades of political rhetoric.

Oddly, whenever I hear all these things, I'm struck with the same sense of incredulity that I have when reading old sales literature touting the benefits of "patent medicine" from the early 1900's. Kerry Cures Warts! The only patent medicine to cure dyspepsia, malaria, age spots, bad teeth, hair loss, crooked toenails, corns, the gout, and lost libido.

Well his running mate did say that Joh Kerry would make it so that people like Christopher Reeve could get out of their wheelchairs and walk again.

You left out "and make the blind to see and the lame to walk" by funding more embryo-based stem cell research -- the most shameless pitch I've heard in decades of political rhetoric.

Hmm, KerrySpot has an interesting piece with back-up data that suggests the polls we're seeing underestimate W's support, just as they underestimated the elections in 2002.

Personally, I suspect that increased Hispanic voter turnout will even the one-sided shorts that the 2000 model showed in 2002.

We'll see. But especially with all the voter fraud and intimidation stuff going on out there, I'm with praktike (and A.L. - are you still standing behind that earlier article, Marc?) that 2004 gets resolved through the courts.

It's a dangerous illusion to think that all the violent nuts are on one end or another of the political spectrum. Look up how wacky things got in the Klamath basin area in the latter part of the Clinton administration for a real life example.

You do not tolerate or condone brown shirts, no matter who they support or how violent you think they will become. The electoral system cannot stand the inclusion of a violent faction. It's just that simple. They have to put down their arms, go to jail, or die.

I too think our country is deeply divided. We're not one country, but two warring tribes. And VT, you're wrong, FH is right-- the dichotomy began with the "stolen" election, not Iraq. Praktike is right too, if this election is close it will be a judicial decision.
But we got over this at least once before-- How was the country healed after the War Between the States? I know a lot of biology and math, but I'm a historical ignoramus. Are there any remedies from the Civil that will work, no matter who wins the Presidency?

How was the country healed after the War Between the States?

You mean other than the North treating the South as second-class citizens for a hundred years? Basically reconciliation had to wait until everybody who had fought had died. This began in the Roosevelt administration and culminated with Johnson's election to the presidency in 1964.

The very terminology you're using reflects the dichotomy. “War Between the States&148; is a Southernism. “Civil War” is the prevailing usage in the North.

Dave,
_ Basically reconciliation had to wait until everybody who had fought had died._
Great, that's encouraging. :)
I think the division is sharp enough that the losing side will have to be treated as a conquered people. Are there any historical examples that we can draw on there?

When deciding who to vote for, the one thing that (AFAIK) slaps down all other considerations is this: Kerry isn't sure whether Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons or 'peaceful technology'.

If that doesn't knock you down, I'm not sure what will.

Just my 2 cents, but for the most part even if the election is close and Bush wins or Kerry wins you will hear from the media jackals left and right about fraud etc but most people will move on and life will go on. What makes the country seem divided is the war among the pundits and the collapse of the MSM as a reliable source of news. They have a vested interest in trying to play up the 50/50 country. It sells, but most people just don't care that much. Hell a lot of people don't even vote, where do they fall in the great blue/red divide. Obviously it would have been best for all if Gore had not started the process in Florida that lead to the debacle that followed, but I guess being 537 votes from paydirt was to much to resist. I think Bush will win, and I think that it's not actually going to be that close, but if Kerry wins, the war on terror will still have to be fought in some fashion. And we will have to pray that God still is watching out for us. Of course the upside to a Kerry win in Hillary may be out of the mix.

Gadzooks! College students threatening to march if their candidate doesn't win? Whatever shall we do? Oh, I know- take away their parents' subsidies and wave the bills they'll have to pay on their own in their faces..... that should work like holy water on vampires.

Dave Schuler wrote:

The very terminology you're using reflects the dichotomy. “War Between the States”; is a Southernism. “Civil War” is the prevailing usage in the North.

Not to hijack this into a Civil War thread, but the one of the reasons that I heard it referred to as a the “War Between the States” was because typically a “civil war” is a conflict between two or more factions for control of a country or government. That would not really describe our own Civil War as the South really wasn’t trying to take over the national government by force of arms but rather trying to break off and form their own country.

Jinderella;

You avoid my point. While it is certainly true that some Dems never did and never will accept Bush after the Florida/Supreme debacle, the mainstream of the party and most of the rank and file were willing to give Bush a chance. As Gore counciled. And as Dascle, Gephardt, Lieberman and other Dem leaders demonstrated on the floor of the Senate in the months after 9/11.

Their revolt, and the ensuing schism, came about only after taking one too many sucker punches from Mr. Uniter-not-Divider. And it came far too late, IMO.

It simply serves your anti-Left narrative better to pretend otherwise.

Violence is already escalating as the Second US Civil War approaches.

Damn, that's a depressing way to put it, but living in Kansas where the first Civil War started in much the same way has heightened my sensitivity.

Early examples this time around would include shooting abortion doctors and bombing clinics -- or killing Matthew Shephard -- on one side. On the other, shooting cops, bombing research facilities, letter-bombing conservative professors, fire-bombing McDonalds, anti-globalisation riots, and plenty of others.

More recently, this. A soldier home in Ohio on 14-day R&R leave from Iraq. At a concert. With an Iraqi Freedom T-shirt. Beaten unconscious. Becaue he was a soldier.

I might add that in Lawrence, Kansas and elsewhere, cars with Bush stickers are being regularly "keyed" from one end to the other, and some are having bricks thrown through the windows. Several houses with Bush yard signs have had them stolen, and when replaced had a rock tossed through the biggest window on the front of the house. There are numerous reports of similar incidents all across the country. Diversity and tolerance in action, I guess.

Shots fired into more than one Republican headquarters. Goon squads storming and trashing numerous Republican offices across the country.

Hostages taken at gun-point at Focus on the Family. Death threats against professors found to have contributed to the Republican Party. Jewish day schools hosed down with gunfire. There is plenty more.

Back in the 1850s pro-slavery forces could feel their agenda slipping away from them. With the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 they saw a last chance to force slavery onto a state and thereby maintain voting parity in the US Senate. When Kansas entered the union as a Free State in January of 1861, the low-level-but-growing violence that had been building for nearly a decade exploded.

In our own time the Left most certainly feels their agenda slipping away from them. They try to impose it through the courts. They try with decreasing success to propagandize it in the schools, but half the students don't buy it. They try to slip in through the old-line media and increasingly outrageous films.

And as they see their chances in this election slipping away (and with it, even more of their radical agenda) they have turned violent across the country.

Each side is led by Baby Boomers. The Left, generally by early Boomers, augmented by plenty of 60-somethings from the previous generation. The Right, generally by Boomers born about 1955 and later (Bush is an exception as an early Boomer on the Right), and augmented by a growing number of Gen-Xers.

Why does this matter? Because the Baby Boomers are what Strauss & Howe classify as an 'Idealist' generation, one of four types in a repeating cycle traceable back at least to mid-16th Century. Twice in American history an Idealist generation has split down the middle and turned against each other. In our era the early Boom have moved hard towards Modernism/Post-Modernism powered by New Age theology. The later Boom are predominantly Traditionalists powered by evangelical theology.

Neither side sees any accomodation as being possible with the other. Witness the incredible hatred of George Bush, which when you dig even a little /always/ comes down to his evangelical faith. That's why they say he's STOO-PID when he's obviously quite bright (you don't get to fly fighter jets for 5 years, or earn a Harvard MBA if you're not pretty smart, let alone accomplish both).

The last time we had an Idealist generation split down the middle like this was with the Transcendentalists, born from 1792 to 1821. In their youth they were self-immersed, founded communes, joined all manner of bizarre religious sects, dabbled in odd lifestyles, promoted homo-sexuality, advocated socialist economics, and defined art as a form of social protest. They were notoriously estranged from their fathers, and had a remarkable authoritarian streak that tolerated no opposition. Sound familiar?

They emerged from their self-absorption into public life in the 1850s -- 30-somethings to about 60 -- and promptly sought to impose their divergent views of slavery on the entire nation. It began with spotty violence, intimidation, threats, and bombings, which within a decade had dissolved to total war between two opposing groups of Idealists. My great-great grandfather's family was ripped apart by the conflict. Robert E Lee (born 1807) and Grant's chief spy in Richmond (born 1818) were both cousins of mine. Divorce, betrayal, and kidnapping of children were all the order of the day in our family starting in 1861, and there were thousands of families in the same situation.

Right now I see things heading the same way. I wish I didn't, but that's how it looks from here. Mark Twain said "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme." which leaves me wondering what will be the 'Kansas Statehood' event this time.

This is an example, not a prediction. Think Kent State (1970) on a large scale. For example, a left wing attempt to occupy a military base as "protest" perhaps during a time of post-election chaos. The military is at least 70% Republican. Base Security is already allowed to use lethal force to defend our bases against trespassers of any sort. Beat up a few more soldiers home on leave, and believe me, the fellows on the base won't be shy about live ammo. THAT could be our 'Kansas Statehood' event.

There are plenty of other possibilities, but the talk of violent "resistance" coming from academia is quite troubling. Those folks are so isolated that they don't realise how close they are to releasing the deeply Jacksonian impulses of ordinary people across the country who just want to be left alone and are totally fed up with being harassed and harangued by far left activists for a generation.

Quick shots:

The unsuccessful war for Biafran independence is often referred to as a civil war, and I too think "The War Between the States" is more prevalent in the South.

Now, as to Berkeley liberals. I am one. And I go to Peet's. I wonder if I've met Goat Guy, but I'm not in the habit of talking politics with strangers in coffee shops. Yeah, we're still really skeptical about the 2000 election. Look at it this way: let's suppose, arguendo, that there was real merit in Bush's totally-unprecedented "equal protection" argument against the recount, and/or assume, arguendo, that Bush would be the winner under a fairly conducted recount. Let's also disregard, arguendo, the more extreme allegations of voting-machine tampering and absentee ballot fraud. That still leaves Al Gore maybe 20,000 votes burned by seniors who couldn't read the butterfly ballot, and by first-time voters (largely black) who spoiled their ballots in Duval County because the presidential choices took more than one page, and the canvassers had (stupidly) told the voters to cast a vote on every page. Now, I'm agreeing that there is no way these intended-Gore votes can be counted, but it's rather upsetting to realize that Gore would have won by 30 times the actual vote margin if anyone with a sense of User Interface Design had been working with the Florida Democratic Party.

I could tell within the next week what sort of a "uniter" George Bush would be, not only by his being the first campaign to file a lawsuit (yeah, look it up), but by his aide's cynical, snarky comment about the butterfly ballot that maybe the Palm Beach voters had wanted to vote for Pat Buchanan. Given that these voters were largely elderly Jews and Buchanan is an anti-Zionist and borderline anti-Semite, I could see then we were in for a long ride.

After 9/11 almost everybody gave GWB a free pass. Remember, he had a 92% approval rating. He got every vote in Congress except Berkeley's behind the Afghan War (BTW, Barbara Lee was wrong here). I'd suggest that it's Karl Rove who's responsible for the re-polarization of American politics, for three reasons. The first was in having an investigation into the intel failures that allowed 9/11 to happen. George Bush has on two occasions been asked what mistakes he has made and he hasn't been able to think of one. It really is the belief of this Administration that they must appear infallible, and even if most of the blame for our intel failures correctly devolves on George Tenet, or the FBI, or the Clinton Administration (mind you, I don't believe this to b e the case, but even if) there's no way that the Bush Administration could come out of the process without some egg on someone's face. Remember, back then we didn't know that Bush had set aside the August 6 PDB on Bin Laden's plans to attack the United States to rehearse for his reading of "My Pet Goat". And you'll recall, the White House tried everything imaginable to prevent any meaningful inquiry into its performance.

Bad as the stonewall was, at least it was defensive, but then the Bush Administration's Mayberry Machiavellis realized that two other items, Homeland Security and a new War in Iraq, could be used to win the 2002 Midterm Elections. Remember, by mid-2002 the Presidents' popularity was high but not atmospheric, and the poor economy plus the usual midterm loss for the party in power led Dick Gephardt to predict, off-the-record, a 25-seat gain for Democrats in the House. But Bush was too clever for them. First, after resisting the creation of the Homeland Security department (possible correctly—I don't have enough knowledge about how our anti-terror bureaucracy should be organized), he pulled off the amazing jujitsu move of approving it without labor protections and "framing" (the new word!) the issue brilliantly. And then, egged on neocon fantasists, Spartaphilic "realists", and his own demons, he saw how to cleave the opposition in two with a pre-emptive war. Remember that clue about not selling a new prodict in August? There was a reason the war timetable happened as it did, and it wasn't the desert heat. Our troops ended up in the desert heat, anyway; and probably better equipped for it than the Iraqis. If the war had gone according to plan, Bush would be looking at 370 EV and thoughts of a filibuster-proof Senate. Well, maybe there is an Allah after all.

Joe,

Very interesting link you provided to argue against the accuracy of polling.

Did you notice how 6 of 7 polls highlighted in that article went from Democrat ahead in polls to Republican winning?

The only one that didn't reverse was Tom Harkin in Iowa.

Now if your simple hypothesis is that polling is generally incaccurate, you'd expect an equal number of reversals going in both directions. But I don't know of any R to D shifts in the 2002 election, do you?

If your more complicated hypothesis is that polling organizations systematically under-sample Republicans, which is theoretically possible, you need to 1) explain how this can happen, and 2) show that this sampling bias could effect the outcome so substantially.

And don't forget that the analysis is without corroborating data due to problems with exit polling during the 2002 midterms.

At this point I don't think hypothesis #3 can be entirely ruled out: systematic voter fraud from the Republicans during that election.

The only violence last time around came from the Republicans

after resisting the creation of the Homeland Security department

Well, I happen to think his original position was better than allowing the creation by not comitting any money to pay for it. But the thing that motivated him to flip-flop was that the bill going to have Joe Liberman's name on it, and it was going to pass.

Look up how wacky things got in the Klamath basin area in the latter part of the Clinton administration

Dude, that wasn't right-wing wackos unhappy that Clinton "stole" the election, that was landowners unhappy that their livelihoods were being endangered by high-handed federal officials.

pratike: This election is going to be decided by "activist judges."

Sigh. The 2000 election was not decided by activist judges. It was decided by the certified count of votes in Florida, and if another recount had taken place, the evidence favors a Bush victory anyway.

If the Supreme Court was not qualified to judge the law in this case, then the Gore campaign should not have appealed to them. And if a truly "activist" court had simply declared Gore to be the winner, you wouldn't have heard many Democrats grumbling about a "President Select".

Consulting the Constitution (some of you history buffs might recall this document) we learn that if either Kerry or Bush fail to win the required electoral votes, the election will be awarded by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives - not by the courts. Bush wins, and the wails begin.

Who are Democrats going to blame for that? I suggest blaming Bill Clinton. I know we are all supposed to pretend that Clinton was a smart politician, but was his stubborn political idiocy that blew away Democratic control of the House in 1994.

"Now, I'm agreeing that there is no way these intended-Gore votes can be counted, but it's rather upsetting to realize that Gore would have won by 30 times the actual vote margin if anyone with a sense of User Interface Design had been working with the Florida Democratic Party."

Ah what might have been. Once you start playing that game it never stops. What if the media hadnt called Florida while the polls were still open? Im sure there were irregulatities all over the country, and with polls so close in so many states Im sure there are 49 other examples. Both sides have their issues to point to (im particularly skeptical of a judge in Missouri ordering heavily democratic polling stations to remain open late while Dems bused in voters).

"And then, egged on neocon fantasists, Spartaphilic "realists", and his own demons, he saw how to cleave the opposition in two with a pre-emptive war. "

All that is premised on the voters being stupid sheep who vote for a warmonger because Americans love the sting of battle. That sentiment seems to be growing openly on the left, and if Bush wins I dont doubt the disdain many leftists, particularly academics, hold for middle America will be brutally evidenct.

Such cowardice. Vote for the one YOU want to win.
If Bush wins, it won't matter if it's a landslide or not, those who are against him will still resist.
If Kerry wins, I guess we'll just go on knowing we have an empty suit for a leader for 4 years. We've had that kind of president in the past, just not in a time of crisis as we are facing.
And another fact is the anarchists that have fully enjoyed all of the freedoms of this country are determined no matter who in the white house to bring our great country down into a mire of misery and chaos. That is their great dream, until they too live the reality of it. But then it will be too late, wont it.
So if you want Kerry to win, then give him your vote.

Really? I’m from Minnesota which was about as pro-Union as you can get (first to answer President Lincoln’s call for volunteers) and I remember my history teacher and text book using both terms.

And the First Minnesota's actions at Gettysburg are among the most gallant in the history of warfare. And probably saved the Union.

I'm from a border state and remember the Civil War Centennial quite vividly. I was in high school. The “War Between the States” vs. “Civil War” terminology was a subject of some heated discussion.

Sorry for the OT, but I just couldn't resist commending the First Minnesota.

Bart Hall,

"Hostages taken at gun-point at Focus on the Family. Death threats against professors found to have contributed to the Republican Party. Jewish day schools hosed down with gunfire. There is plenty more."

Hostages? When did this happen? Death threats against professors? Jewish day schools have been hosed down with gunfire IN THE US?

VT, if you had actually read the linked article more closely, you'll find it answers your question and explains why. A personal of normal intelligence should be able to follow its reasoning.

As for the rest, your earlier dismissal of violence against Republicans marks you as someone unfit for discourse on this subject... though it is par for your course as a perfect example of the mentality being discussed in this blog post.

Sigh. The 2000 election was not decided by activist judges.

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. By the way, when did I say anything about the 2000 election?

Along with Cicero, I wish for a landslide - probably in a different direction than he does, of course!

I'm still not sure that the issues separating the left from the right, mirror the type of issues that have separated this country prior. Definitely not at the seriousness over the civil war, and I would also argue not at the level of seriousness of the 1960's.

I believe that the country can make it through. In fact, I believe there is a hyper-exaggeration on both sides.

What most people who are conversatives don't understand, is the following - some of which echo Andrew Lazarus's previous post (thanks Andrew).

In 2000:

1. A popular vote for Gore, by about 500,000 votes.
2. Very very credible reports of black vote suppression in Florida.
3. Mistaken votes for Buchanan.
legal process of challenging recounts.)
4. The Supreme Court actual STOPPING of vote recounting.

These four items alone, make the Bush win, well, to put it kindly unique - one of the "weakest" wins ever by a Presidential candidate. And definitely one of the LUCKIEST.

You can't ignore the history, when speaking about democrat "resentment".

Also, democrats believe - and can cite - numerous examples of the will-to-power in the current legislative process, unprecedented in scope in shutting out democrats from decision making processes.

This current history also cannot be ignored.

Basically, I'm suggesting that the tactics engaged in by the right are as much, if not more, responsible for democrat resentment as anything else.

"Also, democrats believe - and can cite - numerous examples of the will-to-power in the current legislative process, unprecedented in scope in shutting out democrats from decision making processes."

Hmph. Unprecidented? Ask anybody that remembers the pre-94 congress. I personally remember watching Newt Gingrich talking to practically empty halls on C-Span because the only time he could get to speak was after hours. Everything you hear is essentially turn about. Republicans were treated like dogs for years in the Congress.

All this talk of post election violence when it isn't going to happen for one simple reason: this country is too rich to seriously riot. The nuts have to convince the middle to back the riots and they won't. Ultimately it will just be the nuts, and there simply aren't enough of them. Though I wouldn't want to own a business in Berkeley if Bush wins.

Mark, the Republicans raised the stakes.

1. Length of time rolls held open to twist arms. Democratic record: 15 minutes. DeLay record: 3 hours.

2. Number of bills submitted under rules permitting no amendments. Democratic record: I think it was about 40%. DeLay record: 85%.

3. Number of conference committees with few or no Democrats, and the use of committees to reverse Democratic/moderate-Republican floor victories. I don't know if there even was Democratic use of this particular dodge, but it has become absolutely routine.

4. Republican-only committee meetings followed by take-it-or-leave-it presentation to Dems. Unprecedented.

No wonder you guys need to win so bad; Speaker Pelosi has a long memory.

[Ah, Matthew, it's the Super Bowl winning city that has the destructive celebration. If Bush wins, Berkeley will feel like a tomb. If Kerry wins, I won't be able to score extra champagne closer than Danville.]

I hate to be dreary, but I've read analysis that says a lot of the heated up partisanship is the result of increasing numbers of safe congressional districts for both Rs and Ds. The consequence? Politicians who don't have to respect or play to the moderates in their own disrict. Gerrymandering, I guess. But who's the handyman that can reach into that pile of nuts and bolts and fix the problem?

jinderella - One thing that helped (a little) start the healing after the Civil War was Grant letting Lee's men take their rifles and horses home (needed for ploughing) as long as they gave their parole to not take up arms again. Things went down hill after an unfortunate incident in the Ford Theatre, however.

On the violence issue: I think it somewhat more likely that violence will follow a Bush victory than a Kerry win, but I expect it to sporadic and as insignificant as all the violence that followed the Afghan election. Of course, what the MSM reports might look a bit different.

While I agree with AJL that the Bush Administration seems hell bent on appearing infallible (and not just on faith and morals), I beg to point out that this is a classic failing of many on the left as well as on the right.

No, there won't be riots. More likely, as various nutjobs take the overheated post election rhetoric about "disenfranchisement" a little too seriously, we'll see a rise in domestic political terrorism.

The ugly thing is, with the non-verifiable electronic voting machines being used so widely in this election, even a landslide wouldn't prove that the outcome was legitimate to people who want to think otherwise.

Bill,

I think gerrymandering is a VERY good point - it definitely is a contributor to uber-partisanship - and has been practiced by both sides.

In California, with gerrymandering happily engaged in by democrats for decades (safe seats for both sides), combined with a 66% veto override necessary, paralysis is the norm, not the exception.

In Texas, of course, we are all familiar with the Dali-esque partitioning of districts engaged in by Texas Republicans.

lindenen:

A bunch of front office staff at Focus were held hostage for several hours back in about 1996 in Colorado Springs. There's a bullet hole in the wall they haven't repaired ... as a reminder. Police negotiated a surrender.

Jewish kindergarten/day care shot up somewhere in souther California several years ago, but I can't place it.

I've seen one or two references to what were almost certainly non-serious death threats against professors, but can no longer give you specifics.

I will add that this past weekend I was working with the Billy Graham meetings in Kansas City can tell you that when Mr. Graham was on stage the security guys (and they were PROs) were decidedly nervous -- throbbing carotids, etc. Chances are good there was a credible threat there, too.

Against an 86 year old man.

"4. Republican-only committee meetings followed by take-it-or-leave-it presentation to Dems. Unprecedented."

The idea being that, if Democrats chose to walk out of a committee meeting, Republicans are supposed to follow them out in solidarity or some such nonsense?

I'm with Ryan on this: You Democrats have awfully short memories of how badly Republicans were treated in Congress when you ran the joint.

The Death of an Ideology is hardly ever a peaceful time. A whole lot of people are invested in gods that no longer get patronage. Violence under the circumstances is not unusual.

After all we had the Weather Underground in the 60s and 70s. And let me tell you. They were Oh, So, Romantic. And Oh So Wrong.

We survived those days. We will get through these.

It will not be pretty.

The 60s were not all Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll.

BTW Joe, I'm thinking of Republishing that piece over at my blog. There are bigger forces at work here than Kerry or Bush. There are historical forces. i.e experience and education.

This strikes me as slightly hyperbolic and downright paranoid.

JC,

If I had to pinpoint the #1 cause of hyper-partisanship's growth in the USA's 2 political parties, it would be gerrymandering. The joke about American politicians choosing their voters instead of vice versa is apt, and A.L. has written about the corrosive consequences a few times.

What to do about it is another matter. The problem's side effects may have placed the cause beyond any obvious fixes slready.

JC,

The Supreme Court actual STOPPING of vote recounting.

The Supreme Court actual stopping of SELECTIVE vote recounting...

Andrew Lazarus: "No wonder you guys need to win so bad; Speaker Pelosi has a long memory."

Not another eternal grudge to keep track of ... Better add that one to the Democratic Plan for America's Future:

1. Avenge Jim Wright
2. Avenge Tony Coehlo
3. Get Linda Tripp
4. Avenge Susan McDougal
5. Get Ralph Nader
6. Avenge Al Gore
7. Avenge Saddam Hussein
8. Get Tom DeLay

Probably to late for this thread but for all the comments and observations I’m still not sold on a substantial outburst of violence concerning a President Bush re-election. I see the threat of total public violence as scare tactics designed to herd / force the populace into a political environment where acceptance of such an environment is solely based on pacifisms versus popular beliefs. If pacifism is what constitutes a deciding vote then it would stand to reason that there are those in this nation that would prefer tyranny versus a government of the people by the people for the people.

Bart Hall
“Neither side sees any accomodation [sic] as being possible with the other. Witness the incredible hatred of George Bush, which when you dig even a little /always/ comes down to his evangelical faith.”

Like Bart I tend to lean towards some validity to his observation and comment. I need look no further than my own family to see religion as a point of contention concerning politics and those in power. My own daughter holds the belief that only atheists need apply for office. She bases this belief on the fact that theology would / should not be a guiding factor in policy or decision making. One of the major news media outlets has been following two families concerning their support / division for President Bush / Senator Kerry. If you read between the lines the division is portrayed as one of religious beliefs versus non religious beliefs. What I don’t understand is why this is an issue when the Article IV Clause 3 specifically states "but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Are we to assume that those that see religious beliefs as a disqualification factor will soon be advocating an amendment to our constitution to remove this clause?

Oscar
“On the violence issue: I think it somewhat more likely that violence will follow a Bush victory than a Kerry win, but I expect it to sporadic and as insignificant as all the violence that followed the Afghan election. Of course, what the MSM reports might look a bit different.”

The common theme throughout this thread seems to indicate that violence concerning the election will be induced by a Bush victory and very little to no violence will occur if there is a Kerry victory. What I don’t understand is if the division is of such importance that violence would / should occur because of the out come doesn’t it stand to reason that any victory by any candidate would result in some kind of turmoil? If the convictions are such that the issues that divide us are of a nature that begets violence why would one accept the fact that Bush supporters would play nicely if Kerry wins or vice versa? Could it be that Kerry supporters believe Bush supporters are much more level headed? If this is the case why would Kerry supporters want hot headed people who advocate violence as a means of political change? It only stands to reason the violence that is at one time in your favor can certainly turn sour.

VT: Sorry to get back to this so late. But I think less and less I have an anti-left agenda. I see radical departures from normative reasoning on both sides. The two parties are mobilized into armed camps, the middle ground is destroyed, and there are fewer moderates than in Islam. "You are with us or against us" both at dKos and LGF. Armed Liberal is so rare he should be in a zoo.
Sir Richard Dawkins' letter in the Guardian made me want to weep. And my sorry instant reaction was to try to justify his position, just because he's one of my personal gods. Confimational bias in action. The world's gone mad, and me with it.
But on the basis of empirical data, I think the 2000 election IS the proximate cause. There are already over thirty lawsuits in play over the 2004 elections (FOX news). and both parties are preparing for more. There is absolutely no way a close election will not be contested in the courts. Five Floridas.

Armed Liberal is so rare he should be in a zoo.

The elephant in the room that no one is mentioning is Vietnam. This is where the divisiveness and acceptance of violence as protest began. Our current woes are echos of that. And just like the Civil War, there will be no true reconciliation until all the parties to that fiasco have died, and their successors just don't care anymore.

Lurker! You give me hope! :)
Mebbe you non-fringers should get louder?

But it is not very encouraging that people have to die to give up their ideology. Does that mean the election insanity won't end until everyone that voted in 2000 is dead?

Think of it as a dampened oscillation that fades out. Before it is completely gone, I'm sure something else will have become the dominant theme of the age.

Mebbe you non-fringers should get louder?

This is more interesting than I thought when I first started writing. Has anybody modeled memetic propagation with some carriers (people) being more susceptible a new meme than others, i.e. speed of acceptance? Of course the carriers could accept different memes at diferent rates. This could be generalized in populations as early adopters and resisters, for example. How would this model expalin the behavior that I described above?

jinnderella:

Read The Moderate Voice: http://themoderatevoice.typepad.com.
Read Jeff Jarvis: http://www.buzzmachine.com.
Read Instapundit: http://www.instapundit.com.
Read World Changing http://worldchanging.com.
Read April 1865 by Jay Winik.

And of course, keep reading Winds Of Change.

The moderates have many voices.

Oh! Kewl, lurker. :)

"The fringes react quickly and are important to stmiulate change and respond against new threats."

This can also be modelled as "herd behavior". We talked about that at Belmont Club the other day. :)

But your paradigm is much more interesting.
Most models measure changes in the meme complex itself against a 'stable' target population, that is "holding the same basic ideology". Like Atran and Boyers' work on retention. I'm trying to think of a good design for testing relative receptor permeability. I'm sure you're right and there's tons of variation.

AND I forgot my favorite moderate liberal, praktike! (apolos)

Thanx, Paul Brinkley! :)

Well, Winds IS my very favorite, except for Gene Expression, where thsy actually understand what I'm talking 'bout. ;D

relative receptor permeability

Now I'm thinking along the lines of impedance matching and those personality classification systems. This is more micro than macro, but here goes... Does a meme have to match the personality of the receptor? There's a lot of work on the personality stuff, would it make any sense to make an instrument to classify memes in the same way? And perhaps then correlate that to the rate of meme transmission? Just imagining here...

Lurker, I guess you could call it an "aperature of memetic reception". If the orientation is too far off, the meme gets regected. The trick is, incremental changes. :)

Bart: In Texas, of course, we are all familiar with the Dali-esque partitioning of districts engaged in by Texas Republicans.

::chuckle::

Yeah, right. I used to particularly enjoy visiting Houston, where one could be in one of four different districts depending on which lane of the Gulf Freeway one was driving in. And I spent seven years with no representation in Congress, because Kay Granger could not be convinced that I lived in her district even by the official web-site representative finder.

Get real. After a century and a half of Democrats being able to draw districts wherever they pleased, suddenly they didn't have the horsepower to do that any more. You're just being soreheaded about the fact that Texas is no longer a Democratic state. The new districts reflect that fact, and nothing else. And they may be Daliesque, but at least they're not topologically improbable.

Regards,
Ric Locke

i stand with those who pick the 2000 election as the onset of the trouble. if the parallel to the Civil War is to be looked to for clues, most likely the ill feeling will dissipate after Bush is out of office, since he is the lightning rod whose election generated so much uproar. i do think there is a basic, bedrock american feeling of what's fair and what's untrustworthy when it comes to how we vote in this domocracy, and once bush is gone from office, whether in this vote or at the end of the next term, the stench of the 2000 elections should pass away into memory and history. it might persist if dick cheney runs after bush's possible maximum term in office passes. but cheney was invited onboard by bush; he didnt campaign or run for the VP. so he probably won't run in the elections after this one.
hopefully we will have all learned a lesson we take with us into future elections in america, that being to arrive at some irrefutable means of counting every vote for sure, in a transparent way so that there can be no controversy as to who voted and for whom, and whether it was tampered with or interfered with in any way. this may mean instituting legally protected rights to re-vote in the event of spoilage, wrongful elimination, deliberately contrived difficulty, and anything else that can be identified as denying anyone their right to vote if they wanted to, framed within perhaps the end of the same week as election day, giving everyone a fair chance to vote and be counted, before the process is closed and the results announced. perhaps any grounds for court challenges should be redefined and made to wait, until these other recourses have been duly exhausted in that week.
i think the rage that has divided the american nation of late all stems from a sense that the 2000 election was not coducted as americans feel it should be, and that the collective sense of examining the irregularities and trying to retrace all steps and ascertain a valid solution was stomped on prematurely by the court's declaration. and then again with iraq, that sense of taking the time to hear from everyone, and to settle all grievances before reaching a concensus of closure was again prematurely stomped on.
i don't think the national sense of how our democracy is supposed to work, is going to fade away. i think we have too deep a personal sense of our integrity to let go of it. this particular administration has hallmarks that probably will pass when it does, it's composed of a peculiarly collected, hand picked cadre of characters, uniquely gathered to suit a particular individual's notion, and when that ensemble leaves the whitehouse,it cannot come again.
one of the virtues of our government is that if we don't like it, we can dump it out and change it frequently, and i think that will serve us well in resolving us of what we have experienced and learned from this last chapter in our history. at most, bush can have four more years. he may, in fact, only have a few more weeks or months! he will never get rid of the stench of the 2000 election, and those who are convinced his presidency was illegitimate will never let go of that conviction. they can carry what they learned from the experience forward into the fabric of american wisdom, and work to apply what they learned, to teach it to future generations, to make our ways better, make them conform more closely to our sense of fairness and how things ought to be done so that everyone feels that the election--any election-- from now on, was done right. even if the guy you wanted doesnt win, if the vote was fair and straight, youll concede and accept it for the time it has to be honored.

i stand with those who pick the 2000 election as the onset of the trouble. if the parallel to the Civil War is to be looked to for clues, most likely the ill feeling will dissipate after Bush is out of office, since he is the lightning rod whose election generated so much uproar. i do think there is a basic, bedrock american feeling of what's fair and what's untrustworthy when it comes to how we vote in this domocracy, and once bush is gone from office, whether in this vote or at the end of the next term, the stench of the 2000 elections should pass away into memory and history. it might persist if dick cheney runs after bush's possible maximum term in office passes. but cheney was invited onboard by bush; he didnt campaign or run for the VP. so he probably won't run in the elections after this one.
hopefully we will have all learned a lesson we take with us into future elections in america, that being to arrive at some irrefutable means of counting every vote for sure, in a transparent way so that there can be no controversy as to who voted and for whom, and whether it was tampered with or interfered with in any way. this may mean instituting legally protected rights to re-vote in the event of spoilage, wrongful elimination, deliberately contrived difficulty, and anything else that can be identified as denying anyone their right to vote if they wanted to, framed within perhaps the end of the same week as election day, giving everyone a fair chance to vote and be counted, before the process is closed and the results announced. perhaps any grounds for court challenges should be redefined and made to wait, until these other recourses have been duly exhausted in that week.
i think the rage that has divided the american nation of late all stems from a sense that the 2000 election was not coducted as americans feel it should be, and that the collective sense of examining the irregularities and trying to retrace all steps and ascertain a valid solution was stomped on prematurely by the court's declaration. and then again with iraq, that sense of taking the time to hear from everyone, and to settle all grievances before reaching a concensus of closure was again prematurely stomped on.
i don't think the national sense of how our democracy is supposed to work, is going to fade away. i think we have too deep a personal sense of our integrity to let go of it. this particular administration has hallmarks that probably will pass when it does, it's composed of a peculiarly collected, hand picked cadre of characters, uniquely gathered to suit a particular individual's notion, and when that ensemble leaves the whitehouse,it cannot come again.
one of the virtues of our government is that if we don't like it, we can dump it out and change it frequently, and i think that will serve us well in resolving us of what we have experienced and learned from this last chapter in our history. at most, bush can have four more years. he may, in fact, only have a few more weeks or months! he will never get rid of the stench of the 2000 election, and those who are convinced his presidency was illegitimate will never let go of that conviction. they can carry what they learned from the experience forward into the fabric of american wisdom, and work to apply what they learned, to teach it to future generations, to make our ways better, make them conform more closely to our sense of fairness and how things ought to be done so that everyone feels that the election--any election-- from now on, was done right. even if the guy you wanted doesnt win, if the vote was fair and straight, youll concede and accept it for the time it has to be honored.

Janet, I place the start of this much earlier than 2000. It goes all the way back to the Vietnam era, when revolutionaries of my generation indiscriminately tossed around accusations like "fascist" and "baby killer". Mnay in 'the Movement' were drunk on a sense of power -- the power to destroy -- all the rhetoric about Peace and Love notwithstanding.

I know -- I was there.

Bush and the 2000 election is just a convenient excuse for behavior that has been going on, and attitudes that continued to fester (sometimes underground) for decades.

The same thing is true of anti-Americanism in Europe. Again, I know -- I've worked on and off with Europeans and European companies for decades.

Robin
I tend to agree with you on the time line concerning our change in attitudes. Like you I'm part of that crowd as well and like you I didn't appreciate any of what was going on at the time.

Janet
The notion that the federal government should dictate to states the voting and manner there in may be a possible solution but not one I'm sure I'd advocate at the moment. As for other changes such as eliminating the electoral college and a potential do over we would be talking about major changes to our constitution which in my opinion is not going to happen.

The bigger issue here concerning Florida and the 2000 elections is the Florida state legislative process is at fault for the problems Floridians have in their voting system. It’s time for Floridians to demand that appropriate changes be instituted at the state government level and quit looking to the federal government as a panacea. It really irritates me that the only time people get involved is when they believe they have been done wrong. then instead of taking the appropriate action or actions that are afforded to them they are perfectly content to pass the buck onto someone else. Florida has a long history of voting irregularities and in my opinion they deserve what they let fester for so long.

You could argue Florida is part of the US and should be afforded the same rights as other states in the union. In my opinion they are and they should not be afforded any more or any less than any other state. Our constitution has laid out the guidelines for federal elections and placed the responsibilities on the states to institute those guidelines as they see fit. There is nothing in our constitution that says any state has to provide a vote period. If a state chooses not to participate then they deserve to be lead around like a prize bull in the ring.

what mounth was he born