Tuesday 28 October 2008

Nothing Could Be Finer

I know that I have readers in South Carolina. And I know that they are fans of Bob Conley.

Furthermore, I have just been told, by someone who knows for certain, that the Republican leaders in the House now expect to lose forty seats, while those in the Senate are bracing themselves for a filibuster-proof sixty Democrats, along with President Obama.

A liberal one-party state? Well, no, not necessarily. It depends who the forty more House Democrats, and the sixty Democratic Senators, are. Those likely to win even Democratic primaries in normally deep red states are not likely to be either morally and socially liberal diehard capitalists and warmongers (like the Clintons, although Bush has done everything they ever wanted and then some, whatever he might say or have said), or morally and socially liberal economic populists and foreign policy realists (who are actually quite rare, there as here, and who tend to be not so much populists as just Leftists, there as here).

No, they are most likely to be morally and socially conservative economic populists and foreign policy realists, the sort of people whom a primary system would produce in much of the United Kingdom if we were lucky enough to have such a thing.

Many such candidates are being backed by, especially, Democrats for Life. But that organisation has no chapter in Bob Conley's South Carolina. African-Americans voting the straight ticket that has Obama on it will of course greatly assist this traditional Catholic, Ron Paul activist, bailout opponent and Democrat with moral views far closer to their own than are Obama's. But even so, readers in South Carolina, action this day.

Well in time for services this Sunday, email every church in your state that you can find on the Internet, and ask them to pass it on to everyone they know, saying that Bob Conley is totally pro-life and pro-family, will promote the economic interests both of the blacks and of the white working class rather than of Wall Street, and will oppose the harvesting of their children in pointless, unwinnable wars.

Make sure that that filibuster-proofing Democratic Senator number sixty is, and that every Democrat from President Obama down knows him to be, the traditional Catholic, Ron Paul activist and bailout opponent, Bob Conley of South Carolina.

14 comments:

  1. Looks like Bob Conley is well down against Lindsey Graham in the latest Rasmussen tracking polls.

    Still, you don't believe polls, do you David (voodoo manipulation of public opinion and all that) so that won't bother you.

    Other, differently inclined readers of this august blog (including chums in South Carolina - who'd have thought it?) may wish to bear this in mind though.

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  2. Also, here's an interesting thing, from the survey USA poll (I know, I know - polls, eh! What can they tell you! Except that Graham is a long way ahead, and gaining ground)

    "Graham takes a majority of the vote among men and women, young and old, and in all regions of the state. Graham leads 2:1 among white voters. Conley, a commercial pilot and flight instructor, leads 5:1 among black voters. Conley leads among Democrats, liberals, moderates, and pro-choice voters"

    So Bob Conley, stout moral and social conservative, is more popular amongst, er, liberals, and those who favour a right to choose. Now either they're sadly mistaken, or David is. I wouldn't want to be rude and say which one I think it is.

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  3. Sorry, but this stuff is just gold dust for those who support Bob "stout social conservative" Conley. All from the same Survey USA poll - and remembering that as a whole, Graham leads 56-40

    Amongst those who attend church regularly (Conley - traditional Catholic, good religious views), Graham is up 60-36

    Amongst pro lifers (Conley - totally pro life), Graham is up 72-25

    On the economy (Conley - opposed the wicked wall st bail out), Graham is up 57-40

    On terrorism (Conley - no harvesting of your kids to foreign wars), Graham is up 80-20

    In other words, not only is Bob behind in general, but for the people that care about these issues, he's even further behind!!

    Maybe that's why the Democrats for Life somehow neglected to endorse him.

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  4. Gosh, but you are desperate to keep out a conservative/populist Democrat and keep in a neoliberal/neocon Republican who might as well be Hillary Clinton, just as she might as well be John McCain and vice versa.

    No doubt you are also determined to believe that there is no hope for Bobby Bright (AL-02, a Baptist deacon), Parker Griffith (AL-05, a pro-life doctor and endorsed by Alabama's State Fraternal Order of Police), Doug Heckman (GA-07, a special forces colonel in the Army Reserves and endorsed by General Wesley Clark), Mike Montagano (IN-03), David Boswell (KY-02), Don Cazayoux (LA-06), Joseph Larkin (MI-11), Travis Childers (MS-01), Jim Esch (NE-02), Steve Driehaus (OH-01), Bill O'Neill (OH-14) or Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03).

    Meanwhile, the Senate already includes staunch pro-lifers such as Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. It also includes Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, an economically populist opponent of the neoconservative war agenda, and a cultural conservative who served as Navy Secretary in the Reagan Administration.

    If the filibuster-proof sixty mark is reached, then it will be reached in such persons as Ronnie Musgrove (MS, who as State Governor signed the law banning public funding of abortion) and Bob Conley (SC, a traditional Catholic, Ron Paul activist, and opponent of the bailout).

    I know why you neocons are worried.

    Conservatives, on the other hand, should be cock-a-hoop.

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  5. I don't think he's desperate to keep Conley out, he's just setting out the most recent polling evidence. Nothing wrong with doing that. Is there?

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  6. Er, yes, very interesting and all, but you didn't remotely answer the question. Instead you assigned motives to someone with no evidence amd flanneled a bit.

    I don't really care whether he gets in or not - I probably wouldn't vote for him, but I don't live in SC so it won't really affect me one way or t'other.

    But it is undeniably interesting that, somehow, all the pro lifers and social conservatives seem to support his opponent, and all the liberals and secularists support him, isn't it? Do you have a view on these figures?

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  7. "I don't think he's desperate to keep Conley out"

    He posted here three times in one day. He really does seem to care an awful lot about this matter.

    "Instead you assigned motives to someone with no evidence"

    The evidence is clear from the number and content of your comments.

    "Do you have a view on these figures?"

    It is, as these things always are, about how you phrase the question, and which questions lead up to it:

    1.

    "Do you think that Obama is a liberal?" Yes.
    "Are you a liberal?" No.
    "Are you going to vote for the ticket with Obama [and Conley] on it?" No.

    2.

    "Do you think that Conley is a conservative?" Yes.
    "Are you a conservative?" Yes.
    "Are you going to vote for the ticket with Conley [and Obama] on it?" Yes.

    The first question gets asked far more, because the Presidential Election understandably gets far more attention all round.

    There is, it is true, a danger of both the feeder questions as asked, and the published answers to the punchline question, attaining their true end, that of influencing voting in favour of the approved (neoliberal/neocon) candidate, in this case Lindsey Graham.

    If Graham wins even in this most anti-Republican of years, then that will be a key reason why.

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  8. I posted three times in 5 minutes, because I found the polling result, and kept reading it. Your thesis on the questions, sadly, is entirely irrelevant, because the first question that is asked is "SC will elect a US Senator. If that election was today, would you vote for (choices rotated) Rep Lindsey Graham? Or Dem Bob Conley?"

    After ppl have given their headline view they are asked supplementary questions like church attendance, key voting issues etc. And incidentally, who you vote for President is not one of them - this is a state specific poll.

    I just find it amusing that David is frantically spinning for someone who he claims is a stout pro lifer etc, when all the evidence is that he is precisely the opposite. Or at least that informed voters who live in SC believe him to be. As I say, either they are wrong, or David is. And I wouldn't like to be rude and say which one I think it is.

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  9. "If Graham wins even in this most anti-Republican of years, then that will be a key reason why."

    Yeah - that and the fact that he's in fucking South Carolina.

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  10. "Rep" and "Dem" in the question are devices to bring out party stereotypes in the respondents' minds, and thus answers.

    "Or at least that informed voters who live in SC believe him to be"

    "Informed" by whom? Pro-life was a key plank of the platform on which he won the Democratic primary. And who says that opinion poll respondents are necessarily "informed"?

    Please do not swear on my blog. You really, really, REALLY don't like the idea of the Dems' becoming once more the party that attracts the South and the West, bluecollar Catholics and white Evangelicals. Or of the Dems' becoming the first ever major party to reflect the views of blacks across the full range of policies.

    Well, tough. It needs to happen. And it's going to happen. Indeed, it has already begun to happen.

    Are you a Republican who objects to ever having to face any sort of challenge in somewhere like South Carolina? Or are you a Democrat who never wants to be able to win a place like South Carolina, just because it is "f***ing South Carolina"?

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  11. "Are you a Republican who objects to ever having to face any sort of challenge in somewhere like South Carolina? Or are you a Democrat who never wants to be able to win a place like South Carolina, just because it is "f***ing South Carolina"?"

    Neither. I'm not even a US citizen, let alone a Republican or Democrat. I merely note that South Carolina is a state which has overwhelmingly voted Republican for many years, and that it's very difficult for Democrats to win there, even in a year where the Democrats are doing well overall. I'm not making a value judgement about what I want to happen, merely an evidence-based prediction about what I think will happen. (Equally, I don't think a Republican will win in Massachusetts. Why? Because it's f***ing Massachusetts.)

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  12. And who are the Republicans running in "f***ing Massachusetts"?

    After all, it is an affluent place, and Mitt Romney was Governor there, back when he held the socially liberal and economically hard-capitalist views that did and would get Republicans elected there and elsewhere. Giuliani is another one.

    "Many years"? 1968 at the earliest, and really only 1980. We are not talking about Surrey and the Tories or County Durham and Labour here.

    The blue collar states used to be blue. They could and should be again. If the Democrats have the wit to run candidates such as those currently contesting the Senate seats in Mississippi and South Carolina. There will be more. Many, many, many more.

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  13. The blue collar states used to be blue. They could and should be again. If the Democrats have the wit to run candidates such as those currently contesting the Senate seats in Mississippi and South Carolina. There will be more. Many, many, many more.

    I agree that they could be blue again. I don't believe they will be for a while, and the evidence suggests that the Democrat candidate in South Carolina is unlikely to do particularly well.

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  14. Graham is a very close associate of McCain, who is going to get one hell of a caning.

    If he wins anyway, then blame the media, including the polling companies. But also blame the Clintonite Democratic Party machine, which has pretended that Conley did not exist.

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