Walking down memory lane - what the liberals were thinking and doing in '00

[DixieBelle]

Stumbled on this via instapundit.com - very interesting insight into the minds of liberals and how they percieved things during the 2000 election and debates. Enjoy!

Bush was at his weakest in dealing with foreign policy, but that's to be expected from any governor (like Bill Clinton in 1992) aspiring to the presidency. Bush was embarrassingly bad, however, in fielding the question about how he would handle a severe economic downturn. He looked and sounded like a stammering schoolboy. The top candidate of the business-savvy Republican Party should have a lot more on the ball when it comes to economics.

In stagecraft terms, I would note that Bush's hair (like early Clinton's) is too flyaway, and his collars and jackets are retrograde and ill-fitting. Plus, guys with this much testosterone pumping need another shave by the end of the day. Bush's Nixonian stubble was somewhat distracting.

As for Al Gore, if I had had any doubt about whether he deserves my vote, he managed to run right over it with his out-of-control, ham-laden 18-wheeler. What a loathsome, smug, preening, juvenile character! The supposedly great debater babbled out of turn; snickered, snorted and sneered; panted and sighed like a bellows; and rocked to and fro and ripped paper like a patient in a mental ward. And Gore looked positively repellent with his dark mat of dyed hair, garish orange makeup and flippantly twisting, strangely female features: I kept on thinking of the bewigged, transvestite Norman Bates as Mother in "Psycho".

In terms of issues, Gore is vastly more prepared than Bush to hit the ground running as chief executive. Gore knows his way around international affairs, and he is certainly more conversant with the operations of the federal bureaucracy. His lifetime in Washington, D.C., is both his strongest and weakest point. Voters' suspicions about him, however, stem from their quite accurate sense that he will promise the moon and the stars to everyone just to get elected and that his constant stream of words means nothing. By the end of the debate, I felt, Gore's loosey-goosey pandering had made him seem curiously unpresidential.

Something is going very wrong with the Democratic Party. Democratic activists are becoming hooligans. When Hillary Clinton was scheduled to vacation in Skaneateles, N.Y., this summer (my home region), Democrats pressured the town government to remove Rick Lazio signs from people's private lawns. The town refused. In the middle of the night before Hillary arrived, the signs were all stolen -- an act of trespassing as well as a violation of free speech.

In Philadelphia about a year and a half ago, union activists assaulted and beat up several citizens carrying anti-Clinton signs in front of a hotel where the president was scheduled to speak. At least part of the attack was filmed by TV crews. This was a blatant violation of the protesters' constitutional right to peaceful assembly. The major media, with their liberal bias, have ignored these troubling signs that the Democratic Party (of which I am a registered member) is sliding toward irrationalism and zealotry.

On the one hand, Gore clearly had far better command over the policies than Bush. Gore was a fountain of data and analyses. But I don't have to spin anymore. He talked far too long and too much, and he sometimes sounded condescending and pedantic. Bush on the other hand sounded as if he didn't really understand the issues terribly well, was a bit intimidated by Gore and is a lightweight. Now, I think people who are policy junkies or political junkies who watched the whole thing and listened carefully agree that Gore won it hands down. But most of the public wasn't moved in one way or the other by the debate. It was a big yawn.

Gore will win this election. The basics are on his side -- the economy is good, he's a far more experienced campaigner and debater, the president knows how to handle Washington Republicans over the next six weeks of budget negotiations to make them look pathetic. Gore's staff are far more experienced in national campaigns than Bush's staff. I would be utterly amazed if Gore did not win this election.

Despite all the training and the advice to show his "sincerity and genuineness," Gore could not break out of his innate priggishness. And if Bush was hoping to win by transcending his unbearable lightness -- well, he didn't. He was like one of those Macy's parade balloons -- if the ropes had broken, he would have floated right out of the auditorium.

Some are born great, some acquire greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. If Shakespeare had watched Tuesday night's debate, he might have added: And some can only bleat soullessly as greatness passes them by.

At the beginning Bush was quite nervous and Gore was quite confident, but by the end Gore was quite nervous and Bush was very confident.

Bush didn't handle explaining his tax plan as well as he might have, because it's really a sensible plan. He should have mentioned that six Nobel Prize-winning economists believe it's a good plan, including the most respected economist in the field, Milton Friedman. If in fact Milton Friedman approves of the plan, then there's a lot going for it.

As for what Gore said, I think it's an arithmetic impossibility that half of Bush's tax cut would go to millionaires. There are only a few thousand people who meet that threshold. And I think that Gore was trying to obfuscate and confuse people on the plan to allow taxpayers to invest some of their Social Security. Bush hit that one right out of the park when he said, "Look, taxpayers can get 4 percent if they put that money in government bonds." Actually it's 5 percent. That to me made perfect sense.

If being a rude, obnoxious, repetitive and overbearing jerk; if interrupting your opponent and even your moderator; if rolling your eyes at views you can't handle and posturing for the cameras in between; if talking over your allotted time and ignoring the rules and attempting to control the stage and everything on it -- if all of that is what wins, then Gore won.

http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2000/10/04/reacts/index2.html