“We’re talking McGovern-style electoral humiliation.”

Yeah, re-electing Nixon turned out to be a really good decision a year and a half later … you know, when Nixon embarrassed the nation. Pick a better reference.

Posted by: AP at October 30, 2003 04:06 PM

How about ‘Mondale-style’ humiliation?

Feel better?

Posted by: torpedo_eight at October 30, 2003 04:41 PM

mmm, i’m partial to ‘dukakis-style’ humiliation.

Posted by: wafflestomper at October 30, 2003 05:32 PM

Ew ew, I get to use my tagline!:

Vote Dean, all the pacifism of McGovern, all the tax raisin of Mondale. Its Fantastic!

Posted by: Mark Buehner at October 30, 2003 05:34 PM

What of the people left behind in this Bush economy? Hah! There’s a new angle for them.

Posted by: Howard The Duck at October 31, 2003 10:43 AM

It will still be a close election. There’s plenty of ammo to spare about how badly Iraq was handled and about how facts were distorted to get this country into war.

There’s tons of environmental issues as Bush seems to care very little about these things. The majority of Americans seem to support abortion rights and Bush could be easily shown to be tied to the pro-life camp.

As for the recovery, so far, its been a mostly jobless recovery. Companies are getting back on their feet and the stock market is turning around. However, the bleeding of white collar jobs to India continues without an interruption. The jobs which are appearing are paying less than before. There’s a lot of anger about this and a good Democrat will use that.

Bush spends a lot of time and energy catering to the religious right. The majority of Americans have a disfavorable view of fundamentalists and making the connection between Bush and these extreme groups will only help the Democrats.

This country is much more polarized than it was in 1984. In 1984 and in 1988 (and even in 1980), the dems had lackluster canidates who couldn’t generate much excitement. Dean, if he gets the nomination, is much more entertaining and he can rally the party faithful. And you have a very strong core of people who constantly think: anyone but Bush. Many of these people were Reagan democrats but Bush doesn’t have the charm or ability to inspire any sort of loyalty in them as Reagan did.

Remember, no matter what you think about the 2000 election, Bush did not get a majority of the national tally. The majority of those people who voted against Bush then have no intention of voting for him now. And there will be no visible third party candidate to suck away a million or so votes from the Dems like Nader did. Its going to be a difficult fight for both the Republicans and the Democrats. It seems to me to be a coin-toss as to who will win.

Posted by: eh at October 31, 2003 03:45 PM

i dont understand how this can happen in one day.

Posted by: gijoe at October 31, 2003 04:11 PM

Eh, you’re completely wrong. So long as nothing drastic happens, Bush will win in a landslide. Clinton and Reagans numbers where 5-10 points worse than Bushs are right now at this point in their administrations, and I think they did ok. Jobs always come last in a recovery. The dems are going to commit suicide on the national security front anyway. I have heard a number of liberals and moderates say they would vote for Bush today simply because they dont trust Dean or Clark on security. Thats saying something.

Posted by: Mark Buehner at October 31, 2003 05:38 PM

eh:

please explain:

1. how was Iraq handled “badly”? it was perhaps the most successful military campaign in history - with the least civilian and military casualties to boot. post-war reconstruction is moving faster than any other example of which I am aware. compare germany and japan. compare any place where the UN is conducting peace-keeping or nation-building operations.

saying something is handled “badly” assumes that, comparitively, something similar was handled better. give me any military or post-defeat campaign which was handled better than Iraq. There are none. Therefore, Iraq has not only not been handled “badly” - it has been a spectacular success from the point of comparing it to other military and post-occupation operations.

2. what facts were “distorted” to take this country to war. Bush repeated what every intelligence service with the capacity to opine on the matter had said. Hussein had admitted he had huge stockpiles of WMD and then never accounted for them. please, with specificity, explain what facts were “distorted”?

thanks.

Posted by: nikita demosthenes at October 31, 2003 05:43 PM

nikita,

eh can’t answer your astute questions. He/she is busy gargling, trying to wash out the taste of shite. That’s what happens when you regurgitate feces, rather than think in a logcal fashion.

The only thing distorted is the left’s spin on the last 30 years of world events.

Posted by: Dhimmi-God at November 1, 2003 10:29 PM

“What of the people left behind in this Bush economy? Hah! There’s a new angle for them.”

All of those people ‘left’ behind will very soon have gotten themselves a job and laugh at your idiotic attempts to try and paint this economy as a bad economy (regardless).

I received a phone call for a job opportunity in the line of work in which I graduated for.. I may be among the current Americans looking for a job in their career field who will soon land one.

The number of people getting jobs is on the rise. I don’t mind it one bit if the liberal, rank and file, want to sleep behind the wheel about this economy.

Paint it as a bad economy all you want. When it comes time for General Election Debates…. Only thing President Bush has to do is quote real life examples of how great the economy is booming and utterly humiliate who ever runs against him.

Posted by: Jeff MacMillan at November 2, 2003 11:19 AM

As far as the economy goes, I think Bush or his people will have to reverse that sucking sound you hear coming from the general direction of India. The economy may be great for businesses but, if the middle class keeps shrinking, Bush can be easily portrayed as out of touch.
To the public, statistics will mean nothing. It all comes down to how the economy affects each individual. The question, which was invented by republicans, and which really matters is: “Am I doing better or as well as I was four years ago?” The Bush team will have to do something to ensure this question can be answered in the positive by the majority or the recovery means nothing.

Yes, the initial campaign into Iraq was very very easy, due to the incompetence of the Iraqi commanders. However, the resistance is doing a fairly good job of ensuring 7-10 Americans die per week, which, over time, has proven to be very demoralizing to the people at home. The latest polls show the public doesn’t think Bush is doing a good job in Iraq. And, with no WMD’s being found, Bush can easily be accused of being a liar, whether he was or not. If no WMD’s are found, the Dems will be able to portray the Republicans as having sent Americans off to die for some god-forsaken sandpit. If no WMD’s are found, and the casualty rate continues at its current pace, then I believe the Bush team will not be putting Iraq on its resume and that you’ll see one or two high level resignations.

And y’all seem to forget how polarizing this President is to hardcore Democrats, just like Clinton was to hardcore Republicans. It has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with emotion. Still, this could have an interesting effect on the election as the hardcore will feel deeply motivated to vote, no matter who the Dem nominee ends up being. Bush hasn’t done a very good job of reaching across the line to Democrats and this may hurt him.

It will be interesting to see if the Red vs. Blue split is as pronounced in this election as it was in 2000. I personally think it will be and without a viable, liberal third party canidate to suck away votes, its going to be a close election.

Posted by: eh at November 2, 2003 06:10 PM

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, most hardcore Democrats wouldn’t vote for the Republican candidate anyway, so they’re not the target for Bush. And hardcore Republicans won’t vote for the Democratic candidate, so they’re not the target for whoever the Demo. nominee is, either.

The target is the undecideds, which according to the various opinion polls are enough to tip the election either way, if a candidate can capture enough of them. Given the Republicans natural advantage of being seen as stronger on national security, bolstered by 9-11 which has placed security higher on most people’s priorities than it was previously, unless there’s a domestic issue that can “hook” enough undecideds, like a continued recession, the Democratic challenger doesn’t stand much of a chance in ‘04.

Also, the Democratic candidates have to go through the whole primary process, which means they’ll have to appeal to their base instead of staying in the center where most of the undecideds reside. Whether the eventual nominee can made the journey back to the center successfully remains to be seen, but Bush has the advantage of being unchallenged, so he doesn’t have that difficulty working against him, either.

And if the Democratic nominee does try to “swing moderate” and distances himself from the more extreme Bush-hating side of the party, he’ll probably be rewarded with another run by Nader, representing the Greens/progressives, if they’re convinced the nominee isn’t following their line closely enough. Actually, I expect that to happen anyway. A run by a fellow like Buchanan on the other side of the coin is possible, but the Christian Right doesn’t seem nearly as likely to split from the Republican party (& run its own candidate) as it used to be, at least to my eyes, and that’s the only split in the Republicans right now which could suck enough voters away to hurt Bush.

Posted by: tagryn at November 2, 2003 10:17 PM

Given the Republicans natural advantage of being seen as stronger on national security, bolstered by 9-11 which has placed security higher on most people’s priorities than it was previously, unless there’s a domestic issue that can “hook” enough undecideds, like a continued recession, the Democratic challenger doesn’t stand much of a chance in ‘04.
*****************************************************************
Interesting, I can show u the last 8 months of polling data from gallup.com that shows swing voters tending to vote against Bush. If you want some let me know….

You are correct in that swing voters will determine this election. I personally think that 2004 will be close just as 2000 was, security is not as big of an issue as people blow it up to be. Once again, polling data shows this. It is the economy stupid. In 2004 it will be $$ once again.

That ‘little’ domestic issue you are talking about is the ECONOMY, which is of more concern than that BIG issue of security that you inflated…btw…Again I can back that up with data from several respected sources….

Posted by: whatthehello at November 3, 2003 12:28 AM

1. I’m aware of the economy vs. defense separation in relative priority re: poll results, but I don’t agree that ignoring national security is a winning approach. In fact, the Democrats need to do a much better job of going beyond just criticism of POTUS to presenting a detailed picture of why they can do a better job managing the various challenges the U.S. faces. Haven’t heard that from any of the candidates yet, though its still early.

Just putting all their eggs in the basket of hoping the recession will continue or, better yet, deepen, is relying on something none of the Democratic candidates have control over. Again, doesn’t sound like much of a strategy to me.

2. As the numbers at the top indicate, the recession may be ending. If so, then domestic issues will be a plus for Bush come election time, not a negative. We’ll have a clearer picture of which way things are going come late spring or so.

What’s a little surprising is that in the polls collected at http://www.pollingreport.com/ , despite the lousy economic times Bush still consistently gets over 50% job approval, I think its near 60% in the latest polls. He also handily beats his closest Democratic competitors by 9%-10%, and again, that’s even with all the bad economic and Iraq news.

That kind of edge is going to be very hard to overcome. Not impossible, but very, very difficult.

3. I think there was an article by David Brooks in either the Atlantic or NYT which talked about the Red/Blue division, and that we should expect most national elections to be “close” for the forseeable future, as there’s only about 15%-20%(?) of likely voters who aren’t already firmly either Democratic or Republican already. For the reasons I’ve already stated, it seems like Bush is better positioned to appeal to those voters, at least for now.

Posted by: tagryn at November 3, 2003 07:01 PM

What a bunch of hub bub. The economy skyrockets…it will be the day after in Iraq….in 2004 the dems will be slaughtered.
It will go like this….Dean will excite the left enders…and gain the nomination. Since, he can’t move from his outrageous statements, he will be pounded with them. With no chance to move to the center…it will be 49 states to 1 (Vermont with one congressional district his only victory). ha ha
Hey, you dems, have you looked at your 401k lately??
With tax cuts and a high feeling of financial security the dems are frickin dead in the water…so shut up and go to the new think tank and find some kind of strategy. And please try to understand the Electoral process in elections…in the US, the sovereignty of land and statehood is represented by our system. Just because you have 10 million illegals to vote for you, doesnt mean you can steal our country.

Posted by: DickD at November 3, 2003 10:04 PM

eh wrote:
“And, with no WMD’s being found, Bush can easily be accused of being a liar, whether he was or not. If no WMD’s are found, the Dems will be able to portray the Republicans as having sent Americans off to die for some god-forsaken sandpit.”

…and if they are found? will the liberals claim that it was planted and staged?

for Bush haters it makes no difference. It does not matter that there is 20 million more free people in the world, that they themselves find more money in their pockets to spend…

and you, liberal bigots who are quick to call Bush a liar - your beloved idol Bill lied under oath - people go to jail for that. if that was a republican president you would have spent $300 million to impeach him and another $100 million to put him in jail for the future to remember. and you will be reminding everybody every day about this just as you remind us about Iran and Watergate scandals.

Posted by: vader at November 7, 2003 11:46 AM

Well doesn’t it feel so good pointing fingers at people? Yes both sides are capible of lieing, but that doesn’t make one side right. Lieing is bad no matter what. So saying that one side lied does not make it ok for the other side to.
I personally believe that the US interest in the Middle East over the past decade have had to do with the oil. Oil is rich in profit, and that is what our country thrives off of.

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Posted by: Secret Corner at January 19, 2004 10:18 PM

Dock Animation. Sometimes animating icons in the dock can be useful in communicating the status of the system or application.

Posted by: Marmaduke at January 24, 2004 03:45 AM

Adopt Sheets. I really like the use of Sheets in OS X. The use of Sheets lets me know which window my dialogue belongs to without hijacking my system.

Posted by: Sarah at January 24, 2004 03:46 AM

But limit your animations to whatever is required to communicate the necessary information. Avoid annoying animations that discourage ease of use. Ask yourself, “What do I need to show the user, and what is the cleanest way possible to achieve that?” A good example is the Mail application for Mac OS X. Whenever a new message arrives, the Dock icon changes appearance to indicate a changed state.

Posted by: Elizeus at January 24, 2004 03:46 AM

The simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that’s why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.

Posted by: Aaron at January 24, 2004 03:47 AM

Adhere to File Locations. Make sure that when your users save documents, your application knows where to put them and also gives users flexibility.

Posted by: Prospero at January 24, 2004 03:49 AM