Posts Made By: James Brown

Paul Kammueller said:

>>>There are plenty of people out there like me now who up to the year 2000 used to be swing-voters but are having a hard time imagining under what circumstances they could ever vote republican again.<<<

Bingo.

I kind of wanted to maybe touch on this as a separate subject. Has anyone else been fundamentally changed by this administration?

Gentlemen:

I suppose that certain specific voters could have their voting habits forever changed by a bad presidential term. Recent history though suggests that the electorate's punishment for a bad term extends for only one or two election cycles.

Consider Watergate. I am sure that many swing voters swore they would never again support the corrupt Republicans. After 4 years of Carter's unprecedented ineptitude all of the swing voters and many of the Democrats embraced Ronald Reagan. Reagan took 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49 in 1980, only a single term after Nixon was disgraced.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Democrats will win the White House and both houses of Congress in November 2008. If the Democrats run a savvy fiscal moderate in the Bill Clinton model, victory in 2012 is also assured. 2016 is a toss up, by then Bush and the so called neo-con machine will be a distant memory.

Unfortunately, anyone the D's nominate in '08 will win. Maybe the party faithful who control the nomination process will ignore us traditional moderates, swing voters, Clinton Republicans, Reagan Democrats etc? Maybe the party faithful will take this opportunity to run a populist ideologue... (The time is ripe of course, just like it was after Watergate.) If oil and the religious right own the Republicans, who do you suppose owns the Democrats?

If we have the collective misfortune to see Jimmy Carter II in '08 and he/she somehow manages to cause the fiscal havoc of 1979, I predict that the Republicans will come charging back as strong as ever in 2012. It really is about the economy.

You guys rhetorically ask, "under what circumstances could I ever vote republican again?"

How about these circumstances:

Prime interest rate 19%
Inflation rate 20%
Unemployment rate 8%

In summary, 2008 voter retribution against the Republicans is inevitable. The ball is in the Democrat's court. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

Jim

Paul Kammueller said:

In Hillary v. Giuliani I think Giuliani would win.

Paul:

Clinton and Giuliani are presently the front runners. This interests me. We read a lot about how the religious right are way too strong, you mentioned it yourself just the other day. Obviously, Giuliani as a pro-choice republican can not be the first choice of the religious right.

If the polls bear out, then either the religious right is not so dominant a faction of the R coalition (at least in the nomination process,) or the religious right are a very pragmatic bunch... pick the candidate with the best chance of winning and so on.

On the other hand, everyone acknowledges that Clinton is a divider with enough baggage to potentially cost her an un-losable election. Are the Democrats unwilling/unable to put forth a candidate who is less risky? Are they that un-pragmatic?

Maybe Hillary and Rudy will both be distant memories by next November, but if they are the candidates, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.

Jim

Jon Isaacs said:

And then the Padres took it in the shorts today, hopefully they can pull it out tomorrow...

Jon

I'll be at the game with my brood Jon. We'll be yelling as loudly as possible to help the Rockies along!

Jim

Here's the youngster watching the action between two seasoned veterans.

I assume your go-to is Gemini Floyd? I like Gemini a lot. It is very easy to use in the dark once you get used to it.

Make sure you read the manual sections about how to do a "synchronize" after you slew to your first bright star and then do "additional aligns" after you slew to any number of subsequent bright stars. This part of the routine seems to trip up new users. It must be rather different from other alignment routines.

Have fun!

Jim

Well, there is nothing like living where there are reasonably dark skies.

We used to have an Astromarter who lived in mid-town Manhattan and sings tenor at the Met. I assume he is a Mets fan.... His is a sad story though.

J

Paul Kammueller said:

Republican obstruction has already won that one, the greenhouse is here and we've dithered long enough so that it's too late to fix. Congratulations. You got the malaria-infested jungle-planet you wanted. I hope western civilization survives your ideological victory.

This last bit is beneath you Paul. Assuming that the greenhouse is here, the world's reliance on fossil fuel sealed the deal. I agree that the US burns far more than its fair share.

Democrats talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. Republicans dither and confuse. Meanwhile the world turns on oil and coal. Nothing much is going to change until supply economics causes those scarce resources to be replaced by something cheaper (and hopefully cleaner). {Where is Ed Moreno recently anyway?}

If you are looking for someone to blame for global warming, how about James Watt, Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. Maybe George Westinghouse. Maybe you and me. I know you ride a bike a lot, but I assume you heat your home and office?

Blaming it on modern Republicans ignores the big picture and is uncharacteristically narrow of you.

Jim

Roland Christen said:

Hi All,

Just to let you know, the long awaited review of the Mach1 mount has just
been published in the December issue of S&T. Run out and grab a copy today (and
get in line for a mount while ye're at it ;>))

Rolando

Roland:

Do you suppose that you will get caught up with the Mach 1 backlog soon, like you have with the AP1200?

Jim

Hey Rod:

have you thrown your support behind any of the likely candidates? I can honestly tell you I have no idea yet who I'll be supporting in either the primary or the general election.

Jim 21/22

Pete Brayton said:

To be a republican you need to believe....

Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano...

J