drip drip drip

Shifting Gears
When it comes to presidential elections, there may be more to the NASCAR set than meets the eye.

By Matt Thompson
Web Exclusive: 2.17.04
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- President Bush flew to the Daytona 500 on Sunday in Air Force One, and, by all accounts, the people sitting in the grandstands loved him. He "was greeted … by a largely adoring crowd that sees in him the values it holds dear," according to The Washington Post.
Many of the race's fans -- including Howard Dean's famously sought-after constituent, the guy with the Confederate flag slapped on the back of his pickup -- shared a distaste for Democrats. For Bob Hargett, who's 57, the Stars and Bars aren't just silk-screened across the back window of his brand-new silver Dodge; they're also tattooed on his left forearm, flanked by the words "Southern Pride." What does he think of Dean?

"I can't stand him," he says. "He's a nutcase."

Here, even a Wesley Clark endorses Bush. Clark, 22, a physical-education major at Gordon College, in Barnesville, Ga. plans to vote along family lines. "My cousin Corey's serving over there in Iraq," Clark says, "and he has support, and I guess I have support for him. So I'm going to vote for George Bush."

A recent ABC News analysis of the exit polls from the 2000 election concluded that the "NASCAR dads" aren't swing voters at all, but, rather, a small and solid part of Bush's core constituency. It may not be worth it for Democrats to pursue these fans, some experts say.

Apparently they weren't in Daytona.

Just before the race began, people were becoming impatient to get to their seats, and the increased security prompted by Bush's visit was slowing things down. To my left, I heard someone ask, "Who's voting for Bush?" Someone else instantly responded, "Not me." I turned back to see who'd spoken, but I was no match for the hundreds of people behind me pressing onward.

Then, suddenly, we stopped.

A few feet away, I could see police officers and orange-vested security agents holding the crowd back. It wasn't long before everyone realized we were being delayed until Bush had completed his entrance into the stadium.

After only a minute's pause, people started grumbling. Soon, they started yelling at the security detail. A few minutes more and they'd turned their ire on the president himself.

"We want to see the race, not Bush!" shouted someone in the crowd.

"Why didn't that SOB stay in Washington?" screamed Doug Shelby, the loudest of the voices.

This is Bush's base?

Tom Kremis isn't sure how he'll vote come November. "I don't know," he says. "I would probably vote for Bush. I did before." The Iraq War and the Medicare bill, however, have worn on Kremis' support for the president. Saddam Hussein, he says, "needed to be taken out, but I don't know if that was the right way to do it."

Kremis adds: "As far as Bush and the medicine and so forth, I think I don't know what happened to that."

His friend, Donna Call, meanwhile, admits to being impressed with the Democratic candidates. "I will say they have some real heavy shooters right now," she says. "I was really surprised at the whole primary season."

Some of the Republicanism here, especially among the younger members of the crowd, could be described as perhaps nothing more than brand loyalty.

NASCAR drivers cover every inch of their cars and uniforms with the brands of their corporate sponsors. Diehard fans mark themselves from head to hip with logos and tattoos to show solidarity with those drivers, surrendering every available inch of torso for companies to cover with product names. At any given minute, I'm passed by hundreds of walking advertisements for Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats, M&Ms, DuPont, Sharpie, Winston and Valvoline, among others.

To some at the race, "Republican" and "Democrat" are just two more words to add to the list. An enterprising Democratic candidate might woo these fans away from their loyalty to the label.

Consider Sean and Sean.

Sean Bugg, 22, is rooting for Rusty Wallace in today's race, and wears the jacket of Wallace's sponsor, Miller Lite. Sean Clark, 23, wears a Budweiser jacket in support of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Miller Lite Sean has the stronger political beliefs of the two, mostly based, he says, on the beliefs of his Republican parents. Budweiser Sean, if he votes at all, will probably vote for Bush, too.

"That Bush," Miller Lite Sean says, "he's going to keep shooting straight the whole time, basically. Bush is the one that went over there and handled ****, you know?"

"Yeah," chimes in Budweiser Sean, "Definitely handled that."

So is there anything a Democratic candidate could say to sway them?

"I don't know," Budweiser Sean says slowly, after a moment. "Don't know about that. I'd have to hear him talk first."

They're at least open to the possibility of changing their minds about who they're going to vote for. And even at the Daytona 500, a lot of people refuse to be labeled.

Steve Carlson, 32, sports no product logos on his clothes. He's not a big NASCAR fan, just someone who came to see if it would be a good show. He didn't vote in the last election, and doesn't know which way he'd have gone if he had. A Democrat could win his vote, he says, by "dropping [the] party nomination and going independent, saying, 'This is what I really believe.'"

But that'll never happen, Carlson says, so he'll wait and see if he'll be voting this year.

Rosita Navarro plans to vote for "Anybody But Bush." But she hates the terms "Republican" and "Democrat." "I wish there was a Neo-Democrat[ic] Party," she says. "Something new."

So perhaps it's not suprising that an impromptu anti-Bush rally brewed, lacking only the picket signs. Doug Shelby was denouncing Bush's policies -- and drawing agreement from the crowd. "We're $500 billion in debt and it's only getting worse!" he shouted.

Overhead, Lee Greenwood sang "God Bless the USA." The crowd started chanting obscenities.

After LeAnn Rimes sang the national anthem, the crowd above the grandstands started cheering; those below booed.

Then Bush's motorcade drove by. One middle finger went up in the crowd, then another, and soon they were everywhere.

As the crowd scattered to their seats, one of the few black fans I spotted at the racetrack ran by and saw me scribbling in my notepad. "Writing for a newspaper?" she asked. Before I could respond, she shouted, "Tell them Bush sucks!" Then she disappeared back into the fray.

Matt Thompson is a reporting and writing fellow at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

Matt Thompson

 

The Matrix is starting to collapse.

 

I think Bush has painted himself into a corner.


The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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Evangelicals frustrated by Bush
By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published February 20, 2004

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President Bush left several million evangelical voters "on the table" four years ago and again is having trouble energizing Christian conservatives, prominent leaders on the religious right say.
"It's not just economic conservatives upset by runaway federal spending that he's having trouble with. I think his biggest problem will be social conservatives who are not motivated to work for the ticket and to ensure their fellow Christians get to the polling booth," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute.
"If there is a rerun of 2000, when an estimated 6 million fewer evangelical Christians voted than in the pivotal year of 1994, then the Bush ticket will be in trouble, especially if there is no [Ralph] Nader alternative to draw Democratic votes away from the Democratic candidate," added Mr. Knight, whose organization is an affiliate of Concerned Women for America (CWA).
Their list of grievances is long, but right now social conservatives are mad over what many consider the president's failure to strongly condemn illegal homosexual "marriages" being performed in San Francisco under the authority of Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Top religious rights activists have been burning up the telephone lines, sharing what one privately called their "apoplexy" over Mr. Bush's failure to act decisively on the issue, although he has said he would support a constitutional amendment if necessary to ban same-sex "marriages."
"I am just furious over what's going on in California and over what the president is not doing in California," a prominent evangelical leader confided. "He says he's 'troubled' -- he should be outraged. If he's troubled, he should pick up the phone and call [California Republican Gov.] Arnold [Schwarzenegger] and tell him we want action against the rogue mayor who is breaking the law."
"They can't possibly guarantee a large turnout of evangelical Christian voters if he does not do what is morally right and take leadership on this issue as he did on the war" in Iraq, said CWA President Sandy Rios.
She echoed other conservative leaders in blaming White House political advisers and not the president himself for the failure to move forcefully against San Francisco's civil disobedience. But the veteran activist and radio host said Mr. Bush could pay a steep price in November for following his strategists' bad advice.
"The strength of this president is in his convictions, but our people do not admire his indecision and lack of leadership on an issue so basic as the sanctity of marriage," Mrs. Rios said.
Religious conservatives helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency in the 1980s and helped Republicans retake the House and Senate in 1994, but complain that they have little to show for their loyalty to the GOP.
"I'm not blaming the president, but religious conservatives have been doing politics for 25 years and, on every front, are worse off on things they care about," said Gary Bauer, president of American Values. "The gay rights movement is more powerful, the culture is more decadent, the life of not one baby has been saved, p*rn is in the living room, and you can't watch the Super Bowl without your hand on the off switch."
Religious right leaders say their constituents aren't likely to defect to the Democrats.
"What is at issue here is, will our folks be AWOL when it comes time for the election because they are just not energized and motivated?" said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "Social conservatives coalesce around strong leadership. That's what motivates and energizes them. And on their core issues, the leadership from the White House is not there right now."
Conservative Christian concerns with White House leadership extend beyond homosexuality, p*rnography and abortion to issues of art, education and law.
Sadie Fields, a Bush supporter and Christian Coalition activist, says she's heard grumbles that Mr. Bush stood aside while the man he nominated for a federal appeals court appointment, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, prosecuted that state's popular chief justice, Roy Moore. Mr. Moore was forced from office after defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of Alabama's State Judicial Building.
Mr. Knight points to Mr. Bush's having "promoted the Ted Kennedy Leave No Child Behind education bill, which expanded an Education Department that social conservatives see as a fully owned subsidiary of the National Education Association, which has grown more stridently left wing in recent years. The NEA has boldly promoted the homosexual agenda for schoolchildren."
Also, Mr. Knight said, Mr. Bush "upped the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts, which has boldly promoted the homosexual agenda for schoolchildren. The White House message to social conservatives was: 'We don't share your values, folks. We would rather impress the art elite at cocktail parties.' "
Mr. Bauer, a former Reagan White House adviser who was briefly a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago, said pro-life voters were dismayed by Mr. Bush's repeated statements during the 2000 campaign that he would not make abortion a "litmus test" issue for judicial appointees. Since Mr. Bush took office, Mr. Bauer said, many of the same voters were disappointed by Mr. Bush's ineffectiveness in pushing conservative bench nominees past liberal Democrats in the Senate.
Mr. Knight said runaway federal spending under Mr. Bush worries some social conservatives who "fear their children will become slaves to the government someday. It's not just an economic issue. It's about freedom."
With more than eight months remaining until Election Day, American Family Association founder Don Wildmon said the president "has already upset the economic conservatives, and I know the problem he is having with evangelicals. ... There is a major problem there."

 

Et tu George

From George Will's latest column
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56305-2004Apr6.html


A U.S. official in Baghdad accurately insists that the violent insurgency involves "a minuscule percentage" of the 25 million Iraqis. However, history usually is made not by majorities but by intense minorities. Remember 1917, and this from Richard Pipes's "The Russian Revolution": "The Bolshevik triumph in October was accomplished nine-tenths psychologically: the forces involved were negligible, a few thousand men at most in a nation of one hundred and fifty million." There may have been fewer Bolsheviks than there are members of Sadr's militia, which is one of many. The cancellation last weekend of a Baghdad trade fair was symbolic of the ability of a minuscule minority to sow chaos sufficient to prevent a majority from attending to mundane matters.

Not much else having gone as planned since the fall of Baghdad, a delay in the transfer of sovereignty, scheduled for June 30, should not be unthinkable. A delay would trigger violence. But, then, the transfer on schedule probably would be preceded by an offensive by the insurgents. The transfer is to be from the Coalition Provisional Authority, whose authority does not extend throughout the country. A U.S. official in Baghdad says Sadr will be arrested if he appears "any place that we control."

The transfer is to be to an institutional apparatus that is still unformed. This is approaching at a moment when U.S. forces in Iraq, never adequate for postwar responsibilities, are fewer than they were.

U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient for that mission; unless the civil war is quickly contained, no practicable U.S. deployment will suffice. U.S. forces worldwide cannot continue to cope with Iraq as it is, plus their other duties -- peacekeeping, deterrence, training -- without stresses that will manifest themselves in severe retention problems in the reserves and regular forces.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president.