www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Post Election Confession?

Dear Mother Sharon,

You bring to mind the words of St Thomas More in "A Man for all Seasons:"

More is before a tribunal and the Archbishop of Canterbury admonishes him to be loyal to the King's command and sign his approval of the new laws declaring the King supreme head of the church in England.

More responds by saying:

"Some say that the earth is round, others that it is flat - we do not yet know. But if it is flat, will the King's command make it round? And if it is round, will the King's command flatten it! No, I will not sign . . ."

Alex

Alex,

May we all have such integrity.


Sharon

A little ironic, in view of two outliers:
Kerry and Bush presumably both voted for themselves.

As far as the taste for American beer goes...
I have no comment...
Brad

Brian,

I don't disagree with you. i was merely responding to Amado's question regarding the "Catholic vote."

Here's the article reflecting the polls, "Faith Works?" [beliefnet.com] . I certainly would not say the Republican Party is the Party for believers. To paraphrase Henry Karlson, "As long as Republicans are seen as a moral party, they are able to become amoral."

I am pleased at calls for unity from various corners including Kerry and Bush. But it should be realized that the talk of "mandate" and "broad victory" sends a mexed missage.

This was a very tight, one-state Presidential election in which the incumbent squeaked by with a deft playing of the values card - in particular the threat of homosexual marriage - to turn out the base.

The shift in the House largely derives from the Texas gerrymander of DeLay (speaking of values). In the Senate, open seats in very red states went red, in blue state blue and in purple states one blue and one very narrowly red. A blue incumbent in a red state was ousted, and two red incumbents in red states were very nearly ousted. Congressional politics are, as Tip O'Neill would say local.

The reasons are not especially obscure or whatever.

Dear Fr. Dcn. John,

I would take Henry's comment and say that no political party or politician can ever meet all standards of morality.

They might even manipulate public opinion in this respect, to be sure.

But one thing that struck me about the American election is that there is no doubt that the so-called "Silent Majority" of voters certainly voted with their morality this time around, rather than with their pocketbooks or other bottom-line issues.

Alex

To pick up on both ideas, did anyone hear Arlen Specter this morning?
The haed of the judiciary committe has called on the President not to send up anyone SCOTUS nominees who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Actually only about one-quarter of the voters cited moral values their top issue.

Dear djs,

Speaking as another "politico," I've no doubt you are right.

But even Democrat supporters I know are shaking their heads as they painfully admit they did it to themselves and misread the public mood.

How it came about - there's lots of ways to rationalize about how democracies "should" work etc.

The point is both our countries have the systems they have.

If I were a Democrat - and it is always easy to sympathize after an electoral defeat, of course - I would take the electoral results as a MAJOR defeat of the CURRENT Democratic platform.

The task for the Democrats now is to move forward to see where their message went wrong and why it was rejected, ie. why a Democratic President is not in Washington today.

I don't know where the Democrats' message went wrong with the voters - that will take some real soul-searching and political analysis that goes beyond statistics (we don't have proportional representation anyway, so why belabour the point?).

The point is that the hard-fought election results show CLEARLY that the Democrats' message was rejected.

That is actually the silver lining in the cloud for Democrats - it should be relatively easy to start rebuilding in the aftermath of what all Americans should be congratulated for - a solid, well-fought election that resulted in a clear result on the basis of solid voter turnout.

I wish Canada could boast something similar. But we can't.

John Kerry put up a very credible opposition and campaign. He was a gentleman and a diplomat throughout, of this there can be no doubt.

And he was defeated. That's politics. He accepted defeat with the kind of grace that has only added to his stature as a great American statesman.

It is people like John Kerry that give democracy an excellent name.

Alex

I heard the figures as well and BOATLOAD puts it mildly. I wonder how much of that money would have been better spent on the unemployed in Ohio? (I guess I'm just too idealistic)

And speaking of captives, today is the 25th anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis...

The idea of a clear result here is not sound. There will surley be some jockeying for position within the Democratic Party with all sorts of self-serving analysis. But the election results really aren't much different than in 2000.

First, it is not an easy task to beat an incumbent - even if he is exhibiting signs of dementia (cf Kentucky Senate). Clinton, as controversial as Bush, had a easy re-election victory; and Reagan coming out of recession won 49 states. Bush's approval rating was in terra incognito, higher that the 45%, which has always meant defeat, and lower than 53% which has always meant re-election.

If there is some soul searching among Democrats to work on the values message, that will be a plus. I think, for example, that a Catholic view of faith and works will be a nice counter to the Calvinistic ethos of the Republicans - althoughj it's not clear that Republican-voting Catholics haven't picked up such heresies from our Protestant culture. On the other hand, if you think that this election demonstrates some consensus on for example the war, I think your analysis goes wildly astray.

Better than I could do in opining about Canadian politics though.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to Stockwell Day and his Jet-Ski?

It was a little nasty here (admittedly I played a part in it) but I think we should commend ourselves for the level of rationability in the debate here. Over at the DCF board, they're screaming for Kerry's execution.

Dear djs,

I would tell you and other Democrats to get over it and move forward!

Yes, you could base conclusions on statistics.

But the fact is that Congress is more Republican than it was in 2000, the President won without the scandalous recounts in a single state, as obtained in 2000, and there really cannot be any doubt that the Democratic platform was rejected.

That's not being wild, that's being realistic.

Democratic politics is not only about statistics. It's about who wins, in the end, and who doesn't.

There can be no doubt that the Democrats, once they've had a chance to wipe away the crocodile tears, will say the same.

If I met anyone who harped on statistics like you in the wake of a political defeat, I would tell them, as I'm telling you, that is not how to best serve the interests of your political party.

As for the war, nobody likes war and nobody asks to be in a war. But once you are in it, you want to win it. And you don't want to go against your Commander-in-Chief. That's just basic whatever.

As for the Calvinist work ethic, I agree with you. But from what I remember from my early sociology days, Catholic Jesuit values weren't far removed from Calvinism, the differences weren't all that great (i.e. pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you).

You have to start looking outside the box. The only way for Kerry to have won the election is to have made a sweep, given the circumstances.

That he failed to do so truly DOES mean it was a major defeat for him and the Democratic party.

Get over it and get back to the drawing board.

That's what any good politician would do.

So far, you have only shown you are a good statistician
Alex