From: mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: After the PEROTy is over (was PEROT OFFERS TO BANKROLL COALITION)
Date: 28 Jul 1992 22:41:20 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: gelato.mips.com

Bill Riggs writes:
|> 
|> 	There are some folks you miss more when they're gone. 
|> I'm afraid Ross Perot is like that. 
|> 
|> 	Two things have happened since his departure from the
|> campaign:
|> 
|> 	1. The media has turned its guns full force against
|> 	George Bush. This is really their last chance to 
|> 	turn this election into a stampede of mass hysteria,
|> 	which is the only form of politics that sells time
|> 	slots on TV, and keeps our eyes glued to the 
|> 	Washington Post. 

Of course, when they support the president its a communist,
liberal plot.  The truth is, noone can find anything good
to say about Bush.  Give the Media one nice thing to say
about Bush that will make the Demo's look bad, and the
press will jump on it.  Give them another Clinton or Gore or
generic Demo scandal, and they will jump on that.  Then YOU
will call the press fair.

|> 	                 Since the liberals really don't
|> 	have a nice juicy scandal to keep the troops whipped
|> 	into shape, there is a lot of good, old fashioned
|> 	self-serving Democrat namecalling going on this
|> 	year. The big deal now is that the VP ought to
|> 	be dumped because he can't detect the spelling 
|> 	errors on his cue cards. Big Yawn...

Fortunately, the GOP never namecalls [sarcasm off]
|> 
|> 	2. Conservative Democrats and neolibertarian Bush
|> 	bashers (this is a new category pretty much confined
|> 	to George Will and Kevin Phillips, consisting of
|> 	individuals who have the party affiliation of
|> 	neoconservatives and the snotty speaking style
|> 	of libertarians) have magically discovered the
|> 	virtue of Perot's budget proposals. Now, I do not
|> 	know how anyone can really seriously embrace a 
|> 	50 cent gasoline tax, but there you have it. To
|> 	me, this looks like a massive case of sour grapes
|> 	(David Broder to George Will, "Gosh, George, if
|> 	America had just elected Ross Perot dictator, err,
|> 	I mean, President, we could have saved the country's
|> 	economic future, etc. etc.")

The 50 cent gas tax was copied from an earlier Gore proposal.
The Repubs have said that there are a lot of items in the Perot
economic proposal that they agree with, although they disagree
with the gasoline tax (as does Clinton).

You give the impression of being Demophobic.  Facts do not seem
to interfer with your ramblings against the Democratic party.

|> 
|> 	This has been a very long and often disheartening 
|> 	electoral campaign. The choice now seems to be between
|> 	repeating the mistakes of the past (Vote Demcratic)
|> 	and drawing out a blank check on the future (Vote 
|> 	Republican). But we deserve this kind of choice if
|> 	significant segments of the populace continue to
|> 	engage in self-delusion. The Democratic National
|> 	Convention only served to reinforce my conviction
|> 	that at least one half of the political system cares
|> 	not one whit about my individual welfare, no matter how
|> 	much gas they pass about reaching out to the middle class,
|> 	or how many small towns their carefully selected southern
|> 	white male candidates visit. 
|> 
Maybe you're also Repubophobic.
|> 
|> 	Ross Perot's mistake, in the final analysis, was that he, too,
|> thought that elections were still to be won by pandering to the voters,
|> especially the ones that resembled his own corner of American society.
|> But he found out the hard way how fast they turn on you, and that even
|> the simplest, most plain-spoken phrases (i.e. "You people") get a 
|> bad review when they're trying like mad to tear you down. Mr. Perot
|> was wise to get out when he did. He would have been even wiser not to
|> have run at all.
|> 
He "was wise to get out when" he discovered you can't "win by pandering to
the voters?"  Is this a compliment?  I hope not.