I don't think half of the united states are that conservative either. Undecided to a certain extent perhaps (and specially when it comes to deciding the date after which the abortion should be illegal), but fiercely against choice?

From what I've been hearing from a few select voters I think there might be another option to explain Bush's victory, though. Maybe the issues matter very little in reality. They might serve to motivate people into engaging themselves in a discussion, but when the presidental candidate is supposed to deliberate on his stance, it's not really the stance on the issue that is important, almost no matter what that is, rather than how he handles himself it seems. This happens once in a while in elections everywhere, specially when the issues become muddled and the stances are unclear or aren't actually very different. But, it's a little suprising to hear that a pro- abortionist actually favour Bush because he gives the impression of being an honest guy with optimism and who will be likely to act instead of being paralyzed by doubt. He also, apparently, comes off as inspiring and even perhaps a little bit of a comforting figure(I'm not making this up, I swear), who will stand up as a good leader. Kerry, on the other hand is a shrewd, maybe even cunning type, full of doubt and carefully analyzed statements tailored to be irritatingly rational from all points. This might backfire in the way that he is seen as undecided, "flip- flopping", and that his moral and values are fairly slight. I could guess that in this perspective, it does not scan well to state clearly that you are a catholic, but not a catholic anymore when it comes to real issues of importance. Travel further along this train of thought and he is saying that he sees people with conviction for a cause as terribly irrational as well. Not, I think, the kind of president the US wants.

If this could be a fairly common way of looking at things, it certainly appears to have been exactly what the GOP campaign aimed for at least, then actually the decision this election doesn't worry me that much. It must mean that Bush is seriously much more hated than I imagined, or that a pretty large bit of america think this kind of campaigning is repulsive. At least that's somehting. Or, maybe truth and virtue is dead and each candidate managed to lie and cheat about half of the voters into joining their camps. The ones who then decided the outcome would be the fire and brimstone- society who really got their very own candidate this time, and who will be the only ones to get their promises granted.

I am quite sure there is some trouble with the democrats and not with republicans.
In fact, since it is proved that socialism and everything related is bad for a society and even not wanted anymore as for an utopian world, many people do see anything that converge on those principles as wrong and could very well figure the nightmare that this would lead to. This is of course exagerated but why should they experiment to what extent it can be bearable ?
In fact in those days, there are no more poors. Poor means hungry to me, and there is no more food problems regarding this, but only for the lazy without familly and no children, no wife. Even those could beg for some money and get those easily. I am not realy concerned and I don't think people should regarding social security for people with psychological problems.
So what is social security and all that welfare state made for ? It is made for people eager of power and wanting money for nothing. I mean this about those who promote the system and want to rule it. This system is crap and I am quite unsure how easy is to get rid of it once it is there in place. The people ruling, just got too much easy power from the tax payer to pervert the whole system. That was Kerry's program. He just spoke enough about it to frighten anyone about the kind of French model he wanted for the US.
Now, about UNO, allies and the messy solution for Iraq, Afghanistan and Bin Laden and people of his kind, I would answer no mercy as Kerry confirmed. However, to some extent I find that Kerry had no mercy but especilly for the individuals in Iraq. He wanted a joined solution with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, France, Germany and whoever wants something else than the best for the individuals in Irak. The problem of the iraqi is terrorism today but their other problems, Saddam, Islamic Junta or whatever sick political leader are gone. They were so happy about it that they just kept their breath for Bush to be reelected.
Kerry and the Democrats have failed to understand that even regarding wars and international agreements over citizen rights, I mean individuals, is over. People want to be in control of their lives, not whatever convention between leaders. The rule of UNO is over. The rule of man has come. Somehow Bin Laden is in touch with this new world of freedom. He takes some profit from this and from that first big shot, but his leadership will be gone when the rule of man will be established everywhere in the Arabic area. The followers of those terrorists will be out of fashion.

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From SR

OUCH, someone is very dissillusioned at this time!

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SEX IS NOT A SIN!
LICK IT UP


GIGGLES

I think Bush won for two reasons: fear and religion.

The administration of Bush has made up enough stories about terrorism, Iraq etc. that many of the people probably actually believe that Bush is the only man who can save them.

And the the bible based views Bush has on homosexuality, stem cell research and abortion are the other reason.

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I think the US need a new Constitution...Yeah, I'm off-topic, so what?

I think both of these have merit, though I'm not sure what stories Bush has made up. Clearly, Americans think that Americans know better how to handle US defense than the UN does.

@lulu - why do you think we need a new Constitution? Is Europe not represented enough in our current one?

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In this country, we don't need reasons to make things legal; we need reasons to make things illegal. - Startup

@fatboy

Lol, no. Because it's an early atempt. Aside from its historical value(admittedly considerable), it has obvious flaws.

I really wouldn't want to go deeper into the issue of what Bush's administration has said that hasn't been true, since it has all been discussed before over and over. I'll just give one example: (According to polls) a huge percentage of Americans still believe that Saddam was linked to 9/11. And this is why? Answer: because of the constant and very consistent propaganda and lies of the administration.

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Well they were bashing him without a real need, weren't they? Actually I don't know too much about this, I might be wrong. Still, I think this campaign helped reelect Bush.

I saw a report about the US elections on tv november second, and I saw multiple things I thought were utterly wrong.
There were some non-US election observers who researched elections in other countries too. The first problem was that the elections were organised by political parties with agendas, in stead of by some neutral organisation. Second are all the different ways of voting. This is far less efficient than a standardized way of voting, and makes electionfraud easier (not saying I have seen any fraud). Third is the difficult ways some votingmachines work. They showed the original video manual of one of those machines, and I really had to pay attention to comprehend the complex system. Obviously I know such difficult machines are only a small part of the grand total, but still... The observers said they had seen elections that were better organised in some really backward countries.

Voting in my country works a lot better, I think. Everybody who's allowed to vote gets an electioncard at their registered homeadress months before the elections. Everybody gets them at approximatly the same time. When it's time to vote you take your card, go to the building where you have to vote (indicated on the card), wait in line for 0-5 minutes, show your card + ID to the volunteers. They look look up your name in their register, and you can vote. The machine shows the names of all the candidates (grouped by their party), and you can select your candidate by pressing the button with their name. The display now shows that name, and you can press the big vote button. The machine now indicates that you have voted, and you're done. Looking up your name in the register plus the actual voting takes about a minute, or less. Seriously, every retard who's able to read can do this. http://www.zowerkt.nl/rechten/images...ine_detail.jpg

Obviously my country is a lot smaller, but if it can work for 16 million people it can work for more too.

@lulu - okay, I'm listening. What obvious flaws?

There's no doubt their campaign helped Bush. I think it was intended to. Does that make it lies?

Kerry started his campaign by making his Vietnam service a campaign issue. Therefore, it is more than open to criticism. Kerry had his version of events and the overwhelming majority of men who served with him (only one of his boatmates actually supports Kerry's version) had a different version and a definite opinion on Kerry's leadership abilities.

Given that Bush has released all of his military records, by choice. I find it surprising that so few actually expect Kerry to. Which he never did.
Can you point me to a link, because the only thing I've read is that the only complaint the observers had was that people had to wait in long lines.
I'm sorry, where did you get this information? Elections are organized differently by each state, but all have laws that control the elections. In addition, there are federal laws which must be followed as well.
How does this make election fraud easier? Easier than what?
Again, I would like to see a link.
I'm not sure about other states, but I assume it works pretty much the same as mine. We get a booklet with the complete ballot proposals, the candidates, and a sample ballot months before the election. We also have the opportunity to mail our votes in rather than appear. Anyone can do this.
Maybe that's why we have to wait in long lines. It takes a little more time to get 120M people to vote than 16M.
Despite the constant and very consistent denial of this rumour by Bush. Despite the constant and very consistent reference to the 9.11 report in the press. Bush is still expected to be responsible for what everyone believes?

Please, find me a quote from Bush, or anyone in his administration, that claims Iraq had something to do with 9.11. And please, don't drag up a quote that says, "Iraq has ties to al Queda." Unlike the huge percentage of Americans you reference, I understand that having links to al Queda doesn't imply that Iraq helped in any way with 9.11. Though I don't understand this either since Bush has also said that Iran and Syria (among others) has ties to al Queda but we don't hear anyone saying that Bush caused them to believe these countries were involved in 9.11.

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In this country, we don't need reasons to make things legal; we need reasons to make things illegal. - Startup