Nov 8, 2004

atto margin

Dino Rossi's closing the gap behind Chris Gregoire in the Twiggy-thin Washington gubernatorial race. First it was Rossi winning, then Gregoire by 15,000, then Gregoire by about four grand. The margin's in recount territory, at any rate.

Oh, and no Democrats, to my knowledge, are calling Rossi a weasel because he won't concede. Yet.

7 comments:

Jim Anderson said...

The gap has widened to over 8000 votes, but it's still within recount range. The wheels of democracy keep creaking along....

Matthew Anderson said...

"Oh, and no Democrats, to my knowledge, are calling Rossi a weasel because he won't concede. Yet."

This may be because the results might still change.

The implicit criticism of Republicans in your post is unwarranted, especially given the widespread lauding by Republicans of John Kerry after he did concede. Compare that with the virulent rhetoric that came from extreme left after the results came in.

Jim Anderson said...

"The implicit criticism of Republicans in your post is unwarranted, especially given the widespread lauding by Republicans of John Kerry after he did concede. Compare that with the virulent rhetoric that came from extreme left after the results came in."

Um, let's go to Hugh Hewitt as an example, before the election was even 24 hours old:

"Pete Coors is a gentleman. Trailing by less than 50,000 votes out of nearly 1.8 million and with 12% of Colorado's precincts yet to be tallied, Pete nevertheless took a calm look at the numbers and called Ken Salazar to concede. Classy.

Contrast that with Tom Daschle, Tony Knowles and Betty Castor, and of course John Kerry. No reasonable interpretation of the data in any of these races can give any of these candidates a win, but they are hanging on.

This is not the conduct of a great party, but it is also not surprising for the party of Michael Moore. What an example for the new democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps sleep will bring wisdom to this group. Sleep, and a good hard look at what Al Gore has become."

Democrats are unclassy and the "party of Michael Moore," weasel of all weasels (they're also the party of Zell Miller, but no matter). Hugh was at least right about the sleep thing.

Matthew Anderson said...

And the very next day the same Hugh Hewitt praised Kerry for doing the right thing, as did numerous other conservative blogger (see RedState, InstaPundit as examples). Again, compare the tone with the virulent rhetoric from the left. Even the Specter debate--Hugh (as does almost everyone) points out that participants have kept the tone civil, something the Democratic left doesn't seem to be able to manage.

Jim Anderson said...

And the very next day the same Hugh Hewitt praised Kerry for doing the right thing, as did numerous other conservative blogger (see RedState, InstaPundit as examples).Hmm... I thought that according to Republican rhetoric, this sort of immediate change was called a "flip-flop."


Again, compare the tone with the virulent rhetoric from the left. Even the Specter debate--Hugh (as does almost everyone) points out that participants have kept the tone civil, something the Democratic left doesn't seem to be able to manage.


First you called them the "extreme left" (scroll up), and now it's just the "left;" an interesting change. No one here is defending the whiny agitators of either party's extreme ranks. And you're also confusing intra-party squabbling (Specter) with inter-party skirmishing (the election). Republicans are equally noxious when it comes to partisan politics; to claim that the "left" is uniquely "virulent" is to rewrite the election. I remember some very unpalatable moments on the Republican side this past year, from the "Wolves" ad to the College Republicans scam to "caging" to the Swift Boat "We're not for Bush, we're just against Kerry" crap. Democrats didn't invent the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" or "cut-and-run strategy in Iraq." Politics is ugly and brutal, no matter who's doing the slinging.

Matthew Anderson said...

"First you called them the "extreme left" (scroll up), and now it's just the "left;" an interesting change."
Don't read too much in to it. Notice the time of post...I'm smart enough to not think the whole left as virulent as the extreme portions of the party.

"No one here is defending the whiny agitators of either party's extreme ranks. And you're also confusing intra-party squabbling (Specter) with inter-party skirmishing (the election). Republicans are equally noxious when it comes to partisan politics; to claim that the "left" is uniquely "virulent" is to rewrite the election."
No one here is saying that elections don't get ugly. My original claim was that your implicit criticism was unwarranted. I still think it is. Kerry had no reason to not concede, just like Tom Daschle had no reason to not concede. Rossi had (as the numbers demonstrate) great reason to not concede. Your original statement was: "Oh, and no Democrats, to my knowledge, are calling Rossi a weasal because he won't concede." This suggests that the Democratic party is above personal attacks of this sort. Meanwhile, portions of this same party decries me as a "gun-totin, gay-hatin rube" for casting my vote for Bush. That's the only thing I've pointed out--nothing more.

Jim Anderson said...

If we're going to continue to make this as serious as it shouldn't have been, I'd also like to point out that you missed the all-important word at the end.

"Yet."