New Zogby poll; moderates may hold the key to 2006, and 2008

[killerbush]

A new Zogby poll just released yesterday suggest that moderates may hold the key to both 2006, and 2008. According to John Zogby, "Moderates are looking for a positive message, but are just as likely to desert the incumbents when bad news hits the leadership".

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1081


Looks like both parties are going to be talking to moderates. I said before that moderates hold the key to elections, and this story proves me right.:woohoo:

[blondeatlast]

1. Moderates ALWAYS swing elections, that's why they are called "swing" voter

It's money, baby!

That doesn't mean, however, that we need to become more conservative. We just need to have a strong message.

Sorry, couldn't resist the "Swingers" reference... :hide:

[tridim]

2. Damn "moderates".. Just once I'd like to matter in an election

Seems like the people who really care about the direction of the country always get the shaft and the decisions get made by the "moderates". Why can't us progressives get a say for once?

[blondeatlast]

4. We don't need toi appease the Right, we just have to make our message

positive and understandable.

Sadly, it's almost all about marketing nowadays.

[bullimiami]

3. if moderates held the key to elections there would have been no bush.

he has always had a deplorable record and he panders to the most extreme racist and divisive elements.

al gore is moderate, kerry is moderate.

unfortunately the key to elections is in the corruption of the process and if you dont control it, can you overcome it.

[ooglymoogly]

7. dead on

[calimary]

12. Actually it just proves that moderates can be hornswoggled like anyone

else. Don't forget that, especially during the 2000 campaign, bush went all over the place preaching so soothingly and non-threateningly about being a "compassionate conservative" - practically spitting out the word "comPASHnit" - and saying things like "it's YER money!" and denouncing things like nation-building, and reaching out to everybody and all the rest of it. He sounded like a REEEEEEAL nice, harmless guy. And that's what people said. Maybe he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer but he has GOOD PEOPLE AROUND HIM, and I like him, gee - I could go have a beer with him.

THAT is how he portrayed himself.

They suspended their disbelief and skepticism again in 2004 especially when they watched his convention speech, and he was still playing the nice, mellow, human, approachable guy with a whole lotta platitudes and warm-fuzzies. They bought it.

Unfortunately, Al Gore was painted not as a moderate but as an extreme leftist. Funny, neither of these "paintings" could be farther from the truth. But that's what people were sold, and that's what too many of 'em just mindlessly bought.

And now, some of 'em are finally waking up. Gee, awfully big of 'em, dontcha think?

[NativeTexan]

15. AND BOTH OF THOSE ELECTIONS WERE STOLEN!

Moderates are nobody's base, but everybody's necessity.

[killerbush]

19. Kerry was no moderate

his voting record is very similar to Ted Kennedy. Moderate my backside!!!

[wisteria]

5. Oh? Nothing new here! Zogby always says that. n/t

[mrgorth]

6. We already are moderate.

[still_one]

8. bullshit, looking for a positive message?

you got exactly what you deserved you so-called moderates. you voted for this puke twice because of his positive message, now your children will be eating it because of your shallow comprehension of the issues

You like the positive message, you want to spread democracy throughout the middle east, join the marines then you happy talk citizens

[windbreeze]

14. Hang on here just a minute...

I consider myself a MODERATE....and I voted for KERRY....generalities, generalities...trouble is, when we use generalities, it lumps everyone into the same ball of wax...when perhaps they shouldn't be....and when we talk about liberal, unless I am misunderstanding something about the meaning of the word...this ah and his entourage we have in office now, couldn't be more liberal if they tried..we've been spent into oblivion...they want and have made decisions that give them control every aspect of our lives, how we spend, what we do, how we think, even our religion if we will let them...they want to be able to spy on you and I...hold us w/o justifcation, and w/o representation...and on and on...to tell women what they can/cannot do with their bodies...to "spread democracy" liberally around the world, even in countries that don't ask for, or necessarily want it..To me, that certainly does not indicate a conservative or even a moderate mindset...

To me, being moderate means giving the people the right to choices that make their lives better...not doing it for them...
It means, limiting access rights the gov't or it's agencies have to OUR LIVES...Personal or otherwise..and allowing us the right to make our own choices...it also means taking care of our own needy, elderly, young, or sickly...until they can help themselves, and yes, giving them the means to do just that...it means everyone should have access to a college education, if they so desire...not just the rich/elite...It means having a military that provides security for OUR country..but not by taking over the world and imposing our will on others....in short, I want moderation in all things...

So IF I am a low down dirty dog for being a MODERATE...then so be it...but I still don't understand how I deserve (according to your post)all of what's going on now, any more than you do...
windbreeze

[killerbush]

21. Your the one with the bullshit

The only reason Bush won in 2004, is because more conservatives voted than liberals. it's that simple. Had nothing to do with moderates voting for Bush, although some did. Nice try, but wrong.

[kentuck]

9. Yes. "Moderates" that had no idea had radical they really are....

Because they have not educated themselves more thoroughly on the facts. But they have a responsibility to vote.

[NativeTexan]

16. Moderate here. And I am more educated on the facts than.....

...most from either "wing". If you are honestly a "all or nothing" kind of political junkie, then there is nothing wrong with that.

I, myself, prefer to win elections, so that at least SOME of the liberal agenda can be taken care of. When after an "all or nothing" liberal Democratic campaign, it turns up "nothing", then we allow for idiots like Bush to seize power thru election fraud and the like.

Jimmy Carter ran as a "moderate" but governed as more liberal. Dubya ran as a "moderate" but took a HARD RIGHT HAND TURN toward Joseph McCarthy after stealing the 2000 election. Bill Clinton campaigned as a "moderate", and governed as a "moderate" and despite some of the meanest, angriest attacks in recent memory.....served EIGHT FULL YEARS.

That should tell us something. Unless of course WE can STEAL an election light the extreme right did.

[kentuck]

18. If everybody only played by your rules...

but they don't. If they did, the pitbulls would have their legs chewed off by now and most would be walking around on stubs. Patty-cake doesn't work with this crowd.

[NativeTexan]

20. True, but then the answer is TURNOUT!.....

....Liberals, moderate Dems, Christian Dems, unhappy Dems, disenfranchised independents, voters who find that they have misplaced their loyalties to a bunch of hooligans (hey, it's St.Patrick's Day), etc. I am hoping, in Texas, that there is just enough turn in the final outcome for people to realize that we are at MOST 51%-49% Repugs to Dems.

[iconoclastNYC]

10. The most left-wing in Congress is moderate compared to Bush and the GOP

[FrenchieCat]

11. The label "Moderate" is relative these days.....

But of course they always hold the "Key" during General elections.....cause, it's already a given as to whom the more extremes on each side of each party will vote for leaving the center moderates of each party to combine, giving the middle a larger voice. It's who they vote for that can make or break an election.

[PATRICK]

13. misinterpreting

where moderates are in immoderate times. It takes a lot to shake the moderates, which can mean ignorant, uninvolved, easy going, whatever. It foes not mean in these times one should encourage moderate thinking which when lulled plays into GOP hands!

I know we can misinterpret Bush's poll numbers as an ideological swing to the left instead of a temporary dissatisfaction with a baldly bad surface situation or mainly Bush exposed partly for all the garbage he is doing. Those people can swing both ways, but fortunately some things have a long memory because of sheer "immoderation".

Cautious Dems can misinterpret too and seek to win voters by simultaneously encouraging the shortcomings that moved many to the other side in the first place while not doing anything except being quiet about the radicalized misjudgment of them being big bad extreme "libruls" that is, in unchallenged parallel being force fed through extensive media channels.

It doesn't mean playing it safe by being one of "them", that is hoodwinked, impotent but at the moment just plain angry. That is impossible because of the bad image and non-leadership meme imposed on them as well so that no moderate will recognize the quiet Dems as someone even thinkable as an alternative or desperate default. In that gameplan the best hope would be for the GOP moderates to stay home, but quizzically some presumption of winning over actual honest GOp votes further makes the Dems cling to the loser position that makes that very goal unattainable.

You can believe what you want about the middle, but if they are angry and desirous of change that is exactly what must be energetically offered. This is not a justification of candidates hiding under a sheepskin for 2006 or changing the words to fit the misconceptions. Or thinking that yes, finally today is the victory of positive, bi-partisan and bland middle of the roadism. At this point people are too enraged or fearful to follow that untimely voice and even when things are going well the loudest voice often wins.

The same misjudgment concerns certain party centrists toward progressives already fixed, supposedly to voting "against the GOP". We are very much concerned about winning, not just progressive purity, but the tactics(and "tone)) that instinctively laborites, minorities and every other group of change has proved effective in crises are shoved aside as if tainted by "radical" association that somehow, supposedly, automatically, scares away people being coaxed into the fold. There may be a relationship between the moderate dem leadership and losing. The middle of America certainly is losing. To unseal our 2006 fate means at least to be so bold as to be progressively, populist bold and actually lead.

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. this has been the Democratic Party strategy for the past 33 years

in every single national election without any exceptions whatsoever and most state and local elections while the Democratic Party has declined and declined and declined.

I guess there is no need to try something different for a change.

How does one define moderate anyway?

[Radical Activist]

22. Well, that's certainly a new, novel idea

:eyes:

[ulysses]

23. LOL!

:D