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I have always wondered why it seems to be the case without exception since the 1964 presidential election when the opposite was true. I wasn't even born until 1970 but have done some research on this. And what I've found is very interesting to say the least. In 1964 the last total moderate to be Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater was the last brutally honest Republican presidential candidate there was. He told it like it is. And what did he get in return for his brutal honesty? He was trounced big time by Democrat Lyndon Johnson with only a few Deep Southern states supporting him mostly because Johnson was only the second real President besides JFK to support racial integration. Goldwater also won his home state of Arizona but just barely. Since 1964 however the tables have turned big time. Starting with the 1968 presidential election. That election was the last time us Democrats had that in our favor. Every election since then it's been totally and completely different. Republicans have been given the benefit of the doubt since then without exception. Even in '76 when Jimmy Carter was elected. This time Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey was the more honorable candidate. Richard Nixon on the other hand was very irritating even in his campaigns to say the least. Again Americans chose the worse of the two candidates. The same was even more evident in 1972. The last really brutally honest presidential candidate - I'm 50/50 on Jimmy Carter - on either side of the aisle George McGovern was trounced in 49 of 50 states with the only exceptions Massachusetts and District of Columbia. Even in 1976 presidential election where Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected Gerald Ford who was very unpopular after pardoning Richard Nixon still managed 240 electoral votes and was arguably a few votes away from carrying Ohio, Hawaii, and Mississippi or else he would have been re-elected. The South for the very last time voted solidly Democratic except for Virginia. Even fellow Southerner Bill Clinton only managed a split there. In 1980 Ronald Reagan trounced Carter pretty easily. Actually besides record inflation and Iran Hostage Crisis Jimmy Carter's reign wasn't half bad. Still Carter managed to carry only a very few solidly Democratic states. Even the Deep South besides his home state of Georgia turned their backs on him. Things were just completely awful economically in 1984. Yet Reagan won 49 out of 50 states and almost carried Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota. Again in 1988 George Bush Senior won election pretty easily over the more honorable Michael Dukakis. The Solid South was a major player for Republicans for the very first time. Yes they did vote for Reagan but this was really first time Southerners were very influential in the Republican Party. In 1992 it was the "economy stupid" and our last great President Bill Clinton was elected mostly because the economy was in very sad shape. So much so that even Bush Sr.'s first Iraq War "success" - Bush Sr. didn't finish the deal - didn't even help him. Clinton was re-elected in 1996 even though at times he was dishonest about his personal life. Again it was the "economy stupid" that won him re-election. Even then a solid minority of people voted Republican. Do you ever wonder how Ross Perot would have done if he had stayed in the race the whole time instead of dropping out and then re-entering again? To me that was the best and only shot at the United States ever having a viable third party. Actually in my opinion fairly or not Bill Clinton hurt this country big time when he let the Republicans use the "Contract for America" against him and his fellow Democrats in Congress to oust us in '94. It was just last year's 2006 election that we Dems took over Congress again almost exclusively due to opposition to the Iraqi occupation. Then for the very first time since Andrew Johnson President Clinton was impeached just because he lied under oath concerning his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. It seemed at the time that maybe Republicans were not all that they were cracked up to be. Only 2 minor offenses were listed and Clinton was acquitted simply because for the first time in our collective lives the Democrats in the Senate were unanimous in their oppostion. You think that in the next presidential election Americans would have learned their lesson. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In 2000 George W. Bush was elected and chosen President by the Supreme Court even though he probably lost Florida legitimately. And sadly home state of West Virginia voted for a non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate for the 1st time since Herbert Hoover in 1928 mostly with the support of my fellow evangelicals. And boy we Americans have paid dearly for that mistake. Florida would have meant absolutely nothing if West Virginia had stuck to its Democratic roots. In 2004 for the very first time the "values" issue took precedent as the number one issue with 9/11 a close second. Things were so bad in 2004 the rest of the world wondered "How could Americans be so stupid?" as Bush won re-election even by a greater margin in 2004 than in 2000. I still think Ohio voted for John Kerry but Bush again had both the Ohio and US Supreme Courts on his side as well as Ohio's very partisan secretary of state so there was really nothing Kerry and us Dems could legally do about it. See the pattern developing here? Ever since 1968 Republicans have gotten the benefit of the doubt for the most part by Americans even by us Democrats and independents 100 percent of the time without exception and have been allowed to do things that if our fellow Democrats did them would create a very loud outcry by the media and my fellow Americans. Brutal honesty was the reason Democrats Humphrey, McGovern, and perhaps Carter lost big time. Meanwhile Republican liars have gotten off scot free for the most part. And we Americans sadly are 100 percent responsible. And sadly my fellow evangelicals are again the main reason why. Do you think Democrats would have impeached Bush if he lied about a sexual affair? No way! In fact every Democrat in Congress would overlook it and think absolutely nothing of it. But Republicans did actually impeach Clinton and were actually rewarded for doing so in 2000 and 2004 by mostly my fellow evangelicals. And finally my last question. What if Pres. Clinton had sent our troops to Iraq to conduct a pre-meditated strike just like Bush did? He would have been impeached and removed from office yesterday. And a majority if not at least two-thirds of Democrats in both houses of Congress would have voted for it. And it would have taken at the very most 1000 dead US soldiers for that to happen. Instead Bush and Cheney are likely to escape any punishment at all. A huge minority and perhaps even a majority of Americans currently oppose impeachment. But I am 100 percent certain that if Clinton had done the exact same thing a solid majority of Americans even many of us Dems would have impeached him, removed him out of office, and might have even put him in prison. Sadly I am not joking..... There is absolutely no doubt in my mind a Double Standard as to what Republicans can do and what us Democrats can do. The bar for some reason is set much higher for Democrats than Republicans. Again I think it's mostly because of my fellow evangelicals. Bush is a "born-again Christian" so he must be doing the "will of God." Clinton on the other hand is a "servant of Satan" and a "baby-killer" so he "deserves prison" for even lying about a sexual affair. Even though Americans including my fellow evangelicals I might add lie about their sex lives all the time. Polls currently show the 2008 presidential race a virtual deadlock. When it really shouldn't be. We Democrats should be ahead in them big time. We have almost 3500 dead US soldiers, unlimited corporate welfare, Medicare Part Death, Halliburton and other defense contractors profitting from our soldiers' injuries and deaths, more uninsured Americans in our health care system than at any time in US history, health care and public college and university costs soaring and tripling the rate of inflation, gas prices at record highs, and a bigger gap between the top 1 percent of wage-earners and the bottom 50 percent than at any time in US history. Yet many if not most presidential polls have the 2008 race as a dead heat if not a slight Republican lead. Sad but true.... And one last point I have to make. When Bush was chosen president in 2000 most Democrats me included said "we want Bush to succeed." Never even once during Bill Clinton's presidency did I hear even one Republican say the same thing. Not even once. And another disturbing trend I noticed is that Americans supported the lying candidates especially the Republican ones over the brutally honest ones every single time with one exception: President Bill Clinton. And even he was sometimes dishonest in his own right. And we Americans only have only ourselves to blame. Sorry for this brutally long diary but I felt it necessary to make all my points.
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