Reflections on 2004
What a year! I must say I’ve enjoyed myself immensely. When Matt did me the honor of inviting me to write on this blog, I never imagined what an important part of my life it would become. The invite was back in September of 2003 and my first post, rather prescient if I do say so myself, appeared on October 20, 2003. From that day to this, it has been my immense pleasure to come here day after day and put out my thoughts – some of our readers have been kind enough to send me a line lauding me for my efforts, and for that I am eternally grateful. Its nice to know that in some small way you are having a positive effect on other people.
It was a year of massive ups and downs – as a political blog, our primary function was to cover the political scene; but as economics, culture and the war intersected with political matters, we ended up covering just about everything except the Peterson trial. In the dark of night, from time to time, I must admit that sometimes I doubted the ultimate outcome. Mostly I was staunch, but every now and again a confluence of bad news from Iraq, weak news on the economy, a couple bad polls and my naturally depressive nature would combine to make me lose heart – fortuantely, our Democrats always came to our rescue.
When Matt was roughed up by some Democratic union thugs in March, it told me that there was desperation on the other side…after all, Matt is just this guy who runs a blog, certainly not someone with the power and influence of a Democrat-dominated union; but they saw his existence as an affront and a threat. People who are headed for a win don’t beat up their critics.
And so it went through the whole year – you could always count on the Democrats to help us out; even at the worst moment of the campaign, after the first debate when the MSM was having an orgasm over what it was pumping up as a Kerry victory in the debate, we here at Blogs for Bush sat serene, knowing that Kerry’s Global Test was going to kill him politically. The MSM ignored the phrase for the most part and it took the blogosphere to really make them pay attention to it. This, to me, was really when the blogosphere became “real”; Rathergate made the bigger splash, but when the MSM was incapable of putting it away for Kerry because of blog commentary post first debate, we knew we were on to something with our blog.
ABC’s People Of The Year: Bloggers
That’s right, it’s true.
To their credit, they note the contribution of blogs in firsthand reporting of the Tsunami disaster, but when it came to recognizing blogs and political coverage..
As a driving force in politics this year, bloggers covered the 2004 presidential campaigns and election. Political candidates also used them as valuable campaign tools.
“The Internet taught us, rather than the other way around,” said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
This year, for the first time, bloggers were permitted to cover the national political conventions firsthand.
Howard Dean… After everything that has happened in 2004, they go back to Howard Dean as the face of political blogging for 2004? Are they nuts? Of course, Joe Trippi was interviewed, and cites the Trent Lott story, not the Dan Rather Memogate story as the big blogger moment of the year. But, if it wasn’t for Memogate I think it is safe to assume that ABC wouldn’t even have thought to name bloggers as “Person of The Year.”
All that side, I’d like to say mazel tov to all us bloggers, the Dean campaign may have put blogs on the map, but we’re the ones who all contributed to making them a landmark.
Podhoretz Blasts Liberals Politicizing The Tsunami Disaster Relief
John Podhoretz is livid over the tasteless use of the tsunami disaster for untimely Bush-bashing.
Don’t we owe the dead, dying and injured the minimal grace not to convert their suffering into a chat-show segment ó the latest left-right clash over the Bush presidency?
And couldn’t the editorialists at The New York Times have forborne ó even just for a week ó making use of the tsunami to complain about U.S. government spending on “development aid”?
Development aid is the blanket term for American grant money handed out to other countries, supposedly to help their economies grow. Development aid has nothing ó nothing ó to do with what has happened.
The aid at issue now is disaster relief.
Loony Left finds a new Daddy.
The Loony left has had a new Pied Piper the last few months. Michael Moore and Al Franken are soÖPre Election. The Lefts new go-to guy is none other than Keith Olbermann. Yes MSNBC are the parents of a bouncing baby Wing nut.
K.O., as the Left refers to their new guy in Blog Posts, has been ìAll Overî this Ohio Election Recount ìstoryî. My gut tells me he thinks he can corner the market on Wing nuts, thus bringing his ratings up. They really have nowhere to go but up.
The only problem seems to be the fact that if he attracted any Wing nuts he drove away others, because his numbers have not moved.
So anyway, ìK.O.î is popping his cork early with word that Congressman John Conyers of Michigan confirmed this afternoon that he and several other Congressmen are planning to object to the vote of the Ohio electors when the Electoral College ballots are opened before the joint session of Congress next Thursday.
The rest will be the usual suspects.
Now they need a Senator to jump into this mess.
Reviewing the Wing nut sites, the two Senators that they are really hoping will make fools of themselves seem to be California Senator Barbara Boxer and/or Vermont “Independent” Senator Jeffords?
Fat chance I say.
Third Party Candidates Want A SECOND Ohio Recount!!
That’s right, stupidity and insanity have joined forces, and they want to waste taxpayer dollars again to do another recount in Ohio…
Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn’t follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week.
Lawyers for Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party’s Michael Badnarik made their request in federal court in Columbus.
The two candidates, who received less than 0.3 percent of the Ohio vote, paid $113,600 for a statewide recount after the vote was certified earlier this month by the secretary of state. They have said they don’t expect to change the election results, but want to make sure that every vote is proply counted.
Enough is enough already. Bush won. Kerry lost. You can count the votes over and over and over and over and over and over and nothing will change that.
Fight Another Day
The battle appears to be over. Christine Gregoire has been declared the winner in the Washington state gubernatorial race. Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, admits there were mistakes, but says there is nothing that appears fraudulent.
Sure, it is possible that there was no fraud behind the mysterious bounty of ballots that were discovered in King County. But it is definitely harder to accept selective re-canvassing of the Democrat-stronghold as kosher. You don’t have to convince me that there were questionable things happening in this race.
Left-wing bloggers have declared victory, and sneered at Rossi’s contesting of this lemon election. They’ve been doing their victory dance after the second recount conveniently gave Gregoire a 129 vote victory.
Of course, a majority of these left-wing bloggers—and a number of fringe lefties nationwide—refuse to wave the white flag and concede Ohio (even though Kerry already has) where the margin of victory was 920 times larger than Gregoire’s “victory” in Washington. Similarly, state officials have claimed on numerous occasions that no evidence of fraud, suppression, or tampering were found in Ohio.
Even Wonkette concedes that Kerry lost Ohio…
I spoken about this race with Stephanie Sandlin, a radio talk show host in Spokane, Washington at KSBN Radio. We both believe that Gregoire’s victory is illegitimate. She told me that she thinks that Rossi should stop fighting for this election—but that he should not concede. At this point, I have to agree. It’s time to move on, and fight another day. Bigger and better things await Dino Rossi. Don’t believe me? Look at John Thune.
The guys over at Sound Politics have done an incredible job monitoring this particular election battle. Keep an eye on them.
Rossi should take back his call for a revote. He needs to quit while he still has the high ground. Yes, it sucks when Democrats don’t play by the rules, but the longer this drags out, Rossi is the one who risks coming out of this with mud stains. Don’t get me wrong, Gregoire does not come out of this clean. She’ll have a harder time governing effectively as a governor with a questionable victory than Rossi will have coming back in four years to challenge her again or to perhaps aim higher, perhaps putting his name in for a congressional race.
So, Dino Rossi, let’s move on, but donít concede. Just fight another day.
Hello, my name is Matt Margolis, the founder of Blogs For Bush, one of the most successful and popular blogs in 2004, during the presidential campaign.
Blogs For Bush was launched in November 2003 and ended in November 2007. This site is no longer active, but is being kept online as a reference for those interested in the 2004 campaign, and for bloggers wishing to start their own grassroots blog.