Incidentally, Ken Bartley, Jr. becomes the latest school shooting suspect (I use suspect here in the same way that the article I've linked to uses it; a way to avoid saying the guy that they wrestled to the ground with the gun shooting people was guilty before he's actually tried). I'm surprised, actually, that there hasn't already been a glut of commentators alleging that he's been influenced by this hot topic or that, but I'm sure it's coming. Before anything comes out, I can't really say his motives, but these cases have, in recent years, been mostly about kids that seem to take high school and reputation in high school far too seriously. More on this when more exists.
The NYTimes claims that the recent gubernatorial defeats spell trouble going into the 2006 elections. Democrats are playing the elections up as a referendum on Bush's job in the office, Republicans are claiming it has no national significance and is a result of purely local issues and the truth is probably somewhere in between. I tend to actually agree with the Republican viewpoint here (!), that most people going in to vote for governor will, hopefully, be doing so based on issues that are actually involved in the election. There'll be some that vote purely because they're a member of one party or another, but I keep thinking that maybe, somewhere out there, there are people that actually think about how their elected officials will affect them.
On the two articles themselves, considering that the NYTimes article's is commentary more than news reporting and FoxNews uses the term "crowing" to describe Democratic response to Bush's eleventh-hour visit to Virginia, they more or less even out.
EDIT: I've got to include this, only because it shows that this particular form of Godwin's Law works, and because I'm still somewhat bitter about a similar argument costing myself and my partner a debate in 10th grade. Jerry Kilgore, Republican nominee in the VA governor's race invoked Hitler in ads aimed against Democratic candidate Tim Kaine. I'm sorry, Jerry, but it's not relevant, and while it's not exactly the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy (which is ridiculously "fun with Latin", isn't it?) as it doesn't actually say Kaine is Hitler, it implies sympathy with Hitler which is just appealing to emotion rather than trying to discuss facts. So again, I'm sorry Jerry, but that's game over right there.
Of course, this isn't to say that Kaine didn't release ads that were ridiculously fallacious that I haven't found yet, but the Hitler-in-debate thing strikes a nerve with me.
2 comments:
What I've read of it all is that states such as New Jersey and Virginia have been typically difficult for Republicans to gain ground in the state government. The analysis I've seen of this election so far is that this was a "status quo" election; few ballot initiatives were approved and few positions changed parties.
I wonder why it's still saying "0 comments". That makes me a particularly sad swordfish.
But overall, I pretty much agree. New Jersey is really no surprise, except for the fact that evidently the margin by which the guy won was more than was expected, but it really, really can't be used as any indication of a "referendum" on the major parties as it's more or less solidly blue, recently, anyway. Republicans held the governorship from 1994-2002, with most of that being Christie Todd Whitman. Virginia, I mean, yeah, it went for Bush in 2004, but to suggest that it's simply a "red state" ignores all kinds of everything. Similarly, suggesting that it's a referendum on Bush is just silly.
So yes. This was status quo, with some Democrats thinking a bit too wishfully, ignoring the fact that Virginia has, perhaps more importantly, the Lynchburg Hillcats.
:D
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