More of the most annoying talking points for me:
"Under Clinton we had budget surpluses and the strongest economy in a generation."-- This is true, but it was because Clinton compromised with Republicans in Congress after the 1994 election by cutting taxes and spending as well as signing the welfare reform bill.
"The segregationist Democrats all became Republicans."-- The only segregationist Democrat in Congress to ever switch to the Republican Party was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and he later had a change of heart on racial issues.
"The 'Southern Strategy' was an attempt to appeal to white Southerners by pandering to racism."-- According to former Nixon advisor Pat Buchanan, arguably the author of the "Southern Strategy", it was an attempt to convince Southern moderates who supported civil rights to vote Republican as a protest against the segregationist Democrats. See this link:
http://www.wnd.com/2002/12/16477/"You cannot legislate morality."-- Virtually all laws legislate some form of morality. And besides, banning abortion/gay marriage doesn't necessarily "legislate morality." After all, it's not making it illegal to have extramarital sex or for homosexual couples to live together and love each other. I support allowing birth control and adoption as alternatives to abortion, and I support civil unions for homosexual couples as long as they receive equal benefits to heterosexual, married couples.
"A woman's right to choose"-- Everybody has the right to choose to do anything, even something illegal; having the "right to choose" to do something doesn't make it morally acceptable or mean that it should be legal.
"Reagan's economic policies unfairly benefited the rich at the expense of the poor."-- Actually, during Reagan's presidency, not only did the middle class expand, but federal spending for the poor (as a whole) actually
increased. The expansion of poverty, in my opinion, was more likely the result of the increase of drug abuse in the 1980s.
"Rush Limbaugh is a racist."-- The man who finds sound bytes to play on Rush Limbaugh's show, Bo Snerdley, is black, and the minister who performed Limbaugh's most recent wedding is also black. I am not a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh, but this charge is ridiculous.
"Bush stole the 2000 election."-- There is no way to prove this charge either way, but every legal method of recounting the votes in Florida in 2000 would have given the election to Bush. On Election Night 2000, all of the major news networks and the AP called Florida for Al Gore before all of the polls in the Republican-leaning panhandle were closed. This depressed turnout among likely Bush voters nationally because they were convinced that the election was over and their candidate had lost. Likewise, the call was made based on exit poll results rather than raw vote totals. At the time of the early call for Gore in Florida, Bush was actually leading in the returns being reported to the networks. As proof, check out some videos on YouTube by searching "election night 2000".
