Brontoforumus Archive
Discussion Boards => Thaddeus Boyd's Panel of Death => Topic started by: Thad on October 29, 2008, 08:38:53 PM
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I'm debating what to call the thread where we continue the discussion of what the hell's going to happen to the Republican Party after this is over. "What Went Wrong?" is a good title for talking about how the GOP's gotten into this mess, but I'd like something that invites speculation about what they're going to do next.
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We already have a Ron Paul thread.
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The problem with "what went wrong" is that it started anywhere between 8 and 60 years ago, and only now has reached the critical mass point. Or what we can only hope is the critical mass point.
There are basically two real options at this point: the GOP proper curls itself tighter in its ball, contracts down to an irrelevant fringe demographic, and is ultimately taken over or replaced by either a new moderate party or a new far-liberal party to contrast the Dems; or it excises the elements that aren't working and becomes the voice of the current moderates, which will involve some painful reworking on what their party message claims to be indecisive or dangerous but will ultimately save the organization.
GOP Will Eat Itself might be the most appropriate title here.
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Good enough for now.
The problem is that the Republican Party is made up of several disparate factions who aren't necessarily natural allies. Which is not to say the Democrats don't have the same problem -- that's why they had such a nasty losing streak there. In fact, the Republicans have been much better at unifying their factions. Reagan was truly the master, and Nixon did a pretty damned good job until he got caught. Bush did a great job of appealing to all the factions within the party; the problem is that he combined all their worst elements and managed to piss off the electorate and leave the factions fighting amongst themselves.
The primaries actually showed a stark breakdown along ideological lines -- you had one candidate for the war hawks (McCain), another for the fundamentalists (Huckabee), and two for the Libertarians (Romney for the moderates, Paul for the orthodoxy). Where Nixon, Reagan, and Bush managed to appeal to all these different groups, this year's field split them sharply.
A question I have is, would McCain be doing as badly right now if he had picked Huckabee? My feeling is that he'd still be losing, but it would be closer. Huckabee would have appealed to the same demographic that Palin does, without alienating as many people as she has; I hate his politics but he's a smart, funny, charming person.
The only explanation I can think of for why McCain picked Palin over Huckabee is his absurd belief that she was going to peel away Clinton supporters. This was possibly the most boneheaded idea out of the many, many boneheaded ideas that led to her selection.
So yeah, like we've all been saying, the party at this point basically has two choices: embrace the Huckabee/Palin contingent and continue to lose for the foreseeable future, or abandon it, deal with short-term defeats, and come back out swinging in 8 or 10 years.
I don't think things can go back to the way they were. The evangelicals are sick of being taken for granted by a moderate party; they were pissed at Bush for spending '04 pandering to them and then '05-present ignoring them (Alito's appointment notwithstanding) and not at all happy about McCain's nomination.
The problem is this: the Republican Party needs the evangelical vote to win elections...but at this point, seeking that vote has most likely helped COST them this election. And after picking Palin, I don't think there's any going back; I don't think the evangelicals are going to support any moderate Republican nominee from here on in.
I think this puts Romney in a pretty good position for '12 -- the Republicans are going to want somebody to blame for their defeat, and Romney can say "If you had picked ME, I could have won."
Of course, the truth is he couldn't have. As reluctant as the fundamentalists were at first to get onboard with McCain, imagine trying to get them to support a Mormon former governor of the most liberal state in the nation who had previously supported gay marriage and abortion and only changed his mind when he decided to run for national office.
So I think Romney stands a good chance of getting the nom in '12, but not of beating Obama.
Then again, I'd lay even greater odds the Republican nominee will be someone we're not even thinking of right now. Remember a couple years back when we figured it would be Frist?
Which brings me back to the main point here: popular Republicans fucking destroy their careers when they pander to the insane fringe of the party.
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In fact, the Republicans have been much better at unifying their factions. Reagan was truly the master, and Nixon did a pretty damned good job until he got caught.
That's pretty much Obama's strength now. Clinton had a unifying power, but it was more unifying the right and left edges of the two parties - he's the reason Dems still say "bipartisan" like it's a good thing.
Bush did a great job of appealing to all the factions within the party
In speech. Not always in action.
The primaries actually showed a stark breakdown along ideological lines -- you had one candidate for the war hawks (McCain), another for the fundamentalists (Huckabee), and two for the Libertarians (Romney for the moderates, Paul for the orthodoxy). Where Nixon, Reagan, and Bush managed to appeal to all these different groups, this year's field split them sharply.
To the point where you have the hilarious situation of the guy they picked trying to argue that he constantly disagrees with his people but is lockstep with the leader that they hate, as some sort of failed compromise.
A question I have is, would McCain be doing as badly right now if he had picked Huckabee?
Hard to imagine; that woman's novelty has worn off earlier than they had hoped and she is now hanging from McCain's neck like some sort of noisy albatross, dragging him down with her. The problem is she's too damned important; at this point we shouldn't even be considering the VPs' effects on the polls. Had he picked Huckabee, we wouldn't even be mentioning him except as a sidenote. Not to say it wouldn't have a real effect, but he wouldn't be part of the normal dialogue the same way Joe Biden isn't, despite being a pretty smart and entertaining guy himself.
The only explanation I can think of for why McCain picked Palin over Huckabee is his absurd belief that she was going to peel away Clinton supporters. This was possibly the most boneheaded idea out of the many, many boneheaded ideas that led to her selection.
Possible; the theory I tend to agree with is that he was trying to counteract Obama's whole "Change" theme (which, yeah, is playing the race card in one aspect) with a sort of "We Can Do That Too." Backfired spectacularly, of course, since the exact female he brought in was only trying to bring the status quo to its extreme.
The question I want to ask is "Why choose an unqualified nobody when there are several other well known Republican women out there?" The presumptive answer is "They just went down the list until they found one too stupid to say 'no'."
I don't think things can go back to the way they were. The evangelicals are sick of being taken for granted by a moderate party; they were pissed at Bush for spending '04 pandering to them and then '05-present ignoring them (Alito's appointment notwithstanding) and not at all happy about McCain's nomination.
The evangelicals are a shrinking demographic though. Yeah, they're imposingly big and loud today because they've been given a booster shot, but they're slowly becoming more irrelevant as America inches slowly left like it has been for four centuries.
The "scared shitless" demographic, though, has been a relatively stable power, constantly fluxing but never quite going away or losing its grip on the country. Bush's power derived almost solely from this source, and in a twisted sort of way, so does Obama's... pandering to those who are scared shitless of Bush.
The successful, "War Hawk" Republicans have always been the ones to control this sentiment. Bush did it masterfully, despite being utterly incapable of everything else. His father actually failed on his inability to control it, despite his best efforts (a man who, in retrospect, is best known from puking as a defensive measure, is not one to intimidate much of anything.) Reagan was the cowboy, ready to shoot all the durn criminals that were out there. Even Nixon got cut a lot of slack because he did actually put a stop to the country's current nightmare.
And now the party has, rightfully, chosen the take-charge war hero to represent them. Had the situation not been what it is, it probably would have worked out beautifully. As it is, the men who had come before McCain have probably laid the terror on a little bit thick; the country's just accepted the state of affairs with grim apathy, the way you'd expect people to react in a hell-bound handbasket such as the one the GOP says we're in (and has deliberately put us in).
The problem is this: the Republican Party needs the evangelical vote to win elections...but at this point, seeking that vote has most likely helped COST them this election. And after picking Palin, I don't think there's any going back; I don't think the evangelicals are going to support any moderate Republican nominee from here on in.
Say the other guy is a Muslim Terrorist enough times, and they'll grudgingly side with whatever alternative they have. The evangelicals are easy to scare and easy to manipulate... I mean, hell, that's what turned them into evangelicals.
I think this puts Romney in a pretty good position for '12 -- the Republicans are going to want somebody to blame for their defeat, and Romney can say "If you had picked ME, I could have won."
Sure, but who in the GOP can't make the same claim? Besides Dick Cheney.
And anybody who ever had any association with Dick Cheney.
only changed his mind when he decided to run for national office.
This part doesn't seem to be much of a problem with them.
Then again, I'd lay even greater odds the Republican nominee will be someone we're not even thinking of right now. Remember a couple years back when we figured it would be Frist?
Had you mentioned McCain in '04, one could imagine him being the nominee. Of course, you'd have been thinking of 2004 John McCain and not 2008 Bizarro McCain, but the point stands.
Which brings me back to the main point here: popular Republicans fucking destroy their careers when they pander to the insane fringe of the party.
Unpopular Reublicans, however, enjoy great success.
Whether you're right or wrong, always stick to your principles. Even Hitler would seem a little better had he really believed in the shit he was doing.
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That's pretty much Obama's strength now. Clinton had a unifying power, but it was more unifying the right and left edges of the two parties - he's the reason Dems still say "bipartisan" like it's a good thing.
I often wonder what Clinton could have accomplished if he'd cared as little about public opinion as Bush.
His appeal wasn't in his center-right politics, it was in his charisma. I think he'd have been just as popular if he hadn't given us bullshit like DADT, DMCA, and a series of other acronyms I'm angry at.
Unfortunately Obama seems poised to make the same miscalculation.
Bush did a great job of appealing to all the factions within the party
In speech. Not always in action.
Yeah, but see above.
A question I have is, would McCain be doing as badly right now if he had picked Huckabee?
Hard to imagine; that woman's novelty has worn off earlier than they had hoped and she is now hanging from McCain's neck like some sort of noisy albatross, dragging him down with her. The problem is she's too damned important; at this point we shouldn't even be considering the VPs' effects on the polls. Had he picked Huckabee, we wouldn't even be mentioning him except as a sidenote. Not to say it wouldn't have a real effect, but he wouldn't be part of the normal dialogue the same way Joe Biden isn't, despite being a pretty smart and entertaining guy himself.
McCain's age was going to be an issue no matter what, and Huckabee's just as scary as Palin from an ideological perspective. But he's less scary on the whole because he's not a complete moron.
Which brings us right back to charisma versus ideology. I honestly like the guy. I would never vote for him on those grounds, but there are people who would.
There are people voting for McCain/Palin because they like her, but they're outweighed by the people not voting for them because they hate/fear/pity her.
"Polarizing" may be the best word to describe her, and the only thing she has in common with Hillary Clinton.
The only explanation I can think of for why McCain picked Palin over Huckabee is his absurd belief that she was going to peel away Clinton supporters. This was possibly the most boneheaded idea out of the many, many boneheaded ideas that led to her selection.
Possible; the theory I tend to agree with is that he was trying to counteract Obama's whole "Change" theme (which, yeah, is playing the race card in one aspect) with a sort of "We Can Do That Too." Backfired spectacularly, of course, since the exact female he brought in was only trying to bring the status quo to its extreme.
Well, and because you can't try to campaign on the same thing you are constantly saying is a liability.
The question I want to ask is "Why choose an unqualified nobody when there are several other well known Republican women out there?" The presumptive answer is "They just went down the list until they found one too stupid to say 'no'."
Again, it's a real insult to Hutchison. But you're right, maybe she DID say no. Maybe Huckabee did too. Or maybe she's just too moderate on abortion.
The evangelicals are a shrinking demographic though. Yeah, they're imposingly big and loud today because they've been given a booster shot, but they're slowly becoming more irrelevant as America inches slowly left like it has been for four centuries.
The "scared shitless" demographic, though, has been a relatively stable power, constantly fluxing but never quite going away or losing its grip on the country.
But as you note below, the people who are constantly frightened ARE the evangelicals. They're afraid of EVERYTHING. Wars, terrorist attacks, government surveillance, economic crises -- these things come and go. But we're talking about a demographic that, by its nature, fears progress. The evangelicals are in a constant state of fear, and that's why their turnout is so wildly disproportionate.
Bush's power derived almost solely from this source, and in a twisted sort of way, so does Obama's... pandering to those who are scared shitless of Bush.
Nontrivial. But there's also charisma. Plenty of people were scared shitless of Bush four years ago.
The successful, "War Hawk" Republicans have always been the ones to control this sentiment. Bush did it masterfully, despite being utterly incapable of everything else. His father actually failed on his inability to control it, despite his best efforts (a man who, in retrospect, is best known from puking as a defensive measure, is not one to intimidate much of anything.) Reagan was the cowboy, ready to shoot all the durn criminals that were out there. Even Nixon got cut a lot of slack because he did actually put a stop to the country's current nightmare.
But on the other hand, LBJ beat Goldwater by suggesting that he was out of his fucking mind and would nuke the world.
It bears repeating at this point that McCain is Goldwater's successor.
And now the party has, rightfully, chosen the take-charge war hero to represent them. Had the situation not been what it is, it probably would have worked out beautifully. As it is, the men who had come before McCain have probably laid the terror on a little bit thick; the country's just accepted the state of affairs with grim apathy, the way you'd expect people to react in a hell-bound handbasket such as the one the GOP says we're in (and has deliberately put us in).
Exactly. Like I said, most demographics can't stay scared forever.
Say the other guy is a Muslim Terrorist enough times, and they'll grudgingly side with whatever alternative they have. The evangelicals are easy to scare and easy to manipulate... I mean, hell, that's what turned them into evangelicals.
But if the choice is between the Muslim terrorist and the guy who wants to give all our jobs away to Mexicans, there's a problem.
I can get pretty hung up on ideological purity -- it took me awhile to decide I'd vote to reelect Congressman Mitchell -- but I'm not a fundamentalist.
I think this puts Romney in a pretty good position for '12 -- the Republicans are going to want somebody to blame for their defeat, and Romney can say "If you had picked ME, I could have won."
Sure, but who in the GOP can't make the same claim? Besides Dick Cheney.
And anybody who ever had any association with Dick Cheney.
Sure. But Romney's the guy who came in second.
And don't think for a second Clinton wouldn't be prepping the same argument if the shoe were on the other foot.
Plus, the turning point of this election was the financial crisis. Romney wouldn't have come through it unscathed, but he would have fared much better than McCain; econ is his greatest strength and McCain's greatest (policy) weakness.
only changed his mind when he decided to run for national office.
This part doesn't seem to be much of a problem with them.
Debatable. I think the base was lukewarm on McCain until he announced Palin as his running-mate. It's possible they would have gotten on-board even if he'd chosen, say, Giuliani, but I really don't think so.
Then again, I'd lay even greater odds the Republican nominee will be someone we're not even thinking of right now. Remember a couple years back when we figured it would be Frist?
Had you mentioned McCain in '04, one could imagine him being the nominee. Of course, you'd have been thinking of 2004 John McCain and not 2008 Bizarro McCain, but the point stands.
Fair. And there was buzz about both Kerry and Obama well before either decided to run. Gore/Bush was, of course, a foregone conclusion.
Whether you're right or wrong, always stick to your principles. Even Hitler would seem a little better had he really believed in the shit he was doing.
...would have been nice if we could have gotten to five posts without a Godwin.
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"[Evangelicals are] afraid of EVERYTHING. Wars, terrorist attacks, government surveillance, economic crises -- these things come and go."
Wouldn't they be a bit less afraid of government surveillance than others, given that they're more trusting of authority than other demographics tend to be?
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Not if the President is a Democrat, but I meant that second sentence as a contrast to evangelicals. There are people who are afraid of all those things, but evangelicals are probably the only people who are afraid all the time.
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The same thing happened to the Democrats in the 60's when they were the party consistently voting down every civil rights bill to come up, thanks mostly to the so called "Dixiecrats". The Democrats came face to face with the fact of their own growing irrelevancy, and were forced to reform themselves, rather painfully, over the subsequent decades. I would argue that they never really recovered completely, and it looks like it's the turn of the Republicans.
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Sure, and then Nixon converted the Dixiecrats over to the Republican side with the Southern Strategy. The question is, what will happen to the evangelicals this time?
I've suggested before that they might, in an act of profound irony, take over the Libertarian Party.
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I don't know, really. I'm sure they'll find somewhere to go in the immediate future, but I think they don't really have a home in modern American going forward, and will be forced to change, or inhabit an irrelevant fringe.
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Sure, and then Nixon converted the Dixiecrats over to the Republican side with the Southern Strategy. The question is, what will happen to the evangelicals this time?
I've suggested before that they might, in an act of profound irony, take over the Libertarian Party.
It's not like it would hurt the Lib's relevancy much! ::D:
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Sure, and then Nixon converted the Dixiecrats over to the Republican side with the Southern Strategy. The question is, what will happen to the evangelicals this time?
Attempt secession?
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I really, really hope they secede. I'd happily kick them the fuck out.
I have had enough of irrelevant, hatemongering bullshit topics becoming important political issues in America. We have actual issues, stuff having to do with human lives and the nation's prosperity, and you're worried about where people might be putting their dicks? Fuck you, get out of my country.
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I wouldn't mind seeing the evangelical vote moving to the Libertarian party just to have three viable parties in the country. In fact, I'd like to see the Democrats split up a bit, them being the catch-all "not Republican" party that they are. Five or six thriving parties in America would be fantastic.
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I really, really hope they secede. I'd happily kick them the fuck out.
I have had enough of irrelevant, hatemongering bullshit topics becoming important political issues in America. We have actual issues, stuff having to do with human lives and the nation's prosperity, and you're worried about where people might be putting their dicks? Fuck you, get out of my country.
kazz is right and the only solution is to put me in charge of the death camps.
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I wouldn't mind seeing the evangelical vote moving to the Libertarian party just to have three viable parties in the country. In fact, I'd like to see the Democrats split up a bit, them being the catch-all "not Republican" party that they are. Five or six thriving parties in America would be fantastic.
We'll never have more than two viable parties on a national level. It's just the way our constitution works. You get one or two, never three or more.
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The Republicans have an excuse lined up for an Obama victory. Defeat isn't going to break them. Now, depending what happens in the next four years, something might come up that will, but as long as they can tell themselves that the news media handed the White House to Obama on a silver platter then their motley alliance isn't going to dissolve. Should the unlikely happen and McCain carry the day, the Democrats have their own excuse, too, in the form of blaming voter racism.
Frankly I think that we'd be better off if half the country decided that power-mad newshounds were the ones who fucked everything up, rather than Klan hicks. But that's possibly because I know more rednecks than reporters.
I kinda feel sorry for the evangelicals in all this. Their public figures and the policies they demand are shitty enough that courting them is a liability, but they're too big a demographic to ignore. Anybody bigger than state legislature can only give 'em token gestures. They've got to realize that they're just being used. The libertarians, too: how long has it been since either party pretended they were going to cut anything for any reason other than necessity? And while I'm at it, I also feel sorry for the greens, but it wouldn't be polite of me to explain why.
Well, and I think I've just about used up my quota of posts in Real World for the year.
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I honestly like the guy.
I kinda feel sorry for the evangelicals in all this... The libertarians, too:
Something something something daaaark side. Something something something complete.
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I wouldn't mind seeing the evangelical vote moving to the Libertarian party just to have three viable parties in the country. In fact, I'd like to see the Democrats split up a bit, them being the catch-all "not Republican" party that they are. Five or six thriving parties in America would be fantastic.
I'd rather we just have viable parties that hateful, illogical crazed members of the fringe just aren't a part of so we can talk about things like health care in our elections, instead of who shook hands with an arab when they were growing up.
The Republicans have an excuse lined up for an Obama victory. Defeat isn't going to break them.
This is what worries me most, honestly. Palin's rallies have her consistuents whipped up past what could be called a fever pitch and more towards what can honestly be described as a lynch mob. It's 2008 and we have a presidential election where throngs of Americans are screaming "TERRORIST" and "TRAITOR" in front of god and everyone, calling for blood. There's already been comments during the race by McCain's campaign that he'll "still be the president" of loyalist areas in the heartland that reject Obama.
It's disturbing as hell. Let's all act like things as crazy as widespread rioting would never happen in this day and age, and racism is dead, and it's just paraoid to think otherwise, and act really surprised when something crazy happens.
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Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party and tried to make it the lunatic GOP fringe third-party but it turned out that even fundies hate Pat Buchanan. Also he dimwittedly took on a party identity shared most famously with Jesse Ventura.
But yeah, it'd be nice to have a party specifically to separate out the lunatic conservative fringe the same way there's one for both ends of the socioeconomic scale and one for lunatic liberal fringe (sorry Thad).
(This is pretty much describing the crux of the GOP's problem, here: without that effective right-edge fringe party, the Republicans effectively are the right-edge fringe party, which the moderates are going to inevitably shy away from.)
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I really, really hope they secede. I'd happily kick them the fuck out.
I have had enough of irrelevant, hatemongering bullshit topics becoming important political issues in America. We have actual issues, stuff having to do with human lives and the nation's prosperity, and you're worried about where people might be putting their dicks? Fuck you, get out of my country.
Yeah, tell you what. You can keep up the "let them secede" claptrap AFTER you've found me a job in blue America and helped me move.
We'll never have more than two viable parties on a national level. It's just the way our constitution works. You get one or two, never three or more.
Nonsense. We had a functional multi-party system well into the nineteenth century (and Lincoln was a third-party candidate). Yes, voting in congress is based on majority, but there's bound to be overlap in parties; using the Libertarian example, they'd side with the Democrats on social issues and the Republicans on economic ones.
The issues preventing third parties from becoming viable aren't about the Constitution so mach as an entrenched power structure. To achieve national attention, a third-party candidate has to have the resources of Ross Perot -- and after 1992, the Debate Commission changed its rules specifically to prevent him from being allowed back in.
Where the constitutional issue DOES arise is in the electoral college. Perot snagged millions of votes but not a single electoral vote.
Elections by simple plurality are a whole other argument, and have their pros and cons. (With instant runoff voting, people wouldn't face the "Do I vote Nader, or Gore?" dilemma, but on the other hand, Lincoln would never have been elected under such a system.)
The Republicans have an excuse lined up for an Obama victory. Defeat isn't going to break them. Now, depending what happens in the next four years, something might come up that will, but as long as they can tell themselves that the news media handed the White House to Obama on a silver platter then their motley alliance isn't going to dissolve. Should the unlikely happen and McCain carry the day, the Democrats have their own excuse, too, in the form of blaming voter racism.
Frankly I think that we'd be better off if half the country decided that power-mad newshounds were the ones who fucked everything up, rather than Klan hicks. But that's possibly because I know more rednecks than reporters.
Not going to work. It's a great excuse to give to the true believers, but the party leaders know that's not really what cost them the election -- and if they don't, then they're going to move forward with a failed strategy and continue to lose.
And the Republican intellectuals who've already turned against Palin aren't going to play ball with her in four years. Colbert made an excellent point the other night that they didn't seem to have any problem with the party's increasingly nasty politics until they started backfiring, but now the cat's out of the bag and you're not going to see Noonan, Will, or Frum slinking back to the very talking points that they believe are destroying their party.
The libertarians, too: how long has it been since either party pretended they were going to cut anything for any reason other than necessity?
Er, the Republicans have been pretty damn good about removing government regulation and oversight from private business. That's how we got into our current economic mess.
And while I'm at it, I also feel sorry for the greens, but it wouldn't be polite of me to explain why.
I'm going to go with "they nominated a candidate best known for hitting a Capitol security guard with her cell phone because he didn't recognize her."
Well, and I think I've just about used up my quota of posts in Real World for the year.
...Yeah, you know, I gotta tell you, the "I'm going to say some stuff and then run off rather than discuss any of it" bit's getting kind of old from where I'm standing.
I'd rather we just have viable parties that hateful, illogical crazed members of the fringe just aren't a part of so we can talk about things like health care in our elections, instead of who shook hands with an arab when they were growing up.
And I'd like to have a unicorn.
The evangelicals aren't going to go away -- at least, not for a very long time. They've got money, they've got access, and they vote in huge numbers.
Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party and tried to make it the lunatic GOP fringe third-party but it turned out that even fundies hate Pat Buchanan. Also he dimwittedly took on a party identity shared most famously with Jesse Ventura.
The Reform Party has its own special set of problems. It never had an identity; it was a party specially created so Perot could run for President.
But yeah, it'd be nice to have a party specifically to separate out the lunatic conservative fringe the same way there's one for both ends of the socioeconomic scale and one for lunatic liberal fringe (sorry Thad).
Haven't been registered Green in over four years. They've made it abundantly clear they're not interested in forming a viable party or being the least bit relevant.
I still stand by my Nader vote in 2000, and think that his central message of corporate control of the government was utterly commonsense and not "lunatic fringe" in the least. But then the Green Party buckled, dumped him, and is now running Cynthia fucking McKinney.
Regardless of what happens to the GOP, we're never going to have real change while the Democrats are owned by special interests.
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Source (http://www.iowastatedaily.com/articles/2008/10/28/news/local_news/doc49068f6ccce49245010961.txt) - “I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”
GOP Will Eat Itself might be the most appropriate title here.
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:scanners:
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It may be more prudent at this point to let the GOP be the isolationist fringe party at this point, and form a new third for moderate conservatives who don't discriminate based on
color ethnicity looks being under 30. Might take a few years to gather steam but considering what's in store for the next few years...
:blahblahblah: Old men... are the future.
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:painful: We've had to endure much, you and I, but within the week, there will be black men running the world.
:thad: No. Within three months.
:painful: Yes.
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Nonsense. We had a functional multi-party system well into the nineteenth century (and Lincoln was a third-party candidate). Yes, voting in congress is based on majority, but there's bound to be overlap in parties; using the Libertarian example, they'd side with the Democrats on social issues and the Republicans on economic ones.
The issues preventing third parties from becoming viable aren't about the Constitution so mach as an entrenched power structure. To achieve national attention, a third-party candidate has to have the resources of Ross Perot -- and after 1992, the Debate Commission changed its rules specifically to prevent him from being allowed back in.
Where the constitutional issue DOES arise is in the electoral college. Perot snagged millions of votes but not a single electoral vote.
The Democratic Republicans were basically the only party between the end of John Adams' one term and William Henry Harrison's term as a whig 40 years later. The democrats split during this time into the Democrats and the national republicans. National Republicans collapsed and became the whigs. The Whigs collapsed prior to the rise of the Republican party (so it's arguable Lincoln wasn't a third party candidate since there wasn't a real second party), and it's been nothing but republican and democrat since then. So in summary, Pro/Anti administration, followed by Federalist/Democratic Republican, Followed by just Democratic-Republican (which could be split into followers of Adams and Jackson.), followed by Democrat/National Republican, followed by Democrat/Whig, followed by Democrat/Republican. There hasn't ever been a real three or more way split in power in the congress.
I'd like to believe that a third party has the possibility of real power in America, but history doesn't play that out.
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It may be more prudent at this point to let the GOP be the isolationist fringe party at this point, and form a new third for moderate conservatives who don't discriminate based on color ethnicity looks being under 30. Might take a few years to gather steam but considering what's in store for the next few years...
But that's not really how it works. Moderates vote in primaries; that's how we got McCain (who's not moderate but looks that way when you stand him between Huckabee and Paul).
The Democratic Republicans were basically the only party between the end of John Adams' one term and William Henry Harrison's term as a whig 40 years later.
True, but there were a number of Presidential races in that time with more than two viable candidates running. I guess 1800 probably doesn't count given the original rules on VP selection.
The democrats split during this time into the Democrats and the national republicans. National Republicans collapsed and became the whigs. The Whigs collapsed prior to the rise of the Republican party (so it's arguable Lincoln wasn't a third party candidate since there wasn't a real second party), and it's been nothing but republican and democrat since then. So in summary, Pro/Anti administration, followed by Federalist/Democratic Republican, Followed by just Democratic-Republican (which could be split into followers of Adams and Jackson.), followed by Democrat/National Republican,
I'd argue that 1824 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1824) proves a race can happen with four candidates all receiving a few dozen electoral votes, but you're right, that wasn't a lasting effect, it was a party splintering along faction lines. It was back to the old two-party game by '28. Still, even the landslide of '32 had two third-party candidates who picked up some electoral votes. I'd have to look at the electoral map for awhile to determine whether they were spoilers or if Clay could have won with their supporters.
And then '36 was when the Whig Party splintered, and van Buren's campaign in '40 is a good argument for the electoral college problem -- 10% of the popular vote, no electoral votes.
(Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCuDDAPggw )
followed by Democrat/Whig, followed by Democrat/Republican.
1860, of course, is a hugely interesting election, and one of the intriguing pieces is the utter disparity between popular and electoral vote (Douglas came in second in popular and fourth in electoral). But of course that's another breakdown and reformation situation.
There hasn't ever been a real three or more way split in power in the congress.
I'd like to believe that a third party has the possibility of real power in America, but history doesn't play that out.
All right, I think I'm going to have to concede on history. There have been Presidential races with more than two candidates, but they've usually skewed heavily toward one or two, and they've usually been signs of party rifts that were resolved within a cycle or two. And you're right about Congress.
I still maintain it's less of a constitutional issue (though the electoral college is a big part of it) than an access issue. The people in power -- be it the entrenched parties or their financial backers -- don't like spreading that power around.
So, from a historical perspective, what do you suppose will happen to our current two parties? Do you agree that the Republican Party is facing a crackup like the historical examples we've talked about? And if so, do you have any thoughts on what will happen to the evangelical base? Because like I say, that's where things get tricky -- it's toxic but it's not going to go away.
Would you argue that the evangelicals will increase control on the Republican Party while the intellectuals and Libertarians start allying with the Democrats? Big business jumping ship from the Republican Party is a tough sell for me. Evangelicals seem like the likeliest demo to get forced out.
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Big business jumping ship from the Republican Party is a tough sell for me. Evangelicals seem like the likeliest demo to get forced out.
Exactly. I don't see the Republicans going anywhere ever, they're just too entrenched in this era with the support of the aforementioned big businesses. I do see a huge shift of priorities, mostly toward libertarian viewpoints, but that's just common sense.
I think they just have to lay low for a little while. Their biggest strengths will be whatever the biggest perceived weaknesses of the Democrats will be in 8 years. That's pretty much how the Democrats won.
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It's going to be interesting to see how the noise machine reacts. Fox News was in the tank for Giuliani but adapted to the McCain nomination immediately. Limbaugh groused about McCain until some manufactured controversy gave him an excuse to leap to his defense; Palin was his personal pick for VP so that helped bring him onboard too. Malkin looked like she was ready to revolt -- she may have gotten on board without the Palin nom, but it's hard to say.
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I love that song you linked.
As for what will happen to the GOP, I'm not sure. I don't see them actually fracturing or changing names or anything that interesting. I hope I'm wrong but I think they'll hold off complete collapse long enough to regroup in eight or ten years, but how and over what they'll regroup I don't know. I think if they're going to get back into the game it's going to have to be as the centrist party, so some of how quickly they regroup depends on how much power the Dems get and how far they run with the liberal agenda. I see them facing two major problems as re-casting themselves as the centrist party.
First, the evangelicals are a liability. I think some of that is a reaction to Bush backlash, and that will wear off given time. But partially the Evangelicals have some views that are just out of step with the rest of the country. If the republicans are wise they'll try to pull the evangelicals towards the center while still highlighting their pro-life position. The evangelicals can be moved, it happened with global warming and it could happen with other issues.
The second issue is that the Republicans are aging out as the babyboomers age out. They've been playing to only people over 40 for decades and it's finally going to bite them in the ass. They can't run on the issues of the 60's anymore, they're going to need to construct new political divides, and I have no idea what those will be. Abortion will still play, but all of the code word racist stuff is done, and the fake fiscal coservativism and horrible tax plans are finally entering the awareness of the general public.
I suppose the could start running on actual fiscal conservativism, but they'd need sombody exceptional to sell that. Somone with amazing charisma and probably an impeccable record.
I don't think the evangelicals will actually fracture off. It's hard to fathom how closely intwined the evangelical and republican brands are in the minds of most evangelicals. If the core republicans just ignore the evangelicals I don't see them splitting off and running their own guy or anything like that. They'll just take it and have depressed voter turnout.
I think it'll probably be at least 20 years before we see somebody running as under actual libertarian views.
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:painful: We've had to endure much, you and I, but within the week, there will be black men running the world.
:thad: No. Within three months.
:painful: Yes.
Why contain it?
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Obama's pretty rad but the GOP's current massive disadvantages are Bush and the economic crash that's only going to worsen. The future Dem's will probably be blamed for: not fixing the economy fast enough, Iraq imploding, and any civil rights progress. Also Bush will be forgotten and the GOP will say they're all better now.
On the other hand, past elections were frequently one-sided, so I can't really say it'd be even.
Regardless, what factions will be eating each other:
Neocons: Primarily foreign policy. The U.S. is more broke then useful and Iraq has shown how horribly expensive this philosophy is in practice. Discredited if not dead.
Paleoconservatives: Ahahahahaha. No.
Libertarians: Given that everyone is currently blaming them for the economy, they are going to have problems. They've usually tied themselves to small business, but that may change if Obama's tax plan goes over well. They could be a hard sell to the electorate.
Evangelicals: They haven't really done anything stupid except for Palin. Which is a lot, but it doesn't effect their actual policies. Gay marriage bans, let's-put-god-on-everything, faith-based whatever, the list goes on. These are important to swing states, which are voting for their self-interest in this election (for once).
The Evangelicals have the primary of advantage of it being difficult to discredit them. Economic philosophies can have a similar devotion but that is not present in the average person who does not have time for it. But there's always time for church.
Church attendance will go up during this depression and thus the sympathy to Evangelical viewpoints. An Obama presidency will give even more ammo as Judge appointments and progressive rulings come out. This will help the state's rights angle they'll probably be employing.
The religious angle has a lot going for it. 2008 lacks sufficient religious outrage as McCain can't pull it off with a straight face. Palin's the VP and also an idiot. Bush accomplished some of the Religious Right's goals which neutralizes any build-up outrage that will result from Democratic administration.
The Culture War has been in a 'lull' do to the Bush Administrations hand-outs and their immense dissatisfaction, and possible lack of turnout, will be easily attributed to McCain. Palin's nomination showed how effective it can be. Of course Palin is an idiot and the GOP would need a figure with far more competency, but yeah.
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Evangelicals: They haven't really done anything stupid except for Palin... Palin's the VP and also an idiot... Of course Palin is an idiot...
:wat: I'm not following. What exactly are you getting at here?
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I think he's her husband? :mystery:
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:whoops: The one time I don't proofread.
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An interesting editorial, musing on where this all might go. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081101.wflorida01/BNStory/Front/home)
Granted, he's also pushing his pet theories (Flordia is terrible about shameless self-promotion), but there may be something in this. Thoughts?
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An interesting editorial, musing on where this all might go. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081101.wflorida01/BNStory/Front/home)
Granted, he's also pushing his pet theories (Flordia is terrible about shameless self-promotion), but there may be something in this. Thoughts?
It's actually rather amusing that I felt the title was more insightful than the actual article. The class warfare comment made some sense since socialism in America was stomped dead by Wilson and McCarthy. So, any 'return' to such values would probably involve a large amount of overreacting. It really doesn't help that according to McCain's rhetoric Americans are suddenly big fans of Marx if Obama wins.
I didn't actually stop reading, but I had double check proper nouns a few times. The Democratic Party is the party of the creative upper class? Really? I imagine the GOP's donors and their tax policy is slightly confused. It's not really class warfare if both sides have their own kind of rich people.
If you want to go that route an American Civil War analogy might be better. The South was A: Dirt poor and B: Supported their rich plantation owners. B was done at the expense of the poor white people to the extent of following the rich into the War of Southern Aggression Civil War. The North had its more progressive rich people which their poor also supported, to an extent. The DNC is more right than left so suddenly turning on rich people is a bit out of character.
This resembles the situation superficially but it doesn't take into account the possibility of the Solid South finally figuring out that 'oh hay these Republicans aren't helping' and voting for the their own interests.
I'm not really sure where this 'class warfare' will magically come from since there's a large ideological divide amongst classes anyway. The DNC also supports the policies that should be more attractive to class-minded individuals than the GOP. I'm not really seeing this being plausible in anything but a very, very vague sense.
Edit: PRONOUNS
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No matter what you support, it's always the other guys who are stopping it from happening. Even if lots of the other guys actually support it and do more to support it than your guys do.
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So of course there's a lot of talk that Palin is gearing up for a '12 run as the head of the Republican ticket. People seem to take this seriously on both sides, but it seems mostly laughable to me unless there is a split off by the libertarians and moderates, leaving the religious nuts in charge there.
Either way I don't see her becoming a legitimate threat to the Democrats in the coming years.
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She's explicitly said that she's planning to, so.
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An interesting editorial, musing on where this all might go. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081101.wflorida01/BNStory/Front/home)
Granted, he's also pushing his pet theories (Flordia is terrible about shameless self-promotion), but there may be something in this. Thoughts?
Buddy, you're a walking billboard for the Globe and Mail. Anything to please your lizard overlords at CTV Globemedia ::D:
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Palin would have to get past the primaries. And in 2012, I predict a radically different Republican party; probably one that wouldn't nominate Palin anyway.
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She'd never beat Huckabee in a primary anyhow.
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Well, I dunno... Women voters?
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Well, I dunno... Women voters?
::(:
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The Republican party thought she'd be a good VP. They might think it's a big enough block to make it worth it.
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The Republican party thought she'd be a good VP. They might think it's a big enough block to make it worth it.
Are you paying the least bit of attention?
First of all, Palin was not chosen by a vote of all Republicans. To suggest she would have been the top choice for the party is ludicrous. They embraced her at first, but support is dropping like a rock.
Many see her as an embarrassment to the GOP, and many of its own members are going to lay the blame at her feet if McCain loses. The religious right will still love her, sure, but they hardly make up the majority of the GOP.
And to top it off, many conservative pundits are disowning the McCain campaign with the choice of Palin being the main reason.
I see a very tenuous relationship between mainstream conservatives and Palin. I see them cutting her loose once the election is over.
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The Republican party thought she'd be a good VP. They might think it's a big enough block to make it worth it.
Are you paying the least bit of attention?
First of all, Palin was not chosen by a vote of all Republicans. To suggest she would have been the top choice for the party is ludicrous. They embraced her at first, but support is dropping like a rock.
Many see her as an embarrassment to the GOP, and many of its own members are going to lay the blame at her feet if McCain loses. The religious right will still love her, sure, but they hardly make up the majority of the GOP.
And to top it off, many conservative pundits are disowning the McCain campaign with the choice of Palin being the main reason.
I see a very tenuous relationship between mainstream conservatives and Palin. I see them cutting her loose once the election is over.
Embraced her at first? Hardly. For the first two days after the pick, everyone was shocked and a fair number were upset, especially Romney and Huckabee. They eventually started to act like they supported her because they realized A: mccain was serious, oh jesus christ and B: a lack of party support means the ticket sinks. I suspect the distancing has already begun simply because republicans are reading the writing on the wall and know this is pretty much over for them at this point.
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As you've noted, they are prepping her for the political gallows, the whole suggestion is straight-up wankery.
I just found myself wondering if the women vote would make a Palin v Huckabee primary a less-than-certain race.
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Even in Palin's heyday she was not popular among women voters (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/women-more-skeptical-of-palin-than-men.html). Quite the opposite, actually.
Palin's political skills are are quite good in a Machiavellian sense of unseating an incumbent governor in a primary and then winning the election. I wouldn't be completely surprised if she managed to shoehorn herself in as candidate.
If Huckabee does well enough in the primary, his more populist rhetoric might bolster support for an otherwise mediocre (business-friendly) candidate. This could be Palin if she continues recruiting grassroots support.
She'll still fail incredibly in the general election, but her getting nominated is not implausible.
Basically: Huckabee candidacy + Business Interests ?= Palin nomination.
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An interesting editorial, musing on where this all might go. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081101.wflorida01/BNStory/Front/home)
Granted, he's also pushing his pet theories (Flordia is terrible about shameless self-promotion), but there may be something in this. Thoughts?
Buddy, you're a walking billboard for the Globe and Mail. Anything to please your lizard overlords at CTV Globemedia ::D:
If only they paid me.
:sadpanda:
yes, I know, I read one particular paper far more than the others. But I always read The Economist in paper format. And everything else less often.
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An interesting editorial, musing on where this all might go. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081101.wflorida01/BNStory/Front/home)
Granted, he's also pushing his pet theories (Flordia is terrible about shameless self-promotion), but there may be something in this. Thoughts?
It hurts itself by drinking the :attn: suggesting that Obama is a far-left liberal. He's not. He's moderate.
If Huckabee does well enough in the primary, his more populist rhetoric might bolster support for an otherwise mediocre (business-friendly) candidate. This could be Palin if she continues recruiting grassroots support.
She'll still fail incredibly in the general election, but her getting nominated is not implausible.
Basically: Huckabee candidacy + Business Interests ?= Palin nomination.
I can pretty much guarantee there will be a candidate in the primaries who is more appealing to big business than Palin. I've said before that I think Romney is the likeliest pick, but the Republican Party is not lacking for people who appeal to big business and are not also colossal embarrassments likely to be destroyed in a general election.
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It hurts itself by drinking the :attn: suggesting that Obama is a far-left liberal. He's not. He's moderate.
I've never thought of that as anything but right-wing spin. O-dawg is only far left if you think a true laissez-faire economy is centerist.
The issue here is that if the right is out in the cold for five years, they can spend their energy in two ways. One is to spin EVERYTHING the Obama does as president, waging an intense media battle reminiscent of Clinton's later days in office. The other is to rebuild the party. Granted the two are not mutualy exclusive by any means, but I suspect we'll see a tilting to one over the other.
...
Well, technically, they could also do nothing.
:lol:
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It hurts itself by drinking the :attn: suggesting that Obama is a far-left liberal. He's not. He's moderate.
I've never thought of that as anything but right-wing spin. O-dawg is only far left if you think a true laissez-faire economy is centerist.
Every year, e-mails get circulating saying that studies were done, and Sen. X is the most liberal Senator in the Senate. So far to the left are they that they had to install new seats even more left than the previous ones.
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If Huckabee does well enough in the primary, his more populist rhetoric might bolster support for an otherwise mediocre (business-friendly) candidate. This could be Palin if she continues recruiting grassroots support.
She'll still fail incredibly in the general election, but her getting nominated is not implausible.
Basically: Huckabee candidacy + Business Interests ?= Palin nomination.
I can pretty much guarantee there will be a candidate in the primaries who is more appealing to big business than Palin. I've said before that I think Romney is the likeliest pick, but the Republican Party is not lacking for people who appeal to big business and are not also colossal embarrassments likely to be destroyed in a general election.
Well, the main reason I brought up Palin is that she could siphon religious votes from Huckabee. Although, now that I think about, if the religious voters are split like that it would increase Romney's chances by a fair margin. It's just that I can't really see Palin's fans disappearing like that. Perhaps I'm overestimating her. She'd be a spoiler, at least.
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Only if you assume Huckabee actually has a shot.
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Well, this election has been dominated by general nonvoters coming out of the woodwork because they're pissed off by the current administration. Theoretically that could go both ways; if Obama does a good job but turns out to be some kind of Bible-burning nigger faggot, the college students will all be too appeased to care and the far-tight might stuff the ballot box in droves.
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Well, this election has been dominated by general nonvoters coming out of the woodwork because they're pissed off by the current administration. Theoretically that could go both ways; if Obama does a good job but turns out to be some kind of Bible-burning nigger faggot, the college students will all be too appeased to care and the far-tight might stuff the ballot box in droves.
That hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. How will Obama get reelected as the incumbent? Can't really use "change" or "hope" to keep the current administration. Much of the enthusiasm is coming from getting the Republicans out of office and getting this idealistic guy in. How enthusiastic can people stay after four years of an administration? I just hope he does a good enough job that people will keep him aboard for his accomplishments alone.
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Well, this election has been dominated by general nonvoters coming out of the woodwork because they're pissed off by the current administration. Theoretically that could go both ways; if Obama does a good job but turns out to be some kind of Bible-burning nigger faggot, the college students will all be too appeased to care and the far-tight might stuff the ballot box in droves.
That hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. How will Obama get reelected as the incumbent? Can't really use "change" or "hope" to keep the current administration. Much of the enthusiasm is coming from getting the Republicans out of office and getting this idealistic guy in. How enthusiastic can people stay after four years of an administration? I just hope he does a good enough job that people will keep him aboard for his accomplishments alone.
He's really charismatic, and democrats are the majority now. Charismatic + Incumbent means the chances of him getting ousted are pretty low. The congress however is going to have to work hard to avoid a backlash.
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How will Obama get reelected as the incumbent? [...] I just hope he does a good enough job that people will keep him aboard for his accomplishments alone.
Yeah, pretty much that.
Clinton/Dole wasn't even really a race. Clinton's the only Dem to carry Arizona since Truman.
I expect Obama will be a better President than Clinton. But he's also got a lot more of an uphill climb than Clinton. But he ALSO also doesn't have the baggage Clinton did.
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Yeah, I'm not worried about reelection. If he were actually getting in solely due to circumstances and not on any actual merits things would be different, but I kind of trust he'll do a good enough job that getting reelected as incumbent will be a walk. I mean the way the Reds are going now all he'll have to do in the next four years is come off as moderately sane.
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It hurts itself by drinking the :attn: suggesting that Obama is a far-left liberal. He's not. He's moderate.
I've never thought of that as anything but right-wing spin. O-dawg is only far left if you think a true laissez-faire economy is centerist.
Every year, e-mails get circulating saying that studies were done, and Sen. X is the most liberal Senator in the Senate. So far to the left are they that they had to install new seats even more left than the previous ones.
Were they so far to the left that they had to be placed outside the door?
You know, the one marked "colored service entrance".
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Saw Ann Coulter on some talk show or other this morning, saying McCain lost because he "was never a real Republican."
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Saw Ann Coulter on some talk show or other this morning, saying McCain lost because he "was never a real Scotsman."
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Yeah, but then neither is she.
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I think he was the only real Republican. Or rather, the only example of what a Republican is supposed to be.
Referring here to the real McCain, not MechCain.
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Again, I'm curious if the "He lost because he wasn't right-wing ENOUGH" idea will gain traction -- and hope, for our sake, that it does.
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This idea of a "real McCain", that we saw in 2000 and who knuckled under to the evils of the GOP in 2008, is kind of insane. The McCain we saw in 2000 was a public front. The only "real McCain" is the one that nepotism'd his way out of court martials, ditched the wife that waited for him to come home from the camp and married a beauty queen heiress to fund his political career, eagerly signed on to the Keating Five, talks a big game about torture and campaign finance until it actually comes time to vote, tells reporters that he'll hate the gooks until the day he dies, and consistently suckles at the deregulative, bigoted party teat.
The real McCain is the one we've seen during the race. Last night's speech was a desperate attempt to rebuild his image and hang on to his senate seat in 2010.
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Well, this election has been dominated by general nonvoters coming out of the woodwork because they're pissed off by the current administration. Theoretically that could go both ways; if Obama does a good job but turns out to be some kind of Bible-burning nigger faggot, the college students will all be too appeased to care and the far-tight might stuff the ballot box in droves.
That hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. How will Obama get reelected as the incumbent? Can't really use "change" or "hope" to keep the current administration. Much of the enthusiasm is coming from getting the Republicans out of office and getting this idealistic guy in. How enthusiastic can people stay after four years of an administration? I just hope he does a good enough job that people will keep him aboard for his accomplishments alone.
So you're saying you hope he does a good enough job to be re-elected?
No offense, but I would hope that for any President.
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A thought:
After 9/11, Bush's approval ratings skyrocketed.
I imagine that the opposite would occur during Obama's administration.
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This idea of a "real McCain", that we saw in 2000 and who knuckled under to the evils of the GOP in 2008, is kind of insane. The McCain we saw in 2000 was a public front. The only "real McCain" is the one that nepotism'd his way out of court martials, ditched the wife that waited for him to come home from the camp and married a beauty queen heiress to fund his political career, eagerly signed on to the Keating Five, talks a big game about torture and campaign finance until it actually comes time to vote, tells reporters that he'll hate the gooks until the day he dies, and consistently suckles at the deregulative, bigoted party teat.
The real McCain is the one we've seen during the race. Last night's speech was a desperate attempt to rebuild his image and hang on to his senate seat in 2010.
Maybe. But in the same way that remembering Sandra Day O'Connor as a moderate gives our side more power than if we tried to fight to set the record straight, I think letting the myth of the "real McCain" take root will have a positive impact.
Right now I'm listening to Bill Moyers (himself no stranger to myth) pushing the idea that the day McCain lost the election was the day he spoke at Liberty University, that he lost the election by courting Falwell's disciples. Regardless of whether the 2000 McCain or the 2008 McCain is the "real" one, I think that's true; Palin is the ultimate example of him throwing out his veneer of bipartisanship in order to appeal to the craziest people in his party, but Falwell was where it all started. Obviously September's market meltdown didn't help, but I think his courting of "agents of intolerance" was his real downfall.
Anyway. That seems to be the narrative on the left; and this thread is all about debating whether that's going to be the narrative on the right.
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I think the right's going to sour grapes the thing. "Yeah, they had kind of a rock star candidate, and we were too damn tied to Bush. We didn't make any mistakes! We had it lost from the start!" That last part may or may not be true, but more importantly I think they're going to end up believing the first part.
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Yes, but Bush is WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE PARTY.
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Jason Linkins @ HuffPo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/gops-circular-firing-squa_n_141505.html) notes the current disrest in the party; suggests the possibility of the leadership being overthrown and believes the party's going to go farther right.
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Jason Linkins @ HuffPo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/gops-circular-firing-squa_n_141505.html) notes the current disrest in the party; suggests the possibility of the leadership being overthrown and believes the party's going to go farther right.
I believe that they really need to rethink their structure.
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Palin's problems surprisingly deeper than revealed pre-election. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html) Or not so surprisingly, really.
Just in case you were wondering how quickly she would be thrown under the bus.
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Det, moved your post here because I think this is the place to talk about it.
I think this is probably a sign of Fox News working to undermine the Palin wing of the party. This shouldn't be terribly surprising -- Giuliani was their guy; what they really want is a guy who plays nice with the military-industrial complex. They pander to the Palin base, but Murdoch only uses those people as useful idiots; he doesn't actually like them.
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Det, moved your post here because I think this is the place to talk about it.
Fair enough, I think there are six different threads now where it could have fit.
I guess the question now is whether the rest of the party will follow suit.
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Giuliani was their girl
Sorry. I'm getting all the petty stupid bullshit out of my system so I don't have to think about politics for the next 4 years.
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I guess the question now is whether the rest of the party will follow suit.
Right. They sure didn't with Giuliani.
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I'ma need to hear to context for the whole "doesn't know Africa is a continent" story. People slip up and call Africa a country all the time, even the ones who are in a position where they ought to be more careful. If someone had to actually inform her of the difference, that's a story.
The "refused help from campaign staff on how to deal with the media and then blaming them for it going to hell" part is completely in line with what we know about her, though.
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...Given that she allegedly couldn't name all the countries in North America, the Africa part doesn't seem like a stretch at all.
But this is still Fox News. Just because they're eating their own doesn't mean they're not still full of shit.
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...Given that she allegedly couldn't name all the countries in North America, the Africa part doesn't seem like a stretch at all.
But this is still Fox News. Just because they're eating their own doesn't mean they're not still full of shit.
It wasn't that she couldn't name all the countries in North America. Shit, there's 41 countries in North America. I'd be genuinely surprised if anyone on any ticket could rattle them all off off the top of their heads, and wouldn't really expect them to.
No, she couldn't name the countries in NAFTA.
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there's 41 countries in North America
wat :wat:
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there's 41 countries in North America
wat :wat:
Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Clipperton Island, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Navassa Island, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Sant Barthelemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United States, and the US Virgin Islands.
If you count weird semi-independent shit as part of their overseeing nation, like counting Puerto Rico as part of the US, then there's still 23 seperate nations, and then France, the Netherlands, the UK, and Denmark all have bits in North America.
By comparison, NAFTA has three signatory nations. The US, Canada, and Mexico. That's not hard to fucking remember.
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Technically, the divide between North and South America is the Canal, while NAFTA defines north America as us Gringos, Eskimos, and that one crazy lazy nation of sombrero-loving, time-share scamming, bull-skewing nuts down south.
But TA, while I'm impressed that you can count from 1 to 41 on a Wikipedia table (See article: North America), you fail to understand that several Carribean states are not sovergn. In fact, I'm kind of bamboozled that you weren't able to pick out Puerto Rico from the list.
Also, understand that both your colonies and the British Colonies in the Carribean still have executive control from the host nation. Where here the string has been cut in all but decorative ceremony, the semi-independent states can still be run like puppets if they have to.
edit: Oh, she couldn't count the NAFTA countries..
Dumb americans..
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there's 41 countries in North America
wat :wat:
Turns out, there's land below Mexico.
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... South America.
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You're fucking crazy man. What next, East and West America?
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:humpf:
:america:
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I'm seeing a lot more ink on the Palin allegations, but -- (deep breath) -- Palin's right: I haven't seen a single person willing to put his name on this stuff. Anonymous staffers trying to shift the blame off themselves are not a reliable source.
Which is not, of course, to say that Palin's not a big, big part of why McCain lost.
Meanwhile: Blunt's out as minority whip (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4578172.shtml).
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I'ma need to hear to context for the whole "doesn't know Africa is a continent" story.
Her aides discovered that she wasn't aware that South Africa was actually a country, and then further deduced she didn't know Africa itself was a continent. The first half is totally believable, the second half questionable on account of her nutball voodoo priest and all.
That said, throwing her under the bus clearly ranks as the most patriotic action the McCain campaign can take credit for. I'm still reeling from the prank call... Fuck!
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...except the McCain campaign is responsible for her in the first place. This is just adding way more fuel to the "did you have any idea what you were doing when you picked her?" fire.
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Palin's right:
omglol
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Rasmussen (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2012/69_of_gop_voters_say_palin_helped_mccain) shows Republicans love love LOVE Palin:
Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.
Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.
When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.
I'm disinclined to believe the polls. Problem number one is, people who voted Obama aren't likely to self-identify as Republicans to a pollster. Problem two is the Eleventh Commandment; they're not going to blame her for their party's loss just in case she DOES end up as the nominee four years down the road. As for her being the top pick for the nomination, let's be honest: most voters don't remember who ran in the primaries; Palin's name is fresher in their minds.
But I'm sure some of the people surveyed are just dumb.
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Speaking with Republicans after the election, I've found that they're highly aware she rallied the base, yet blissfully unaware that her unfavorables polled higher than her favorables.
:justasplanned:
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Well, I suppose by definition anyone who voted for her was willing to overlook her glaring faults.
I still don't see her making it through the '12 primaries. I don't even have to know who else is running to predict she'll get eaten alive in the debates.
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She has four years to train. All it takes is one good montage.
one good montage
one good montage
one good montage
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More on the schism:
A Politico (http://www.mlive.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2008/11/the_gops_path_back_from_the_wi.html) piece, which is right that the Republican Party needs to modernize but, IMO, wrong in its examples. I maintain that the victories of JFK, Clinton, and Obama (and, for that matter, Reagan) have much less to do with their politics than their charisma. If being moderate were enough to win an election, Kerry would have done it.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20081109_Chris_Satullo__Amid_finger-pointing__conservative_rumination.html) has another take, which gets to the heart of the matter:
Some conservative thinkers - particularly those such as George Will, Kathleen Parker, Christopher Buckley and David Brooks, who broke ranks over the Sarah Palin nomination - seem eager to get down to the hard work.
Others would rather just fit Palin for the mantle of savior, apparently content with a rump conservatism that is small-town, resentful, anti-intellectual, and lily white.
Barack Obama must be quietly saying to himself: Go ahead, make my day.
And The Miami Herald (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/763500.html) has a good overview of the warring ideologies:
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the head of the most conservative faction of Senate Republicans, said the Democratic election gains vindicated his hard-edged call for a return to the Reaganite roots of limited government and low taxes.
"We have got to clean up, reform and rebuild before we can ask the American people to trust us again," DeMint said. "This election reflects a failure of Republicans to keep their conservative promises."
It's the old "We'll DIG our way out of this hole!" strategy.
David Frum, a conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, sees broader forces at work.
Republicans, Frum said, must move beyond their base of white, middle-aged men epitomized by "Joe the Plumber," the Ohioan whom McCain made famous during his campaign.
"College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats, but that their values are under threat from Republicans," Frum wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph of London. "There are more and more college-educated voters."
If GOP leaders want to pursue them, Frum said, "This will involve painful change on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. It will involve even more painful changes of style and tone - toward a future that is less overtly religious ... and less polarizing on social issues."
[...]
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who was elected to his second term Tuesday, said the noisy, Republican-led defeat of immigration revisions last year helped erase the gains that Bush had made among Hispanic voters.
Less than one-third of Latinos voted for McCain, down from the 44 percent share that Bush had in 2004. Hispanics helped Obama win Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, which Bush had carried.
"Our brand label with Hispanics is way down," Graham said. "It's one thing to reform a broken (immigration) system. It's another thing to single out one group in a way that they feel threatened."
Bill Greener, a Republican consultant from Alexandria, said Obama had targeted younger voters via text-messaging and cutting-edge online communications.
Obama also took advantage of the growing number of states that allow pre-Election Day voting, Greener said.
"We are getting crushed in early voting and the efficient use of technology," he said. "It's a huge deal when the other side is text-messaging to cell phones while our side is hoping we've got a good e-mail list."
And The Arizona Republic (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2008/11/09/20081109mccain-campaign1109.html) -- McCain's hometown paper, mind -- has a pretty good analysis which boils down to "He probably would have lost anyway, between Bush's fuckups and the economic meltdown in September, but his very bad campaign did not do him any favors."
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And The Miami Herald (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/763500.html) has a good overview of the warring ideologies:
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the head of the most conservative faction of Senate Republicans, said the Democratic election gains vindicated his hard-edged call for a return to the Reaganite roots of limited government and low taxes.
"We have got to clean up, reform and rebuild before we can ask the American people to trust us again," DeMint said. "This election reflects a failure of Republicans to keep their conservative promises."
It's the old "We'll DIG our way out of this hole!" strategy.
I'm not sure what other viable options they have. They certainly don't want to become "Democrats-Lite" as we see how well that worked for the Dems in 2000-2004. As long as the return to their roots ignores the crazy religious minority, it might be successful.
Of course the economic turmoil is working against any sort of legitimacy they had in that regard, but it's still possible for them to form a viable alternative after some time. The problem is a lack of fresh blood in the ranks, and not many new people want to join the sinking ship. If they suffer more losses in Congress in 2010, maybe there will be a split, but that depends a lot on the circumstances of that time. We'll just have to see.
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I'm not sure what other viable options they have. They certainly don't want to become "Democrats-Lite" as we see how well that worked for the Dems in 2000-2004. As long as the return to their roots ignores the crazy religious minority, it might be successful.
A fair point, and actually the next part where he talks about how the bailout is a massive insult to fiscal conservatism is on the mark.
However, Jim DeMint is NOT just a fiscal conservative. PBS (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/key-races/sc_senate.html):
He has opposed all forms of abortion, gay marriage and created controversy earlier in the campaign when he said openly gay individuals and single mothers should not teach in public schools.
He's not advocating ignoring the crazy religious minority, he IS the crazy religious minority.
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The problem is that the Republican party, in theory, have the advantage in two important areas: economy and security. This is where they ought to have considerable strength, since the opposition's specialties - social programs, progress, foofy-ass stuff like that - are a mixed bag at best, while having a strong economy and strong army are 100% gud.
Where it all collapses is that niggling little thing called the truth: the Republican Party of today absolutely sucks on the things they're running on. They've a demonstrated tendency to fuck the economy - not just recently, but pretty much starting with Reagan, who more or less kicked the GOP into the gear it's been stuck in ever since, bless his rotting heart - and it's starting set in on people's minds that Republican terms are not exactly remembered as peaceful. I mean, which of these things are not like the other: Iran-Contra, Operation Desert Storm, Monica Lewinski, and 9/11?
FUN FACT: Not 100% related, but found on Wikipedia while skimming through the Desert Storm article.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
I'm now convinced that anybody nominated to run for an Executive Branch position in the GOP is immediately killed and replaced with a Bizarro clone.
Apparently at one point they wanted to run MJ...
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Right. September, when the media narrative abruptly changed from "lipstick on a pig" to "HOLY FUCK OUR ECONOMY IS TANKING", was a reminder that reality eventually catches up.
Another thing I've noted is that people don't vote based on abstract concepts, they vote on concrete, immediate things. Republicans have advantages on the visceral front -- terrorists want to kill you, you are paying people on welfare not to work, foreigners are stealing your jobs. Democrats respond to these claims with nuance, and most people don't want nuance, they go with their gut.
But with the economy in the shitter, the worm has turned. The Democrats are the ones who now have the advantage of gut politics: you're losing money, it's the fault of the Republicans, you deserve a tax cut and the richest people in the country don't.
Obama's a master at this -- McCain still polled ahead of him on foreign policy when all was said and done, but his "We need to get out of Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan" was a message most Americans can get behind.
Nuance is absolutely necessary for competent governance, but it's not a good way to win elections.
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you deserve a tax cut and the richest people in the country don't.
I would not call that the nuanced response. It's hipocrisy.
i like candy
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I think the message of this election was clear: America is tired of being terrified.
The Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect votes to come their way anymore. Obama's message of hope was a lot more attractive. It helped that Obama could safely blame the GOP for Everything Wrong With America.
If Obama's presidency is successful, then we've witnessed the last days of the Atwater doctrine. If any of a thousand things goes wrong, we'll probably go back to electing the craziest motherfucker in town.
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he Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect more than 48% of the vote.
They didn't exactly get overwhelmed in this election, it just looks that way on our stupid Electoral maps.
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(http://kazz.rooms.cwal.net/electoral.png)
California is going to rampage through the west there. Blue is probably well on its way to another card set, too.
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Depending on the route California takes, Texas could prove troublesome
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They didn't exactly get overwhelmed in this election, it just looks that way on our stupid Electoral maps.
A loss of six Senate seats (possibly nine) and twenty House seats (possibly twenty-two), right after mid-term losses of six Senate seats and thirty-one House seats. 2010 is shaping up to be an even larger bloodbath.
Granted, 58 million voted for McCain, but the margins weren't high enough in the correct areas. Technically speaking, they were overwhelmed on every front.
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6% is a very solid win in the popular vote. And 52% is the highest majority we've had since Bush Senior.
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Due entirely to lack of attractive third parties, mind. It's a wide enough lead that you could never have blamed a loss on Nader though. Perot maybe.
Either way, Obama won the popular vote by 6 points. Clinton won by 8 in 1996, and that was considered a landslide. And this time we're not talking about a popular incumbent.
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I think the message of this election was clear: America is tired of being terrified.
The Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect votes to come their way anymore. Obama's message of hope was a lot more attractive.
Nice sentiment, but bullshit (http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=189163&title=Obama-and-Palin-Rallies-of-Fear).
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I think what we see there is the part of America that loves being terrified, and the part that is scared of those people. I'm not sure that's the same thing.
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Of course there's a difference between rational and irrational fear.
But they're both still fear.
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Naturally, each side believes the other's irrational.
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True. But all signs point to the side that believes the Earth is more than 10,000 years old being right.
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NYT: G.O.P. Needs to Change, Pawlenty Tells Governors (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/politics/13govs.html?ref=politics)
“[W]e cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward.”
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Easy.
White males get two votes from now on!
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Four if you own land, yo.
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How many if you head an organization that's simultaneously a church and a reasonably successful corporation?
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It doesn't matter. They'd just do write-in votes for David Miscavige regardless.
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Four if you own land, yo.
How many votes do we have to give to white guys to restore the ratio to three-fifths? :slow:
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B-but that's only for determining legislative branch seats?
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Newsweek has Rove's spin (http://www.newsweek.com/id/169173) on the party's problems. Not sure if anyone in his party still cares what he has to say, but I think his strategy is one to watch.
I think it's the wrong one -- he buries the "let's still cater to the lunatic fringe" talk at the end of the article, but it's in there.
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Suggestions that we abandon social conservatism, including our pro-life agenda, should be ignored. These values are often more popular than the GOP itself. The age of sonograms has made younger voters a more pro-life generation. And California and Florida approved marriage amendments while McCain lost both states. Republicans, in championing our values agenda, need to come across as morally serious rather than as judgmental. More than 4 million Americans who go to church more than once a week and voted in 2004 stayed home in 2008. They represented half the margin between Obama and McCain.
That's not buried. That's shouting from the rooftops.
I am tired of the idea that faith means hate. I'm not a Christian, but I'm pretty sure that Jesus had other ideas.
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The younger generation is more pro-life? Really? Is that just because most of them wouldn't be alive if not for the pro-lifers?
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Does that imply that most of the younger generation should have been aborted?
Because I concur.
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California and Florida approved marriage amendments
Is he talking about Prop8 and its equivalent?
There's another reason why governors' races and state legislative seats must be a priority in 2010: redistricting and reapportionment in 2011. Seven electoral votes (and congressional seats) are projected to move from mostly blue to mostly red states, and every House district will be redrawn.
Because I'm the kind of feeb that only gets his news from the goddamn dailyshow and your rants, I'd only barely heard about how the dramatically changed political landscape of Texas, and most of the south, thanks to the hurricane. Now that the many republican burned people of New Orleans have been scattered around the south, I hear they've been upsetting previously unambiguously red states. I should have figured that Rove would realize this and move to marginalize these refugees.
Gov. Sarah Palin will be held to a higher standard than she was during her nine-week vice presidential campaign
Rove does not like her, I think.
President Obama and the Democrats in Congress will, fairly or not, own every problem that emerges.
Just like those infamous terrorist attacks were Clinton's fault, I suppose.
Hm, he does make a wise point recognizing the power of the internet, which Obama has really capitalized on. However, I wonder if he's not drawing a false correlation. It's obvious that some democrats are just as sheepish as your average FOX-wuvin' republican, so I wonder if his suggestion is the same as a Democratic strategist suggesting popular democrats need to go on FOX more often.
Then again, I see that fstdt.org isn't at a loss for quotes, so maybe I'm expecting too much out of the internet.
EDIT:
Moved shit around and this one:
As the party of Lincoln
Fuck this line. It's the most inane thing that I've ever had the misfortune of having heard parroted over and over and over and over and over and over.
I'm not sure why they expect people not to notice the dramatic difference in the base of the modern republican party from the base it had in the 1800s, but whenever I hear it I want to claw eyes out.
Should probably be in pet peeves.
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Yeah, but they still get to say it. Dicks.
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Rove does not like her, I think.
Yeah, I thought that was a neat way for him to dance around that particular issue. But then, that's what he gets paid for.
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I am tired of the idea that faith means hate. I'm not a Christian, but I'm pretty sure that Jesus had other ideas.
Since when do Christians actually remember the teachings of their messiah? Especially when they can misinterpret a book from a foreign culture which they just had to write a sequel to. Or that part of that canonical Fan-fiction which was obviously written by a guy having a bad trip.
But the "faith means hate" bit probably stems from self-doubt. It's easy to say someone else is wrong, but it's harder to say "I am right and there is absolutely no way I possibly could be wrong despite no supporting evidence whatsoever!" So in blind hatred of someone who is unquestionably "wrong" one can forget their own self-conflicts (and the important details of the matter) and thus feel like they're worth a damn.
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You guys realize that almost all the documented tenets of most organized religion in the world is the result of thousands of years of "arguing-on-the-internet before there was arguing-on-the-internet", right? There is nothing a body can say, no matter how complex, no matter how simple, that can't be twisted, rationalized, debated, spun, edited, selectively quoted, abbreviated, appended to, misunderstood, or otherwise turned on its head.
Seems there's no message that can survive the death of it's creator untainted.
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The idea of a message being untainted goes against everything we know about communication. Things are completely reinterpreted the second they're passed on, let alone years after someone's death.
There's children's games that teach this.
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:OoO:
Tic-Tac-Toe?
Coincidentally, the *'s contraction isn't quite the one you're looking for.
EDIT:
But when he thinks about it, he's not sure if There are takes that contraction. He is looking it up.
EDIT EDIT:
Fuk me (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/apostrophe.htm). Ignore stupids plz.
EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Fuck you too, now I want to play some freakish combination of telephone and tic-tac-toe.
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Rove does not like her, I think.
Oh, he DESPISES the fundamentalists, but pays them lip service because he believes they're necessary to the party.
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But I mean... Why then include them in his advice? Why should he believe this?
Is his assessment that the loss was due to low base turnout accurate? Or do you suppose the party lost a lot of their normal base?
Little note of Joy: Republican lawyer acquaintance, known through Roast Beef, actually voted Democratic this cycle because he found McCain's gas sales tax break to be the most profoundly stupid thing he had ever heard.
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But I mean... Why then include them in his advice? Why should he believe this?
Oh, he DESPISES the fundamentalists, but pays them lip service because he believes they're necessary to the party.
Also: you've used "Democrat" as an adjective twice in six hours. Stop it.
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My entire family votes Republican, I was under the impression it was both a noun and an adjective. Fixed now anyway.
Also, no, I actually read your post this time. I'm confused as to WHY he believes they're necessary.
Why should he believe this?
This seems like an ideal time to cast them off as chaff. But he believes that demographic is needed and they need to be somewhat catered to and I don't know why.
This nugget stuck out with me:
Pro-life stance more popular than republi-something something something
Is it possible that he feels the fringe which he so despises represents an uncomfortably potent intersection on some kind of magical "issues that will make people vote for you without regard for anything else" Venn diagram that for every intellectual and idealogical concession he and the party make to that fringe another huge demographic will join them based on just one or two of their concessions to that group?
...
...
That didn't really make sense.
Could he believe that the full set of concessions needed to win the fringe contain several subsets of concessions that will hold the vote for a large number of people even if they don't agree with any concessions outside of their requisite subset?
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Because there aren't enough rich white people to carry the GOP by themselves. They need to secure the crazy vote as well.
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Because there aren't enough rich white people to carry the GOP by themselves. They need to secure the crazy vote as well.
That's the gist. The party's relied on the evangelical vote for 40 years now; finding a new way to win elections without that large constituency is a very daunting task, and it's not going to happen right away.
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I was hoping
your the answer wasn't quite that simple, but thanks.
Also, is he right about their being a relatively low base turnout for the Republicans this cycle, and any idea what caused it?
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McCain has never been the friend of the evangelicals.
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Yes, but Palin is their favorite person in the whole world right now.
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Which is really kind of odd because, you know, woman.
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A woman who knows her place, though.
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CBS (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/16/ftn/main4607907.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4607907): Jindal weighs in.
"Number one, we have got to stop defending the kind of spending and out-of-control spending that we would never tolerate in the other side. You know, when voters tell us that they trust Democrats more to cut their taxes [and] control spending, that tells you something is wrong with the Republican Party. We've got to match our actions with our rhetoric.
"Number two, we've got to stop defending the kinds of corruption we would rightfully criticize in the other party. The week before the election, our most senior senator is convicted on federal charges - and that's only the latest example.
"Number three, we have got to be the party that offers real solutions to the problems that American voters, American families are worried about. We don't need to abandon our conservative principles; we can't just be the 'party of no.' We need to offer real solutions on making health care more affordable, on the economic challenges facing families, on the international threats."
Jindal is one of the guys to watch. He's young, he's a minority, and he's a popular governor -- and this proves he can make himself sound moderate when he wants to. But the thing is, he's not -- he's far-right and part of the problem.
Essentially he's got much the same list of positives and negatives as Palin, except that he's not as dumb as she is. I think he's a poor choice to help bring his party out of the wilderness, but he's at least paying lip service to what needs to change.
He seems to be echoing Rove's sentiments, so I'd say there are good odds this is the message the Republicans are going to start coalescing around.
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Furthering the Jindal movement? Newt!
Gingrich... took Palin down a notch... “I think that she is going to be a significant player,” said Gingrich during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “But she’s going to be one of 20 or 30 significant players. She’s not going to be the de facto leader.”
...
“If you want to understand healthcare, you can do a lot worse than to bring in Bobby Jindal who may well know more about health policy than any other elected official in America and is doing an extraordinary job in Louisiana.”
Gingrich/Jindal '12, book it. Yet another party elder that dumped their wife, running with a young and supposedly beloved governor, who happens to know more about _____ policy than any other elected official in America. Ho-hum.
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Which is precisely why I DON'T think it'll happen.
Newt's gotten really good at figuring out which way the wind's blowing (a skill that would have done him some good when he wasted all his political capital). He hinted strongly that he was going to run in '08, but backed off for the simple reason that he realized there was no way he could win.
He's waiting for his moment. He knew this wasn't it and I think he'll realize '12 isn't it either.
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All the signs I've seen point to Gingrich actively subverting the McCain campaign this year (with help from the Romney camp) for his 2012 run. 2016 is simply too late into the game, as he'll be older than McCain is now.
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It's clear that I'm assuming reasonable success for the president-elect, but does Newt really have the kind of earth shattering charisma to go up against Obama as an incumbent?
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Newt had boundless success by opposing a popular incumbent a decade ago. 2012 or bust.
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All the signs I've seen point to Gingrich actively subverting the McCain campaign this year (with help from the Romney camp) for his 2012 run. 2016 is simply too late into the game, as he'll be older than McCain is now.
Hm, didn't realize he was that old. Then yeah, he'll run in '12 whether it looks like a good idea or not.
It's clear that I'm assuming reasonable success for the president-elect, but does Newt really have the kind of earth shattering charisma to go up against Obama as an incumbent?
Newt had boundless success by opposing a popular incumbent a decade ago. 2012 or bust.
Arc's being glib (or has his years wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's being glib). Newt's opposition to Clinton in '94 made his career; his opposition to him in '95 started the slow burn that destroyed it by '98.
Fresh off a rousing victory in '94, Gingrich misread the tea leaves and squandered his political capital playing a game of chicken with Clinton. Gingrich was pushing for a budget with heavy cuts to social programs; Clinton threatened a veto. Gingrich responded by refusing to submit a revised budget and letting parts of the federal government shut down.
This backfired, massively; it was seen for the political grandstanding it was. Newt, of course, shot himself and his entire party in the foot by publicly stating that he was mad at Clinton for making him sit at the back of Air Force One.
Clinton got reelected in a walk and the Dems picked up 8 seats in the House (though they lost 2 in the Senate).
And then of course Newt got hit with 84 ethics charges and it was pretty much all over.
All that to say:
2012 or bust.
Republicans, PLEASE nominate this man.
(I am pretty sure they won't.)
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hey speaking of that guy
"I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion." (http://wonkette.com/404429/newt-gingrich-very-concerned-about-what-now-the-gays)
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Wow, somebody's projecting.
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hey speaking of that guy
"I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion." (http://wonkette.com/404429/newt-gingrich-very-concerned-about-what-now-the-gays)
God dammit. I sometimes like to think that the recent nosedive into fundamentalism by the Republican party is an aberration, and that as recently as a decade ago, things were better. This view was apparently a romantic one, as they were just as batshit back in the Clinton years. Maybe they hid it better back then.
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The Christian fundamentalism thing has been going on since Reagan, really.
There's a lot of stuff I hate about the Republican party that can have "since Reagan" attached, really.
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Nixon got the ball rolling.
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hey speaking of that guy
"I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion." (http://wonkette.com/404429/newt-gingrich-very-concerned-about-what-now-the-gays)
as usual he is right and i am it
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second
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Willis (http://www.oliverwillis.com/2008/11/18/how-obama-got-elected-the-rights-delusions/) links How Obama Got Elected (http://howobamagotelected.com/), a right-wing video pushing the notion that Obama only won because the media is liberal and voters are dumb.
This is another one of those "We only failed because we weren't nasty ENOUGH" things. Again, if this becomes CW, the party will continue to fail.
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I'm only going to support the gay fascists if they use your avatar as their symbol, Nor.
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please donate to the cause with all the generosity in your heart
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Willis links How Obama Got Elected
Nate Silver (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/interview-with-john-ziegler-on-zogby.html) just posted his interview with John Ziegler, the site's founder. Turns nasty quite quickly.
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Nate Silver [NS]: Were only Obama supporters interviewed for the [Zogby] survey, or was everyone interviewed?
John Ziegler [JZ]: The reason why I interviewed Obama supporters only is because I’m doing a documentary on the media coverage of the campaign and how the media coverage of the campaign impacted what Obama supporters knew or thought they knew about the campaign.
Aha, so right off the bat he admits to having no control group. And pulls the old "If you want to argue with me you're going to have to conduct your own survey, at your own expense." Shades of Guild.
And then of course there's the fact that Zogby polls are notoriously unreliable anyway.
I had a person who was working with me who happens to be a black female since you seem to think I’m a racist
...My Republican grandmother once told me that Evan Mecham, the governor famous for opposing the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, wasn't really racist because he employed black people.
NS: What types of media would you consider credible?
JZ: I think you need a variety of sources, but I do not accept the notion that if it's not in the New York Times it's not true and if it is in the New York Times it is. Just because Sean Hannity says something doesn't mean it’s not true.
:strawman:
Aaaand it deteriorates from there.
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how can you possibly refute the fact that being in physical proximity to a minority at some point in your life PROVES you are incapable of a racist thought, Thad
I'm waiting
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I'm fed up with this "liberal media" line. Baww, we can't be wrong - the TV must be lying to us! And the newspapers. Except when they aren't.
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[Opinion that differs from my own]
That damn media, misleading the public that way!
[Opinion similar to my own]
Finally! Someone who tells it like it is!
All sides are guilty of this.
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But the news is supposed to present fact, not opinion.
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Why must the facts hate America?
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True. Real news are not things anyone can sensibly disagree with, any more than you can disagree that water is wet or that the sun is hot.
(Cue Guild saying that the sun is actually rather cool and that it's the friction of its rays against space particles that makes it seem hot.)
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I don't want Guild to be discussing his "hot thin rubber" theory.
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The problem is that at some point it was decided people want Analysis in their news, so it's no longer acceptable to just report something, they have to have some fucking windbag babble on about what they think about it. Then they will sometimes get two windbags to argue about it loudly.
It's 99 percent drivel, and is primarily there for sheer visceral entertainment.
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...My Republican grandmother once told me that Evan Mecham, the governor famous for opposing the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, wasn't really racist because he employed black people.
...
"I've got black friends. I employ black people. I don't employ them because they are black; I employ them because they are the best people who applied for the cotton-picking job."[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_mecham#cite_note-Evan_Mecham.2C_Please_Go_Home-24)
...did he say what I think he said? Please tell me I had too many beans in my ears.
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That's Southern for "fucking", but yeah, really poor word choice. Or proper word choice, given the speaker's general disposition.
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oh man. I totally missed that.
I know it's lost this usage in modern times thanks to modern folk only being familiar with it through colorful redneck cartoon stereotypes like Yosemite Sam, but three guesses as to how it became an epithet in the first place, folks.
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More from Silver (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/did-talk-radio-kill-conservatism.html): he suggests Ziegler's meltdown was due to his background as a talk radio host. He notes that being a radio host requires you to grab the attention of people who are multitasking, all based entirely on the sound of your voice, and that shouting and smugness do a much better job of this than reasoned debate.
He further suggests that this is the basis for the current GOP bubble; from talk radio to its visual equivalent on Fox News, they've drank the Kool-Aid and are no longer living on the same plane of existence as the rest of us. (Of course, their victory in '04 and "victory" in '00 reinforced their worldview.) Ziegler's reaction on being challenged isn't to defend his positions rationally, it's to wave his arms and claim they're indisputable common knowledge, and then to tell his interviewer to go fuck himself. But Silver suggests it's a lot bigger than Ziegler, and that you can see this sort of thinking in McCain's failure of a campaign strategy.
Related: PZ Myers at ScienceBlogs (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/the_wall_street_journal_editor.php) (the same guy I linked observing Palin mocking science (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=684.msg37257#msg37257)) notes an op-ed in the WSJ that says,
Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max.
Apparently the guy didn't get the memo that even Bill O'Reilly gave up on the "war on Christmas" nonsense.
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The GOP was really rather good at dominating the political landscape when it was all about the advertising. In the 80s and 90s (and probably the 60s and 70s too) the only way you could get your message across was to be the person with the most money to bid on airtime. Now any little shit with a webcam can do it almost as effectively, and it's changing the message.
Which is not to say the Dems are an unstoppable force now. Playing against the interests of the people with money hurt them for sure, but the real problem is and has always been the ivory tower attitude. They are "above" doing the sort of base attention-getting described above, and that's going to come back and bite them in the ass again if they're not careful, because cheap tricks work just as well on the internet as anywhere else. Obama's like this too, but he manages to do well for himself by being exceptionally better than the opposition at what he does and taking full advantage of the fact that they haven't caught up with the changing landscape yet. But you can only shrug off so many low blows; eventually he and the rest of the party are going to have to learn to play the same game. Clinton could, and for the most part he could handle it; he fell off the slippery slope more often than anybody's comfortable with, but on the whole I think we're still better off for it.
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See, people -- myself included -- have been saying that for the past year, and Obama's done just fine staying above the fray. At this point I have to assume he knows what he's doing.
The GOP's lack of understanding on new media is only part of why it failed. I think it did a great job of running a smear campaign -- everybody knows about Ayers and ACORN, and a whole lot of people still think Obama is a secret Muslim --, the problem is that campaigns like that don't work in the middle of an economic crisis. Manufactured controversies CAN be made to overshadow real controversies -- they did in '04 -- but it's a lot harder when your opponent is savvy and on-message and the crisis is hitting people hard right now.
I don't know what the landscape's going to look like in 4 years. My hunch is Obama won't be as popular as he is now but will still be a popular President, and the Republicans won't be able to produce a competent challenger. In a situation like that, there's no reason to go negative, except to do what Obama did this time: point out that his opponent is talking about bullshit when there are real problems to worry about.
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...You know, I remember the phrase "Newt's lesbian sister (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/candace-gingrich/a-letter-to-my-brother-ne_b_145739.html)" from Rent, but I always thought it was a joke.
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So apparently the new head of the Republican National Committee tried to win an election by hiring people to hand out pamphlets to the poor and homeless that said he was a Democrat.
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There comes a point where you no longer feel like you're exaggerating when you call it the Lies and Bullshit Party.
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hi, welcome to 15 years ago.
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Yeah, he ran, unsuccessfully, for Governor of Maryland a couple years back (think it was '06 but it might have been '04), and his campaign largely consisted of pretending to be a Democrat.
He also got Mike Tyson and Don King to campaign for him -- I remember Oliver Willis commenting something to the effect of, "Oh good, you got a convicted rapist AND a convicted murderer to endorse you!" Basically he insulted black voters' intelligence and banked on getting their votes by virtue of being black and knowing other famous black people.
...I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of Tim Meadows on The Colbert Report in the coming weeks.
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I felt this was the Republican Topic so.
Republicans think GOP should be MORE conservative (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/republicans_like_gop_s_conservative_direction_democrats_don_t)
This confirms obvious things but OH HEY NUMBERS.
I forget how accurate Rasmussen is so feel free to yell at me.
Put them all together, and 42% of voters say the GOP has been too conservative in the last eight years, 29% say too moderate, 16% about right, and 13% are not sure. Thirty-six percent (36%) say the party should become more like Palin, 32% like McCain, seven percent (7%) like Bush, and 25% are undecided.
...
Fifty-one percent (51%) of Republicans have a Very Favorable regard for Palin, while an identical number of Democrats (51%) hold a Very Unfavorable view.
Palin fares better with unaffiliated voters, too. For McCain, unaffiliateds break 10% Very Favorable and eight percent (8%) Very Unfavorable. But 35% of unaffiliated voters have a Very Favorable opinion of Palin, compared to 15% who have a Very Unfavorable view.
...
Just 15% of Evangelical Christian voters feel that the Republican Party has been too conservative for the past eight years, while 50% think it has been too moderate. By contrast, pluralities of other Protestant voters (40%) and Catholics (38%) feel the party has gone too far to the right.
That last one must sting. But still-
Younger voters are more likely than their elders to think the GOP has been too conservative during the Bush years, but voters in nearly all age groups are more closely divided on the future direction of the party between McCain and Palin.
There is hope! Perhaps someday the Republicans will be a respectable conservative party, like the Tories*!
*Any country.
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...in fairness, Steele is the single most middle-of-the-road candidate the RNC had.
I still think he was picked for his race rather than his politics, but I could be wrong.
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Not that I agree that all out classical conservativism is the way to go to fix our problems right now, but "more conservative" is actually a legitimate call to make, seeing as how the Republicans have been anything but in recent times.
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Not that I agree that all out classical conservativism is the way to go to fix our problems right now, but "more conservative" is actually a legitimate call to make, seeing as how the Republicans have been anything but in recent times.
They don't mean real conservative. They mean more like Palin.
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Y'know where I said "Republicans have been anything but in recent times"?
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You also put quotes around "more conservative" suggesting you were talking about the actual call made by those in the article, which has nothing to do with classical conservativism.
Really I'm kind of surprised we let the article fall off the top of the page. We could be making daily updates on this stuff.
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We could be making daily updates on this stuff.
Or we could let the GOP eat itself.
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Not that I agree that all out classical conservativism is the way to go to fix our problems right now, but "more conservative" is actually a legitimate call to make, seeing as how the Republicans have been anything but in recent times.
What do you mean by "conservative" in this case?
Bush seemed to follow socially conservative domestic policy and a military-focused (instead of a social program focused) budget policy. Please note that fiscal conservatism meaning reduce debt has been dead since Nixon and has been redefined as tax cuts.
This is the platform that Republicans seem to run on. This was Reagan's platform, in fact. It's just that Bush has no charisma and Reagan had the political sense to use proxy wars for his aggressive foreign policy.
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Basically? A tempered form of Libertarianism.
Yes, many of it's tenets have been dead since the 50's-70's. But I think there's plenty of votes that could be grabbed by a shift in that direction. It's been so long since classical 20th century Conservatism had a a legitimate voice that it could actually seem new again.
Anyway, I don't think that's a good idea for the COUNTRY to go in, just that it could be a strong and viable idea for the Republicans to rebuild on. I think it would require an Obama-level of forthrightness though. You would have to communicate that tax cuts come with a price elsewhere. So that might kill it outright. Regan-esque vote purchasing is far easier to sell.
But then, that's a large part of what got us into this mess.
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Frank Rich op-ed (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15rich.html) points out that the Republicans fell all over themselves fighting the stimulus, failed to stop it, and are now patting themselves on the back for their victory, and that the chattering class declared Obama's presidency a failure just days before he steamrolled his political opponents AGAIN.
It seems like people aren't getting their opinions from the TV news so much anymore.
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I think it could count as giving the Republicans an advantage, because: given how strongly some polls have reported the stimulus as being very unpopular, and how few Republicans voted for it, they will have an easy time blaming the bill on Democrats come November 2010.
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1. What polls are those?
This barrage did shave a few points off the stimulus’s popularity in polls, but its approval rating still remained above 50 percent in all (Gallup, CNN, Pew, CBS) but one of them (Rasmussen, the sole poll the G.O.P. cites).
2. Any advantage the Republicans get out of this is going to be short-lived if the economy improves. Clinton's 1993 budget passed the House without any Republican votes, and the GOP did pretty well for itself in '94 -- but I think it's pretty safe to say Clinton was vindicated in the long term. And has been DOUBLY vindicated now that everyone's been reminded what happens to the economy when Republicans are in charge.
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Huh. Nevermind, then. I was acting on false information.
Of course, I still express extreme skepticism that eight hundred billion dollars of pork will help anything, but that is neither here nor there.
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Huh. Nevermind, then. I was acting on false information.
Of course, I still express extreme skepticism that eight hundred billion dollars of pork will help anything, but that is neither here nor there.
It's not really pork in the classic sense. Last I heard there were 0 earmarks on the thing, which is frankly astonishing. Of course the GoP has been lying like crazy about that.
Incedently, congressional GOPs are at a net -50 approval rating right now, which is kind of mind boggling. It means that about 2/3rd of the remaining hard line republicans approve of theme, the other third is neutral, and EVERYBODY ELSE disaproves of their job performance. Bush never made it that low.
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The "O" in "GOP" should be capitalized; it stands for "Old," not "of." As in "Grand Old Party," despite being the younger of the two.
Hasn't Congress' overall performance rating been in the shitter lately? I seem to remember seeing that statistic somewhere, but, understandably, I am now beginning to question my memory of such statistics.
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The "O" in "GOP" should be capitalized; it stands for "Old," not "of." As in "Grand Old Party," despite being the younger of the two.
Hasn't Congress' overall performance rating been in the shitter lately? I seem to remember seeing that statistic somewhere, but, understandably, I am now beginning to question my memory of such statistics.
Yeah "GoP" was a typo. I capitalized it right later in the post and in my previous posts.
Congress approval ratings are always in the shitter, people are never really sure what congress is doing other than not what they want, so it's where all dissatisfaction with the government goes.
Nancy Pelosi has a positive net approval rating (by two points!) right now, which might actually be more surprising than the GOP being at net -50. I honestly don't know the last time that's happened, I'm not even sure her predecessor ever had positive approval ratings. And while the democratic congress does have a net negative approval rating, it's only about -14, which is decent for congressional approval ratings. The Democratic Party is at +20 approval rating while the GOP is at -30, and there really aren't any signs that the GOP's unpopularity has bottomed out yet.
The Republicans are really going to have to work hard to grow their brand again or they're going to be fucked for the next two elections. Right now it looks like the Dems may very well pick up another 4-6 seats in 2010, and while 2012 is forever away, unless something drastic happens they're going to have the Obama bump working for them again. Hell 2014 could be bad for the GOP too, considering that should be the first election after time at which a lot of economists are predicting our economy will recover, and whether or not they're actually responsible, Obama and the Dems are probably going to get the credit for that.
I'm not sure what happens if they GOP falls under 30 seats in the senate. We've already got the most lopsided congress since 1977 which was voted in following Nixon's resignation. If it gets more lopsided, which seems entirely likely, you have to go back to the 1965 congress that was elected following Kennedy's death. We could very well pass that even, which means you're looking at 1935-1941 congress under FDR, when the GOP almost collapsed.
Even in 77 it was a totally different era, much less in 35. I'm just not sure how you build a national presence when you fall that far behind in the modern era.
If a right or center third party ever wanted a shot at supplanting the republicans then the next few elections are probably as good as they'll get in the foreseeable future.
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Frank Rich op-ed (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15rich.html)
Goldmine.
(http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo22/driftycity/15blittAlarge.jpg)
(http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo22/driftycity/15blittBlarge.jpg)
The piece expresses numerous thoughts of my own, all but ignored by the oddball talking heads on the boobtube. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the article to forward on to your crazed aunt who sends you Obama Mooslim chain mails and the like. Hitting upon a gauntlet of subjects, Rich leaves no prisoners, past, present, nor future.
The most important point?
Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.
There's a reason why Rahm Emanuel is crowing to the Wall Street Journal. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123449249590080699.html) The first paragraph is the giveaway:
Emanuel conceded that the White House "lost" four days of the clash, but said it was because Obama focused too much on bipartisanship at the expense of talking up the benefits of the still-emerging proposal.
:itsmagic: Thank you for unanimously opposing popular legislation!
:gay4: No traps here, no siree.
Clinton's 1993 budget passed the House without any Republican votes,
219-213 in the House, and Gore had to break the tie in the Senate, eight months into the Clinton presidency. His failed sixteen billion dollar stimulus, from the April before, (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DC1F38F931A15757C0A965958260) was due to a similar Republican glut. That Obama passed his stimulus twice as fast, and nearly fifty times as large, only further emboldens the words of Axelrod in the Rich piece, and David Plouffe's off - the - record comments: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/plouffe-palin-was-our-bes_n_166683.html)
"What we were focused on... was really not what was coming out of the coverage every day, and our candidate was very good about it. ... The McCain campaign was much more focused on putting ads out to dominate cable chatter for a few hours. ... That was never what we thought was important."
"You put out a snarky TV ad or something controversial, that's all NBC, CNN and Fox are talking about, but that's not how you win elections. I think that discipline paid off."
The audience for these 24/7 news stations are only so large, and only so persuasive. When a populace is facing (non-ignorable) difficulties day after day, the effectiveness of doublethink deteriorates exponentially.
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The most important point?
Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.
There's a reason why Rahm Emanuel is crowing to the Wall Street Journal. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123449249590080699.html) The first paragraph is the giveaway:
Emanuel conceded that the White House "lost" four days of the clash, but said it was because Obama focused too much on bipartisanship at the expense of talking up the benefits of the still-emerging proposal.
:itsmagic: Thank you for unanimously opposing popular legislation!
:gay4: No traps here, no siree.
And any Republican whining about a lack of bipartisanship is going to look awfully silly, at least to people who have attention spans and trouble maintaining cognitive dissonance.
OTOH, they've still got filibuster power, and if Reid's going to successfully make them look like petty obstructionists he's going to have to show the balls to make them ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER.
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Oh, the Republicans were squawking on about being cut out of the process (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30667) just last week. This is despite the Democratic leadership claiming that Obama met with them more in the past two weeks than Bush ever met with Democrats during his entire reign. Republicans aren't losing sleep over looking silly, because of their flawed assumption that the media can make up people's minds for them.
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Did anyone post the thing with Pete Sessions saying the Republicans should be more like the Taliban? I kind of assumed it'd already be old news by now.
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Which ties in nicely with our current topic, since it was in 'response' to the 'lack of bipartisan outreach'.
(http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2009/02/sessions_gop_in.php)
"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."
:wat: Who would want to act in a bipartisan fashion after reading that?
:itsmagic: Well, we must work to change the fundamental gridlock in Washington.
:disapprove: ... One slit throat at a time.
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These goons are conservatism's last hope in America. That's the part I hate most about it.
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I think clinging to the notion that there's any vestige of traditional conservatism in the modern Republican Party is just delusional at this point.
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Go libertarian, Bill. They have more respect at this point.
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The libertarians are unrealistic. What use is it to be closer to the right idea if they're not able to do anything with it? Compromise is necessary. I'll vote for a libertarian when a sane one runs in my district.
Here's something about Jeb Bush (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457271366086479.html). Submitted without comment.
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The libertarians are unrealistic. What use is it to be closer to the right idea if they're not able to do anything with it? Compromise is necessary. I'll vote for a libertarian when a sane one runs in my district.
Here's something about Jeb Bush (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457271366086479.html). Submitted without comment.
I think part of the reason libertarian candidates are so crazy is because they have to be. Running a campaign when you know you can't win isn't something reasonable people do. Especially when you consider that libertarianism isn't the most idealistic view. If the neocon elements of the Republican party continue to practice a politics that marginalizes their party, then you'll see legitimate libertarian candidates show up, either from within the party or outside of it.
Man, the Wall Street Journal really wants Jeb Bush to run for office.
Jeb talks a good game in the piece, and if Republicans are really going to make a play to be a national party again then the ideal of limited government is what they're going to have to built it on. People aren't going to want limited government for at least the next 6 years, but after that a candidate that could be legitimately believed when he talked about limited government, fiscal conservitivism, and reform might be able to play on a national stage. There is the wonderful line in there about how "there are times in history when it's important to use the power of government.", and that legitimizes his brother's spending as president. Well that line is what gave us 90% of our national debt, and it wears thin pretty quick. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a line Jeb used to not call his brother a terrible president that destroyed the GOP brand.
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Jeb Bush is trapped in a hell of a Catch-22.
If he's a smart enough man to be a worthwhile leader, he's smart enough to know that as a Bush he'll be (figuratively) dead before the first ballot.
If he's too dumb to see the baggage as insurmountable and thinks he can run, well...
I'm not sure that he will though. He needed to grab that senate seat to make the jump in a reasonable amount of time.
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People are going to have a hell of a time listening to anyone named "Bush" tell them about limiting government and fixing the economy for a good long while.
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There Thad goes overestimating the memory of the average voter again.
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I think the public will be a lot quicker to forgive the Republicans as an abstract than to forgive the Bushes specifically.
That said, Jeb's still plenty popular in Florida, and I think it'd be easy for him to get a Senate seat of he wanted one.
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I think that lowest-common-denominator-style people believe that brothers, even politician brothers of other unpopular politicians, can have different opinions and qualifications. However, as soon as somebody attempts to convince them otherwise, they will believe it's not true in this particular case. It's the sort of proposition that it's very easy to convince average voters of.
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The name's Poochie D
And I rock the telly,
I'm half Joe Camel
And a third Fonzarelli.
I'm the kung fu hippie
From gangsta city,
I'm a rappin' surfer,
You the fool I pity.
(http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/19/steele-gop-needs-hip-hop-makeover/)
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Hey, it never hurts to forget just how conservative uneducated retards of any stripe can be.
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don't link the moonies here
they'll moon us
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The name's Poochie D
And I rock the telly,
I'm half Joe Camel
And a third Fonzarelli.
I'm the kung fu hippie
From gangsta city,
I'm a rappin' surfer,
You the fool I pity.
(http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/19/steele-gop-needs-hip-hop-makeover/)
"Barrack Obama appeals to young people with his blackness!"
THIS IS WHAT REPUBLICANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE
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I think you've been reading too much Conservapedia, Doom.
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Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
There is no such thing as too much kool-aid.
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This guy is off his gourd, of course. But to generalize from that to the fifty million members of the party?
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...how do we not have an :irony: emote?
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Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman
I'm just sayin', the dudes running the party have apparently taken their catastrophic defeat as a chance to fall totally off their gourd. Whatever makes 2012 easier for Obama!
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I'm just saying, don't say "This is what [somethings] actually believe" unless, y'know, it really is. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine.
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I'll try to joke less in the future.
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Jokes are verboten in Thad's Homobortion Pot and Commie Jizzporium.
Vive l' Thad. :thad:
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I'm just saying, don't say "This is what [somethings] actually believe" unless, y'know, it really is. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine.
How did David Cross put it? "I'm not saying all Republicans are racist, sexist homophobes, just the people they choose to elect into office to represent them are."
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Allow me to attempt to clarify:
THIS IS WHAT THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP ECHELONS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WHO WILL NEVER RELINQUISH POWER TO THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER ACTUALLY BELIEVE
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The funniest part was that I thought he was making a South Park reference.
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He wasn't?
How did David Cross put it? "I'm not saying all Republicans are racist, sexist homophobes, just the people they choose to elect into office to represent them are."
Right, which brings us back to the point of the thread: the Republican Party is currently run by crazy people, and someone is probably going to have to do something about that if they want to start winning elections again.
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And why we on the radical left have a dilemma. We don't want them to win elections, but we don't want the other party of our sadly two-party system to be a bunch of neonazis and klansmen either.
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Well the first step is to get over that "we don't want them to win elections" block. If you want to be a true liberal, you have to be open-minded enough to realize a sane conservative has some valid points.
Of course one of the mistakes our current liberals make is that they believe that the insane conservatives can make valid points too.
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If you want to be a true liberal, you have to be open-minded enough to realize a sane conservative has some valid points.
No, you don't, and no, they don't.
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Hey look, an insane liberal.
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You really may as well replace 'liberal' with 'person.'
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Okay.
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The team-minded mindset, in my mind, is the thing holding this country back the most. It's a very frustrating thing to see the elected officials on either side turning down ideas they can admit are good and positive and what their constituents want because it is against their party line.
When I was doing Obama canvassing during the campaign, one day was about encouraging people to early vote, to give them basic information about how it's done, and where and when early voting took place.
We were then told not to let any McCain supporters know about early voting because it needed to be an Obama advantage. It was sickening; I was very disappointed with the idea that Obama would win based on his policy and the strength of his character was rejected by his campaign team in the area. It felt very Republican to try to win an election by denying information to the other side. I obviously didn't stick to such a ridiculous GO TEAM policy and gave the information on voting to everyone, but I can guarantee that of the nine duos that day, ours is the only one that did so, and it's a huge problem to me.
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Pure partisanship is nasty, but our system of government basically necessitates it. Until we move to a system where a spectrum of positions can get representation, you pretty much have to choose the side you think is closest to your own ideals and go for it, or throw your hands up in disgust.
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We were then told not to let any McCain supporters know about early voting because it needed to be an Obama advantage.
:whoops: Your local campaign head must've been a real winner.
Ours couldn't wrap the concept of school football games not being partisan events around her thick head. She was aghast when the administrators wouldn't let her just scream into a megaphone to Vote 'Bama.
The campaign was successful due to the candidate and upper-tier management. Not an empowering fact, but absolutely the case.
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Pure partisanship is nasty, but our system of government basically necessitates it. Until we move to a system where a spectrum of positions can get representation, you pretty much have to choose the side you think is closest to your own ideals and go for it, or throw your hands up in disgust.
For some reason this makes me think of Survivor.
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The political game is resembling TF2 more than I would like.
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Partisanship isn't really that bad considering parliamentary governments get away with ignoring the other side all the time.
The only thing to worry about is if the GOP is dumb enough to be permanently marginalized. If the Republican dominance between the American Civil War and the Great Depression is anything to go by, it'll just mean the Democratic party will become hilariously corrupt. More so as business interests migrate to where the power is.
Pure partisanship is nasty, but our system of government basically necessitates it. Until we move to a system where a spectrum of positions can get representation, you pretty much have to choose the side you think is closest to your own ideals and go for it, or throw your hands up in disgust.
The First Past the Post system precludes this from happening. Even in parliamentary government that use it, such as the UK or Canada, only have two really viable parties.
Really, even in proportional representation where third parties have much more influence, there are usually two dominant blocs. More voting power > ideological freedom of its members, usually.
Also proportional representation's benefit of stronger third parties is also its weakness. The splitting of "extreme" elements removes any moderating force. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a separate Religious Right party would gain a few more crazy points and would still be courted for their valuable votes.
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I think there's enough spread in the Democratic party that it won't really become as inbred as that - absent a strong opposition party, we'll be seeing your Clintons arguing against your Kucinichs. There isn't a single overwhelming purpose that would override dissent.
I think business interests will be less willing to attach themselves to another powerful party the way they have to Republicans, when that powerful party has such a strong "regulate and tax the fuck out of big business" contingent. More likely we'd find a libertarian party getting propped up and subsuming the older GOP.
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There isn't a single overwhelming purpose that would override dissent.
Greed.
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So apparently, on February 19th, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli made himself famous for an apparently spontaneous rant against Obama's mortgage plan, calling for people around the country to join him in having Chicago Tea Parties, events to protest the stimulus plan and government spending.
Now it appears that the entire thing is part of an elaborate Republican PR campaign (http://www.playboy.com/blog/2009/02/backstabber.html). It starts with the website ChicagoTeaParty.com having been registered back in August of 2008, then describes a Machaivellian organization of "random" facebook and twitter groups to push a supposed populist message that really only benefits the wealthiest Americans.
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It's very likely that this is terribly much keeping in the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party.
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Okay, so it's not really grassroots. It's all part of some shadowy master plan. Does that mean that the participants are wrong to believe in their cause? A common idea in conservatism is that just because something is good for big business doesn't mean that it's bad for everybody else. Is this revelation supposed to undermine the credibility of the message, or just the organization?
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This is the part in the movie when you boo the Uptight College Dean or Corrupt Local Police Chief.
If the message of Conservatism has gotten so weak that it needs to be almost completely manufactured...
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And to think, if a liberal group did this it would be front page news on every fucking paper.
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More to the point, this isn't uncommon. This shit has been going on since the 80s. And I do think it's a big deal to point this shit out and expose it at every turn. Ignorance and populist anger are played upon to push agendas counter to the self-interests of the people who are lured by them.
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But, that's the thing: I would suggest that the entire point of these protests is that these people already believed that they and big business have the same interests on this issue.
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But, that's the thing: I would suggest that the entire point of these protests is that these people already believed that they and big business have the same interests on this issue.
The point here isn't about the message itself. It's about the manufactured and deceptive nature of the spreading of the message. This topic is not about arguing against conservatism itself, but discussing the poor choices of those leading the conservative movement. This is something you have lamented about before, Bill. I would think if you wanted conservatism to take a greater hold in this country, you would be similarly angry about how lame the leadership is being.
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At the root, these kinds of things represent a small number of opinionated people trying to get a larger number of people to agree with them, with the root of the argument being a lie: that their minority opinion is actually a majority opinion.
You folks can work out for yourselves whther or not that's a bad thing.
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I personally don't have much problem with private interests appealing to populist sensibilities (as long as they are private)... whether it's harmful to the movement really depends on whether the people who are at all susceptible to recruitment feel the same way. I'm not sure that corporate involvement bothers conservatives the way it does liberals.
Of course, stealth corporate involvement is a different matter, raising questions of integrity. In the present political climate, nothing could be more valuable to conservatism than to display an esteem for integrity. So they dropped the ball in that respect.
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I'm not sure that corporate involvement bothers conservatives the way it does liberals.
Of course, stealth corporate involvement is a different matter, raising questions of integrity.
Erm, I don't speak for all liberals or anything, but I think the distinction in your latter sentence IS the problem. I don't think most liberals are inherently opposed to corporations; the problem is that corporations, without supervision, tend to become corrupt and dishonest.
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the problem is that corporations, without supervision, tend to become corrupt and dishonest.
The same can be said of individuals, I think. The real problem is that corporations are hard to police... especially when said police have no interest in policing.
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Sure, but individuals have more complex motivations than simply "please the stockholders". Corporations are, by their nature, amoral.
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playboy.com
Felt ancient upon reading this article last night. Reading The Hefner Gazette the for the article(s)? Just start mailing the social security checks to me now. My AARP card needs lamented.
And to think, if a liberal group did this it would be front page news on every fucking paper.
We had to invade ACORN. We couldn't afford for the the smoking gun to be a socialist cloud.
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There is no figure that contrasts to President Obama more than Rush Limpdick. Their ideologies, histories, and even appearance are as far apart from one another as could be imagined. With the meteoric fall of Bobby Jindal following his disastrous counter-point speech, Micheal Steele has anointed Rush as King of Screwedville. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxDhf3ih3pg3s69ZTdvps4KpU10gD96MB5500)
:itsmagic: Just as planned. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-limbaugh3-2009mar03,0,4365806.story)
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There is no figure that contrasts to President Obama more than Rush Limpdick. Their ideologies, histories, and even appearance are as far apart from one another as could be imagined. With the meteoric fall of Bobby Jindal following his disastrous counter-point speech, Micheal Steele has anointed Rush as King of Screwedville. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxDhf3ih3pg3s69ZTdvps4KpU10gD96MB5500)
:itsmagic: Just as planned. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-limbaugh3-2009mar03,0,4365806.story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5iCkYKLleE
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...so now that I've actually SEEN the Santelli video, the biggest surprise to me is...people watched this and didn't IMMEDIATELY REALIZE it was staged?
There's not even the faintest vestige of spontaneity there. It was OBVIOUSLY planned and rehearsed. He is not a good actor.
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With their candidate clearly losing, GOP wants to use Bush v. Gore to seat Coleman rather than Franken (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/senate-gopers-cite-bush-v-gore-for-possible-coleman-win.php?ref=fp3)
:facepalm:
It's not surprising, though, that the GOP wants to use election theft as a precedent for additional election theft.
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Arlen Specter to go democrat. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/specter.party.switch/index.html)
Just keeps getting worse for the GOP and if Franken wins, and he likely will, it looks like they won't even be able to filibuster the Dems.
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OVERWHELMING DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:itsmagic:
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He's gonna come in looking like a total asshole though. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-specter-jeffords29-2009apr29,0,2430682.story)
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He's gonna come in looking like a total asshole though. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-specter-jeffords29-2009apr29,0,2430682.story)
:nyoro~n:
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He's gonna come in looking like a total asshole though. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-specter-jeffords29-2009apr29,0,2430682.story)
"Yes, Jim... but he's OUR snake now."
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Gaining Arlen Specter is purely symbolic. Even with Al Franken pushing the Dems to 60, Arlen's still against EFCA which is kind of a big deal.
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Considering the strong republican effort against him, I suspect Arlen Specter is going to be voting half out of spite for democratic resolutions, support or not.
It also helps that the extremely popular president offered to campaign for him as a condition for joining the party.
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Specter has stated his intention to be a blue-dog Democract, which doesn't mean Dems will automatically have cloture on every vote. As Ocksi pointed out, Specter has already waffled on EFCA, my personal favorite bit of legislation, although he and one other blue-dog are the ones blocking it. And technically Dems don't have a 60 seat until Franken is allowed to be seated.
Which brings up the next point: Apparently Coleman is trying to make the outcome of the race seem shady (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/coleman-whoever-wins-senate-race-will-have-a-cloud-hanging-over-them.php?ref=fp9). This is specifically aimed at Franken, to make it seem like his victory will have been ill-gained. The irony of Coleman trying to slyly accuse Franken of shenanigans is so palpable the people of Minnesota must be suffocating in it.
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Considering the strong republican effort against him, I suspect Arlen Specter is going to be voting half out of spite for democratic resolutions, support or not.
It also helps that the extremely popular president offered to campaign for him as a condition for joining the party.
The R bias against him already existed. Republicans planned to nominate Toomey for R candidate for his incumbent spot.
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Specter had no chance of winning the GOP primary once he voted for the stimulus. It's a very savvy move on his part: making himself the 60th senator for the Democratic caucus will make him seem like a hero to the Democrats in PA, and they may give him a pass in the primary because he's more likely to win reelection and hold the seat for the Dems.
Calculated or not, this is really messing with the Republicans regardless. Specter will not want to part too much with the Democrats lest he alienate both parties.
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Well, he's getting a 76% approval rating from Dems as it is (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1284.xml?ReleaseID=1290&What=&strArea=%3B&strTime=0). After putting up with his own party attacking him, it's not really surprising he'd defect.
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Gaining Arlen Specter is purely symbolic. Even with Al Franken pushing the Dems to 60, Arlen's still against EFCA which is kind of a big deal.
And that's without getting into dickweeds like Bayh. And Lieberman's going to be kissing some serious ass for awhile, but don't expect him to vote with not-actually-his-party on the war.
60 Dems make for a good symbolic victory, but that's all.
Calculated or not, this is really messing with the Republicans regardless. Specter will not want to part too much with the Democrats lest he alienate both parties.
Of course, given that he's spent the past 8 years vocally criticizing Bush and then weaseling out when it comes down to actually voting, he fits right in with the party leadership.
Well, he's getting a 76% approval rating from Dems as it is (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1284.xml?ReleaseID=1290&What=&strArea=%3B&strTime=0). After putting up with his own party attacking him, it's not really surprising he'd defect.
Yeah, he's had pretty bipartisan support over the years. I remember chastising Stef for voting for him.
But hey, they got rid of Santorum, anyway.
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Specter's spent so much more time trying to convince everybody that he's not really a Democrat now that he's a Democrat that I'm starting to worry that people are going to treat the guy like Lieberman no matter what he says next.
That's a completely irrational fear, of course, mainly because nobody ever did shit about Lieberman.
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Specter blames Kemp's death on the Republicans not funding medical research enough. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/04/specter-claims-kemp-alive-congress-better-funded-medical-research/)
It couldn't have been the fact that he was 74 years old.
Seriously, can we send this guy back?
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Everyone loves a turncoat.
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Hey, man, Churchill was a rat too! Give the new guy a chance, i says.
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Did you just compare Arlen Specter to Sir Winston Churchill?
:facepalm:
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:whoops:
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(http://zulukilo.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/churchill-inspecting-tommy-gun.jpg)
Nyah, see, you don' wan' know what we does ta mugs what got big mouths 'round here son! Nyah!
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Down here we refer to him exclusively as "Winston Guy-Whose-Ass-We-Saved-from-the-Nazis, Fuck Yeah."
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Christianity Today presents its probing, thought-provoking interview with Joe the Plumber (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/mayweb-only/118-13.0.html)
GEMSTONE:
At a state level, it's up to them. I don't want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it's wrong. People don't understand the dictionary—it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.
Emphasis mine.
:itsmagic:
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He did use the past tense there.
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I wonder what happened to them? Probably got too close to the children, and he had to put them down.
Or would have, if ammo weren't so hard to find (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/04/ammo.shortage/index.html)
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Down here we refer to him exclusively as "Winston Guy-Whose-Ass-We-Saved-from-the-Nazis, Fuck Yeah."
Start of WWII: September 1st 1939.
Official entry of the US into WWII: Dec 8th 1941.
Wee matter of a two year gap where the tired old warhorse was busy saving the whole damn world.
:;-(:
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Why have all the Canadians been taking my sarcasm at face value lately?
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"Canadians"
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:enraged: YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY MY JUST RAGE THAT EASILY. :enraged:
Dammit.
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Wee matter of a two year gap where the tired old warhorse was busy saving the whole damn world.
Did he dig the English Channel by himself?
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Wee matter of a two year gap where the tired old warhorse was busy saving the whole damn world.
Did he dig the English Channel by himself?
Well, of course he did. Duh.
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Technically, he just ate all the land between Britain and France. The White Cliffs of Dover were his leavings.
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Even Mr. The Plumber is quitting the Republican party (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/joe-the-plumber----quitting-the-gop.php)
Death throes, indeed.
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Either that man really knows how to drag out his 15 minutes, or he doesn't know much of anything.
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Since when is that an either/or decision?
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Polls suggest that many people would strongly prefer a hypothetical candidate put forward by an organized Tea Party to a Republican candidate. (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/december_2009/tea_party_tops_gop_on_three_way_generic_ballot)
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How many people voted for the Tea Party guy just because they thought it'd be hilarious to refer to a whole political party as Teabaggers?
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The best part is that the Teabaggers themselves still don't know what it means.
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Aren't... Aren't "tea parties" something set up by the Republican fringe to demonstrate their racism? I'm... I don't know what this demonstrates politically other than a dramatic lack of faith in the party overall.
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I kind of see them like the guy in Blazzing Saddles. You know which one: "The president is-a n*bell tolls*r!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw
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My God, I love that movie.
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Aren't... Aren't "tea parties" something set up by the Republican fringe to demonstrate their racism? I'm... I don't know what this demonstrates politically other than a dramatic lack of faith in the party overall.
The Tea Party "position" is identical to the GOP's stated one, just louder (not that this contradicts what you said). Example:
Seventy percent (70%) of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement while only seven percent (7%) offer an unfavorable view. Interestingly, 49% of Democrats have no opinion one way or the other.
It's also the far right's entitlement complex made manifest. This is what they get for promising to ban abortion for decades and never doing it, I guess. This is what you get, Gingrich.
OTHER INTERESTING THINGS FROM THE ARTICLE:
Forty-one percent (41%) of all voters nationwide say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that a new party is needed to represent the American people. Republicans are evenly divided on this question, while Democrats overwhelmingly disagree. However, among those not affiliated with either major party, 60% agree that a new party is needed, and only 25% disagree. Men are far more likely than women to believe a new party is needed.
2012 is in the bag; no one is surprised.
As for the voting preference, the Tea Party bests the GOP among both men and women and in all age groups except those over 65.
Well that's...not encouraging? Depends what the economy does.
Also it's Rasmussen, so it has a statistically predictable conservative bias when compared to other surveys on the same topic. Not really sure how that'd affect this, though.
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Numbers may point to an underlying trend. Tea party, while it started out as a corporate backed shill of an organization grew out of control, encompassing everything that was bad about the GOP but oh so appealing to those self-safe GOPers. Obama and the Democrats may not have actually done anything, and the ballooning deficits they claim to care about may actually have come from Bush, but goddamnit they were united by their mutual, imaginary fears.
And it's working, it's really working. A Research 2000 poll by Daily Kos shows a huge enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/27/808503/-Weekly-Tracking-Poll:-New-Feature-Paints-Ugly-2010-Picture). If these numbers are accurate, Dems are going to get slaughtered in 2010, and by a Republican party that is probably going to consist of take-no-prisoners teabaggers. And if they get power, well...
It's hard to give a concrete reason why the Democrats are floundering so badly, but if I had to give a reason I'd venture that it's because they're total wimps. Given majorities in both chambers and a Democratic president and they just can't get shit done. They went through the trouble of selling the public on the best ideas in health reform, then gave them up before negotiations even began. Progressives and minority and labor groups who worked their asses off to get these guys elected feel justifiably betrayed. Republicans may have been bullies and brutes, but when in power they gave their constituents what they wanted.
Just over a year ago it seemed like the Democrats had it all. They had control, their opponent was self-destructing, and they had public support at their backs. But they blinked first, and we may be the worse off for it.
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Uh, I think it's a bit early for that kind of doom saying. I also don't think things have swayed nearly as much as you think, except that Obama doesn't have coat tails for other candidates to ride on now, but everyone knew that a year ago.
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The Senate just killed the Public Option and the page 2 story in Canada's national newspapers are about Obama's chief aide denying that his boss is some kind of compromise wimp.
I don't know. I'd give a coin-toss on Constantine's prediction at this point.
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So I actually read that daily kos thing you posted, and it ignores the fact that there are almost half again as many dems as republicans right now, and indempendants still lean slightly left overall, so even with those numbers on voter enthusiasm the Dems have an advantage. Add in the fact that the economy seems to be improving faster than expected and job growth is improving much faster than expected, and I really think this is silly sky is falling stuff.
I mean the same poll you pointed to has the democrats at 33 points more popular than the republicans.
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Well, leaving the rest aside, Constantine's point was that the Dems are more numerous, but the yahoo-freak GOP's get-out-the-vote machine is in better shape.
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The republicans may be hijacked by right wing nutjobs and fools, but they are fools with spines.
So far your democratic congress has been selling the story of "canadian parliamentary quality" rather effectively given how long and how monstrous a process your health care deal has been, despite a majority.
I would expect a republican comeback next cycle in the two houses.
My cc
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Aren't... Aren't "tea parties" something set up by the Republican fringe to demonstrate their racism? I'm... I don't know what this demonstrates politically other than a dramatic lack of faith in the party overall.
I have met and worked with a few of the tea party attendees and their primary political reasoning appears to be they liked the previous administration but felt that George W Bush was too liberal when dealing with the economy. He didn't cut taxes enough and really handicapped small business in favor of megacorporations. It is a mish mash of disillusioned republicans and the handful of libertarians that the aforementioned republicans wouldn't want to have a fucking thing to do with, generally, but since they agree on goverment take over of Healthcare they have formed an alliance akin to Japan and Germany in WW2: an alliance that will quickly fall apart once the republicans realize that most libertarians veer sharply to the left on issues concerning the social legislation like Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays and all that jazz.
I actually work with a few of them and it is quite amusing to watch them totally suck eachother off on issues like healthcare and get all buddy buddy up until the libertarian one mentions that Iraq was stupid and they end up squabbling.
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He didn't cut taxes enough and really handicapped small business in favor of megacorporations.
They do not realize that these are one in the same, and that is a fundamental problem.
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SCD's pretty much nailed it. It's what I've been saying all along: politics are less important than personality. The Democrats are fucking pussies. They couldn't pass gas with 90 Senate seats unless they tacked on an amendment that allowed people to carry guns in abortion clinics. I think I may honestly hate them more than the Republicans at this point.
Apropos of the thread title: I heard Barbie last month yakking about how the New York race should be the template for future races. You know, the one where a fringe lunatic ran as a third-party and gave a district that had been solidly Republican for 130 years to the Democrats.
Which gives me some small measure of schadenfreude, but the truth is that, while it's great seeing Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, I really can't muster any more enthusiasm for any further Democratic victories.
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I enjoyed the NY-23rd race initially, but then I came to the conclusion that while it seems like they lost the seat this round, when they fall back and restrengthen they're going to start electing candidates like Doug Hoffman because that will be who the party starts supporting. So however much Dems and progressives may deride GOPs and wingnuts for picking "idealogically pure" candidates, if they start winning elections it's gonna be a shitstorm. Meanwhile Dems are willing to let shit eaters like Bart Stupak, Ben Nelson, Max Baucus and to a lesser extent Joe Lieberman wreck the party.
Basically Dems suck so much they'll start losing to right-wing lunatics, but they're convinced it's because they're not right-wing enough.
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I think if I lived in Massachusetts I would have actually voted for Brown. One's an honest-to-god moderate. The other is, to be nice, an idiot.
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Limbaugh, once again, calls Obama a racist (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/21/828430/-ADL:-Rush-Limbaugh-reached-a-new-low)
There are a lot of people, when you say banker, people think Jewish. ... People who have a little prejudice about them. ... To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.
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Are you fucking serious? The way these people say shit they obviously don't believe just to antagonize is so unbelievably wretched.
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What makes the passage so sublime is how his steps to prove Obama is racist involves being a massive racist.
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What makes the passage so sublime is how his steps to prove Obama is racist involves being a massive racist.
(http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/Bon_Bon_2009/scruffy-1.jpg) Also, because now you can't be against bankers without being racist. Oh, look what we have here! I huge section of populist right-wingnuts called the "Tea parties" that hate the banks and actually are racist! Thanks for owning up to that one Rush!
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I try not to let politics bug me too too much, but the whole Tea Party thing makes me physically angry. That it's so blatantly manipulative while actually gaining traction in the south as THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE so almost cartoonishly evil.
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It is the very reason we began to hate the Eastern communists, yeah.
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So I can't tell. Is the GOP eating itself, or just radicalizing its moderate factions
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Aren't those the same thing?
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Except one of them maintains the numbers to be a political nightmare, and the other scenario leaves them fractured and useless for decades
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I think the GOP is indeed eating itself, much like the Oroboros devours itself. They're growing stronger as they destroy themselves, relevant front irrelevancy. They gain power by destroying the very people they convinced that will be saved by.
And just as Plato described, the Oroboros is a perfect being: a complacent, immortal beast, that spends eternity eating its own shit. It's not going anywhere.
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You gotta remember that it's not about how many people you have locked up safely in your camp, it's how many more people you can draw in with them. If there were that many party-line Republicans out there then there wouldn't have been a Democractic supermajority as recently as a week ago. If all they're doing right now is drawing their more moderate supporters away from the edge, then that has the net effect of not increasing their support in any way while making it that much harder to talk to the swing voters without seeming batfuck crazy.
Having said all that, I don't think it's actually happening that way anyway. True, the Tea-Party Republicans are becoming louder with every passing day, but that's because they know they're becoming largely irrelevant even within their own party. Most of the non-incumbent Republicans that have been winning nominations lately have been right-leaning centrists at worst. Hell, McCain won his nomination almost purely on his reputation for not being too much of a conservative nutball, and it would have turned out great if his party hadn't somehow convinced him to shackle himself to The Ultimate Teabagger just to make up for it.
It's not that the GOP is eating itself so much as it already ate itself long ago, and now it's got indigestion.
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...And those who are actually voting are liking that indigestion a lot more than what's on the other plate.
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The only indication of that so far is the Massachusetts race, which as I said before, was a contest between a moderate* and a fucking idiot. I don't think it's a fair predictor of things to come.
Though you are right in that we can take away the assumption that voters will not elect fucking idiots, which most of the Democratic leadership is currently made up of.
* Reportedly, although research suggests that Brown may have been lying through his teeth throughout the campaign on his true stance on issues, like some sort of politician.
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Party Favorability Percentages as of 1/21/2010: (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/22/828662/-Weekly-Tracking-Poll:-Democrats-Take-Another-Beating)
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: 39 (41) 56 (55) -3
REPUBLICAN PARTY: 34 (32) 58 (59) +3
The image below depicts favorability starting with January of last year up until today. Blue is Dem, Red is Rep. Can you tell which part of the trend is the bad one?
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moderate
Ontheissues.org (http://ontheissues.org/Senate/Scott_Brown.htm) painted him pretty decidedly as a right-wing hardliner, with the sole exception of not being completely fucking retarded about abortion.
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*
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moderate
Ontheissues.org (http://ontheissues.org/Senate/Scott_Brown.htm) painted him pretty decidedly as a right-wing hardliner, with the sole exception of not being completely fucking retarded about abortion.
That sounds like a "Moderate Republican" to me. Anymore to center and he'd be called a R.I.N.O. by the rest of them for having too much logic in his head.
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If there were that many party-line Republicans out there then there wouldn't have been a Democractic supermajority as recently as a week ago.
There wasn't.
The supermajority was essentially a media-concoted myth. Democrats simply don't have that kind of party unity, as the healthcare crash-and-burn so amply demonstrated.
Frankly the best thing about Brown's election is that Lieberman is no longer the most important person in the Senate.
moderate*
* Reportedly, although research suggests that Brown may have been lying through his teeth throughout the campaign on his true stance on issues, like some sort of politician.
That's what it's looking like. His stated positions on issues seem roughly the equivalent of an Arizona Democrat, but I've seen some numbers suggesting he votes with his party nearly all the time. ...which I guess might still make him the equivalent of an Arizona Democrat.
That sounds like a "Moderate Republican" to me. Anymore to center and he'd be called a R.I.N.O. by the rest of them for having too much logic in his head.
My old boss had a "McCain = RINO" bumper sticker.
That's the guy who got the Republican Presidential nomination in '08.
And that's what somebody IN HIS HOME STATE had on his pickup.
This is where my "quit fucking worrying what the crazy people are going to say about you because they're still going to say it no matter HOW much you crazy up to them" advice comes in.
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...so uh it looks like even some of the craziest Republicans are starting to realize that you can't just block all government funding of everything.
Inhofe -- fucking INHOFE -- is saying maybe we need transportation funding (http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/26/inhofe-bunning/).
It seems to me that the Senate rules are full of loopholes that need to be addressed -- not just the abuse of the filibuster or the budget reconciliation procedure used to get around it, but this nonsense where a single Senator can hold up funding for the entire federal government. The rule's there for a reason -- it's a courtesy in case somebody gets called away in an emergency -- but, like other Senate procedures, has been hijacked for a purpose far beyond its original intent.
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So Carl Paladino is kind of inappropriate. (http://"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/12/carl-paladinos-emails-tea_n_534691.html") (Thanks Saturn.)
Most of the article is really just hilarious, but the moneyshot for me is this:
It figures that members of the Party who brought us record taxes, record spending and record debt would want to change the topic from reform to having sex with horses and S&M parlors.
Yeah, they're not trying to deny the bestiality and S&M stuff, they're just trying to play it down. Because this is something that members of the GOP are inclined to just overlook.
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So we're getting panicked recordings from city, council, and state officials begging us to turn in our census forms here in Oklahoma.
Guess the red states are getting fucked by tea party census paranoia?
:whoops:
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Fewer census forms turned in means fewer people officially in that district, which means smaller allocations and possibly redistricting. Damn right they're panicky. The conspiracy theories they've been feeding are biting them in the ass.
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Yeah, the topic title has never been more accurate than right now. The right wing is literally wiping itself off the radar.
Also, the irony of the "no taxation without representation" party actually refusing to be represented is too delicious for words.
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The answer to all this is of course to let people opt out of taxes if they also waive their right to vote.
This is clearly the best idea that any American has ever had.
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yeah, I think the tea party dorks are under the impression that opting not to be represented makes them free of obligation to pay taxes.
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I wonder how tough it would be to convince the state that I'm a NFPOrg.
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Probably not too hard, but the question is, when the IRS catches you, are you going to fly a plane into their building and get hailed a tea party hero?
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Maybe I can fly a plane into a tea party building and they'll call it even?
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The answer to all this is of course to let people opt out of taxes if they also waive their right to vote.
As well as their right to bear arms, free speech, freedom of assembly, habeus corpus, fair trial by a jury of their peers, and right to own property.
In fact, if you choose to opt out of taxes, you're secretly taken away to work as a slave for a year while your neighbors have every right to take all of your stuff.
Alternatively, you can spend a single weekend with the pain monster.
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I think that every conservative who opts not to fill out their census form should be treated like an illegal immigrant.
It'd be nice to see Glen Beck outside of home depot, Michelle Malkin cleaning people's houses, and Sarah Palin doing our nation's *NSFW* hot mexican big butt porn *NSFW* (http://mexicanlust.com)
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Guess the red states are getting fucked by tea party census paranoia?
Can't find it now but I read some stats yesterday that said that's not the case. Down in some districts, up in others, but no correlation to party affiliation.
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so uh
You know how there's always running jokes about pundits running for president? (http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/28/at-rally-beck-positions-himself-as-new-leader-for-christian-conservatives/?hpt=C2)
The very real possibility of Beck/Palin 2012 is basically the most hilarious and terrifying concept I've ever seen presented.
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It'd be a pay cut.
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Unless you're crooked!
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It'd be a pay cut.
Unless you're a maverick!
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The Democratic Party can eat itself too, y'know (http://www.viewmag.com/13211-What+Happened+To+Long+Term+Vision%3F.htm)
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Thank you for that, Buge.
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That's what you get for missing the boat.
In all fairness though, I didn't realize they took down their news stories after a week.
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Even The Governor can't help taking potshots at the former governor. (http://www.indecisionforever.com/2010/09/10/governor-schwarzenegger-drops-a-twitticism/)
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And the Republican base is tearing Karl Rove down for saying Christine O'Donnell is crazy and going to lose the election.
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I thought that was her platform. Being a total fucking nut, appealing to the huge total nut voter base.
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Tea Party Express derails GOP candidates 茶黨搶盡共和黨風光 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrcIWgF5cYs#ws)
This is kind of amazing.
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I like how Obama flees away from the train by trying to outrun it.
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I like how Obama flees away from the train by trying to outrun it.
Sadly, that may be an accurate depiction, in a way.
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So, the Republican ticket senator going after Biden's old seat says "HANDS OFF YOUR WANGS."
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Tom Delay: Convicted Felon, to spend 3 years in federal prison and the next 7 after that on probation, doing community service. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/10/delay.sentencing/index.html?hpt=T2)
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And that's federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
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Strong Republican district elects Democrat (http://www.npr.org/2011/05/25/136650495/democrat-pulls-off-election-day-upset-in-new-york) entirely because of the incumbent's support for the Ryan plan to privatize Medicare.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: last year's Tea Party sweep (which, it also bears repeating, STILL left a vast majority of incumbents still in office) was a protest against the entrenched political establishment, not an actual endorsement of the Tea Party's batshit-fucking-crazy policies. It's one thing to chant slogans about freedom and fighting socialism, it's quite another to actually dismantle unions and Medicare.
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They're still doing it though, at least with the unions. Because no one ever got elected by courting the unions....
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A Common Sense Campaign for America. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV8HFHkX3PA#ws)
This is an attack ad.
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I could tell. The phrase "common sense" tipped me off.
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I... what?
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And the response:
A Progressive Vision, Pawlenty 2012 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGPwEHqz5bU#)
Granted, these guys are fighting over something like 5th and 6th place in the primaries, but...yeah.
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Apparently the only thing the tea party hates more than Democrats, is Republicans (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/17/us-usa-campaign-teaparty-idUSTRE74G37C20110517)
I really hope this whole Tea Party mess blows up as spectacularly as it seems like it could.
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The writing was on the wall.
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Again, they ran specifically on a platform of fucking everything up. At least they were honest about something.
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Well, and as I've noted, Boehner and the rest have been kissing their asses for decades at this point. It's the clown strip: you say you support clowns for 25 years and then an actual clown shows up to run for office.
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The real problem is that they've been selling clowns for twenty-five years too.
It's not that a clown is actually running. It's that people will vote for them.
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It's cyclical. Voters bring in neocons, they fuck up, voters bring in Democrats, they don't fix it, voters bring in Neocons...
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Ladies and Gentlemen, noted Liberal, David Frum (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/01/frum.debt.republicans/)
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Eh. Frum's been sliding into the "reasonable Republican" persona ever since he left the Bush White House. It's not that he's wrong, it's just that nobody should be surprised that he's doing it anymore.
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It's really not hard to get labeled as a "reasonable Republican" these days. All you have to do is talk sense for five straight minutes. I don't even mean shit I agree with or something, just literally speaking in a way that makes sense in context for five whole minutes.
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The thing is, Frum is still talking crazy. It's right there in the first few paragraphs.
I'm a Republican. Always have been. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. But as I look back at the weeks of rancor leading up to Sunday night's last-minute budget deal, I see some things I don't believe in:
Forcing the United States to the verge of default.
Shrugging off the needs and concerns of millions of unemployed.
Protecting every single loophole, giveaway and boondoggle in the tax code as a matter of fundamental conservative principle.
Massive government budget cuts in the midst of the worst recession since World War II.
He doesn't support destroying the government, just slowly dismantling it.
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Yes, but I understood what the fuck he was talking about.
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He doesn't support destroying the government, just slowly dismantling it.
Yeah, but at least you can say to him, "Well, although I disagree with the fundamental principals of your opinions, I respect them nonetheless".
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Well, and of course the phrases "free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government" are so damn open to interpretation as to be meaningless.
Free markets and low taxes absolutely have their place; they just aren't the solution in EVERY situation. As for "reasonable" regulation and "limited" government, well, obviously the question is what constitutes reasonable, and what are the limits?
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It's really not hard to get labeled as a "reasonable Republican" these days. All you have to do is talk sense for five straight minutes. I don't even mean shit I agree with or something, just literally speaking in a way that makes sense in context for five whole minutes.
I think that's it. It's like the old Tom Tomorrow strip about Jeffrey Dahmer as a GOP candidate.
Also: Knowing basic math or being able to project more than one step ahead seems to help make one seem reasonable too.
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Usually "None" and "None" respectively, but I get the impression that he at least would say "Some".
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He would now. He didn't a few years ago.
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(http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/08/Jan2017.jpg)
:whoops:
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...so, multiple recall elections in Wisconsin today. We'll see what happens.
Turnout is reported to be high, which I see as likely a good sign; high turnout in a recall election seldom indicates a groundswell of support for the person being recalled.
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Looks like Democrats secured 2 of the 3 seats they needed to win to flip control (out of 6), and 3 more confirmed Republican, leaving... the seat that includes Waukesha County. The same clerk that had 'severe irregularities' during the Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier this year which led to the Republican candidate winning by the skin of his teeth. (Brazenly partisan justices up for public election is a discussion topic on its own merits.)
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GOP Candidate Herman Cain quoted Pokemon 2000. Four times. (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/13/gop-presidential-candidate-quoted-pokemon-the-movie-2000-four/)
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Actual story: guy doesn't seem to realize the origin of a single quote he uses four times (on completely separate occasions).
Humorous, but god damn I hate how they try to word that make it sound Joystiq.
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http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779 (http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779)
This article is probably one of the more insightful things I've read in a long time: a retired GOP staffer talks about the state of the party. He says that the party of Eisenhower is dead, in so many words, having been replaced by a squad of religiously hypocritical and duplicitous people.
I like how he points out the fact that the Ayn Rand-ian shills seem to gloss over the fact that Rand was a "militant atheist who held nothing but contempt for Christianity."
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That was actually really good!
I'm sure it'll just go into a black hole with all the rest of such things. Reminds me (in a distant way) of Buckley's growing ambivalence towards the party right before his death.
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On Rick Perry and Superman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QVMan7Mgy4#ws)
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Yeah, Rick Perry's kind of a shit for all kinds of terrible reasons. One of my personal favorites: Texas is having probably the worst drought its seen in decades. Houston is literally so hot and polluted that it actually pushes hurricanes away. Rick Perry denies global climate change. Rick Perry decided to pray for rain instead of actually doing something to help the environment.
Rick Perry is the worst.
ALSO: Perry prayed for rain, and instead he got a giant fucking forest fire burning up half of Texas.
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He also tried praying for emergency services.
That one's working out a little better though because the Texans themselves are proving a goddam point: Texas is thriving despite Perry, not because of him.
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Immigration
In 2001, Perry expressed his pride in the enactment of the statute extending in-state tuition to children of undocumented workers. He said:
We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, “we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.” And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate.[173]
Perry has opposed the creation of the Mexico – United States barrier, which is meant to keep out illegal aliens. Instead of barricading the border completely with a fence, Perry believes that the federal government should fulfill its responsibility to its citizens by securing the borders with "boots on the ground" and technology to improve safety while not harming trade with the state's biggest trading partner, Mexico.[174] Perry said the Arizona immigration law SB 1070 “would not be the right direction for Texas” and would distract law enforcement from fighting other crimes.[175]
I'm not seeing how Perry's choice of Superman as a role model is in any way incongruous.
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That said, being relatively welcoming isn't exactly the same thing as being welcoming.
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Also
Immigration
In 2001, Perry expressed his pride in the enactment of the statute extending in-state tuition to children of undocumented workers.
Immigration
In 2001,
2001
A lot can happen in ten years.
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Guys Perry is actually pretty leftist when it comes to immigration. It's actually the Tea Party's biggest beef with him.
The man has a lot of real actual flaws to attack without looking like a zealot by making up new ones.
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...maybe that's why it's in the "Eat Itself" thread? Because Perry's an example of a Republican who the base disagrees with on one of its core issues?
On the other hand, so was Bush.
I don't think the Tea Party will sink him because of immigration -- I think when all's said and done he's going to be their guy, moderate on immigration or not. It's the moderates who are going to shy away from him and back Romney. Mostly over social security.
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It's probably time to change the name of this topic, honestly. The GOP has already eaten and digested itself and is now just a steaming pile of shit.
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... that's implying that shit can't eat itself and shit itself out again.
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An Ouroborous of shit.
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I am never coming to your house for chile rellenos.
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Perry does something sane; Bachmann tears into him for it.
The The USA Today: Bachmann keeps up HPV attack on Perry (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/09/michele-bachmann-rick-perry-hpv-vaccine-/1?csp=34news)
"To have innocent little 12-year old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong," Bachmann says in her e-mail requesting donations, titled "I'm Offended."
...
...whaaaAAAAAAAA?
I mean, yes, okay, I know that according to GOP orthodoxy STD's are things only bad people get, but...I'm preeeetty sure that the issue of the government "forcing" children to get vaccinated against diseases is pretty well settled at this point.
And honestly, good for (cancer survivor) Perry on this one. Not to put too fine a point on it, we have CURED A FORM OF CANCER, and ensuring that the public GETS that cure is EXACTLY the reason we have a goddamn government. If there's a better use for tax money than DISTRIBUTING A CURE FOR CANCER, I'd love to hear it.
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... well, I suppose if your opponent is otherwise a perfect little conservative who has a real shot of winning, you're just going to have to go after that one bit of empathy he has towards his fellow people.
Man, fuck Bachmann.
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Well, it's the same issue as the "let him die" bit in the other thread. That is the debate we are, for some reason, having: whether the richest people in America should have to spend money on preventing people from dying of horrible diseases.
The people on the "against" side are, of course, the ones who spend the most time talking about how Christian they are.
EDIT: LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-perry-merck-campaign-cash-20110913,0,3068787.story) has a bit more on Perry's ties to big pharma. I am, obviously, not a fan of the government being run by rich lobbyists, but I'm still going to have to side with the guys who want to prevent girls from getting cancer.
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I wonder if Bachman is anti-vaccination in general. I wouldn't be surprised.
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It does seem like a bit of a Freudian slip, but I'm more inclined to think it's cognitive dissonance. Hard to say; don't really care as she's batshit enough on every other issue.
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It's worth noting that Perry was requiring the vaccination, but not providing it. I'm all for the government giving us cures to diseases, but Perry was still making people pay out of pocket for it.
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...of course. Silly me, assuming that "require" meant "pay for". You'd think I'd have learned by now.
Ugh, Bachmann's full quote is worse than the one above:
The governor chose by himself unilaterally to sign an executive order to put through the requirement that all innocent little 12-year-old girls or 11-year-old girls in state of Texas would be forced by the government to take an injection of what potentially could be a very dangerous drug.
Is there any actual evidence that the HPV vaccine is "potentially very dangerous", or am I correct in understanding that it's no more dangerous than any other vaccine?
(I guess all vaccines are "potentially very dangerous". My girlfriend got rubella from one as a child. But it's still fucking insane to go from there to suggesting children shouldn't be vaccinated against rubella.)
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It's "potentially very dangerous" because then she might feel like she can have sex, which to the right-wing is more dangerous than cancer.
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Forgive me for attempting to interpret Bachmann's words, but I believe she was getting at this:
Government mandate tells you what vaccines you have to get. This worries the people she represents. BIG GUBMENT TELLIN" ME WHAT TO DO.
I'm guessing that's what she's getting at, but yeah, it's still stupid.
Besides, the Texas Legislature shot down the executive order, and Perry didn't veto it. By Texas Constitution, the legislature's measure trumps Perry.
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If there's a better use for tax money than DISTRIBUTING A CURE FOR CANCER, I'd love to hear it.
Funding ch—
The people on the "against" side are, of course, the ones who spend the most time talking about how Christian they are.
—urches. Mother fucker. Beat me to it.
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Forgive me for attempting to interpret Bachmann's words, but I believe she was getting at this:
Government mandate tells you what vaccines you have to get. This worries the people she represents. BIG GUBMENT TELLIN" ME WHAT TO DO.
I'm guessing that's what she's getting at, but yeah, it's still stupid.
She chose an example that is specific to STD prevention. Precisely because the abstinence-only approach to hazards of sex is relatively mainstream.
Actual full-on opposition to vaccinations is fucking crazy, even among Bachmann's supporters. It is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe. I think there's a reason she didn't go that far -- though certainly her words are open to that interpretation.
Besides, the Texas Legislature shot down the executive order, and Perry didn't veto it. By Texas Constitution, the legislature's measure trumps Perry.
Sure, but what she's getting at is that he supported it, whether it went into effect or not.
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Actual full-on opposition to vaccinations is fucking crazy, even among Bachmann's supporters. It is a fringe of a fringe of a fringe. I think there's a reason she didn't go that far -- though certainly her words are open to that interpretation.
These troubling statistics show that the failure to vaccinate children endangers both the health of children themselves as well as others who would not be exposed to preventable illness if the community as a whole were better protected. Equally troubling, the number of deliberately unvaccinated children has grown large enough that it may be fueling more severe outbreaks. In a recent survey of more than 1,500 parents, one quarter held the mistaken belief that vaccines can cause autism in healthy children, and more than one in 10 had refused at least one recommended vaccine.
~25% is fairly common. Holding the belief isn't quite "fringe," but being dumb and vocal enough to publicly argue with the backing science is.
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Believing in a vaccination/autism link is not the same thing as opposing vaccination; it's the 10% that's the relevant statistic there.
Longtime forumgoers may remember me supporting the thimerosal/autism hypothesis some years back, but I NEVER said people shouldn't vaccinate their kids, only that we should find a preservative that doesn't contain mercury. The link has now been thoroughly refuted and its major proponent exposed as a liar and a fraud. I backed the wrong horse, and have no problem admitting it -- that's science; you go with the information you have and, if better information comes along, you go with that instead.
While it's troubling that 25% of the population still believes in the link even though it's been debunked, it's heartening that most of that group still vaccinates their kids anyway. And of the 10% of the population that refused at least one vaccination, well, we only know from that data that they refused at least one vaccination -- and we don't know what or why. There are occasionally valid reasons to refuse a vaccination: my girlfriend's mother stopped having her vaccinated for rubella after she got rubella from a vaccine. It's extremely rare but it happens. (Though I don't have stats in front of me and maybe it's not common enough to make a statistical dent in that 10%.) And the article even mentions the chicken pox vaccine on page 2 -- refusing the chicken pox vaccine is pretty damn different from refusing the polio vaccine.
And even if we go by the 25% statistic -- it's hardly a subset of "potential Bachmann voters". There are plenty of liberals who buy the autism/vaccination link. It's one of many reasons I no longer read the Huffington Post.
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One of my professors (talking soundly outside her real area of expertise) mentioned that what she was most leery about with vaccinations was that heavy metals (I think it's the same link Thad was talking about) were used to cripple the healthy virus in a vaccine.
I don't know if she just objected to vaccinations so shortly after birth or in general. But... Yeah. Even I didn't buy it at the time. Exposure to small amounts of heavy metals << Basically every life-long-crippling disease you get vaccinated against.
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I don't know if she just objected to vaccinations so shortly after birth or in general.
Right, and that's another distinction.
10% (plus margin of error) is, effectively, our ceiling on people who are opposed to vaccinations on principle. The real number is almost certainly smaller. And of that, we don't even know what the overlap is with the 25% who believe in the autism connection, versus Jehovah's Witnesses or what-have-you. (And from my knowledge of Jehovah's Witnesses, any of them who are by-the-book enough to refuse vaccinations are not going to be voting in any elections. Staying out of politics is part of the religion -- and I thank them for that.)
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The link has now been thoroughly refuted and its major proponent exposed as a liar and a fraud.
This is the key thing that I was referring to. I didn't mean any slight against your prior position, but rather those sticking to "their" (his findings') guns in the face of new information (that said findings were bunk).
Also, there's always someone who has some story about "I knew X, and her kid Y was fine, until BOOM the day after the vaccine, AUTISTIC!"
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that's science; you go with the information you have and, if better information comes along, you go with that instead.
I can understand why so many regard science with suspicion when it's put into those terms.
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You would prefer a more intellectually dishonest position? This example is only bad because it was debunked before it was proposed by the simple fact that there isn't enough mercury in a vaccine to match a fish dinner and it's not even the right kind of mercury.
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This is the key thing that I was referring to. I didn't mean any slight against your prior position, but rather those sticking to "their" (his findings') guns in the face of new information (that said findings were bunk).
Indeed, and taken as such -- I was just using my earlier viewpoint as a concrete example of somebody who accepted the possibility of an autism link but did not oppose vaccinating children.
I can understand why so many regard science with suspicion when it's put into those terms.
A deliberately brutal oversimplification, but I stand by it. "Kill your darlings" doesn't just apply to writing.
(And no, of course this shouldn't be interpreted to mean "Change your belief the second you see a conflicting study, regardless of whether it's been peer reviewed or duplicated.")
This example is only bad because it was debunked before it was proposed by the simple fact that there isn't enough mercury in a vaccine to match a fish dinner and it's not even the right kind of mercury.
Skepticism's fair, but "debunked before it was proposed" is not a good way to approach new research.
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My point is that it wasn't new research, it was bullshit from the start, because, as I said, the quantities were too small even if it were the kind of mercury you have to worry about, which it wasn't. Additionally, the mercury had been removed from the offending vaccines just mollify people before the shit it the fan about it. So non-dangerous levels of non-toxic mercury that were not there anymore couldn't have been a problem.
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My point is that it wasn't new research, it was bullshit from the start, because, as I said, the quantities were too small even if it were the kind of mercury you have to worry about, which it wasn't.
Which is enough to raise a "Hm, smells like bullshit; let's dig a little deeper on this" -- which they did, and that instinct turned out to be correct. Which is a good thing. But not the same thing as saying "Well, this is definitely bullshit, based on our existing understanding of how things work." It's semantic but it's important.
Additionally, the mercury had been removed from the offending vaccines just mollify people before the shit it the fan about it. So non-dangerous levels of non-toxic mercury that were not there anymore couldn't have been a problem.
Yes. I am absolutely in agreement that anyone believing in the vaccine/autism link at this point is either dangerously misinformed or completely out of their mind, and similarly believe that "Let's stop vaccinating our kids!" was never an appropriate response to the perceived problem.
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The thing is, it didn't smell like bullshit, it was known bullshit. I agree that scientific inquiry shouldn't be limited to what you think is probably true or untrue, obviously, but that specific case was never a case in medical circles. It's not like they'd been injecting mysterious chemicals into their patients based on faith. They knew the dangers of vaccines (and there are some to certain people, apparently your girlfriend is one, my uncle is another), and knew where those risks came from, and damn sure knew it wasn't the mercury.
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If I recall, and I'll look it up later after work, the journal that published the paper in the first place also ran other papers and stories contradicting the entire finding. Plus, his sample size was like 10 kids, which is not good for results.
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In short, "don't change your belief due to a new study regardless of whether it's been peer reviewed or duplicated."
I can't imagine how such a flawed study got so popular. I can only conclude that there's a powerful media machine out there that actually wants nothing more than the deaths of millions of children, but surely no organization could be so horrible, right? Right?
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Actually, the anti-vaccination movement has existed, in one form or another, since the first vaccines. Early complaints (predictably) often complained that doctors were subverting God's plans of having children die of polio. The recent trend is to jump on the big pharma paranoia bandwagon and hitch vaccines to it, portraying them as dangerous and forced on impressionable young parents by their doctors to make money.
The autism thing is just the latest in a very long line of scare tactics.
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Couple that with the fact that we don't know what causes autism and, to all appearances, it's an extremely complex web of things that's going to be damned tricky to figure out. An easy answer would be a great relief to a great many people.
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Back to Bachmann: American Academy of Pediatrics responds. (http://io9.com/5840104/american-academy-of-pediatrics-no-michele-bachmann-the-hpv-vaccine-cannot-cause-mental-retardation)
EDIT: And more yet from Michael Specter at the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/09/bachmanns-political-contagion.html).
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One of my friends from high school is complaining on facebook about the CA law allowing teenagers to get vaccinated for HPV without parental consent.
Please, how do I explain to her that you are immediately at high risk for contracting HPV the second you become sexually active in 2011 America, and vaccination and abstinence are literally the only two things you can do about it?
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I'd say the stats in that New Yorker link are a good start -- more than half of Americans are carriers, abstinence-only sex education doesn't work, and people who take virginity pledges are less likely to use a rubber and less likely to see a doctor if they get an STD.
Close with the nontrivial fact that one reason a girl might not want permission from her parents to get an abortion or a vaccination against an STD is if she is being raped by her father.
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http://www.lethimdie.com/ (http://www.lethimdie.com/)
(http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee139/Zucest/HA_HA_HA_OH_WOW.jpg)
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And then he turned to the viewer and said "No _______ - you are the Death Panel"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHBQCjgm7-Y&feature=player_embedded# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHBQCjgm7-Y&feature=player_embedded#)!
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I heard John Boehner talking on CNN a minute ago.
I don't... I don't think I've ever hated a single public figure more. If I were an evil super computer, I would go all AM on him so hard. I just... hate that man so much.
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Someone find the world's tiniest violin for Congressman John Fleming who wouldn't be able to feed his family on his meager 400k net income if the buffett rule came into effect (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/john-fleming-obama-millionaires-tax-buffett-rule_n_970084.html)
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Well, there goes the gauntlet. He has labeled himself a "job creator", straight the fuck up, so it's time for someone to finally task this person with an audit of how many American jobs he's created, net, since 2008. Taking bets on whether or not the number is negative.
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No, Catloaf, the $400k is AFTER he feeds his family.
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If I had $400k after all bills and food were taken care of, I'd be dancing a fucking jig.
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"Fleming told Jansing that the $6.3 million is "before you pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment and food.""
I am pretty sure the owner of a business does not payroll out of his own pocket. He must be pretty bad at this if his businesses don't make enough money to pay its employees.
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If they're registered as sole proprietorships/partnerships, then technically payroll is 'out of his own pocket' inasmuch as the business's income is his personal income and the business's expenses are his expenses. But it's still a weaselly turn of phrase.
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Dan Fanelli Ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umTITWQuXwY#)
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No way
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... so he'd be perfectly okay with safety regulations if a white dude flew a plane into a building, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack)
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You have got to be shitting me.
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Holy fuck. He even stole the theme music to Magnum Force.
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...can't view Youtube at work. Remember that thing where you should probably give a one-sentence summary of a link you're posting? I may have mentioned it once or twice.
Found a CBS article (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004214-503544.html) referencing a pro-racial profiling ad that he ran last year. Is this the same one, or a new one?
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it's the same one, Thad.
Edit: on a related note
Mac Parody - CONGRESS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFFtg7iCHTc#ws)
Hyperbole to be sure, but this is a nifty example of the difference between a senator and a representative.
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Yeah, he mentions running against Alan Grayson in that ad.
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But wait! There's more! The Syrian actor who played one of the terrorists in that video is pro racial profiling
Syrian Actor in Dan Fanelli's Commercials Discusses the Need for Profiling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQIP0LNHel0#ws)
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Who was it who had a bunch of black kids acting all "Gang-ster" in their ad? I think we posted it here two or three months ago. Similar sort of premise, really.
Whenever they do these kind of ads, the Uncle Toms are seriously the saddest part.
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Watching that video I honestly don't think that the guy who argues for racial profiling knows what it is.
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Audience at Florida Presidential debate boos gay soldier. (http://www.salon.com/news/2012_elections/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/09/22/gop_debate_florida)
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They're building one hell of an ad against themselves.
"Right now, an old enemy of American liberty is producing new weapons, attacking our soldiers, and gathering in increasing numbers to chant 'Let him die'..."
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So far all the right wing guys I know who've seen it are all "Oh it's only two guys" whenever the boos come out.
By golly! If only we could find those same two guys who keep booing in all these videos! Why, we could solve our prejudice problems once and for all!
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Well, it was just a couple guys in the "let him die" case. But in the "Rick Perry has executed more people than any other governor" and "I'm a gay soldier" cases, it was a whole lot more than that.
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Yeah, only a couple of people were indeed comfortable enough to yell "Let Him Die", but they were pretty obviously saying what the majority of those people were presumably thinking as they cheered on Ron Paul for saying that people should be "responsible for their decisions".
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Salon.com: Don't Know If You'd Heard but You Can Buy an Economist Subscription
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Pffft, you can read The Economist for free!
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Republican Crowd Boos Gay Soldier at GOP Fox News Google Debate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8pcJ6Hh4Y0#)
Video of the disgusting display.
Don't most other employers state, point-blank, that they cannot discriminate hiring or firing based on gender, race, creed, nationality, or sexual orientation? How does the military get off getting a free ride?
Yes, I'm aware that I served in the military. I kept my sexuality to myself, because, quite frankly, it was nobody's damn business.
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The best part is that he tries (and succeeds) at dodging the issue by changing what the question was and means. He changed it from being a question about discriminating against a particular sexual orientation to being a general policy against sex (somehow?) to being a question of discriminating on the basis of sex before finally saying that making an effort not to discriminate based on sex(ual orientation) was a social experiment that detrimentally affected the armed force's efficiency.
I know it's nothing new, but I don't watch this BS because I loathe this nonsense.
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I'm actually in full agreement with Shitnugget Cumdrip here. If you talk about your sexuality in the military, you should be fired on the spot.
Gay or straight.
Any soldier who talks about getting pussy (or cock) is immediately discharged without honors.
I think that would solve a LOT of our problems.
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No, that's stupid.
I'm fairly certain anything you think this would solve is already covered in the UCMJ, and thus would only add a layer of prudish puritanical nonsense to the rest of the bullshit that is being military.
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:joke: is that you would have to discharge basically the entire military.
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I ignored that because it's a bad joke. :humpf:
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Man that kind of killed the giddy delight of this particular hootenanny of absurdity stone dead
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this blanket intolerance sucks nowwwww
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Gov. Perry Participates in Lighting of Hanukkah Menorah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHCgCfLe_I#ws)
This is hands-down one of the most awkward things I have ever witnessed.
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[18:07] <Eazi-F> it just keeps getting better
[18:07] <Sak> oh god
[18:07] <Eazi-F> and when you think it can't get any better
[18:07] <Eazi-F> they start dancing
[18:08] <Usagi_Sauce> ten seconds in governor perry how can you be so bad at looking like you want to be in a place
[18:08] <Eazi-F> you have no idea
[18:08] <Eazi-F> keep watching
[18:09] <Eazi-F> like his fight or flight reflex is just kicking into overdrive here
[18:09] <Usagi_Sauce> Adding comments has been disabled for this video
[18:09] <Sak> oh my god fh this is beautiful
[18:10] <Eazi-F> all smoothly removing the firelighter
[18:11] <Usagi_Sauce> where do my hands go
[18:11] <Eazi-F> god the dancing just will never stop being the best thing
[18:11] <Usagi_Sauce> oh god what am i doing here
[18:11] <Usagi_Sauce> where do i look
[18:11] <Mothra> starts bobbing his head a bit
[18:11] <Mothra> politely headbanging where he feels appropriate
[18:12] <Eazi-F> dude is just fingering the snub-nosed in the back of his pants
[18:12] <Usagi_Sauce> "are-"
[18:12] <Usagi_Sauce> "are they about to circumcise me?"
[18:13] <Usagi_Sauce> "well done"
[18:13] <Mothra> Something about this dance has transformed him into Nixon
[18:13] <Usagi_Sauce> rick perry why did you just tell the rabbi "well done"
[18:13] <Eazi-F> the dance
[18:13] <Eazi-F> the fucking dance
[18:13] <Usagi_Sauce> what the fuck do you know about conducting a menorah lighting ceremony rick perry
[18:14] <Usagi_Sauce> FADE TO WHITE
[18:14] <Mothra> They all come off the dance just visibly ashamed and silent
[18:16] <Mothra> They look like they've just prematurely ended and are getting up from a dry orgy
[18:17] <Mothra> Nothing but regret seems appropriate
[18:17] <Eazi-F> "a-am I a jew now? did they just make me a jew"
[18:18] <Mothra> The man to his right gestures for a hug and is casually denied with a distanced backpat
[18:21] <Eazi-F> mentally adding the GCCX victory music after the dancing finishes
[18:21] <Eazi-F> "well done." DOOOOOO DAAAAAAA NAAAAAAAAAAAAH
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http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-1-2004/moment-of-zen---hanukkah (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-1-2004/moment-of-zen---hanukkah)
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(http://i.imgur.com/fE0m5.jpg)
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First time anyone's ever referred to either one of those people as "Clever girl."
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Palin! Trump! Bachmann! Perry! Christie!
This week the Wheel-of-Media-Obsession turns to Cain.
Could Cain be a legitimate contender?!?!?!?!
Of course he fucking isn't. Last week he said if you're poor or unemployed it's your own damn fault. That kind of shit might fly for Republicans most years, but not in an election where, memo to Herman Cain, the most important issue is jobs.
So really, this continuing game of Republican Roulette tells us two things.
One, the news media like to pretend there's a real race going on here because it's more exciting that way.
Two, there's a pretty vocal group of Republicans who really don't want to accept the seeming inevitability of a Romney nomination.
A lack of enthusiasm from the base is a bad sign.
Of course, it's a problem Obama's facing as well, so the general election is still anybody's ballgame. I'm inclined to think that a contest between two mediocre candidates favors the incumbent (as with Bush in '04, or Gore's stolen victory in '00), but it could still be very close.
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I know we've seen plenty of "lesser evil" races before but I think this one's going to hit unprecedented levels of blah. Will the results be pre-empted by a new episode of Two and a Half Men? Not inconcievable!
And of course, I still believe the left could not only clinch but sweep the thing if they just replaced Obama with literally anybody.
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This election's going to be WAY funnier than Two and a Half Men.
Just not as sophisticated or high-brow.
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Gary Johnson did a Question and Answer on reddit that gave some interesting insight into his opinions and ideas. (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/l8utx/iama_entrepreneur_ironman_scaler_of_mt_everest/) It's a shame he's going to be sidelined pretty quick, because he's a pretty interesting candidate.
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Could Cain be a legitimate contender?!?!?!?!
I doubt the Christian Right would put their support behind the first murderer.
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Gary Johnson did a Question and Answer on reddit that gave some interesting insight into his opinions and ideas. (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/l8utx/iama_entrepreneur_ironman_scaler_of_mt_everest/) It's a shame he's going to be sidelined pretty quick, because he's a pretty interesting candidate.
Don't know him; guess he was on Colbert recently but I haven't been keeping up as well as I'd like. He says in that thread that he's in favor of ramping down the drug war, which makes me prick up my ears -- not only is it an issue I agree with, it's an excellent litmus test for whether a politician is actually honest. (Because someone who's out to kiss ass and get votes is always going to play the "Drugs are bad" card, and at the absolute BEST throw some qualified, "more-research-is-needed/states' rights" support behind medical marijuana.) Seems that he comes with the usual Libertarian benefits and drawbacks, though -- dismantling DOE and HUD? No thank you.
On the other hand, he says "There is something inherently wrong with corporate personhood," which doesn't sound very Libertarian to me. Good on him.
Buddy Roemer was on Daily Show the other week and seemed pretty reasonable.
It's sorta weird how every sane person in the race has been sidelined except Romney -- and all the insane people who keep getting highlighted serve as alternatives to Romney.
And how the base turned on Perry as soon as they discovered he was sane on two issues.
I doubt the Christian Right would put their support behind the first murderer.
Groan. I thought about putting an "Am I my brother's keeper?" line in there but thought it would be far too cute.
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What the hell, I'm actually starting to LIKE Hermann Cain. Mainly because I make juuuust enough money to benefit from his fucking Bizarro Robin Hood tax plan, and I'm kind of an asshole.
Not that I enjoy the idea of benefitting financially from the misfortune of others, but I am selfish enough that the only reason I don't vote for a full meltdown of the financial system and our social order is because I would find that domestically inconvenient. So here's a good compromise; I don't mind being first against the wall when the revolution comes as long as the revolution actually comes. And if Cain keeps talking the way he usually does, it'll come buckets.
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It's sorta weird how every sane person in the race has been sidelined except Romney -- and all the insane people who keep getting highlighted serve as alternatives to Romney.
Huntsman :(
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Yes, Huntsman is one of the sane people who has been sidelined.
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Wait a second...
Powerful being named Cain...
Prone to making over-the-top villainous statements...
Has a nonsensical plan that involves going 30 years back in time...
And is basically a large, amorphous black mass in the rough shape of a man?
OH FUCK! (http://tenchi.wikia.com/wiki/Kain)
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Nobody who got rich off of selling something as awful as Godfather Pizza is going to be able to convince me of the inherent fairness and efficiency of the free market, sorry.
....I feel like I've done this bit before.
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Speaking of Godfather Pizza, I can't imagine that it's doing too great in this economy. A pizza business seems like it would rely on middle and lower class people having enough money to splurge every once in a while on pizzas.
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That's why he's supplementing his paycheck with public funds yo.
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I haven't seen one since I left Las Vegas (holy shit almost exactly decade ago) but I remember Godfather being kind of cheap shit. Also they did taco pizzas which is exactly the sort of thing to sell to underprivileged people who spawned too may little brats. Godfather is probably doing okay, but somebody at an actual PC can go verify that.
(Full disclaimer: taco pizzas from anywhere re actually pretty awesome.)
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Blackjack is the best cheap-ass pizza in America.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.
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What the hell, I'm actually starting to LIKE Hermann Cain.
Cain's links to Koch brothers exposed (http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/10/16/herman_cain_ties_to_koch_brothers.html)
just remember, the next time you think of doing anything conservative, that you're already wrong, and do the opposite.
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...so, debate? I only caught about five minutes of it.
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So I kept hearing Cain shout 9/9/9 and asked about it and the first response that popped into my head after having it explained was 'Would he be Abel to do that.'
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Turns out Cain is just trying to keep the spirit of Cirno Day alive.
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Oh, my God.
Romney absolutely devoured Perry on the illegal immigration issue.
Anyone who makes Rick Perry look like a douchenozzle on national television is okay in my book.
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(http://i.imgur.com/wvULE.jpg)
Source (http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/9-9-9-in-one-really-long-graph/).
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Fuck it, let's just bring feudalism back. It'd clear up the confusion.
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Is it the kind of feudalism where the assassination of prominent individuals is commonplace and the top 1% of the population are expected expose themselves to some slight risk of death on a battlefield?
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No, that would be ACTUAL class warfare.
The "class warfare" WE'RE talking about is what Republicans call it when poor people complain.
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Hey, hey, hey now. Republicans have it rough. They have to lead their base across a very rickety bridge, on a straight and narrow path. They could realize that they have no real chance to step off the bridge and not fall to their doom. But they GOTTA BELIEVE that they can fly, because there's the poor crocodiles down there who want to devour them.
Clearly there is only one thing that can happen at this point.
mola ram hell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFefdJvDVYQ#)
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Herman Cain accused of sexual harrassment (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67194.html)
Best part?
He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”
He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”
:lol:
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What are YOU doing in Canada?
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Look, what's a couple of rapes between friends? Water under the bridge.
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So the House leadership is trying to blame the Senate for not staying in session to debate the bill that the Senate passed and the House voted down.
Doesn't seem to be working so far; even venues like the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110573867064702.html) are blaming this on the House Republicans.
There's a real narrative developing here: the Democrats bend over backwards to compromise, and the Tea Partiers say it's not good enough.
I'm rather not a fan of all that bending over, backwards or otherwise, but politically I think if this keeps up it's going to go a lot worse for the Tea Party than the Democrats.
Boehner comes off looking like he has no fucking control over his caucus yet again; I think it's frankly a little insulting (even by their standards) that the Republicans keep expecting people not to notice how he keeps going from praising bills to condemning them as soon as his party rejects them.
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Gary Johnson did a Question and Answer on reddit that gave some interesting insight into his opinions and ideas. (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/l8utx/iama_entrepreneur_ironman_scaler_of_mt_everest/) It's a shame he's going to be sidelined pretty quick, because he's a pretty interesting candidate.
Don't know him; guess he was on Colbert recently but I haven't been keeping up as well as I'd like. He says in that thread that he's in favor of ramping down the drug war, which makes me prick up my ears -- not only is it an issue I agree with, it's an excellent litmus test for whether a politician is actually honest. (Because someone who's out to kiss ass and get votes is always going to play the "Drugs are bad" card, and at the absolute BEST throw some qualified, "more-research-is-needed/states' rights" support behind medical marijuana.) Seems that he comes with the usual Libertarian benefits and drawbacks, though -- dismantling DOE and HUD? No thank you.
On the other hand, he says "There is something inherently wrong with corporate personhood," which doesn't sound very Libertarian to me. Good on him.
Johnson drops Republican candidacy to run as Libertarian. (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9598987-gary-johnson-to-run-as-libertarian)
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If he can just, like, change that fucking party name, he probably already has my vote.
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Democrats say mean things, Boehner demands that the house adjourn, all the republicans walk out while the Democrat who had the floor calls them all cowards, at which point Boehner orders the C-SPAN feed turned off. (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/21/boehners-office-cuts-off-c-span-cameras-as-gop-takes-beating/#.TvIqdhsbXZQ.reddit)
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House GOP Refuses to Allow Dem Whip to Speak on Floor & Offer Senate Compromise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV71OKdEqRI#)
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Now that's what I call doubling down.
Seriously, the guy's got KARL ROVE (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57346952-503544/karl-rove-piles-on-tells-republicans-to-cut-bait-in-tax-standoff/) telling him he's pushed the divisive rhetoric too far and should really look into just a hint of bipartisanship. Instead he's filmed every Democrat's campaign ad for them.
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Boehner's problem is that he honestly has no fucking idea if his people want him to push for a 12-month extension or a 0-month one.
He's also probably afraid of giving those in the latter camp the chance to open their mouths.
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I can't help wondering if throwing the Tea Party and Grover Norquist under the bus would be the best thing for the party right now.
As opposed to six months or a year or three years from now.
EDIT: More good news: we've reached the point where even generally pro-corporate articules in US News are openly mocking the phrase "job creator" (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2011/12/22/what-job-creators-really-want).
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Can't embed this video (http://www.youtu.be/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YTAKktjpxmY#t=74s)
Yes; That is a congressman booing the idea of a ban on insider trading in congress. Pretty safe bet what side of the aisle he's from.
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(http://doom.pyoko.org/NewtRules1.jpg)
When he wasn’t talking about the challenging GOP race, Gingrich was learning about the animals inhabiting the Audubon Zoo. He spent some time with Panya, the 45-year-old 11,000-pound Asian elephant. “They like a hard pat,” he said as he patted Panya’s back.
Gingrich has a well-documented fascination with zoos, beginning in early childhood when he tried to establish a zoo in his hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when he was 11 years old. CNN’s Piers Morgan interviewed him at a zoo in South Carolina in January, and he made an unscheduled stop at the San Diego Zoo on February 14, later telling reporters the visit was a Valentine’s Day present to himself.
(http://doom.pyoko.org/NewtRules2.jpg)
I unironically sort of like Newt for some reason after this primary. Maybe it's because, against all odds, he is the most likable person next to faux-person Romney and terrible-person Santorum and crazy-person Paul.
(http://doom.pyoko.org/NewtRules3.jpg)
But I figure that even though this Primary already is practically a new Christmas every day, I'm rooting for Newt to bring about the brokered convention (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/14/gingrich-won-t-quit-the-race-but-he-ll-make-sure-romney-doesn-t-win.html) and really give us a great gift.
Also man, imagine if this goofy fucker had become a zoologist instead of a slime-ball politician. He'd probably be happier.
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Maybe we can pretend that politics was just a fall-back for Newt after he failed to get decent enough grades in the sciences.
Or maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe he is in fact, a newt.
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Maybe newt always just wanted to be a zookeeper, but his parents made him get into law and politics.
That would be... The Saddest Thing.
We should start a petition to get Newt in the zoos and out of the offices after the election season is over.
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I would definitely not go so far as to say I like the guy, but yeah when he talks about things like history and space exploration and manages to keep the out-to-lunch political filters out of it then he's got some admirable qualities.
I'll agree that if he hadn't gotten into politics he'd probably seem like a better person. He might not even have cheated on his wives!
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He might not even have cheated on his wives!
Whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I mean, that elephant is pretty sexy and all.
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I would definitely not go so far as to say I like the guy, but yeah when he talks about things like history and space exploration and manages to keep the out-to-lunch political filters out of it then he's got some admirable qualities.
I'll agree that if he hadn't gotten into politics he'd probably seem like a better person. He might not even have cheated on his wives!
In another lifetime, Neil Degrasse Tyson is on CNN talking about how the Democrats are forcing people to wear do-not-euthanize bracelets and Gingrich is telling us we should all just worry about space.
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2012 Texas GOP Platform (http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012-Platform-Final.pdf)
Just read it. There is gold in there.
Homosexuality ― We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to
the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that
have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. P ‐ 8
Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle, in public policy, nor should
“family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We believe there should be no granting of special legal
entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally,
we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction or
belief in traditional values.
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I tried reading it but now I feel physically ill.
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I "like" the inappropriate quotation marks.
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I wish they would secede, because then we could invade.
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Dick Cheney: Picking Palin in 2008 was a mistake (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/29/cheney-picking-palin-in-2008-was-a-mistake/)
No shit, Dick.
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As a consummate political strategist I'm not sure what Dick's trying to do by randomly starting some sort of inter-party tiff in an election summer. Maybe he's trying to distance the party from the embarrassment of 2008, or maybe he's finally decided the mainline needs to start maneuvering against the goddam Tea Party. Or maybe he's just old and senile and has been for about 8 years.
Liz and McCain fire back: (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57482076-503544/cheneys-palin-critique-prompts-response-from-his-daughter/)
McCain added that this is not the first time he's disagreed with Cheney. "I respect the vice president. He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not."
Uh, really? Because you seemed to be in perfect agreement about it for about a year there. Yeah hey some of use do have memories longer than that of a fish, you Benedict Arnold.
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It bears repeating that the guy who picked Dick Cheney as Bush's running-mate was, in fact, Dick Cheney.
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I always loved that. "OH. HMMMMMMMMMM IT SEEMS ALL THE OTHER CANDIDATES FAILED THE SELECTION PROCESS. ALAS! WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?"
Meanwhile the other possible choices are all strapped to tables while lasers creep towards their johnny jibblies, bobbing in shark tanks, or running down alleyways from a seven-foot man with metal teeth.
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Doesn't appear to be up anymore, but Tom Tomorrow had a strip back then that went something like this:
And so, Dick Cheney's exhaustive search for a running-mate has produced...Dick Cheney!
Come to think of it, that's pretty much the GOP's solution to everything.
"I think somebody needs a huge tax cut -- and I think it's us!"
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So the GOP decided to replace a number of Ron Paul supporting delegates going into the convention by applying a series of retroactive rules that are being viewed as a means of rendering grassroots/insurgent candidates like Paul dead in the water. In a mockery of the yae/nae voting process that the conventions typically used, they took a voice vote, had the voice vote go in the favor of the Paulites, and then overruled it.
The Paulites are responding to this by shouting as loudly as possible to be heard on national television, during the middle of the RNC.
The RNC staff responded by cutting the crowd mics.
:whoops:
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So what you're saying is...
The R[evol]ution is NOT being televised?
As for seriousness, Ron Paul kids squawking does not present the RNC's manufactured and scripted appearance that the party is united in its cause to DELETE OBAMA.
Cartoonish villainy continues to be a Republican strength.
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Hardly unique to Republicans, though. The Debate Commission had to pay a settlement (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_04_16_02.html) after barring Nader from sitting in the audience at the 2000 debates (in a separate room).
I DO think the GOP's being rather foolish in snubbing Paul and his fans, and it's a hell of a mixed message considering that picking Paul Ryan is largely a concession to that wing of the party.
I still think Libertarian-leaning, Paul-supporting youth represent the future of the Republican Party, but obviously the party's more united than most of us expected when we started this thread 4 years ago. Palin herself is as unpopular as she's ever been but her fringe lunacy is alive and well in the Republican Party, and moderate and Libertarian-leaning Republicans, while perhaps increasingly nervous about it, aren't exactly fleeing the party in droves.
We also overestimated how much Obama was going to function as a uniting force; Fox News has been damned effective in demonizing him, and he's proven a hell of a lot less competent at defending his image than the '08 campaign suggested. (I can't help wondering how much of that was really him and how much was Howard Dean.)
I still think there's a big storm brewing in the GOP, but the disparate factions (plutocrat/hawk/fundie) seem to be uniting pretty well this election. It might not be enough to win the White House and probably won't win the Senate; we'll see.
I think we'll see them getting along better if Romney wins and squabbling more if he loses, but I also don't see any kind of major split in the party coming between now and 2016, nor any decisive defeat coming in '14.
But what the fuck, it's all tea leaves. What do I know?
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But what the fuck, it's all tea leaves. What do I know?
I saw what you did there.
EDIT:
This is ever the conundrum, isn't it? You need your base to want to do something but you don't actually want them to have a voice because frankly a lot of what they have to say is at odds with what you want to say.
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But then it's not really your base, is it? It's just convenient to fool them into thinking they are.
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:keikaku:
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I don't think anybody that needs to see the irony here will ever, ever see it. (http://gawker.com/5939145/republican-delegates-believe-all-candidates-should-have-right-to-choose-abortion-policy-for-themselves)
THAD EDIT: Fixed link. Irony is clear from link URL, but it's worth adding that it's a Sam Bee segment from last night's Daily Show.
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Haven't watched it yet but the first thing I thought of on seeing the headline in the URL was Bee's segment from '08. First thought on seeing the thumb was that this was a replay of that segment, but then I saw "2012" on the mic.
Will see about digging the '08 one up a little later. One of my favorite Daily Show segments ever.
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Yes, guys, continue to move farther to the right. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/23/gop-senate-candidate-pregnancies-from-rape-gods-will/?hpt=hp_t2) That is sure to solve your ongoing demographics problem.
Women voters? Who gives a fuck. They're too busy cooking me a roast to vote, am I right guys?
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Look, if God wants you to get raped, you get raped. That's just how it happens. You gonna question God?
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If it hadn't been a legitimate God-rape, the body would have shut the pregnancy down.
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This is what happens when your entire religion is built around a story about a girl being impregnated by God without her prior consent.
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Tea Partiers kicked off Financial Services Committee (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/12/05/conservatives-bite-back-at-gop-leadership-over-purge/), including David Schweikert, who I guess is still technically my Congressman for the next month. It's a gesture that indicates the party leadership has realized how badly they have screwed the pooch on this one, but it's still pretty much symbolic as long as Ryan's still in charge of the Budget Committee.
But just in case you thought the GOP was moving toward the center, well, today's news is they've found a whole new minority group to alienate: the disabled (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57557077/u.n-treaty-on-disabilities-falls-short-in-senate/).
A vote to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities fell short in the Senate Tuesday, with the measure receiving 61 votes, six less than the 67 needed for ratification. Thirty-eight Republicans voted no.
The treaty promotes equal rights for disabled people around the world, including those with physical disabilities such as blindness. If the Senate had voted for ratification, the United States would have joined 126 other countries that are party to the treaty, which was modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ratifying the treaty would have given the United States greater standing to push other nations to pass measures similar to that 1990 law.
Think THAT'S cold?
Supporters of the treaty included two former Republican presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, both of whom suffered from disabilities as a result of their military service. Dole, who is 89 and has been battling health issues, lobbied senators from a wheelchair in the Senate chamber before the vote was taken.
The GOP: anti-woman, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-science, and anti-veteran. And I'm sure I've missed a few.
The party's descent into disrepute is happening far too slowly.
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Too on a phone to find the quote right now, but one of them summed up why the they voted against it by just outright saying "Any international agreements drafted in Geneva don't apply to the US."
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It starts out as just "Sign a treaty saying you'll take care of the disabled", but that's only the first toe into the giving-up-your-sovereignty pool. Next thing you know, they'll let their inspectors get rid of our nuclear weapons. Then it's just a hop, jump and a skip to one of their Sustainability Enforcers politely making you get back on your Chinese-built touring bike and return back to your Accommodating Living Unit and be quiet. And once that happens, you can kiss most of the human race goodbye as the half-reptile men will finally being their interbreeding plans.
And that's why we can't agree to start treating the disabled well. We're doing it for your freedom. Remember to kick a guy out of his wheelchair today to let him know how much you love being free.
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Hold on, you said half-reptile men.
THEY HAVE ALREADY BEGUN THEIR INVASION
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Discerning individuals have known that Obama is a half-reptile man (http://www.hiddencodes.com/obama/index.htm) since.... 2005...?
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Discerning individuals have known that Obama is a Vardan pawn (http://angryflower.com/brobam.html) since.... 2005...?
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It starts out as just "Sign a treaty saying you'll take care of the disabled", but that's only the first toe into the giving-up-your-sovereignty pool. Next thing you know, they'll let their inspectors get rid of our nuclear weapons. Then it's just a hop, jump and a skip to one of their Sustainability Enforcers politely making you get back on your Chinese-built touring bike and return back to your Accommodating Living Unit and be quiet. And once that happens, you can kiss most of the human race goodbye as the half-reptile men will finally being their interbreeding plans.
And that's why we can't agree to start treating the disabled well. We're doing it for your freedom. Remember to kick a guy out of his wheelchair today to let him know how much you love being free.
Look you gal-dang idjert, you think yer so smart with yer ivory league edu-tower and your big fancy book-learnin, but I know when they put that nigger back in the white house and slapped a fresh coat a' black on it he was gonna sign one a them treaty-mc-jiggers, that way he could skip the true patriots in our house of representatives and hand the power straight over to the monkey-boon or whatever his name is in that there Unutted Not-Nations. Did you know them idjerts signed a treaty to take away EVERYBODY'S guns and the NIGGER supports it?
^^ this is every conversation I've had with conservatives about the UN in the last six months. Seriously, this is what we've come to. We are not part of the international community anymore because half of our two-party system consists of flailing infants.
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But just in case you thought the GOP was moving toward the center, well, today's news is they've found a whole new minority group to alienate: the disabled (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57557077/u.n-treaty-on-disabilities-falls-short-in-senate/).
A vote to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities fell short in the Senate Tuesday, with the measure receiving 61 votes, six less than the 67 needed for ratification. Thirty-eight Republicans voted no.
The treaty promotes equal rights for disabled people around the world, including those with physical disabilities such as blindness. If the Senate had voted for ratification, the United States would have joined 126 other countries that are party to the treaty, which was modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ratifying the treaty would have given the United States greater standing to push other nations to pass measures similar to that 1990 law.
Think THAT'S cold?
Supporters of the treaty included two former Republican presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, both of whom suffered from disabilities as a result of their military service. Dole, who is 89 and has been battling health issues, lobbied senators from a wheelchair in the Senate chamber before the vote was taken.
The GOP: anti-woman, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-science, and anti-veteran. And I'm sure I've missed a few.
The party's descent into disrepute is happening far too slowly.
Jesus Christ, the GOP can't jump off a cliff fast enough.
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Jim DeMint ragequits the Senate. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/06/breaking-sen-jim-demint-will-step-down-from-senate/comment-page-10/)
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"I ALWAYS MEANT TO ONLY DO TWO TERMS. YEAH."
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Wow, they're not even waiting until they get voted out to become lobbyists anymore.
The Heritage Foundation is the premier think tank research organization - the premier idea group for the conservative movement. This will give me the opportunity to help take our case to the American people and to translate our policies into real ideas.
Is that why you voted against their healthcare plan, Jimmy?
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It's telling now that he's outright saying he has a better chance of crafting legislation by being a lobbyist than a congressman.
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Derek Khanna fired. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/staffer-axed-by-republican-group-over-retracted-copyright-reform-memo/)
(For those of you just joining us, he's the guy who wrote an absolutely amazing paper advocating copyright reform (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=280.msg247434#msg247434), which his bosses retracted the very next day.)
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I guess the good has to balance with the evil when it comes to sudden ejections.
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It would be an amazing coup for the Democrats to hire the guy and steal that position, but that's simply not gonna happen.
Interestingly, this whole sequence of events is probably the most blatant federal example of a party being bought and paid for I can think of in a little while (not THAT long). I mean, that stuff is always bubbling pretty visibly near the surface these days, but this was even closer than most events.
Not that voters will notice of course.
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I said it before and I'll say it again: GOP can't jump off a cliff fast enough.
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Charlie Crist, Democrat. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/07/crists-political-hat-trick-former-gop-governor-independent-candidate-announces-switch-to-dem/?hpt=hp_t3)
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He can't win, and honestly running again would probably stick us with another 4 years of Governor Voldemort.
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It would be an amazing coup for the Democrats to hire the guy and steal that position, but that's simply not gonna happen.
Haha, no, not with Dodd in charge of the MPAA and Biden in the VP's office.
Interestingly, this whole sequence of events is probably the most blatant federal example of a party being bought and paid for I can think of in a little while (not THAT long). I mean, that stuff is always bubbling pretty visibly near the surface these days, but this was even closer than most events.
Yeah, it's like they're not even trying. I mean, there was that half-assed little "This had nothing to do with Hollywood lobbyists, the paper was just released without proper review" nonsense, but I can't imagine they expect anyone will actually believe that.
Not that voters will notice of course.
Right -- this isn't going to get a whole lot of coverage in the mainstream press.
As far as the independent online press, well, hellooooo Streisand Effect, but ultimately this is just going to be one more small piece of the GOP's excruciatingly slow slide to public disfavor. Most people quite simply don't vote based on copyright stance. (Though that, of course, is a catch-22; if a major-party candidate WERE to take a public stand on the subject that was different from every other damn major-party candidate's, I imagine we'd see a bump in the youth vote.) Hell, as impressed as I am by Khanna's position on copyright, if he were to run for office I'd still have to hear his stance on science/women/immigrants/gays/the disabled before I'd commit to voting for him.
I DO see Khanna landing on his feet; SOMEBODY is going to want to hire him after this.
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Taibbi: Jim DeMint: The Fireman Ed of Politics (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/jim-demint-the-fireman-ed-of-politics-20121207)
So this is a mutual split. The Tea Partiers were sick to the point of puking of RINO types like Boehner who are gearing up to put the Republican Party's name on a massive tax increase and may eventually bend on choice, immigration and gay rights. The Republican establishment, meanwhile, is sick of waking up every morning wondering which of the party's extremist dingbats has decided that the best way to win national elections is to give interviews calling carbon dioxide a safe, naturally-occurring gas or demanding that unmarried, sexually-active women be barred from teaching children. The disgust these two groups feel for each other is genuine and in some cases may actually exceed the disgust they feel toward opponents on the blue side of the aisle.
Any pundit who tries to claim he knows where all of this is going is lying. This schism could be a disaster for Republicans (because it will further alienate the rank-and-file, middle-and-working-class voters from the party establishment, which will now be bashed from the outside by DeMint and the Tea Party), or it could actually be a good thing for the Republicans' future prospects (there's a way to look at this as a long-overdue purge of the party's moron faction).
Or it could all be irrelevant. Remember, the Democrats were facing a similarly bitter split not too long ago, when their party's mainstream unforgivably backed Bush's idiotic Iraq invasion and then saddled us with a war-waffling presidential candidate in John Kerry. And just like the Republicans after Romney, the Democrats after the Kerry loss felt hopeless, depressed and self-hating – you heard a lot of "Screw it, I'm moving to Iceland" talk. Four years later, the party sold the identical Kerry policy package in an exciting new Obama wrapper, and suddenly people were partying in the streets. You just never know how these things will turn out.
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Gingrich: If Hillary Clinton Runs In 2016, Current GOP 'Incapable Of Competing' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOlFXvP-sJQ#ws)
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Every once in a while Newt leaks a bit and ends up being likable. Fuck.
Is it just me or does Paul Ryan sound a little bitter about Mitt's failed strategy?
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Republicans figure out a way to vote on raising taxes without voting on raising taxes. Or rather, they're sponsoring two bills, one with a tax increase and one without, and will vote on both. I guess the reasoning is that when somebody asks later, they can say they voted not to raise taxes (and omit the part where they also voted to raise taxes).
I wanted to get all upset that they put honesty as a lower priority than upholding their dumbass social price-fixing scheme but then I realized they're only really trying to bluff the barons who are going to hold them responsible for it. Ah, this'll be fun.
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I really don't think the barons are that stupid. I think they're trying to bluff the blue-collar people who vote Republican because they THINK they're going to be barons someday.
...this is...really, really half-assed and transparent. Leads me to believe they really DIDN'T have a plan for the last year and a half that they knew this was going to happen and they really were putting all their eggs in the "sweep the elections" basket.
Guess I'm not being entirely fair. As I've said, Boehner HAS made the shrewdest political move in all this, by punishing a few of the key Congressmen who refused to play ball and got us into this mess in the first damn place. Bit of a contrast to all the Democrats lining up to kiss Joe Lieberman's wrinkled ass four years ago.
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GOP: Obama wants to go over the cliff (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/23/republicans-obama-wants-to-go-over-the-cliff/)
You know what?
Military spending slashed, revenues back up to pre-bush levels, a field ripe for entitlement increases in 2 years when the republicans getting the blame for the cliff all get voted out of office?
Sure. If I believed for a second that the Democratic party was this smart, or didn't know that Obama was basically offering them social security and capital gains slashes on a silver platter and having it thrown back in his face. But if this is the way we're going, sure.
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Hey, remember the Violence Against Women Act?
I mean, back when it existed? (http://jezebel.com/5972601/say-goodbye-to-the-violence-against-women-act)
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If you didn't read the article, it didn't even make the floor. The House leadership just shut it down without a vote. They did the same thing about a day earlier with Sandy relief funds for NY and NJ. Governor Christie was not best pleased:
Governor Christie: Natural Disasters Don't Happen In Red States Or Blue States (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSI7aZjqeHY#ws)
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Decided to move the conversation over here.
I feel it's worth reiterating at this point: I no longer believe the Tea Partiers even think that losing elections means they just weren't far enough right -- I believe that they legitimately do not give a fuck about getting reelected and they just want to wreck up the place as best they can while they have a chance.
I have to admit there's a part of me that wishes the Democrats had a major faction that cared so damn little about electoral consequences for themselves or their party.
On a simple, raw humanity note: I've been to Jersey City. I liked it. Downtown seemed maybe a bit sleepy and run-down -- but it was all local business. It had character. The family friend I was staying with took me out for Cuban food, and to a science-fiction double feature of Tron and :khaaan: at a recently-restored 1920's movie theater. (I think it was the Loew's (http://www.loewsjersey.org/).)
Not that New Jersey deserves disaster relief any more or any less than any other place in such straits. Not like my personal fuzzy memories of the place have any bearing on this tragedy. But damn it I'm just heartsick thinking about the places I went and thinking of destroyed homes and businesses and displaced families.
Nothing but disgust for anyone who would deny relief to the victims. Just as surely as I've nothing but disgust for anyone who would deny protection for victims of domestic violence. It's not a matter of politics. It's not about liberal or conservative. It's about being able to look your goddamn reflection in the eye.
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If the GOP had any sense, they'd be grooming Christie for 2016. Of course, that's impossible now, because you can't be critical of your own party without being a secret muslim anymore.
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4 years is an eternity in politics and if Christie runs for the biggest office in the land after Romney's incredible failure he can make damn near anything that happens outside of the GOP norm into a strength.
Chris Christie: Not Beholden To Billionaires, But To The People!
Chris Christie: An Honest Politician!?
Chris Christie: Telling It Like It Is!
Chris Christie: AGAINST Blocking Relief To Disaster Victims!
Between the possibility of a GOP civil war, the desperate need to rebrand and the proven failures of everything in 2012, all dude really needs to do is get a personal trainer to deal with the most superficial image problems. Romney proved that a hollow corporate suit propped up by money and no positions can't become President(yet.) He can still get 47% of the vote.
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Christie getting the nomination would require GOP primary voters to decide that civil unions and amnesty aren't deal-breakers.
I think that's going to happen someday, and I won't rule out the possibility of it happening in four years. But I must admit I'm skeptical.
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Romney sort of got a pass on the first. DOMA should go before the Supreme Court this year, not that either result will stop bigots from being bigots. However, the GOP will probably have to budge on Amnesty. Not that I'd complain if they wanted to keep forfeiting entire voter blocks!
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Romney got a pass partly on the virtue of backing away from all his previous policy positions. Christie is a politician, and he might be the kind of guy to do that, but I don't think so.
And of course the other thing was that Romney was the least offensive of a crop of really terrible candidates, and subject to a primary season where the base spent six months desperately searching for some candidate, ANY candidate, who would be a better choice.
Now, that could potentially happen with Christie. But recent history tells us that even 9/11 didn't make Republican primary voters forget Rudy Giuliani's less-than-perfect alignment with party doctrine.
Granted, it's getting to where public opinion can shift a surprising amount in just a few years -- gay rights is one example, acceptance of marijuana is another -- but the Republican Party isn't the most nimble apparatus for dealing with those changes. I expect the leadership is in meltdown mode about now, wishing the Tea Partiers would play ball -- but the Tea Partiers got elected, and in many cases reelected, and as I said I think they're more than willing to go down with the ship over their stupid, evil principles.
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I'm sure we were all wondering what the Republicans are telling themselves in this time of crisis (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/01/national_review_post_election_summit_conservatives_descend_on_the_magazine.html)
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Rove declares war on the Tea Party.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/02/04/karl-roves-new-conservative-victory-project-earns-conservative-ire/ (http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/02/04/karl-roves-new-conservative-victory-project-earns-conservative-ire/)
I think we can officially say the autophagia has begun. Pull up a chair.
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Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. This is indeed awesome.
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Unless we quit a 2 party system this is just going to wind up making democrats more conservative though?
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I don't understand how this will make democrats more conservative. Conservatives are eating each other because they can't elect anyone. To whom does this send a message, "let's get conservative?"
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Basically, it's the idea that elections are already a "Price is Right" game. i.e., a game where the winning strategy is to be generally close to your opponent's overall position. Coupled with the fact that the Republican establishment isn't going to be dis-established. They're either going to be absorbed into the Democrats, or Democrats will start catering to the loonies for votes on critical issues.
Basically, no matter what, these loonies having their loony voice shouting out rationality is going to sway politics more toward the loony even if no one (except the loonies) actually wants that.
...
Maybe I'm just feeling extra mopey and cynical today.
Maybe I need a Mars Confection-Like Product.
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I think what you're trying to say is that the corporate enslavement Kzer-Za subrace of the GOP will quickly tire of their doctrinal war with their fanatically destructive Kohr-Ah brethren, and start forming limited partnerships with the more unsavory, corporate-friendly members of the Alliance like the Druugen RIAA and keep moving their influence up until the entire Alliance is suddenly all corrupt plutocrats communicating entirely via armed drones.
...eight years and I'm still making GOP=Ur-Quan comparisons, and it still fucking works.
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Rove's as cynical and opportunistic as they come; his weakness, as with most of the Bush Administration, is a tendency to eat his own dog food and refuse to grant any credence to facts that contradict his bought-and-paid-for research ("permanent Republican majority", "I'm entitled to THE math", his frantic hand-clapping attempts to resuscitate the Romney campaign last Election Day). He never gave a fuck about the fundamentalists except insofar as he could manipulate them into voting Republican. He was bound to cut them loose as soon as they became a liability; it just took him awhile to notice.
Curious if the Kochs and Adelson have reached the same conclusion. They don't give a goddamn about social conservatism either (Adelson's a casino magnate, for God's sake), they just want people in office who'll vote against increasing their taxes and regulations.
The Tea Party's a pretty good example of a movement that was, briefly, actual grassroots, which was almost immediately coopted by Republican Establishment money, and then became a mouthpiece for the Christian Right.
I'm just going to link the Clown cartoon (http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/071217_clown.html) again.
Anyhow, would be nice to see Rove, Adelson, and the Kochs investing heaps of money trying to fight each other. But you know once the primary's over they're all going to be on the same side regardless.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php)
:whoops:
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CPAC slavery (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfCX9sJqqc#ws)
Watch this and be amazed.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php)
:whoops:
Teabagger event on racial tolerance unfolds predictable, as Teabaggers attend.
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Well, obviously all the racists are liberal plants smuggled in by ThinkProgress to make people think the Tea Party is racist.
...or so someone explained to me the LAST time I pointed out that some of the people in the Tea Party are racist.
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The "Satan put the fossils there to test our faith" defense is impervious to all attack
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http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130408/alaska-gop-headquarters-under-lockdown-leadership-meeting-monday-night (http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130408/alaska-gop-headquarters-under-lockdown-leadership-meeting-monday-night)
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I find it interesting that the name "Palin" is not listed anywhere in that article at all.
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So a former Republican Hispanic outreach director switched to Democrat! (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/former-rnc-hispanic-outreach-director-in-florida-switches-to-democrat/2120764) :whoops:
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It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today.
Damn, wonder what happened to finally dislodge that cognitive dissonance.
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/21/185792100/oklahomas-gop-senators-find-themselves-in-tornado-aid-bind?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130521 (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/21/185792100/oklahomas-gop-senators-find-themselves-in-tornado-aid-bind?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130521)
FEMA sucks! ...now give us money to rebuild a part of our state, plz.
Senators Coburn and Inhofe, both loud critics of FEMA and senators of Oklahoma, kiiiiiiiiinda need FEMA dollars.
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At least they managed to not fire all of the state's own emergency workers beforehand. It's a step up!
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The 20 Craziest Tweets From The Man Who Could Be Virginia’s Next Lt Governor (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/05/23/2053321/ew-jackson-twitter/?mobile=nc)
(Yeah, it's a ThinkProgress link, but all they're doing is collecting the original material in one article)
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Putting aside that the dude is a legitimately terrible human being, no adult who uses the phrase "makes me feel ikky all over. Yuk!" should ever be given power over anything.
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(http://i.imgur.com/3EEwBJU.png)
So uh, this is the current top story on Fox News.
I understand the rationale for why this is the front page (Obama is doing it, so it must be bad), and yet I feel like I'm in bizarro world. Is Fox News really telling us that private ownership may somehow not be in US citizens' best interests?
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Cognitive dissonance? What's that?
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Obama personally saves baby from burning household
Critics of the move worry that baby will grow up to be Hitler
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The next despot with impact comparable to Hitler, or the reincarnation of Hitler himself? Because in the first place, well, that's just your standard "Don't mess with the natural order" kind of question, whereas the second option seems to imply that someone or someTHING is keeping Hitler from reincarnating as planned through the use of infant deaths.
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(Genesis 38:9) - "And Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so it came about that when he went in to his Hitler's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground, in order not to give offspring to Hitler."
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Charles Krauthammer brought a very good point that the GOP will never ever address because it'd instantly lose all their votes:
It's impossible for all Americans to receive current top-notch medical health care without ruining the country.
Of course, this problem isn't going away even if the US keeps its current tiered system of well-cared vs. shit-out-of-luck, and it's going to require addressing some questions conservatives won't ever touch (such as better health management through life, raising the retirement age, and discussing euthanasia rights)
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Part of that comes back to the oft-quoted figure that Americans spend twice as much on health per capita than any other country in the world.
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Everyone kind of drags their feet on the answer but really the reason we spend so much is because we're still the only country that lets profit be the motivating factor in our health care system. That's the simple answer, and the most direct really. I always hear people hemming and hawing over what causes our health care to eat up so much of GDP with so little in return, but really it's because when you go to the doctor, even for simple things, there are like 12 entities which all want to make massive profits before you're done.
Also, I think that statement about how if everyone had top-notch care we'd go bankrupt is really, really misleading. And part of what makes that misleading is that poor-people and most people who can't afford care still get it. And when they can't pay up, everyone who wants money just turns to the government to pay for it anyway. I'd actually be willing to bet that if everyone had equal access to top-notch care, our percentage of healthcare spent as a part of GDP would go down. But the people making huge profits off of your care would lose out.
And that's what it boils down to. Maybe for people at the bottom it can be an ideological war about big vs small government or health care as a right. But for the people at the top, it's about whether private interest gets to make money or not.
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research research...
ok, the end-of-life care slice has not increased significantly
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/better-if-not-cheaper-care/ (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/better-if-not-cheaper-care/)
on the other hand, the top 5% of old people spent $600 billion dying. Once four of your main organs fail at once, you essentially become a science project more risky than a rocket launch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/costs-of-medical-care-at-the-end-of-life.html?_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/costs-of-medical-care-at-the-end-of-life.html?_r=0)
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Glenn Beck Presents 'Just the Beginning' of Why You Need to Pay Attention to Grover Norquist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74xI0nUd1WY#)
Glenn Bleck: Grover Norquist is responsible for 'the Muslim Brotherhood stuff' in the White House.
Ahhhh delicious. It doesn't even remotely work at face value, is the thing I think I love the most. I don't think I've ever seen the narrative slapped together so sloppily.
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So, I friended a friend of mine's mother on Facebook because I felt kinda bad (she's a bit of a hermit), and every day, without fail, she will share something from a Facebook hyperconservative ragefurnace, usually either a Las Vegas housewife (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Conservative-Lady/112415152112864) who posts third-hand artifact-laden jpgs about Obama, or a limp-dicked tea party insurgency group (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Three-Percenters-Club/256267297740139) that waffles between full-on vowing to murder authority figures and desperately asserting that they are a non-violent group.
After reading the comments, I decided to start a tumblr for some of the better ones.
Enjoy! (http://gopthedailydose.tumblr.com/)
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Talking of the GOP eating itself, I heard news the other day that deep-pocketed donors are looking to start financing primary challenges of Tea Party House Republicans.
I can't really bring myself to root for moneyed interests buying elections OR for good old-fashioned grassroots democracy putting crazy people in office to defund the government. But it does seem to fit the thread title.
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This is a pretty fitting coda to the Ron Paul OVERlution
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cb5_1372379074#mgobZQCerkfrRIt7.01 (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cb5_1372379074#mgobZQCerkfrRIt7.01)
Anonymous Hacks Neo-Nazis, Finds Ron Paul
Well this just got interesting.
The hacktivist collective Anonymous set out to take down the white supremacist American Third Party (A3P) in what they called “Operation Blitzkrieg” but they may have done much more. In a document dump that includes private forum messages, emails, organization notes another other information the group found numerous connections between Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and A3P. According to the documents, all hosted here, Paul himself regularly met with many A3P members, engaged in conference calls with their board of directors and engaged in a “bridging tactic” between A3P and the Ron Paul Revolution. Other excerpts show A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso (whose email account was one hacked by the collective) coordinating meeting between Paul and other members of A3P such as corporate lawyer and chairman of the neo-Nazi group Paul. “I’m going to go to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with Bill Johnson,” reads an email to an A3P member dated January 2011. “Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Ran Paul. I have a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much more later. Things are starting to happen (thanks to folks like you).” In another passage, Kelso, a former Scientologist and account owner of other German Nazi forums, wrote: “I’ll be at CPAC from Feb. 9 to Feb. 12. I’ll send back reports to you from personal meetings with Ron Paul, newly-elected Senator Rand Paul and many others. It’ll be here on WhiteNewsNow, a place that is really starting to get interesting because of the presence of folks like you. Birds of a feather flock together, and we are really gathering some quality here.” Accusations of racism and ties to neo-Nazi interests have plagued Paul since the 1990s and have re-surfaced during this campaign. So far Paul has issued standard denials, claiming not to have been aware of the ties between his camp and the racist right and denied authorship of a series of racist newsletters, despite confirmation from his closest staff that Paul signed off on every detail.
So what’s Paul’s explanation now?
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Not surprising. Here's a photo of Ron Paul with Stormfront, a white nationalist website, director Don Black.
(http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/web05/2011/12/27/20/photo-of-ron-paul-palling-around-with-neo-nazis-17480-1325034927-8.jpg)
Also look at that guy's son. Just try not to imagine his OKCupid profile.
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Nothing says I'M A WINNER, LADIES! like the Fedora + mullet combo.
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I think that might be a stetson, but I don't think this really detracts from your assertion.
Party in the back ladies?!?
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Now that I look at it, it might even be a Tilley hat.
Which is possibly worse?
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Are you sure he's not just a Mennonite?
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You mean he's not wearing a Guy Fawkes mask?
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Most Mennonites I've heard of or have met are actually pretty open-minded folk when it comes to race and stuff.
So bite yer tongue.
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Most Mennonites I've heard of or have met are actually pretty open-minded folk when it comes to race and stuff.
:joke:
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Pay equity? What on earth are you talking about? (http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/2013/11/20/state-gop-chair-susan-hutchison-cites-war-on-women-in-pay-raise-spat/)
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12/10/mccain-compares-obama-castro-handshake-to-chamberlain-hitler/ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12/10/mccain-compares-obama-castro-handshake-to-chamberlain-hitler/)
Oh McCain
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Czechoslovakia's in trouble now.
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So I know you're all hoping this Duck Dynasty story is a ridiculous aside that will be dropped from the media's face as soon as possible.
Here is why this won't happen.
Phil Robertson is exactly what the Tea Party was looking for - a self-made Americochristian that lifted himself by his bootstraps with the twin powers of guns and family. He's all the extreme right wanted with Joe the Plumber and somehow failed to achieve.
The fact he's a ridiculous man just adds to the cult feeling. If you don't understand Duck Dynasty, it's not because the whole thing is absurd in 21st century civilization, it's because you're not in the group and don't respect the core values that made it great.
I've long held guns are Pokemon for rednecks. Well, Duck Dynasty is My Little Pony for rednecks.
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The whole thing is silly in the first place.
"TV station hires pet rednecks to star in a show about rednecks, are shocked, shocked when said rednecks turn out to, in fact, be rednecks."
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The whole thing is silly in the first place.
"TV station hires pet rednecks to star in a show about rednecks, are shocked, shocked when said rednecks turn out to, in fact, be rednecks."
Yeah, that's certainly the meme, but it's fucking stupid. It's 2013. Being a "redneck" doesn't excuse being a racist homophobe on a national stage.
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When your personality is the product you're selling, you better make sure it's a product people will like.
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Oh, people do like it. Just not the people you'd like to like it.
(http://i.imgur.com/ENmujFm.jpg)
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The whole thing is silly in the first place.
"TV station hires pet rednecks to star in a show about rednecks, are shocked, shocked when said rednecks turn out to, in fact, be rednecks."
Yeah, that's certainly the meme, but it's fucking stupid. It's 2013. Being a "redneck" doesn't excuse being a racist homophobe on a national stage.
Right, but what the meme gets right is that the fault lies with A&E for giving these guys a national audience more so than it lies with irredeemable rednecks having irredeemable viewpoints.
No matter how amazing your society, there will always be idiots with stupid viewpoints. The point is to marginalize those views, not romanticize them publically.
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What pisses me off more than anything is that Cracker Barrel reneged on its decision to ban Duck Dynasty merc. These people won't listen to reason, the Pope, or even Jesus himself, but they'd probably have listened to fucking Cracker Barrel.
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Not so much (http://gopthedailydose.tumblr.com/post/70707722536/ill-never-eat-another-cracker-barrel-the-article). They cling to their hateful pigshit above all else.
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Yeah they react with the same initial exclusion they do with everything else but let's see them act so tough when they can't get their deflavored grits next Sunday morning.
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ffffffffffffffffff (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/cracker-barrel-pulling-duck-dynasty-items-off-shelves/story?id=21302746)
Pretty much the exact reaction to that news that you'd expect (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=698621213492252&id=112415152112864).
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being PC is getting old even in the sick,twisted world of the homosexual SCUMmunity. its time for people to make a comeback and stand up for morality.I'm don't mind saying homosexuality is evil,unnatural and against everything that is natural.
best comment the others can go home
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The best part of it is the duck dynasty guys aren't even rednecks they're fucking millionaires who belong to a country club. Before the fucking show got made.
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Dude that said all the racists/homophobic shit has a master degree in education.
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The whole thing is silly in the first place.
"TV station hires pet rednecks to star in a show about rednecks, are shocked, shocked when said rednecks turn out to, in fact, be rednecks."
Yeah, that's certainly the meme, but it's fucking stupid. It's 2013. Being a "redneck" doesn't excuse being a racist homophobe on a national stage.
Right, but what the meme gets right is that the fault lies with A&E for giving these guys a national audience more so than it lies with irredeemable rednecks having irredeemable viewpoints.
No matter how amazing your society, there will always be idiots with stupid viewpoints. The point is to marginalize those views, not romanticize them publically.
Precisely.
Remember when ESPN hired Rush Limbaugh and then acted shocked when he immediately said something racist? Rush Limbaugh?
By all means A&E should marginalize people whose views are abhorrent to a civilized society.
You know what a good way of doing that is? Not giving them a fucking TV show in the first place.
I'm certainly not sad to see him kicked off TV. But anyone who claims surprise that this is his viewpoint is stupid, lying, or both, including and especially the people who gave him a TV show and then banned him from it.
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I guess, but given what Constantine and Joxam are saying I think the logic here was that, if they hired a guy who looked and acted like a hick but happened to be a commercially successful businessperson that they could trust him to know when and where to at least just shut the fucking hell up. You can reach all sorts of unfair conclusions from this fable but I think the only lesson to learn here is "If a guy is generally an asshole you probably can't trust him to care what his actions say about you."
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I guess, but given what Constantine and Joxam are saying I think the logic here was that, if they hired a guy who looked and acted like a hick but happened to be a commercially successful businessperson that they could trust him to know when and where to at least just shut the fucking hell up.
He knows EXACTLY when and where it benefits him to shut the fucking hell up. If A&E assumed his business interests would always align with theirs, then they made a pretty grievous error of judgement.
This is going to hurt their business a lot more than it hurts his.
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The sad truth is that pulling him probably hurt them more than just letting him define their views. Duck Dynasty is A&E's biggest show for a reason.
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I don't think A&E was surprised by this interview. In fact, any media company worth a damn would have a passing idea of Robertson's previous beliefs and speeches, would have thoroughly groomed him before he went in for the interview, and would have had somebody sign off (or at least read an advance) before it went to publication. There's a lot of lead time between an interview and when it goes to publication. A&E most likely knew about and accepted Robertson's views.
Which is probably why they're putting him back on the air (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/a-e-ends-duck-dynasty-star-phil-robertson-s-suspension), after a convenient round of controversy brought him and the company lots and lots of media attention.
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:done:
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Yeah I'm pretty fucking ready to not hear about Duck Dynasty ever again.
(It's a touch worse for me, I think, because that hyper-conservative Facebook page I frequent for that GOPDAILYDOSE tumblr has been treating this guy like the second coming)
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stare into the abyss yadda yadda
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Yes
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Which is probably why they're putting him back on the air (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/a-e-ends-duck-dynasty-star-phil-robertson-s-suspension), after a convenient round of controversy brought him and the company lots and lots of media attention.
Hey, it could be worse. He could have been hired by Fox News.
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That would require him to trim his beard.
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WASHINGTON—Following revelations this week that staffers under New Jersey Governor Chris Christie manipulated traffic in a small New Jersey town to punish its mayor, mortified Americans across the nation reported that they were shocked to learn the potential 2016 presidential candidate could possibly fumble such an easy political cover-up. “Man, this guy wants to be President of the United States and he can’t even conceal an act of corruption this rinky-dink and run-of-the-mill from voters? It’s crazy,” Newark resident Carolyn Baum said in agreement with millions of stunned Americans, adding that she holds potential presidential candidates to much higher standards of subterfuge and graft. “I mean, this is a total softball. If he can’t even bully one little small-town mayor into submission by oppressing his constituents and get away with it, how can we reasonably believe he’s politically skilled enough to cover up national scandals like orchestrating a foreign war, illegally colluding with big business, or violating the civil liberties of millions of Americans? It’s a little scary, to be honest.” At press time, many Americans reported their faith in Christie’s presidential qualifications was somewhat restored after he released a series of statements pinning the blame on others and throwing top aides under the bus.