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[sei]

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

[Mongrel]

My God, I love that movie.

[Transportation]

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.

[Royal☭]

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.  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.

[Kashan]

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.

[Mongrel]

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.

[Kashan]

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.

[Mongrel]

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.

[SCD]

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

[PhilosopherDirtbike]

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.

[Royal☭]

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.

[Thad]

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.

[Royal☭]

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.

[Brentai]

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.

[Royal☭]

Limbaugh, once again, calls Obama a racist

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.

[Mothra]

Are you fucking serious? The way these people say shit they obviously don't believe just to antagonize is so unbelievably wretched.

[Royal☭]

What makes the passage so sublime is how his steps to prove Obama is racist involves being a massive racist.

[Catloaf]

What makes the passage so sublime is how his steps to prove Obama is racist involves being a massive racist.

  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!

[Mothra]

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.

[Brentai]

It is the very reason we began to hate the Eastern communists, yeah.