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No he wasn't. All he had to do was run a good campaign and change away from the Bush years would happen. It's a long told story in American politics that sometimes gets hyped into something that it was not. Change, not into something that was transformational, but away from something was what a majority wanted. (I was going to add something about the Chicago political machine but I lost my train of thought.) |
All this hand wringing about McCain is fun but, really, as soon as the economy tanked in September and October, whoever was running as a Republican had lost.
SI |
The Sweep: Vikings, voters and the charge of the Militant Middle - CNN.com
Ok, so the article is not that interesting or that good, frankly. But the question remains: after whatever happens this year and in 2012, do things start to gradually head back to the middle? Or is this polarization systemic due to jerrymandering, national pursestrings, etc? And if that's the case- what finally changes that? You can't just expect wild polarizing swings every 2 years. Eventually someone is going to figure out that controlling the middle ground has always been the best way to win elections. SI |
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I'm not sure that's true, at least in off-year elections. Turnout is going to be key in Nov. I've seen a few polls recently that put the generic ballot at even or even favoring the Dems a bit, but once a likely voter screen is attached the numbers go to +3 or +4 GOP. So many people don't vote that getting your people to show up at the polls may be more important than broad appeal. |
Guess which party this ad belongs to?
This is Jim Marshall, the Bluest of Dogs, fighting for his life once again in the GA 8th district, one of the most conservative districts in the country that is held by a Democrat (it has a PVI of R+10). He's survived very close races in the past and this will probably be another close one so I doubt this will be the worst we see from him. |
Wow!! Politicians actually doing something useful:
Senate votes to turn down volume on TV commercials - Yahoo! News |
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel officially resigns
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Meg Whitman has now passed Michael Bloomberg's record for the most money spent out-of-pocket to finance one's campaign. In her case, $119 million. And she's still tied with Jerry Brown in the polls. It probably hasn't helped that after she said corporations who hire illegal immigrants should be fined, someone found out that she had an illegal Mexican housekeeper for 9 years.
"Do as I say...." |
I think Gloria Allred is a twat, but she really punked Whitman. After Whitman denied she knew the woman was illegal and offered to take a lie detector, Allred produced a letter from the SS Admin with Whitman's husband's writing. Now Whitman is backing down from her lie detector comment.
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Libertarianism at work? :)
Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground Originally printed at http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local...104052668.html By Reporter - Jason Hibbs By Photojournalist - Mark Owen September 30, 2010 OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground. The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning. Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay. The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck. This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond. Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee. "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick. Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house. They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come. The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house. "When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn't," Paulette Cranick. It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't. We asked him why. He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn. We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception. "Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't," Mayor David Crocker said. Friends and neighbors said it's a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don't blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge. "They're doing their job," Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault." To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters. |
Not sure how this is Libertarian...
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Yeah that is exactly what will happen if the government cuts back on spending even just a little bit. That is about as silly as people claiming that Obama and the Democrats are communists.
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It's all about the economy. Sometimes I think the entire campaign apparatus and all the millions spent is just one big scam.
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Doesn't this amount to private fire protection? Being a former libertarian, I knew a few that were for private fire/police protection. That kind of attitude kind of turned me off. Libertarianism at the federal level, sure. But at the local level? Maybe if we want to follow the Somalian model. |
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It's not totally a scam. It allows companies and individuals to buy candidates in the future. To use an example, the campaign season allows health care companies to funnel nearly $4M into Max Baucus's campaign in the last decade so that he can royally screw "we the people" over in health care reform. SI |
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Ultimately I have to blame the voters. We say we hate it when corporations throw cash at candidates but yet we still reward the behavior with our votes. |
To a point, but at what point do you have to make the decision of "the lesser of two evils" versus "making a protest vote"? I think that's an important distinction that the libertarian crowd fails to take into account. It would be easy to always make a protest vote if I strongly felt that each side were just as bad.
But, (un?)fortunately, it's on a continuum, not a binary "yes" or "no". Let's throw out that, in a particular race, I agree with the Democrat on 60%, the Republican 30%, the Libertarian 50%, and the Green party candidate 90%. The simple answer should be "vote for the Green party candidate", right? Well, not so fast. What if leading up to the election, the results are D 45%, R 45%, L 5%, G 5%? Honest question- who should I vote for? If it's close enough that my vote might matter- is it better to stand on principle or vote for someone you agree with twice as much even if it's still a substantial margin less than your favorite candidate. If you look at the best example I can think of, which is Florida and Nader in 2000, there's a bit of disagreement. SI |
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Vote your conscience or else have this same discussion every single election about how neither the Republicans or Democrats care about your vote but you still have to vote for them because of what other voters might do. To me it's not even the "lesser of two evils" that has thrown me to vote for Libertarians the past few elections. It is the fact that on the issues that I actually side with Republicans or Democrats on they very rarely follow through on anything. Case in point... Obama was a "peace" candidate. How long did that last? Continued war in the middle East, possible war with Iran/Pakistan, continued assault on civil liberties with war on terror, and now to top it all off this weekend after years of having my Democrat friends laugh with me at the moronic color coded terror diagram this administration rolls out their own version of it. Don’t travel to the 4 million square mile Europe, bad things might happen. Nobody can take this seriously, can they? |
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Agreed. Voting strategically doesn't make sense because this isn't the supreme court - you individual vote is NOT going to turn the tide of the election. |
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Yeah, I took a fun little course in college on political parties and, yeah, it seems as if the plurality system systemically pretty much gave rise to political parties and limited it to 2. Not entirely true, but you're almost locked into that long term number. SI |
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Is your one vote "for voting your conscience" going to matter any more than you individual vote to "turn the tide of the election"? SI |
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Under that same criteria, my individual vote isn't going to do much for the Greens or Libertarians or whoever. I'm sure alot of people in Florida 2000 didn't think their individual vote mattered. Was the cause of the Greens better served for those extra votes going to Nader? Are the environmental groups, for example, happy to argue in the Supreme Court with Roberts and Alito on the bench vs. whoever Gore would've appointed? |
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I think so, because it's your conscious, it's what you believe in, voting for that is an important part of participating in democracy. I think that's important no matter what state you live in (I'm not a fan of people saying their vote for president "doesn't count" because they're in a strong red/blue state). But ya, the practical impact of your vote doesn't matter either way - so why not let what you believe in win out over implementing some "strategy" that won't impact anything? |
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Not true actually. The Libertarians, Greens, Reform, etc are kept out of the debates because of rules that the Republicans and Democrats helped write that requires a certain percentage in public opinion polls to be allowed in the debate. I think everyone will agree that Ross Perot sure did change those debates (whether you agree with the end result or not) |
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I guess if the Greens got together and chose to vote as a bloc strategically, that might make some sense. But ya, your individual vote isn't got to have any practical value no matter how you vote. I think its a part of your soul and your personal history though (when someone says, "I voted for X in 2000 and X in 2004", I find those comments very relevant to someone's political views, moreso to just someone spouting off randomly. |
Okay, as much as I'd like to see more people involved in the debates, there has to be some kind of limit, right? I mean, let's say the Libertarians and Greens both got in. Are they gonna support every single person getting into the debate? We'll have a debate of 30 people?
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There has to be some quantifiable minimum standard of relevance, but I think almost everyone (except those really vested in the big two parties), think that standard should be lower. |
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I sort of agree but as a Libertarian supporter it would be pretty two-faced of me to want 3-4 people in the debate but to keep the Reform or Communist party out of the debate. I don't know though maybe it would be a huge step forward if we did include 5-6 different viewpoints. I think people who read this thread are familiar with the Libertarians, Greens, Reform, Constitution, etc but since the mass media gives them basically zero coverage maybe the general public isn't familiar with their views. If a couple of the smaller parties gave some solid reasons for ending the wars, ending corporate favortism, changing the drug laws, saving the environment, etc then the GOP and Democrats can either explain why these ideas don't work or risk losing voters. Last election's debates would have been much more interesting watching Obama and McCain explain a central bank or how the drug laws work than watching both of them explain how they care about "Main Street" and Joe the plumber. I don't agree with Ralph Nader on a lot of issues but it would have been a lot of fun watching him hold McCain and Obama's feet to the fire on foreign policy. |
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And then that brings in another problem with our voting system. Let's say the Greens, Libertarians, and the Tea Party all become relevant parties. They get into the debates and now the voters are now split. Let's say it's now 30-30-15-15-10. With our first past the post system, we'll have people winning all of California's electoral votes with 30% of the vote. The presidential winner could theoretically be in the 20s for the popular vote.
i'm not opposed to a more parliamentary style system, but it would absolutely not be workable under out current electoral format. |
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I think that is a problem that most (outside of the JIMGa's and SteveBolleas) would welcome. |
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I'll let Steve speak for himself, but I think you have him pegged wrong if you don't think he'd support a revamped system. |
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You may be right but he seems to side with Obama 99.9% of the time and even when upset with something Obama does he makes sure to rationalize (i.e. make excuses) why it is still better than the GOP. If that isn't a two party statist I don't know what is. |
Third parties will never do anything. You have two parties who control all the power and want to keep it that way. Especially when they agree on most of the issues. It's a two-party dictatorship no matter what people pretend to believe about democracy.
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I would argue that it IS possible for this to change but it takes a fair amount of time - England was a two party system for the longest time, but through patience the Liberal Democrats have managed to get to the stage where they're influential within the country. Something which I think is potentially a VERY good thing as if we continue with coalition governments then it takes the edge off the 'swing' when the government changes between the two main parties ..... |
Dana Milbank looked at American Conservative Union ratings for GOP congressmen over the past four decades and looked at who would be vulnerable in today's climate. Murkowski scored a 77% and Bennett scored an 83% and both lost primaries as too liberal.
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Interesting: First legal test of the Health Care law goes to the Justice Dept (and the Prez)
Federal judge upholds key provisions of health care law | freep.com | Detroit Free Press |
I'm amused by the challenge to the mandate, because conservatives always seem to love to tell the story about the law passed in Kennesaw that required homeowners to own a gun and how that's why Kennesaw had such a low crime rate.
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The health care reform is way, way within the commerce clause powers that the federal courts have identified in the last few decades, but I still wonder if that power has any limit whatsoever. I really don't think it does. I'd feel better if we could just amend it to the "everything clause". That certainly would have made law school easier.
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And if we can't have relevant 3rd parties, I'd definitely settle for angry factions within existing parties. The tea party, whatever the hell it is, is definitely relevant. I'd love to see a green party-esque angry sub-party within the Democratic party. We're not going to get beneficial reform unless there's more than two political voices out there.
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Tea Party would have been more relevent in the 1950's... |
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Interesting part is it looks like companies and even unions are seeking waivers and making changes in respone to the health care bill: McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers - USATODAY.com http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/t...KLwbYtp6Nam7LK Microsoft Stops Covering All Healthcare Costs For Employees |
My company's plan (which is excellent, comparatively) has been grandfathered in.
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I guess I'll have to go to a dirty right-wing blog to get some kind of table regarding which organizations are getting these waivers, and how much those organizations contributed to the Obama campaign. |
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I didn't say they weren't. Doesn't change the fact that they're bigoted hate & fear-mongers though. |
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All 3 of them?? Of course it was a broad brush. I don't claim to know all of them. But given the public pronouncements of the candidates that they have put forward (which I suppose is a fairly logical way of examining them), I'm not sure what other conclusion one could draw. I'm not making any statements about the initial Tea Party groups (although I don't think they were all Libertarians or anything - there aren't that many true Libertarians in this country...particularly not that many senior citizens who just happen to be Caucasian who were Libertarians). I'm saying what they are now. |
I'm curious to know if folks think that this is an effective ad:
I think the ad for actors that can play "hicky" was by the RNSC, rather than the candidate himself. I had been waiting to see when Manchin would raise the issue that Raese does not primarily live in West Virginia and I think this is a really powerful ad. Particularly since West Virginians have more of an "us against the world" attitude (and you can almost call it a fiesty inferiority complex) than most other states. |
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