That's why place matters, and people self-sort:Originally posted by Blide
And maybe why there's an electoral college, to offset the weight of the cities.
That's why place matters, and people self-sort:
And maybe why there's an electoral college, to offset the weight of the cities.
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Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Most people are uninformed. I think people are concerned about fiscal issues, but hink is wrong that most people agree with the GOP points. Polling shows most people DO want to include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts - but that is NOT the GOP position. It's also important to note that Romney's plan would have made the debt worse than Obama's plan. Most people don't understand that Obama has been decreasing the federal deficit. The last fiscal year of Bush (2009) was the highest ever, and under Obama it has very slowly been coming down. Romney's plan would have increased the deficits and ballooned the debt.
Children in the back seat can cause accidents - and vice versa.
Interesting little article about Karl Rove's 'Crossroads' SuperPAC. Under their calculations people who gave money (I mean ALOT of money) to this SuperPAC got a less than 1% return on investment.
6 of 8 Senate candidates lost and that presidential one too.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...id=msnhp&pos=3
"Whatever beer I'm drinking, is better than the one I'm not." DMLW
I have been trying to think of how to explain the Hispanic vote (and much of the Asian vote) to the conservatives out there. Here goes:
Hispanics have the highest labor force participation of any group, they are more likely to work than anyone else. And more likely to hold multiple jobs. Anyone who thinks they are "takers" is off base.
However, they are also more likely to be poor or near poor. Hispanics were the least likely to have health insurance because they work in jobs that did not offer it. What would a politician trying to get rid of Obamacare say to them? That the market place will provide? Well it hasn't so far.
Hispanics are also very dependent on government services even though they work. They want good schools - public schools because they don't want to have to send their kids to parochial schools, schools outside of their neighborhoods etc. Partly because they work so many hours, sending the kids far away is a burden. So they want someone who will make the local school better. Vouchers? Doesn't address the needs.
They want less government. In some areas: get government out of harassing them for papers or keeping them from controlling their bodies. How does a party that hangs with notorious anti-immigration activists and pro-life people help with that?
More Latinos are US born than are immigrants. And most immigrants are here legally. But everyone knows someone who is not here legally. And the heartbreak of immigration law is well known as well. Plus, be real, who gets asked if they are here legally? Do you? Well, no matter how Anglo you act, if your skin is brown or your last name is Spanish, you get asked, a lot. So how does a party that wants people to "self deport" going to feel like?
Though people work, and some have achieved some wealth, very few have made it into the 1%. Policies that focus on capital gains tax special benefits while attacking lower wages don't help anyone we know and make it potentially worse for all.
So how does the libertarian or Republican platform help this group?
I am not necessarily talking about the tax policy of the GOP, more so the wish to get to a smaller government with less entitlements. If you poll people, they agree that government should be shrunk and that entitlements need to be reformed. Now of course they don't want their entitlements reformed, but most people understand that we can't have SS and medicare/caid function like they do forever without going broke.
I would guess that more people would support the 10 to 1 cuts to taxes that was proposed then what the GOP wouldn't take though. My point is that the GOP has a stronger foot in the door (I think) with fiscal issues, because most of the time they come from a more frugal approach. Maybe that is just my view, but I think the average American who cares about debt understands that we can't continue to spend what we are spending.
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
I agree with that.
Children in the back seat can cause accidents - and vice versa.
As a Latino, this pretty much sums up the plight of the people.
Brotip #2418 - know when it's time to switch from being "the little engine that could" to the "little engine that said, 'f*ck it'"
I think that there is a substantial chunk of the population that would not poll the way you described. That is: it depends upon which people you poll - just because it is received wisdom on some networks doesn't mean it is true. There is no law or rule anywhere that describes an arbitrary 'right size' of government - as long it is run efficiently and doesn't incur long-term debt that easily can be argued to be the 'right size'.
I also think that the GOP is losing its brand on fiscal issues, especially since 2008. But it is true there are many low-information voters out there who need to believe otherwise.
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Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
I think we might just have to disagree. If you ask people if the government is too big, a good portion (66% I believe) will say yes. There are numerous polls out in the summer of 2012 that show this to be true.
The democrats are not seen as fiscally responsible. Whether this is true or not doesn't matter, they are not viewed as the party that cares about debt and deficits. When your party platform involves expansion of government programs you are viewed differently. I am not saying this is right or wrong, just saying that polling supports this conclusion.
The democrats need to have a substantial discussion on entitlements and the necessary reforms for them (which I think they can and will do), and push a platform that underscores the dire need for change. If the democratic Senate and the President can show that they truly care about the debt and deficits, and understand that a good portion of our debt is due to the obligations we have to our own government, I foresee a huge win in 2016 for the D's. If they believe that we can keep SS and medicare/caid the same as it is now, and only raise taxes, they will lose in 2016 because the debt issue has not been resolved.
I think the D's have a really good shot at this, as they have the high ground on the issue, but the R's really have put out more solutions to the problems at hand. Whether or not they are viable, who knows, but no one has really pushed hard enough to see true reform.
The tax system change would be a start, let's see if the D's and R's can get anywhere with that first....
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
Excellent post. I read the GOP/conservative consultant Navarro, I think, saying that Hispanics should "naturally" be conservatives, and I ask, "Why????" Supposedly, Navarro's answer goes, because they're Catholics and Catholics are "social conservatives". Obviously, Navarro only talks to conservative Catholics like Rick Santorum, NOT to the general population of people who consider themselves Catholic since at least half of all people who identify themselves as Catholics voted for Obama. The Catholic Church stopped ruling people's lives when Catholics figured out that God wasn't going to strike them dead for using birth control no matter what the Pope said.
All the groups that the Republicans have essentially excluded from their tent, African Americans, Hispanics, single women, gays and lesbians, and poor people, are NOT nearly as stupid as Republican think. They are NOT going to vote for a party with a vision of the future based on a mythical past "Golden Age" where they had no rights white men were obliged to respect.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. -- John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961
The U.S. Catholic Church has alienated a lot of Latinos. The Catholic Church in Latin America is a decidedly different flavor than here and often incorporates local culture/customs. Latinos are increasingly joining evangelical churches and it's more common that 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos flee the Catholic Church. My other half is a 1st generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic. His family has never been Catholic and always been part of a protestant church-but they have Jewish roots.
Here's a quick and interesting breakdown from the Pew Hispanic Center. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/0...-and-religion/
"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" Jeremiah 22:16
In the Northeast and Great Lakes area, there's the odd combination of socially conservative but economically liberal Catholics; those with blue collar roots. Traditionally, they voted Democratic. With scandals in the Catholic church, the number of religious Catholics seems to be shrinking, at least if what's going on in Buffalo, one of the nation's most Catholic cities in the recent past, is any indication of a larger national trend.
Many of my friends back home are what I'd call "culturally Catholic" -- they attend mass, send their kids to Catholic school, have Catholic religious art in their houses, and so on -- but they're increasingly agnostic, or see the Church as promoting an ideology that is disconnected from the reality of modern life. Catholics are thinking for themselves, and parish priests aren't the authority figures they were in decades past. Also, Rust Belt Catholics have never really been strong "values voters". The evangelical fervor seen in the Bible Belt just doesn't exist in the Northeast.
Catholic practice isn't uniform. Catholicism as practiced among Hispanics, specifically Mexican-Americans, is quite distinct from the European ethnic variety in the Northeast. A devout Catholic in northern New Mexico will have a very different set of values than a devout Catholic in a Rust Belt ethnoburb.
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
Some Republicans' response to this election have been pretty disheartening. Seeing them write off whole swaths of the electorate as either wanting handouts or being one issue voters is frankly pathetic. They're really doing themselves a disservice if they keep up that line of thinking.
Minorities and youth aren't suddenly going to start voting Republican when they disagree with many of your party's core tenants. Marco Rubio and immigration reform aren't suddenly going to make everything better with Hispanics. Nor does the GOP have much hope with youth voters unless they start to become more Libertarian and get out of social issues. Improved outreach and get out to vote efforts are irrelevant if your base is slowly declining in size with each election cycle.
Hmmmm ...
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
There are probably 4 or 5 different threads i could have put this posting in...
Neighbor Removes Obama Signs - then sends postcard to explain:
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bizarr...d-neighborhood
"Whatever beer I'm drinking, is better than the one I'm not." DMLW
Damn universities... institutionalizing our kids. Brainwashing... zombies... bad... America...
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
It's insulting and it's simply not true. A good response I've heard is "I voted democrat not because I want free things, but because I actually work for a living".
Children in the back seat can cause accidents - and vice versa.
Seems we can add Washington to a State that supports freedom and equality.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/us/was...age/index.html
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
An interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Jon Carroll.
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/...re-4021745.phpWhere Fox News goes from here
You had to wonder about Fox. This is the third presidential election in which Fox has been a major player, and the Democrats have won two of them. A combination of big money and big propaganda was supposed to carry the day for Romney and the Republicans, but it didn't.
Could it be that the Fox model has played out? Could it be that the lack of civility and grace, the embrace of the most extreme candidates as long as they were Republicans, indeed, the whole idea behind Roger Ailes' brainchild - a pimping station for the far right - may be politically bankrupt?
[D]espite Fox News telling us how unpopular Obamacare was, the polls showed differently. People appreciate universal health care, or as close as they can get to it. They don't want to hear about "socialism," which was a mantra in Republican Party circles but nowhere else.
The language that Fox News used when it talked about immigration, "anchor babies" and the like, is not really rhetoric that's going to work, as Latinos voted, and voted for Obama. Fox News insisted on defending GOP candidates who offered various bizarre views of rape, as women voted in higher numbers for Obama than Romney - and the GOP candidates in question lost their Senate bids.
A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.
Oops.
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
That's only because there has been a pervasive drum beat from the think-tanks and talking heads that gummint should be smaller. I don't have time to look it up, but I'd wager any decent poll (not Rasmussen) with a good question will find a lower number. And as far as the Rs putting out more solutions, I'm not sure that repeating your platform that hasn't changed since 1980 is 'more solutions', but I will concede that the Ds have poor message discipline and get run around all over the place by the Rs. For me, it is simply that the Rs have control of the corporate media, thus they control the message.
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Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Zasloff has an excellent rejoinder to that scurrilous and tawdry falsehood:
In celebrating National Schadenfreude Day yesterday, I could not help noticing Bill O’Reilly’s complex analysis of the election returns:
“Voters want things. They want stuff. Who’s going to give them stuff? Obama.”
Well. Actually, the government has given the wealthy ”stuff” all the time. It gives them a whole plethora of specific tax breaks and credits. Indeed, one could argue that Bain Capital’s entire model is based upon tax arbitrage — a huge gift from the federal government to certain forms of finance capital.
What’s more, government gives the rich patents, trademarks, and copyrights. It gives them limited liability corporations. It gives broadcasters broadcast licenses. Property is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky. It is created by the state. In the United States, common law courts create and define the bounds of property. That does not mean that because the state creates property, it can take it whenever it wants. Far from it. Property rights are good, and vital, and important, for reasons having to do with everything from privacy to liberty to efficiency to personality. That’s why they have and should have legal and constitutional protection.
But the background assumption behind O’Reilly’s statement — and really behind the statements of all conservatives having hissy fits processing their defeat — is the idea that some people’s property is inherently more legitimate and “natural” than others, and that some people deserve property and others don’t. There is an argument there. But it is an argument that should be made on moral and political grounds. Why does Bain Capital deserve its government-created property more than, say, a family of four with two working parents in minimum-wage jobs making a total of $28,000 a year?
If this is the best that the Right can do in the wake of Election Day, it will be a long time before it has anything constructive to say about the future of our country — whether it wins elections or not.
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Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.
Hey, did anybody notice? Florida declared a winner today.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politic...cle1260999.ece
A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.
Great! Does this mean they are going to start counting the 2012 ballots now?
Thank God you don't matter this election cycle... your state needs to invest in some technology...
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
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