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The midterm election cycle has been enacted as a way to dispute the policies of a president or congress. Obama, the egoist-in-chief, didn’t get the message after million of Americans refuted his agenda. After multiple exit polls showed disapproval of his policies including, Bailout, Obamacare etc. were showed to him, he dismissed it. Harry Reid, still in his bubble after winning re-election against a woman demonized by his millions of dollars and the media, believed that his re-election by a small margin showed approval to being out of touch. Now, the majority of House Dems proved to us that they are simply out of touch with the mainstream American by electing Nancy Pelosi as minority leader. This proves the fact that they are not interested in moving to the center and passing bi-partisan legislation rather putting the government into gridlock. Nancy Pelosi, a radical leftist, will serve the duty of playing partisan politics by opposing everything John Boehner, a moderate, will introduce on the floor. Is it the Tea Party that you point to as radicals? They are your liberal Reps in the House!
Actually, because the Republicans went out of their way to target conservative Democrats for defeat, the Democrats in the House are much more liberal in the upcoming Congress.
And nobody, not even Boehner himself, thinks Boehner is a “moderate”. He has proposed no bipartisan legislation of which I am aware.
Well, it is easier to defeat moderate Democrats, because they usually represent more conservative districts. It is presumably easier to defeat moderate Republics in the same manner. (Misspelled intentionally.)
Misspelled intentionally? YOU EVIL MONGEESE!
Yup, remember stupid Stupak?
Who?
Exactly.
The Democrats are in touch with their base, which happens to be isolationist, quasi-socialist, and great believers is identity politics and entitlements.
The some “old fashioned” Democrats who naively think that there’s is still the party of people such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. It is interesting to note that about half of the Republican candidates for President started off as Democrats, but the party then luched to the left leaving them behind.
“half of the Republican candidates for President started off as Democrats”
There are now five Democratic candidates for President; the only one who is a lifelong Democrat is Martin O’Malley.
“identity politics “
The leader for the Republican nomination is running a campaign based on White Male Supremacist politics. Trump himself isn’t an anti-Semite, but a huge fraction of his supporters on the internet are. (If you don’t believe me, try calling out their nativism on any conservative internet site that isn’t moderated and you will see the racists and anti-Semites coming out of the woodwork.) And Trump himself is a nativist bigot in the spirt of Patrick Buchanan and Steve King.
charliehall: So when Carson-Fiorina end up as the Republican tickets, determined by primary voters rather than pollsters egging people on to act amusing, you’ll vote Democrat, or do you feel more comfortable with Bernie and Hillary.
Of course not. Charlie is a Joe ‘only in America’ Biden fan. 🙂
(And when I say only in America I mean only here can someone like him make it as far as he has. :))
I like playing the word association game using him, and seeing how many synonyms for buffoon I get back.
The opening post is so wrong in so many ways that it has taken me 4 years to figure out where to begin. But with 4 years behind us, I suggest that a good way to evaluate the opening poster would be to look at his/her expectations for the outcome of the 2012 US presidential election, or the defeat or failure of Obamacare, or any number of other events that have come to pass notwithstanding the opening poster’s expectations to the contrary.
I would certainly vote for any of the Democrats against the fool who has variously blamed the Shoah on Jews refusing to fight or on gun control, or the failed CEO who appears to be a pathological liar.
charliehall: Dr. Carson did not blame the holocaust on Jews. He said that having strict gun control (the case in all of Europe other than Switzerland) greatly facilitated the holocaust. He could have added, that it also greatly facilitated the Nazi occupation of Europe (other than Switzerland) since the disarmed population was unable to offer any significant resistance to the Germans. Had Europe has American (red state) type gun control and patterns of gun ownership, the occupation of conquered territories, which included rounding up and killing the Jewish populations, would have been much more difficult. As it is, once they took care of the local army, the Germans were always dealing with a disarmed population (thanks to gun control) with no effective means of resistance. The “Hava Mina” is that Democratic position on gun control is one that supports tyranny and facilitates a police states, and leaves the people unable to defend themselves (e.g. the students in Oregon who were disarmed by a school anti-gun policy, and were shot down while waiting for the authorities to get their act together and send someone with guns to take down a terrorist).
charlie: You are wrong on Carson. It was a point about people defending themselves if they have guns, not placing culpability. You are absolutely right on Fiorina. Her attitude and demeanor are exactly like our current president’s.
I am far more comfortable with either Bernie or Hillary leading the nation than with any of the top Republican candidates.
The Republicans actually do have two candidates running with lots of experience and ability to work with others. Their names are George Pataki and Lindsay Graham. They are both around 1% in the polls. Proof that the Republicans who whined about Obama’s lack of experience didn’t really believe what they were saying.
“Proof that the Republicans who whined about Obama’s lack of experience didn’t really believe what they were saying.” I’ll give it to you; you have a decent point there, Charlie.
You forgot to put John Kasich on your list of RINO’s that you would actually consider on the Republican side. He’s quite possibly more liberal than Hillary.
About 50% of the poll support on the right this season has been going to various establishment politicians who have supported amnesty or otherwise wavered from conservative ideals. The front runner (Carson, as I write this) has several times mentioned decreasing our oil dependency. And, the candidate with arguably the best record for the environment on EITHER side is Chris Christie (and no, dodging questions about national security at the Democratic debate by throwing in the phrase climate change does not make you have a good record). So, I respectfully disagree with your notion that the GOP is getting more extreme this year.
With 35% of Democrat support going to a Socialist and the other 65 going to Hillary who is having to try to match Bernie’s Socialism in to some degree in the debates, it is indisputable that the Democratic party is going much farther left this year. Whether or not that’s a good thing is not for me to say.
I’m not sure why Sanders is running on the democratic ticket; czars are usually antithetical to democracy.
“He’s quite possibly more liberal than Hillary.”
Not based on his record as Governor of Ohio.
“And, the candidate with arguably the best record for the environment on EITHER side is Chris Christie”
Pataki is even better.
“35% of Democrat support going to a Socialist “
Not sure what makes Bernie a Socialist. Other than single payer national health insurance, I can’t think of anything else he wants the federal government to run.
“Not based on his record as Governor of Ohio.”
I admit I know nothing about that record other than what’s been brought up in debates regarding his liberal stances on medicare and the Affordable Care Act, and the fact that he’s the most accepting of the Iran deal of possible any other candidate (I hope you and I can agree that that’s a bad thing).
“Pataki is even better.”
Interesting. I won’t pretend to know anything about Pataki; I don’t have time to keep up with the kiddy pool debates. My point was that the best candidate on environmental record is a Republican, which I think is good. Those of us who care about the environment shouldn’t be constrained to one party.
“Not sure what makes Bernie a Socialist.”
Ask him. I’m not making an accusation. He himself identifies as a Socialist, a “Democratic Socialist” as he likes to say. You have to admit, a candidate as far left as Bernie seldom does this well in an election. It speaks either for the current state of the party, or for Hillary’s likability problem.
Hillary would be center-right by European standards. Basically about where Likud is in Israel. Bernie would be center-left by European standards, basically about where Labor is in Israel. All the Republicans except for Pataki, Graham, and (maybe) Kasich would be far right extremists by European standards, comparable to no party in Israel.
“Socialist” is an arbitrary word and can mean just about anything. There have been democrats in the past (like President Truman) who would have never used the word socialism but who supported the same kinds of policies as Sanders.
There is no fundamental difference between America and Europe when it comes to the welfare state, labor market regulations and health system — it’s just a matter of degree, of where we fit on the spectrum or continuum. America has a welfare state, it’s just small and neglects the poor (though things like the EITC and food stamps really do help to decrease poverty by quite a bit).
It’s just a matter of confused terminology. People on the center-left in America are called liberals or progressives, in UK and Ireland are called Labor, in Germanic countries are called Social Democrats, and in Latin countries are called Socialists. Each country is a bit different and going in a slightly different direction….Scandinavian countries have the biggest governments but are shrinking them a bit, and we and the UK and Ireland have the smallest but are growing them a bit. But we’re all on the same continuum. It’s not as if there’s some magical line so that if you go from having 45% of the economy be the government to 46% you’re all of the sudden socialist rather than capitalist.
Bernie calling himself a socialist really just means he wants to go somewhat farther on the spectrum toward a welfare state and more economic equality. So all Sanders would do differently is things like progressive taxation (like under Eisenhower!), Canada-style health care (which Truman advocated and which old people already have in America, that is Medicare!), making it easier to join a union, creating government jobs for to ease poverty and create full employment, and perhaps getting rid of trade deals that bleed American jobs to China and Mexico.
While your at it Mr. Hall, whats your take on Joe ‘only in America’ Biden bowing out?
* or for Bernie’s engaging likability
What people are saying about where people fall on European standards is true. I would suggest that, while we might be outnumbered, the US standards are better. Dismissing all real conservatives as far right and letting anything go on the left side is not a positive. It wouldn’t be positive if it were the other way around either! Moving exclusively in one direction is a very bad thing.
On the topic of what Charlie and I were talking about earlier: Fox just announced that Pataki and Graham won’t even be allowed into the small debate (effectively kicking them out of the race), and that Huckabee and Christie will be bumped down. I guess the probability of Charlie Hall voting Republican in the general just went from .01% to 0%.
“whats your take on Joe ‘only in America’ Biden bowing out?”
Well I had actually been called by the Quinnipiac poll a few months ago and I had told them that I preferred him to all the other Democrats running them.
Now I know why all the Q polls are so skewed.
Did I mention BH!! that Joe ‘only in America’ Biden is dropping out.
The best. . . well really the only good move on our illustrious Pres’s part, was picking Joe ‘only in America’ Biden as VP. Hes the only guy in the room who wont upstage him!
One more point on the opening poster’s wrongness: Midterm elections were not intended to neutralize presidential elections, though they can have that effect. But more importantly, in the last midterm election, and some others, Democrats out-polled Republicans, but gerrymandering gave Republicans more Congressional seats. So people are still supporting Democratic party ideas, but they are thwarted by the legal trickery of gerrymandering.
After the 2010 census results were in, the Republican party in many states did a very effective job of gerrymandering. The Democrats and others have recognized this, and they can be expected to be on their guard after the 2020 census.
Gerrymandering was started by Democrats, so they are reaping what they sowed. Surely they didn’t think only they are permitted to do so.
The Democrats were on their guard in 2010 but nevertheless lost out the every decade gerrymandering effort by both parties. Hopefully they’ll lose out in the next round too when Republicans win most Statehouse races in 2020.
“Gerrymandering was started by Democrats”
Only technically correct as that was over 200 years ago. But even Elbridge Gerry would be shocked at what the Republicans did in North Carolina.
Talk about Republican North Carolina and ignore Democrat Maryland. How very intellectually honest, Charlie Hall.
Maryland’s gerrymander wasn’t quite as bad as North Carolina. Maryland is a Democratic state that should elect mostly Democrats to Congress. North Carolina is a swing state that should have a Congressional delegation that is almost evenly split.
So Republicans did a better and more successful job on gerrymandering than the democrats did, though they also tried. Congratulations to the Republicans in a job well done.
“Congratulations to the Republicans in a job well done.”
In other words, congratulations to the Republicans for making the United States less like a democracy and more like a corruptocracy.
In other words, congratulations to the Democrats for being less successful in their efforts towards making the United States less like a democracy and more like a corruptocracy.
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