2010 Election Thread - Results

I would have paid more than just good money to see the reaction of Republican Congressional leadership when they were informed of Joe Barton's comments yesterday. Those comments, so easily reproduced because of the setting, will be used in a lot of campaign ads this October.

I bet at least one of them might have needed a new pair of pants after hearing about it.

 

Barton is, as I recall, heavily funded by someone tied to BP. Might be off on that though. Although, it strikes me as fairly irrelevant unless, you know, you're running against him. Or does Barton have party leadership I'm not aware of?

 

He's on the energy committee.

 

Actually, I think he is the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Of course, being ranking member just means that he has been on the committee longer than anyone else from the minority party. Considering he's been in the House since 1985, that's not surprising.

Kimball Kinnison

 

This is why I have said, over and over again, that the Tea Party is going to really hurt the GOP in swing districts this November. While Barton is not a tea partier, Rand Paul criticized Obama for criticizing BP as "unamerican".

The dems' only hope of not getting wiped will be to tie these type of extremist comments to the generic GOP ballot. It won't affect the republican rank-and-file, but it might very well give independents who would otherwise have tilted rightward pause, as well as galvanize "down-in-the-dumps" democratic voters.

Peace,

V-03

 

Witness the Republican Party's current strategy:

[image=http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4715341242_01a0d012a4_b.jpg]

 

Ok, THAT he needs to be off of immediately.

 

As KK noted, he would also be Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, if the Republicans took the House in November. This is yet another example of a case where "the individual candidate's platform" isn't always the trumping factor in deciding who to vote for. Whether one likes it or not, our Congress in its present iteration is designed to operate within a party system. There are consequences when one passes the reins from one party to another. In this case, it would mean handing Congressional oversight of the BP oil spill over to. . .well, this guy. No matter how aggressively your local Republican House candidate promises to go after the situation, his influence is going to be markedly Joe Barton's as Chairman (the same is true when comparing the influence of Henry Waxman, the current committee chair, to any random Democrat). Thus, voting to make the most difference on this single issue might mean, counter-intuitively, not voting for the person whose "individual platform" you most support, but voting in a way that will maintain the lines of authority/oversight in Washington that you prefer.

 

To illustrate a very simple example to the excellent points made above, it's like someone who agrees with every single aspect of Obama's agenda but is strongly anti-abortion rights, and votes for the GOP instead, just to help influence the next Supreme Court nominee.

Peace,

V-03

 

While Barton is currently the Ranking Member, he is not in line to become the Chairman if the Republicans take the House in November.

He's not in line for the chairmanship.

Democrats decide chairmanships based on seniority. The Republicans rotate chairmanship every 3 terms, following a different pattern. Sarton's turn ends this term. While there have occasionally been exceptions, Barton wouldn't be likely to get one.

Kimball Kinnison

 

When did the truth ever have anything to do with scoring political "gotchya!" points come election season, Kimball?

.

Peace,

V-03

 

So, another surprise candidate won, this time it's in Texas where the ballot order helped an odd fringe/unknown candidate. This time it's Kesha Rogers, an activist with the LaRouche movement who has made statements like "As I have repeatedly stated, Barack Obama is a threat to the continued existence of the United States, and he must be impeached, or resign. The real question is, what will we replace his bad policies with? Real patriots understand the need to think ahead, to create a meaningful purpose and direction as we rebuild our nation. We know that the next several generations need a better world to live in, which can only be a Post-Obama World."

This is for DeLay's old house seat.

 

Utah primary today.

TIM BRIDGEWATER 16046 50.78%
MIKE LEE 15553 49.22%

My liberal Political Science professor who recently was in the paper for showing how Mormons can follow social justice to Glen Beck, just reported on FB that he registered as a Republican for the closed primary just to vote against Lee.

Both are in the Tea Party camp, but Mike Constitooshun Lee has sunk to levels of D-baggery against an opponent that largely agrees with him on everything that even many teabaggers don't like him.

 

Sorry man, Lee won. Bennett had endorsed Bridgewater, while the Tea Party Express endorsed Lee.

By these indications, Lee could be conservative enough to be the next Jesse Helms...

In South Carolina, Nikki Haley won a landslide as expected in her runoff; Tim Scott beat Strom Thurmond's son to have a good shot at being the Only Black Person in the GOP Congressional caucus; and, supposedly moderate GOP Congressman Bob Inglis got primaried out by a Tea Party challenger.

In North Carolina's Senate race, the "liberal insurgent" candidate beat the Democratic establishment candidate.

 

Yea those were the preliminary results for Salt Lake County.

I'm sure Mike Lee will provide plenty of entertainment for the next 6 years, anybody I talk to wants somebody to "stand up" for their values.

But on the bright side, the advocate for private space flight and Obama's new plan said that the only state in the nation that is going to lose out will be Utah, and now that Bennett is gone, there is no stopping all the wasteful space industry jobs here from leaving. And with Mike Lee we get to make Utah the home of the world's nuclear waste. Because government needs to get out of the way and let private enterprise take all the radioactive stuff other countries don't want and dump in my backyard.

Utahans get the government they deserve. And 1.3 million registered voters just had an election decided by 4000 people.

Oh and thanks to my actions at the convention in trying to vote for the normal guy for the state legislature, the incumbent was able to win easy re-election because he didn't have any money because he wouldn't take it from special interest. And if I had voted for the other challenger, the incumbent would have probably already been knocked out of the race.

 

Election related somewhat, but didn't think this was worth a whole new set of discussions, but I thought it was interesting to note that not only has DailyKos gotten rid of the polling firm they'd been using, Research 2000, but they're now suing for fraud after there has been several allegations that the polling has significant odd patterns in the results.

 

Huh; didn't expect the LaRouche movement to have that kind of pull. I guess when you have a whole cult doing nothing with their lives but slaving away for your campaign year after year, you get results.

 

I think the LaRouche thing was a fluke, really. But I'm nonetheless amused by it.

In other news, apparently independents are favoring the GOP in house races by 12% right now, around where it's been the last few months, according to a recent [linik=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2010/07/gallup_independents_favor_gop.html]Gallup poll[/link]. This is still with about 20% undecided, though.

 

Independents are, frankly, wishy-washy and tend to blame whoever doesn't have power. It's a big part of why I could never, ever be an independent. Some independents are more intelligent and know better than to foolishly put their stock in the out of power party just because they're out of power, but far too many do just that. The Republican Party has not demonstrated any kind of reason why they should be given power again after one of the worst governing jobs in this country's history, yet independents now somehow favor them? Please. I'm a Democrat, always will be a Democrat and will always have a lower opinion of independents for just this reason. Democrats and Republicans have the courage of their convictions, however misguided we can all sometimes be. Independents just go back and forth with whoever isn't in power.

 

Brilliantly said KW! Sometimes we ain't so different. I could not have said it better myself! (Except for the Republican bashing, of course)

 

I'm an independent and I'm so thoroughly anti-Republican that I'm practically a Democrat. That is if they were actually a liberal party and not some cock-eyed Republican-lite party. And to those independents who favor the GOP in this election: Grow a pair. Just because the Democratic party has been sucking lately is in no way comparable to what will happen if Republicans regain even a modicum of authority within this government. One year of incompetence does not erase the eight previous years of incompetence when the GOP was in control.

 

I consider myself a liberal Democrat who is a part of the Democratic base. J-Rod is probably the same for the Republican base. And that's fine. I just can't stand those who are too chicken to declare themselves what they really are. A majority of independents are actually Republicans in all but name, and I think they ought to just say what they are. "Independent" is just a term to disassociate yourself from a group that isn't particularly popular right now, and to dodge having to answer for your beliefs. That goes for liberal Democrats too.

 

I'm an independent because I feel no party truly represents me. The Democratic party is too conservative for me and the GOP is too crazypants for me; it's never about declaring a side, in my view, it's more about not being associated with the baggage that either party contains and what goes along with declaring a 'side'. They're both a different shade of the same 'side' and they both are corrupt and backstabbing. Just one does it more eloquently than the other. So, it's never about choosing. Hell, I'd choose a party if I thought one represented me, but neither does and so I don't. And that's been your independent rant for the day.

Just remember: both sides are bad so vote Republican in November.

 

There's a section of the Democratic Party that represents folks like you, and I'm certainly a part of that myself. I'm as liberal as you are, but I'm still a Democrat at the end of the day.

 

Nah, I'm an independent liberal. If there was ever a Republican as liberal as some Democrats are conservative going up against someone like Lieberman, I would vote for the liberal Republican over the conservative Democrat.

Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen. Dems swing right all the time, but few if any Repubs ever swing substantially to the left.