The United States Elections/Political Party Discussion Thread

Hey, the way I understood it, his challenge constituted permission to reset his colors. He was essentially asking me to do it!

So I don't know why you would be wagging your finger at me.

Kimball Kinnison

 

And now I only taunt KK about not being able to do things with the Admin powers he no longer has.

Hacker my arse.

E_S

 

The boards run on Windows-based servers. If I'm going to do any hacking, I want it to be a challenge!

Kimball Kinnison

 

Sooo...

back to the topic...

Santorum is running ads attacking Casey for signing the checks on a *very* controversial pay raise the PA legislature enacted in a midnight vote. And then they say that Santorum would have stood up against them.

The same guy who has supported Congressional pay hikes during his tenure, as well as a man who has voted party-line consistently. He appears to only "stand up" against a competing ideology.

This chuckle-head has got to go:

Supported bad science standards in PA.
Received funds to support the "cyber education" of his kids (who live in Virginia, and not Penn Hills (a suburb of Pittsburgh)), which the state is now paying back.
Flew to Florida and was very vocal advocating bad medicine during the Schiavo mess.
Told Pittsburgh flooding victims not to expect Federal assistance (pre-Katrina).
Voiced unconditional support for the Iraq War (including trumpeting the "discovery" of 500 Iran-Iraq War-era warheads).
etc., etc.

 

But he did manage to vote against the discovery of 500 warheads before he voted for them... So he's pretty much par for the course as a politican...

 

does the era of the warheads matter if it was something that Iraq was still supposed to have gotten rid of? Or am i remembering wrong.


And on the Arnold tapes... totally agree in that it wasn't hacking, most likely. From what I've heard, these meetings weren't usually available by that method (radio show i listen to had the producer on because he was using a similar method to get audio from Arnold's interviews and speeches) but i figure its quite likely it was on there. Was it a dirty political trick that avoided anything close to the issues and took advantage of the LA Times bias to turn it into a news story when it shouldn't have been one? Yes, in my opinion. Was it illegal? highly doubt it.

 

Don't forget his charming book "It Takes a Family", quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "building a bridge to the 14th Century" .

Santorum is fairly arrogant, IMHO, and I don't agree with anything he stands for.

Unfortunately, the wooden indian that has been Bob Casey Jr might just be enough to get the unpopular Santorum re-elected.

Sheesh.

Peace,

V-03

 

Vaderize
Don't forget his charming book "It Takes a Family", quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "building a bridge to the 14th Century



hehehee. Wait, it deserves another one...



That's a great line.

edit

You know, IMHO, the GOP will be more reckless, arrogant and brazen if they retain their hold on both houses of congress. They'll see it as vindication for their actions, or at least a sign of the weakness of their opponents.

They need a resounding ***whopping. But I fear the complete and utter pathetic modern democratic party will fail to do just that.

 

I'm reading a review on that book (negative, mind you) and damn...that guy's creepy. Glad he's not my senator. We get the midgets and corrupted officials.

 

You know, IMHO, the GOP will be more reckless, arrogant and brazen if they retain their hold on both houses of congress.


if their majorities survive in november, i think they'll end up paying a punishing price for it in 2008. there's no way they'll somehow manage to fix things up, and will probably just make things worse (especially if they take it as a sign to keep on going as is).

 

KW
i think they'll end up paying a punishing price for it in 2008.

You guys have been saying that for over 10 years! But each time the dems manage to screw themselves over. They said it when Newt and the reps shut down the government.."we're going to get them in Nov!" You guys said it in '00,02,04......

If they can't win a majority in the House in this climate, then they are a ridiculous opposition

 

I agree. You'd have to practically be trying to lose to lose in this enviroment.

 

If they can't win a majority in the House in this climate, then they are a ridiculous opposition


what's the winning strategy? what are the democrats as a group missing? if democrats fight back and tell what they believe to be the truth, they're labeled as extremists or even treasonous/traitorous. if they focus on other issues or are more civilized, they're labeled as weak.

frankly, i think the general american public deserves what its gotten in the republican party and its leadership. close to half of americans are afraid of being personally involved or having someone they know involved in a terrorist attack, which is ludicrous. you have a better chance of winning the powerball. we exist in a culture and state of perpetual fear, and of what i'm not quite sure. we're afraid of all the bad things that might happen to us, feeling like we need to protect ourselves (when all we really need protection from is from ourselves).

if you talk about withdrawing from iraq, you're accused of wanting to cut and run (and all that goes with it). if you want to stay the course, that comes with risks too. the republican party as a whole is far better at campaigning and labeling, especially as it is more unified in general. however, the war is beginning to split the party apart as it did the democrats in 1968. the democrats are united against it, but the nuance is whether it's time to leave or to stay and do more.

at any rate, it's not that the dems are somehow weak or inept. it's more that the culture of fear in this country is perfectly aligned for the republicans to keep on winning based on fear tactics and "this might happen, especially if you elect democrats" methods. it's baseless, but it works.

can you imagine how little power terrorists would have if we simply mourned our dead and then moved on without much (if any) fanfare? we've turned it into something that would get rejected from tv pilots and movies on account of being too melodramatic, except that it's real. terrorists have only the power we give them, and we've given them a ton of it.

we have only ourselves to blame.

 

KW
what's the winning strategy? what are the democrats as a group missing? if democrats fight back and tell what they believe to be the truth, they're labeled as extremists or even treasonous/traitorous. if they focus on other issues or are more civilized, they're labeled as weak.

But those accusations come from republican and conservative pundits. Dems need to be less afraid to lose......then they might actually win.

KW
frankly, i think the general american public deserves what its gotten in the republican party and its leadership. close to half of americans are afraid of being personally involved or having someone they know involved in a terrorist attack, which is ludicrous. you have a better chance of winning the powerball. we exist in a culture and state of perpetual fear, and of what i'm not quite sure. we're afraid of all the bad things that might happen to us, feeling like we need to protect ourselves (when all we really need protection from is from ourselves).

Come on. Telling the public they're the ones at fault will get you few votes and deservedly so. The public isn't as stupid or as ignorant as pundits and the chattering beltway class thinks.

KW
if you talk about withdrawing from iraq, you're accused of wanting to cut and run (and all that goes with it). if you want to stay the course, that comes with risks too. the republican party as a whole is far better at campaigning and labeling, especially as it is more unified in general. however, the war is beginning to split the party apart as it did the democrats in 1968. the democrats are united against it, but the nuance is whether it's time to leave or to stay and do more.

You're right that the GOP isn't as unified as it first appears. Rumsfeld has disappointed more than a few conservatives, myself included. There are many other issues with this administration and congress that the dems could easily school them on.
And there are many conservatives who would entertain an alliance with some liberals who don't want to "cut and run", but, as the dems have pointed out, redeploy.

But the dems are caught between the New Democrat foreign policy that is traditional/Wilsonian.....like Dubya btw, and their more liberal side who want to reduce the US military footprint around the world.

As for "cut and run", again that is a media creation from the likes Of Limbaugh and Hannity. Dems need to stop being afraid of these people. They might be wrong. They need to point out exactly what it is and stand by it.

Harry Reid supposedly said that dems actually shouldn't give out clear cut choices between them and the GOP for November because it gives them flexibility dependent on whatever happens in the world. Gee, that isn't proactive, but reactive. That's exactly what they've been doing for the last 5 years with Bush, reacting to everything he does and forgetting what they would do instead.


KW
at any rate, it's not that the dems are somehow weak or inept. it's more that the culture of fear in this country is perfectly aligned for the republicans to keep on winning based on fear tactics and "this might happen, especially if you elect democrats" methods. it's baseless, but it works.

Eh, I think if they can't clearly and forcefully stand up and say is really wrong with the direction of this country right now, then yes, they are weak and inept.

YOU and I and everyone else knows what's wrong. Iraq is a big **** up. Our energy situation puts us in a vulnerable position. Our "war on terror" is a shambolic way of saying "we're going to go after Iran and NK, and whoever else we don't agree with around the world". It's really a war on radical Islamists who use terror, but not all of them.

Spending and our deficit continue to spiral. The Chinese have our monetary system by the cajones because they're absorbing so much of our IOUs.

The global economy is causing painful shifts and disruptions to our manufacturing sector.

Our ports and borders are STILL NOT secure five years after 9/

 

Well, the issue is that the Democrats, too often, have a policy of "we're not republicans" rather than their own individual ideas. Polls about Kerry sort of showed this... most of his votes (at least in California) were people voting against Kerry rather than for Bush, whereas most of Bush's votes were votes for Bush. The Democrats would be much more competitive if they seemed to have more ideas rather than saying the Republicans are wrong and leaving it at that.

And it comes down to what issue you look at, if the Republicans are unified or not. Look at illegal immigration, where the republicans are fairly torn. Of course, the Democrats are not positioned in a way where they can take advantage of that.

 

The Democrats' problem is actually very simple.

They need to define themselves by what they are, not by what they aren't.

I live in Northern Virginia, and I get to see campaign ads for Maryland, Virginia, and DC. I also spent some time in Atlantic City this week (for work)d saw several camaign ads there. I've also been following news reports on several other campaigns, especially their ads. The common theme I've seen in the Democrats' ads had been to criticize, criticize, criticize, and basically sound like "I'm not Bush".

The problem is that this doesn't give the voters any idea of what they are. It's not advancing any real policies, but simply opposing someone else's polices. They are effectively trapped in the mindset of an opposition party, without really providing alternatives.

I'm not saying that they don't have ideas (because I know that they do), but that they are not defining themselves by those ideas.

Consider what the Republicans did in 1994. They defined themselves by the Contract for America, and made that center point of almost all of their campaigning. They defined themselves. They didn't let the Democrats define them or their positions.

As my grandfather would always say, make sure you're always running towards something, and not away. The Democrats need to give people something to run towards, rather than just tell them to run away from the Republicans.

Kimball Kinnison

 

The real issue liberals can really agree on is that they want the House is so they can start the investigations on Bush, but as unpopular as Bush is, that isn't something you want to tell the mainstream voter.

I think the reason the Democrats can't get together on the major issues is that their more extreme elements are bitter and angry and won't stand for a centrist platform. They don't want to compromise their values but realize want they really want won't fly with the majority of voters. So instead of settling for a weak position, they would rather not give one so that in the future they would be able to pursue their agenda. Of course when they find a guy that is willing to find out what the people want to hear and tell them that, he is accused of being wishy-washy.

Right now I am pretty angry at both parties, I wish we had a more viable opposition party that didn't have people calling Bush a warmonger and "WORST. PRESIDENT. EVAR!" and raving how we should have never gone into Iraq. I don't care if you were right or not, just tell me how you are going to fix what Bush screwed up. Impeaching him isn't an answer either.

 

i think an interesting solution might be to start investigations with the condition that it will be purely informational in intent, unless some truly massive crime is revealed along the way.

the american people, and history, deserve to know what happened and why various decisions were made.

that said, i think republicans will eke out a win and keep both houses. whether they use their near-disaster to right themselves or, like bush in 2005, see a mandate where none exists and proceed to author a political disaster as yet unseen in recent decades, remains to be seen.

 

i think an interesting solution might be to start investigations with the condition that it will be purely informational in intent, unless some truly massive crime is revealed along the way.

You just described the two independent council fiascos, which wasted millions of dollars. And why I don't like that system as it's used.

 

fair point. i hadn't thought about that.

regardless, history needs to know what happened. whatever it takes is what needs to be done.

 

Yeah, I understand that desire. I don't think we'll get to a point in society where we can actually achieve it though, at least easily or effectively.

 

To drag this back to the elections that are going on... (sorry!)
Update from MN, after primaries:

Rep. Mark Kennedy's seat will switch from R. to D.
Sen. Mark Dayton's seat will definitely stay D.

So the two open seat will both be taken by Democrats.

Is anyone keeping track of the numbers needed for Democrat takeover of the House and Senate?

 

The Democrats' problem is actually very simple.

They need to define themselves by what they are, not by what they aren't.

Kimball, you have hit the nail squarely on the head with that statement.

I live in the Philadelphia suburbs, and there has been a decided lack of interest in the Senatorial campaign around here. Why? Because Bob Casey Jr. won't come to our area to campaign. The reason for this? He holds many conservative social positions, and his poll numbers in my area have been driven purely by the "I'm not the other guy" strategy. That works just fine if you're sitting 30 percentage points ahead like he was for a time, but now that the race has tightened, he has started to define himself and most voters have found that they have a choice between two rather similar individuals on many issues.

The governor's race has been the same in many ways; I have seen one advertisement that shows Lynn Swann playing to cheering crowds about the need for change and how his family "made it" in America, but no specific issues. Meanwhile, Rendell has solidly campaigned on his outstanding economic record and balancing of the budget. Never mind all the fighting that occured to get there, the point is, he can capitalize on it.

If the dems would only unite behind a platform and push for it, they might stand a solid chance. Right now all we're getting is more of the same, from both sides.

Peace,

V-03

 

I'd add that the irony is that, generally speaking, Democrats get hammered for not agreeing on everything with each other (no 'clear' platform), while Republicans get hammered for agreeing with each other too much ('rubberstamping').

IMO the Senate is a gentleman's club (and I don't mean a strip club) whereas the House is the 'peoples' branch of Congress. While there are certainly leaders in the Senate, both past and present, it seems to be that the party out of power looks to a leader in the House to rally the masses. The Democrats need a Newt Gingrich circa early 90s...someone who has the demeanor and persona that the party will rally around. Nancy Pelosi is NOT that person. John Murtha certainly could be that person, but it seems that the Democrats are too PC, too entrenched to make any such changes. G-d I miss Dick Gephardt.

Here in Cali, I stand by my prediction that Arnold will be reelected. Angelidas doesn't inspire any loyalty or innovative ideas, while Arnold seems to have had some successes (minimum wage, stem cell research, workers comp reform) and provides an effective balance to the legislature.

 

I volunteer at the Republican headquarters three or four times a week. The interesting part about our primaries here in AZ is that the Dems had a record low voter turn out while the Reps had a record high turn out.

If even a piece of this holds out on election day it will be good news!