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Post by tantalyr on Oct 18, 2010 21:40:59 GMT
I'll have to disagree on the prognostication a bit, Phar.
I do believe that the GoP will likely take control of the House of Representatives (after all, 87 of the 96 House seats considered "in play" this election are presently held by Democratic incumbents, and the GoP only needs 39 of those to take control), and though they won't win the Senate, they'll certainly chop that magic 60 number quite a bit (I'm thinking it will end up either a 53-47 or a 52-48 split--counting Lieberman in the Democratic caucus side).
Sure, the real wingnuts like O'Donnell in Delaware will lose, but I suspect hardliners like Angle (Nevada) and Paul (Kentucy) will win, and I wouldn't be surprised if Fiorina becomes the first Republican senator from California in decades.
Normally, I would be pleased at such an outcome since historically Congress has shown the most bipartisanship when the houses are pretty evenly divided. But as I posted early, I fear that to the contrary, this election will solidify the extremes of both parties and the "people's work" will grind to a complete halt.
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Post by Darkwater on Oct 18, 2010 21:45:18 GMT
Well the "don't give a shit" comment explains the lack of center candidates. They can't be assed to run and also they've fled both parties in droves to be independents so they don't have a choice in the flavour of candidates that win the primaries. Essentially they've given up most of the political decision making to the extremes. Not on purpose of course, but with your retarded two party system, that's essentially what has happened.
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Post by Pharcellus on Oct 18, 2010 23:59:50 GMT
Well, Tantalyr, we'll see. We will see. I at least know how I am going to vote. I hate it, but if I am going to bother, it is the most rational way.
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Oct 19, 2010 0:55:21 GMT
The League of Women Voters info is the most reliable, least biased voter info I know. Local usefulness varies.
There are few moderate Republican candidates because they 1. Lost in the primaries to far rights 2. Got chased out of the party by RINO hunters. (Denouncers of Republicans in Name Only.) 3. Trimmed their sails, knuckled under, sold out, etc. Viz McCain.
I hold that there are very few extreme liberals left, regardless of the view through prune-colored glasses. The Republicans have been running against the '60's for a long time now, and there ain't much left left. Things that were conservative ideas a decade ago (cap and trade for an effective example) have now become liberal schemes. The conservative movement has moved very far to the right in an astonishingly short time. Part of it is the now seamless cocoon Fox provides; News, Radio, Commentary, TV dramas, (esp 24), general newspapers, and for the better-read, the Wall Street Journal. Part of it is the long term dead-end demographic outlook, part of it is the increasing deregulation of campaign funding... but I fear Phar, this one's gonna be rough. If the House goes Republican, as it may well, all the new committee heads will do what they did to Clinton; investigating (with subpoenas) Christmas card lists, birth certificates, anything they can, even implausibly, dredge up. Travel office? Improper filing of Chicago tram travel expenses in 1994? All of which may well leave the left even more shell-shocked than it is at present. Obama's efforts to hold out a bipartisan olive branch, well past the point that many of his supporters thought the tactic proven futile, indicate that the intrasigence was almost all one sided. BAH!
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 3, 2010 20:17:07 GMT
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Post by Pharcellus on Nov 3, 2010 21:25:13 GMT
Well, Tantalyr, you came out pretty spot on, with the exceptions of Angle and Fiorina. At least a few places where common sense and common decency prevailed.
I think this will end up being the most partisan and useless lame duck session ever, though.
Kula, I dunno. I don't know what else he could have done to get anything accomplished. Even if he rolled around the country in the Pulpitmobile for two years, the Repubs would have been even more acerbic and would have blocked everything he was trying to get done. Maybe that would have been for the best, I dunno. I am for getting us the hell out of the mess we are in, and not pandering to the stupidity that grips our legislative branch. However, without one party in full control nowadays, it just doesn't seem like it will happen. You can count on more of the same ol' same ol' that got us into this mess. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and a majority of the middle class are going to join the latter.
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 4, 2010 1:55:24 GMT
Perhaps it's worth considering the last two years as witnessing two battles. One battle is about what actually did and did not get done; and some things that did not get done were unemployment extension, effective foreclosure relief when appropriate, and noticeably reduced unemployment. The first and third were pretty well blocked by the Republicans. The mortgage relief had a program that didn't work, and never got fixed. At a time like this, everything tried cannot be expected to work, so cut the unsuccessful experiments short, and fix them.
The stimulus bill was also needed, and did address jobs directly, but was hopelessly small. Given a $2-3 Trillion demand shortfall (over two years) the stimulus bill provided about $1/2 T gross, but about $0.1T net when the state government cuts were taken into account. No wonder nothing happened; and then on top of that, the money was pretty much all spent by the end of summer, just before the election. The bill's passage had been advertised as just what was needed, a fatal mistake... That pretty well left the field wide open for the R's to define the effort as a failure. Which they did, long, loud, and often.
The other battle was political. Unexpectedly, Obama brought a parley flag to a knife fight, which didn't work out too well... The health care plan may or may not have been the best possible, but the R's wound up defining it as expensive, ineffective, and hard on innocent grannies. (And, as it turned out, incumbent D's). And it was important, health care reform was desperately needed, but it was not the public's greatest concern; jobs, foreclosure, personal debt were. (I think the R's are in for a nasty surprise here, as national debt is a high priority for them, but not so much for the public.) Bailing out the banks was very unpopular, but the D's let the country forget that they inherited that. They didn't do it! No Way! Not even there at the time! Sigh.
Bailing out the car companies wasn't popular either, but turned out well, better than reasonably expected. Crickets chirp, and the populace smolders. There were other accomplishments, public lands, schools, limited financial reregulation; more of them and more substantive than any other administration's since FDR. Mostly unheralded and even if people had really heard about them, they wouldn't have cared; food, rent, stuff like that, comes first.
So the Obama administration didn't concentrate the most on what people cared most about, which rendered their real and many accomplishments politically moot. So a fair number of people got elected who will be shouting about the deficit, but blocking all efforts to get us to grow out of it; and who will be frustrated trying to kill Social Security, Obamacare, and welfare benefits. So, I suppose, that, as they did in Newt's time, they will turn to investigatin' and subpeonain' everyone who's trying to do something useful. It does not look like fun.
Edit: all of which is just a long way 'round to say, yeah, I think you're right.
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Post by woooooooo on Nov 4, 2010 12:10:47 GMT
I believe a lot of politicians, both Repubs and Dems were put on notice Tuesday.
And Tant's prediction was almost dead on. Nice job Tant.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2010 19:48:10 GMT
The GOP thinks it has a mandate and perhaps for the next 2 years it does, but I hope the majority of those in the GOP realize that the public's patience is pretty short for everyone and that if the GOP does nothing but stall and block and partisan bicker its going to come back at them in 2012.
My opinion of the stimulus is that it targeted the wrong things. When most of those unemployed are not blue-collar but white-collar workers, spending money on infrastructure and construction jobs isn't going to solve a gorram thing.
Plus, I still think that we should be addressing companies sending jobs overseas instead of trying to prop up the few we still have left. Make them pay for leaving or make them want to stay, but f'n do something other than just hand them fat checks.
Oh and I keep hearing on talk radio and in speeches since the election the craziest statements. It cracks me up when people say "lets return to what works, free enterprise" when thats exactly the behavior that got us into this mess in the first place. Crazy.
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Post by maddwarf on Nov 4, 2010 19:53:37 GMT
Our family would have been leaving the US had Angle won. She represents a level of facism we simply couldn't stomach. The tea party as a whole operates on a platform of fear. Last time we saw that in a political party people were getting pushed around by an organization called the Brownshirts.
Either way I hope the republicans do more than say no. I also hope they realize that at most the polls split the American populace in half on the idea of the health reform passed most recently. So I am definitely looking at the Republicans to do more than just block everything Obama tries to do in the next two years. Somehow I get the feeling that is exactly what we will see.
Tax cuts and spending decreases does not equal economic growth. Concentrating on Domestic policy does. This is something the far right just doesn't get. Do we really need to be in the middle east?
The next year will be very interesting.
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Post by Pharcellus on Nov 4, 2010 21:11:01 GMT
Clean/green energy projects target both blue/white collar workers. Also, with the housing/construction industry in the toilet, there are a lot of blue collar workers out of work, too. I most definitely agree that the shipping jobs and shifting profits overseas needs to be addressed and severely curtailed. There's very little wrong with "free enterprise"; the problem is that what a lot of these idiots are talking about is not a "free and fair market", but an "anarchic market". "Free" isn't supposed to mean "do anything you want without responsibility"; it is supposed to mean "free from unfair influence and manipulation" from either players in the market or the government itself. It is absolutely necessary for markets to be regulated BY the government when there is no viable self-regulation possible. Mad: The problem is that Angle was an overt fascist (and a complete moron to boot); the overt fascists didn't win, for the most part, but don't doubt for a minute that the majority of the Repub winners in this election hold their exact same extremist views. They are just simply smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Bachmann, Rubio, DeMint, Paul; all the Teabaggers have, at one point or another stated just as extreme points of view; they just walked their words back for the election. McConnell and Boehner are already gearing up to attack Obama and the Democrats hardcore going into the next year. They're mad that they got left out in the cold for two years, and vengeance for that "grave insult" is on their minds. So, expect a bunch of garbage like numerous repeal attempts for various legislation that got passed, investigations and witchhunt subpoenas of Obama and various Democrats, et cetera ad nauseum. If you thought the candidates and the campaigns were disgusting, I fear we ain't seen nothin' yet.
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 4, 2010 21:37:18 GMT
On a different note; I enjoyed this article. A book review with some insight and analytic teeth. A good glance at the private equity mentality that, clothed in self-congratulation, dismantled quite a few Grand Old Firms. And an interesting assessment of how far GM came in the last several years, prebailout; more than I knew.
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Post by tantalyr on Nov 5, 2010 0:32:46 GMT
It seems to me that the Democratic Party can right its ship in plenty of time for the 2012 elections if they play the political equivalent of baseball's "small ball." (Speaking of which, a short digression--Congrats on your Giants' World Series victory Kula! Though it hurt my heart that my Rangers didn't give you a better Series.)
By small ball here, I mean that Obama and the Democratic Party should (a) lower their legislative sights, and (b) study public opinion polls, and put forward fairly non-controversial, largely public supported limited legislation, rather than huge, controversial legislation like last year's health care bill.
An obvious contender would be some piece of legislation designed to create jobs (preferably of the white collar variety). Not millions of jobs mind you, but say a couple hundred thousand in a particular industry (e.g., intellectual technology, teaching, etc.). Since its goal would be limited in the number of jobs it would create, it would be difficult for the Republicans to pick it apart from a cost standpoint. And I daresay that any legislation aimed at creating jobs would be highly popular with a financially gasping electorate. So, absent some provable cost catastrophe were the bill to pass, the GoP would be shooting itself in the foot by opposing it.
So, I would recommend to Obama and the Democratic Party to put forward a continuing series of these "small ball" bills which meet the above-stated criteria. If the bills pass, then there's a feather in Obama's (and the Party's) hats for 2012. And if the GoP unreasonably opposes such popular bills, then they will simply look obstructionist with no answers of their own.
Seems to me that "small ball" would be a win-win situation for the President and his party if he plays it right.
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Post by Kulamata on Nov 5, 2010 3:30:04 GMT
Thanks Tant! I've never seen anything like those first two games; not expected! And we were entertained by many feats of derring-do that had been unmatched in many a year.
I do certainly agree with the small ball idea as far as it goes, but we have millions un- and under-employed, literally more than a million homes in foreclosure queue, and small ball nibbles can't get us out of the hole. And two years is a long time to wait to run against a "do nothing Congress" (HST).
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Post by Darkwater on Nov 5, 2010 6:02:32 GMT
I think the answer for the dems is obvious. Obama should just say.. Ok, lets balance the budget, and toss it to the republicans to come up with a budget that is balanced. There's only a little bit of non entitlement/defence spending that you can cut, and it'll only get you a tiny way towards fiscal discipline.
So it'll have to come from medicare, social security and defence. Let the republicans make the choice as to which, and then see how the public feels about that snafu. heh
That's the problem with entitlements, once you establish them, people feel entitled to them! You know it wont be defence, or hardly, so they'll have to choose to gut medicare and social security. It likely needs to be done anyway, but I people actually like those programs. lol
If they come back with a budget that I think they would, IE keep everything but lower the deficit by a few billion over 10 years, then throw it back at them and say, HEY, you RAN on this shit, people voted you in to do this, so grow some balls and lets see what your plan is.
In 2 years, if the repub plan is to not lower it much, then they'll lose alot of base support. If it guts entitlements to the extent that they'll have to, especially if they don't touch defence much, then the public will hate them. If they actually come up with a kick as plan that'll solve everything long term, then put politics aside and do some good for the country.
All in all a win, win, win for democrats I'd think.
For another wedge issue, try legalizing possession of pot. Argue it on republican issue merits. IE, security, revenue, emptying prisons that cost to much of the tons of people on minor drug charges, ect. I think it might work. Just argue it in terms that the repubs say that they stand for (lower costs, national security, ect), and they don't have a lot of places to go with it.
Just some thoughts hehe
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