Go vote

[aurik]

holy shit its been like 3 days, where's my fixed economy mr BOEHNER

[Atreides]

yes but how can we expect the president to save money if he's spending TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY IN INDIA??

first of all, just no. Second of all, 200 million dollars per day could buy you nearly every prostitute and orphan in india about 50 times over. MAYBE THATS HIS PLAN

God damn, michelle bachmann is fucking retarded

[Desoo]

Any word yet on if Nancy Pelosi will be staying in the House

If you mean staying as speaker, no, she won't be. If you mean is she going to /ragequit, it'd be pretty retarded for her to do so. The GOP would be all over the "sore loser" angle.

And the tea party pulls them so far to the right that they can't possibly hope to attract any moderates on social issues either

I'm curious to see how the final breakdowns work out, but here's some interesting facts for you:

In Nevada they have a ~43/35/22% D/R/Other split. Reid got 50% of the vote Angle got 44%. As far as appealing to your non-base voters, it looks like Angle did a hell of a lot better job.

Edit: It could be that Reid got more of the others, but had a poor democrat turn-out on E-Day. That still doesn't look real good for him.

There's nobody differentiating themselves from their party at this point (no, taking your party's views to the extreme is not differentiation), even on single major issues.

This is an issue of the two party system we have going here (Yes, I know we have "third parties"). I'm registered as a republican, but there are several "core" issues that I differ with them on. However, they are a much, much better fit than the democrats ever would be for me. If we had a true more-than-two party system going, there might be a party out there that would be a perfect fit, that would have a chance of winning something.

[Atreides]

well isn't that the problem with republicans, is that in order to actually be a member of the republican party in good standing (not a voter, I mean a politician) you have to be someone who agrees with all of their talking points? It feels like all the moderate repubs (particularly those that don't toe the the party line on an increasingly right-wing view on social issues like gay rights/abortion and immigration) get pushed out for being impure, making it so moderates or center-right republicans no longer feel like the Republican Party represents their best interests? That's kinda what I was alluding to earlier when I mentioned that it feels like Dems are more of a party of inclusion while the Republicans feel more and more like a party of exclusion.

And I'm pretty sure a big reason Reid won was the hispanic vote, the split for that was something like 68% reid 30% angle lol

[Desoo]

I think it's the voters that are driving that though, not the party leaders. Look at Arlen Spectre. He tried to toe that line, and because of it, knew he'd never win a republican primary, so he switched parties.

[Atreides]

yea, although I think now we're getting into the difference between center-right (and even traditional) republican voters and the tea party, since the same thing that happened with Specter in PA happened in the Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Florida, and Colorado senate primaries, probably some others I'm not thinking of too. And I don't think it's necessarily all voters, don't discount all that delicious anonymous money, and the ability of people like Glenn Beck/Michelle Bachmann to scare the shit out of people.

[Talint]

well isn't that the problem with republicans, is that in order to actually be a member of the republican party in good standing (not a voter, I mean a politician) you have to be someone who agrees with all of their talking points? It feels like all the moderate repubs (particularly those that don't toe the the party line on an increasingly right-wing view on social issues like gay rights/abortion and immigration) get pushed out for being impure, making it so moderates or center-right republicans no longer feel like the Republican Party represents their best interests? That's kinda what I was alluding to earlier when I mentioned that it feels like Dems are more of a party of inclusion while the Republicans feel more and more like a party of exclusion.

There are definitely some moderate republicans left. Snowe and Collins from Maine, and everyone's favorite mental midget Scott Brown -- lest we forget the tea party fervor that happened when he flipped his vote on the jobs bill. I'd also argue that Joe Lieberdick is also a moderate republican, but that might just be my incredible hatred for him talking.

Though, yes, they are most certainly becoming a dying breed.

[Desoo]

Yes, unfortunately, the people with the loudest voices also happen to be the craziest, more often than not.

[Atreides]

You can be pretty sure the Tea Party is going to try their hardest to get Snowe out of office come 2012 too

[Desoo]

I'm not a huge fan of Snowe myself. I couldn't tell you what it was exactly, but something she supported a bit ago turned me off on her.

[Atreides]

not too long ago she voted to block DADT along with the other republicans, despite numerous please from lady gaga lol

[Talint]

If the tea party is going to charge at more republicans in 2012, that will truly be a bad idea. They only have nine seats to defend, with the only two who might be in trouble are Brown and Ensign, so all efforts should be focused on offense. There's just so much to attack in 2012, it would just be... colossally stupid to do this.

Going after Snowe is such a bad idea. She's so incredibly popular in Maine, I have no idea why you'd do that.

Related: Tea Party champion Scott Brown is on Tea Party hit list. How the mighty have fallen.

[bigrougabagel]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/ame...ves-for,18401/

mildly appropriate

[Ksandra]

yes but how can we expect the president to save money if he's spending TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY IN INDIA??

first of all, just no. Second of all, 200 million dollars per day could buy you nearly every prostitute and orphan in india about 50 times over. MAYBE THATS HIS PLAN

God damn, michelle bachmann is fucking retarded

I mean, how can any, and I seriously mean any, teacher who had to be intelligent enough to get a teaching certificate and probably a MA, think for one second those figures were remotely possible?


I have to say this is not me just hating repubs, but anyone who bought that without thinking logically for a second should probably be put in jail for stupidity or something.

[Desoo]

Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of Castle here, and I won't be missing him, but I think I'd rather have had him than Coons. The tea party group would be much better off focusing on Dems they really don't like, than the Republicans they mostly like, but he betrayed us on this one issue. Again, I'm not a huge fan of Snowe, but looking at her page on Wiki, I'm still not really sure why, (probably stimulus money), but I'd rather have a 95% chance she wins, than a candidate I like better with a 50% chance to win.

anyone who bought that without thinking logically for a second should probably be put in jail for stupidity or something.

Seconded.

[Olo401]

http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/...0/11/post5.jpg

[Atreides]

I lol'd at this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1..._n_779111.html

granted I think most of that 31% probably voted against obama out of anger over DADT more than they voted for the republicans, but yeah.

[Desoo]

Probably, but I think a large number of Republicans are warming to the idea that gays need rights too. I think the key is going to be to find a compromise that the christian/other religion subset can vote yes on without violating their religious beliefs.

[Atreides]

I definitely don't see that happening ever lol

but I agree that it's kinda ridiculous to assume that ALL gay voters voters have progressive economic beliefs. I think for a lot of gay voters, even ones who are fiscal conservatives, they see the pro-gay republican politicians as people who either get quickly silenced and pushed out the door by the religious right/tea party, or only say things that are vaguely progressive (or just refuse to take a stance at all, the ultimate cop out of "states rights" being my personal favorite) to try to get gay votes with no hope of actually following through on their campaign promises. I guess the latter sorta explains why DADT footdragging by Obama is especially painful, since it reminds them of politicians on both sides of the aisle who are better at fucking gays than their boyfriends.

[aurik]

This is why republicans saw a large increase in the LGBT vote:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Needs.svg.png

Safety is below love/belonging.