Agreed. But if the Conservative Party stood for the abolition of the Federal Reserve, banning abortion and rolling back the civil rights movement it would be a pretty misleading name for the party. My objection is to the right-wing’s adoption of the conservative label when the policies they advocate aren’t conservative at all.
I think you’ll find, as the word “conservative” is used in academic as well as in electoral-political circles, it is generally both intended and understood to imply a great deal of actual ideological content other than, and sometimes incompatible with, “leave things as they are.”
E.g., no Frenchman living under Napoleon who wanted to leave Napoleon in power could defensibly be called a “conservative.”
Fair enough. I’m well aware that mostly everybody else is happy with the label being used to (in my opinion) describe something inaccurately and I’m not going to be able to persuade them otherwise.
So what do you call someone who’s happy with the status-quo? A conservative-conservative?
Could as easily be “apolitical.”
But that implies that they have no participation in politics. A true conservative would be politically involved in preserving the status-quo.
Well, I left out the punchline. Basically only the past three quarters of economic data matter. In 1936 the Republican actually punched above his weight, but Q1-Q3 1936 had sufficient economic growth to give Roosevelt a landslide. History would repeat itself in 1984: Mondale beat the point spread, but nonetheless lost big time to Ronald Reagan. Caveat 1: Fair’s model does have a variable that picks up good economic news over a somewhat longer timespan. Caveat 2: There are more detailed models run by political scientists which I have not studied by which I understand have broadly similar conclusions.
It’s not merely circumstances. The last 3 quarters of economic activity plus incumbency explain almost everything. Wars, personalities, ideology, exploding oil derricks, hostage crises – these tend to either cancel themselves out sufficiently to move the vote share by an average of only 1.5 percentage points (3.5 points in exceptional circumstances).
The implications are profoundly cynical. Election year economic growth can be advanced by well-timed stimulus, whether it take the form of a burst of spending, tax cuts or a compliant Federal Reserve chairman (see for example Burns, Arthur Frank). James Baker arranged for Greenspan to replace Volker for a reason – he didn’t trust the tight money Democrat. And most of what passes for media commentary is completely besides the point and highly misleading. Conventional wisdom is confused.
Prudent?
Just think, if it hadn’t been for Watergate derailing the Nixon-Kennedy HCR bill, we’d be like Europe now, because we’d have gotten some form of universal health care in place, just before the right wing backlash which set the tone for U.S. politics in the last decades of the 20th century. I almost miss the Repubs of the 1950s and 60s.
It could be" wealthy". They have it very good.
By definition, this means that the current administration and congress failed to please the electorate. As for the reason behind this, it’s nothing but a Rorshach blot that reflects your own belief. It could mean he didn’t deliver on his promises to deliver change. It could mean he changed more than the electorate wanted. It could mean that he did what he said he was going to do, and then they decided that wasn’t good enough.
But you want to know what the real cause is, since I happen to know? It’s because Americans are children who think the President is an omnipotent economic Santa Claus who can flip a giant switch labeled ‘JOBS’, and their self-inflicted, over-leveraged financial problems will just magically disappear. The opposition helpfully feeds this notion by painting the picture that he’s failing to do it, or doing it wrong. But the outcome would be the same whether it was Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, or Howdy Doody. If an ailing economy doesn’t tick upward, you get punished.
If that means that 2 years ago the Republicans were too far to the right, hence their huge election losses.
But I don’t believe that this massive ship of state actually veers all that far in two years, or that the vote of the electorate is always a well-informed one.
One just prays that in tacking back and forth the nation finds a reasonably accurate direction overall.
Like Clinton said, “it’s the economy stupid”. The Repubs learned that lesson too. They filibustered every attempt Obama made to fix the economy, with mid terms in mind from day one. They were determined not to permit him to succeed, even if the people had to suffer. They are disciplined and don’t stray from the goals. They used the filibuster in a way that is unprecedented. They play to win.
That of course is why they fear the Tea Baggers.They may not follow the dictates of the party. They may even decide for themselves. That might cut down the filibuster bloc. Strange times are ahead.
I don’t think the Republicans fear the Tea Party movement - at least not yet. Right now, the Republican Party feels the Tea Party is a tool it can use at will - direct its anti-incumbency outrage against the Democrats who are in power. The Republicans presumedly will cut off support of the Tea Party if they regain control of Congress.
Then we’ll find out if the Tea Party is a horse or a tiger. Will the Tea Party fade away without Republican support and become a non-factor? Or will it survive on its own and start attacking incumbent Republicans like it has incumbent Democrats? Or will the Tea Party start receiving its support from the Democrats?
The Tea Baggers have already gone after those they think are not reactionary enough. That is why we have people like O;Donnell in the election. Their insistence on leaders following their policies includes the Repubs who have not shown to be believers. They have tossed some elections into the air that Repubs thought were secure.
Well Americans are sort of correct in this case. Obama was bequeathed the largest recession since WWII. A stimulus package twice as large could have lowered the unemployment rate without igniting inflation. Why didn’t this happen?
Simplistically, I’d blame the Republican Senate. In early 2009, the Dems had 59 seats (because of delays in seating Senator Franken). So the Republicans could and did filibuster everything. This was a departure from Senate tradition, but it might have been anticipated. Anyway, President Olympia Snowe demanded cuts in the most potent parts of the jobs package (aid to states), so we were left with something just under $800 billion, when it should have been 2x that.
I find it likely that the Democrats will win the Senate, but not eliminate either the filibuster or the practice of putting holds on executive appointments. Trust them to shoot themselves in the foot again.
Anyway, the 2nd mistake was not to press harder to fill FOMC positions at the Federal Reserve. That was done last month, which is nice for 2012, not so much for 2010.
Some economic problems are difficult. But here, I think the problem is not in the stars but in ourselves. The paradox of thrift was accepted by both parties in the 1970s: unfortunately the Republicans have since adopted yahoo economics.
I think most Americans are less concerned with the difference between left and right than with whether and how well something works. A successful president will change public opinion. Franklin Roosevelt moved the country to the left by adopting policies that reduced unemployment. Because unemployment has continued to rise under Barack Obama, the country is moving to the right.
Obama should have reduced unemployment the way Roosevelt did: raise taxes on the rich; hire people at government expense with programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps - which was enormously popular with the voters, by the way. The rich would have squealed like struck pigs when they got their tax increases, but Obama’s approval rating would have exceeded his post inauguration rate of 68% as the unemployment rate declined. After establishing his credibility on the economy, Obama could have addressed health care.
Instead, Obama passed a health plan most Americans do not like.
Nevertheless, “ROCHESTER, N.Y. – July 7, 2008 – Several recent surveys by Harris Interactive®, including the latest Financial Times/Harris Poll, asked an identical question of cross-sections of adults in ten developed countries about their own health care systems. This research finds that the United States has the most unpopular system.” The other nine countries had universal health care.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/FinancialTimes/tabid/449/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1512/ArticleId/192/Default.aspx
Moreover, “(AP) President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has divided the nation, and Republicans believe their call for repeal will help them win elections in November. But the picture’s not that clear-cut. A new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1.”
President Obama’s problem is not that he is too far to the left, but that he has made strategic mistakes. Whether or not he will recover from them remains to be seen. The Republican Party has no solution to the problem of high unemployment, and no solution to the facts the privately financed American health system was unpopular, cost more than universal health care systems, and delivered inferior results.
Nah, there will still be incumbent Democrats to attack.
-Joe
Most people actually want healthcare that he passed. If you watch right wing news ,you won’t know that. Right wing rhetoric has divided the country.
I think he should have taken over a bank and started lending to small businesses to increase employment. Big companies have not increased American jobs in many years.
Fixing our infrastructure is not make work. Our roads, bridges and buildings need repair. Our buildings could use ecological retro fitting.
When Republicans lost control of the house and senate and then later the White House, did they think that was because, perhaps, they had went too far to the right?
The United States is a center right country.
This is because most whites do not want their tax money spent on programs that will help blacks, even if those programs will help them too.
The Republicans lost control of the Congress in 2006, and of the White house in 2008 because George W. Bush started two expensive wars he could not win, and because the median income declined.
The Republicans will probably win control of both houses of Congress in the next election because the unemployment rate has continued to grow after the inauguration of President Obama.
Americans are less concerned with the difference between left and right than they are concerned with whether and how well something works. Nevertheless, since 1972 the Republican Party has been the party of the white majority. As a result, it will be given the benefit of the doubt by the voters. In 1994 the economy was improving. Nevertheless, the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress. In 2000 the country enjoyed peace and prosperity. Nevertheless, the Republicans retained control of the Congress, and George W. Bush was elected president. Despite the fact that Bush ran the country off the rail, and that Sarah Palin was an obvious whack job, John McCain nearly got elected.
In 1976 Gerald Ford was nearly elected despite Watergate, clemency for Nixon, and the fact that Nixon had prolonged a war that was immoral and unwinnable. Ronald Reagan won in 1984 by a landslide despite the recession of 1982 and the growth of the national debt.
The GOP will continue to get the benefit of the doubt from the voters unless the Democrats win back the white working class and much of the South, or unless whites become a minority in the United States. If whites do become a minority, however, white support for the Republicans will increase, and Asians may begin to support the GOP.