The same reasoning that applied to Latino voters applies to those Catholic voters that vote Democratic. They are NOT doing it for religious reasons.
Yes, and the choice the average guy had between Obama and Romney on economic issues was what, exactly, BrainGlutton? There is no difference between the two candidates and their parties there. What value did his vote have there?
That’s just it, I don’t. I know OWS had a lot of sympathizers – I can’t account for its fading so fast.
There were real differences. At least Obama is not going to roll back his own better-than-nothing health-care plan; Romney almost certainly would have.
What I don’t get about Libertarian or conservative theory is that they never seem to care in the slightest about what negative consequences might arise from their policies.
It’s always "cut taxes, welfare, education, Medicare/caid, social security, unemployment…"and just about any domestic program we have available. They say this when it’s quite clear the economy is bad and there aren’t enough well paying jobs.
I realize there is a lot of irrational and ignorant thought taking place. But do they ever stop to think of the robberies and violence that would likely arise? Does that very real fear ever register? I mean people aren’t just going to roll over and die. When push comes to shove, they’ll do what they have to do to survive.
Preventing this type of scenario is enough for me to tolerate what some may refer to “out of control spending.” I would think it’s perfectly reasonable for anyone to accept this even if it goes against their ideology.
It’s like they just throw caution to the wind because they are so sure making these cuts will just make everything all better.
They might be. There’s a lot of Catholic teaching that falls closer to the Democratic view than the Republican . .a lot of stuff about social justice, the dignity of labor, internationalism, opposition to the death penalty, and so on.
But even if they’re not voting Catholic for religious reasons, they’re still voting Democratic. It’s still a constituency the party is going to want to appeal to, even if their identity as Catholics is more of a tribal or cultural signifier than a symbol of devout religious belief.
Low taxes is not sound economic policy. If the Teahadists gave a flying fuck about deficits, where were they during the Chimpy years? What they’re really against is having a black man in the White House. Yeah, they’re real upset over Obamacare now, but when it was the White Republican alternative to Hillarycare in the 1990s they would have embraced it without question.
Relevant NYT article (theme: young voters tilt left): In Montana, Young, Liberal and Open to Big Government - The New York Times
The GOP should indeed fear the monster they created. They continue to splinter into smaller and smaller groups that fight each other and in the process they are alienating a whole younger generation, including those are not even able to vote yet.
I’m in Texas a deal with a lot of teens. The group of kids I deal with regularly, even the ones from conservative families, are repulsed by some of the social issue stands the GOP, Republicans, conservative and tea party types promote these days.
I don’t think social issues should be at the top of our list of problems, but the conservative wing just can’t seem to prevent themselves from touching the stove where these issues are concerned. Every time they take a weird stand on rape, homosexuality, or birth control, even immigration issues since they are in class with people that this issue affects, they push the kids I know further away.
As I listen to the kids after school and hear them comment on the news issues of the day- and frequently on the conservative comments made by their teachers at school- it’s clear to me that they are evaluating, questioning and even rejecting many of the things they hear.
Yes, but for a lot of voters being Catholic has huge negatives, especially women voters. The first thing any Catholic Democrat needs to do is explain that he’s OK with abortion and birth control, for instance, or the women’s vote is gonna evaporate on him. I would say that, given that most Catholics who vote Democratic don’t vote that way for religious reasons, and many non-Catholic voters are very suspicious of Catholic candidates, it’s a net negative. A huge net negative.
As I understand it, to them, it’s not just a belief that Libertarian policies will have salubrious results – that is secondary and nonessential; it is a belief that Libertarian policies are Right and anything else is Wrong in a deontological sense. I think Milton Friedman once wrote that if a significant amount of human misery could be relieved by a 1% tax, the tax would still be immoral, or words to that effect.
Money and organization are the true power of a political movement, and OWS doesn’t really have either. Early on, the Zucotti Park movement agreed on a leaderless, consensus-based decision process–hardly a recipe for swift political action in our short-attention-span media. As for money, their anti-corporate stance pretty much limited OWS to middle-class donations, and while donations of this sort are laudable, they’re peanuts compared to what large corporations can shell out to their PACs. True, some funding has come from business leaders, but the $1.5 million pledge goal seems weak considering the Koch brothers gave about ten times that amount to FreedomWorks.
It’s sad to say, but good ideas by themselves don’t necessarily win out in a democracy. You’ve got to be willing to get your hands dirty, compromise when necessary, and sometimes play the hypocrite. Instead of occupying Wall Street, they should try occupying the Democratic Party.
Seems to me we had a Catholic candidate just eight years ago (John Kerry), and although he failed to win I’m not sure you can chalk that up to his religion.
Social issues like abortion have moved away from particular religious sects–Catholics were far more pro-choice and anti-birth control than Protestants in the 1970’s. Rather, “religious” is just another hallmark of traditional conservatism, like being white or living in a rural area; strongly pro-life Catholics have far more in common with evangelical Protestants than their fellow Catholics.
But, that might divide-and-weaken the Dems the exact same way the Tea Party is dividing-and-weakening the Pubs. Is it worth the risk?
The flip side is that Catholic “values” are probably the best button for the GOP to push to try to woo Latino voters away from the Dems. If they can manage to play up those planks while not saying anything too racist, or advocating autoturrets and land mines on the border, or whatever, they might be able to use it to pull some Catholic Latinos over. That would be a more difficult trick to pull when the person they’re campaigning against is Catholic himself.
I’m not saying it would make a significant difference. It might also do him more harm than good, if he isn’t convincing enough to women voters. I just think that it’s an angle that shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
It’s going to happen anyway, you can’t ignore progressives the way Obama and the rest of the elected Dems have without alienating them.
Well, for a long time the Pubs managed to ignore hard-RWs without alienating them, that only changed recently, on a political time-scale.
And, remember, the last time the Dems let the (relatively) LW take over the party – with the McGoverniks in 1972 – it crippled their chances for several electoral cycles to come (Carter was a fluke engendered by Watergate); they did not really begin to recover until Clinton and the DLC wing took the helm in 1992.
“Best” perhaps, but not a great one. The whole “Catholic Latinos are just Republicans waiting to happen” line probably doesn’t hold as much water as its advocates would like to hope. Polling last election showed Latino voters more interested in a strong government approach to things like jobs, housing, social safety nets, etc. Without getting too deeply into the weeds, I personally doubt even the straight Catholic thing holds much water – Latino Catholicism seems more Marian based with an emphasis on social justice and compassion than Pauline based with an emphasis on the whole “Thou shalt not [abortion/SSM/birth control]” thing.
Yes you can. They are not going to vote Rep, the other choice is alienating the center who WILL. You are making the same exact mistake the Republicans made, who ever holds the center wins. It is not the public that swings on a pendulum, it is the parties.
I agree, actually, but it looks like pretty much all they’ve got. (Barring major changes to the party that do not appear to be in the offing.)
Libertarians, to a man, ALWAYS think they will be the ones doing the exploiting and not being the exploited. That’s how they can sleep at night