I realize that this is Great Debate material, but there was a clamor for an elections forum, so we set one up. Use it.
Off you go.
Yes. One hears complaints that representatives don’t vote how voters want them to, but more often the problem is they do vote that way.
The “old-fashioned” ways of legislature-appointed Senators, etc. had much value. Even popular voting worked OK before the Hyper-information Age with voters tuned into CNN and forming their own judgement on every policy issue.
If that’s true, why didn’t McCain win the Presidential election?
Only if you use “The Math” rather than just regular math that the rest of the planet is using.
I seem to recall that good old Karl was predicting a GOP blowout in 2006, too.
-Joe
That’s the key here. Anything that happens in November will be easily spinned as a “beatdown” because the Republicans are going to make gains no matter what. A realistic position would be to count keeping both houses as a “win” for the Democrats and losing both as a huge beatdown but nobody is ready to go out on a limb and predict either of those outcomes.
Cheerleaders lead cheers. What do you expect?
“The GOP will remain a minority. Why would anyone vote for us?”
Not likely, right?
But, the Dems since taking power have (to put it mildly) pursued no ideas to the left of those on which they won in 2006 and 2008. How can it be that a majority of the voters regard such ideas as “facially awful”?
Presumably because many weren’t voting FOR him and whathisname as much as they were voting AGAINST Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin.
Out of a large nation you have remarkably few choices.
As proxies for Mr. Bush – That’s who they were really voting against…
Why would anybody over Rove up as an expert or an unbiased source? Bush called him Turd Blossom. He deserves that kind of respect.
Judging from the eleventy-zillion e-mails I get every day from everyone from Barbara Boxer to Madeline Albright and everyone in between, the Democratic Party structure is using the teabaggers as a means of getting the Democratic base fired up, and that strategy may be working amongst the rank-and-file. The Obama machine from 2008 is still in place and reaching out to first-time voters from 2008. The Dems will probably lose Congressional seats, but the damage will be mitigated. We just have to get off our asses and campaign on behalf of our candidates.
And, frankly, the BP disaster will make or break the elections. If the Democrats don’t fuck things up (too badly), it’ll be in their favor. So far, the Republicans haven’t done much to keep from fucking things up. In fact, Barton’s faux pas WILL come back to haunt him because it’s an unequivocal sound bite that would be perfect for his opponent’s commercials, and that he can’t wave away by claiming to be taken out of context.
Karl Rove isn’t the political genius he’s been made out to be. He got Bush elected, but that’s about it. He’s been wrong more than he’s been right, at least in recent years. Why anyone continues to listen to him is beyond me.
Exactly, this entire election is going to be all about the GOTV. The Democrats are going to be using the Obama method, the Republicans seem to be relying upon the Tea Party to do that work for them. We’ll see who fares better.
Elections are always about GOTV. A good field program will get you 4 to 6 points when it’s all said and done, and that’s usually within the margin of victory.
It’s really not hard at all: identify your constituents, find out who regularly votes and who doesn’t, identify the people leaning in either direction and find out in what direction they’re voting in this particular election, talk to them a few times, and then push your people out to vote as soon as voting is possible.
But if we’re starting from the premise that Bush had notoriously bad judgment, that means that Rove is probably very smart.
I thought it was about people circulating the idea that Republican voting is on Tuesday and Democrat voting was on Wednesday.
-Joe
Again, the impact of the Tea Party movement is being overrated. Will it have a noticeable impact? Certainly. Will it result in noticeable gains for the Republicans? Much less likely.
For each seat the Tea Parties win for the Republicans, they’ll lose one; either by backing an independent, or probably more commonly, by ensuring that the Republican nominee is unelectable. See Marco Rubio.
Pure opposition without regard or understanding for whether the policy you are opposing is facially awful is not a good political strategy.
In the end, it won’t matter much. Democrats will be apathetic this round, the benefit of which will redound to the Republicans who will easily better the Democrats GOTV efforts, resulting in GOP gains.
That’s the old canard.
But around here people actually try to convince people of it. Pretty disgusting, really.
Must be difference between using the calendar and using the calendar.
-Joe
That does not mean his public statements bear any relationship to what he thinks.