This is starting to get too personal and will probably derail the thread, so I’ll just end it by saying if you want to go mano a mano as to who has taken more actual positions on issues on this MB, I’m more than willing. Just because I’m not interested in throwing my weight behind either established party doesn’t mean I don’t have principled stances on the issues. Those are two completely separate things.
I’ll give libertarians credit for this - they’re consistent in their views on government spending.
Well, OK, John, but next time is my turn to “end it”. Fair enough?
Pfft. I’ve been listening to the liberals on this MB for years telling us how the stupid conservative voters would change their evil ways if they were only educated, like all the good liberal voters. It’s a mindset that is stuck in the idea that your side is objectively right, and the other side is objectively wrong.
So, if your side is so smart, why don’t you turn this into a wedge issue and run the bank on the election? Your example of Byrd is not what this thread is about. Federal pork to build a highway in your district isn’t the same as a federally administered social program that spreads money across the entire country. Conservative voters may very well be stupid about any number of things, but they’re not stupid about that.
The study posted on the first page shows that ~40% of them are, though. Now, 40% of liberal voters may also be clueless about “social programs”, but they’re not clamoring to abolish them.
Because the really smart people are all non-partisan! Duh! Everybody knows that!
Actually, it looks to me like that map lines up pretty closely with the counties in the South and West where Obama did well. See electoral map by county.
In the Deep South, it coincides pretty closely with the so-called Black Belt region. So if you were to show that first map to a white Southern Republican, it would likely only reinforce their racial outlook. (“We white people are being forced to support black people on the dole.” That is exactly the outlook of a lot of white Republicans in the South.)
(To be clear, I am not endorsing this view; just reporting it.)
It doesn’t really look like those maps at all (aside from some counties in New Mexico). Many of the darkest areas are in eastern KY, WV and the east and west borders of AZ. The “Black Belt” is a few counties to the south and east of the “McCain Belt” where many of the most entitlement-thirsty counties lie.
That’s just for the overall view. Select facets of the entitlement spending hit other areas differently.
Yes, but West Virginia is not exactly a traditional Republican stronghold. If anything, just the opposite. Only recently has it begun to trend Republican.
Be that as it may, the mountains of WV aren’t exactly heavily populated with African-Americans. The entitlement map doesn’t fit the “black belt” map.
It was a solidly Democratic state until later than the rest of the region, but that ship has sailed in the 21st century. McCain took almost every county in the state.
That’s a fair point, and I certainly don’t hold it against wealthy people when they support Democrats who will raise their taxes.
But I still think it’s worth raising an eyebrow over the fact that if we really went all out for “states’ rights” and limited the federal budget to national defense, the U.S. Mint, etc., and let states fund their own social programmes, we’d see a LOT of money move back from the red states to the blue states. As Krugman noted in the article I quoted in my OP:
Aaron Carroll of Indiana University tells us that in 2010, residents of the 10 states Gallup ranks as “most conservative” received 21.2 percent of their income in government transfers, while the number for the 10 most liberal states was only 17.1 percent.
And your point also does not address the fact that around two-fifths of people who use the big three entitlement programmes (Medicare/Medicaid/SS) say they have “not used a government program”. Well, except that those programmes collectively make up 41% of the entire federal budget, while all the other social safety net type programmes combined only add up to 14%. (Source)
Reread paragraph 2 of post 29, the very post you replied to. I said right there that votes are based on many more factors than only what benefits a politician may promise them.
So you’re just angry at liberals today.
We might. Sometimes the time is right for certain issues to resonate in a political campaign, sometimes it isn’t.
I’m reminded of a firefighter I know who said that welfare recipients shouldn’t be allowed to vote because “It’s a conflict of interest to vote when your money comes from the government.”