Sweet, republicans would lose the house if the elections were held today

[Little_Nemo]

@adaher

We theoretically have such a system. In reality though, leaders aren’t held accountable. The President is generally held blameless for failures all throughout his administration. Thus, there is no democratic accountability.

That must have been a relief to George Bush.

[GIGObuster]

Well, the people really are letting the Tea Partiers know who gets the blame. Even with a weak Democratic Tea Party candidate Cuccinelli in Virginia has worse numbers now.

Election 2013: Virginia Governor

Democrat Terry McAuliffe has jumped to a 17-point lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia gubernatorial race following the federal government shutdown that hit Northern Virginia hard and Hillary Clinton’s weekend visit to the state.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Virginia Voters finds McAuliffe with 50% support to Cuccinelli’s 33%. Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis is a distant third with eight percent (8%) of the vote.

Sure, not an election for the House, but more than one right winger in the SDMB has pointed at the Virginia election as important to watch as it would demonstrate if the Tea Partiers and conservative republicans will see friendly waters in 2014 or if their Captain Ahab act against the government will sink their ship.

[elucidator]

Too murky, GoGo. Too many extreme factors to sort. The Cooch is a joke, he has some really stupid corruption scandals nagging him, his social positions are are totally Mrs. Grundy, something to offend everybody. He certainly looks like a Governor, like a candidate from Central Casting. Firm chin, good hair, mind like a Nerf trap.

McAuliffe is* utterly* uninspiring with a history more of a political operative than any kind of official, the man who stands behind the man who works the Soft Machine. Nobody is going to rush out and start knocking their neighbors doors in their mad enthusiasm for…what was his name again? Oh, yeah, McAuliffe.

There is no take away, no lesson to be learned, regardless of how it turns out. There is only to stare, mouth agape and think “Christ, what an imagination I’ve got…”

[Wesley_Clark]

Lets see if any of this carries over until Nov 2014. I don’t think voters have long enough memories. However if we have another shutdown and near default in February, then another one in summer 2014 (we basically just have shutdowns and near defaults every 3 months for the next year) then there could be a backlash. Thank god the republicans don’t learn from their mistakes.

I’m not even pro dem as much as I am anti-republican. Watching them go down is a treat.

[Der_Trihs]

@Little_Nemo

We theoretically have such a system. In reality though, leaders aren’t held accountable. The President is generally held blameless for failures all throughout his administration. Thus, there is no democratic accountability.

That must have been a relief to George Bush.

He wasn’t impeached or punished in any way, and Obama even covered for him on the issue of torture. So yeah; it was a relief I’m sure - assuming that the possibility of facing consequences for his actions for once in his life ever even entered Bush’s mind, which I doubt.

[adaher]

@Wesley_Clark

Lets see if any of this carries over until Nov 2014. I don’t think voters have long enough memories. However if we have another shutdown and near default in February, then another one in summer 2014 (we basically just have shutdowns and near defaults every 3 months for the next year) then there could be a backlash. Thank god the republicans don’t learn from their mistakes.

I’m not even pro dem as much as I am anti-republican. Watching them go down is a treat.

Since my prediction record is so well panned here, I figure I’ll make one now that might get me some cred back(or bury me further).

There won’t be a shutdown or near default and aside from a few Tea Partiers, there won’t even be an effort to provoke one. The only way we get there is if liberal Democrats succeed in doing what they attempted to do in the last fight, before being shot down by the leadership: undo sequestration.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

Wasn’t sequestration the thing that people were supposed to avoid by compromising in the first place? Governing by punishment is not an effective strategy.

[Gyrate]

Paul Ryan himself railed on the subject of the sequester for ages and how the threat of one would force the government to come up with deals to avoid it… right up until the time that Congress drove straight over that cliff without taking its foot off the gas. Then it became all the Democrats’ fault.

As for another shutdown - if we were dealing with rational people who understood the consequences of their actions, we’d have no more shutdowns before November 2014. But the lunatic core (they’re not the fringe anymore) in the House still wield enough power to wreak havoc, and not only have they shown themselves willing to do anything to get their way including destroying the country, a lot of them don’t appear to understand that this will be the result of their actions. So who knows? Crazy people gonna be crazy.

[DigitalC]

@Gyrate

As for another shutdown - if we were dealing with rational people who understood the consequences of their actions, we’d have no more shutdowns before November 2014. But the lunatic core (they’re not the fringe anymore) in the House still wield enough power to wreak havoc, and not only have they shown themselves willing to do anything to get their way including destroying the country, a lot of them don’t appear to understand that this will be the result of their actions. So who knows? Crazy people gonna be crazy.

In the end it comes down to Boehner once again. I don’t see him as willing to go down the crazy path one more time.

[septimus]

A month ago I reported on the odds offered by sports books and prediction markets. Looking at the same sources today, we see that at University of Iowa Prediction Market the chance of GOP losing control of the House has improved from 20% to 38%. Chance of Democrats losing the Senate has improved from 39% to 25%.(*)

The odds of these events at British sports books have not changed to follow that trend. Glancing at the 2016 betting, I see Marco Rubio is now 5-1 favorite to be the GOP nominee, and 2nd only to Ms. Clinton as most likely next President of the U.S.

(* - Yes, I know that I used “improved” to denote both increasing and decreasing probabilities. )