He must also necessarily be a huge admirer of Joe Arpaio, Charles Rangel, Jesse Helms, Joe Biden… the list of non-awful great men goes on and on.
Bush left office in disgrace. Tim Pawlenty left with a mediocre approval rating that was better than most of his counterparts serving as governor at the time. if Pawlenty was a disaster, the whole region was governed disastrously except in indiana.
I don’t think governors, etc. have much bearing on the presidential race. There’s way too many examples of states going one way for president, and the other way for other stuff.
I agree, although I recall a lot of gleeful predictions in early 2011 that the GOP governors were destroying the hopes of the Republicans in 2012.
The Midwest is also home to Al Franken and Tom Harkin. I’m not that concerned.
And to answer the OP, I doubt it has anything to do with racism or gay rights or whatever eebils the Republicans are doing. Honestly? Maybe the Democrats are just sucking right now. They haven’t done a very good job in the Midwest the last 10 years, either, and Wisconsin (since everyone’s talking about it) isn’t known for its clean politics. Midwestern voters can take voting pretty seriously and sometimes you wanna stick it to the man.
Um? You want liberal politics? Eastern Iowa, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indiana, etc.
The Midwest is only home to Franken when it suits his needs. Our other member of the Senate, Amy Klobuchar, is the Minnesota Democrat who more accurately represents our liberal side.
Could you elaborate on that? I’ve always been a fan of Franken, even as a conservative, because his writings indicate a keen, moderate mind, rather than a dogmatic liberal.
Al Franken is an outstanding senator.
I made no claims about his skills as a senator, just his midwestern-ness, which he puts on only when he finds it useful.
I like Al’s books, comedy and politics, but you’re right, he’s a Minnesotan mostly by accident of birth. He’s the Harvard-educated son of New York Jewish parents who made his name on network TV and on the punditry circuit, and he can draw on all those allegiances, as well as those to Minnesota. Indeed, he probably does politics and the media game a lot better because of his allegiances to other places.
As for Minnesota, in years by there were some liberal stongholds- the iron range, the core cities, and the farming area, wheras the suburbs have always been conservative. In the 1980s free trade and the exhaustion of the iron deflated the range, and suburbs continued to grow while the inner cities stagnated. I’d speculate that maybe the farmers have become “Kansas Republicans”.
The poster most convinced Wisconsin has shifted drastically Republican seems to be a die-hard conservative engaging in wishful thinking. I just don’t see a huge shift in Wisconsin. Sorry. It’s not any different than it has been for decades.
Wisconsin is volatile politically and always has been. Before anyone tries to tell you that a conservative governor like Scott Walker is some sort of new development, remember that Tommy Thompson was firmly entrenched as governor for years, even while Wisconsin went for Dukakis for President. Losing a liberal stalwart like Feingold as senator is not some major shift when you consider that Sen. Joe McCarthy was from Wisconsin. The state is a land of political extremes: it’s home to both the John Birch Society and Progressive magazine.
From the poll results I’ve seen Obama is leading Wisconsin and many Republican strategists already have all but written it off as unwinnable by Romney. Considering that lackluster economy usually predicts of a switch in the vote, for Obama to still be doing so well there shows that the GOP is in very serious trouble overall. If you aren’t 5-10% points ahead leading up to your party’s convention running as a challenger to an incumbent in a lean economy it’s doubtful you have any serious chance at all.
You’re comparing an election from 2 years ago with one from almost 70 years ago?:rolleyes:
Assuming, of course, the state in question isn’t one of those states which consistently vote for a person of a specific party (in this case, Democrat) over a prolonged period of time.
Soooooo racism is the big issue in these states? That is really insightful and I have not heard that argument anywhere(sarc). Some evidence of racism being used(other than Bidens comments in Virginia please)
It could not have anything to do with the economy in general or maybe the fact that states typically leaning a little left in general dont care much for a president with policies that cannot be much further left.
Or try this one on- Scott Walker said what he was going to do- did it- it worked-so public opinion is shifting towards people with opposing ideas to the presidents
Naaaahhh you are definitly on to something. Racism. At least we know that is the primary go to play in the lefts playbook this election season. Come to think of it… It was last time around too. Remember? Bill and Hillary were racist in the primaries too.
Find a different argument or at least one that has some kind of truth backed by evidence dude
Oh and it was state-run radio that allowed hate speech in Rwanda. I would have to check but my educated guess is there was not free press there. Your radio claim falls apart because free press means if a show host is actually being racist or saying such repulsive things reasonable people could change to a different station. Not to mention advertisers would pull ads and bring the show down.
The only reason this hasnt happened is because claims of racism are totally unfounded and are simply lies
It might be interesting to debate the role of religious conservatism in leading people to political conservatism. In the heavily Protestant upper midwest (as in the USA as a whole), the mainstream denominations have lost membership to megachurches. These are somewhat more fundamentalist, but importantly, they’re not so shy of applying moral and political pressure on the community.
Anecdote, my neighbors here in Iowa, both college-educated farm kids, used to be Presbyterians until a large chunk of their congregation walked out (and they followed). They were never very political or religious in public until joining the local Evangelical Free Church (not a mega, just an old-line bible-thumping denonination), which has either given them more pronounced opinions and/or the conviction to voice them.
Going further back, 9/11/01 created a lot of patriots nationwide and softened society up for a militarist mindset. And those who stayed the course despite two unpopular wars came out facing staunchly right.
Balony. If you would like, I will dig up cites on at least Rush’s racist remarks, because they are most certainly out there. And I’m not talking about his Black Quarterback moments…
Rush is borderline racist, Glenn Beck, while not racist, is incredibly focused on making sure “his side” knows the other side is evil, genuinely evil and out to destroy the country, Savage is a borderline fascist, Quinn and Rose (our locals, but I guess they are syndicated) walk right up to the edge of outright race baiting every time I have them on the radio.
Which, in this case, is not true, as anyone paying attention to the discussion here and the actual voting history would already know.
I was comparing the state’s actual voting history to the one some modern conservatives cooked up as some sort of alternate political reality so they can claim a great shift in voting patterns that does not actually exist. But since you can’t actually refute the facts you picked out one sentence out of context and ignored the rest so you could still pretend to know what you are talking about. But then what else is new?