Yet mailing people ballots seems to have resulted in lower turnout than standing in line.
Good point. If abortions were made illegal, and the government gave away free guns, the GOP would lose a lot of voters.
But a main answer to OP’s question, IMO, is simply that many Americans are barely aware of political issues; they just have vague reactions to media soundbites, too many of which come from FoxNews.
Education is needed, but if Demos paid for an hour-long program examining issues in depth, “undecided” voters wouldn’t watch. Education needs to start with children … but unfortunately, as cited recently at SDMB, children’s textbooks are increasingly distorted by the right-wing agenda of Texas education authorities.
Ah! Important evidence! Of what, exactly?
I’m not sure why people are shocked or surprised by the midterm results. Democrats didn’t lose because of Obama’s policies, they lost because they couldn’t get enough complacent Democrats out to the voting booths!
…and, as others have said, they couldn’t get them to the booths in part because they failed to show enthusiastic support for Obama’s policies (both accomplishments and future plans).
Stupid. Alison Grimes was the most blatant offender (not that she ever had a chance of winning), but AFAIK this was a more or less a pervasive mistake throughout the land.
But I also have to blame many lazy/inattentive potential voters themselves, for apparently failing to appreciate the fragility of much of Obama’s legacy (again, meaning both his accomplishments to date, and his hopes for the next two years.)
Certainly trying to shun Obama was a bad move, but the alternative wasn’t much better. Enthusiastic support for a President with a 40% approval rating(more like 35% in some of the states where the big races were) isn’t a winning strategy either. At best, it would have flipped NC. But then again, maybe getting too close to Obama flipped NC for Tillis. In the last couple of days, Hagan was running ads showing her with the President and him endorsing her. Given that the polls showed her leading, maybe that’s what put Tillis over the top.
Sticking with Obama wasn’t the right thing to do because it would help them win, it was the right thing to do because it’s better to go down with your head held high than cowering.
No; the Republicans are genuinely extreme, not to mention outright delusional. They believe in things are are simply not factually true. If anything much of the Democrat’s problem is that they’ve for many years soft-pedaled just how extreme the Republicans are. To themselves, as well as to the voters.
:rolleyes: Which is what they’ve been doing for decades, and helps convince people to not vote for them since “there’s no difference between the parties”. Why vote for a fake Republican when you can vote for a real one? Why bother to vote if neither party represents you?
I think what he meant was to adopt the Republicans’ tactics, not ideology. Except that the Republicans went soft once Karl Rove left politics. If anything the Democrats have been the more aggressive campaigners, at least before this most recent campaign.
I saw very few ads that tied all Republicans to the government shutdown. “Congressman Veeblefister was the deciding vote to shutdown the government!” What’s good for the goose…
This is a perfect example of fighting the last election; although actually it’s about four or five elections ago. Abortion is for Democrats what gun control is for Republicans: a great way to fire up the base by playing to fears about what the other guys are going to do, even though everyone actually looking at the record can see the other side isn’t going to do squat because they know it’s political suicide.
When the pubs last had control of Congress and the Presidency (2000), what actions did they take to repeal Roe v. Wade? Nothing. What specific measures have Paul, Christie, Walker, or any of the other 2016 contenders actually taken to make abortion illegal? Zippo. They’ll express their personal moral opposition to it, and they’ll say that government funds shouldn’t be used for it; those positions poll well. But they’re also going to make it very clear they don’t intend to actually take any action; it’s going to be hard to convincingly label them “anti-choice” if they’re in favor of over-the-counter birth control.
NARAL will, of course, tell its people that they’re secretly plotting, just as the NRA tells its people that Obama has a secret plan to confiscate every gun in America; both of them will be believed by their constituients, and both will raise a lot of money, and both of them will get a rolleyes from the other 70% of the country.
It certainly isn’t some winning issue among young people: their poll numbers on the issue are not dramatically different from older voters, and NARAL has expressed concern about an"enthusiasm gap" among pro-choice milennials.
Probably because they know it’s a dead issue.
Nope. He’s expressed equivocation about certain provisions of the 1965 civil rights act, while also saying that it’s a moot point in 2014. If you think that’s going to hurt him – especially among young people – more than will the fact that he’s the only candidate talking about criminal justice reform will help him … well, perhaps I’m mistaken, but my impression has always been that young people care more about the future than they do about history.
The law is already unpopular, and the higher rates (which will affect the young the most) are only beginning to be be felt. If that’s the conversation you want to keep having in 2016, I’m sure Rand Paul would love to have it.
And is this something he actively campaigns on? Is this what his candidacy is about or will emphasize? No.
Every candidate has positions that some voters will dislike; it’s the partisan fantasy that you can tie your opponent to one or two unpopular positions and sink them with with those: “Hillary voted for the Patriot Act, thinks Edward Snowden helped terrorists, and continues to weasel on NSA snooping … NO milennial will EVER vote for her!” The reality isn’t that simple. People vote on the whole of the candidate, and on the overall “feel” of them much more than a bullet-pointed list of specific issues (heck, that’s the way most people make most of their decisions). A guy who makes a point of saying things like “the Republican brand sucks,” or asking his audience to hold up their cellphones and saying “what you do on there is none of the government’s damn business!” is a fundamentally different-feeling kind of candidate than Rick Santorum, even if you can drill down into their platforms and find some policy commonalities.
But hey, if you want to try to convince voters in 2016 that every Republican is really Pat Robertson in disguise, go ahead with that. The Pubs spent a lot of time in 2000 screaming that Obama was a Marxist in disguise, and while it failed at the polls, it’s brought them a lot of personal satisfaction over the last 8 years to think they were smarter than everyone else. I have no doubt the Dems will find it just as fulfilling.
I agree with you. No Republican will ever try to repeal Roe v Wade because it would be the absolute end of their political career. But even saying that that’s what you’d like to do if you could is enough to kill any enthusiasm that young voters may have for you.
Here’s where your blinders are showing. “Government Healthcare” is not unpopular with young voters. We love it! We want more of it! Any Republican who talks about repealing Obamacare without also instituting universal healthcare will not get the young vote.
Cite?
I’m not seeing some great generational divide here. Or here.
Cite?
I’m seeing57% disapprove.
I’m quite sure “universal healthcare” in the abstract does poll very well, as do “lower taxes,” “less spending,” “world peace,” “free lunch,” and all kinds of concepts that sound good in when you don’t have to factor in the tradeoffs that it takes to get there. The Dems can’t run on the abstract, they have to run on the specific law they actually passed, and whose effects, specifically higher premiums, are only now beginning to take effect. That law results in a relatively higher burden on young people, and it was designed to.
And that’s another reason parties in power have a hard time staying there: they have to defend the actual hard choices they made, whereas the challengers can second-guess and say that they would have done so much better.
Whatever Pub is nominated will have some kind of affirmative health care policy that makes it sound like he’ll keep all the parts of Obamacare people like, get rid of the parts they don’t, all while saving money. It will almost certainly be bullshit, but then it was bullshit when Obama said he’d cover the uninsured and mandate all kinds of new coverage, while simultaneously preserving consumer choice and lowering rates. People who haven’t actually had to govern can bullshit more easily, and we have an electorate that has a demonstrated desire to elect bullshitters.
Hmm, interesting links, thanks. I guess we’ll see what happens in 2016, but I’m pretty confident that Rand Paul is going to crash and burn.
More likely he will just fall down and smoulder.
I’m willing to supply the lighter if it’s what it takes to get him to ignite.
Many reasons for the Democrats loss. A loss of trust in Obama; natural pushback of an election cycle in voting against a sitting President; Republicans being more motivated.
However, I would not underestimate the following reason. Any President spending an excess of $7 trillion on the electorate cannot keep that kind of spending going. There is only so much a politician can borrow and spend on his own constituents without recurring a hangover. The current hangover is a leveling off of spending. A economic downturn in the near future may well mean this current hangover is insignificant by comparison. And when the debt bill finally has to be repaid all hell will break loose electorally.
He may, but the real point is not him personally, but the ideas. If I had to bet, I think the nominee is more likely to be someone like Scott Walker, who has gubernatorial credentials. But all of the serious pub candidates are soft-pedaling social issues andtrying to be as live-and-let-live as they can without totally offending their base. I’m going to bet they run on being less interventionist, too. That’s the direction the electorate is heading, and the pold can see it.
Unless primary voters get cocky early, they’re not going to be stupid enough to nominate someone like Ted Cruz, who really is easily labeled as “same tired old Republican schtick.” And unless the Dems voters get wise early, they’re not going to nominate someone truly more moderate than Obama (e.g. Jim Webb, Joe Manchin). It’ll be Hilary or someone to her left (e.g. Warren), and they’re going to be the ones looking tired and old.
I think 90% of the reason for the loss was simply the six-year itch and a more-red-than-blue electoral map.
Agreed. Plus, many of his not-extremely-popular initiatives and policies are, nevertheless, objectively* working*. So, in defending them, some candidates could have done at least a little voter education – at the very least, by showing that it’s okay to dislike Obama personally (for whatever reason, including the lapses in management you mentioned), but he did do some good things (and hopes to do others), and here’s why.
I’m not sure about this. At least here in Kansas, people chose the state debtor-in-chief.