Of course you need to learn to not shorten quotes because you them miss the point:
Ran out of edit time:
In this election and in many others it was the missed information and sometimes the manufactured one that misled many of the ones that counted the most. In an election with depressed Democratic voters the important independent and moderate Republican voters were very important.
Most democrats IMHO had no enthusiasm as many important issues like this one was not in the front and as Bill Moyers showed, this issue was a good test to see how other wackiness like denial of evolution and other science matters remains a problem for most of the current Republican crop.
It is clear to me (after seeing many posts from moderate Republicans or independents in the SDMB) that many moderate Republicans or independents do remain ignorant about what they just voted for.
The Tea Party didn’t have a majority even back then, they don’t now. What they did have was the loyalty of the base and the establishment feared the base. This election was a win for the establishment and they hold the cards now. All they have to do to avoid shutdowns is to let Democrats vote with them. And they probably won’t even need to do that. Ted Cruz is about the only guy still interested in those kinds of tactics. And that’s because he doesn’t care about the party, he just wants to be President.
[Snip]
And still they got to humiliate the speaker and other leaders on several occasions, the reality is that it is not just the Tea Party; many other conservatives are acting unreasonably.
And many are learning. Rand Paul supported the shutdown, now thinks it was a dumb idea. Same for Mike Lee. I’m sure many others who aren’t willing to diss Ted Cruz publicly agree.
There will be no shutdown, no impeachment, no debt default threats. The crazy will be limited to actually passing bills that the President will sign or veto + rejecting many of his nominees.
So, you’d better have a plan for 2016 that doesn’t revolve around portraying Republicans as fanatical extremists. Because that was the strategy this year.
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our partiers learning?” (Paraphrasing Bush the lesser)
Not really as I pointed before, but I do agree that the abortion angle was not a very useful one, but I expect the Republicans to make moves that will make many moderates flinch at what the Republicans will attempt to make on that issue.
And no, as you were wrong by assuming that just because the Tea Party was not a majority that that is why the Republicans did behave. Indeed there was no need for them to be a majority to make a lot of damage.
As for the crazy being limited, it is clear that you are aware of the problem, they will create plenty of examples of their nuttiness with the reasons that they will find to pass useless and “vetoed on arrival” legislation and the reasons they will use to reject his nominees.
That’s still the Republicans’ big weakness, but even if they perform as expected in that regard, it will take more to beat them than the messaging the Democrats came up with in 2014. The GOP from 2011-2012 was uniquely nutty and did some rather unprecedented things which the Democrats were able to capitalize on. The GOP from 2015-2016 can be expected to behave more like the GOP we’ve all grown to know and love, which the Democrats have had a harder time beating, although they still do it often enough with good candidates and good messaging.
In other words, we’re not just going to give you the rope to hang us with anymore.
Speaking of the leaders with more power now, and what are they learning actually: This Tweet was just reported on the Pit:
““Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.” - Ted Cruz
:rolleyes:
Oh, Really?
As one commenter in Tweeter puts it:
“If the internet ran at the speed of @SenTedCruz we’d all still be on dial-up.” 
Yeah, it’s not the smartest tweet ever made, but I tend to tentatively side with the GOP on this one. I support net neutrality in theory, but I’m just not convinced that we should be introducing major government regulation into the internet on the pretext of keeping it free.
When an actual problem arises, then I’ll be convinced that the government should get involved. Right now, I just think Democrats are trying to seize on fear to justify the government regulating the internet.
Normally I do not post stuff from the pit, but elucidator said something that is appropriate here:
Heh. I just responded to it as well. I’ll summarize here:
Mitch has forgotten more about politics than Ted will ever know. Mitch has the savvy, the numbers, and the power. Ted squandered most of his political capital already.
I would agree if it wasn’t for the fact that he got more supporters in the house now.
Not really. The bigger majority actually makes things easier for Boehner. He doesn’t need Tea Partiers or Democrats to pass bills anymore.
McConnell still does, thus his promise to allow unlimited amendments. That gets enough Democrats on board to pass bills that otherwise might not pass thanks to Cruz. Or if they don’t bite, maybe Tea Partiers will get some minor things they want.
Again, that is not supported by what has happened before… when less Tea Partiers and very conservative guys where present.
Now on the senate side, so far this is hypothetical, we will see.
Will Marshall with an outstanding(at least IMO) analysis of where it all went wrong and how it can be better for Democrats:
He must have been reading my posts.
BTW, a snippet from this article should provide a lesson that Democrats need to stop assuming that the Republicans will be crazy. It screws up their negotiating strategy:
This is why I don’t usually give Obama much credit for his supposed attempts to reach across the aisle. It’s easy to look like you’re doing it when you know they’ll say no and then you can claim you tried. But on this particular issue, the Republicans surprised by saying, “Yes” and the Democrats were completely caught off guard.
If you had read Nate Silver starting about 9 months ago you would not be surprised at the election results. The fundamentals were against Dems this cycle. They will be with Dems next cycle. So it goes.
The fundamentals are not with either party yet because they are unknown. The President’s approval rating and the state of the economy are very important factors.
We know that more Senate Republican incumbents will be exposed than Democrats. That will not change. That was a major factor in 2014, and it will be a major factor in 2016.
That’s not really a “fundamental” in the sense of Silver’s model though. It’s just pure arithmetic. you’re right that the map favors Democrats in 2016, but the governors’ map favored Democrats in 2014 and the Senate map favored Republicans in 2012. In both cases the side with the more favorable map lost ground. If the fundamentals like the state of the economy and OBama’s popularity are poor in 2016, the Democrats will have major problems. And if he’s popular and the economy is good, they’ll do very well.