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Living in Utah, it occurs to me that Jim Matheson is the only Democrat with more then 5% of a chance at winning statewide election in Utah (either Governor or Senate). And considering that Matheson is basically a Republican...
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Feb 22, 2015 03:04
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Gygaxian posted:Living in Utah, it occurs to me that Jim Matheson is the only Democrat with more then 5% of a chance at winning statewide election in Utah (either Governor or Senate). And considering that Matheson is basically a Republican... Manchin is basically a republican, and yet he pushed for gun control. Its far better to have a D who's basically a R, than it is to have an R.
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Feb 22, 2015 15:43
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Even Blue Dogs typically support not screwing around with Medicare/SS. Every Republican does in some way these days. Most of them are much better on trade as well, a much more important macro issue than general regulations. Otherwise, the dirty little secret is that they're in the mainstream of their state's culture.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:06
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My Imaginary GF posted:Manchin is basically a republican, and yet he pushed for gun control. I loving hate blue dogs, and they're still a million times better than the alternative.
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Feb 23, 2015 00:19
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I loving hate blue dogs, and they're still a million times better than the alternative. That's actually been a matter of long term debate within the party. Some people say running conservative Democrats is the best way to grow the party, the only way to win certain races, and absolutely essential if we want to gain and keep majorities. Others have pointed out that majorities aren't enough if members of the caucus won't stand with the party on key issues. What's more, Bluedogs and the like often provide political cover for Republicans by joining them in sponsoring or voting for bills that most Democrats find loathsome. This provides an illusion of bipartisanship that makes Republican extremism seem far more mainstream that it really is, and, long term, can undermine the entire movement by making it seem like Democrats don't really stand for anything. AKA loving Lieberman. As long as our political culture remains wedded to the notion that both parties are equally extreme, then having one party include everyone from pacifistic democratic socialists to hawkish crony capitalists while the other party just has hawkish crony capitalists, then we're pretty much assuring that the political "center" will hawkish crony capitalism and guaranteeing that even eminently reasonable progressive(ish) policies like single payer health care or reduced corporate welfare will continue to be viewed as "extreme." I generally fall somewhere in the middle of the debate. It's hard to understate just how important maintaining a healthy Democratic plurality (or, preferably, a true majority) is, especially when you consider all the crazy poo poo a republican congress would do with a veto-proof majority or a Republican in the White House and maintaining an ideological big tent is important to avoiding the sort of epistemic closure that turned the Republican party into a pack of wingnuts. At the same time though, wingnuttery has worked for the Republicans , hasn't it? They've created an ideological cult powerful enough to get people voting every election while the reasonable, conciliatory, and diverse Democrats can't even get half our voters to show up for midterms. Maybe a little more extremism and a stronger ability to close ranks around core ideological principles could stand us in good stead. I'm not saying we should start purging "DINOs" out of the party or anything just that we shouldn't be lining up to throw support behind every marginal candidate with a Chamber of Commerce membership and a (D) by their name.
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Feb 23, 2015 01:47
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It's the same lesson the GOP is learning with the Tea Party. It's okay to have useful wings attached to the main structure of your party, as long as you keep them small enough to not be able to affect the official platform.
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Feb 23, 2015 02:00
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It doesn't really matter so much though, as there are just about no remaining blue dogs, and any retaking is likely to be people a bit to the side of them, as the "blue dog" position is likely to be a Reasonable Republican's platform in them.
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Feb 23, 2015 02:03
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My Imaginary GF posted:Manchin is basically a republican, and yet he pushed for gun control. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd elect Jim Matheson in a heartbeat. It's just that there won't be much light between a Senator Jim Matheson and Senator Orrin Hatch. And I'm okay with that. Matheson would be better as a governor (veto power, more visible in Utah media, less partisan position and thus more popularity, hooray), but I'd be fine with a Senator Matheson. As long as he actually took the time to build up the Utah Dems out of our current super-minority in the state.
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Feb 23, 2015 02:12
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One must also consider the different requirements of different elections. Democrats can rely on the coasts and rust-belt cities in the Presidential, but to win the Senate (and to win enough governors' mansions and statehouses to control redistricting and get a decent shot at the House), you've got to be able to win some races in Middle America. You've got to be competitive in the midwest and steal the occasional seat in the South or the Rockies. You can't do that with a slate of doctrinaire liberal progressives. There is some tendency to forget the fact that most of the electorate doesn't pay that much attention to policy and will vote either as a visceral reaction to the status-quo or based on how individual candidates present themselves. Despite what conservative wingnuts want to believe, Reagan didn't win landslide victories because there is some secret ultraconservative majority of Americans who will only show up to vote for a sufficiently doctrinaire candidate. He won because he was charismatic as hell and came along at the right time. Despite what leftists wanted to believe, Obama didn't win because the GoP was permanently consigned to the abyss of demographic irrelevance: he won because he is charismatic as hell and came along at the right time. Iowa, a state of mildly-populist-leaning social conservatives, spent thirty years electing one of America's most reliably liberal legislators, Tom Harkin. There is a long history of liberal DFL candidates winning overwhelmingly white and rural stretches of Minnesota countryside. Things like this happen not because of platforms or voting records, but because the candidates know how to win the personal respect of their constituencies. Wholesomeness and relateability are enormous factors in flyover country elections where folks don't pay much attention to any national policy issues that don't expressly relate to corn. Going rightward isn't the key to winning Middle America, nor is going leftward: the key is doing a better job with candidate recruitment and messaging, and to get marketeers and spin-doctors who know how to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. I don't mind the Blue Dogs in my state that much. Governor Beshear is a pretty decent liberal by the standards of southern Democrats, meaning that he is a solid fiscal/infrastructural leftist (by american standards), projects a convincing level of indifference about gay marriage, gun control and abortion, and willingly pushes economic protectionism to keep labor on his side. He is popular because he puts a friendly, white, good-ol-boy face on policies that benefit the people of Kentucky, but which the state's rural white majority don't trust when they are presented by I view this type of Democrat as a natural mirror to the socially-liberal, Wall-Street-friendly style represented by the Clintons, Obama and other third-wayers. PupsOfWar has issued a correction as of 13:37 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 03:15
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De Nomolos posted:Even Blue Dogs typically support not screwing around with Medicare/SS. Every Republican does in some way these days. I have a 27 year old neighbor that is fairly liberal, works at home, and makes 100K a year. He is convinced that SS is a lost cause and I want to punch him in the face. He is excited when he sets up a meeting with someone to sell whatever the gently caress medical thing he is selling, and I just really want to punch him. He works from home, starts drinking at 10 am, is impressed when he sets up a 1 sales meeting a month; but gently caress the country is stealing his money. He works about 2 hours a day, but stretches that poo poo out.
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Feb 23, 2015 11:02
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Yeah, your completely right to point out that the Senate and Presidency are different beasts. Another thing people often forget is that the Senate and House are also completely different. For reference, the nine most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina) make up a little more than 50% of the US population and contain 222 congressional districts, or about 51% of the 435 seats in the House. That's pretty representative. For the presidency, the electoral college also counts the senate seats, so we add 18 to the number for 240 out of a total of 538, or 44.6%. That's a little worse. Then there's the senate. There are a hundred senators total. Those nine states get to pick eighteen of them. The other half of the country gets seventy-two. Somehow though, it gets worse, because the 9 smallest states (about 2.4% of the US population) also get eighteen seats. The twenty-five smallest states, half the senate, is still less than a fifth of the total US population. We all took social studies (unless you're a babby or a furner) we all know this was a deliberate design. We've all heard the bullshit about federalism and checks and balances, but when you actually look a the numbers, the whole thing suddenly seems loving insane. Anyway I could go on, but the takeaway from all this is that national strategies that work great for the House and pretty well for the presidency fail miserably in the senate. Last year, Cornyn won in Texas with 2.8 million votes and Coons won Delaware with 130,000. They cancelled each other out. Durbin won Illinois with 1.8 million Enzi won Wyoming with 118,000, same thing. These are extremes (though not as extreme as if California had been in play), but they're illustrative of the point. A vote in a tiny state can be more than an order of magnitude more significant than it would be in a large state. There's simply no equivalent to that disparity in the other federal elections and it cannot be understated.
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Feb 23, 2015 12:25
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People also simply think of elections differently. That's why Kentucky has several elected Democrats for state office elected in state wide elections like Governor and Secretary of State, but has been a fairly reliable Red state in the last few POTUS elections. Paul Ryan's House District has voted for Barack Obama twice (as well as the state of Wisconsin) but re-elected Ryan and, in a separate election, Scott Walker as well. And some times there are local issues at play that national media will miss out on. We have a state wide Democrat elected as Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana that actually got more votes than Governor Pence did, largely due to a very e-mail, social media grassroots campaign of teachers and everyone they know getting people to the polls and telling them "I don't care who else you vote for, but you can't let Tony Bennett continue to ruin education". Of course grassroots campaigns are a bit harder to pull off when you work your way up to a gubernatorial, Senate, or a competitive House race, but it still happens sometimes.
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Feb 23, 2015 13:58
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The US despatately needs party list voting, and also to remove the Senate's veto power. Maybe someday we'll even get a full parliamentary system 
icantfindaname has issued a correction as of 19:18 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 19:13
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Pohl posted:I have a 27 year old neighbor that is fairly liberal, works at home, and makes 100K a year. He is convinced that SS is a lost cause and I want to punch him in the face. He is excited when he sets up a meeting with someone to sell whatever the gently caress medical thing he is selling, and I just really want to punch him. He works from home, starts drinking at 10 am, is impressed when he sets up a 1 sales meeting a month; but gently caress the country is stealing his money. My lady works in medical sales. I'm seriously reconsidering my life.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:14
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Duckbag posted:Yeah, your completely right to point out that the Senate and Presidency are different beasts. Another thing people often forget is that the Senate and House are also completely different. For reference, the nine most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina) make up a little more than 50% of the US population and contain 222 congressional districts, or about 51% of the 435 seats in the House. That's pretty representative. For the presidency, the electoral college also counts the senate seats, so we add 18 to the number for 240 out of a total of 538, or 44.6%. That's a little worse. Then there's the senate. There are a hundred senators total. Those nine states get to pick eighteen of them. The other half of the country gets seventy-two. Somehow though, it gets worse, because the 9 smallest states (about 2.4% of the US population) also get eighteen seats. The twenty-five smallest states, half the senate, is still less than a fifth of the total US population. We all took social studies (unless you're a babby or a furner) we all know this was a deliberate design. We've all heard the bullshit about federalism and checks and balances, but when you actually look a the numbers, the whole thing suddenly seems loving insane. People always forget the Senate represents the States, not the people in the states. That's a source of a lot of the confusion.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:30
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icantfindaname posted:The US despatately needs party list voting, and also to remove the Senate's veto power. Maybe someday we'll even get a full parliamentary system Party list voting? Most ballots do identify party of candidates, don't they?
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Feb 23, 2015 19:45
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Pohl posted:I have a 27 year old neighbor that is fairly liberal, works at home, and makes 100K a year. He is convinced that SS is a lost cause and I want to punch him in the face. He is excited when he sets up a meeting with someone to sell whatever the gently caress medical thing he is selling, and I just really want to punch him. He works from home, starts drinking at 10 am, is impressed when he sets up a 1 sales meeting a month; but gently caress the country is stealing his money. His income is right near the SS cap. I wonder if he realizes that he may pay less SS tax than poor people.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:47
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duz posted:People always forget the Senate represents the States, not the people in the states. That's a source of a lot of the confusion. Right, but that's archaic and dumb. We know it's expressly undemocratic and that's why we don't like it. It's also less true now that the Senators are directly elected.
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Feb 23, 2015 20:00
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SedanChair posted:His income is right near the SS cap. I wonder if he realizes that he may pay less SS tax than poor people. If he actually makes a sale his bonus is going to be something crazy like $80 grand. No, he has no idea about the SS cap. What he does is bitch that the government taxes his bonus at 50%. He is a great guy and I love him but I want to punch him in the face. He could possibly clear almost $200K this year and he is mad that he feels poor and has credit card debt. He is getting married soon and his wife to be makes a modest income, but she probably makes enough to pay the bills. I'm just  , because it doesn't make sense and I can't tell him that he is doing great without a lecture from him about how he is being torn down. We even went through his bills and income the other day and I was like, motherfucker, you could have 20K in cash by August. He told me he was bad with money. 
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Feb 23, 2015 20:01
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notthegoatseguy posted:Party list voting? Most ballots do identify party of candidates, don't they? Party list voting means you explicitly just vote for a party, and it could really be any random schmuck in the party who ends up representing you depending on how the vote turns out. It tends to go with systems where parties have much more power over their legislators' votes than American parties do.
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Feb 23, 2015 20:15
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More importantly, it's the only real way to fix gerrymandering, because there are no more districts
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Feb 23, 2015 20:33
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PupsOfWar posted:One must also consider the different requirements of different elections. I'm going to have to borrow your post to talk to my fellow Utah Dems, it's good stuff.
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Feb 23, 2015 21:06
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So will the awful Wisconsin electorate elect tea bagging moron Ron Johnson over Russ Finegold again? Looks like they will have another chance.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:22
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Rygar201 posted:Right, but that's archaic and dumb. We know it's expressly undemocratic and that's why we don't like it. It's also less true now that the Senators are directly elected. Not to mention that the populations between different states are not even remotely comparable to how they were back when the Senate stuff was figured out, and the arbitrary aspect of state boundaries and geographic sizes.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:30
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icantfindaname posted:More importantly, it's the only real way to fix gerrymandering, because there are no more districts Is there some reason independent redistricting commissions don't work?
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Feb 24, 2015 00:22
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Bob Ojeda posted:Is there some reason independent redistricting commissions don't work? How do you select the independent members of the redistricting committee and what objectives do you give them?
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Feb 24, 2015 00:26
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Pohl posted:If he actually makes a sale his bonus is going to be something crazy like $80 grand. No, he has no idea about the SS cap. What he does is bitch that the government taxes his bonus at 50%. He is a great guy and I love him but I want to punch him in the face. He could possibly clear almost $200K this year and he is mad that he feels poor and has credit card debt. He is getting married soon and his wife to be makes a modest income, but she probably makes enough to pay the bills. I'm just He's lying. Bonuses are taxed at a flat rate of 25% . ::payroll:::
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Feb 24, 2015 00:36
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Pillowpants posted:He's lying. Bonuses are taxed at a flat rate of 25% . ::payroll::: 
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Feb 24, 2015 00:43
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Pillowpants posted:He's lying. Bonuses are taxed at a flat rate of 25% . ::payroll::: Nope, they have 25% withheld. It's still regular income when determining your tax liability at the end of the year. Bonuses are taxed just like any other income. It's also possible that they lump his bonuses in with regular income, which could push the withholding for a particular check to something approaching 50%. And if he doesn't count state taxes separately, that number could be above 50%. Again, it has no meaning for the tax rate he will ultimately end up owing, but the total withholding on a particular paycheck can reasonably be more than 50%
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Feb 24, 2015 01:12
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Nope, they have 25% withheld. It's still regular income when determining your tax liability at the end of the year. Bonuses are taxed just like any other income. That's what they do at my dealership, and I'm apparently the only one who understands this. Everyone elsewhere seem to think Evil Uncle Sam is just taxxing the loving hell out of them. Then they get hyyyyyyype about their high dollar refunds 
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Feb 24, 2015 01:22
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evilweasel posted:How do you select the independent members of the redistricting committee and what objectives do you give them? Objective? If you want on a redistricting committee, you don't need an objective. Like, we trust the individuals selected for such committees to know what the appropriate thing to do is. Horse-trading over redistricting is loving core to our institutional mechanisms of government.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:23
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Rygar201 posted:That's what they do at my dealership, and I'm apparently the only one who understands this. Everyone elsewhere seem to think Evil Uncle Sam is just taxxing the loving hell out of them. Then they get hyyyyyyype about their high dollar refunds I've been telling him this but I can't seem to make him understand.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:25
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Bob Ojeda posted:Is there some reason independent redistricting commissions don't work? Because they'll probably be declared unconstitutional this year.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:27
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evilweasel posted:How do you select the independent members of the redistricting committee and what objectives do you give them? This has been a matter of pretty intense debate in California since we set up a Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2010 which many states have taken as a model for how such things could work. Let's give it a look. The dust hasn't really settled yet, but so far it seems like the new congressional districts are more "legitimate" (IE, they conform to established geographic/community boundaries rather than arbitrary divisions drawn by self-interested politicians), but not significantly more competitive. We probably need more time to see how things work out, but here's what their own website says about them. http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/commission.html posted:The 14-member Commission is made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and 4 not affiliated with either of those two parties but registered with another party or as decline-to-state. The Commission must draw the district lines in conformity with strict, nonpartisan rules designed to create districts of relatively equal population that will provide fair representation for all Californians. The Commission must hold public hearings and accept public comment. After hearing from the public and drawing the maps for the House of Representatives districts, 40 Senate districts, 80 Assembly districts, and four Board of Equalization districts, the Commission must vote on the new maps to be used for the next decade. To approve the new maps, the maps must receive nine “yes” votes from the Commission—three “yes” votes from members registered with the two largest parties, and three “yes” votes from the other members. In other words, it has "bipartisanship" baked into it in a way that is utterly undemocratic. The fact that the two parties get equal representation even though Democrats nearly double the Republicans in voter registration is absurd on its face, and the requirement that the parties, and these mysterious "non-affiliated" commissioners have to work together to approve things has the potential to force all sorts of ridiculous compromises. That said, I still voted for it.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:28
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What in the gently caress, why why why. I apologize that I can't be more articulate but I'm just.. 
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Feb 24, 2015 01:32
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Competitiveness is something of a silly goal. If compact region-representing districts tend to result in minimal disagreeement, what's the problem?
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Feb 24, 2015 01:34
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My problem with "rargh redistricting gerrymandering" talk is a lot, and I think it helps to establish what do we want the purpose of a district to be. If the purpose of a district is to be a solid, contiguous shape that has roughly the same # of people as all the other shapes, that's easy as hell to do. You don't really even need people to do it. You need mapping software. If the purpose is to make a solid, contiguous shape that has roughly the same number of people of the other shape AND do other stuff, then that's something else that needs to be addressed. There's been talk about a war on women and how many women are in Congress, particularly on the Republican side since I think they actually lost a few women last cycle due to retirements. Do you want your re-districting method, whatever it may be, to craft districts that are more likely to be favorable to a female candidate and thus more likely to elect a woman? Or how about a district more likely to elect someone who is Hispanic, or gay? And maybe that can be easier to do in major, dense areas where you might have a large population of Italians or blacks or Jews all living in the same area, but what do you do when the population is more spread out geographically? Or is it to make districts more competitive? But there's very few states where that can truly happen so then how do you decide which areas get to have a "competitive" district and then what the gently caress do you do in 10 years when demographics have changed? My beef with re-districting commissions, particularly California, is it seems to be an underfunded and overworked board of people who barely have a passing interest in politics and government. So they (the commission) rely on party hacks (In California that's Democrats but I'm sure California's GOP would do it too if they weren't such a clusterfuck of incompetent chuckle fucks) masquerading as "a lawyer" (IE lobbyist) or Joe Public who generously volunteer their services about political and social demographics.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:47
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How the hell would you even go about making districts for women? The vast majority of communities have very close gender parity. Your example is terrible.
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Feb 24, 2015 02:51
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Duckbag posted:How the hell would you even go about making districts for women? The vast majority of communities have very close gender parity. Your example is terrible. Countries exist with quotas for female legislators.
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Feb 24, 2015 02:53
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Nintendo Kid posted:Countries exist with quotas for female legislators. Quotas go against the principles of America.
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Feb 24, 2015 02:54
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