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Mortabis posted:Unionized politicians? That is not an idea I have heard of before. I guess political parties are arguably unions, in a metaphorical sense. Can, say, the Democrats go on strike for higher state legislator pay? Wait--they did do that, in the Wisconsin State Senate actually, it wasn't for higher pay though. So politicians don't count as government employees? I thought that was a problem according to... Mortabis posted:Well, I don't know about executions, but I think we can all agree that if you are a government employee and you take bribes from foreign powers, or anyone really, you probably ought to go to jail.
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Nov 7, 2014 00:27
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MonkeyWithAGun posted:This but unironic. Its public service not welfare. Get a real job. So, you don't consider a government job a "real job"? Am I interpreting this correctly?
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Nov 7, 2014 00:34
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Good to see D&D has managed to go from impenetrable Democratic demographic lock for the executive and competitive Senate races to thousand years of white male darkness and a Jeb Bush presidency in around 24 hours.
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Nov 7, 2014 00:43
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Berke Negri posted:Good to see D&D has managed to go from impenetrable Democratic demographic lock for the executive and competitive Senate races to thousand years of white male darkness and a Jeb Bush presidency in around 24 hours. I count 1 person who has been saying this. Maybe 2, if you count SedanChair's "It's not impossible" comment.
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Nov 7, 2014 00:50
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The reality is that while dems could have done better, or could have pushed a particular message more coherently, we could reasonably guess the outcome due to the demographic strength republicans possess in low information senior whites. Until you can find a way to get young people to reliably vote every two years you're just not going to beat that every four years. Solution: push for nonpartisan open primary elections for all offices below president. Take that dark money and run enough candidates in uninteresting local level elections to dilute those low information voters and run democrats in red districts as republicans. Edit: If Republicans are going to gerrymander the House so there is only Republican districts you make it so Democrats can run as Republicans. Berke Negri fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 01:00
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Berke Negri posted:Good to see D&D has managed to go from impenetrable Democratic demographic lock for the executive and competitive Senate races to thousand years of white male darkness and a Jeb Bush presidency in around 24 hours. In the interests of fairness I was always in the "Republicans are far from dead and we are hosed in the long term" camp.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:06
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Assuming that Begich doesn't concede before then, how long will it take to tally the remaining ballots in in Alaska? 
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Nov 7, 2014 07:07
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I have never, ever been a "don't vote" or "vote third party" kinda person. I always held my nose and voted Dem just to keep the Republicans out. After this election, where Democrats actively ran away from any position that differentiated them from the Republicans and refused to stand up for their own president, I think I'm just going to stop voting for dems for the next couple cycles. Their current strategy just makes the kids lose interest and stay home and the olds are voting for the Rs. They're not going to stop running to the "center" until they've gobbled up every "centrist" and "independent" vote and still get their asses kicked. I am officially voting PSL in the next presidential race. I'll maybe, possibly vote for the dem candidate for senate in 2016, but only because Ron Johnson has no loving business being in the Senate and a sentient slime mold would be better than him.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:14
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Berke Negri posted:The reality is that while dems could have done better, or could have pushed a particular message more coherently, we could reasonably guess the outcome due to the demographic strength republicans possess in low information senior whites. Until you can find a way to get young people to reliably vote every two years you're just not going to beat that every four years. ban parties from elections, make freshman legislators draw their party affiliation from a hat after taking office.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:35
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Hedera Helix posted:Assuming that Begich doesn't concede before then, how long will it take to tally the remaining ballots in in Alaska? Long enough for you to be even more disappointed when he loses! He needed to win basically all of the native vote and, for some reason or another, he apparently didn't.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:43
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Hedera Helix posted:Assuming that Begich doesn't concede before then, how long will it take to tally the remaining ballots in in Alaska? Alaska doesn't start counting absentee/early/provisional votes until the 11th (with deadlines for absentee votes coming in as late as the 19th as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.) Begich likely doesn't have the numbers since he's down 8k with somewhere between 23000 and 40000 votes left to count. Begich did get +7000 in 2008 from late counts but that was from a pool of over 60000 post-Election Day counts and some have run numbers that say if absentees come in the same proportions as the counted votes Sullivan could be +1000 net. It's not mathematically impossible for Begich to win with what's left and he shouldn't concede but he'll need about two-thirds to break his way to make up the gap. As for 2016 from people I've talked to the way they'd like it to go down is to convince all but a small class (Walker, Christie, Jeb, maybe Romney again - Carson is gearing up to run but is probably in the same pool as Cruz and Paul) and have a short primary season and a presumptive nominee ASAP. Christie has built up a lot of goodwill and favors for his successful campaigning this cycle and Walker is going to beat the "Won 3 times in 4 years in a blue state" drum to show he's electable. I don't think anyone outside of Florida and the DC corridor actually wants Jeb and as fun as it would be to see Mitt run a Romney was right campaign I think he's done.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:47
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It's scary that beating up teachers and getting away with it is Walker's sole accomplishment, and that makes people, even relatively non-partisan figures, say that makes him presidential.
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Nov 7, 2014 08:27
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Dr Christmas posted:It's scary that beating up teachers and getting away with it is Walker's sole accomplishment, and that makes people, even relatively non-partisan figures, say that makes him presidential. But the demographics have to take effect sometime. Walker seems like a hybrid between Christie and Paul, and if he can toe the line, he's a formidable choice in the primary. If I had a bone of effort in my body, I'd do some research into the potential pull of Gen-Xers (who skew GOP) in the 2016 primaries. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are wholly Boomer candidacies, and it showed last cycle. Are there even any nationally-known bible-thumpers under 50? Gen-Xers love people like Paul Ryan, and with that I see a major shift away from other GOP demographics, but it depends on who declares. Joel Osteen for President?
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Nov 7, 2014 08:51
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evilweasel posted:The real best hope for Democrats at this point is to essentially muddle through the next two years, and have Hillary win convincingly in 2016 and remain popular enough that 2020 is a significant win for the Democrats. They'll need to sweep the House and a number of state legislatures and enact their own mega-gerrymander. How can she remain popular if Republicans will still control at least one chamber of congress and she can't get anything done?
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Nov 7, 2014 09:12
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theblackw0lf posted:How can she remain popular if Republicans will still control at least one chamber of congress and she can't get anything done? On a scale of Obama to Johnson in terms of beating Congress into submission, I'd say Hillary's somewhere in the middle. She may not get everything she wants, but she sure as poo poo won't be letting those loving cockroaches just roadblock everything without calling them out on it like a loving adult. Obama's meek-rear end demeanor outside the campaign trail has emboldened that particular type of conservative which treats office like campaign season and understands little other than being beaten. They're like termites - you need to fix the problem system-wide or else you'll find your framework being chewed into pulp from the inside out by them.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:22
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Aliquid posted:But the demographics have to take effect sometime. That's a vain, defeatist hope. Conservatism isn't a thing that'll dry up and go away as white dudes become a smaller percentage of the electorate; conservative, FYGM attitudes have been and are around goddamned everywhere. At a best-case scenario, eventually WASP votes just won't be enough, then the GOP'll will back away from being WASPy and vehemently deny that was ever a problem as their opponents cry out "no fair, you were supposed to die away". If you want that sort of awful conservatism beaten and broken, you've got to actively drive against it. That doesn't even mean you have to be a Democrat! If the Dems keep tacking rightward, hell, go bolt and join the Greens or the Justice Party or SPUSA or something, make your own party, take your pick. I'd go for a multi-tendency party myself, but hell, just stay involved, keep fighting, and don't rely on the hope of some nebulous shift in the future you've no control over.
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Nov 7, 2014 12:49
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Bizarro Watt posted:So, you don't consider a government job a "real job"? Am I interpreting this correctly? Pretty sure you're missing the bit where he's trolling, but sure.
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Nov 7, 2014 14:05
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This thread's current conversation is in dire need of some polls to substantiate the claims about demographics and where things are likely to go. Just my two cents
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Nov 7, 2014 14:39
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:This thread's current conversation is in dire need of some polls to substantiate the claims about demographics and where things are likely to go. Just my two cents The most recent polls we have are some chicken little poo poo caused because Wendy Davis (and others) was a uniquely terrible candidate. But if you want to assume that 18-29 year olds are going gung ho for conservatism you're welcome to.
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Nov 7, 2014 14:45
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Slate Action posted:They really are going to gently caress it up in the exact way everyone said they were going to. Amazing. Are we sure that the Democrat National Committee isn't run by a Republican who is just masterminding this poo poo?
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Nov 7, 2014 15:12
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Slate Action posted:They really are going to gently caress it up in the exact way everyone said they were going to. Amazing. Would it be a conflict of interest if Bill Clinton took over the DNC?
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Nov 7, 2014 15:35
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Any good reading on generational cohorts and their leanings? I'm tail-end of Gen X and always expected my peers to be more liberal than we're turning out.
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Nov 7, 2014 15:48
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Probably, already been posted, but here's Robert Reich with some commentary:Robert Reich posted:Voter suppression watch: In the North Carolina Senate race, Thom Tillis beat Senator Kay Hagen by 48,000 votes. North Carolina’s voters were, for the first time, voting under one of the harshest new election laws in the country — which Tillis helped craft. The Election Protection hotline reported widespread problems with voter registrations and voters being told they were in the wrong precinct. Numbers from recent elections suggest the magnitude of voter suppression is close to 45,000 to 50,000 votes.
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Nov 7, 2014 15:58
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Berke Negri posted:The reality is that while dems could have done better, or could have pushed a particular message more coherently, we could reasonably guess the outcome due to the demographic strength republicans possess in low information senior whites. Until you can find a way to get young people to reliably vote every two years you're just not going to beat that every four years. The problem with your analysis, and really all of the head in the sand stuff I've seen over the last couple days from the left, is you're assuming that the Democratic message resonates with voters, and that it's just a matter of getting people to the polls. Maybe you have it just backwards, maybe if the ideas were better, people would come to the polls. Alternatively, perhaps the permanent Democratic majority build on the backs of minorities and women is such a dumb over simplification that anything following that isn't going to make any sense either. I said this in one of these threads a long time ago, might have even been before the 2012 election, that lumping "latinos" in with blacks is dumb as hell. As Latinos grow in the US, they're not going to vote as a bloc any more than any other ethnicity that's been here a while. Only an idiot would talk about the German vote, or the Scots Irish vote. Doubling down on tribal loyalty isn't a smart plan, but as a republican leaning voter, i'm glad to see the Dems continue to do it
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Nov 7, 2014 16:20
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Pauline Kael posted:The problem with your analysis, and really all of the head in the sand stuff I've seen over the last couple days from the left, is you're assuming that the Democratic message resonates with voters, and that it's just a matter of getting people to the polls. This is an undeniable fact. It's not like nobody ever thought to poll the populace before and then check if they voted - the population as a whole is significantly more liberal than the population that votes.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:22
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theblackw0lf posted:How can she remain popular if Republicans will still control at least one chamber of congress and she can't get anything done? Laughing at you thinking that Hillary's policy goals are going to be able to be differentiated from the Republicans. Third way is pretty much Republicans + gays.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:23
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Pauline Kael posted:The problem with your analysis, and really all of the head in the sand stuff I've seen over the last couple days from the left, is you're assuming that the Democratic message resonates with voters, and that it's just a matter of getting people to the polls. Maybe you have it just backwards, maybe if the ideas were better, people would come to the polls. Again, this ignores that this turnout battle happens literally every single midterm. Either people are dumb enough that they forget after 2 years or there's some other reason why they're not coming to the polls (it's the latter. quote:Alternatively, perhaps the permanent Democratic majority build on the backs of minorities and women is such a dumb over simplification that anything following that isn't going to make any sense either. I said this in one of these threads a long time ago, might have even been before the 2012 election, that lumping "latinos" in with blacks is dumb as hell. As Latinos grow in the US, they're not going to vote as a bloc any more than any other ethnicity that's been here a while. Only an idiot would talk about the German vote, or the Scots Irish vote. Doubling down on tribal loyalty isn't a smart plan, but as a republican leaning voter, i'm glad to see the Dems continue to do it 67% of Latinos in the US are Mexican, and another 10% are Puerto Rican. They aren't ethnically homogenous but a very large number are. Even if it was more racially heterogeneous, it doesn't change the fact that Latinos are still mostly working class, and we do find solidarity among classes, especially those that aren't outwardly perceived as different (i.e., Germans and Poles can join together for labor unions, even if they exclude black people).
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Nov 7, 2014 16:23
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Pauline Kael posted:I said this in one of these threads a long time ago, might have even been before the 2012 election, that lumping "latinos" in with blacks is dumb as hell. As Latinos grow in the US, they're not going to vote as a bloc any more than any other ethnicity that's been here a while. Only an idiot would talk about the German vote, or the Scots Irish vote. Doubling down on tribal loyalty isn't a smart plan, but as a republican leaning voter, i'm glad to see the Dems continue to do it There's a really obvious major factor that differentiates blacks and latinos from other ethnic groups when it comes to politics and is the basic reason why this post is dumb. It's not like it's just liberals telling you this, the Republican Party leadership itself figured it out (it just can't convince its base).
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Nov 7, 2014 16:25
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evilweasel posted:This is an undeniable fact. It's not like nobody ever thought to poll the populace before and then check if they voted - the population as a whole is significantly more liberal than the population that votes. I'm not stating this clearly. Yes, if all of Obama's voters showed up, Harry Reid would still be in charge of the Senate. Perhaps rather than all the hand wringing about voter suppression and 'lazy' non voters, there should be some analysis of the actual positions taken by the candidates and why they didn't create enough appeal amongst those groups to take 30 minutes out of their day to vote. My wife built a new house this year, putting me in a new election district that's *extremely* inconvenient for both of us to get to in our normal commute, but found time to do it just to vote against Andrew Cuomo and his local flunkies that supported the SAFE Act. I guess all the war on women and condoms will be outlawed stuff didn't create the same level of passion on the other side of the aisle?
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Nov 7, 2014 16:27
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Pauline Kael posted:I'm not stating this clearly. Yes, if all of Obama's voters showed up, Harry Reid would still be in charge of the Senate. Perhaps rather than all the hand wringing about voter suppression and 'lazy' non voters, there should be some analysis of the actual positions taken by the candidates and why they didn't create enough appeal amongst those groups to take 30 minutes out of their day to vote. My wife built a new house this year, putting me in a new election district that's *extremely* inconvenient for both of us to get to in our normal commute, but found time to do it just to vote against Andrew Cuomo and his local flunkies that supported the SAFE Act. I guess all the war on women and condoms will be outlawed stuff didn't create the same level of passion on the other side of the aisle? 30 minutes with a vehicle they may or may not own to a place they may or may not be familiar with on a break they may or may not have (legally they might but good job contesting that)?
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Nov 7, 2014 16:29
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Pauline Kael posted:I'm not stating this clearly. Yes, if all of Obama's voters showed up, Harry Reid would still be in charge of the Senate. Perhaps rather than all the hand wringing about voter suppression and 'lazy' non voters, there should be some analysis of the actual positions taken by the candidates and why they didn't create enough appeal amongst those groups to take 30 minutes out of their day to vote. My wife built a new house this year, putting me in a new election district that's *extremely* inconvenient for both of us to get to in our normal commute, but found time to do it just to vote against Andrew Cuomo and his local flunkies that supported the SAFE Act. I guess all the war on women and condoms will be outlawed stuff didn't create the same level of passion on the other side of the aisle? So what you're saying is that yes, it's just a matter of getting people to the polls. It's not like when people talk about turnout it's that they think their voters forgot about the election, they're talking about increasing enthusiasm.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:30
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I'm not sure the passion generated against Cuomo is a good example, given that he won. Not that he's not passing the buck for his margin of victory.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:33
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evilweasel posted:There's a really obvious major factor that differentiates blacks and latinos from other ethnic groups when it comes to politics and is the basic reason why this post is dumb. It's not like it's just liberals telling you this, the Republican Party leadership itself figured it out (it just can't convince its base). Aaaaaaaand cue the 'everyone is racist' argument. I'm not asking you if you think it's going to happen, I'm telling you that it's already happening. Wendy Davis got a bare majority of Latino votes in Texas. The gap narrowed nationally between 2012 and 2014. http://mic.com/articles/103422/3-charts-show-how-america-voted-in-this-year-s-midterm-elections There are some good charts in that article. The point, obvious to me at least, is that if you're going to build your permanent majority on the backs of a particular group (Latinos, obviously, as Black population is either stagnating or increasing very slowly and at any rate is a nice core but at 10-13% wont win you any elections on their own) then you should probably make sure that they're safely on the reservation and not wandering off to the other party. Remember, the Republicans only need to peel off a fraction of the Latino vote as white voters run screaming from the Dems.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:33
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Pauline Kael posted:I'm not stating this clearly. Yes, if all of Obama's voters showed up, Harry Reid would still be in charge of the Senate. Perhaps rather than all the hand wringing about voter suppression and 'lazy' non voters, there should be some analysis of the actual positions taken by the candidates and why they didn't create enough appeal amongst those groups to take 30 minutes out of their day to vote. My wife built a new house this year, putting me in a new election district that's *extremely* inconvenient for both of us to get to in our normal commute, but found time to do it just to vote against Andrew Cuomo and his local flunkies that supported the SAFE Act. I guess all the war on women and condoms will be outlawed stuff didn't create the same level of passion on the other side of the aisle? Turnout during non-Presidential years has been reduced since the time of Washington. What you're describing is a well-known phenomenon that politicians have been fighting for 200 years. If the solution were something trivial and simple, it would have been solved long ago.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:34
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The Warszawa posted:I'm not sure the passion generated against Cuomo is a good example, given that he won. Not that he's not passing the buck for his margin of victory. quote:“ ‘Well, come out for the State Senate’ was our best argument,” he said. “You know what? State Senate, it’s hard to motivate people about a State Senate.”
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Nov 7, 2014 16:36
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The Warszawa posted:I'm not sure the passion generated against Cuomo is a good example, given that he won. Not that he's not passing the buck for his margin of victory. There was never any doubt in anyone's mind in NYS that he was going to win. I'll tell you something though, and I probably shouldn't... I was meeting with my company's lobbyist on Wednesday, who has extensive dealings with the Governor's office. Apparently he was very angry at his margin of victory. He was counting on 60% (dear old dad got 66%!) but didn't crack 54, and actually *lost* upstate. Living in upstate NY, we're pretty used to NYC running the show, but I'm glad at least to have done my part to ruin his day, even if just a little.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:38
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Pauline Kael posted:Aaaaaaaand cue the 'everyone is racist' argument. I'm not asking you if you think it's going to happen, I'm telling you that it's already happening. Wendy Davis got a bare majority of Latino votes in Texas. The gap narrowed nationally between 2012 and 2014. You mean like the one that says that Hispanics voted more for Democrats in 2014 than they did in 2010?
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Nov 7, 2014 16:40
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Pauline Kael posted:Aaaaaaaand cue the 'everyone is racist' argument. I'm not asking you if you think it's going to happen, I'm telling you that it's already happening. Wendy Davis got a bare majority of Latino votes in Texas. The gap narrowed nationally between 2012 and 2014. I forgot you're not the sharpest tack in the box so I'll start saying things explicitly rather than rely on you figuring things out. The argument is not based on you, personally, being racist. It's based on that due to the southern strategy and the ongoing stuff (for blacks) and the immigration debate where Republicans continually say offensive things about latinos (for latinos), both ethnic groups get the distinct impression that the Republican Party is unwelcoming to them. As the Republican Party itself said, once they get that impression they're not going to listen to anything else you have to say. Now, you can of course continue to make your argument that they're all stupid and just need to realize that really you're not at all, but you're stuck with either that they're all stupid and believe it or they've got a point. Either way, that's what makes them much more likely to vote as an ethnic block. Again, you're free to just argue it's all in their silly little heads and isn't really true but it's still there.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:40
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evilweasel posted:I forgot you're not the sharpest tack in the box so I'll start saying things explicitly rather than rely on you figuring things out. Sure, you're a mod here, and obviously omniscient on all matters, so I'll defer to you, but I will continue to look forward to the hand wringing in 2016, 2020, and beyond when Latino voters don't fall lockstep into voting for who you think they should.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:42
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Pauline Kael posted:Sure, you're a mod here, and obviously omniscient on all matters, so I'll defer to you, but I will continue to look forward to the hand wringing in 2016, 2020, and beyond when Latino voters don't fall lockstep into voting for who you think they should. I'm smarter than you are on this issue because I am relying on verifiable facts, while your arguments are relying on things that are trivially disproven. Furthermore, my argument is supported by the Republican Party itself. We will see what happens in 2016, but I expect the Republican base's reaction to Obama's upcoming executive orders will...not be the sort of thing that will make latinos feel welcome in the Republican party.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:46
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