Category: Politics

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Thirty percent stayed home on election day

The pundits and Republicans are wrong. The election result wasn’t a rejection of the Democratic agenda, 30% of the electorate stayed home, disappointed in the results of the Democratic majority. The GOP won by default – not by mandate.

A new CBS News poll finds that a majority of Americans are either disappointed by the outcome of last week’s midterm elections or simply don’t much care.

While 40 percent do say they are pleased by the election outcome, that’s a significantly smaller percentage than the 58 percent who were pleased following the 2006 midterm elections.

Poll: Disenchantment Remains After Midterms

(h/t Daily Kos)

Still bad for the country but also means that Democrats should maintain their positions on issues like letting the Bush tax cuts to expire.

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Early thoughts on 2010 Election results

The 2010 election is not official but it looks like a bad night for Democrats both nationally and here in Ohio. The economy was part of the reason – people out of work – blame the party in power. I have some other thoughts on it.

It looks like the GOP will be sweeping all the offices in Ohio but at this hour Governor is still too close to call.

MSNBC had some exit poll info that showed the main reason for turning out the Democrats was JOBS JOBS JOBS. Anger at the government (the Tea party argument) was only 24%.

Genius Chris Matthews asks maybe if the Democrats had forced the GOP to fight for their ideas instead of letting them obstruct real economy recovery solutions and financial reform the results might have been different.

You think Chris??? Duh! Where have been for two years?

Lawrence O’Donnell was upset that the dirty hippies hurt Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas in the end.

No Larry, Blanche hurt herself being a blue dog Democrat and throwing labor under the bus.

The only good thing is now the GOP has their chance to try to govern. Good luck to them and may heaven help us all. They have been saying “No!” for so long they don’t have any real idea what they will do to “give us jobs”.

A good spin I would put on it is like a close football game. It is 21 to 20 with 3 minutes left in the game.

Your team is behind and is driving down the field. You end up scoring a field goal to move ahead 23-21 but there is 2 minutes left in the game.

Commentators usually ask “Did you score too soon?”

What then sometimes happens is the other team drives down close enough to kick a field goal and ends up winning 24-23.

In my world the GOP is the team that scored too soon since the 2012 election counts more than 2010.

We will see.

One note is that the GOP is not winning as many seats as they did in 1994 when the economy was not as bad as now.

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If people hate the GOP then why will they control the House?

It seems not to make sense. Major polls show the GOP getting control of one or both houses of Congress – while also showing that the GOP have a bad unfavorable rating. How can that be? All because the Democrats couldn’t turn around an economy that took eight years to break in 18 months.

Nearly 50 percent of likely voters prefer a GOP-controlled Congress, which is virtually unchanged from the poll taken two weeks ago; a plurality of all registered voters say it would be a “good thing” if Republicans were in charge of both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate; and almost two-thirds — including about half of Democrats — want to see a significant amount of change in the way President Barack Obama has been leading the country.

Republicans’ short leash

If Republicans gain majorities in Congress, they would so with a still-damaged brand. Thirty-four percent have a favorable view of the GOP, versus 41 percent who have an unfavorable view.

The Democratic Party’s favorable/unfavorable rating stands at 39 percent to 42 percent. The Tea Party’s score, meanwhile, is 32 percent to 40 percent.

Given the GOP’s low standing, McInturff says Republicans would have a very short leash with the public if they end up controlling Congress. Americans, he argues, will keep voting elected officials out of office “until somebody gets the message — which is fix the economy and get things done in Washington.”

Poll shows ‘hurricane winds’ for Democrats

The answer is JOBS JOBS JOBS.

It is going to be a bumpy two years as people vote away their social interests in order to try the old new GOP policy of giving welfare to the rich and making the working class as cheap in costs as possible. I mean, I would vote Republican if all I had to base my decision on was FOX “news” and the conservative bias of the main stream media that have been complaining for months that the Democratic polices haven’t worked.

The problem is the economic policies are working all be it slowly. I predict that the pace of recovery will pick up not by anything the GOP will do since anything too radical will be tied up in the Senate (should the Democrats retain control) and the GOP will try to claim credit for it in 2012.

Speaker Boner? Gives me the shivers. All because the Democrats couldn’t turn around an economy that took eight years to break in 18 months.

And yes I misspelled the Tan Man’s name on purpose…

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Couple of false assumptions about the “Rally to Restore Sanity”

I spent Saturday afternoon watching the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” and enjoyed it for the most part. But reading some of the tweets from the pundit class showed some of them missed the point. The only problem I had with it, is the idea that the political insanity comes from both sides equally. That’s a false equivalency.

People like David Corn and Talking Point Memo’s Brian Beutler seemed under the wrong impression that the rally was a GOTV rally and complained throughout that no one on stage mentioned voting. Mainstream media outlets also assumed it was a partisan political rally because they tripped over themselves to ban their employees from attending or participating in it.

Jon Stewart made clear that it was a comedy show to point out the problem of our current rancid political debate in the country not a GOTV show. It was definitely not partisan.

While I do agree that we need more civility, the rancid aggressiveness is one sided and the side that is most aggressive is the Tea Party/GOP side. They need to tone down thousands of percent more than those on the left side.

That is where Stewart is naive. There are two (or more) points of view but NOT all are equally valid. Most from the right are based on complete lies.

I agree we should work on toning down the rhetoric but progressives and others on the left side should NEVER drop our guard and hope and pray the right joins us in working together. That’s why the President and the Democrats are going to take a hit on election day.

How many times do we need to be beat up before people like Stewart get it?

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