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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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The Tea Party-GOP doesn’t care about YOU

The Tea Party/GOP thinks you are stupid and want to keep you that way. How else could the Big Corporate world, who back the Tea Party/GOP, convince you to vote against your own best interests? How else could you complain about government run health care before going to a doctor appointment paid for by Medicare? Why else would the TP/GOP candidates complain about deficits yet want to give bail outs and welfare to the Big Corps. The Tea Party/GOP doesn’t care about you.

They hope you don’t remember we had tax cuts from President Bush in 2001 and they didn’t help the economy. Ask yourself – where are those jobs that Bush promised? Over 8 years he only helped create a net of 3 million jobs. President Clinton helped create around 26 million in his 8 years.

They hope you don’t remember that they blocked any attempt to hold the bankers that crashed our economy accountable for their crimes. If the banks hadn’t been allowed to do what they did by the relaxing and non-enforcement of banking policy (changed in the mid-1990s by the GOP), and if the banks hadn’t relaxed their own standards to keep up the housing bubble, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

They want you to forget they got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq based on lies. There were no WMDs and Saddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

That is why the GOP lost in a big way in 2008.

Voting for the TP/GOP or staying home means one wants to continue the failed Republican policies of 2001-2008, messing with programs that help real people like the Health Reform Act and Social Security, and electing someone who wants to deny reproductive rights for women, for a start. Not to mention the other rights and liberties they want to roll back.

Since President Obama took office the TP/GOP voted against the unemployed, health care reform, small businesses, against a bill that would prevent medical expenses to be included in credit scoring, against veterans, and voted against the 9/11 first responders. And they are doing it funded by anonymous and in some cases foreign big business interests.

The TP/GOP doesn’t care about YOU.

Two years is not long enough to fire the Democrats. Bush and the TP/GOP messed up the country over 8 years. We almost slipped into a depression. Although not the best results, the Democrats passed a health care reform package, fiance reform, equal pay rights for women, helping bring the promise of the Internet to the country side, rescuing the auto industry from collapse, and much more even while the cheap labor conservatives in the TP/GOP said “No!”. And they said “No!” about everything coming from the Democrats.

The TP/GOP doesn’t care about YOU. They only care to make the rich richer and middle class extinct. They want to GO BACK to what the world was like before January 20th 2009. They want you to forget what it was REALLY like back then. They want to create a fascist state where the merchant class owns and rules the nation while us regular people SERVE them. The top six laws the TP/GOP think need to go away help a majority of people in this country. Voting for them means you don’t want social security, Medicare, Minimum Wage, and Unemployment Benefits to start.

If that’s what you want, if you want to prove you are stupid, then vote for the Tea Party/GOP or stay home, but don’t complain when you are not better off then you in 2012 then you are today.

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“Pledge to America” is perfect if you were just born today

I really don’t get it. The recently released “Pledge for America” is a 45 page reheat of current Republican talking points which themselves were rehashes from the past 15 years. Do they not remember the Bush years? Does the media? If people accept the pledge and elect Republicans we can go back to those days of Bush when the banks collapsed, we were fighting two wars without end, and health care costs were a threat to national security.

What will the pledge do?

* It pledges to continue the same failed policies that brought us the worst recession since the Great Depression. (Think Progress)
* It is an oath to Big Oil. (Wonk Room)
* It is a backdoor path to bring in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) controversial budget roadmap that privatizes Medicare and Social Security. (Wonk Room)
* It repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with provisions from the Affordable Care Act. (Think Progress)
* It endorses Arizona’s deputization of immigration law. (Wonk Room)
* It embraces a radical “Tenther” view of the U.S. Constitution. (Think Progress)

What will it do to deficits and debt?

* American Progress’s Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden examined the “Pledge” and found that implementing the plan’s proposals would increase the federal budget deficit and accelerate growth in federal debt. (CAP)

Unpacking the GOP’s “Pledge to America”

Even many conservatives don’t like the “Pledge” and when one of the supporters is a comedian who parodies the GOP mind set as his act then you know you have trouble.

I may have my issues with the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats but I sure as hell don’t want to go back to the Bush years when the GOP was in charge.

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