Like it or not, elections are more than just putting bodies in seats. It doesn't matter that the district is going away, this win, "the first GOP in over 88 years", will be used to rally GOP support for next year's elections. Oh, but that's OK, the district is gone next year.
Let's just go over the main headines, shall we?
Republican upset win in N.Y. may be bad omen for Obama
GOP Wins Race for Weiner's Seat
NEW YORK KNOCKOUT GOP Candidate Scores Upset In Heavily Democratic District
Obama rebuff? GOP wins upset victory in NY Democratic stronghold
Check this out. Then look at the major elections in the following year.
Look at the special elections leading up to the election. Democrats switched two seats in 2010 and the republicans switched one (in Hawaii, that in 2010 regular election was one of the few seats the democrats picked back up) Clearly the democrats should have swept in 2010 then in November...
Notice the places where the seat generally changed hands it was either some sort of scandal or some three way race (like in NY 26 and the Hawaii race). Special Elections have always meant very little.
I've hated gerrymandering since I learned about it in high school history class. It's a sneaky, underhanded, cheating way to get votes, and it shouldn't be allowed. At very least, politicians should not be the ones re-drawing boundaries for districts based on population, an impartial census should.
Counter-proposal: How about getting rid of the entire bullshit that is the electoral college? It's a completely outdated and useless artifact from hundreds of years ago when travel and communication were both highly expensive, and it appears it has now been reduced to absolutely nothing but a political pawn.
This site is blocked at work, what's the deal with what they are planning to do with PA?
They're talking about changing the election rules so that the electoral college votes go by congressional district rather than by the state's majority. Thanks to gerrymandering, there's a good chance that Obama can win the majority in Pennsylvania and yet get fewer electoral votes than the Republicans.
The oversight committee doesn't want to investigate news corp because it doesn't want to pick on the media? But what about when they were threatening to cut funding to NPR?
Counter-proposal: How about getting rid of the entire bullshit that is the electoral college? It's a completely outdated and useless artifact from hundreds of years ago when travel and communication were both highly expensive, and it appears it has now been reduced to absolutely nothing but a political pawn.
Except that we don't want a governmental monopoly by cities.
The oversight committee doesn't want to investigate news corp because it doesn't want to pick on the media? But what about when they were threatening to cut funding to NPR?
If it was MSNBC or CNN there would have been multiple hearings and calls for investigation by the FBI by the very same people.
And now for big ol' cup of crazy I just pulled off of WingNutDaily via FSTDT.com:
The French Revolution (1789-99) was an overt war by liberal intellectuals in France against Christianity, the church, the clergy, and came at the end of the Age of Enlightenment (1650-1800) and before the later romantic movements of Darwinian evolution, Marxist socialism and Nietzsche's relativism and atheism which all led directly to the decline of Western civilization. The previous intellectual trinity of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, was replaced with the imposter trinity: Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche (with Sigmund Freud thrown in for good measure).
Long before the Pilgrims, the Puritans and the founding of America in 1607, liberalism in all of its myriad of permutations, shadows and disguises infected the history of humanity – from Nimrod's Tower of Babel (precursor to the United Nations), Baal worship, idolatry, materialism, paganism, witchcraft, doctrine of Jezebel (pagan worship of god through sex), doctrine of Molech (child sacrifice [i.e., abortion]), to slavery, secular humanism, democracy, Darwinism, communism, socialism, unionism, progressivism and living constitutionalism – it's all liberal fascism, it's all anti-God, anti-intellectual and Obama is using these pernicious ideas to purposely destroy America and deconstruct the U.S. Constitution so that he, the Democratic Party and its globalist allies can rule into perpetuity.
Also, I love that Wikipedia has the appropriate redirect for "WingNutDaily".
Texas Republicans are attempting to do some gerrymandering, which isn't that shocking. But what they are attempting to do is sue to bypass the DOJ and cut out around 20% of the voting Latino population. What they want to do, from what I can tell, is cut their districts in such a way that more of the Latino population will be in districts which already have a Repubagger congressman, and the rest that are up for grabs will be heavily conservitard. The insane part, aside from the flagrant racism we've come to expect, is that they obviously know what they are doing is wrong because an army of lawyers is gearing up to head into a long, expensive litigation process in order to bypass the DOJ and go to a special court. This means they ALREADY KNOW what they are doing is legally suspect and they are setting out in an expensive legal mission to make the illegal legal in order to keep congressional seats. You'd think a state that is already suffering money problems would think of better ways.
Also, the "we're for the little guy" Republicans are fighting a tax on millionaires and are calling it the "Buffet Tax" and even have the audacity to call it 'class warfare'. I swear if one neo-con comes to me bitching about 'class warfare' I'm giving them a punch in the mouth.
Also, the "we're for the little guy" Republicans are fighting a tax on millionaires and are calling it the "Buffet Tax" and even have the audacity to call it 'class warfare'. I swear if one neo-con comes to me bitching about 'class warfare' I'm giving them a punch in the mouth.
It's sad to see this, although I figured it was inevitable as soon as I heard about the proposal. It's so blatantly self-serving that they're fighting that tax raise, I can't see any possible realistic reason why that tax would actually hurt the majority of the Republican party's constituents. To me, it seems like they're just being used and misinformed... AGAIN.
Also, the "we're for the little guy" Republicans are fighting a tax on millionaires and are calling it the "Buffet Tax" and even have the audacity to call it 'class warfare'. I swear if one neo-con comes to me bitching about 'class warfare' I'm giving them a punch in the mouth.
It's sad to see this, although I figured it was inevitable as soon as I heard about the proposal. It's so blatantly self-serving that they're fighting that tax raise, I can't see any possible realistic reason why that tax would actually hurt the majority of the Republican party's constituents. To me, it seems like they're just being used and misinformed... AGAIN.
Also, the "we're for the little guy" Republicans are fighting a tax on millionaires and are calling it the "Buffet Tax" and even have the audacity to call it 'class warfare'. I swear if one neo-con comes to me bitching about 'class warfare' I'm giving them a punch in the mouth.
Actually, the Democrats are calling it the "Buffett Tax" (note the two Ts) too, after Warren Buffett, the first or second richest person in the US (depending on where he ranks compared to Bill Gates on any given day), complained that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Huh, they said it on NPR while they were talking about the opposition to the bill, so I figured it was the R's. I don't disapprove of the tax, but calling it the Buffett Tax seems a bit silly. The 'class warfare' thing is most infuriating.
It is Class warfare Adam, and we've been losing it for 30 years.
I can tell you why we're losing.
There's a "Wall Street" protest going on down the street from me right now. They're nominally protesting the banking/investment/financial industry and it's corruption, which harms them: "the 99 percent." It's a good message. However, I note the following.
1. I could smell the protest long before I could hear or see it. It smelled like incense, clove cigarettes, and BO. 2. Only half the placards were relevant to the "99 percenters" message: the rest were a random mishmash of anti-globalization, random hippie crap, and a ton about a death row inmate. 3. The people without placards were juggling, twirling things, beating bongos, and generally doing the things that "hippies" stereotypically do. They looked like rabble and, aside from the placards, would have been indistinguishable from the typical crowds around St. Mark's at night. 4. One dude was smoking incense. He had it in his mouth like a cigarette, blowing on it through his teeth and inhaling deeply.
They had no real clear message unless you really paid attention, and even then it was obscured by a ton of conflated but actually unrelated things. They were almost a parody of what conservatives think of when they imagine "liberals" or "hippies." They verymuch had the appearance of punk college kids with nothing better to do. They were a joke.
One of them got belligerent with the cops nearby, and ended up getting cuffed. Within seconds, the whole rabble swarmed in what can only have been planned behavior. They half-enveloped the police before I could even react, chanting in unison "Who do you serve?!? Who do you serve?!?"
The cop had this look on his face like this happens all the time.
To the right, this is what the face of the left is.
Huh, they said it on NPR while they were talking about the opposition to the bill, so I figured it was the R's. I don't disapprove of the tax, but calling it the Buffett Tax seems a bit silly. The 'class warfare' thing is most infuriating.
"Buffett Tax" is a nickname, not the actual name for the tax itself, again, based on Warren Buffett saying that it's not right that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Comments
Let's just go over the main headines, shall we? This is why Democrats fail at politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_special_elections_to_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives
Check this out. Then look at the major elections in the following year.
Look at the special elections leading up to the election.
Democrats switched two seats in 2010 and the republicans switched one (in Hawaii, that in 2010 regular election was one of the few seats the democrats picked back up)
Clearly the democrats should have swept in 2010 then in November...
Notice the places where the seat generally changed hands it was either some sort of scandal or some three way race (like in NY 26 and the Hawaii race). Special Elections have always meant very little.
Well this is horrifying.
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/09/14/318597/issa-we-won’t-investigate-news-corp’s-alleged-hacking-of-911-victims-because-we-don’t-want-to-pick-on-the-media/
The oversight committee doesn't want to investigate news corp because it doesn't want to pick on the media? But what about when they were threatening to cut funding to NPR?
Also, the "we're for the little guy" Republicans are fighting a tax on millionaires and are calling it the "Buffet Tax" and even have the audacity to call it 'class warfare'. I swear if one neo-con comes to me bitching about 'class warfare' I'm giving them a punch in the mouth.
EDIT: Fixed citation.
There's a "Wall Street" protest going on down the street from me right now. They're nominally protesting the banking/investment/financial industry and it's corruption, which harms them: "the 99 percent." It's a good message. However, I note the following.
1. I could smell the protest long before I could hear or see it. It smelled like incense, clove cigarettes, and BO.
2. Only half the placards were relevant to the "99 percenters" message: the rest were a random mishmash of anti-globalization, random hippie crap, and a ton about a death row inmate.
3. The people without placards were juggling, twirling things, beating bongos, and generally doing the things that "hippies" stereotypically do. They looked like rabble and, aside from the placards, would have been indistinguishable from the typical crowds around St. Mark's at night.
4. One dude was smoking incense. He had it in his mouth like a cigarette, blowing on it through his teeth and inhaling deeply.
They had no real clear message unless you really paid attention, and even then it was obscured by a ton of conflated but actually unrelated things. They were almost a parody of what conservatives think of when they imagine "liberals" or "hippies." They verymuch had the appearance of punk college kids with nothing better to do. They were a joke.
One of them got belligerent with the cops nearby, and ended up getting cuffed. Within seconds, the whole rabble swarmed in what can only have been planned behavior. They half-enveloped the police before I could even react, chanting in unison "Who do you serve?!? Who do you serve?!?"
The cop had this look on his face like this happens all the time.
To the right, this is what the face of the left is.