The Republicans are completely in thrall to their whackaloon base. Romney had to tack so far to the right to get the nomination that he could never credibly come back left enough to even get in the vicinity of the center. And make no mistake. Romney was the best option of the lot. The closest guy to a right-centrist they had was Jon Huntsman, the former Governor of Utah and Obama Administration Ambassador to China. To everyone who is not a Utah citizen or political junkie, he was Jon Who?
The fact that Romney really doesn’t like anybody who wasn’t born with a silver bar up his ass really played well into our hands. The 47% video confirmed to those of us who had been watching intently for two years what we thought Romney really felt. He then went and did several speeches where he basically disavowed himself, and some idiots began to feel better about him, but after the election when he had nothing to lose, he let his freak flag fly again and confirmed that yes, he really does believe that stuff and that yes, he really does despise the people he sought to lead. Those of us who have conservative friends still also got to see a lot of them agree with him, with comments like “I just wish I lived in a country where people wanted to work for their own stuff.” I live in Oklahoma. I saw a LOT of that shit in my Facebook feed in the last several days.
Well, of course with Romney being as done as last Christmas’ ham, all of the wannabe right centrists jumped all over his statements and attacked (curious that they were all apparently suffereing from laryngitis a week before, but I digress.) Well, that shit won’t work. The hard base controls the party apparatus, and they won’t let it go until they’re forced out. The lesson that the Republican party will take from this debacle is that they weren’t conservative enough. Romney lost not because he was an asshole, but because he didn’t have the conviction of a real conservative. he lost because he tried to split the difference, with the tack to the center in the first debate and the etch-a-sketch moments that pervaded his campaign. If he only believed, and showed that he believed in conservative principles, we’d be talking about President-Elect Romney right now. That’s what they’ll tell themselves. That’s the lesson they’ll learn, especially with the fact that they kept the House of Representatives. It wasn’t the gerrymandering that saved the (reduced) House majority. It was the purity of vision of the House Republicans.
Well, good. I want them to learn that about 2012. The sooner they learn that lesson the better. This is going to be just like the liberals in the Democratic party in the early and mid-eighties. They’ll tack hard to their base, make noises about how if they’ed only gotten out their base, they’d have won. Hell, they’re already telling themselves that very thing. I’ve already seen stories about how over a million registered Republicans stayed home, and if only they’d have voted… I’m just old enough to remember that liberals were saying the same thing about black Americans in 1980, and again in 1984. As far as the purity argument goes, that one’s straight out of history too. Remember that Carter was primaried from the left in 1979/1980 by Teddy Kennedy. Turned out that was the least of Carter’s problems. And Reagan won with 50.7% of the popular vote (yes, I remember John Anderson, but add his total to Carter’s and you still get President Reagan,) he took a massive landslide of electoral votes that made his mandate look bigger than it was. Obama won with a higher percentage of the pop vote, but didn’t get anywhere near as many EVs.
As all BSG fans know, this has happened before, and it will happen again. Enjoy the ride. I figure we’ve got about two election cycles before the Republicans are a rump party that can’t even mount a credible alternative, and then five or six election cycles before they start to come back, but another five or six before they or a new version of them are in a position to take over again and declare (as they did in the 80s and as we’ve been doing all week) that their opposition is dying and is completely beholden to their base…
Villago Delenda Est
This was telegraphed by Fuck Fuckerson in the fall.
“Conservatism” cannot fail. It can only be failed. These guys are so Leninist, and so blind to how Leninist they are.
AxelFoley
The revolution is blah?
? Martin
@AxelFoley: I think the revolution is chica.
Librarian
Ah, the Propellerheads. I miss the 90s.
blingee
It won’t take anywhere near that many election cycles for them to get a clue. In fact they could get their shit together by 2016. I very much doubt it the way they are still in denial now but it’s possible.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yup. Consensus opinion on the far right is that Rmoney failed because he tried to tack to the center in the last part of the campaign. The crazy winger opinion is that he would have won if only he had stayed to the far right. That and Rmoney never was a true conservative in the first place. I sure hope they keep thinking this because I would love to see another epic ass kicking of them in the next election…
and the next, and the next…
Mark S.
I don’t know Sooner, maybe the Republicans have learned something from the last election, and they will
Never mind, they haven’t learned shit.
JohnK
The impeach Obama people were out today in front of the post offices in the area. The SO was so upset she called the post master and the police. She thought the posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache really sucked. These people aren’t going to shut up or go away.
? Martin
We won’t know if they learned anything until after 2014. If they win like they did in 2010, they’ll repeat 2012. 2010 convinced the GOP that we’re a far-right nation. 2012 didn’t necessarily disprove that. 2014 could if they lose, or reinforce it if they win.
wasabi gasp
One wheel in the ditch screeching around the turn, those clowns don’t have a clue where they’re going, but they know never let a mime drive anymore. Adios, Seamus.
Chris
@blingee:
I think it’ll take more, if anything.
Going by history, it took a full twenty years of New Deal for the Republicans to finally realize that they needed to become moderate – there was a period in the postwar 1940s when they still thought they could reverse all the New Deal’s achievements (“Dewey Defeats Truman” helped sober them up, I think). And that was with FDR getting a bigger, more sustained popular mandate for years than Obama’s gotten.
Mike G
I’m not a scientist, man, but with Repuke culture so averse to admitting error I predict they’ll double-down on being stupid, bigoted and reactionary.
Smiling Mortician
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
And yet they squealed with delight because he sure showed Obama who was boss in the first debate by lurching incomprehensibly toward the center.
SatanicPanic
@Mark S.: Wow, the venerable LA Times is just trolling its readers with that one. Maybe they’ll let me write a Herman Cain is Better rebuttal.
Smiling Mortician
@Mike G:
Heh.
Narcissus
So the Mexicans saved twinkies, yes?
jl
@blingee:
” In fact they could get their shit together by 2016. ”
How will they replace their insane base that votes in the primaries and goes to the caucuses? Those are the lunatics who drive the process.
Even if Huntsman were a household name, he wouldn’t survive the primary voters, who are nutcases.
All the Republicans who are mentally competent in my family either quit the party, or keep their party registration out of nostalgia and don’t participate in GOP nutcase politics anymore, and rarely vote GOP anymore.
CW in LA
@JohnK: Aren’t the prez with a Hitler mustache people LaRouchies? Good on your SO, anyway.
burnspbesq
The problem is that the Republicans are going to hold the House for the rest of this decade, so thoroughly have they made that body unrepresentative through gerrymandering.
Their path to the White House is to split the Electoral College by congressional district in the states where they control both houses of the state legislature.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
Agreed.
But it doesn’t matter all that much if the GOP thinks we are a center-right nation. What matters is if low-info voters and apolitical folks think we are a center-right nation, and if the news media think we are a center-right nation (these two things are distinct but correlated).
We got to our present state of “center-right” being the default assumption with those two groups I listed above as a result of GOP domination in controlling the WH from 1969 thru 1992 with only 4 years of Dem control during that 24 year period, and that 4 years branded as a bad administration to boot. The GOP lost plenty of midterm elections during that period, but their sustained control of the WH gave them a big enough megaphone to overawe the news media and insinuate themselves into the default mindset of low-info voters/apoliticals.
It will probably require a period of Democratic dominance of similar length to swing the narrative back the other way. You could argue whether the clock already started on that interval in 1993 or not, or whether it didn’t start until Obama’s first term. If the latter, then realistically we’re looking at the late 2020s or early 2030s before Dems are really locked in as the default party of government, assuming we can win most of the national elections between now and then.
That looks do-able to me, given today’s demographics, but it is going to be a very long, hard slog.
Violet
@? Martin: I think they’ll have a harder time repeating the 2010 election gains. Lots of reasons why, including: the economy is better and people are less angry/afraid about it, Rush Limbaugh’s influence has waned (he was the de facto leader of the party then), Democrats saw what happened and are more fired up to keep it from happening again.
blingee
@Chris: Ahhh, the electorate is much different now than in was back in Truman’s days. To say Obama never got the mandate Truman got is apples and oranges.
Actually, Obama got a larger percentage of popular vote than Reagan got. How about that! Reagan got a larger EV but for other reasons. The Reagan landslide is kind of mythical like most of his presidency.
reflectionephemeral
Also consider the iron law of institutions– that people care more about their influence within the institution than its influence in the wider world. Every Boehner fears a Cantor, & every Cantor fears and O’Donnell in the primary.
No incentives for reform in that party.
Ruckus
@Violet:
They have to stay fired up for this to work. And even though many including me hate to discuss it, we need to see who might be running in the D column in 4 yrs. We have to build a coalition around them and now is the time. So far I hear Hillary and Joe. Anyone, including them, going to throw their hats in the ring gives us something to work towards while supporting Obama. Right now I see no long term strategy and I think that is an issue. Hell we need to do our damnest to take the house in 14. Who’s it going to be?
Redshift
@Ruckus: From the post-election stuff I’ve been in on, it appears that they’ve learned the lesson of post-’08 and aren’t going to let OFA fade out like they did then. So far it’s focused on building popular support for ensuring the upper-income tax cuts aren’t extended (http://theaction.org), but that’s not going to be the only thing. I haven’t heard anything specific about using the infrastructure for the 2014 midterms, but I’m reasonably optimistic.
Cacti
I have high hopes for the GOP’s future in the wilderness when I read that Marco Rubio considers the age of the earth “one of the great mysteries”.
He knows the inmates are still running the assylum.
burnspbesq
Wow.
Chaminade 86, Texas 73.
Redshift
@burnspbesq:
This seems to be universally accepted now, and I don’t understand it. From what I understand, gerrymandering can either get you a lot of seats or it can get you safe seats, but it can’t get you a lot of safe seats. I know some past redistricting efforts focused on getting the maximum number of seats have resulted in relatively small shifts in the electorate producing big swings a few years later.
Am I wrong about this? And if so, how does the math work out?
2014 may be too soon to hope to see such an effect, but a decade seems way too long.
Punchy
@Narcissus: Yes, and Santa saved the Ho-Ho-hos.
/rimjob
wasabi gasp
A good face would still be stuck on that big crazy body. If you’re not gonna use that big tent, maybe you could make a cloak.
suzanne
@Cacti: Right? I saw that today and immediately thought, “Spineless fucker’s running for president. Should read a science book first.”
Adam Robert Ryan
was primaryed from the left. . .”
Carter was primaried from the left with AIPAC money.
burnspbesq
@Redshift:
Ohio is the paradigm case. There are five major cities: Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Dayton. What you do is you create geographically compact urban districts, and peel off the (theoretically at least) Republican leaning suburbs and attach them to more rural areas. Well, whaddaya know: the Ohio Congressional delegation is split 13-5 Republican.
Another paradigm case is the way Orange County was gerrymandered after the 2000 census. You could easily have had three competitive districts if you split up the heavily Democratic areas, e.g., put Garden Grove in with Westminster, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Cypress, Losa Alamitos, and Fountain Valley; put Anaheim in with north county; and put Santa Ana in with Tustin, Costa Mesa, Irvine, and Newport Beach. But if you put all of the Democratic areas in a single district, you give Loretta Sanchez a safe seat in exchange for creating five safe Republican seats.
RaflW
As social science theorist named Beth Zemsky has been talking for a number of years now about movement waves. She more-or-less predicted this, as a good social historian should.
She figures the cycles last roughly 30 years and have a building phase, a peak, and a decline. Reagan was the peak, and MLK-JFK was the previous peak.
It would seem that Obama is our building of the new wave. We’re still figuring out what the master frame is, as Beth would say. You often can’t really even see it as its being built – by us!
But I remember learning from her 4 or 5 years ago, and quoting bewildered conservatives (yes, there were many lo that long ago) at why their conservative frame wasn’t dictating the issues any more.
So the next few decades could be fairly interesting as a progressive. But we have to get real about the climate, the demographic issues (I mean aging of the US, not the color shift which I welcome), global insecurity (a constant, really).
So. Fun times. Maybe.
Origuy
@Narcissus:
The Mexican supermarket down the street carries the Bimbo pastries. I don’t usually get them because they also bake their own, but they didn’t have any pineapple empanadas today. So I tried the Bimbo version of the Twinkie, called Submarinos. Strawberry filling, not bad. They also have a version of the Hostess chocolate cupcake called Pengüinos. No Sno-balls, though.
RaflW
Oh, and thank g*d for court-monitored redistricting in Minnesota. Our legislature has a chance at reasonable representation and our US delegation is 5/3. 7/3 with our Senators! We’ll have a structurally reasonable fair playing field for 10 years. Unlike a lot of red states…
jl
@Redshift:
I don’t understand it either, and I think the saying about the impossibility of of having more and safer seats is correct. The average House district in a populous state has to have around 700,000 people. So to maximize seats you have to spread your loyal voters around to more districts and you dilute your support.
I think there were two or three surprises in recent House elections in Texas in 2008 when the GOP gerrymander there wilted in the face of higher than expected turnout.
So, I don’t think the House is hopeless. It will take a lot of GOTV and hard work but I think it’s possible, or at least get close enough to majority to make a difference in a lot of close votes.
In a close House, and GOP Reps getting scared about the next election, it will be difficult to get a lock. And the history of teabagger Reps making fools of themselves and getting kicked out (which will surely continue) will have an effect. That block’s power will wane.
Democratic policies that will be successful and popular, eventually, like health care reform will make a big difference too.
RaflW
@Narcissus: Best brand name in North America!
(Bimbo, I mean…)
jl
@Origuy:
In a sane and just world, Hostess goes down, and leaves an opening for TastyKakes to sweep the nation.
TastyKakes tried marketing in parts of California some years ago, but the damn fools out here did not buy enough, I guess.
At least I used to be able to get TastyKakes in LA.
Anyone down in LA still see TastyKakes for sale?
? Martin
@Violet:
None of those matter. Turnout is what wins primaries and midterms. Either the Dems turn out voters, or they don’t. In 2010 we didn’t. That’s got to change.
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA:
A couple of modifications to the prior post about gerrymandering.
Ohio ended up 11-5, not 13-5; the state lost two Congressional seats as a result of the 2010 census. And there is one departure from the formula: the Republican state legslature buried Toledo in the middle of a geographically huge district to minimize its chances of sending a sixth Democrat to the House.
burnspbesq
@jl:
Protip: anyplace that advertises Philly cheesesteaks will have Tastykakes.
Schlemizel
My fear is that they find a bigger and better sociopath than W to run in ’16. Someone who people see as such a nice guy he really wouldn’t enact all the horrific BS the goopers are demanding. Then while the morans are dreaming of a beer with Mr. Wonderful the entire nation is tossed back into the cesspool of modern ‘conservatism’.
One interesting dynamic that has gotten no attention is that a lot of important local and state level operations were taken over by the Randtards this year. They may do for the GOP what McCarthy’s people did to the Dems back in the 70’s. Being true believers they tore the party apart and alienated a lot of hard working, dedicated, members.
They came to power in much the same way, outlast the other guy, stay until enough of the other guys went home & they control the room. Once in charge manipulate the process to get total control. If the Randtards actually stick it out, they and the Taliban will be at each others throats in ’16 and the resentments on both sides will go a long way to eliminating both threats to a decent society.
? Martin
@jl: You can buy TastyKakes at Philly’s Best in Irvine. Birch beer and Rolling Rock too. And Wise potato chips.
Walker
Bimbo bunuelos are the bomb. Used to eat them all the time when I lived in Texas.
burnspbesq
http://www.eatphillysbest.com/locations/
handy
@burnspbesq:
yeah this. Por ejemplo.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
This is my impression as well but at this time it is only an impression.
I was more talking about us the people not going back to sleep like we normally do and letting the rats take back the ship. We’ve made a good push and OFA is responsible for an immense amount of the results but at the end of the day it takes votes to make things happen. I am far more worried about 2014 and 2016 than I was about this year. We had a known and likeable standard bearer but we need to keep up the momentum and that takes people to run and fill those seats.
? Martin
Oh, and Bimbo won’t be allowed to buy Hostess. They already own Entenmanns, Thomas’s, and Sara Lee. Bimbo has over half the sliced bread market in many US cities, and half of the national brands – particularly in the west. The own Boboli, Oroweat, Earthgrains, Franscisco, and a bunch of others.
Apparently hedge funds can’t profitably run bakeries in the US, but Mexicans can. Oh, yeah, and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Milling International union recommends buying Bimbo products. So the Mexicans can succeed in the US even with eeeeeeevil unionized workers.
Ken_L
To an overseas observer, neither party seems to have impressive leaders going into 2016. If that’s true, I would be leery of making any predictions of any kind. Too many unknown unknowns.
“Romney actually won cos Obama cheated” seems to be the most common theme I’m reading amongst the wingnuts, meaning they’re likely to stay a bit shambolic until the right Man on a White Horse comes along to tell them what they really think.
Redshift
@burnspbesq:
The GOP did that in the NoVA suburbs in the 2000 redistricting, and thought they were pretty clever. Then as population grew, the part of the suburbs that leaned Democratic expanded outward, and in 2006 Tom Davis found himself out of a job. So yeah, we may not see much effect in 2014, but we’re not screwed until the next redistricting either.
Similarly, areas like the exurbs further out from DC were supposed to be the basis for Rove’s coming GOP dominance, because they were Republican in the mid-2000s and were among the fastest-growing areas in the country. There were just two flaws — they were the fastest-growing percentage-wise because they started with lower population than the inner suburbs, and as their population grew and they became more suburban and less rural, they also became less Republican. And it didn’t take very long — Obama won both Loudoun and Prince William Counties in 2008 and 2012.
? Martin
@burnspbesq: I love having one walking distance.
Yutsano
@? Martin: The Mexicans have a nice advantage: non-tariffed sugar. They could make everything in Mexico, even decrease the current prices, and still make a killing on that alone/
? Martin
@Yutsano: They don’t actually. The US division is based in PA. Everything is baked in the US. They have the same tariff as everyone else.
But it’s more fun to build a narrative that the Mexicans are coming to the US and showing us how to run successful businesses.
Redshift
@burnspbesq: But the point is a good one that the one way you can grab more seats without making them really fragile is by giving the opposition some really safe seats. And unfortunately, sitting congressmen/women are often all too happy to endorse that bargain.
burnspbesq
@? Martin:
They could, but that’s not the priority. Strategic buyers build businesses. Financial buyers always have their eye on the liquidity event.
Redshift
@? Martin:
Some of those do matter, because turnout doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor is it entirely due to the efforts of campaigns. The economy and the appearance of success by office-holders of one party or the other affects it.
But I do agree that we need a much more concerted “team” effort to get our voters out, and not just rely on the competence of individual congressional campaigns. I’d really like to see the “commit to vote” efforts that were done by the Obama campaign expanded to a “commit to always vote” while they still have the ability to reach people and command some attention.
? Martin
@Ken_L:
Dems have a pretty deep bench, actually. Several popular mayors of major cities, governors, senators. The GOP could too, but their base keeps dragging them in whackadoodle directions.
We’re not even 2 weeks into this and they guy has already fallen in the Great Pit of Stupid to be consumed by the Teatard Sarlacc, digested for a thousand years (or maybe just 7 days, who’s to say?)
GregB
The GOP speaks in cryptic messages to their base and then speak an entirely different language to the rest of America when they campaign and when they win they take the win as carte blanche to implement the coded shit they promised to their base.
It’s quite a racket.
Yutsano
@Ken_L:
The Democrats have a couple of exciting Senators (Gillenbrand is one) and a couple of really solid governours (O’Malley, Schweitzer who is term-limited) that could definitely make a national name for themselves. Not to mention Julian Castro as a really solid potential VP pick. There’s some possibilities between now and 2016.
@? Martin: Or wot u said. :)
? Martin
@burnspbesq: The hedge funds are just gaming the system. They don’t fucking care if the business succeeds or not – they’ll borrow against all of the equity, leave the bondholders and creditors and the PBGC holding the bill when they go back to bankruptcy for the umpteenth time, and then sell off whatever sanitized assets are left. And then they’ll accuse us of being moochers and looters.
Chris
@? Martin:
Why must I be surrounded by frickin idiots?
Keith G
@? Martin:
That’s why threads like this one is so maddening. Instead of talking about Republicans we need to be taking about us and what the Democrats need to do to build/rally more support.
Instead of more of this:
We need to start advocating policy and proactively build interest among the folks we will need for future turn out.
wasabi gasp
@Chris:
I think Jesus built that particular hot rod.
Chris
@? Martin:
Unions used to be our biggest tool when it came to producing sustained voter turnout. Reagan knew what he was doing when he opened up on them with both barrels.
Either unions need to make a resurgence, or something equally effective needs to be found to turn out voters over a prolonged period of time.
Bill D.
@wasabi gasp:
Actually, no. He didn’t tell people to believe in Genesis, nor did he tell people to believe in the Bible, because after all the New Testament was not even written yet. He specifically said that people didn’t need to follow the Old Testament rules anymore. The adoption of belief in the Old Testament by the very early Christians happened after his death.
Ken_L
@Yutsano:
OMG the stupid the wingnuts would have with a candidate named Castro would be more than any sane man should have to endure.
wasabi gasp
@Bill D.: That’s pretty complicated. Idiots may skim it.
Bill D.
@wasabi gasp:
Well, their loss is….. our loss. Drats.
Yutsano
@Ken_L: I’d buy into popcorn futures. The whinging would be monstrous.
Xenos
@? Martin: You’re thinking about private equity, not hedge funds. These are different businesses. And private equity is a mixed bag — some of it is relatively positive, some of it is incredibly wasteful and destructive.
Republican-based private equity (Romney, Dan Quayle, George W. Bush) tends to be destructive and grift-ridden, extracting ridiculous fees from investors and targets alike. Quelle Surprise!
? Martin
@Xenos: Yes, private equity.
And I agree, some of it is positive. Much of it perhaps – particularly those that are focused on creating businesses. But that’s not Bain, etc.
JoyfulA
@handy: How do they get Amoroso rolls, and we can’t get them 100 miles from Philly?
Xenos
@? Martin: I would tend to defend Bain more often than not (I may be a bit biased, knowing a fair number of lower-level functionaries there). Romney’s work there is not defendable, though. He brought nothing but his connections to the business, and left nothing of value behind.
? Martin
@JoyfulA: Amoroso has distributers in LA. Philly’s Best uses Amoroso rolls as well.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Smiling Mortician:
Tribalism trumps ideological purity every time for authoritarians.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Smiling Mortician:
Yup, but it wasn’t enough for him to win so it’s back to blaming him for his loss by trying to move to the center.
Guess what happens when you put a conservative in a round room and tell them to piss in a corner?
They’ll piss anywhere and swear that they found the corner.
HobbesAI
@? Martin: 7 days? Is this a compromise by Rubio between the traditional 6 days and the science based estimate of 4.61 billion years?
Linda
@blingee: Oh, but many are in denial. Some are becoming “realists,” but are merely in the bargaining stage of grief: Hannity’s “conversion” on immigration is one of these. It boils down to: if we change on immigration, can we have the White House back? Can we then still supress the blahs, and shame sluts?
Many more are still banging their gums about “tone,” which means that they are hoping to sell the shittiest car on the lot to people who don’t want it, if they put a lot of polish on it. Trust me, they are nowhere near real realism.
Patricia Kayden
@Ken_L: No different than the freakout over Barack Hussein Obama.
Matt McIrvin
The Republicans will, unfortunately, almost certainly “win” in 2014, in the sense of gaining at least a few House seats and maybe some in the Senate as well. That will happen just because of the reduced turnout in midterm elections, the historic pattern of how the public responds to a sixth-year presidency, and House gerrymandering.
When that happens, I promise you they will crow about how the people have rejected liberalism and Obama in a landslide wave election and the Democrats are destroyed as a national party. It’s what they do.
sherparick
To get a idea where the Republican base is, 43% of Christians, mostly Evangelicals, believe the Earth was created 6,000 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
The heart of the Republican Party is the White Evangelical Christian Base.
Need I say more about how willfully fruitcaked these people are?
*A portion of the Democratic base in the Hispanic and Black communities is also Evangelical in their beliefs, and currently the Evangelical community believes in a “literal interpretation” of the Bible.
El Cid
I don’t think the Republican turn to pick up Southern white conservatives after civil rights was the fault of Democratic liberals, and I don’t really think the growth of the U.S. Latino population in the South and West was the result of any moderation strategy by Democrats against the purity left.
Sometimes, big things come out of trends outside the purity / moderate / realist / whatever debate.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@? Martin:
The fact that the majority of American’s voted for Obama woke a few of them up to the fact that we aren’t really a center right nation. Those people are still gnashing their teeth in despair. Fortunately, not enough of them get it yet. If they turn out in the next mid-term election, and we don’t, even some of the wingers who woke up will slip back into their delusions. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen!
Keith G
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I wonder how useful a formulation this is.
We are a centrist society. Whether the majority of data points fall left or right of the center depends on the issue, current news, who is doing the talking, and who has built a better messaging process.
In 2012, we won the prize. In 2010, our leadership never showed up and our grass roots were inert.
What will 2014 hold?
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@jl: Yeah, I have an uncle who was a centrist republican for most of his life until George W. cured him. Since then he’s strictly backed democrats.
Lee Rudolph
@HobbesAI:
That 7th day was a looooong one; God overslept after all the preceding exertion.
Matt McIrvin
We’re a center-right nation, by modern-industrialized-world standards. Maybe even a far-right nation, since in some ways the Democrats would be a right-wing party in, say, northern Europe.
What we’re not is a center-right nation by our own political labels, or by the standards of political media pundits. There’s this idea left over from 1980 that The People are far to the right of the political elite, but it’s obviously not true any more.
Punchy9117
The GOP grand coalition is finally fracturing.
The money guys, and the business/corporate types see it. They just can’t do anything about it now.
They’ve been riding the religious/moral majority beast to victory for too long. Now the bill has come due, and the sane-type conservatives (that I remember) have long been purged for their lack of purity.
The road to success goes through Rushbo, and CPAC, and the rest of the radio/intertube echo chamber.
It will only get fixed when the money guys decide to pull the plug. . . which will as the post says take a few election cycles, because they’re going to bet on Rove et. al. gaming the system better next time.
We’re going to get more voter fraud cr..p, more restrictive voting, as the they deploy the legislatures they control.
The final divorce decree between the money-guys and the moral majority has not been filed yet, let alone granted.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not sure how clear that specific pattern is — Clinton’s party gained seats in Congress in his sixth year, but Bush’s party lost control of the House. I think the 6th year depends a lot on how the public feels about both the job Congress is doing and the job the president is doing, much more so than the midterm of a president’ first term.
J R in WV
@sherparick:
As was mentioned in one thread or another, Jesus is quoted as rejecting the Old Testament, and asking us to replace it with his teaching (but not necessarily the teaching of those who came along hundreds of years later!).
I have a large problem with “evangelistic” churches spending all their time preaching about obscure bits of the Old Testament, while ignoring the teaching in the New Testament.
Of course, I also have a large problem with a modern scientifically advanced civilization basing its morality upon the musings and stories of prehistoric illiterate shepherds. So the Republican’ts have a long way to go to catch my vote.
You go, Barack!