Who killed the GOP brand for young people?
Here’s (via) a table of how Dems fared among voters under 30 in the last few elections:
Gore (2000) +0 18-24, +3 25-29
Kerry (2004) +13 18-24, +3 25-29
Obama (2008) +32 18-29
Obama (2012) +23 18-29
To be clear, the +13 among 18-24 is already quite anomalous, given that Kerry lost by 2.5 among all voters. If you leaf through the last 10 elections, there aren’t many examples prior to that where one age group votes more than 10 points differently than the population at large.
Maybe everything that dies someday comes back, and maybe the white hot intensity of a thousand Watergates has caused Bob Woodward’s long-dormant erection to return. But all the scandal bullshit isn’t getting the youth vote back, I’ll tell you that. Neither are Rubio’s references to Tupac.
Maude
The youth vote doesn’t remember R.M. Nixon or St. Reagan.
They missed all the fun.
You spend your teen years shutting out authority. Who’d want to vote for the GOP authoritarians?
Yatsuno
What exactly have the Republicans done for young people? No jobs plan, dicking around with student loan interest rates, repeal of Obamacare which gets them coverage under their parents, nothing about rising inequality or ensuring there will be good paying jobs for them. Yeah, I can’t see at all why those ingrate kids don’t listen to their elders and vote Republican like they’re told.
Redshirt
I don’t know.
Some upcoming election will feature an old, boring Democrat and a youthful, apparently engaging Republican. Conservatism is suddenly hip again and the kids all sport “NOPE” buttons.
c u n d gulag
GOP POV:
Yeah, but you’ve got to admit that Paul Ryan doing his P90X workout, with his baseball cap on backwards, WAS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!
Boy, if we didn’t hate gays so much, we might admit we have a man-crush on him!
I’m sure young women will SOOOOOOOO flock to him in 2016!!!
He’ll ONLY be 46 by then – and that’s practically a child, in our circles.
Shortstop
The CRNC has concluded from its report that the GOP has a crisis of messaging, not of policy. Since they always argue away the results, wouldn’t it be cheaper to take the massive amounts spent on these studies and just buy some votes?
schrodinger's cat
Name one reason why young people should vote for the GOP, or the Good for Old People Party*
ETA: * = If they are male, white and with lots of munnies and/or resentments.
Yatsuno
@schrodinger’s cat: FREEDUMB!!!
No wait a sec…
TERRISTS!!!!
Hang on…
WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(never mind)
MattR
I was glad to see that the youth of America perfectly understand the Republican economic policies – ideas that may sound good in theory but only actually help you if you are already rich.
cleek
@Redshirt:
yep.
Just Some Fuckhead
What about all the fetuses Republicans have been saving since 1973? Surely they’re voting for Republicans now that they’re all growed up.
MikeJ
@schrodinger’s cat: Many of them completely believe the Republican story that Social Security is in crisis and OMG we’re never going to get to collect it. With those that believe that, it’s hard to convince them the government isn’t trying to screw them. Add in the Republicans screwing up student loans. Most of them don’t pay any attention and know 1) “the government” just fucked with them and 2) Obama is president.
These aren’t good reasons to vote for Republicans, but not everybody under 30 is a rocket surgeon.
schrodinger's cat
@c u n d gulag:
Not hot at all, only people who found him hot were the middle aged punditubbies of the Beltway media.
GOP and Tweety also thought that women would find Fred Thompson hot.
GregB
@schrodinger’s cat:
No one told Matthews that even though Fred Thompson smells of English Leather his skin also looks like English leather. Though he’s looking much hipper shilling reverse mortgages with his Trotskyesque van dyke.
cleek
and neither will Erickson’s “chicks must serve men” comments, nor will shit like this.
schrodinger's cat
@MikeJ: No but GOP is losing the vote of people under 30, so the
cohort has been better than the older voters in figuring out the constant lies of GOP. Besides they remember the Bush years.
Just Some Fuckhead
@schrodinger’s cat: I have a recurring sex fantasy that has Paul Ryan fucking Sarah Palin in the downward dog position as George Bush in a flight suit masturbates while calling them filthy names.
Cassidy
The GOP youth vote voted for Ron Paul.
Eric U.
I always wondered how a group that based their electoral appeal on white resentment, racism, homophobia, and religious fanaticism with a healthy topping of anti-abortion fervor and gun love could get any sane person to vote for them.
Gin & Tonic
@Redshirt: an old, boring Democrat
Like Hillary?
/ducks and runs
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead: Fantasy, sounds more like a nightmare. Brain bleach needed.
Violet
Younger generation is less white than previous generations. GOP is old and white. That alone is a gap to overcome. GOP hasn’t been working very hard to bridge that gap.
Gin & Tonic
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yeah, no thanks for sharing that. I feel like I need a shower.
Todd
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I hate you. It’s gonna take so many blue pills to get me worked up that Limbaugh is going to have to give me tips on how he timed the water slugs as he power ate Roxies.
MikeJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
But the next batch of new voters will only remember having a Democrat as president and I’ll bet some of them will want to stick it to the man.
Of course I hope I’m wrong.
Todd
@schrodinger’s cat:
Basically, a lemon party, only less erotic….(don’t look it up)
Violet
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ugh. Please consider keeping your sex fantasies to yourself, or at least post about them elsewhere.
sparrow
@Eric U.: It helps if you start by denying this reality. I cannot get my mother to discuss or accept that this the modern republican party. If I show here a state senators saying hateful things about gay people she will say “Well it’s just that guy, I didn’t vote for him”… if I point out that they want to gut safety nets she doesn’t believe me. It’s f-ing tribalism, 100% (backed up with a dose of hidden racism, I suspect).
Shakezula
Gosh, the kids don’t like the idea of a political party that would force it into parenthood before they are ready? Hooduthunkit.
@Just Some Fuckhead: I now have a fantasy in which you are subjected to Brain Bleach Bukkake until you DROWN.
Yuck.
Keith G
The problem is, dear Heratio, that those Democratic-leaning youngins tend not to vote in off year elections. So the question becomes one of what can Obama and the Democratic leadership do to mitigate this. If they don’t do enough or enough of the right things, 2014 will be a world of hurt.
Maude
@Violet:
This is an important point. The GOP has failed to come into the modern era.
schrodinger's cat
@MikeJ: The constant dose of bigotry, homophobia and misogyny will still keep the 18-30 year olds in the Dem column, for the near future.
Violet
@Gin & Tonic: That was my first thought. The Dems need to be recruiting young talent lest they turn into the party of old people.
Todd
@Violet:
There’s some things so foul that literotica won’t publish…
MomSense
I actually agree with Lindsey Graham (I know, shocking!) on this one. “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”
MattF
You think, maybe, Republican efforts to disenfranchise younger voters might have something to do with it? Just maybe?
Todd
@Shakezula:
Performed by the House Tea Party caucus..
Matt McIrvin
Actually, if I recall correctly, Romney won the white non-Hispanic youth vote in 2012. The Republican brand is dead with young people as a whole because of demographics.
In general, Republicans aren’t doing much that’s different from what they did in the 1980s; it’s just that in those days you could win a presidential election by a landslide with just white people, and now you can’t. Republicans have no clue how to adjust to this. Someday they may figure it out, but they’ll have to become a substantially different party.
Boots Day
In my personal experience, younger people with conservative leanings are very careful to describe themselves as Libertarians these days. Hardly any of them self-identify as Republicans.
This is good news for Rand Paul, who pretends to be a libertarian.
Redshirt
Once you’re required to join the Republican Party, the youth vote – and the immigrant and wimmin and brown vote for that matter – is no longer an issue.
Problem solved.
Mnemosyne
@Redshirt:
Like Carter vs. Reagan?
IIRC, Reagan still holds the record as the oldest elected president.
I think the only way the Republicans will be able to win the youth vote is by doing a 180 on social issues like gay marriage and immigration, but that would lose them the 50+ votes they’re currently getting, so I really don’t see a way out of the conundrum for them.
jrg
I think it’s hilarious that some members of the GOP are naive enough to think they can just slink away from this problem. Sorry, f*ckers, people like POTUS have your number and know how to troll your crazy-ass fringes… You’re actually going to need to *gasp* stand up to the loons in your party.
Shortstop
@Violet: Phyllis Schlafly says it doesn’t matter. She says there are closets, storerooms and warehouses full of old, previously nonvoting white people just ripe for the GOP to awaken, and that’s going to solve this problem of all these brown people running amok and voting and shit.
Ha, my phone tried to replace “Schlafly” with “scholarly.”
Todd
@Matt McIrvin:
They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Angry oldsters are looking for rigidity on dealing with brown and black, and will primary anybody hat isn’t shrieking “deport”. And don’t think there’s any room to pivot post primary – those angry oldsters will stay home or go full metal third party in an instance.
Gin & Tonic
@Violet: It already is the party of old people. Five out of the currently leading six presidential candidates on the D side are older than the incumbent. Five out of the currently leading six presidential candidates on the R side are younger than the incumbent.
belieber
sigh….people like Doug of the BJ Dougs just don’t get it and never will. The scandal bullshit as he calls it is not so much to try tarnish Obama/Hilary/Dems as it is to gin up the rubes and keep the fundraising dollars flowing.
I suppose Doug of the BJ Dougs also still thinks the Starks exist as characters in GoT to be liked and to root for a happy ending as opposed to disposable props to torment readers with.
Doug Milhous J
@Cassidy:
That’s another good point.
Punchy
Dont need to. SCOTUS is about to 86 the VRA, green-lighting every possible voter tax, voter ID, voter-must-be-over-50-and-white legislation ALEC can dream up.
Ruckus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And you haven’t stuck an ice pick in your ear, all the way to the hilt, trying to stop that?
It’s possible you should before you go clinically insane, which you will with those type of thoughts.
lojasmo
@Cassidy:
Not in the general. Gary Johnston got 1.2 million votes, just under 1% of turnout.
It wasn’t the youngs voting for him.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: Just like putting Palin on the ticket did not win the women’s vote putting people younger than Obama on the ticket is no guarantee to winning the vote of 18-30 year olds.
Yatsuno
@belieber: Derp.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: I know a handful of young Republicans. Mostly white, mostly assholes. But even more damning for Republicans is that I know an equal number of young people who would be Republicans, but can’t get around their anti-science, anti-gay, racist positions.
Redshirt
The Young Republicans are their future, for FSM sakes! DOOM!
jl
Then the are the youth focus groups:
GOP Report Warns Of Party’s Apocalypse With Young Voters
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/gop-report-young-voters.php
Let’s have fun clipping out the section headings from the TPM summary:
Closed-Minded, Racist, Rigid, Old-Fashioned’
‘Couldn’t Care Less’
‘Stupid Party,’ ‘Errant Republican Voices’
‘The Most Extreme Anti-Abortion Position’
‘Anti-Gay Rhetoric’
‘Turn Voters Away’
Mandalay
@Eric U.:
The report is in complete denial on that point….
It’s the fault of those dishonest Democrats! Nothing to do with Republican policy!
aimai
@sparrow:
I think people in general are equally capable of denying reality or handling only the parts of it they like–“I didn’t vote for him” and “that happened in another state anyway” and “that sounds awful but I hope it doesn’t turn out to be true” are very typical of a certain kind of obligate voter–an older person, a married woman who votes as a unit with a conservative husband. But I think the Democrats (I hope the Democrats) and the youth voters have begun to nationalize the entire electoral process. The pull to get people out of their comfort zones and into imagining they are activists was very broad based. Young people are used to linking up socially with people who are “like them” all across the country. A young person is quite likely to be able to imagine living in one of these states where the laws regarding women just really suck.
My daughter is looking at colleges right now. I know it would never have occured to me to care (except that I am a very political person in general) what the specific anti-woman legislation in each of these states is before she started looking at colleges. But you know what? We have eliminated many colleges and universities from contention for her because I just don’t consider those states safe for her, or for anyone really, given their pro gun/anti abortion stance.
Maybe your mother can screen out all this shit but I can’t–and I don’t think young people can either. If you are in the mobile middle class you won’t move to these states if you can help it. If you are a young person you end up hating your elders who are fucking over young people (and especially young women) right now in their home states. I know they can repress the non white vote for quite a while longer but the scary thing for thees assholes is that they are losing the youthful white vote too because of their anti youth and anti female legislating.
Shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s true, and it’s also true that young women are going to be just as eager as older women to put a dame in the White House when it’s not a choice between two historical firsts–black and female–with the black candidate markedly more charismatic than the female one, at least at that time.
But although I don’t see candidate age being a big deal in 2016, I think it’s clear we need to be giving more attention to younger talent so it’s in the pipeline and has national name recognition for the future.
schrodinger's cat
@Shortstop: I dislike the anointing of Hillary, even though I am a woman. It is a long ways to the primary season. Obama was reelected less than a year ago. Anything can happen between now and then.
Shakezula
@jrg: Yep. Because that worked so well after the mixed race youngun with the funny name shellacked them the first time (or the 2nd if you count the Senate election).
That’s what is interesting about all of these post-mortems. They don’t mean a damn thing. We know it, they know it, the American people know it. It’s like someone who does step 1 of a 12-step program and keeps using. “What do you want? I admitted I had a problem!”
jl
@Punchy:
That wave of disgust you see welling up in 2004 will not be ‘under 30’ in 2014 and 2016, it will be ‘under 40’. More of them will be voting. They won’t be college students or moving around to get jobs (or back home to live with the parents) as much. They will realize that the GOP has committed itself for the long haul to grinding the faces of everyone who is not a rich white fatcat.
I cannot see how GOP voting suppression schemes targeted at minorities, college students and poor can hold back the tide, especially in presidential years, or if some issue comes up that increase turnout.
And the GOP has brainwashed its base with wedge issues (racism, rage against working class and poor, sexism, fear and rage against sex and gays) that will begin to work against them.
Good news is that the ‘serious daddy’ sober and responsible, ‘roll up its sleeves and get to work’ GOP has shown all the industry and persistence of dipsomaniac who suddenly realizes there’s no booze in the house.
Once they realized that their goofy outreach program wouldn’t work unless they modified some of their stupid hateful and dishonest policies and strategies, they just threw up their hands and started insulting… well… insulting everyone who was not their base. Let’s count them: Asians, Hispanics, women, gays.. Of course, African-Americans and Muslims, that goes without saying. And some Anti-Semitic turd blossoms have popped up from time to time.
The GOP is getting ready to poop on youth now. Notice that the red alerts on their problems with youth come up just as the GOP is going to wage a high profile battle to let big finance rip them off for post HS education.
More outreach fail to come. Keep at it GOP, I like it.
Higgs Boson's Mate
In the 2012 election, 57.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot. That’s in line with voter turnout for presidential elections for the last one hundred years. Schlafly is whistling past the graveyard in stating that there’s a huge untapped cadre of Republican voters.
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat:
That may be factually true, but doesn’t really demonstrate anything significant. Vice presidential candidates really don’t determine much in a presidential election.
Shortstop
@Shakezula: That is an excellent analogy.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: You need better fantasies
gene108
@Punchy:
Poll taxes are prohibited via Constitutional amendment.
Literacy tests and the rest of the stuff you mentioned is kept at bay by the VRA.
jl
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I read or saw an internet clip that Schlafly is kind of caught up with Rove’s (innumerate) election math. Even if ALL of her beloved older white bigots and scareds and bitters got out to vote, Obama still would have won the election.
There are just not enough of their base to save them anymore unless voter turnout is low, and their vile voter suppression schemes can save them.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay:One of the reasons behind the Palin nomination was her supposed appeal to women who were Hillary supporters and turned off by the Obama nomination. It did not pan out. Nominating Alan Keyes to run for the Senate against Obama did not help with the black vote either, in that election. I could go on.
GOP tokenism rarely works.
Suffern ACE
Idk. 2008 might be your high water mark. How are the people who voted in 2004 and are now outside the youth demographic voting?
Shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: My point really didn’t have to do with “anointing” Hillary. It was agreeing with your comment that an older candidate doesn’t necessarily fail to attract younger voters if his/her opponent is younger…and further noting that to succeed long term with younger voters, we need to ensure we have visible national talent of all ages.
jl
@Shortstop: Yeah, it is perfect. I got to step one, and that won’t work? Aw, eff it, wheres the booze?
aimai
@Shakezula: Yes. This. But its also rather typical of management types and MBAs. “We commissioned a study…what you do with it is not our problem.” Or someone who takes the vital signs of a corpse and keeps recording them as the body cools off and begins to rot without realizing that fluctuations at this point have more to do with the temperature of the room or the nature of rot than they do with natural processes in a living body.
Old Jewish Joke:
Man drops dead in a crowd.
Another man shouts “give him water.”
Everyone turns on the helpful passerby and says “That won’t help, he’s dead.”
“Oh, well, couldn’t hurt!” he shrugs.
Anya
@Just Some Fuckhead: eeww! You’re so pervy, and not in a good way.
MikeJ
@gene108:
And in seven or eight years when the case gets to the Supreme Court it’s possible a poll tax law could be struck down.
schrodinger's cat
@Shortstop: I am irritated by the media obsession with discussing the next Presidential election when we just got through one and I was responding to this part of your comment.
ETA: I agree with your last comment.
Shortstop
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: possibly she’s hoping to drum up voters from inside the graveyard.
Paul in KY
@Boots Day: I was at a rock festival recently (The Hangout) & one of the attendees had a ‘Libertarian Party’ hat on. Looked like central casting young fat Libertarian.
aimai
@MikeJ: The republicans certainly talk a lot about bringing back a property qualification for voting but I don’t think they can do it or, if they do, it will harm as many of their own voters as anyone else’s.
jrg
@Shakezula: I’m not saying that owning up to the problem will fix the problem. I’m saying that’s a prerequisite.
Read some of the insane comments on the Politico article. It’s impossible to tell if some of those are sock puppets. No way they can control a message unless they crack down on that shit. Poe’s law, indeed.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Guess she won’t be matriculating in Kentucky.
jl
@Suffern ACE:
But that is why the youth vote is so important to capture. Impressions of parties gained in youth and young adulthood do not change automatically once you tick into another age category..
And what is worse for the GOP is that their stupid policies are going to make things worse economically for the under 30s moving into the under 40s bracket, in just the same way they did when they were in their 20s.
It is an effing disaster.in the making for them.
Capri
@Shakezula: Actually, that’s their biggest issue right there – THEY DON”T THINK THEY HAVE A PROBLEM. They think it’s just “messaging.” They just need to separate their anti-choice stance from people saying things about rape and they’ll be all set.
Perhaps the way to get through to the GOP is to use their own venacular. Per their definitions, most people under 40 are “takers” and their message is aimed at “makers.”
IMHO, they will have to come to terms with the Bush presidency before they can move forward. They’ve spent since 2008 pretending he never existed and that there was some other reason they’re facing their current reality.
Shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: I know. They never stop.
schrodinger's cat
WP eated my last comment when I tried to edit it. So I am trying again.
@Shortstop: I am irritated by the media obsession with discussing the next Presidential election when we just got through one and I was responding to this part of your comment.
ETA: I agree with your last comment.
Cassidy
@Paul in KY: Don’t send your kids off to school where they would be behind enemy lines.
Violet
@aimai:
Do you have data to support this statement? Not sure what you mean by “if you can help it”, as lots of things go into decisions about where to live–job availability, career advancement, educational opportunities, immediate family needs, extended family needs, climate, lifestyle, cost of living, etc.
Here’s an article from late 2012 talking about population growth:
The North Dakota boom is due to oil. Texas probably is too. Are those jobs “mobile middle class” or something else? Both of those are pretty red states.
Paul in KY
@Cassidy: I live/report from ‘behind enemy lines’.
The bourbon & barbeque make up for some of the horror (but then, I’m a male).
Anya
@Just Some Fuckhead: ewww! You’re so pervy, and not in a good way.
aimai
@Paul in KY: I’m practically about to homeschool her. No, just kidding. But I basically eliminated Virginia on the strength of the vaginal probe legislation even though they didn’t go through with it and even though she would never need to have an abortion in state–in other words we could fly her out if she needed medical care. Not that they care, exactly, but I wrote to the VA governor’s office during that entire insane scene and pointed out that I would never spend tourist or educational dollars in their state after this legislation had been mooted.
Cassidy
@Violet: Oil jobs? Yeah, that’s a pretty transient career field.
aimai
@Violet: Well, if you have options. Which I admit a lot of people don’t. The Texas and other oil extraction states are a different kettle of fish because they have jobs (at the moment) in a countercyclical way. But I’ve met people who turned down those jobs because they are in two income families and have children to educate and they don’t want to be in an anti education state. As for the Dakotas there was recently a long piece up at Kos about just how gender imbalanced South Dakota is getting because the jobs there are for men and they can’t afford to bring their families–because housing and education haven’t kept up. Some labor markets are national and others aren’t, some classes of people have a choice about where to move and some don’t. Quality of life matters to people and young people, historically, have been emptying out some of the most conservative parts of the country once the jobs dried up. Thats why you have hispanics in the middle of the country taking agribusiness jobs that used to be performed by the white children of the original settlers. Where do you think those people went? They left and went to job rich/culturally more complex places if they could. And my guess is that the ones that moved to blue states became more liberal, while the ones that moved within the red state zone took their conservativism with them.
But I don’t see people willingly moving from blue states to red states absent severe economic incentives at this point.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
This right here. A lot of the “Reagan Revolution” voters were ones who had voted for Nixon (twice) already. The 18-year-olds who voted for Reagan in 1980 are for the most part still voting Republican today.
You can change that a bit if a major social upheaval (like the civil rights movement) hits, but you really need something that huge to re-align people’s youthful impressions of the two parties.
Violet
@Cassidy: It definitely is. And it’s global. So you could end up working in Kuala Lumpur or Perth or offshore Angola. However, many of those jobs pay well, many of them are white collar/desk jobs, not on rigs or out in the field. Are those jobs the “mobile middle class” have or are those kinds of jobs something else?
Shakezula
I think the current narrative is “Sure I voted for him, but mumble mumble something I held my nose the other guy was worse.” So they’ve admitted they had a problem … But whether claiming they didn’t really want to vote for Dubya will prevent future problems … I don’t think so really.
I suspect we’ll soon be hearing how badly RMoney sucked and how much they hated him.
Joel
Mistakes were made! Misconceptions were found! The passive voice is such a great way to shift the burden of responsibility.
Violet
@aimai:
Feeding yourself and your family trumps everything if you simply cannot do it where you live. I saw stories of people (men, as you say) who were utterly desperate and slept in their car or truck in parking lots in North Dakota until they could get some kind of oil job. But the salaries very well could put those men into the middle class. Not sure if they do count as “mobile middle class” in your description, though.
Seems like two issues here–one is the rural to urban migration that has been happening for over a century. More people moving to cities, but someone still has to work on the farms. That’s the second issue–Hispanics doing jobs that used to be done by “the white children of the original settlers.” They are low paying, dangerous, hard and not very stable jobs and are filled people who can’t get work elsewhere–currently that is Latino immigrants.
Not everyone left the rural farm life because they wanted a more culturally complex place to live. Farming is challenging work and many farmers live on the edge financially. A lot of them don’t want that for their kids and do what they can to help them have other opportunities. Those opportunities are in cities. That’s what has fueled the rural to urban migration.
Cassidy
@Violet: I would count it as such, but there is a particular class of job that these fit under: contractor. This also covers the boom in PMC employement this decade and MIC jobs. These guys (mostly males) will work for these companies and travel and get paid very well, while the family is at home living fairly well because so much of it is tax free or thye get paid enough to cover the taxes. If you recall, I was offerred work for 180K as a medic for a PMC for a year. These types of transient, skilled labor jobs definitely make middle class pay or better, but they themselves work very long days for very long periods of time to get it and they don’t get to enjoy the pay that much. I knew a guy who spent 6 years with Blackwater and made enough money to buy his personal arsenal, house, cars, start a business, but still got another job traveling. He was addicted to the money and travel.
But these types of jobs exist everywhere, even health care and emergency services.
Cassidy
ETA: I was offerred work in Isreal for a year for 100K, just to work an 8 hour shift in a clinic. I turned it down because there was no structured leave policy.
aimai
@Violet: Many of them are white collar jobs? Really? The North Dakota boom, such as it is, is largely in rig jobs hence the massive gender imbalance–they are not hiring white or pink collar workers at the same rate or at the high salaries.
Violet
@Cassidy:
Yep. A lot of nurses travel around the world working whenever they need to make some money to keep going. There’s a shortage of nurses in some African countries because they go to somewhere like the Philippines because the Philippines nurses come to the US. It’s all about better salaries than what you can get elsewhere.
As for the oil business, those types of contractor jobs exist for sure. But the kind of jobs where you move your family are also part of the mix. Plenty of oil job kids out there who have similar childhood experiences to “Army brats.” And those jobs are frequently white collar desk jobs.
Paul in KY
@aimai: I hate Virginia too! I know you/her/Mr. Aimai will find an excellent college. Please let us know which one you have chosen.
I’m throwing a fiver down on it being Smith College ;-)
aimai
@Violet: Yes, I agree–there are a bunch of thing happening. But the original assertion I made was with respect to this: who are young people today going to be voting for in 20 or 30 years? The answer is not going to be “their father’s Republican party.” Why? Because the conservative areas in the country are either fucking over their young people and so young people are moving away, or the kind of job growth that the conservative areas in the country are undergoing are temporary. You brought up Texas and North Dakota–both of those are an economic sugar high, not real food. The kinds of salaries that the men who take those jobs get will put them in the middle class (briefly) but neither the jobs nor the money are going to last for long and like every other extractive economy the knock on effects are not going to be healthy for the community. You can already see it in the migratory pattern which has the men move for the money/job but leave their families elsewhere where the state or the community is already subsidizing education, health care, roads, etc…
When the kids grow up what politics are they going to follow? The politics of their migratory father and the low tax/low benefit/high injury state their father moved to for part of their childhood or the state the father left them behind in to grow up?
Cassidy
@Violet: Heh, I didn’t realize that the oil jobs moved the families as much. I just assumed they did the same as other contract type work and that the desk jobs were largely stationary.
KG
@Suffern ACE: I’d actually love to see numbers cross-referenced for age groups each cycle. If you’re 18-24 in 2000, you’d be 22-28 in 2004, 26-32 in 2008, and 30-36 in 2012. What I’m wondering is if that cohort stayed fairly consistent in its voting patterns. But we don’t know because of the way they break age groups down in the polls.
? Martin
I think something overlooked in that report is young people’s increasing inoculation to hyperbole. I think one of the benefits of growing up on Reddit and such places is that you develop pretty decent bullshit detectors. The GOP doesn’t know how to deliver messages in moderation. Everything is tyranny. Everything is totalitarianism. Everyone is Hitler. Even if you were 18 and thought the Dems were more anti-gun than they suggest, you’re not going to go all the way to FEMA death camps as the motive. It’s just too fucking stupid. And it’d be fine if you had to resort to nutpicking to get there, but it’s blaring across Fox News and being advanced by members of Congress. The reason why The Daily Show is effective is that they highlight members of Congress saying this shit, and make the crazy appear to be fully mainstream – which is hard to argue against when you have a Congressperson up there doing the crazy.
aimai
@Paul in KY: My mother’s alma mater! We have only just begun this process and its up to her, really, to pick what makes sense for her but its just creepy looking at rights specifically for young women or for young voters on a state by state basis. Of course colleges are often a tiny island of liberalism in a sea of conservativism but, really, my point was that I think college aged kids are much more aware of this stuff than we were at the same age. It doesn’t help the Republican cause that–for example in New Hampshire and Maine–the local politicians have been so incredibly anti-college student precisely because they fear college students will be more liberal than the surrounding population and turn the states blue. A lot of college aged kids are radicalized by discovering just how fucked up their parent’s generation of politicians are when it comes to punishing college aged kids for even trying to register to vote or cast a vote, either in their college or at home.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Well, not here in KL itself. The oil rigs are off the coast of Terengganu and Sarawak states.
Violet
@aimai: Well, generally there are more workers than managers in any job situation. So of course there’s a boom in rig jobs. However, there are a lot of white collar desk jobs in the oil business. Those folks may occasionally go to a site, but they spend the majority of their time inside.
As for the gender imbalance, this is nothing new to the oil business. It has long been a business full of mostly men. Mostly white men, to be specific. It is starting to change, but they’re not there yet. It’s a very male environment, even in the desk jobs.
NickT
@c u n d gulag:
At 46 Paul Ryan is a member of the Very Very Young Republicans.
MikeJ
@? Martin:
Many people believe the way to cut through the clutter is to be LOUDER THAN ALL THE OTHER NONSENSE. They don’t seem to get that it makes them look as insane as the other loud people.
catclub
@Todd: “There’s some things so foul that literotica won’t publish”
This is like quining. 1. There is nothing on earth that hasn’t had some form of porn made out of it.
2. There are some things so foul that literotica won’t publish it.
3. ????
4. Profit!
Its like Newton making a rock so big he can’t move it, or something.
Violet
@aimai:
I agree that young people won’t be voting for “their father’s Republican party”. I think that’s largely because that party won’t exist then. There’s no way it can. It’s a dead-end party at this point, full of old white people and anti-everything-else. That’s not the future. So there’s no way it can stay the same.
I am not sure that young people are moving away from areas because conservative areas are “fucking over their young people.” I’d like to see some data to support that.
We have been discussing Texas and North Dakota, however the next states on the list I quoted are:
Are those states growing because of oil jobs? Seem to be redder than expected states if young people are fleeing conservative states due to policies.
catclub
@NickT: Hyde, of Hyde amendment fame, tried to his excuse his affair, at 46?, as a youthful indiscretion. 46 year olds have grandchildren.
Violet
@Amir Khalid:
I’m going to have to disagree with you, as I know several people personally who have moved to KL for oil related jobs. White collar, desk jobs. They moved their families too. These are Americans who moved to KL to work at desk jobs in the oil business. Yes, the rigs are offshore, but the jobs are not all offshore on rigs.
fuckwit
That was awesome; thanks for my LOL of the day. Truly horrible visual, by the way.
bemused
@aimai:
That is a very good point to make. I think I will drop that on certain very protective and very republican moms and grandmoms I know. Generally, these folks just don’t think about consequences of very conservative legislations for their own near and dear.
I don’t think any amount of negative polls is going to mean a thing to Republicans who were positive Romney had the presidency in the bag. They want what they want and it will happen, the hell with dismal data. Besides, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Any somewhat realistic Republicans can’t possibly change that in the short term and maybe not even in the long term.
Mandalay
@? Martin: Another interesting thing in that report was that some issues were deal breakers for young people. For example, even if jobs and the economy was the single most important issue to a person, and they preferred the Republican position, they still might never vote Republican because of their position on gay marriage.
Some here think that the Republicans are permanently fucked, but if they cut out the hateful rhetoric, and moderate their positions on gays and immigration, they will be back in business. We are already seeing a kinder, gentler Fox News.
Violet
@KG:
I’d love to know that too. I bet the Obama data team has some info on it. Probably won’t make it public, though.
Keith G
@aimai:
That statement is presumptive and less than accurate. Houston’s economy is generating high job growth and in-country migration is stepping up to meet the needs. Houston’s “young professional” population is surging.
And, it’s not just Houston as “Eight of the 15 fastest-growing large U.S. cities and towns for the year ending July 1, 2012 were in Texas,”
My emphasis.
catclub
@Capri: “Per their definitions, most people under 40 are “takers” and their message is aimed at “makers.”
Of course, per their definitions, most people over 65 are also takers, but they find it more convenient to forget that, since they vote more reliably.
Violet
@Mandalay:
Not sure the Republicans can do it without alienating the base.
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat:
That might have been a reason gushed by the media to fill up air time, but from memory it was men rather than women, who were excited about having Palin on the ticket.
Regardless, no reputable polling company would have been advising the Republicans that Palin would pull in women voters. Vice presidents don’t matter.
fuckwit
@? Martin: True, this is the internet generation, the first generation to grow up with Open Source software, Creative Commons, Google, Wikipedia, etc. It’s all out in the open. And… this is affecting how busineses market stuff too. It’s no longer sufficient just to SAY you’re good, you actually have to be good. It’s changing the way business is done. People want to see what’s under the hood, they want to see the ingredients, they want the source code and the right to study and modify it and redistribute it, they want straight fucking answers and to know what who they’re dealing with is competent and honest. And a 5-second trip to Google or WIkipedia will quickly determine that.
I was talking with some friends, we had some dispute about some tiny point about some obscure band or some bit of TV or sports trivia, I don’t remember, and we all whipped out our smartphones and hit WIkipedia, problem solved, facts obtained, and the conversation moved on. The days when you could ramrod bullshit through just by being the loudest asshole are long over.
catclub
@Mandalay: “Regardless, no reputable polling company would have been advising the Republicans …”
I think I see the problem.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay: You completely missed the point I was making, which was that GOP tokenism does not work. I gave another example which had nothing to do with the Vice Presidency.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Okay, fair enough. I guess I forgot the desk jobs.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: And I guess that’s what my point was about the oil jobs boom. People tend to think it’s all roughnecks working on rigs. It’s not. There’s a lot of other stuff that goes into it and plenty of desk jobs and other white collar jobs that require a college degree.
The folks I know who have moved to KL love it! They think the food is great and love the warm weather and access to Singapore and ability to travel to Australia and the rest of Asia easily.
catclub
@fuckwit: ” they want straight fucking answers and to know what who they’re dealing with is competent and honest. And a 5-second trip to Google or WIkipedia will quickly determine that.”
I suspect that companies with a smart web manager may be able to neutralize the ability of Google or Wikipedia to determine in 5 seconds whether they are competent and honest. And not in a good way.
Frankly, I think Warren Buffett could become a total dirtbag for three years before his reputation would catch up to the change, and that is without a web manager protecting his online reputation.
And another thing, if hyperbole is not good for the GOP, why do we still complain about the press being so bad and chasing bogus stories?
Bill in Section 147
@c u n d gulag: The distance between 46 and 16 is much closer than the Koch-Bro crowd and Brocrush Incubus so of course he is young.
Keith G
@Violet:
Yet, they will change. The change will be more likely via Christy or a Christy-like candidate being nominated and then winning. It will end up being a move that approximates a mirror image of what Clinton did in the early 1990s. That is to say, a candidate that can strengthen the more moderate voices of that party and then rally the rest with the hope of a good win.
It won’t be easy, but I have learned during my long life that even at the worst of times, neither political party is as weak as their opposition believes they are.
Bubblegum Tate
@MattR:
Hell, they don’t even sound good in theory. Republican economic policies are: “We’re not going to help you, poor people. We’re only going to help rich people, and then maybe those rich people will help you, but that’s not our problem.”
Shakezula
@? Martin: Plus there’s the fact that most people don’t like it when other people puke a bucket of bile onto their laps. Would it be worse in person? Sure. But I have to question how often people behave that way in face-to-face situations. Especially once you get out of early adulthood. The fact that people use the net to say things they’d never say to your face makes it worse.
And then, when you hear an elected official saying the same thing some anonymous cock biter said, that office holder becomes the official representative of the cock biter.
Violet
@Keith G: The other option is the Republican party kind of dies off or becomes a third party and the moderate members or Libertarian members and voters or whoever end up creating another party. We have had a history of new political parties being created, although it hasn’t happened for a long time.
McJulie
Nobody’s mentioned it yet, so I will: don’t discount the generational divide that marks those who remember the cold war, and those who do not. People younger than 40 never learned to jump in fright when you say the word “socialism.”
But it seems obvious that the party that wants to stand athwart history yelling “STOP!” will eventually lose touch with younger generations.
IowaOldLady
@Violet: I saw some data on baby boomer votes that I can’t find now. In 2008, the boomers were between 44 and 62 years old. The data I saw showed that older half were more likely to vote for Obama than the younger half.
That squares with the older group coming of age during Viet Nam and the younger group first voting in the Reagan era.
In 2012, the boomer vote split pretty evenly but that tells us nothing about the breakdown within this 18 year span.
Bubblegum Tate
@aimai:
The bit where they said “we should appear to welcome healthy debate about gay marriage” was some great MBA/PR-speak as well. Nobody gives a fuck about whether you’re having “healthy debate” (which, be real, you aren’t having at all) about gay marriage because once that “healthy debate” is over, you’re going to oppose it, right? Right.
Keith G
@Violet: True. Yet, the last two major changes in a political party were more about transitions then actual “death of a party”.
Lincoln was a Whig Congressman before he was a Republican president. The name did change, though in essence the party was almost the same but with an addition of stronger abolitionist voices.
Though the name stayed the same, FDR moved the power bases and focus of the Democratic Party in a change that I would argue was much more dramatic than the Whig-to-Republican transformation.
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat: @Mandalay:
Exactly so. It was men that were excited. That’s why it was men who chose her. And men who thought women would go for her.
Women could generally peg her as a mean girl in the 1st 5 minutes.
StringOnAStick
@Keith G:
Indeed this is true and energy companies have a ton to do with it. I occasionally work with graduate students from the local engineering school (a famous one). At the end of the most recent semester, I found all the graduate students had jobs lined up, and so did most of the undergrads (or at least they had many interviews on deck). Of all those newly-minted engineers, only one was taking a job in Texas (Houston) and he made it clear that his contract said “one year only” and then he got to come back to Denver. He said if they didn’t hold to that promise, he’d quit and come back to Denver on his own. All the rest of the oil-related engineering graduates told me they were thrilled that they’d found work here instead of in Texas, and one of them had taken a job in Calgary in order to avoid Texas. Perhaps as top-notch graduates of a top-notch school, they had better choices than most.
As a former member of the geology profession and one who grew up bouncing from boomtown to boomtown, I can say that the biggest problem with those kinds of jobs is they are so transient and boomtown life sucks, especially for families. I talked to one geologist who works in N. Dak. and he said he wouldn’t bring his family there because housing was awful and the schools were worse, with plenty of trouble for kids to get into and a generally abysmal boomtown environment. What I remember from working around drill rigs in the 1980’s is the high amount of substance abuse, especially speed (I’m sure meth is common now as well).
Yeah, there are jobs and they pay well, what comes with it is all the social ills of boomtown life. Houston is obviously a place that has some culture and isn’t an overwhelmed small town in N or S Dak, but both areas were on the “avoid at all costs” list for the latest crop of graduating engineers I spent time with this semester.
Violet
@muddy:
Ain’t that the truth. I remember watching her speech when McCain announced her as his running mate and I could tell even at that point. It only got worse from there. Women know that type.
@StringOnAStick: Did they tell you why they were wanting to avoid taking a job in Texas? Was it the political climate, as aimai suggested or something else? Weather? Too far from family?
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat:
So to be clear, you are stating that the failures of Sarah Palin (woman) and Alan Keyes (black) when pitted against Obama provides clear evidence that GOP tokenism doesn’t work?
Well how about Colin Powell (black), and Condi Rice (black and woman)? Why don’t they prove that GOP tokenism DOES work? Isn’t it possible that for Keyes and Palin the issue of tokenism is irrelevant, and their craziness is their downfall?
Mandalay
@catclub:
Point taken!
jl
@Mnemosyne:
I think the failure of the conservative/reactionary movement to deliver plays a role in making many of the younger people GOPer base so crazy and strident.
Being tail end of boomers and whatever the next thing was (Jones? X? I keep forgetting), I remember that those immediately older than me fretting about downward mobility, and blaming the denial of any benny they wanted to affirmative action. Lots of glibertarian babble about ‘paleo-liberalism’ and ‘liberal pieties’, etc. Reagan and Morning in America would deliver. But except it didn’t. For many, their youthful impressions were too hard to change and they descended into denial and IMHO, near madness.
@Keith G: I agree that the GOP will probably not disappear. What I think the 30 year old race/class/Xtianist wedge issue and hate and fear mongering has to disappear. The cynical exploitation of insecurity in foreign affairs for narrow partisan gain has to disappear. The cynical and insane trying to manipulate and ever dwindling bunch of older white psychological and mental losers and bitters had to disappear. I don’t know the GOP will do that without alienating its beloved older bigoted and fearful and bitter white base. And it looks like they have little interest in really figuring out how to do that.
Maybe, some commenters suggest, Christie could pull it off. But could Christie hide his Romney-esque economic policy.
Maybe an Arnold could pull it off, but remember that the GOP considers Arnie a damned commie. The CA GOP totally abandoned him. Most of the constructive stuff he did was with the CA Dems.
Mandalay
@Mandalay: @schrodinger’s cat:
According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey published on September 9, 2008, John McCain had gained huge support among white women voters since the announcement;[13] he had not only surpassed Obama in white women voters, but also amassed a lead of five percentage points in the Gallup polls.
catclub
@jl: ” For many, their youthful impressions were too hard to change and they descended into denial and IMHO, near madness.”
Yes, but anything about the best minds of your generation?
jl
@StringOnAStick:
Interesting story. I hear the same thing in the engineering people I know.It’ s not so much the climate or the place, or the boondocks, its the culture and and dealing with the shark eats shark mentality. I mean, going to consult on claims in effing Seward Peninsula or some goofball project in the boondocks of NV or Utah is one thing. You get a little adventure and great outdoors.
Mucking around with loons in OK, or TX or similar places, no way. The amenities don’t make up for the risk and sacrifice. If you have to, you get in and get out asap. And be very careful about who you work with if its out in the field, since a person can get hurt out there.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay: Which elections did Rice and Powell win? Palin’s views are hardly fringe in today’s GOP.
jl
@catclub:
If my circle of relatives and friends of same age is any indication, all the ones who started out as GOPers have gone Dem or are independents.
Even the younger family gun nut has gone conservaDem. He don’t like crazy people with lots of guns they can carry around. Hates stand your ground laws. Thinks they’re stupid.
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat:
You certainly have a point. Just for the record, and much to my surprise, Wikipedia confirms that initially Palin was doing great with white women….
It was a couple of weeks later, after the Couric interview and the SNL lampoon, that Palin tanked. (i.e. After it became blindingly obvious that she was dumber than a box of rocks.)
jl
@Mandalay:
I think people forget that Palin, when she was nominated, had the rep of a moderate, competent, reform GOPer. I remember even Kos referring to her that way. But Palin herself soon corrected people’s misoverestimation.
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat: If you want to delude yourself that the election failures of Keyes and Palin provide evidence that tokenism doesn’t work then go right ahead.
Keyes is extreme and crazy, and Palin is divisive, dumb and lazy. Tokenism has nothing to do with it.
ETA And in your world why aren’t Jindall, Haley and Scott evidence that Republican tokenism does work?
schrodinger's cat
@jl: I remember her first speech after being nominated, and she was wearing red pumps, Naughty Monkey or something cheesy like that was the brand name. I found it hard to take her seriously after hearing her first speech. This was before the Katie Couric and Gibson interviews.
aimai
@Mandalay: You really have to assume that the “did great with women” in the first few weeks after she was announced had more to do with the fact that people had no idea who or what she was than any virtue inherent in Palin. I well remember when Geraldine Ferraro was chosen as Mondale’s running mate–people were interviewed on the street about it and they couldn’t even grasp she was female. They all said things like “I really wish him well.” My point is that Palin got a name recognition/role is filled kind of bounce that had nothing to do with how women (even white women) ultimately came to feel about her.
Redshirt
Tina Fey did the world a great service with her impersonation of Palin in 08.
Keith G
@StringOnAStick: Their loss.
Houston isn’t an oil boom town any more. – though energy is important.
In 2006-2007 FY, the Port of Houston was responsible for over 700,000 attributable jobs. The Texas Medical Center directly employs over 93,500 people living in the Houston area. Attributable jobs are a much higher number of course.
And contrary to Aimee’s data empty assertion that Texas is an anti education state, it is not. That is not to say that there are not problems. There are issues…and progress in being made addressing many of them. As I was scanning over the National Merit Scholarship Award data, I noticed Texas again compares very favorably to the top group of states.
Texas is big and it facing many big problems, but it is not close the the notorious caricature that some buy into.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay: What was the percentage of minority votes Jindal and Haley got? Did they win the miniscule South Asian vote? All I am saying is that just because GOP chooses a woman/ black person/ Latino does not immediately imply that the constituents of that particular group will overwhelming go to the GOP candidate. A candidate’s stand on the issues matters more than their gender/race/ethnicity. Its not just the message or the messenger, actual policies also matter, especially if you are minority. That’s the reason GOP loses the black vote, the immigrant vote, women’s vote etc etc.
Ruckus
@Violet:
Women know that type
Men know them as well, we have a different name for them but the real problem is that men who only think with the tiny brain can’t recognize them.
jl
@catclub:
” Yes, but anything about the best minds of your generation? ”
But, OK, I get your sarcasm now. I think overall my generation is just as GOP as the the late boomers. And my circle is not representative. I guess the transformation of many of my immediate elders from rebellious hippies into bitter selfish deluded intolerant people was so striking it stuck in my mind. But for the Alex Keaton types, not much changed.
Chris
@MikeJ:
Well, yes, but,
@Matt McIrvin:
This.
I am a twenty five year old white man. In my anecdotal experience, people in my generation vote Republican for exactly the same reasons as their parents or grandparents;
1) They’re rich assholes, who’ve been told their whole life that everything wrong with the world is because of poor people, people on welfare, union members, other “leeches,” and the Fucking Liberal Bleeding Heart Class Traitors who indulge them.
2) They’re racist assholes, who’ve been told their whole life that everything wrong with the world is because of black people, Hispanic people, Muslim people, other “not real Americans,” and the Fucking Liberal Bleeding Heart Race Traitors who indulge them.
3) They’re puritan assholes, who’ve been told their whole life that everything wrong with the world is because of uppity women, gay people, other “sinners,” and the Fucking Liberal Bleeding Heart God Deniers who indulge them.
(These three categories may overlap).
There’s absolutely nothing new or specific to young people that explains those of them who vote Republican. It’s the same as it ever was.
Violet
@Keith G: And don’t forget that Houston has elected and re-elected an openly lesbian mayor. And that the city itself votes blue. Suburbs are another story.
jl
@Chris: When you say ‘demographics’, I interpret that to mean that the GOP policies are not producing enough new rich white people. But, that was their promise.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay: What was the percentage of minority votes Jindal and Haley got? Did they win the miniscule South Asian vote? All I am saying is that just because GOP chooses a woman/ black person/ Latino does not immediately imply that the constituents of that particular or other minority groups will overwhelming go to the GOP candidate.
A candidate’s stand on the issues matters more than their gender/race/ethnicity. Its not just the message or the messenger, actual policies also matter, especially if you are minority. That’s the reason GOP loses the black vote, the immigrant vote, women’s vote etc etc.
Keith G
@Violet: I know I sound like a booster. And actually, I should be working to keep the above myths in place, as the cost of living is just right and too many migrants will change that (already is).
In 1982, this bluer than blue Yankee moved down here “for a short while”. It’s easy for the lazy to snark on it, but it’s quite all right down here on the bayou.
Mandalay
@Chris: I’d add a fourth category to your list, spawned by Reagan…
4) They’re paranoid assholes who’ve been told their whole life that everything wrong with the world is because of the US government which is part of a new world order that steals their paycheck to buy T-Bones for those in your first category.
Chris
@Mandalay:
I think that category overlaps with all three – it’s a variant of the “Fucking Liberal Class/Race/God Traitors” whom they’re convinced are controlling the federal government.
Joel
@Keith G: While I agree, the question that I’ve always wondered is: where are the workers migrating from? If it’s other, more economically depressed Southern states and Mexico, then aimai’s point isn’t all that inaccurate.
justsomeguy
Yes, young folks are tending to vote for Democrats.
1. If the Democratic party is a corporate party that is similar to centrist Republicans of times past – what is gained by having Democrats elected ? In a two party “lesser of two evils” system, we seem to be moving ever rightward (aka “overton window”).
2. As people age, greater numbers migrate from “D” to “R” than go the opposite direction. Simplistic Republican memes can easily convince folks who are low-information or who as they age have reduced cognitive ability. I see it all the time – lifelong Democrats who due to diminished cognition become Republicans. Sometimes it happens at age 50, often at age 75. But it DOES happen to a noticeable degree.
Mandalay
@schrodinger’s cat:
That would be true in a perfect world, but the candidate’s stand on issues also determines their party affiliation, and party affiliation is usually the primary factor in determining who wins an election (the presidency being a notable exception to that general rule).
If you want a good example of GOP tokenism look at Senator Tim Scott from SC.
How anyone black could even consider being a Republican continues to astound me.
The Other Chuck
@Mandalay:
Assholery knows no racial distinctions, and spite does occasionally outweigh racism.
schrodinger's cat
@Mandalay: OK I agree that GOP fields some minority and women candidates who manage to get elected. This does not prove that these candidates attract more minorities/women than the average GOP politician.
Kina
What’s up colleagues, how is the whole thing, and what you would like to say on the topic of this paragraph, in my view its genuinely remarkable in support of me.