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You are here: Home / Unclear on the Concept

Unclear on the Concept

by John Cole|  October 24, 201410:49 am| 149 Comments

This post is in: Clown Shoes, Teabagger Stupidity

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A rising tide lifts all boats. A sinking tide hurts the boats at the bottom. Dems don't want minorities to know that http://t.co/JUiULpNEUo

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) October 24, 2014

Remember, even though it sounds like Democrats are going to get shellacked in 2014 (but you can stop it- go vote!), there is always the 2016 Republican primary to look forward to for all the lulz. Let’s see who can come up with the most mangled metaphor/saying. That should entertain us for a while before I find someone else to call an asshole.

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Previous Post: « Forbes wants death panels for the poor
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Reader Interactions

149Comments

  1. 1.

    feebog

    October 24, 2014 at 10:53 am

    They are going to need bigger clown car.

  2. 2.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 10:53 am

    I’m hoping Cain, Carson and West battle it out for the title of Black Man Most Eager to Tell Racist White People They’re Fine Folks Being Victimized by People Who Call Them Bigots. That should keep us occupied in the mirth department.

  3. 3.

    scav

    October 24, 2014 at 10:53 am

    Everyone!! Tides go in, Tides go out . . .

  4. 4.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 10:55 am

    @scav: Roll Tide…wait, I’m not keeping up with the group (scrambles to catch up).

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    October 24, 2014 at 10:56 am

    Putting the metaphor aside, perhaps Mr. Big-Business Cain could look at average performance of the economy under Democratic vs. Republican Presidents over the last few decades. You know, data.

    I kid, I kid. We all know he can’t do that.

  6. 6.

    Belafon

    October 24, 2014 at 10:57 am

    Don’t throw Cain in the briar patch. It’s better to keep him in your hand. Or something.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    October 24, 2014 at 10:57 am

    This ‘metaphor’ thing. How does that work?

  8. 8.

    Ben Cisco

    October 24, 2014 at 10:58 am

    A sinking tide hurts the boats at the bottom

    I’m pretty sure the boats are fucked well before they reach the bottom.

    @dmsilev: Data? Facts? BWAHAAHAA!!!

    Someone should tell Cain the Uncle Ruckus bit may be funny in cartoon form; in reality, less so.

  9. 9.

    Bob2

    October 24, 2014 at 10:59 am

    So Herman Cain is for a living wage or against?

    His quote is ambiguous on this.

  10. 10.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 10:59 am

    What the hell is sinking tide?

  11. 11.

    Alex S.

    October 24, 2014 at 11:01 am

    I like to think that the ocean is the mass of people while the boats swimming on top are the few rich people.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 11:01 am

    I’m normally a crepe-hanger, and I think holding the Senate is a longshot, but with the possible exception of Coakley v Whosits, I don’t see the Dems losing any races they “should” be winning. GOP stand to lose gov-ships in MI, FL, and PA– WI and ME are I think on the bubble? I’m prepping for an ugly Tuesday, and even if the Dems do hold the Senate, Chuck Todd will tell us the country is sending a strong message to Barack Obama that they don’t like him, but I think this is going to be a much smaller wave than 2010

  13. 13.

    Belafon

    October 24, 2014 at 11:04 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, it will hurt Obama’s chances in 2016. The reality is, we’re going to have to find a new candidate to replace Obama.

  14. 14.

    Hill Dweller

    October 24, 2014 at 11:06 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There are too many stupid/ignorant people in this country. Why would someone vote for a Republican? They offer nothing. Hell, if you’re a potential Democratic voter, they’ll do everything to prevent you from voting. It’s so f’n discouraging.

  15. 15.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 11:06 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the Senate is a toss-up, it will depend on turning out the vote. I don’t buy the MSM narrative that it is going to be Republican cakewalk. In 2012 they were touting the election as a toss-up when it was clear that Obama had a small but consistent lead. I am skeptical of the MSM narratives.

  16. 16.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:07 am

    @Belafon: On the other hand, things are looking good for John McCain.

  17. 17.

    scav

    October 24, 2014 at 11:07 am

    @shortstop: Well, if you’re going to that aisle in the store, could you pick up some of the anti-static whatzit while you’re at it?

  18. 18.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:08 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: Everyone should be skeptical of the MSM narratives. The metapolling, not so much.

  19. 19.

    Newdealfarmgrrrlll

    October 24, 2014 at 11:08 am

    What a dumbfuck. Bigger boats have bigger keels so they’re gonna get stranded first. Sheesh.

  20. 20.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:08 am

    @scav: Of course, just as soon as I get out of Aisle 8A.

  21. 21.

    El Caganer

    October 24, 2014 at 11:09 am

    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    October 24, 2014 at 11:10 am

    That train has sailed, and it’s too late to shut the barn door after the train has left the dock.

  23. 23.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 11:11 am

    @shortstop: If it is such a good year for the Republicans why are Democrats competitive in Georgia and Kentucky Senate races?

  24. 24.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:13 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: I don’t think it’s “such a good year for Republicans.” Why would you think I was arguing that?

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 11:13 am

    His metaphor is a little tortured, but at least he’s got the concept that the rich people’s boats are on top of the poor people’s. Not quite sure how he gets to Dems not telling people that, though.

  26. 26.

    scav

    October 24, 2014 at 11:13 am

    I swear, their brains must melt like the variously directioned Wicked Witches when put anywhere near H2O. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R): “The most comforting thing that I heard … was that water kills the Ebola virus.”

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    October 24, 2014 at 11:13 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: Well, running a candidate who gets up and says “I’m proud of my career of outsourcing American jobs to Asia” probably had something to do with it. Can we dub Perduing as the economic equivalent of Akining?

  28. 28.

    Chris

    October 24, 2014 at 11:16 am

    What the fuck does that MEAN? If the boats are at the bottom of the ocean, then the sinking tide doesn’t affect them at all, because they were already fucking sunk as low as they’re going to get. If you mean the boats that are still afloat, then there are none on the bottom, or at the top, they’re all on the same surface. And what the fuck is a “sinking” tide? Did you mean “receding?”

    “A rising tide lifts all boats” was always meaningless feel-good crap, but trust Herman Cain to elevate the absurdity of it into hitherto uncharted dimensions.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 11:16 am

    Good news from Sam Stein’s twitter twaddle:

    Nina Pham will be discharged from the NIH. Both her and her dog no longer have Ebola.

    IIANM, that’s a one hundred percent cure rate for domestically contracted US Ebola victims, and we do capitalize Ebola?

    @Hill Dweller: it occurred to me the other day that Cory Gardner is essentially rerunning Bush’s 2000 campaign. “Extremist? Me? Oh record, schmecord! I’m a nice guy!” And it seems to be working.

  30. 30.

    MattF

    October 24, 2014 at 11:17 am

    @Chris: I wouldn’t say ‘uncharted’:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao

    But I won’t deny that his hovercraft is full of eels.

  31. 31.

    Chris T.

    October 24, 2014 at 11:17 am

    A rising tide lifts all yachts. What, you don’t have a yacht? Well IGMFY!

  32. 32.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    October 24, 2014 at 11:18 am

    “A rising tide lifts all boats*.”
    *Those losers who don’t have a boat are shit out of luck, shows them for being too poor to afford one.

    This has got to be one of my most hated metaphors ever, considering how much it’s been used to justify an economic movement shown to fail time and time again and yet given the utmost credence and deference over and over and over a-fucking-gain.

    You know, just like the entire GOP’s platform.

  33. 33.

    Belafon

    October 24, 2014 at 11:18 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: Daily Kos has done a pretty good job of polling, aggregating, and showing trends. After 2010, the site at least wanted to be more realistic about outcomes this time. Here’s there most recent post about polls and Democrats chances in the Senate: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/23/1338560/-Daily-Kos-Election-Outlook-Stability-reigns-for-the-moment.

    The top of the website has a timeline for the number of seats the Democrats are likely to have after the election, which has stood at 48 for a month.

    As for why is it “such a good year for Republicans,” I agree it’s not. They should be taking more seats considering all the Democrats are defending and the weakness during midterms. But that doesn’t mean they won’t gain seats.

  34. 34.

    Patrick

    October 24, 2014 at 11:20 am

    A rising tide lifts all boats. A sinking tide hurts the boats at the bottom. Dems don’t want minorities to know that

    The economy was roaring under Clinton.
    Bush then magically turned Clinton’s budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits with an economy in freefall.
    Under Obama the economy has recovered and it is once again getter better.

    It is scary to think that Mr Cain, with such little understanding, was actually running a major company at one time…

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    IIANM, that’s a one hundred percent cure rate for domestically contracted US Ebola victims

    And dogs! Don’t forget dogs!

  36. 36.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 24, 2014 at 11:21 am

    Uh… Cain, the Democrats are the ones pushing this message. You know, that screwing over the poor hurts the vast majority of the population? You’re the guys pushing the message that most people aren’t worth helping.

  37. 37.

    NonyNony

    October 24, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @Chris:

    What the fuck does that MEAN?

    It means he either doesn’t understand the analogy or doesn’t understand the physics of how tides lift boats.

    The assumption in the analogy is that no matter the size of the boat, a rising tide lifts them all. You know -big boats are the rich people, small boats are the poor people and a good economy helps everyone.

    So the response that Cain should have gone for is something like “a sinking tide hurts the smallest boats the most”. Except it, you know, doesn’t. In fact the biggest boats in a sinking tide have the most to lose since they sit lower in the water and so can get stuck on sandbars more easily when the tide lowers the water.

    He should have stuck with pie analogies except that as former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza he probably knows less about pies than he does about boats.

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 11:23 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not seeing a wave at all; maybe a slight Republican lean exacerbated by the Democrats’ midterm turnout problem.

    The main reason the Democrats are in danger of losing the Senate now has to do with the specifics of the election schedule: the Senate is very close to fifty-fifty and the seats currently up are ones that were last up for election in 2008, a Democratic-leaning year, which makes the Senators in question more likely to be Democrats who would not have won in less favorable circumstances. For the same reason, 2016 is likely to be better (even aside from Democrats’ better turnout in presidential years).

  39. 39.

    raven

    October 24, 2014 at 11:25 am

    I listen to this asshole on my way back from the Y every day. The fact that he ran a successful business highlights the fact that any dumb ass motherfucker can do it.

  40. 40.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:26 am

    @Belafon: Yep, the aggregate polling supports Jim, Foolish Literalist’s summary and yours (which was really all I was pointing out to SC above). 1) We are unlikely to hold the Senate. 2) It’s not going to be a bloodbath like 2010.

  41. 41.

    raven

    October 24, 2014 at 11:27 am

    Scarborough loves that “tides” shit.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    October 24, 2014 at 11:27 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Chuck Todd will tell us the country is sending a strong message to Barack Obama that they don’t like him, but I think this is going to be a much smaller wave than 2010

    Well the media seems hell bent on destroying and/or undermining his Presidency. They sure do ignore the hell out of the positives that are happening in our society.

    1. Crime rates at record lows
    2. Teen pregnancy rates at record lows
    3. High school graduation rates at record highs

    I know a lot of folks are deeply scarred and insecure between the downturn in 2001 + 9/11/01 and the Great Recession and really have problems accepting things, in some areas, are actually getting better, but they are.

    The media is playing on the insecurity people have built up over the last 12-13 years and continuously reinforcing it with reckless abandon.

    Chuck Todd, and his ilk, should go to jail on charges of general public endangerment.

  43. 43.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 11:28 am

    I suppose the background to this is that inside the wingnut bubble, the Obama Economy is a disaster. At least, that’s my guess, based on Ed Gillespie’s ads about the “Obama-Warner Economy” that he will make much better by cutting taxes and regulation and opposing a minimum wage increase. Oh, and getting rid of the sequester.

    The thing that pisses me off is that the US economy overall is doing reasonably well these days, and would be doing better if our government weren’t in the grip of anti-government extremists and idiot Democrats who buy into the Republican scam that the deficit must be cut even in a recession/Depression (only when a Democrat is president, of course.) But Democratic candidates can’t effectively run on that because Republicans have spent the last 20+ years rigging the system so the gains all go to the 0.1%, so people are still hurting.

  44. 44.

    Chris

    October 24, 2014 at 11:29 am

    @shortstop:

    There’s always one in their primaries who stands out as the worst of the worst, and in 2012 for me it was Cain.

    There was just something puke inducing about the speed with which he switched from his raging bigot (when gleefully discussing electrified fences to fry Mexicans at the border, promising no Muslims in his administration, joking about how he wouldn’t ever let a Muslim treat him) to simpering boot-licker (meekly apologizing for having taken offence at Rick Perry’s ranch being called “Ni[CLANG]head” instead of remembering his place).

  45. 45.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:29 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The Senate Class 3 map is much more favorable to us. I’ve been comforting myself with visions of certain annoying relatives’ heads exploding when we hold the White House, retake the Senate and gain some coattail House seats in 2016.

  46. 46.

    RareSanity

    October 24, 2014 at 11:30 am

    @dmsilev:

    Doesn’t matter the opponent or what they’ve said or done.

    If a Democrat is competitive in a statewide race, in Georgia, it’s notable.

  47. 47.

    gene108

    October 24, 2014 at 11:31 am

    A rising tide lifts all boats. A sinking tide hurts the boats at the bottom

    If your boat is at the bottom, which I assume means below the water’s surface, a sinking tide would actually make it easier to get at your, as the water level is lower and salvage what you can from the wreckage.

    A rising tide will not, unless you have a very, very small boat, or there’s some sort of huge mega-hurricane type storm surge, actually lift your sunken boat from the depths of the ocean’s deep.

  48. 48.

    catclub

    October 24, 2014 at 11:31 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Wave elections are mostly in the House, when a huge number of one party gets swept out. They get swept out because a huge number got swept in the previous election – as in 2008. IN 2012 there was no big sweep so there will be none in 2014.

  49. 49.

    Violet

    October 24, 2014 at 11:32 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Aren’t Chuck Todd’s ratings down from even the lows of Dancing Dave? One can only hope he’ll be off the TV soon.

  50. 50.

    Hill Dweller

    October 24, 2014 at 11:32 am

    When Republicans start shutting down the government again next year, the Beltway(and likely the stupid f’n public) will blame Obama.

  51. 51.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:33 am

    @Chris: Wasn’t it grotesque? But he’s got real competition with Carson now, and although West won’t run (despite constant pleading from the “I’m not a racist; I love THIS black man who hates black people, too!” crowd), he’s sucking up valuable media time as well. Cain’s going to have to work a lot harder and lick a lot more boots.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 11:33 am

    More generally, when it comes to the Senate, it’s always worth remembering that only a third of the Senate seats are up in any given Senatorial election year, so there’s a source of additional sampling bias that has to be factored in when trying to gauge the national mood from the Senate election alone. The House is a better indicator, though even there there are turnout effects, etc.

  53. 53.

    The Moar You Know

    October 24, 2014 at 11:34 am

    A rising tide lifts all boats. A sinking tide hurts the boats at the bottom.

    Still incoherent, I see.

    A tsunami lifts the boats on top more, yet only the people on top claim that’s a good thing.

    Hey, I can be incoherent too!

  54. 54.

    catclub

    October 24, 2014 at 11:36 am

    @shortstop: Yeah, this. And only realizing it after paying more and more attention over the last ten years, that patience is only rewarded over long time periods.

    2010 was surprise to me, but it should not have been.

    The evidence I would quote for ‘The US is a center right nation’ is that Republicans get 8-10 years to screw things up, but Democrats get 2 years to fix all that before getting mostly thrown out. See:
    1978, 1994, 2010.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 11:36 am

    @gene108: I’d only argue that the feelings of insecurity go back a lot farther than Aughts’ Recession. Stagnant real wages, declining pension security, sky-rocketing collage costs all go back about thirty years, I believe (huh, what else happened thirty odd years ago….?) Krugman IIRC said last week that in the Great Depression, the rich were the hardest hit, in the Lesser Depression, the rich were largely unscathed. But Reagan managed to convince a lot middle/working class white people that government was their enemy, and something called “government spending” (not including Social Security, medicare or military spending) was hurting their take home pay and savings rates.

    @Redshift: Gillespie was supposed to be a Very Serious challenger, wasn’t he? I think I read last week the RSCC has stopped spending on his behalf. Warner and Franken were supposed to be vulnerable, so there’s two more in my “This Could Suck More!” campaign

  56. 56.

    catclub

    October 24, 2014 at 11:37 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    Hey, I can be incoherent too!

    A rising tsunami smashes boats farther inshore.

  57. 57.

    Bubblegum Tate

    October 24, 2014 at 11:37 am

    @dmsilev:

    Putting the metaphor aside, perhaps Mr. Big-Business Cain could look at average performance of the economy under Democratic vs. Republican Presidents over the last few decades. You know, data.

    Right now, wingnuts are super-duper pissed that the economy has improved to the point where federal tax receipts exceeded $3 trillion for the first time in 2014. In complaining about that, the wingnuts I know are also grumbling about how both unemployment and gas prices are down. I think that’s a fantastic message to take to the voters: “We think an improving economy, lower unemployment, and lower gas prices are terrible and will work tirelessly to reverse those things!”

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 11:37 am

    @shortstop: Well, it’s never a sure thing.

    Right now, Democrats’ hopes are pinned to a worrying degree on Hillary Clinton, and aside from what one might think about Hillary Clinton personally as a leader and a politician (she’s not my favorite but I think she’d be better than many alternatives), I keep fretting about the situation in which something unexpected happens and she doesn’t run, or gets removed from the race. She could have health problems, some sort of real or bogus scandal, just decide she doesn’t want to do it, etc. And with anyone other than Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential race looks like much less of a slam-dunk.

  59. 59.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    October 24, 2014 at 11:41 am

    Minorities: The Submarines of the US of A

  60. 60.

    Ben Cisco

    October 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    Speaking of conservatives who don’t have the sense FSM gave the amardillo:

    Alan Keyes, however, thinks Cruz’s staffer was on to something, writing in a column for WorldNetDaily today that President Obama is hoping to bring people with the Ebola virus into America, “each of them carrying a biological weapon of mass destruction,” in order to use the health care law to destroy freedom under the pretext of combating “the resulting health crisis.”

    Keyes explains that Obama wants to “spread the Ebola epidemic to America” because the president is bent on “suppressing the liberty of people who are accustomed to living in freedom.”

    “The Obama faction’s plan to import Ebola-infected persons into the United States maintains the outward appearance of and unarmed invasion,” Keyes writes, adding that “by way of this sly biological warfare, ‘Obamacare’ morphs into ‘Ebolacare.’”

    WHAT. THE. HELL. MAN.

  61. 61.

    burnspbesq

    October 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    Meanwhile, the U.S. District Court in D.C. has dismissed (for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted) the suits filed by True the Vote and a motley bunch of other Teahadist front groups alleging that the IRS inappropriately targeted their applications for exempt status for special scrutiny.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/23/tea-party-lawsuits-against-irs-dismissed/17780557/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

    Bwahahahaha.

  62. 62.

    Citizen_X

    October 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    the boats at the bottom

    So…submarines?

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    October 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    this election is completely GOTV. PERIOD.

  64. 64.

    Amir Khalid

    October 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    So, what has Herman Cain been doing since 2012, anyway?

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    October 24, 2014 at 11:44 am

    because THIS IS WHO HE IS

    …………..

    Christie wants GOP control of voting rules, election officials
    10/24/14 09:25 AM—UPDATED 10/24/14 09:26 AM
    By Steve Benen
    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) stunned voting-rights advocates this week, arguing that Republican governors should control “voting mechanisms” in order to help the party win the 2016 presidential election.

    In remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the New Jersey governor said, “Would you rather have Rick Scott in Florida overseeing the voting mechanism, or Charlie Crist? Would you rather have Scott Walker in Wisconsin overseeing the voting mechanism, or would you rather have Mary Burke? Who would you rather have in Ohio, John Kasich or Ed FitzGerald?”

    Political scientist Norm Ornstein paraphrased Christie’s comments this way: “How can we cheat on vote counts if we don’t control the governorships?”

    The good news is, the Garden State governor decided to clarify his remarks yesterday. The bad news is, Christie made things worse.
    “Everybody read much too much into that,” he said. “You know who gets to appoint people, who gets to decide in part what the rules are, I’d much rather have Republican governors counting those votes when we run in 2016 as Republicans than I would have Democrats. There was no specific reference to any laws.”

    Christie noted that he was specifically talking about electing Republican governors and that it is state legislatures that are passing voter identification requirements.
    According to another local account, the governor added, “What I was talking about was, who’s going to be in charge of the state when the votes are being counted.”

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-wants-gop-control-voting-rules-election-officials

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 11:44 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The thing is, the rich really weren’t the hardest hit in the Great Depression, because of the declining marginal utility of money. Sure, they may have lost the biggest fraction of their holdings, but it surely didn’t matter as much to them.

    And a deflationary spiral and high unemployment are awesome if you’re sitting on a pile of cash! You can live like a king with an army of servants. It might have been worth it.

  67. 67.

    burnspbesq

    October 24, 2014 at 11:44 am

    @Ben Cisco:

    WHAT. THE. HELL. MAN.

    The logic is a bit difficult to follow, innit.

  68. 68.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 11:47 am

    @Ben Cisco: This is the man whose voters inspired the KFM post about the 27%.

  69. 69.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 11:47 am

    @Ben Cisco: Your feigned incredulity just proves you’re part of the conspiracy!!!

  70. 70.

    Belafon

    October 24, 2014 at 11:49 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Are they attack subs, or cross the border undetected subs?

  71. 71.

    MattF

    October 24, 2014 at 11:49 am

    @Ben Cisco: Keyes is nutso. Period. You can google ‘keyes crazy’ and get concrete evidence, but it’s hardly worth the trouble.

  72. 72.

    Karen in GA

    October 24, 2014 at 11:51 am

    Why why why why why the fuck are Republicans even remotely competitive?

    Ugh. Any countries want a couple of college dropouts, four cats and a small schnauzer? Hey, everyone needs bus mechanics and support staff, no?

    No?

    Oh.

  73. 73.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 11:53 am

    @Ben Cisco: Remember, the origin of the 27% is the people who were tribal enough to vote for Alan Keyes over Barack Obama. We casually call a lot of people on the right nuts, but Keyes to all appearances is actually insane. Expecting anything resembling rational thought from him is a lost cause.

  74. 74.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 11:55 am

    @Chris:

    “A rising tide lifts all boats” was always meaningless feel-good crap

    JFK swiped it from a New England business association. He used it several times; here is one example (from the campaign trail in 1960):

    I think we must develop our natural resources. You cannot bring industry into Ohio unless you have clean rivers. I think the greatest asset that has happened to Ohio during the last few years, except for Governor Di Salle’s election, was the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and I was proud, though I came from Massachusetts, to vote for it, because it is a national asset and a rising tide lifts all boats. If Ohio moves ahead, so will Massachusetts. Good water, power, transportation, those are necessary to develop the economy of the United States in the 1960s.

  75. 75.

    Mike E

    October 24, 2014 at 11:56 am

    OT Rev Barber is speaking here at the local (adjacent) college convocation, another of my various/random brushes with greatness… I’m going just up the street to early vote at the conclusion of this event.

  76. 76.

    Ben Cisco

    October 24, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @burnspbesq: I didn’t want to do long-distance diagnosis, but I think he’s fucked in the head.

  77. 77.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 11:58 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    huh, what else happened thirty odd years ago….?

    I’m too lazy and don’t have access, but really wish someone with LexisNexis access would do an analysis of all articles containing phrases like “starting about thirty years ago” (adjusted for publication date), “since the 1980s”, and “in the past few decades” and compile what trends they were talking about. The results wouldn’t be pretty.

  78. 78.

    Ben Cisco

    October 24, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @Matt McIrvin: @Redshift: I either didn’t know or had forgotten about that. WOW.

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    October 24, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @Chris:

    If the boats are at the bottom of the ocean, then the sinking tide doesn’t affect them at all, because they were already fucking sunk as low as they’re going to get

    The little boats are the ocean in which the big boats float. As the total volume of little boats gets larger (either through numbers, or increase in the average size of the little boats) the big boats float higher, and the big boats float lower if the volume of little boats shrinks. Also, the little boats get crushed by the big boats sometimes. (I think that might be that HC said, though he may not have realized it. :-)

  80. 80.

    gene108

    October 24, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’d only argue that the feelings of insecurity go back a lot farther than Aughts’ Recession. Stagnant real wages, declining pension security, sky-rocketing collage costs all go back about thirty years, I believe (huh, what else happened thirty odd years ago….?) Krugman IIRC said last week that in the Great Depression, the rich were the hardest hit, in the Lesser Depression, the rich were largely unscathed. But Reagan managed to convince a lot middle/working class white people that government was their enemy, and something called “government spending” (not including Social Security, medicare or military spending) was hurting their take home pay and savings rates.

    If you want to take the long view, wage stagnation started in the late 1960’s / early 1970’s. Government proved itself incapable of handling economic problems because of the struggles people had in the 1970’s with stagflation, where traditional Keynesian methods were proving less effective opening the door for other ideas to counter economic stagnation.

    The people’s trust in government also got hit because of various Vietnam Era scandals, including the idea we “lost” the Vietnam War and Watergate.

    Reagan just tapped into these fears and misgivings, he did not make people believe something they were not already thinking.

    What I wish was more easily available is why real incomes actually rose in the 1990’s. It is a very unique occurrence in the last 40 years, and probably has more underlying reasons than just reaching record low unemployment levels.

  81. 81.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    October 24, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    @Belafon:

    The USS Herman Cain is an attack sub. The rest of the minority submarine fleet is made up of ballistic missile subs with rogue commanders, whose payloads are aimed directly at the heart of Real America.

  82. 82.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    @Ben Cisco: I’ll always remember my Chicago-area friends telling me the tale of that Election Night, where local news anchors cut away from Keyes after about twenty minutes of rambling and summed it up with “Well, I guess that was a concession speech…”

  83. 83.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 24, 2014 at 12:04 pm

    @Chris:

    If the boats are at the bottom of the ocean, then the sinking tide doesn’t affect them at all, because they were already fucking sunk as low as they’re going to get.

    That’s actually an excellent metaphor, though.

    If your boat is sunk, you need a bigger new boat. Programs that help or are neutral to all boat owners are irrelevant.

  84. 84.

    SatanicPanic

    October 24, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    A rising pizza dough lifts all toppings.

  85. 85.

    Dave

    October 24, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    It used to be in the USA that a rising tide lifts all boats. Then reagan got elected and a rising tide life all yachts.

  86. 86.

    Redshift

    October 24, 2014 at 12:09 pm

    @Cervantes: As a metaphor for “a state should support national priorities that only indirectly benefits it,” it’s quite a nice turn of phrase. As a metaphor for “forget helping the non-rich, just make the economy better and everyone will be fine,” it sucks.

    As with “the poor will always be with us,” an idea that means “we have an obligation to help” is turned around to mean “IGMFY” by people who already believe IGMFY. Funny, that. I guess the problem isn’t with the metaphor.

  87. 87.

    scav

    October 24, 2014 at 12:09 pm

    @Dave: “Without a yacht, you’re nacht.”

  88. 88.

    Bubblegum Tate

    October 24, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):

    Minorities: The Submarines of the US of A

    Game. Blouses.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    October 24, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    Will someone PLEASE explain to me how Coakley is blowing it AGAIN?!?!

  90. 90.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 12:12 pm

    @Redshift: It was one of the most entertaining “concession speeches” of my Illinois life. Another was Alan “Women Are a Special-Interest Group” Dixon’s drunken congratulations to Carol Moseley Braun: “I have no regrets. I drank from the full cup…” You sure did, Senator.

    On a national level, nothing beats Romney not even having a speech on hand because “people were so enthusiastically coming out to my rallies the last few days.” It warms my heart just to think of it. And we can’t forget McCain’s people turning the stage lights off on Sarah Palin when she tried to start the concession speech they’d forbidden her to give.

  91. 91.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    @rikyrah: I’d rather have someone tell me why she was allowed to be a candidate AGAIN.

  92. 92.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    @Redshift:

    As a metaphor for “a state should support national priorities that only indirectly benefits it,” it’s quite a nice turn of phrase.

    Here is JFK using it that way again, in Arkansas, a few weeks before he died:

    These projects produce wealth, they bring industry, they bring jobs, and the wealth they bring brings wealth to other sections of the United States. This State had about 200,000 cars in 1929. It has a million cars now. They weren’t built in this State. They were built in Detroit. As this State’s income rises, so does the income of Michigan. As the income of Michigan rises, so does the income of the United States. A rising tide lifts all the boats and as Arkansas becomes more prosperous so does the United States and as this section declines so does the United States.

  93. 93.

    Belafon

    October 24, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    @rikyrah: Sorry, can’t help. As a Texan, all I can wonder is “Massholes, why would you elect a Republican for anything?!”

  94. 94.

    Bubblegum Tate

    October 24, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    @Redshift:

    I’m too lazy and don’t have access, but really wish someone with LexisNexis access would do an analysis of all articles containing phrases like “starting about thirty years ago” (adjusted for publication date), “since the 1980s”, and “in the past few decades” and compile what trends they were talking about. The results wouldn’t be pretty.

    I know–when you go back over it, you see that damn near every negative trend we face now began in the “early ’80s.” It’s appalling how terrible and deleterious a president Reagan was.

  95. 95.

    SatanicPanic

    October 24, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    @rikyrah: I haven’t been paying attention, but I’d guess that you could figure out the how by looking at the last election she lost ;)

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 24, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Ebb is a complicated word.

  97. 97.

    Mike J

    October 24, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @Belafon: I would never vote for a Republican, but many people feel it’s harmless to have a Republican gov. He can’t really do anything without the legislature, and it gives the totebaggers a chance to feel pure by being above the concept of party line voting.

    In my younger years I really thought the idea of always voting for the same party was somehow bad. Then I noticed that I always agreed more with one side than the other, and at the same time I grew up a bit. It’s just an extension of both-sides-do-it-ism. If I could make one change in the American electorate it would be to convince them that yes, there really are policy differences between the two parties.

  98. 98.

    catclub

    October 24, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @Belafon: I think the key word there is Massholes.

    They have a peculiarly bad record on electing women to Statewide office, or Senate, or Congress.

  99. 99.

    scav

    October 24, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate: He didn’t create his minion-spawns of smug, selfish entitlement, he just provided a photogenic cover story and front man for the team. There are just some really unpleasant people walking our streets, far too often with enough folding money to get things their way, especially as they rope in the recreationally and spiritually-inspired unpleasant people.

  100. 100.

    muddy

    October 24, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    I’m hoping that Fox etc gins up the ebola thing so much that the wingnuts are afraid to go to the polls and be exposed to all those germs.

    Let’s all dress up in African tribal looking clothes and hang around the outside of polling places in very red areas. Be scarier than the New Black Panthers.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    @rikyrah: I don’t think the dates still hold, but some time around 2008 or 2010 I checked and states have been deep blue in presidential elections since Clinton– MA, CA, NY and IL, I may be missing one– had all had more Repubilcan than Democratic governors over the previous twenty-five years. I think especially in the north east (and the Village), there is a strong cultural/psychological attachment to the idea of old school, moderate Republicanism

  102. 102.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    @shortstop:

    She’s a bad candidate. She’s not a great attorney general, either, nor even a great attorney — but she is a lousy, lousy, lousy candidate.

    And she was warned, too, as were her supporters, numerous times over several years.

    Anyhow, Tuesday is still a few days away.

  103. 103.

    MattF

    October 24, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, once upon a time, there really were moderate and even liberal Republicans. For many years, my congressional representative was Connie Morella, a Republcan who was to the left of most congressional Dems. But during the Bush years people in my district realized that voting for any Republican, even Connie, was a mistake.

  104. 104.

    gelfling545

    October 24, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It means he either doesn’t understand the analogy or doesn’t understand the physics of how tides lift boats.

    Or it could mean he just likes to hear himself talk and considers content unimportant. A cordon bleu chef of word salad, as it were.

  105. 105.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @muddy: Great idea!

  106. 106.

    The Moar You Know

    October 24, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    Will someone PLEASE explain to me how Coakley is blowing it AGAIN?!?!

    @rikyrah: The little picture: She’s a shitty campaigner and should have been made to quietly retire after she managed to lose to Scott Brown.

    The big picture: Massachusetts is like San Francisco in one particular respect – it has a reputation for being liberal that is not in any way borne out by reality. They do elect liberals. But they also elect a LOT of “moderate” Republicans.

  107. 107.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Alas, that’s a good joke that should be a lot funnier than it is.

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    @MattF: Rachel Maddow used to joke about being a wild-eyed liberal, which meant she supported just about every plank in Dwight Eisenhower’s campaign platform.

  109. 109.

    Bobby B.

    October 24, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    I’d call Herman Cain a Judas-goat for minorities but that would be racist (to the goat).

  110. 110.

    MomSense

    October 24, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And Mass is not as liberal as people think. There is a big difference between Cambridge and Kingston.

    And WTF is going on with Mark Udall??

  111. 111.

    gene108

    October 24, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    @Karen in GA:

    Why why why why why the fuck are Republicans even remotely competitive?

    1. Anti-intellectualism: There’s a set of folks, for whom “college professor” is a strike against a candidate, because college professors do not work in the “real world”.
    2. The MSM keeps spitting out the bad news and ignoring the good news.
    3. The Democrats underestimated in the severity of the Great Recession, in 2009, so there actions did not reflect as much concern about the economy as some people wanted.

    Point One: There’s a group of people in this country, who found Bush, Jr.’s inability to talk coherently as sign of “folks charm” and he’s “one of us” and not some “egghead, who is smarter than us”, because god forbid the people in charge are actually smarter and better informed than you. These people exist and they are not all just uneducated types. College educated engineers, business owners, computer science professionals, etc. are made up of a large group of folks, who have anti-intellectual tendencies outside of their area of expertise.

    Point Two: The points have been covered here quite a bit, but the MSM basically poisons the minds of folks not plugged into left-wing blogs, even people who are actually liberal on a lot of issues. They do not hear about anything being done and are like “WTF has Obama had the Democrats done”.

    Point Three: The Democrats did pass the ARRA, which helped, but they then went onto things that would impact the business community, when the business community rightly felt their “houses” were burning down.

    My analogy goes like this, your neighbor, the Lehman Brothers, house has turned into a roaring fire potentially setting its neighbors houses ablaze, but depending on how the winds blow your house – the Ford home, the Cisco home, etc. – may catch fire or has caught on fire a little bit already, so your focus is putting your fire out.

    Of course, when you start putting the fire out, you find out the city is proposing anyone with less than a 1′ foot elevation, will have to raise their house to 3′ foot elevation, before putting the fire out, because of flooding problems in the area and the city has also proposed to give the fire marshal new authority to enforce the elevation ordinance by handing out fines to people putting out fires first.

    May not be a good analogy, but this is what it felt like for a lot of businesses, when the Pelosi House started passing climate change legislation, for example. Yes CO2 emissions need to be reduced, but the spring of 2009 was not the time to push for it. Businesses were wondering, if they would make it to 2010 and could not cope with a flood of proposed changes.

    The whole “confidence in government” angle may have been overhyped, as to why businesses are/were sitting on piles of cash, but there really was a WTF are the Democrats thinking vibe, in 2009, with all the proposed regulatory changes, when the economy was crashing.

    The end result of this ambitious agenda ended up being a bunch of stuff passed by the House that died in the Senate and people thinking “WTF are Democrats doing to help me keep my job?, I mean pollution sucks, but I need a job and if my car pushes out more C02 than latte sipping San Fran girl Nancy thinks is good, now is not the time. They only thing I can afford to care about is keeping my job.”

    This lack of anything material coming their way discouraged a lot of otherwise liberal people from giving a damn in 2010 and 2012 versus their enthusiasm in 2008. Democrats were in charge in 2009 and they didn’t take care of me.

    Couple this with the media giving the Republicans a free pass on the preceding decade of debauchery and you had a perfect recipe for a tempest in a tea cup, in 2010.

  112. 112.

    Patrick

    October 24, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    @shortstop:

    I’d rather have someone tell me why she was allowed to be a candidate AGAIN.

    Good question. The primary voters deserve the blame. They, in their “wisdom” elected her to be the candidate in spite of them knowing how bad of a candidate she was in 2010.

  113. 113.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    @SatanicPanic: I saw her debate, she is terrible.

  114. 114.

    El Caganer

    October 24, 2014 at 12:38 pm

    @rikyrah: He sure didn’t help himself – that stuff about who counts the votes is a paraphrase of something Joe Stalin said.

  115. 115.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 24, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    @Karen in GA: I have no idea either, I have typically lived in places where they were not particularly competitive. Even the “working class white people” I knew were Democrats. Since you live in GA, I thought you might have a better insight into this phenomena.

  116. 116.

    chopper

    October 24, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    The ‘boats at the bottom’ are called “shipwrecks”, dumbass, and no the tide doesn’t affect them at all.

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    October 24, 2014 at 12:48 pm

    @MomSense: And WTF is going on with Mark Udall??

    along with all the other stacked-against-a-Dem factors, Udall is not a terrible candidate, but he’s not great, and Gardner is a much slicker politician, and much more brazen liar, than Ken Buck, the cartoonish buffoon who barely lost to Michael Bennet in 2010.

  118. 118.

    SRW1

    October 24, 2014 at 12:54 pm

    Somehow it seems Herman’s wits are ebbing. No idea how I came up with that impression.

  119. 119.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 12:56 pm

    @Patrick: What’s the inside story on the state/national party’s role in this? Did no one tell her in perfectly calibrated tones of gentle menace that she was too much of a fuckup to run and the party would not be behind her? Or was there no one more electable the party could get behind?

  120. 120.

    boatboy_srq

    October 24, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    @Ben Cisco: Y’know, that almost worked for Reagan….

  121. 121.

    boatboy_srq

    October 24, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker: BRILLIANT – but now there’s all this coffee I have to drain from my keyboard…

  122. 122.

    Karen in GA

    October 24, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Originally from New York, but with multiple RWNJs in my family — for the RWNJ relatives, it’s a combination of (1) gullibility and ego that makes them suckers for Fox News telling them “Everyone else is lying to you, but we know you’re too smart to believe them, right?” and (2) simply voting for politicians who hate the same people they do.

  123. 123.

    Patrick

    October 24, 2014 at 1:02 pm

    @shortstop:

    No idea. But she had the right to run. At some point, the voters have to own up to their decisions.

  124. 124.

    boatboy_srq

    October 24, 2014 at 1:03 pm

    @The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: How about “a rising tide lifts all boats not torpedoed the last time the tide fell“? Supply-Side Economics = wolf pack for the ordinary boat.

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    @The Moar You Know: Cambridge, the Berkshires, and Provincetown are liberal. Boston and the other cities have a mixture of minority voters and old-fashioned white machine Democrats. The suburbs and the less-urban areas around Worcester are fairly conservative and often Republican. The suburban vote is key.

    Ever since Bill Weld, there’s also a tendency for totebagger types to think of Massachusetts as being able to get along all right with a moderate Republican governor. That went badly toward the end of the string of R governors, but I guess the memory of that is fading.

  126. 126.

    Citizen_X

    October 24, 2014 at 1:07 pm

    Let’s do something about global warming–because a rising tide drowns everybody without a boat.

    And that’s no metaphor.

    (An okay, I know it’s “rising sea level,” but work with me, here.)

  127. 127.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    @Patrick: I’m not excusin’ ’em. I just want to know the party’s role in this, because it almost always has one. Here in Illinois, for instance, we handed a Senate seat to fake moderate Mark Kirk because the party insisted on putting up the hideously unelectable Alexi Giannoulias, whose “turn” it was.

  128. 128.

    Patrick

    October 24, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    @shortstop:

    I know. I’m just frustrated with the whole thing. Sorry.

  129. 129.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    @shortstop: As discussed here, there wasn’t any unified anti-Coakley vote; the primary was split three ways. Most of the polling seemed to show that Berwick and Grossman’s combined vote couldn’t beat Coakley, but the results actually turned out otherwise; Coakley’s voters seemed to be less enthusiastic even in the primary. It would have been hard to unite, though, because I doubt Berwick’s more liberal constituency would have turned out for Grossman just to beat Coakley. Anyway, Coakley eked out a plurality.

  130. 130.

    VOR

    October 24, 2014 at 1:15 pm

    @rikyrah: Chris Christie is merely taking lessons from the well-known political thought leader, Joseph Stalin: “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

  131. 131.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 1:16 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Okay, that’s very useful, thanks. I haven’t been tuned into this race at all.

  132. 132.

    boatboy_srq

    October 24, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    @gene108:

    May not be a good analogy, but this is what it felt like for a lot of businesses, when the Pelosi House started passing climate change legislation, for example. Yes CO2 emissions need to be reduced, but the spring of 2009 was not the time to push for it. Businesses were wondering, if they would make it to 2010 and could not cope with a flood of proposed changes.

    Actually 1997 was a better time for it. I recall a bunch of bigwigs putting their heads together in Japan and saying so. Then this dumb corporate-stoogey BLEEPer from Texas got sElected pResident, and nothing more happened. There will never be a good time to push for public sector initiatives that have a remotely adverse impact on business’ bottom line; there are only opportunities when the ability to make policy are possible.

  133. 133.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Ever since Bill Weld, there’s also a tendency for totebagger types to think of Massachusetts as being able to get along all right with a moderate Republican governor. That went badly toward the end of the string of R governors, but I guess the memory of that is fading.

    Before Bill Weld, we had sixteen years of Dukakis-King-Dukakis — and said King (Reagan’s favorite Democrat, remember?) was a Republican in all but name. And before that we had Republican governors for a decade or so. And before that we alternated Democrats and Republicans for a while, back as far as Saltonstall during the WWII years.

    Not sure where people (outside Massachusetts?) get the idea that Republican governors are unusual here.

  134. 134.

    Turgidson

    October 24, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And perhaps even more than with completely head trauma batshit insane Joni Ernst, the media is giving Gardner a complete mulligan on all of his extreme beliefs, proposals, and utterances, while ignoring Udall’s fairly impressive Senate record and giving him shit for running so hard on women’s issues (while, as noted above, largely ignoring Gardner’s batshittery on same). I’ll grant that Gardner plays a pretty good “hey, I’m a nice guy” type on TV, while Udall kind of looks the part of a crotchety old Senator. But it’d be nice if that wasn’t what decided control of the Senate.

    The thumb is on the scale in a big way in that race and Iowa’s.

  135. 135.

    gene108

    October 24, 2014 at 1:59 pm

    @boatboy_srq:

    There will never be a good time to push for public sector initiatives that have a remotely adverse impact on business’ bottom line

    I disagree. Look at the Clean Air Act of 1990 that introduced cap-and-trade as method to deal with emissions that contributed to acid rain. A public problem was identified, a method of solving it was found and a means to have industry on board, without them trying to undermine the process was devised.

    You can introduce laws and rules on industry, without industry trying to sabotage it.

    The spring of 2009 was not the time to try it though.

    The mindset of so many – running or working in a business – was “OMG! We’re all gonna DIE!”.

    I do not disagree with the push for healthcare reform, as that was an open wound on the American economy that was just getting bigger and bigger and needed treatment.

    Some of the other stuff could have been shelved to 2010, after the “OMG We’re all gonna die” feeling was not dominating people’s thoughts.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    @Cervantes: All they really know outside the state is that Massachusetts is super-Democratic in presidential elections (the state went for Reagan both times, but he was the only Republican presidential candidate who won there since Eisenhower) and puts a fair number of liberals in Congress.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 24, 2014 at 2:47 pm

    @gene108: Democrats in Congress can’t pick the timing of anything. When a Democratic President and Congress get in, there’s basically a two-year window to get anything passed before the inevitable midterm backlash. We had 1993-94, and we had 2009-10. Those were basically the only remotely liberal years of American government since the Carter years.

    Now, you can argue about ’09 vs. ’10, but that would have just pushed it into the middle of a midterm campaign, which complicates everything in a different way.

  138. 138.

    rikyrah

    October 24, 2014 at 2:51 pm

    @shortstop:

    @Patrick: I’m not excusin’ ‘em. I just want to know the party’s role in this, because it almost always has one. Here in Illinois, for instance, we handed a Senate seat to fake moderate Mark Kirk because the party insisted on putting up the hideously unelectable Alexi Giannoulias, whose “turn” it was.

    who you tellin’.

    it’s time for Lisa Madigan to step up the phucking plate and send Kirk packing. …then agan, she should have been the one to run in 2010.

  139. 139.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 24, 2014 at 2:53 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Wisconsin can claim something of the same thing, but it also produced Joe McCarthy and Scott Walker. States with 5-7 million citizens can have some variety.

    Not arguing with your point, btw.

  140. 140.

    Epicurus

    October 24, 2014 at 3:09 pm

    While the cliche about the rising tide is factually correct, cutting taxes on the rich is not a “rising tide.” It’s organized theft, which only lifts the biggest boats. I’m so sorry to inject actual historical facts into this argument; perhaps I’ll just pull shit out of my ass, like Keyes did. At least we can all laugh at this sorry little man and his lost battle with ignorance.

  141. 141.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    @rikyrah: She swears she only wants guv. No idea if that’s true or not. If Quinn had decided not to run again, she’d be tearing Rauner’s arms off and pummeling him with them in the polls.

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    October 24, 2014 at 3:38 pm

    @shortstop:

    @rikyrah: She swears she only wants guv. No idea if that’s true or not. If Quinn had decided not to run again, she’d be tearing Rauner’s arms off and pummeling him with them in the polls.

    It’s not like Quinn was that strong a candidate. Her father had done everything to grease the skids for her, and hurt the state in the process. Since she didn’t run this time, done with her and Governor. But, all will be forgiven when she runs for Senate.

  143. 143.

    Quaker in a Basement

    October 24, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    @Cervantes: I thought that metaphor was originated by Fred Schwed in “Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?”

  144. 144.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 4:01 pm

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    Fred wasn’t using a metaphor. The yachts he was talking about were real.

  145. 145.

    Cervantes

    October 24, 2014 at 4:08 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Plus, I guess, there was that vote for McGovern in ’72.

  146. 146.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    October 24, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    @Ben Cisco:

    WHAT. THE. HELL. MAN.

    The logic is a bit difficult to follow, innit.

    Remember that Keyes was the inspiration for The Crazification Factor.

    Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him.

  147. 147.

    feloneouscat

    October 24, 2014 at 4:52 pm

    You can SINK A TIDE?!?!

  148. 148.

    otto

    October 24, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    A sinking tide may indeed hurt the boats at the bottom. This is the precise reason why the federal government needs to stop giving submarines to poor people!

  149. 149.

    shortstop

    October 24, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    @rikyrah: You know what pisses me off the most? If Rauner gets elected I have to feel grateful in coming years to that supergigantico asshole Mike Madigan for holding off the worst of Rauner’s madness. Not that MM will say no to anywhere near everything he should say no to.

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