The Politics Thread

[Max]

I'm not sure that Utah's as fringe right as many would like to believe, because they twice elected moderate Jon Huntsman. However, I am surprised that one would say that Snowe and Collins aren't moderate--while Huntsman is--given that the former Utah governor is much further to the right on social issues than the Maine senators are.

Liberal icon Dennis Kucinich also lost his primary, but I can understand why nobody wants to talk about that. (To his credit, he at least didn't move to Washington State--as was once rumored--to run for a newly created House seat there.)

Edited March 8, 2012 by Max

[DRW50]

Kucinish is a gadfly, not much else. His voting record was conservative until he wanted to run for President in 2004. He recently met with the man who runs Syria.

Utah has a different type of primary than most states - it's done by some type of committee or something. Olene Walker, who was the governor before Huntsman, was very popular with the public, but disliked by her party, due to her stance on education. Huntsman was one of the two or three vying to replace her and he was selected. I'm not sure if those circumstances could be duplicated, as the other Utah governors before and after seem much more conservative.

[soapfan770]

Kucinich has had troubled primary campaigns before, I seem to recall even his 2008 primary was a hot mess for him. Simply to put, Kucinich was defeated by a 30 year+ incumbent (the above mentioned Marcy Kaptur) who has the exact same voting record as him thanks to redistricting due to Ohio's population loss. I've always liked Kucinich and wish him well, but I don't think I could ever label him as an icon. He made a lot of noise but never gained any traction.

[ReddFoxx]

Kucinich put off a lot of voters in Toledo by saying that "maybe in Toledo politics, facts don't matter", which lead to Kaptur getting over 90% there. It was not unexpected that he lost.

Jean Schmidt losing was not all that surprising either, she managed to underperform in general elections against Democrats in what is a strong Republican district. Republicans wanted to boot her out too and they did.

[DRW50]

Joe the Plumber narrowly won his primary in this district, in spite of having more money and running against someone who was an unknown. The media would love to see him win, as he's another of those types they can run endless smirky features on.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/03/07/joe-the-plumber-member-of-congress-could-happen/

I knew Schmidt struggled early on in her district but didn't know she had a problem now.

Maybe Trump can give her a job.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/08/59651/jean-schmidt-birther/?mobile=nc

[Jess]

It is always good to come back here and discover interesting political conversation. You know, I fancy myself a liberal, but have to admit there was always something hard to like about Kucinich. I can't put my finger on what it is. Truthfully, it is kind of like Romney on one end of the political spectrum and John Kerry on the other. There is something that is hard for me to like about each of them, but I really can't say what it is.

I think it has been an interesting campaign thus far. Three months ago, I believed that there was no way that Obama could be re-elected, but there were ways that the Republicans could lose the election. It is a long time before November, but I think now Obama could quite well get a second term. I have not seen much enthusiasm for any of the Republican candidates. I believe the best thing for the party would be for the race to go the convention and the party to nominate a candidate not currently in the field -- a Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniel, someone different. With only three months left, that candidate would probably ride a wave of momentum and newness into the White House.

I, of course, am for Obama so any of the current crop of candidates is fine with me

[marceline]

It's been intriguing to me to see people act like Kucinich's loss to Kaptur was some kind of great liberal thrashing. Dennis didn't lose because he's liberal, he lost because he's Dennis. Marcy Kaptur is pretty liberal too with the exception of her position on abortion. It's the only thing that kept me from voting for her. It's not like Kucinich lost to Sarah Palin.

Kucinich has developed this national profile so people who nothing about this area are looking at his loss as some kind of grand statement. I know people like to say that all politics are local but in this case, it really was local. People have been tired of Dennis' schtick for a long time but the one thing IMO, that has always saved him is that his office was wildly responsive. You could call the guy about a broken street light or a faulty railroad crossing and he would treat you like you mattered.

[DRW50]

Joe the Plumber gets upset on CNN. Why do I get the feeling he probably went on there just for this type of coverage?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73772.html

[DRW50]

It's always interesting to see the liberal media in action. I was reading The Fix, which is a Beltway/DC type blog on The Washington Post, and in only a few days they had articles on:

- why does Oklahoma not like Obama

- why aren't Obama's poll numbers better

- why isn't Mitt getting enough credit from the media?

- how Mitt's awkwardness is "endearing" (it's the George W. Bush years all over again)

The media has been itching for Mitt for a long time and this is their runup to the time when he will be the definite nominee.

[Roman]

And now let the liberal media start with "Why the economic numbers are really bad and the POTUS hasn't fixed a thing".

[quartermainefan]

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[juppiter]

LOL that is hilarious. He's soooo fake. He may like grits but are the trees the right size there?

[Scotty]

Romney won two more contests today....Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, compared with only one (Kansas) for Santorum, and one for Ron Paul (U.S. Virgin Islands).

Santorum breezed past Romney 51-21% in Kansas.

In Guam, Romney received 217 of the 225 total votes (the other 8 were uncommitted).

In the Northern Marianas, Romney had 87% of the vote (738 votes). His closest competitor was Santorum with 6% (31 votes). Paul and Gingrich had 25 and 24 votes, respectively, with each getting only 3%.

And in the U.S. VI, "The 2012 United States Virgin Islands Republican caucuses were held on March 10, 2012.^[1] The popular vote was won by Ron Paul, the Republican Party chairman for the U.S. Virgin Islands announced, but Mitt Romney was awarded a majority of the territory's delegates. Before the announcement, Mitt Romney also won 3 of the island's superdelegates."

Link: http://en.wikipedia...._caucuses,_2012

Not sure why there appears to be such love in the territories for Romney.

Next contests on Tuesday are in Alabama, American Samoa, Hawaii, and Mississippi.

[Scotty]

Looks like Romney has also won Wyoming, where the state's caucus is finally over after weeks of voting spread out across the state.

[alphanguy74]

Hell. He's probably ate grits about twice in his whole damn life. That reminds me, I got some in the fridge I'm gonna fry tomorrow! LOL