The Politics Thread

[Scotty]

Sorry Carl...didn't see your post.

And yeah, it did seem that way. But still, it doesn't surprise me.

[Scotty]

GOP: Old, white and in trouble, poll says

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-poll-primary-battle-has-hurt-gops-image-among-young-nonwhites-20120314,0,4642543.story

[LeClerc]

I read Matt Romney said Obama is "great", which I'm sure, if asked about it, the campaign will say was not in regards to Obama's job performance.

And of course Matt Romney only thinks Obama is great when he is campaigning for Robo Dad in Hawaii, because elsewhere he has stoked the birther flames.

A true panderer just like daddy.

[alphanguy74]

You know, when it comes to the oil situation..... if I were Obama, you know what I would do? I would announce to the GOP and the oil companies that you can build that keystone pipeline, you can drill to your heart's content.... providing that not ONE DROP of oil harvested in this country ever LEAVES this country. I wonder what the reaction would be.

[Max]

Alphanguy, I would love for this to happen as well. Though politically it would be a big help for him to do so (since it would take his most vulnerable issue off the table, much like Clinton did when he signed Welfare Reform into law), he just doesn't seem to have the spine to stand up to the environmental fringe (though he has little problem standing up to the LGBT community).

He can seek as much campaign funding as he wants, just not from the 1%. It's beyond hypocritical to instigate class warfare and then collect campaign cash from the wealthiest of Americans.

Regarding decisions such as Citizens United and Bush v. Gore, liberals have every right to hate them and complain that they overturned the will of the people. Yet, when courts overturn bans on gay marriage and don't do what the people want, judges are hailed as heroes instead of being demonized. You can't have it both ways and only accept court opinions that you agree with.

That's right, I never complained about this with Bush, since he never demonized the wealthy or pledged to be a champion of the poor. For a politican who claims to have "progressive" economic policies, a much higher standard applies (much like a higher standard applies when it comes to the married life of a religious conservative).

Edited March 16, 2012 by Max

[DRW50]

Wasn't "compassionate conservative" codeword for wanting to help the poor?

[Max]

To an extent it was, so Bush can be criticized somewhat. (The other purpose of the phrase was to let people know/think he wasn't a Santorum-type social conservative.) However, it was not the type of phrase that pitted the rich against the poor, so the hypocrisy is much more glaring in Obama's case. And even with that phrase, Bush actively campaigned as a supporter of tax cuts for the rich (so nobody believed that Bush was to the left of Gore on economic policy). And unlike Obama, I don't recall Bush pledging to end politics as usual (and politics as usual includes rewarding your wealthy donors with special "privileges" or "gifts").

Edited March 16, 2012 by Max

[quartermainefan]

Max the only ones who instigate class warfare are the republicans, who cynically cut taxes knowing it will break the bank, and then when the bank is broken they say "oh look, we have no money, we can no longer afford programs for the poor". Meanwhile the millionaires become billionaires. That's class warfare, that is attacking the poor. Mandatory drug testing social programs to humiliate and degrade recipients even though there is no statistical reason for doing so, that is class warfare. Cutting school aid while tuition rise but you can afford it because Bush gave you a tax break, that is class warfare. That's all republicans know, is class warfare. It is always about the other with republicans: the non-christian, the non-white, the godless liberals, the northeast, the atheist, the gays, the blacks, the women who dare to want sex, the college educated, the spanish speaking, and on and on and on. Just ask Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and all the other real americans from the so-called heartland.

[DaytimeFan]

When Lucille Bluth met Mitt Romney. Two peas in a pod.

http://www.uproxx.co...ing-for/#page/1

And the full Tumblr account for Lucille and Mitt:

http://lucilleandmitt.tumblr.com/

Edited March 16, 2012 by DaytimeFan

[Max]

Qfan, I actually believe that both parties engage in class warfare. Conservatives certainly attack the groups you listed, but other groups--like evangelicals, "dumb" Southerners, corporate executives, and poor, rural whites who "cling to their guns and religion"--come under attack from liberals. The fact that liberals attack these groups is no excuse for conservatives to attack those other groups; trying to attack any one group of people is wrong no matter who does it.

Regarding college tuition, neither party has done a damn thing to stop these outrageous costs from rising. Colleges seem to be free to charge whatever fees they want, and nobody from the government is stepping in to force price controls. (This is one of those minority of times when I believe that government intervention is necessary, and I honestly hope the Democrats would act accordingly.) A lot of college tuition is for frivolous things, like construction for new student centers, six figure salaries for college presidents, or to get some "big name" professor on staff who only teaches a course or two a semester (while devoting most of his time to research, which really is of little benefit to students).

Edited March 16, 2012 by Max

[DRW50]

That was the whole point of the first Bush campaign. He's not going to be a part of the corrosiveness which characterized the Clinton years. He's going to be everyone's friend. He's this harmless fun guy you can share a beer with.

And yet, only two years later, we got this:

[ReddFoxx]

The campaign against Cleland was over the line. Cleland was wounded in war and Chambliss got deferments to keep him out of it, which really added to the absurdity of the attacks on Cleland. The political atmosphere was more divisive after Bush left office than it was before he entered it.

[Max]

I thought those anti-Max Cleland ads were some of the worst stuff I have ever seen. Yet, the Republicans weren't the only ones playing dirty tricks in 2002. That year, scandal-plagued NJ Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli was also seeking re-election. All throughout his term, allegations of unethical behavior had been plaguing him, but no Democrat even dared to challenge him in the primary. Because NJ is a heavily Democratic state, Republicans can only win statewide elections if they are running against highly unpopular incumbents; throughout most of the campaign, Torricelli was neck-and-neck with his unknown GOP opponent, businessman Douglas Forrester. (None of the polls would have even been close if Torricelli didn't have so many ethical problems.)

With less than a month to go before the election, WNBC-TV aired a very damaging series of stories implicating the NJ senator. After this bad press, Torricelli was 15 points down in the polls, and only then did he face immense pressure from state and national Democrats to drop out of the race. Torricelli agreed to do this, and was replaced by Frank Lautenberg (who had retired from the Senate just two years earlier), who won the general election easily. Unfortunately, Torricelli dropped out so late in the process that the law did not allow for new ballots to be printed with Lautenberg's name on them. (He would have had to have dropped out at least 30 days before the election. Legally and ethically, Lautenberg could have run as a write-in candidate, but the Democratic party knew that such a proposition was too risky given the lack of intelligence many voters possess.) So, the Democrats were able to stand before a very liberal state supreme court to get the law changed, and then proceeded to reimburse the state the $800,000 charge it cost to print the new ballots.

Again, for all but the last couple of weeks of the campaign, Democrats were pushing Torricelli as somebody who was completely fit to serve in the Senate. Only when public support dramatically turned against him did they demand Torricelli drop out, completely disregarding the election law that was in place at the time. And this was done all in the name of attempting to retain control of the Senate (the Democrats had a one-seat majority going into the election, but wound up with a net loss of two seats despite using underhanded tactics to keep NJ in the party's column).

I always found it interesting (back in 2002) that whenever liberals (rightly) bitched and moaned about the way Cleland was treated, they had no problems whatsoever with the Lautenberg/Torricelli switcheroo.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Max

[DRW50]

I'm not sure they're really the same thing.

[Max]

You're right that they're not exactly the same thing, although they both were dirty tricks that party bosses approved of in order to gain control of the Senate. One could certainly argue that a vicious character assination of a triple-amputee war hero was worse than a ballot switcheroo. However, it is debateable if Cleland would have won re-election even if those ads handn't been run (given that his voting record was less conservative than most white GA Democrats, combined with the fact that GA was a lot more Republican in 2002 than in 1996). On the other hand, the last minute ballot switch very likely robbed the GOP of a senate seat (although I don't believe for one second that Torricelli would have actually lost by 15 points in such a Democratic state).

Edited March 16, 2012 by Max