The Politics Thread

[Juliajms]

Interesting point Q. More proof that I'm no longer a spring chicken because my main motivation for voting was getting Lee Terry out. I guess I was also for the minimum wage hike and public school bonds, but I would have crawled through broken glass to vote that smug SOB out. No one can believe NE voted out a 16 year Republican incumbent when the rest of them won 2:1, but that man dug his own grave and had it coming.

[DramatistDreamer]

I think in a state like CT it's not a big surprise considering the tragic events that took place there but otherwise, I understand what you mean.

[DRW50]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/loretta-lynch-attorney-general-obama-nomination

I assume the media/right wing meltdown will commence.

This amuses me.

[DRW50]

http://marylandreporter.com/2014/11/06/rascovar-how-brown-blew-a-sure-thing/

[marceline]

So the GOP is going after the ACA again. So be it. Maybe millions of people losing health insurance will be a nice motivator for 1.) non-voters to get off their asses and 2.) pussified liberals to stop trying to compromise and find middle ground with psychopaths and liars.

[DRW50]

How embarrassing.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pointergate-kstp-minneapolis-betsy-hodges

[marceline]

That reporter needs to go.

ETA: #pointergate on Twitter is a fun read.

Edited November 7, 2014 by marceline

[GregNYC]

I'm an Asian who voted for GOP. The number one reason is that the GOP rejects Affirmative Action, which hurts Asians the most. Also, Jesse Jackson recently made statements how Silicon Valley should stop hiring Asians in favor of blacks. I find that Jackson and Al Sharpton are always making statements like this. It's like they are picking on Asians for being successful.

49% of Asians voted for the GOP this time, a huge turnaround from 2010.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-05/republicans-courted-asians-and-it-paid-off

Edited November 7, 2014 by GregNYC

[quartermainefan]

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are race baiting hate mongers. I don't blame you for voting against them. I am not asian, but if leaders of one party said that crap about my ethnic group I wouldn't vote for them either.

[DramatistDreamer]

I was watching a PBS show called Makers and there was an episode on Women in Politics. There was a segment where they talked about how Women in Congress led the charge to end the government shutdown, many Republican Senators and especially House members chided their Republican male colleagues for one female House member described as "playing games with people's lives".

It made me wonder how come there were seemingly no repercussions for the instigators of the goverment shutdown which only happened last year in 2013?

Edited November 8, 2014 by DramatistDreamer

[GregNYC]

Most Asians, like myself, live in heavily Democratic areas, such as California and New York, so them voting GOP doesn't affect anything anyway. It's just the principle. Still, in 2016, I think that at least 60% of Asians will vote for the Democrat, especially if it's Hillary. Asians love Hillary.

[marceline]

Because Republicans run on hating government so their voters don't care and the ones who do care, i.e. the ones who whine when they are suddenly affected by these bad decisions, blame Obama.

[DRW50]

The media didn't care so they made sure the public didn't. Soon after the shutdown was the Obamacare website rollout, and everyone went hogwild over that. Even "liberal" Jon Stewart, who made a big show of how terrible the whole thing was.

I'm increasingly tired of him and his lazy "both sides" apathy, culminating in him flippantly saying he hadn't bothered to vote this year because he'd moved. After he got some criticism for this, he claimed he was joking and that he actually did vote.

I wish he was the one retiring his show, not Colbert.

[Max]

This isn't going to be a popular thing to say, but Chris Christie was the biggest winner on Tuesday night:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-big-winner-is-christie/article/2555835

He managed the GOP's enormously successful efforts in the gubernatorial races. And in sharp contrast to what took place in the Senate, the competitive governor's races took place mostly on blue turf.

I am most definitely not his biggest fan, but I can't help but admire his political brilliance. And almost everybody seems to "misunderestimate" (to use my favorite "Bushism") him; for instance, just remember how all the "experts" said that Christie was politically dead after those now discredited Bridgegate charges first came out. If he gets the nomination, I honestly believe that he will defeat Hillary (despite how pessimistic I otherwise feel about 2016).

And speaking about the Clintons, they had an awful night, because almost all of the candidates they stumped for lost badly. To be fair, the major reason why those candidates lost had nothing to do with the Clintons. (They lost because of Obama's miserable approval rating.) But Tuesday's results do show that any supposed "greatness" that the Clintons have as campaign surrogates is long gone.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Max

[DRW50]

I'm not sure how quickly Scott Walker's people will forget Christine backstabbing him.

I saw a Politico article from someone who worked for W during his time in office, and he said this worked out well for Hillary, because nobody cares about whether or not she's a successful campaign surrogate, that an all-GOP Congress gives her a bogeyman to run against.