Flap Your Lips Friday
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 11th, 2014
Good morning!
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From The Wash Post:
Why Democrats really, really need women to turn out this November
Around this time in an election cycle, candidates always begin trying to win over the voters who make up the largest share of the electorate, and who usually vote for the winner. We’re talking, of course, about women.
In the mid 1990s, there were the soccer moms, the suburban swing voters who everyone assumed were a presidential election’s secret weapon for over a decade. In October and November 1996, there were nearly 200 articles mentioning soccer moms in major newspapers. A Boston Globe columnist called 1996, ‘the Year of the Soccer Mom.” In the 2004 presidential election, there were the security moms and malpractice moms. In 2008, there were hockey moms. In 2012, there was the war on women – one that’s still percolating as a rallying cry through both partiestoday. As the “war on women” rhetoric — originally focused on reproductive rights — shows, the exact slice of female voters that politicians think are crucial to their success has changed over time, but it’s still a campaign story that hits reprise every election cycle.
This chart from PBS Newshour helps explain why.
Since 1976, women have reliably voted slightly more for Democrats than they have for Republicans. They have also made up a majority of the electorate since 1984. If Democrats didn’t hold on to their advantage with women, it could be bad for their future electoral chances. Which is why Democrats have increasingly focused on minority and unmarried women, who haven’t turned out in past elections but could be a formidable addition to the Democratic coalition.
In midterms, even fewer unmarried women vote. In 2008, 20.3 million unmarried women voted in the presidential election, according to the Voter Participation Center. In the 2010 midterm, 10.1 million fewer women turned out, a 33 percent drop. Married women, on the other hand, are voting more Republican lately. By focusing on unmarried women, Democrats are targeting only the voters already inclined to support their platform, if not enough to go vote.
In midterm elections, where the frame has already been set to depict Democrats fighting an uphill battle, they can’t win without these voters. Which makes the Obama administration’s recent push on equal pay make all the more sense. Women make up two-thirds of all minimum wage workers, and many of the unmarried and minority women who haven’t figured heavily in the electoral calculus in previous cycles are the ones who could be most affected by equal pay legislation and Obama’s two executive orders on pay transparency.
On Tuesday, President Obama framed the equal pay legislation with the same “war on women” rhetoric that the Democratic Party has used since 2012. “This isn’t just about treating women fairly. This is about Republicans seemingly opposing any efforts to even the playing field for working families. I don’t know why you would resist the idea that women should be paid the same as men and then deny that that’s not always happening out there.”
The Senate failed to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this morning. No Republicans voted for it.
Republicans are trying to make inroads with women in other ways, either to hold on to their slim advantage with married women — already more likely to turn out — or try to win over unmarried women. Republican donors held a big fundraiser for three women running for the House last month. The Republican National Committee held an event for their “rising stars” at a winter meeting, which featured several female candidates.
The communications director for Concerned Women for America said, ”The war on women is directly the left’s attempt to narrow women down to one-issue voters, and that’s not true. But the war for women is an attempt for women’s vote. Because it is a large demographic, a huge voting bloc, and we should be honored so much that people are trying to figure out enough what we care about to speak to us.” The RightNOW Women’s PAC launched this year, which Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) called, “Democrats’ worst nightmare.”
The future of parties trying to woo women might fall more along these lines — Democrats winning younger and minority women, and Republicans winning older, married women.
*****
Readers: There is more to say so start flapping….Blog me.
Peace & Love.
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michelle
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April 11th, 2014 at 9:28 am
Zen Lill I know you like your Star Bucks coffee because I’ve seen you there from time to time. I have always wanted to walk up to you and say hello. Maybe next time.
April 11th, 2014 at 9:33 am
Looking at that bar chart says it all about how dumb white women are. They voted overwhelmingly for Reagan.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:43 am
The main reason the Dems could lose is older white voters are more likely to go to the polls than young and minority voters. If those lazy bastards don’t get off their asses and go to the polls they should suffer.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:46 am
To those of you that think the Tea Party is dead. Think again. We are going to whip your democratic nigger loving asses. The Tea Party’s obituaries continue to be laughably premature. Whatever the waxing and waning of individual organizations that use the Tea Party rubric, the Tea Party ideology is alive and well in the Republican base. Tea Party ideology is the base.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:57 am
I agree with you Eric. Even though a new poll, from Pew, says that Obama’s landslide victories in 2008 and 2012 among voters ages 18 to 29 (the ones who will not show up in the midterms) are no fluke. Pew found that 50 percent of millennials (ages 18 to 33) either identify as Democratic or lean Democratic (vs. 34 percent who either are or lean Republican).
But the operative point in that poll is that want something for nothing group WON’T turn out while we will. I say fuck the same-sex marriage, abortion rights, nigger-loving, wet back-tolerant, legalized weed smoking, bitches rights crowd.
All we have to do to win is not fight among ourselves. Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory, when the fucking ethnics are around.
Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity, just get armed and support your brethen when they do what’s necessary to send a message to that garbage.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:01 pm
As sad as it is the truth of the matter is old racist whites will vote for a party that plans to cut their Social Security rather than a party that support equality. If you doubt this for a moment consider that earlier this week, Republican David Jolly beat Democrat Alex Sink in a hotly contested special election for the congressional seat in Florida’s 13th district.
It was those very same seniors in Florida that went out and voted against their own self interest by voting into the House a known lobbyist who is against extending ObamaCare/Medic are, but is an avowed racist.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:05 pm
The dismantling of the people’s government started with the assassination of JFK and the rise of militarism that came with the expanded Vietnam war. With the assassination of RFK, the progressive direction of the country was halted to bring the conservative backlash under Nixon into the mainstream.
By today’s standards Nixon was quite progressive. Reagan really sealed your fate with his destruction of unions, the industrial base and the rise of the Wall Street casino as the main economic structure.
The Bushes increased the slide and put fascism into place with their false flag 9/11. The ‘Official State History’ is the real ‘conspiracy myth’ since nothing in it bears up when seriously examined. Sorry you will have to live and grow old in a Fascist country.
You republicans who decry any aid for those who cannot help themselves, I trust you will keep a gun with two bullets handy in case of serious illness, bankruptcy, homelessness or the other ills of this ‘free’ society…two bullets in case you miss the first time. I would rather see expanded welfare and compassion for those who are sick, poor, ill, old, young, including you.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:06 pm
We all want everything to be free, but someone has to pay for it……Therefore, why don’t we go to the big corp. (Walmart, GE,big banks) and start asking them to start paying back all the corporate welfare $$ they’ve been given.
I’m sure that will be more than enough to pay for the ACA provision that children be covered under their parents insurance until they’re 25.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Carla#6, how wise you are. It answers my question of – Why would seniors, or anyone else, go out and vote for republicans who tried to ram Social Security and Medicare cuts down their throats, who lie viciously to support endless wars and mass and executive murder and torture, and who gave Wall Street the right and ability to rape and pillage the nation and its people, as they did Big Fossil Fuels, Nuclear, the Insurance, Med-Biz and Pharma industries, and who have shredded and shat on the Constitution, and then rubbed our faces in it, in their bid to open everyone up to total surveillance, all the time.
You answered it succinctly, racism. Let’s keep us whites on top for as long as we can, fuck the nation, and everybody and everything else.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:16 pm
The difference between the two parties is:
The republicans know what their party stands for, white supremacy. They may party may be full of bought and paid for racist, misogynistic psychotic morons, but they have a single voice, which is “white is right.”
Frankly I can get behind that.
The Democratic base only has 2 problems:
1. It expects the Democratic Party to start listening, even though, historically, it’s incapable of doing that.
2. It threatens to vote 3rd party or not at all, to ENSURE that the Democratic Party will CONTINUE not listening to it.
———–
If Democrats had the strategic intelligence of Republicans, they’d realize that the biggest threat to conservative Democrats is to CHALLENGE them DIRECTLY, IN THE PRIMARY, so they won’t even have a chance to falsely represent the Democratic Party they’ve hijacked.
I have very little hope for the party and for the American left. They both seem totally incapable of strategic thought, but great at complaining from the sidelines about the fact that nothing ever goes their way.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:20 pm
Michelle, what happened to the screamers on your blog? Where did all the high brows come from. You are scaring away the common man. Edit out these deep thinkers. Let them head to the New Yorker or some other place. Half the time I can’t understand what the fuck they are talking about.
Oh, and bring back pictures of the cutest gal on any blog, Zen Lill. You can also lose the man haters like Social Butterfly. I bet she never saw a nigger she didn’t like, probably is one.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:26 pm
I agree for us democrats these are scary times. There is the problem of Conservative Democrats in conservative states where there really aren’t any true Progressive candidates bc all of the candidates are too scared not to be conservative in their rhetoric and policies, translated they have to act racists because their constituents are mainly white and racist.
The white women in every state are as dumb as dirt. They whine about unequal pay and rights but line up to vote for the white men who advocate they receive unequal pay and second citizen rights.
I was hoping the youngsters would get it straight and go out and get the job done, but they seem to be getting lost and losing steam the closer we get to the main event. I guess this country really is going to go to the dogs, after all.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:27 pm
How to solve this essential problem: “what is in it for me as an incentive to vote?” Republicans will vote. They know what is in it for them. And the Democrats? That is why (they do not believe there is something in it for them) they traditionally do not vote in mid-term elections.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:28 pm
Republicans vote in mid-term elections because they are TOLD to go out and vote. These are the same people that blindly believe and mouth everything the neo-cons tell them to. Democrates, however, are a very more independent type. They’ll do whatever they want to.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:29 pm
Republicans among my associates, the more well-to-do, see voting as a duty and they do not miss election voting. I do believe that Democrats are not up to par with Republicans, a “Reason” to vote.
We all know about a poll tax. How about a “poll reward?” People are basically selfish. Suppose `$100 were given to each Democrat who voted? Do you think that would change election results?
April 11th, 2014 at 12:31 pm
I will try to buy the bill board ad space that an associate of mine uses to advertize his very fine sandwich and pastry shop. We have a corrupt Republican congressman in my district.
He has been around for a long, long time. maybe we can flip the district. I want to access the bill board, pay the monthly rent thereof. State his voting record against women and the poor.
This bill board is on Van Buren Blvd, a blvd. which is a link to March Air Force Base and two major freeways, think we can make good things happen come election time.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Yes, Michelle women need to get out and vote. I like Blll Maher. His reasons why Democrats do not vote in large numbers, Mid-term elections. He and I are in agreement on reason #
1. “Republicans are actually ‘steady voters.’ Their turn out really does not fluctuate that much. Why then, do not Democrats turn out to vote in large numbers like Republicans. Reason #1 They do not see ‘what’s in it for me.’ So, why vote? Democrats are not as proficient at selling their message to the Democrats as well as the Republicans are able to do.
Reason # 2. They are too much like Republicans.” There are lots of implications in that last statement. Maybe, just maybe Bill M. has something?
How avoidance of truth works. 1. Deny the truth. 2. It is against the bible. 3. We knew it all along. I think what he was really saying is as long as whites have the numbers at the polls, this country is doomed to mediocracy.
43 consecutive white male presidents are more than enough proof of that. Obama has done in one term what all that batch couldn’t do collectively in 200 years.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Sorry, dems the truth is Republicans are common sense people that understand the impact of inefficient government and excess taxation. They believe in a strong economy, and jobs as key to having a successful Government. What has 5 years of Obama’s policies done for America? Disaster both here and overseas
April 11th, 2014 at 12:36 pm
I think there may be a better chance of a strong 3rd party emerging on the right than on the left. If Roe vs. Wade fell, I think you would see the rise of a strong Libertarian Party. Up to this point, Libertarians have voted Republican because they figured Roe vs. Wade would protect women’s right to choose. The Republican Party would wither away if Roe vs. Wade fell.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Where’s Howie? We need some serious talk on this blog.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:38 pm
Tom#18, And yet……..they voted for George W. Bush TWICE and then voted for a man who picked Sarah Palin as his VP.
Yeah, there’s common sense for you.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Terry#19, you are uttering the same old leftist propaganda, did Bush, Reagan or other Republican Presidents threaten a woman’s right to choose? No.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Pete #11 – I’m not surprised you don’t understand what is going on in the blog comments. You showed your stupidity very clearly for all to read with the asinine statement you made about me.
/SB
April 11th, 2014 at 12:46 pm
Carla#6, your assessment of what happen in FL-13 was good but not complete. Here is my take on what happened in FL-13:
1. FL-13 has been in Republican hands since 1954. It was the first House district in FL to turn to the GOP. Yes it has been voting Democratic for President and other statewide offices recently, but partisan realignment often takes decades to finally filter down to the local level. That is because incumbents are personally popular; and, the more local the race, the more voters are likely to see past party labels. Many districts in the south continued to elect Democrats well in the 1990s even though they had been voting Republican for President since the 1950s and 1960s. It wasn’t until 1980s and 1990s, when the last of the old guard Southern Democrats died or retired, that those districts started electing Republicans.
2. Although Sink won the early and absentee vote she lost badly among those who showed up on Election Day. What this says to me is that she had no GOTV strategy for Election Day.
3. This district is filled with older voters who bought the “get the government out of my Medicare” argument that the GOP has pushed since 2010. They fear the ACA because they believe that it will undermine their Medicare. They believe that they have “earned” their Medicare, while the ACA takes what they’ve “earned” and redistributes it to “those people” for a program, quoting a Romney ad, “that is not for them”.
5. Sink may have won the 2006 State CFO race, but has lost two races in a role. Lastly she was a poor candidate.
6. She was a woman and white women almost never support a woman over a man.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Ditto Social Butterfly#23. Idiots abound on this blog.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:48 pm
I agree with you Social Butterfly. I wanted to bitch slap that asshole.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:52 pm
Social Butterfly, what would we do for hilarity on this blog without the dick for brains petes?
Aldofo#24, this white girl always votes a woman over a man unless the woman is a stupid republican. Dimwitted Alex Sink, the worst candidate I can think of with ten years’ experience in professional Democratic politics, managed to run away from Obamacare (when polls showed it helped her).
Like most Southern “progressives” she represents 300 years of history of those people being unable to accomplish shit, as evidenced by 300 years of Southern history.
Forget them, and when we get the chance, EXPEL THE SOUTH.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:57 pm
So now it back to the male bashing. Michelle your blog is noting but a magnet for men hating dykes or nigger loving white trash women. I hope that the 2014 elections will go huge to the GOP, it will be as cataclysmic as 2010 election was for the Democrats.
Then we will get rid of roe vs wade and you whoring bitches will have to birth your sins in the open light.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:59 pm
Cynthia#27, the South is where jobs and economic growth is flourishing. Texas created over half the new jobs in our Nation, and has an economy that is one of the largest in America. The Northeast is in decline, as are the democrats that have brought New York and other States to disaster.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:02 pm
I suspect that the 2014 elections will tilt to the GOP, but it won’t be a cataclysmic as 2010 was for the Democrats.
1. At least in the House the GOP has won almost all of the “low-hanging fruit”. They won the most vulnerable districts in 2010 and locked in their gains in redistricting. NC-7, UT-4, and possibly WV-3 are definite pickups for them. But beyond that there just aren’t that many vulnerable House Democrats. I suspect that there will be minimal change in the House.
2. In Senate races the GOP has lots of opportunities because the Democrats must defend more seats in hostile territory. At this point, if I had to guess, I would say that MT, SD, and WV are probably gone for the Democrats. I suspect that, by the summer, the DSCC will concede those races.
3. I think that the battle for the Senate will come down to AK, AR, LA, and NC. The GOP must win three of these four. If they win two then the Senate remains 50-50. But I suspect that those Democrats will likely pull out their races. The early onslaught of anti-ACA ads have hurt them all; but, since the public is no longer focused on Obamacare. I suspect that, going forward, those incumbents will start airing ads of people who finally have health insurance.
4. The GOP will try very hard in CO, but fall short narrowly. Hickenlooper’s approval ratings have stabilized and I think that the anger over the gun laws that the CO legislature passed last year has fizzled. I think that IA, MI, NH, and VA will stay with the Democrats.
5. The Democrats have only two real shots at pickups in GA and KY. Of the two I would say that KY is probably the more likely pickup because ALG is running a great campaign against McConnell. This race will turn on whether she can tout the ACA success in KY and link McConnell to wanting to take away the healthcare from thousands of people in the state.
People talk about how Reid beat Sharon Angle in 2010 even though he trailed in all the final polls. The difference is that ALG is a much better candidate than Sharon Angle and Reid didn’t have a primary.
But McConnell is still the favorite. I suspect that he will eke out a 1-2% win, although ALG will give him a run for his money.
GA depends on who wins the primary. If Paul Broun or someone extreme wins the primary then Nunn has a chance of winning. The advantage that Nunn has is her family name and that she only faces “Some Dude” in the primary. She can raise money and get her name out there, while the GOP fights over the nomination.
But I think that ALG wins before Nunn does. If the Democrats take one or both of those races then they will likely maintain Senate control.
6. The Democrats have a distant chance of being competitive in KS and MS, but a lot depends on who wins the primary there.
In MS Thad Cochran faces an aggressive Tea Party challenger and did himself no favors when he said out loud that he didn’t know what “the Tea Party was”. Cochran also didn’t do himself any favors when he spoke positively of Obama.
The Democrat in that race is former Congressman Travis Childers. If McDaniel wins the primary than Childers has a chance of winning, but only a small one. A Cochran primary win takes this race off the board unless he comes out bloodied.
Roberts is lucky that he represents KS, a state that has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1932. Otherwise, if he were in a more moderate state, he would be in deep trouble. Roberts has admitted to not owning property in KS. He made a comment about “sitting in a Lazy-Boy recliner”. He is facing a Tea Party Primary challenger, albeit a flawed one.
But what could hurt Roberts is that Governor Brownback is extremely unpopular. He is facing a tough race against Paul Davis, the minority leader of the KS House. And Davis’s running mate is Jill Docking, the most famous Democratic political family in the state.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:05 pm
I hate to sound like a smart-ass or say “I told you so” but this country is sliding into an “Idiotocracy.”
I really wouldn’t care in this 1.5 party-system but the rest of the planet will suffer exponentially, which is the REAL reason to fight the forces of unreason.
Pax Americana (or as Dimwits put it “You’re either with us or against us”) means war, pollution, degradation of the country and the planet.
You can fuck each other up but you don’t have the right to do it to the rest of our planetary relations and our only Mother.
That goes beyond all political party-politics and self-aggrandize ment which is the status-quo.
Revolution before it’s too late!
April 11th, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Gene#29, you LSOS (why did you end this feature Michelle) republicans will make up any statistic to further your lies. Google this statistics show that median income is higher in Blue States, divorces are fewer and in general health is better. You must be living in that parallel universe we hear so much about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income – Check it out you LSOS the bottom 14 states are all red.
Notice on States ranked by Median Household Income Texas comes in at number 25 and on States ranked by per capita income Texas comes in number 30. So what the heck are you lying about.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
Social Butterfly, creepy how the slime are always there to say the idiotic. And speaking of trolling slime.
Gene#29, actually, there are more people in the red states that depend on government assistance than in the blue states. But I’m sure you won’t let that little fact stop you from spewing neo-con vomit wherever you can.
OH but wait, I forgot….TROLL POINTS!!!
Blue States Pay Taxes, Red States Receive Benefits
Here is a delightful piece of truth which Ayn Rand conservatives (and religious right leaders) will hate to read. Red States are welfare states!!!
http://www.pubtheo.com/page.asp?PID=1731
April 11th, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Interesting so there may be hope yet. I agree about the medicare dumb and it’s the redneck core south voters here .. historicially republicrats .. they had a white male with republo speak going for them in what is that kind of district ..
April 11th, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Michelle this blog is taking itself too serious. What happened to the true confessions of hot sex and murders?
All my friends have tales of posts to your blog about doing in their spouses and fucking their relatives are you screening now or what?
April 11th, 2014 at 1:31 pm
If the Democrats could come up with a candidate that wasn’t a corrupt sleaze bag, this senior would vote for them. Otherwise, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:31 pm
For the best reason…read Krugman’s column:
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Krugman-Paul-Ryan-can-t-help-blowing-that-racial-5328743.php
Racism and misogyny is the cause of Democrat defeat…The GOP is framing their causes in language that appeals to the white majority…espe cially the old white males with all the money. iMost don’t realize that they are being conned.
And how else do you explain all the non-rich white people flocking to the cause …even when it is in direct opposition to their best economic interests.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:33 pm
Steve#36, So you’re saying that you prefer to vote for the Republican Party’s corrupt sleaze bag. The one that’s also working all out to see that you spend the rest of your life in 3rd world level poverty, you can’t get healthcare and that the best job your grandkids can find will pay $4 an hour.
You have my condolences and so do your grand-children.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:33 pm
BREAKING NEWS!!!
President Obama declares apple pie a favorite American dessert!
MORE BREAKING NEWS!!!
Republics declare apple pie is a Socialist, Kenyan, anti-American dessert being imposed on us by a Dictator!
Really NOT so far fetched, look at their response to Michelle Obama suggesting drinking more water is healthy!
April 11th, 2014 at 1:35 pm
BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! It all boils down to this: dem/ind voters are too stupid to vote for their own survival and repug voters are so stupid that they vote against their own survival…and the survival of the rest of us.
If the dems don’t win both houses in 2014, 2016 won’t mean a damn thing…since it will show that the average voter doesn’t have the intelligence, nor the ability to think critically, in order to save one’s ass.
Homo Sapiens means wise man…what a misnomer that has become.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Caroline#37, it’s because the republican party is becoming more and more like a cult. And people who join cults and/or religions refuse to do their own thinking.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:39 pm
To all third party participants on this blog: If Ralph Nader had kept his word and not competed in swing states like Florida and New Hampshire, and if even a small percentage of the third party voters there had voted for Al Gore instead of Nader, this country could now have a 6-3 liberal Supreme Court instead of a 5-4 conservative one, and Citizens United and the partial overthrow of the Voting Rights Act would not have happened.
Symbolic votes are incredibly costly when races are close. And to those who forget the value of conservative Democrats, none of the gains of the first two years of Obama’s presidency could have happened without their presence in the House, and none of the Republican obstructions of the rest of the years could have happened if they had still been there.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:40 pm
Will Rand Paul be able to pull disgruntled Democratic and Independent votes to win the election. Can he distance himself from Wall Street who seems to have Hiliary in their back pocket along with her support from the military industrial complex because of her hawkish world imperialistic views.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:41 pm
The democrats blew it, and they know they are finished, not just as a party with some minor controls on the federal level, but as a party. They have no programs, no policies to offer. They hardly have a constituency that has any meaningful power. I used to vote democrat as the lesser of two evils.
I will no longer do so. I will either not vote, or vote for a third party candidate. They whimpered and sank while the republicans ran roughshod over them. The country will, like them, be throughly trashed in 2014.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:44 pm
I agree with those who say racism is behind the success of the republican party. The pattern is set. Lie lie lie about obama calling him a big tax and spend social democrat .. he’s black .. blacks vote for him . affordable care act is a black act as it gives free healthcare to all blacks in the blue states.
White non seniors hate his guts because they still believe in the sham called the american dream and still buy into the idea that creating social programs and helping the underbelly somehow takes money away from them … all false and since the country sucks for most they have to blame someone anyone .. so they’ll all vote for the alternative … no matter how bad …
April 11th, 2014 at 1:45 pm
Sam#44, you are an idiot. Read Vicky#42, then get out and vote the democratic ticket.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:46 pm
Vicky#42, Nader has been an effective Republican diversion ever since he first came to prominence with a well-funded campaign against a lousy GM car in the late 1960s. He bled energy away from the campaigns then opposing the U.S. war industry exercise in Viet Nam.
When I see Nader given bylines on progressive news sites I always wonder about his real agenda. Let’s just hope he doesn’t pull one of his diversionary stunts in KY or some other close, winnable state.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:47 pm
And the ‘Backlash Vote’ will not include those getting needs met under Obama Policies .. all others will have more money and control the messaging with negative ads and the politics of fear .. it works and will continue to do so .. the only question will be exactly how badly the democrats lose … and they will lose … as they can’t use government money to counter the private big money and backlash interests who will run the ads .. as John Q Dumblick is so vulnerable .. it’s why we had Nixon, Bush, Reagan, and now some other Repuke coming down their ‘Lying Pike’ … sucker born every minute in this country …
April 11th, 2014 at 1:49 pm
Michelle, I hope you will have Madaline out helping thwart voter rigging. There have been some ery good points by everyone here, but has anyone considered that the vote in Florida was rigged? This was a very close vote. Close votes can be “poo-poo-ed” as “See, it was close but WE won! Nanny nanny boo boo!” Bull Hockey, it was stolen.
David Jolly 48.5 percent
Alex Sink 46.7 percent
Lucas Overby 4.8 percent
This is news from the 2012 election, and I’m sure we are aware of previous years election shenanigans…..
“Many of the problems occurred in Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, states that still use Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines – touch-screen voting equipment that lack any paper backup for later recount.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1107/Voting-machine-glitches-How-bad-was-it-on-Election-Day-around-the-country
“The risk of cyber manipulation of these machines is quite real,” says Barbara Simons, a computer researcher and author of “Broken Ballots,” a book documenting e-voting vulnerabilities . “Most people don’t understand that these computer-based voting machines can have software bugs or even election-riggin g malicious software in them.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1026/Could-e-voting-machines-in-Election-2012-be-hacked-Yes
I agree that voting is a DUTY and should be exercised by an informed electorate. If you are informed, not programmed, then vote. Vote early and often!
April 11th, 2014 at 1:50 pm
I can go for another party but not parties. If we become too factionalized we become too fractionalized. Too many factions (parties) cause dilution of party power and interfere with progress. With two parties you get consensus quicker but with many factions you have practically no consensus and political stagnation.
In many, many ways the current parties are not representing the will of the people, at least not for the will of a substantial minority (possibly majority if only they would VOTE!) that needs representation (what I would call liberal, social, communal, truly democratic leaning people).
April 11th, 2014 at 1:53 pm
There’re so many reasons why the Dems are in deep trouble, and most of them are their own fault. Yes, the Repubs are enemies of the Dems, but the Dems are actually their own worst enemy. The list is almost endless, but it comes down to some very basic things:
o The betrayal by Obama on his promise of “Change that we could believe in” to his voting base almost from the get-go when he took office in Jan/2009.
o The complete lack of a spine by the Dems to not only stand up to the Repubs, but to actually push them back. By this lack of backbone, they’ve allowed the Repubs to call the shots, even when the Dems had complete control of both the Legislative branch of our govt and the WH between Jan of 2009 and Jan of 2011.
o His foreign policy, national security and corporate agendas follow that of the former G.W. Bush admin on steroids.
o His enhanced use of drone warfare that is murdering hundreds (if not thousands) of innocent civilians, men, women, and children, in countries that are no direct threat to us and which is against international law.
o His proactive efforts to overthrow democratically- elected governments as U.S. presidents, both Dems and Repubs, have done in the past. So far, Obama has succeeded in overthrowing Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, Ukrainian Pres Viktor Yanukovych, and was also probably involved in the coup that overthrew the Paraguayan govt in 2012, and he is very close to overthrowing President Maduro of Venezuela.
o His strong support for NSA’s illegal and unfettered spying on U.S. citizens (and everybody else in the world for that matter) and his protection of both the CIA and the NSA from prosecution from their many crimes against the Constitution and the American people.
o His support of the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, which, in effect, now gives him (and any future president) the power of God to choose who lives and who dies just on his word alone, including U.S. citizens both inside and outside the United States, says much about who Obama really is.
o His willingness to throw retirees underneath the bus by messing with Social Security and Medicare benefits to make both the Republicans and the corporate world happy campers.
o His immigration policy against Latinos is turning them against him and the Democratic Party which they cannot well afford right now. Obama is separating whole families in the tens of thousands, making the Republicans look extremely friendly by comparison. This is sheer stupidity which brings me to my last comment.
o Because the Congressional Democrats consider Obama their de-facto leader being the president of the United States, they feel that they have to support him in everything that he wants to do, even if what he wants to do ends up hurting the Democratic voting base. Like Lemmings (and like fools), the Democrats are following Obama over the cliff.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:56 pm
I have my passport ready. Not only will the cowardly, ball-less, clueless Democrats be routed in November 2014 but they will be routed again in 2016. Imagine! An America completely under the control of the Republican Party!
It is simply too frightening and too depressing to contemplate. It will be the beginning of the end of American democracy and the rise of the Republicans’ long-desired corporate theocracy. I suggest everyone get their passports ready.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Gene#22, I have two words for you Hyde Amendment.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:02 pm
Democrats cannot win by acting like not so insane Republicans. Obama tries way too hard to get the 1% to like him, hence the repeated concessions to them except for the modest tax rate increase on “earned” income over $400,000.00, and an even more modest tax rate increase on capital gains.
I knew we were screwed by this man in the big picture, even though he has had several successes, when he picked a bunch of pro-big business Clinton retreads in 2009, adopted Republican nonsense about reducing federal budgets during a recession, when he did not go to war on reducing unemployment instead of embarking on Republican style health insurance “reform,” and when Obama kept saying, “That is not politically possible,” or, “That is what we need, now make me do it”!
There is a reason that so many poor and middle class voters don’t vote, and that is because they don’t see any real difference in the two major parties, and Obama is the perfect example of why this is true!
The other problem Democrats have is that they cannot see the few Democratic things that Obama has done that have been good because they also focus on the things that have been unhelpful to ALL Americans, so they run away from him which makes them all look weak!
And the Democrats are terrible at coming up with helpful things to say and adopting those things nation wide to look decisive and unified!!!
April 11th, 2014 at 2:08 pm
Were KS not such a Republican state both Brownback and Roberts would look a lot like Ken Blackwell and Mike Dewine did in OH in 2006. Had he been running in ANY other year DeWine would have won, but 2006 was the worst year for the OH GOP in decades. Ken Blackwell–and the outgoing Taft administration- -was so unpopular and lost so badly that the Democratic cottails took Mike DeWine down with him.
And the Democrats do have a good candidate in Chad Taylor, the Shawnee County District Attorney. Roberts is still the overwhelming favorite in this race. But his residency issues could give Taylor an opening, albeit a limited one.
Roberts’s fate may be linked to Brownback. If Brownback continues to be unpopular, should Davis beat him, which is possibly because, while Democrats have not won a Senate race since 1932, they have periodically won the Governorship. The Dockings, John Carlin, Joan Finney, and Kathleen Sebeilus were able to win.
So if there is an upset that no one expects on Election night it might happen in KS. This is probably the sleeper race of the cycle.
7. As for the Governorships I think that the Democrats will break even or may gain one or two Governorships.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Get used to slavery – or at least the US version of apartheid. Once the dims have been tossed out, the US will have a one-party system just like other countries I can think of.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:17 pm
Distortion and Deception! GOP extremists are masterful at distortion and deception! Their followers, marching in lock step to their death cries, never once pausing to verify.
We are on the precipice of political disaster, and lackluster Democrats are allowing it to happen…..Or will they? What will you do Michelle?
I will never understand why people are “angry with Obama” for fighting GOP’s unyielding obstruction against good jobs, affordable health care, better schools/educati on, benefits for “old white folks” (Social Security/Medica re), Civil/Human Rights, Voting Rights, Women’s Rights, Immigration Reform, Tax Fairness, Equal Pay for Equal Work, A Minimum Wage that is a Livable Wage, Diplomacy and Pragmatism Vs. Saber Rattling & Wars.
These are just a few things Obama and Democrats stand for — So, WHY ARE AMERICANS “ANGRY AT OBAMA?”
The man isn’t a king he is the President and he has to work with a Legislative Branch that is tasked with making the laws of the land. Has anybody bothered to check, they will see that one half that Branch, the House, is dominated by obstructionists republicans.
I know the south hates him because he’s Black — or half-white – A term often ignored. BUT THE REST OF US ALLOWING DIRTY SECRET MONEY AND POWER TO CORRUPT?
The BILLIONAIRE OIL/COAL KOCH BROS and their ilk are bringing this country to its knees — Tirelessly working to RETURN US TO THE 1800s. Future reviewers of history will look back in amazement — astonished at how “So few could deceive and destroy so many!”
Brainwashing is a Tool used to perpetuate devastating outcomes. WAKE UP AMERICAN, SMELL THE STENCH OF THE TEAPUBLIKKKlan EXTREMISTS’ PLAYBOOK.
May God of Michelle, or Madaline enlighten us all to go to the polls in November and VOTE STRAIGHT DEMOCRAT!
April 16th, 2014 at 9:46 am
[…] Monroe: That is the point, the “youngsters” need to get with it. They were all so excited and participatory in the 2008 elections…but they quickly lost steam and stayed away during the midterms, which is part of the reason we lost the House. Dems, ALL Dems, need to get a fire up their asses and realize that if we lose this chance, life will be far worse than they can imagine. […]
April 17th, 2014 at 9:54 am
[…] Ann: You inspired me the other day. The LSOS’s are still out there going strong. This one from The New Republic is for you. […]