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Tag Archives: democrats
How much does the Tea Party influence who wins?
“I have a message, a message from the Tea Party,” said Rand Paul, a political candidate who made headlines across the United States this week. “We have come to take our government back.”
The Tea Party isn’t really a “party,” in the conventional sense. They describe themselves as a loose movement of activists who draw their inspiration from the Boston Tea Party — an 18th-century anti-taxation uprising that helped spark the American War of Independence.
Today’s Tea Party wants lower taxes and less government spending, policies it says the Republican Party has promised but not delivered. So now the Tea Party is supporting candidates who are officially running for office as Republicans, in hope they can change the party from the inside. This week Paul became the most prominent yet to win a Republican nomination, running for the U.S. Senate and sharing credit for his win with the Tea Party.
Paul wasn’t the only anti-establishment candidate to do well this week. Americans nationwide are angry at their elected leaders and several states had a chance to choose both Republican and Democratic nominees for elected office. There were setbacks for well-known candidates in both parties.
“It was an anti-incumbency vote across the nation,” said Bill Richardson, a Democratic Party governor. “If you ran against Washington, you did well.”
With President Obama in the White House and his supporters in control of Congress, the Democrats are currently America’s governing party. The Tea Party is unhappy with the government so the conflict with the Democrats is clear.
But Republicans aren’t entirely sure where they stand. Some have embraced the newcomers, while others have politely pushed them away. The party’s leaders refused to support Paul, at least in part because he doesn’t really support them.
Can the Tea Party take hold among Republicans? Will their chosen candidates win against Republicans and Democrats? Will the winners come from among candidates who run against Washington with or without support from the Tea Party? Are the extremes making most of the noise but the moderates will make the most difference?
Filed under Elections, Political Reform, Tea Party Movement
Reconciliation only for GOP
Thanks to the 2006 and 2008 elections, conservatives no longer control the American government. They do, however, continue to essentially control the American media. As a case in point, you’ve probably heard that part of the Obama administration’s plan to pass health reform is to use the budget reconciliation process. The reason you’ve probably heard is that the press has been obsessed with the topic, repeatedly labeling it a “controversial” move that would “ram” legislation via an end-run around the normal legislative process.”
In fact, though most bills do not go through the reconciliation process—typically because their subject matter makes them ineligible—the process has been invoked frequently since 1980. And the reason it’s remained obscure until 2010 is that until the health-care debate, the press never saw fit to go into conniptions over congressional procedure.
Some of the mainstream media coverage of the reconciliation issue has been bad. Some of it, like this excellent NPR story, has been good.
Continue reading here.
Filed under Healthcare, Media
Intraparty battles between Democrats?
It’s been open season on the right for primary challengers, with bids to unseat incumbents like John McCain and establishment favorites for open seats like Charlie Crist. But despite heightened tensions on the left between progressive and conservative Democrats, there has been little to no corresponding electoral pressure from the base to keep members in line—until now.
A major primary battle is developing in Arkansas between one of the Senate’s most prominent conservative Democrats, Blanche Lincoln, and progressive-backed Bill Halter, the state’s lieutenant governor.
continue reading here.
Filed under Democratic Party, Elections
Tuesday, 11/03/09, Public Square
Today Virginia and New Jersey are choosing governors, voters in upstate New York and northern California are deciding who should fill two vacant congressional seats, and New York City and Atlanta are picking mayors. Maine will vote on whether to permit gay marriage while Ohio will choose whether to allow casinos.
The political ‘experts’ are saying this handful of elections will give hints about this country’s state of mind, provide lessons for both Republicans and Democrats, and shed light on answers to a few important questions a year before pivotal 2010 midterm contests.
- Did President Barack Obama’s campaigning in Virginia and New Jersey persuade the diverse voting coalition that lifted him to victory in 2008 to turn out for Democratic candidates in 2009?
- Did fickle independents stick with the Democratic Party?
- Did the out-of-power GOP overcome fissures within its ranks to find a winning strategy?
Here’s what I predict — those and other very important questions will be asked and answered by political pundits and there will be at least as many answers as there are pundits asked to share their opinions.
fnord
Filed under The Public Square
ARE WE MONSTERS?
As I think about the claim, the Obama care is going to kill your grandmother. How much of a monster one must think the other side is to believe that is even a possible consideration? Seriously in order for Republicans to think that the Democrats would actually think of that as a form to cut costs.
Certainly the cons on tbtsnbn think of thunderbird as some kind of monster often calling him horrible names and accusing him of some mindless actions. It has to be the most unreasoning thing in the partisanship the dehumanizing of the other side.
Can anyone here think of Granny as a loving grandmother and wife? Easier to imagine her drinking the blood of the innocent huh? How unreasoning it is that the lie about the health care bills so demand that the believer must think that the other side is so monstrous. It actually demand that you ignore the very complain about Democrats that they take caring too far and that if it involves money nothing is too expensive.
To then turn around and think that the very same people would let the elderly to die to save money is delusional.
Through out history it is a tactic of war, to dehumanize the enemy. The Japanese so stressed that the Americans if they capture any Japanese the American would eat them alive. The story of the horror of our troops watching men, women and children leaping to their deaths rather then be captured.
We too dehumanized the Japanese, saying they were amoral and without a soul.
But this is too far and disturbing in the name of partisanship, such a illness in our Politics that feels the delusions.
Filed under Uncategorized