Lot's of money spend to vilify him and rough rhetoric from the entirety of the right wing.
American Politics
- Thread starter Raoul
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It's not a particularly surprising result really. The last time these Senate seats were up for election was 2008, the year of a Democratic wave with turnout boosted by the Presidential election being held on the same day. After 6 years of an administration that's featured tons of high profile conflicts and deadlocks, it's more or less inevitable to have a(nother) protest against it in these mid-terms. The GOP should have regained control an election or two ago, they just threw it away by allowing Tea Party candidates to dominate the agenda. The GOP already had a majority in the House of 34 from 2012 despite losing the popular vote, so again it's not a big shock they've extended that margin - I'd expect it to shrink again in 2016, though it'll likely stay red given how efficiently they've gerrymandered it. The Dems do seem to have played a bit of a shocker in the Governor races though.
And speaking of 2016, it could be really interesting if the ticket of Bush/Rubio that @Raoul mooted earlier comes to reality against Hillary/Another. Florida would almost certainly go to the Republicans but the more moderate southern and midwestern states (Georgia, Missouri and the like) would be back in play for the Dems too, which on top of their growing security in previous swing states like New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado would make them hard to beat again.
And speaking of 2016, it could be really interesting if the ticket of Bush/Rubio that @Raoul mooted earlier comes to reality against Hillary/Another. Florida would almost certainly go to the Republicans but the more moderate southern and midwestern states (Georgia, Missouri and the like) would be back in play for the Dems too, which on top of their growing security in previous swing states like New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado would make them hard to beat again.
Well you have the usual wariness that sets in heading into a 2 term Presidents last 2 years. It is not that you always see a President in this situation lose the mid-term election, but it is an issue that probably played into this election.
Huge amount of money spent getting the anti-Obama message out. One thing both Reagan and Clinton understood as Presidents (or their advisors understood) is that you have to control the image and the message. If the other guy is allowed to get his message out there better than you are getting yours out, you are going to have a difficult time.
Even many Dems are not happy with Obama, they still of course prefer him to any Repub, but there is still a feeling of many that he has not lived up to his promise.
Typical low turnout in midterms will have worked against the Dems.
I would love to put money on the field against Jeb for the nomination. Is there a legal way to do that now that intrade is gone?
Can you use uk bookmakers online?
Does Vegas bet on political events?
I believe it's banned... Land of the free and all that
Well, as is typical of crisis legislation, DF had many provisions crafted in haste and even as the law was being passed, its imperfections were pretty clear. I'd say in the years since the law’s passage, the fundamental flaws have become more evident. DF not only failed effectively to respond to the crisis, but it also created/creates (?) unintended consequences that could lay the groundwork for a future financial crisis.
My main criticism is that DF didn't solve the "too-big-to-fail" problem; in fact it did institutionalize it. Those firms that are designated as 2B2F essentially receive special reg treatment, and I bet there's an unspoken commitment to step in to save the 2B2F firms and their creditors at the first sign of trouble. This basically translates into a perverse incentive by 2B2F to take on more risk, and results in the entrenchment of big players to the expense of smaller ones. The sheer complexity and of DF gives an edge to bigger players who are able to bear the cost of legal/compliance teams (armies!) much better than smaller players. Likewise in the asset management community, you've seen start up costs balloon, which drives away competition all the while the BlackRocks, Pimcos, DoubleLines of the world have seen their AUM grow tremendously. So, you have higher concentration of risk and the effects on small banks, asset managers, hedge funds are certainly profound. As a financial consumer you're left with to decreased choice and increased costs. (Ben Bernanke was recently turned down for a mortgage refi - lol)
Then you have large clearinghouses with taxpayers as backstops and the role of the Gov't in the mortgage market has increased rather than decreased.
The most striking omission is the failure to address/reform the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which were at the heart of the housing crisis. To date there hasn't been any meaningful reform in the housing sector, which caused the crisis in the first place. Talk about special interest groups keeping the status quo!
Finally, implementation itself has been a disaster. The process has not kept up with statutory requirements and many deadlines have been missed. It took forever to agree on a definition of “derivatives” which is a central concept of DF. Basically Congress left key decisions to regulators and gave them discretion to define the limits of their own authority. It essentially just gave them more levers to pull and buttons to push hoping to micromanage the market. The whole situation of expanding the role of regulators in the aftermath of a financial crisis in which regulators were asleep at the wheel is ironic at best. No regulatory body was held accountable for reg failures, instead they were given new powers.
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. Time will tell how DF will pan out in the end...
I disagree with you and I believe my words to be accurate.
The GOP are nothing more than domestic terrorists at this point.
Correct, the Republicans met on Obama's inauguration night and vowed to make him a 1 term president "by any means necessary".
The GOP doesnt care if they shut down the government, whatever it takes to make Obama look bad...they will do it, even at the detriment of their own constituents.
It isnt all the tea party's fault, there is blame on both sides and almost all politicians are in the pocket of the 1%.
Big business holds all the power now, Washington are just their puppets.
Local house seat is coming down to absentee ballots and probably a recount. Very surprising 15 term dem incumbent did not seem threatened a few months ago
Very informative, cheers.
Representative Mia Love from Utah. First black female REPUBLICAN elected to Congress.
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People are dumb and can't see anything that isn't right in front of them. Obama is getting the rap for Afghanistan, Iraq, the 2008 economic melt down. If these issues are not resolved in 4 years, the next guy/girl will get the rap for all that shit too. In the height of irony, he is also catching crap for Obamacare, which is essentially Republican legislation that he co-opted for his health care package when the Republicans stonewalled his original proposals.
I think it is too absurd not to find hilarious.
I'm done discussing this with you, you can't be reasoned with.
The Republicans campaigned without even having any concrete points in their agenda other than they want to repeal the ACA (which they won't be able to, anyways). That's precisely why they are favored by lobbyists - if you don't actually have a party platform tying you to follow any actual tenet, you can just do whatever your lobby asks you to.
Have a good day.
The Democrats got punished by the military industrial lobby for daring to make cuts to their exorbitant funding. They got punished by Wall Street for not wanting to lower their taxes even further. They got punished by the MPAA, RIAA and ISP giant lobbies for being reluctant to support the unethical anti-consumer, anti-competition legislation those institutions have been championing. Republicans will have no qualms ballooning the defense budget, gutting science/education/healthcare to lower corporate taxes, passing awful toxic laws like the TPP agreement and killing net neutrality. And that's why they got the ticket.
They actually could if someone like Jeb Bush runs. If they run a right wing nut like Cruz, they will get trounced in a landslide.
You keep parroting this, but your theory doesn't really account for Obama's rise to power.
Washinton insider have a significant better chance to become president than other people. Its hardly surprising. That doesnt mean, that others have no chance at all. Members of Congress publicly say that its all about fund raising (if you are from a contested district). Connections matter.
Yeah, makes sense. Getting elected is a bit of a popularity contest. If you have the resources and name recognition, you have an advantage. Its not about ideas, its about resources to be heard.
Agreed. I do our health care at work and each and every year it goes up a bunch and coverage decreases. I've seen this for more than 10 years. The only people who really saw major increases as a direct consequence of aca had shitty plans that were a sad excuse for insurance.
Well a lot of his administration's decisions weren't short term. Iraq/Afghanistan for example. Those decisions will effect the USA and world for a long time. Perhaps centuries. He'll be blamed far longer than other president and rightly so. Nothing wrong with placing blame where it belongs. Honestly I don't see much wrong with what Obama has tried and done. He's been attacked and blocked since day 0. Those actions are the real culprit.
Oh if you could have heard my explaining this to my grandma at DQ a few weeks back. I had to explain to her that no
he's not a Muslim (which wouldn't matter even if he were; I contended he's probably agnostic),
he is a citizen (explained to her just how would someone manage to hide this when one president couldn't cover up a blowjob),
and he crashed the white establishment (that race has been the primary vitriol from the GOP since day one).
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He also prefers the buffet line over the salad bar.
Listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. The idiots are up in arms about Mitch Mcconnell declaring that there will not be any government shutdowns. I bet they are waiting for Obamacare to be redacted in the next fortnight.
Republicans have to make a call between running a government in the next 18 months and to provide a platform for their next moderate opponent to give a tough fight to Hilary Clinton, or to go into a perennial conflict with Obama to appease their tea party faction of the party and hoping that the people really want the last 6 years of policies to just go away.
Interestingly, Joe Biden is apparently on very good terms with Mitch Mcconnell and he could get things done with Mitch, which could give a second wind to his career if he decides to run for President.
Republicans have to make a call between running a government in the next 18 months and to provide a platform for their next moderate opponent to give a tough fight to Hilary Clinton, or to go into a perennial conflict with Obama to appease their tea party faction of the party and hoping that the people really want the last 6 years of policies to just go away.
Interestingly, Joe Biden is apparently on very good terms with Mitch Mcconnell and he could get things done with Mitch, which could give a second wind to his career if he decides to run for President.
The Republicans are an interesting party right now. Not sure if they can ever tone down the extremists who tend to vote heavily in primaries. The only way to fix this may be the creation of a 3rd party.
splitting the republicans into two parties wouldnt solve anything. It would ensure that the democrates win every presidency in the near future without any contest at all. I know that dem-voters vision themselves as shining lights in a time of darkness, but its a ridiculous view, that doesnt match reality at all.
Confusing bunch aren't they:
We want smaller government!!
...meanwhile: Abortion should be illegal!
A third party would seem sensible in terms of accommodating the right wing nutters, but it isn't likely because Republicans know it would effectively hand the Dems the Presidency and most congressional seats, since a split GOP vote among conservative and moderate wings would just cut Republican tickets in half and allow the Democratic candidate an easy path to victory. Various people have tried it - Ross Perot and the "Reform" party in the 90s, Ralph Nader and the green party in the 2000s. In both cases their respective runs helped the opposition to victory. Bush 1 and Dole would've given Clinton a much more difficult time had it been just GOP v Dem in those races. Likewise Al Gore and John Kerry would've won the Presidency with room to spare had Ralph Nader not siphoned off left leaning Dem votes in 2000 and 04. Both parties therefore know that the creation of a third party that appeals to their respective voting bases, would hand the other elections, which is why a third party is widely held as a recipe for political suicide in the states.
That is probably what would happen - certainly in the short term. Though it would be interesting to see if in the longer term a republican party without some of the more extreme elements could draw away some of the more central leaning democrats?
Just a hunch but there must be some people who agree with a significant part of of the republicans policies but they dont want to risk the more extremist elements getting power? - I don't know what that % would be though
The smaller government (i.e. less waste) has always puzzled me because they love states been given their own rights... which means replicating government 50-fold.
The interesting thing about the GOP is they are already splitting without starting a third party. The war within the GOP has been in full stride since the Tea Party revolution in 2010, which allowed Obama to stay in office as the conservative wing of the GOP weren't energized to show up at the polls in 2012. Likewise, the same will be the case in 2016 if the GOP put up a listless moderate like Romney or a right wing fruitcake like Cruz - the opposing wings of the party will simply not be energized to show up in Nov 2016. However, if they put up someone who appeals to both wings, that person would have a pretty good chance of winning the election. So far, only Rubio and Rand Paul seem to be angling for such a position.
Rand Paul already sold out and will be destroyed in any presidential campaign. He tried to please all sides, but thats impossible, because there are incompatible ideologies. Libertarians Ideas and conservative ideas directly contradict each other. Trying to balance them just means that you lose credibility on both sides. The GOP likes to pretend that they have a libertarian side, but thats just marketing. Any candidate, who comes from this direction has no chance to win the primaries or the presidency.
Rubio and Jeb are eventually their best bets, but non of them will win. At the moment they look good because they can stay away from topics that are controversial in the GOP. Once you start a campaign you have to put the cards on the table, which means that you have to disappoint one side.
They wont win against hillary as long as there is no massive scandle. Infact Clinton is almost exactly what the GOP would need to win the presidential election; someone whos fishing in the middle, while their name/personality/reputation is so big, that critics have a hard time to come out. The GOP doesnt have anyone how ticks this boxes.
Rubio and Jeb are eventually their best bets, but non of them will win. At the moment they look good because they can stay away from topics that are controversial in the GOP. Once you start a campaign you have to put the cards on the table, which means that you have to disappoint one side.
They wont win against hillary as long as there is no massive scandle. Infact Clinton is almost exactly what the GOP would need to win the presidential election; someone whos fishing in the middle, while their name/personality/reputation is so big, that critics have a hard time to come out. The GOP doesnt have anyone how ticks this boxes.
It is a weird balancing act. In the primaries be as far right as possible to get the nomination from the nutballs and then veer left for the presidential election while making sure you still get the nutball votes.
Good news is, comedy gold coming up in about a year.
Good news is, comedy gold coming up in about a year.
Still hoping Herman Cain and Rick Perry throw their hats in. Seeing them on stage with Cruz and a few others will be amazing.
Pretty sure Perry will. Hows about Santorum? The Santorum Surge was one for the ages.
comedy indeed. Sadly colbert report wont be around
anyway. The idea to fish on the right side to get the nomination and than to turn around to the middle wont work. Flip-Flopping is one of the worst things you can do and you´ll still alienate the nuts. With all those radicals, the GOP will eventually be on a self-destruction course right from the start.
The only reasonable strategy would be to pick Bush/Rubio without damaging them during the primaries + represent credible but limited fiscal conservatism in hope that this is enough for the right-wing nuts, while its also a message that appeals to the middle. Economics is the only topic that could possibly win this election for them, but I am pretty sure they wont find the right balance.
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