Official Midterm Election Thread
Fatback
6,746 Posts
Here in VA, we are seeing a competitive race. Early on, Allen was a shoe-in. But...Last polls Allen 46, Webb 42 (error +/-4)For my money, Allen is a piece of shit. I hope this trend continues.(Partisans step off. I fully support our other Senator John Warner (R).)http://www.webbforsenate.com/biography/http://www.webbforsenate.org/blog/
Comments
New York State is not New York City.
Saba had it right when he said the Ds will blow it, the Rs will get it together.
The Republican Party will be the sole RULING PARTY in US for a long time to come.
The days of bipartisonship and compromise are long gone.
Here in Oregon we will decide if we want to fund schools and parks. We will limit taxes, yet again. We will choose between an incumbent Governor who acts like a Republican, and a Republican challenger who talks like a Democrat.
Got to love the hometown hero though, Barrack Obama. Dude says almost everything right, not in a prefab soundbyte way either; he's just speaking, as W. would say, "from the gut."
There's nothing too huge in Illinois right now for midterm, at least on the national level. Though there is a great governor's, err gubernatorial (I hate that word), race. Gov. Rod's line against Smokin' (as in cigarettes) West Side Judy Barr: "What is she thinking?" So effective.
I fear this might be true. As craptacular as they are at governing (and currently, that's pretty damn craptacular), they are excellent at winning elections.
and i really have to hand it to daily "screw them" kos for outing macacawitz as a jew. Thats really going to help broaden the tent after knifing Lieberman in the back.
No idea what you are talking about, but... Losing an election is part of the democratic process. Lieberman was not knifed in the back, he lost an election because he failed to represent his constituents in Washington. Perhaps that is the real difference between Ds and Rs, Ds care how thier representatives perform.
BUt explain why Joe is doing so well in the polls as an indy.
By "knifing in the back" I assume he means that the Party did all they could to make sure he didn't win. I think this was more of a case of repping the Party than repping his constituents.....and the PARTY got what they wanted.
This would also explain why he's doing as well as he is as an Indy.
youtube search for "George" "Allen" & "Jew"
"we need to get this country together"[/b]
Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.
Not only did Allen call a dark-skinned Webb campaigner "macaca" ??? even though he just "made up" the word and didn???t know it???s considered a racist slur ??? and opposed a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1984, but Russert calls him out on an AP article citing how he "used to keep a confederate flag in his living room, a noose in his law office and a picture of confederate troops in his governors office."[/b] Politics and "confederate pride" aside, how do you explain keeping a noose in your office?
What a douche. The scary thing is, he will probably win.
That might be what he means. Of course the opposite is true, the party big wigs came out to support him and raise money for him. Did the national or state party endorse the other guy? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Anyway, he has become the most popular Republican senator getting unending praise from everyone from Bush to Sabadaba. If anyone was stabbed in the back, it would be Joe stabbing the Ds in the VP debates in 2000, and twisting the knife ever since with his Bush brown nosing.
My point was, it was not The Party who turned against Joe, it was the party Activist. They did this because Joe turned against them. Again, that is democracy at it's best. Again, that is not something that Rs would ever do, which is why they will continue to be the Ruling Party.
Note the opening line of the op-ed. Then note that this topic isnt addressed until the penultimate paragraph (thats about 15 paragraphs down) and this is how they are going to fight the war on teror "We will have a defense policy that is tough and smart, starting with phased redeployment of our troops in Iraq." They are going to fight it - by giving up.
'Democrats Offer a New Direction'
By HOWARD DEAN
September 22, 2006; Page A10
We need a Democratic Congress to fight the war on terror -- and to end the war on America's families. Republican policies of the last five years have damaged our economy and failed Americans. Democrats believe strengthening the middle class is essential for a thriving economy that rewards work, provides economic opportunity to all and makes it easier for parents to devote time to their families. An economy that favors the top 1% at the expense of everyone else might be good for President Bush's politics, but a shrinking middle class is bad for capitalism, democracy and America. We need a new direction.
The Republican record on managing the federal budget is dismal. Republicans have turned surplus into debt, hope into lost opportunity; they have become the party of borrow-and-spend. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the total cost this year of the president's tax cuts is $258 billion. This means that even with spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the response to Hurricane Katrina, the federal budget would essentially be in balance if the tax cuts had not been enacted, or if they had been offset as required under the pay-as-you-go rules that Republicans allowed to expire. These economic policies amount to a war on American families:
??? Under Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress, incomes today are $1,000 less for the typical household than during Bill Clinton's final year in office; incomes for the typical working-age household have declined every year since the president took office. Black and Hispanic households have fared worse over the same period: Black household income has fallen every year, after rising every year (except for a one-year $60 dip) under Mr. Clinton. Incomes for Hispanic households are down $1,000, after rising more than $7,000 under Mr. Clinton.
??? Incomes have fallen because wages -- which provide 75% of income for typical families -- are stagnant for most workers. Under Mr. Bush, wages for college-educated workers increased only 1.3% between 2000 and 2005, as compared to 11.3% during Mr. Clinton's last five years. For the nation's lowest-paid workers, the situation is even worse, as the minimum wage is worth less now than at any time in at least 50 years.
??? Health and retirement coverage have declined for most workers and their families, and workers' costs have increased. The share of Americans with job-based health coverage fell over the last five years from 62.6% in 2000 to only 59.5% in 2005, virtually erasing gains in such coverage under Mr. Clinton, when coverage rose from 57.1% in 1993 to 63.6 % in 2000. Workers are also paying more for their coverage. Between 2001 and 2005, the amount workers paid for family premiums grew more than 50%. These factors have fueled increases in the number of uninsured every year under Mr. Bush, to almost 47 million last year -- roughly one in six Americans.
??? Retirement coverage has also declined. Only 19% of workers have guaranteed pensions today, compared with 39% in 1980. And under Mr. Bush, retirement coverage, including both guaranteed pensions and 401(k)s, fell almost three percentage points, to just less than 46% in 2004.
??? Americans are taking on more debt just to keep up in the Republican economy. Last year, household debt was a record 132% of disposable income. Not surprisingly, home mortgage foreclosures are also up; in March of this year, the foreclosure rate was 63% higher than last year.
??? While wages and incomes have slowed, health costs increased, debt increased and retirement coverage declined, the cost of sending kids to college has exploded. Between 1995 and '96 and 2005 and '06, the average costs for a four-year private college rose 32% and for a four-year public college, 42%.
??? These dwindling economic fortunes have resulted partly from a decline in unionization, which has been exacerbated by the all-out assault of the Bush Republicans on workers' rights to organize and bargain. From stripping away union protections for whole classes of workers to intervening in labor-management disputes in various industries, Mr. Bush, backed by a Republican Congress, has done more to undermine workers' rights than any president in more than 70 years.
These bleak statistics explain why the overwhelming majority of Americans know our country is moving in the wrong direction -- despite the economic cheerleading of the Republicans. Americans know who has benefited in this economy -- and, for most, it isn't them.
The president's failures in Iraq are also hurting our economy, our country and our ability to fight the war on terror. We are spending $8 billion a month in Iraq -- that's $267 million a day. Consider that for what we spend in three weeks in Iraq, we could make needed improvements to secure our public transportation system; for what we spend in five days we could double the COPS program, and put more police on the streets to keep our neighborhoods safe, or we could put radiation detectors at all our ports.
Democrats offer America a new direction in fiscal policy, for the middle class, and in the war in Iraq. We believe that America should work for everyone:
We will restore honesty in government, starting with the pay-as-you-go discipline in Congress that served Mr. Clinton so well. Balancing the Federal budget will be a high priority with concurrent limitation of spending. We will ease the burdens on middle class Americans and reverse Republican cuts in college tuition aid and health care. We will ensure that a retirement with dignity is the right and expectation of every single American, including pension reform, and preventing the privatization of social security.
We will dramatically expand support of energy independence in order to generate large numbers of new American jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We will have a jobs agenda that includes good jobs that stay in America, a higher minimum wage and trade policies that benefit the global labor force, not just multinational corporations.
We will have a defense policy that is tough and smart, starting with phased redeployment of our troops in Iraq, and shore up our efforts to attack al Qaeda and fight the war on terror. We also will close the gaps in our security here at home by implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
We are ready to lead with a thoughtful, fiscally responsible long-term vision. We will reach out to all Americans who value hope over fear and begin moving the country forward again.
Mr. Dean is chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
I often wonder if its always been this bad. I've only been following the news and politics closely for the past five or six years, and just from that small sample, everything seems wrong and misguided. But its probably always been this way, or worse. I wonder when the time will come when our nation will honestly face some of its tructural and cultural deficiencies in an honest manner, and decide rationally and peacefully to reorganize some elements of our government and mostly our schools.
Newt Gingrich said the smartest thing Ive heard in a while:
He proposes to pay highschool students the equivalent of what they might be making at a fast food restuarant for taking science and math. Especially in inner cities. Sounds racist or somehow contrary to an ideal you hold? Maybe it does, but it will work. Think of how positively that will affect our culture. Whatever. Fresh ideas.
If its so smart then how come Dean, who we all know is a smart guy *choke*, isn't spending the first five paragraphs talking about it?
Hey. smoked herring is revolting. I'm just mildly abraisive, like a good bathtub cleaner.
http://www.trustedpartner.com/docs/library/000143/NBRA%20Radio%20Ad.mp3
judging by the web address, it appears that the ad was put out by the National Black Republican Association not the GOP. Just a small detail. That, and the fact that the candidate for Senate that this is likely in support of is also black.
Man, that must've taken one hell of a strong stomach. Do they still wax poetic about the proletariat?
Are you suggesting that it's possible to take a bunch of indisputable facts and present them in such a way that they don't necessarily represent the truth???
Very interesting.
do you heartily endorse this ad?
Man, that ad is messed up. That semantic sleight-of-hand in which "the Democrats" are responsible for all the racist legislation of the past without mentioning that those people were conservatives (like Dixiecrat founder and eventual Republican Strom Thurmond) is rather alarming. While the GOP efforts to rewrite history and make Hitler into a radical leftist (seriously) are disturbing, even moreso is this effort to obfuscate this country's racial history vis-a-vis political parties. This ad is a good example of this process in action. I notice that nowhere in this "you go, Republican girl!" ad do the words "Southern Strategy" come up. Gee, I wonder why....
I have posted before that I thought it was foolish of blacks to continue to feel obliged to vote democrat, when the democrats don't do anything for them, or at least "what have you done for me lately". The latino vote is split and both parties bend over backward for them.
I've also said that my opinion was that liberals want minorites to be educated just enough to work the copy machines in their office, but not to advance to high office or marry their daughters. And I stand by that.
this is the most ignorant sh*t you have ever written