Anti-Trans Letterman Skit Insults Obama Appointee Amanda Simpson

[tekla]

Well, I said that not really looking at the numbers so I'm not prepared to defend the thought.

You're kidding me right?  What else are elections and congressional and senatorial representation except numbers?

Any wonder as to why you are, and will remain, the minority party starts and ends pretty much right there.

And the first thing you need to win is a candidate who can capture (we're talking numbers here again) the majority of votes.  If recent history is any guess, you're not only going to lose, you're going to lose even worse then you lost the last time.  NY-23 mean anything to you?  The 'pubs lost a seat that they had had for over a hundred years.  Way to go.

People might hate the Dems.  I know I'm not thrilled.  But the opposition is about to put up ass-clowns and as much as a circus as Washington is, I just don't think we're going to go down that road yet.

There are 49 other states in the Union.  Everything is not Mississippi.
Post Merge: January 10, 2010, 02:44:51 AM
I'd draw a huge, bright and very fat bright line between the conservatives I knew growing up, those 'Goldwater conservatives' and the neo-cons, and their pals in the religious right.  It's like two different worlds.

[Tammy Hope]

You're kidding me right?  What else are elections and congressional and senatorial representation except numbers?

Oh PLEASE.

I simply meant that I was throwing out an off the cuff remark in the middle of the night on a BBS - not posting the results of exhaustive research into the subject.

And the first thing you need to win is a candidate who can capture (we're talking numbers here again) the majority of votes.

And EVERY survey shows that people identify themselves as conservative 2-1 over those who identify themselves as liberal.

the reason the Republicans get their collective asses kicked at the polls is when they try to out Dem the Dems.

People LIKE a clear distinction between what the parties say but they also like the parties to do WHAT they say and the reason things have gone south for the GOP is in direct correlation to their failure to do that.

that's not to say that everything they say they want to do is a good idea - I have significant disagreements (I have significant disagreements with what the conservative base of the party stands for too) but objectively, they lost elections (and will lose elections) because they don't govern as the campaign.


Post Merge: January 10, 2010, 04:01:45 AM
Everything is not Mississippi.

Significantly more of the country is "Mississippi" than is "San Francisco"

in areas at least, if not in population.

If you drew a line from the western edge of DC north to the Canadian border, and took away everything east of that - the country would as a whole move so far to the right you wouldn't have words to describe how horrified you'd be.

If you took away all the counties that touched the Pacific Ocean it would move almost that far to the right again.

Everything that remained wouldn't be "Mississippi" but outside of a few big cities, it would be in the same political neighborhood.

[tekla]

Despite the illusion (and it goes back to Jeffersonian thought) that America is a rural nation, strong yeoman farmers and all that, the reality is that since the 1920 Census the majority of American citizens live in urban, as opposed to rural areas.  Mississippi has almost 3 million people in the state, the greater LA area, 14 million.  The city itself, LA proper, is 3.5 million.  The population of the states of New York and California by themselves comprise 20% of the population of the entire nation almost all of that located in 3 major urban areas.  In order to get any sort of relevant turnaround you would need to get those seats out of the urban areas, as those seats tend to be more volatile then rural seats are - which almost never turn.

The fact is - sad perhaps - is that in most elections the people of the United States return more congress persons to office then members of the Politburo were returned in the height of rigged elections in the old USSR. Though Congress tends to poll very low in popularity, right down there with journalists and used-car salesmen, the rub is that even though Congress as a whole is unpopular, people love their Congressperson, and as such most seats are in fact 'safe'.  Jesus and Jerry Garcia couldn't beat Nancy Pelosi in SF, despite the fact that most of her constituents think she is not 'liberal enough.'  We have 3 members of the House that have won more than 20 elections in a row, and 60 or so that have won 10 or more elections in a row.  John Dingell has been there since 1955, that's pretty entrenched power.

And, though people might see themselves as 'more conservative' the actual numbers of people joining the Republican party (along with money flowing into the party itself) are both at historic lows. So all that conservative stuff is not going to matter if people don't ID the pubs as representing those kind of values.  And I think that to the degree that for most of those people see 'conservative' as running along the Goldwater lines, and not social lines, then the current party will keep losing them.

And the greatest growth is going to be seen in predominantly Hispanic areas, and though that particular group shares a lot of values with a more traditional Republican base (faith, family values and such) it's hard to imagine a group that the party itself has done a better job of turning off.  It's the one thing that Bush/Rove had right, and tried very hard to reach out to, only to get teabagged by the extreme right and its take on immigration issues and Prop 187 in California.

Perhaps, they are only being 'conservative' in wanting to hold on to 'liberal policies' - which is in keeping with the American political system.  They see this nation slipping away from many things it once was, and perhaps when they ID as conservative when it comes to holding on to those things.  People are very worried about losing everything they have worked for and are looking for someone who can put on the breaks, not anyone with a huge new plan to embark upon. 

In the broadest sense, it is in fact the 'conservative' thing to do to back Obama, because to change would be the more 'radical' choice.  But again, it's not just a deal with Obama's popularity - as the dems have found out many times - but with the relative strength of your own candidates.  Didn't matter how unpopular Bush II was so long as he had Kerry to run against for example.  Same with BushI and Michael Dukakis.

[Britney_413]

In the broadest sense, it is in fact the 'conservative' thing to do to back Obama, because to change would be the more 'radical' choice.

I disagree. While Obama is more of a social liberal which is a plus for the trans community, a lot of his other values are just too far left for many Americans to subscribe to. Constant talk about public healthcare, public housing, and other things reeks of socialism. Not to mention the economy is still bad and we are further into debt and a small portion of the tax-paid bailout funds are actually going to working America but mostly instead to big banks. Excessive talk of "equality" should be enough to raise one's eyebrows. True American values at least the ones our Founding documents meant referred to things such as pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity, everyone is created equal, etc. Equality taken to the extreme is communism where everyone works equally at the same crappy jobs, gets the same lousy pay, and lives in the same slums, and gets the same shoddy healthcare. It seems like Obama and many supporters prefer "equal results" instead of "equal opportunity." Scary.

Look at this man's past dealings with organizations such as ACORN. This is not what most Americans want. Most Americans do want regulations, checks and balances, and reasonably fair capitalism, but other than that most Americans want to be left alone to live their private lives and pursue happiness as they see fit. They don't want to be increasingly forced into public programs such as Obamacare, be asked intrusive Census questions such as the conditions of their residence, and they certainly do not want any aspect of their private lives regulated such as being required to register how many firearms they own.

Change is certainly something we need but that change should not include further invasions into people's privacy nor further distancing the public from deciding how their tax dollars are being used. Enough said.

[Tammy Hope]

Ok, upon investigation -

there was a 54 seat swing in 1994

The GOP needs a 40 seat pickup to take the House in 2010.

I saw a few projection sites that didn't seem to have an obvious partisan bias and they projected something like a 12-15 seat pickup.

but all of them predicted my district as a Dem hold and that is a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way from certain.

People around here are so pissed at the Dems that I could almost win on the GOP ticket (based on what I hear and see in public forums.

Assuming they are making similar mistakes in other such districts...I'm not prepared to say a 40 seat pickup can't happen. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't over 20.

[tekla]

I could almost win on the GOP ticket
Of course the Republican Party in Mississippi is not going to let you in the door, much less release you as a candidate, but that's just a minor flaw in their thinking.

As for Health Care - there are very solid economic and social reason why every other industrial nation has such coverage.  And not having it - though not totally responsible, I'd blame the cutting of almost all checks and balances for most of it - is part of the reason our economy is sucking harder than Linda Lovelace ever did.

Did they blow it?  Did Linda?  We already have it you know, and the easy - if not only - way to do it is just to extend MediCare to everyone.  That law could have been written in a paragraph, and worked.  But not for the people who buy our government on a daily basis.

All that talk about socialism, we already have it.  We have had it since the Great Depression.  We've had it really from the very start of this nation, and if our schools we're not so messed up you'd be aware of that.  Let's just say that way back, way way back, back in Massachusetts, they called it a 'commonwealth' for a reason.

Education, roads, defense - all socialism.  The railroads were built with government grants (Except the Great Northern).  The richest industries in the US are defense contractors whose only real client is the government - much as I'm sure you'd love to get your hands on a stinger, least someone try a home invasion robbery from a helicopter.  Most of our great universities (at least the ones you could maybe, perhaps, afford to go to) are state institutions.  All that water that makes Arizona a place were people can live?  Hey, it's federal water, not that it's going to stop you from using it.  MediCare, socialist.  Social Security, socialist. 

And, given the collapse of the residential real-estate market, the current impolosion of the commerical real-estate market, the collapse of our biggest banks and financial houses and the auto industry and an implosion of the retail sector I guess I have to ask, So, hows that whole unfettered capitalism/free market deal working out for you?

In no uncertain terms, the big boys brought this on themselves.

And 10-15 seats maybe, not enough to swing anything.  And that's assuming that if people don't like the Ds, then R is the only other way to go.  Keep up unemployment rates where they are which in real figures are close to one in five now, and you might see real left wingers try to run.  Coupled with an almost suicidal plunge into 'party purity' that the Rs are undergoing, they might well not gain, but lose even more.

[BunnyBee]

Jokes like this perpetuate an attitude that gets people like us beaten or murdered, so no not funny and yes a big deal.  I wonder how ignorant the writing staff at The Late Show is of this?

With regard to the politcal stuff, last time I checked, policy-wise Obama and the Dems have reversed exactly nothing of the Bush admin stuff that drove me most up the wall.  Impotent imo, or maybe they aren't so different after all.