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Fall US Elections

RandFan said:
I think people are forgetting the importance of the coffee cup scandal. Let me also remind people of his disrespect of the lapel flag pin. His forgetting to salute a marine. ...
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Presidents at one time did not salute. Iirc, Reagan changed the tradition. In general, people not in uniform are not supposed to salute. For the flag, you put your hand over your heart.
 
It's so kind of people to ignore the intrusion of religion into every aspect of American life, with the pledge, Hobby Lobby, SCOTUS, etc. Applying religious law to those without that religion is a full abridgement of the constitutional rights of those being forced to unwillingly obey religious law, any time, any place.

In the current USA, those not of the majority religion are no longer fully citizens. This has not always been the case. One can look to James Madison's writings to see clearly the intent of the founders.
 
jj said:
Straw man, counter to facts, and assumptions of fact not in evidence.

Yes, I know that. It was interesting, how these two people, who were having a LOUD conversation, clearly intended to be heard from a distance, recognized the tune so quickly as to very nearly jump with surprise, too. Perhaps you should not accuse others of rudeness until you know all of the facts.



Ignoring the idiocy involved in threatening a lawsuit based on political speech, and ignoring the attempt to intimidate, yes, they clearly exhibited where they were coming from, too.

Perhaps you could have been there, since you speak with such presumed expertise? Is this how you claim standing to publicly accuse someone of slander?

Were you one of the people? Are you about 5'11" tall, white, dark hair, wearing khaki trousers and shirt, or perhaps about 6'2" tall, white, dark hair, ditto clothing. Both short hair, clean shaven, a bit of stubble. Both wearing black work boots with red laces? Both medium build, a bit scraggly around the edges?

Was that you? Or are you just making up what you have authoritatively claimed actually happened in this context?
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Actually, the guy on the left might have been me. Allowing for measurement errors (you were under obvious duress, so that's understandable), yes, I kind of match up. I'm definitely a bit scraggly around the edges and tend to have animated discussions about politics with other scraggly friends of mine. And it's not uncommon for old coots near me to suddenly belt out a stanza or two of Deutschelandlied.
 
The toss-up states are going to be the key, of course. Louisiana just moved back to the toss-up category on RCP, but that's for the "primary". Landrieu might actually win that one is the Teaper gets >10%, but she won't have the numbers to avoid the run-off on Dec. 6, so if this comes down to a dead heat for the Senate seats we could wind up not knowing the make-up until then.

Current count by RCP tally is Dems 44 - GOP 46, with 10 toss-ups. The Dems really have 42, with two Independents who caucus with them regularly. Toss ups are:

Alaska
Arkansas
Colorado
Georgia
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Michigan
New Hampshire
North Carolina

The colors denote the party with the current lead. The Dems need bounces in Alaska and Colorado and need to hold onto the leads they have in the other four states.

I'm not speaking to the accuracy of the polls recognized by RCP. The polling in, for instance, Colorado... is more than two weeks old and the polls from two weeks ago showing a swing to the GOP might have been anomalous or might have been a trend. Can't say.
 
Jeebus Christ on a grilled cheese sandwich! The topic of the thread, Malcolm, is "Fall US Elections". Please stop derailing it.

Just about the time I was posting this, one of the Mods was splitting off a huge portion of the derail, so the above makes no sense any longer.

Thank you, mods.
 
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As an outsider, HTF has the GOP managed this, given (for example) their performance with the fiscal cliff earlier?
 
Manopolus said:
...in everything except for church-state issues, sure.

"in god we trust" was an Eisenhower thing, for starters.
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And Obama hasn't done squat about it. Of course, it was actually Joe McCarthy who pushed that, not Eisenhower. Nice try at revisionist history, though.
 
jimbob said:
As an outsider, HTF has the GOP managed this, given (for example) their performance with the fiscal cliff earlier?
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The demographics of this year's hotly contested (toss-up) seats is that at least a dozen of them are in states that Romney carried just two years ago. There's also an anomalous two-senator tally for the GOP in the "special elections" in very safe "red" states. Oklahoma and South Carolina are electing two senators each this November. Now, those seat would be red if they were elected in 2010 or '12, also, but with 36 seats being contested this year, opening with a +2 means that there are really only 34, and as I said, many of those are in solid Republican states.

Mostly, though, it's that there are very few elections in "blue" states.... because there aren't that many blue states in play, at present. That will continue to shift with the demographics of those states... but at present this hugely favors the GOP.
 
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Kestrel said:
It is clear that a lot of money is being spent to defeat Colorado Senator Mark Udall. Local TV stations are saturated with attack ads implying Udall was responsible for all sorts of terrible acts. The ads are not based on reality, but that doesn't really matter. We have become a nation where moneyed interests can fund this kind of garbage in secret. Secure in the knowledge corporate reputations will not be affected by this manure spreading.
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I've just spent 5 days in Colorado and was stunned by all the attack ads on TV.

The GOP seemed to be pushing a consistent "Too extreme for Colorado" message for Democratid Party candidates making (to European ears) moderate policies sound frighteningly radical.

There seemed to be a Mark Udall attack ad every ad break on all Denver channels.
 
The Don said:
I've just spent 5 days in Colorado and was stunned by all the attack ads on TV.

The GOP seemed to be pushing a consistent "Too extreme for Colorado" message for Democratid Party candidates making (to European ears) moderate policies sound frighteningly radical.

There seemed to be a Mark Udall attack ad every ad break on all Denver channels.
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Throw enough mud and the voters will start to believe that it is real. if you go to other states with hot races, you will see almost identical ads attacking Democratic candidates from the same shadowy organizations.

It has nothing to do with the free exchange of ideas, but a lot to do with assuring that the interests of the wealthy elite prevail. The goal isn't to persuade voters, but to have them stay away from the polls in disgust.
 
The Don said:
I've just spent 5 days in Colorado and was stunned by all the attack ads on TV.

The GOP seemed to be pushing a consistent "Too extreme for Colorado" message for Democratid Party candidates making (to European ears) moderate policies sound frighteningly radical.

There seemed to be a Mark Udall attack ad every ad break on all Denver channels.
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I'm living it :(

My favorite is the nice old man with the hat chastising Udall for allegedly trying to change some Obamacare statistics to favor Obamacare. He said Udall was being deceptive. Then he goes on to deceive us about things like raised taxes, increased premiums and cancelled insurance.

Then there is the ironic one with the lady how says women have fought hard for equal rights and is insulted that Udall has a lot of ad's about abortion and birth control.

Then there is the back to back ones where the first one complains that Udall will only talk about Abortion and birth control and not real issues and the second one is a Udall attack ad on the real issues.

It's worth the cost of DVR's just to be able to fast forward through the crap.

Oh, and based on other recent conversations with people, I can assume the only reason you were in CO was for the legal pot :)
 
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I'm on the "call this idiot" list for several survey companies. Last week one called asking "would you be more likely or less likely to vote for Udall" after reading various statements. The "survey" (known as a Push Poll) statements were in essence, "Udall is a filthy communist"'statements and I was expected to say I was "more" or "less" likely to vote for him after each.

I've been asked the occasional dodgy question on surveys but never an entire poll trying to paint me into a corner. I was actually offended.
 
In the last week, I'm getting upwards of 100 emails a day from various Democratic candidates/PACs asking, begging, PLEADING for a $3 donation and telling me that my donation will be TRIPLE MATCHED if I donate before MiDNIGHT TONIGHT! That's up from 30-50 a day I was getting only two weeks ago. And the emails are getting more creative: "I just off the phone with our team..." "Sent from my iPad/iPhone..." "I know it's late, Michael..." "It's all pizza boxes and spreadsheets here at the headquarters..." And every one of them is CRITICAL!!

I've taken to dumping them all in my Junk folder and responding to the more insulting ones with a boilerplate response about my medical bills and my having to declare bankruptcy last year and how I already donate $10 a month to a Democratic PAC (all true, by the way.) Sometimes, I'll start my response with a quick "Pobrecito!" or thank them for being so concerned and invested in me that they call me by my first name or ask if they'll help me pay my rent if I donate before telling them my side of the story. I know my responses almost certainly end up in some email trash bin unread, but at some point, someone has to read them and realize that donor fatigue is real and all the hand waving and histrionics is not going to encourage me to donate what I don't have.

Michael
 
DavidJames said:
I'm living it :(

My favorite is the nice old man with the hat chastising Udall for allegedly trying to change some Obamacare statistics to favor Obamacare. He said Udall was being deceptive. Then he goes on to deceive us about things like raised taxes, increased premiums and cancelled insurance.

Then there is the ironic one with the lady how says women have fought hard for equal rights and is insulted that Udall has a lot of ad's about abortion and birth control.

Then there is the back to back ones where the first one complains that Udall will only talk about Abortion and birth control and not real issues and the second one is a Udall attack ad on the real issues.

It's worth the cost of DVR's just to be able to fast forward through the crap.

Oh, and based on other recent conversations with people, I can assume the only reason you were in CO was for the legal pot :)
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A 101st Airborne hat IIRC. I presume that having served as a paratrooper uniquely qualifies someone to comment on health policy (as apparently does being a mother of five - any fewer than this number and you're not enough of a mother, any more is suspicious).

Sadly I wasn't in CO for the legal pot (though I note that a recent news story was that a pot seller wasn't allowed to become bankrupt - how bad a business person do you have to be to go out of business selling pot ?), but to visit my sister-in-law after her mastectomy.
 
jimbob said:
As an outsider, HTF has the GOP managed this, given (for example) their performance with the fiscal cliff earlier?
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Several factors are helping. On either side of the political spectrum are a lot of voters that don't pay much attention to policy. They just vote for the party they are accustomed to voting for. The committed true believers in free markets have convinced themselves that it was actually meddling by Democrats that caused the collapse by forcing banks to lend to minorities. Never mind that the law they cite has been on the books for 30 years, only applies to federally chartered banks and specifically requires banks to make decisions based on the ability of the applicant to pay off the loan. The GOP also has a lock on the so called Conservative Christians, who see the Democrats as the party if Satan but don't seem to mind working for the moneylenders in the temple.
 
coalesce said:
In the last week, I'm getting upwards of 100 emails a day from various Democratic candidates/PACs asking, begging, PLEADING for a $3 donation and telling me that my donation will be TRIPLE MATCHED if I donate before MiDNIGHT TONIGHT! .....

Michael
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Thar sounds like a scam. Maybe the GOP is behind it, trying to burn out the Dem donors? ;)
 
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