Steve Chapman, Reason:
This year’s election will be exciting. Given the disenchantment of voters with President Obama and the Democratic Congress, there is every prospect that your Democratic representative will be shown the door. Given the generally anti-incumbent mood, there is every prospect that your Republican representative will be out on the street.
In your dreams. When analysts say this is going to be a competitive election, they don’t mention that for most districts and most voters, absolutely nothing is going to change. Come January, the U.S. House of Representatives is going to look a lot like it does right now.
There are 435 seats in the House, and every one of them is up for a vote on Tuesday. But the consensus is that no more than 100 are “in play,” with a chance of changing party hands. The other 335 races will hold all the suspense of a Harlem Globetrotters game.
Nor will all the competitive districts actually make the switch. The GOP needs to gain a net of 39 seats to win control of the House, and Republicans would be thrilled to pick up 50.
Does that mean lots of entrenched career pols are going to be evicted? Fewer than you might think. Many of the changes will occur not because a member of Congress loses but because a member has decided not to run. Even this year, the typical incumbent has nothing to worry about.
One important reason is that once every decade, after each census, politicians in most states get to redraw congressional and legislative districts. They usually take the opportunity to advance the interests of one party or the other or both. Such gerrymandering often yields weirdly shaped districts designed to assure that whoever is in office stays in office.
It works. In the U.S. House of Representatives, over the past five elections, incumbents have been re-elected at an average rate of 96 percent. According to my unscientific calculations, a congressman is more likely to be eaten by a polar bear while panning for gold in Key West than to be voted out of office.
[…]
The solution is obvious: Take the decisions away from those who have a powerful interest in the outcome, and give them to an independent commission. Californians voted in 2008 to do exactly that. But this year, opponents managed to get another ballot initiative to return control to the legislature.
What arguments do they offer? Because former elected officials, candidates, and lobbyists are barred from serving, they say in the official voter guide, “those who have deep experience, knowledge or interest in government will be excluded.” Right. And burglary laws should be repealed because burglars were not invited to help draft them.
The commission, the critics lament, would “strip voters’ power to determine who represents us.” The theory is that when we elect legislators in rigged districts to create new rigged districts, democracy triumphs. But the point of the commission is to give voters a power they so obviously lack when politicians get to choose the people who are supposed to choose them.
One of the bedrock beliefs of our democracy is that here, the people rule. Gerrymandering is the legislators’ way of saying: Not if we can help it.
Another one to add to the to-do list.
Honestly. A third party is starting to look like the only way to save this country — especially if we can’t manage to rid ourselves of the politicians in both established parties so many of us clearly despise.
I’d still like to try kicking the legs out from under the GOP establishment first. Because I believe in reduce-reuse-recycle.
Or because I think it’ll be easier, and I’m lazy.
I’m still hoping that the classical liberals can take over team R and sweep away the dead wood. The next few years will be telling, though. If the statists who “run” team R can’t change their tune, the party will be gutted. The Dems will get the benefit of the split from a third party, and we’ll all go over the cliff sooner.
You’re kidding yourself if you think there’s any such thing as an independent commission.
confuzzling… so I’m supposed to vote YES on 20 and NO on 27?
pls advise
Yes on 20 No on 27 would be what I would do, were I still a hapless denizen of the Bare(ly) Republic.
But I’m a Fag-hatin’ Palin-lovin Christer nutjob, so maybe you want to do the opposite.
And even though I’d vote for it, doesn’t mean that I think the commission would be independent.
Defeating the attempt to roll back redistricting reform is the most important state-specific business on the CA ballot this year.
Everything else is just window dressing in comparison.
The bastards.
I am with Squid. I am making inquiries about running for precinct boss, er, committeeman in the Spring.
No on 27 seems simple. Yes on 20 looks more complexiCallated, but conceivably doable, with worries.
Maybe better would be a Proposition to end constitutional propositions.
I think I’ll make a cheat sheet this weekend. Still torn on 25.
I’m inclined to vote yes cause the status quo is so failshit.
Given how everything in CA ends up in court anyways, maybe just a proposition to hand the state over to a panel of Solons?
They should be required to wear wigs and heavy robes. So we rubes know who our betters are.
hf, yes, that’s how I’m voting anyway. From what I understand, if both props pass, the one with the most yes votes prevales. A new low in Cal politics.
how are you voting on 25 lee?
This will be a thrilling election. My rep is going down, and this time, not on Nancy Pelosi.
The gerrymandering affects Dems more than Repubs this cycle because of racial preferences given to many libs in the last redistricting (with colluson by the courts), and that has concentrated the really rad Dems in urban areas that are dwindling in population.
Besides, if there is a change of 100 seats, which is unlikely but still possible, that’s a change of almost 20%. And anything is better than what we’ve got now!
I want to see what happens with the new blood we’re sending to Washington and whether or not the others have learned a vicarious lesson. We’ll know the answers pretty quickly.
If they respond appropriately, I say we continue taking over the GOP in the interim and then once again support the good guys and punish the bad guys during next cycle’s primaries.
If they go directly back to loser mode, we’ll need to do more than form a third party. We have to start scouting for unsettled land.
If a third party is what it takes to keep the government’s dirty socialist paws off my medicare and farm subsidy, then that’s what it takes.
They should’ve just gone with the mandatory guillotine for the “pass the budget on time act” and keep the 2/3’s assent.
#16 – aaaand a shot wide of the mark. I don’t get either of those two, don’t count on Medicare and have already planned on Soc Sec being broke.
I want to be left alone – including trying to spend money on me when I would rather pay my own way in exchange for being left the hell alone. You need to be babysat, fine…but not on my nickel, or on the back of my ability to chose what I do and how.
Oh, and you can keep your VA medical stuff too – no thanks.
If [the GOP] go[es] directly back to loser mode, we’ll need to do more than form a third party. We have to start scouting for unsettled land.
I say we take a play from hallowed history, and form a joint-stock company. I think we should call it the Prairie Provinces Land Company. I understand they scorn Ottawa almost as much as we do D.C. That could be the basis for a beautiful friendship.
I knew “Perfect Storm” was a moby.
Get a life.
This story reads very gloomy and worrisome to me.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39875721/ns/politics-decision_2010?GT1=43001
27 is a poison pill, intended by the Legislature to kill off the public commission and let the politicos get back to graft as usual. 20 is the good one.
It’s meant to worry you entropy.
In personally think that McConnell won’t be the next Rethug! leader in the Senate.
Here’s a fine example of this – John Conyers’s district). The 13th district is kind of odd as well.
Eliminate Congressional districts and use at-large transferrable voting. In a state with R representatives, and V total votes cast, (V + 1) / (R + 1) (rounding all fractions UP) is the number of votes needed to elect a Representative. Anyone receiving more than that number may transfer some or all of the excess votes to someone who got less than that number to get them up to the threshold.
Nice benefit is there are few “wasted” votes: You could vote for a classical liberal and not somehow divide the votes to let the leftist get in from a plurality-takes-all. If the classical liberal doesn’t have enough to win a seat, he could caucus with a conservative and they could agree that one would send votes to the other, who would know who he owes, and could actually represent all of his constituents (because he knows if he doesn’t keep his coalition partner happy, next election he won’t get a deal).
That story’s meant to worry you into not voting because nothing ever changes so it doesn’t matter. It’s also the establishmentarian D.C. insider types partly telegraphing their strategy and partly whistling past the graveyard. And finally, it’s a big big reason to support O’Donnell and Miller and Rubio and Angle, because they aren’t going to owe the party establishment shit.
From Entropy’s link:
“The fact is that Republicans will continue to unite behind the common goals of reducing spending, slowing the growth of government and repealing and replacing the health spending bill,” said Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman.
Stewart, you might tell Mr. McConnell that the goal isn’t to slow down the growth of government; it’s to shrink it down to where it was 50 or 100 years ago. We want PoliSci and pre-Law majors getting used to asking “Do you want fries with that?” We want to see acres and acres of deserted office parks in Washington and environs, as the lobbyists and bureaucrats find productive pursuits elsewhere in the nation.
I realize that it’s counterintuitive to expect the cancer cells to advocate for stronger radiation and chemo, but that’s what things have come to. Tell your boss to get with the program, Mr. Stewart, lest we be forced to find somebody who will.
It’s McConnell until DeMint takes it away from him, Bob. But that’s up to McConnell.
Maybe Ernst, unless Coburn or Thune feel “froggy”, so to speak.
#26 Monster: No nonononoooooo….
What you’re talking about is a thinly-disguised Parliamentary system. The amount of upheaval that would cause might be salutory, but is more likely to make things worse.
1) Bigger House of Representatives. I’d like to see it bump up against the Constitutional limit (1/30,000 meaning a House of ~1000 members). Actually, if possible (would require an Amendment) I’d like to see it set up so that the least populous State has three Representatives, and the rest scale up in proportion.
2) Use geometric concepts that weren’t defined at the time the Constitution was framed. Districts must be contiguous, must have an aspect ratio below a certain value (3 works for me, I could live with 5), and must be convex whenever possible. I would add a requirement that if any member of the group drawing the districts can be shown to have information regarding the ethnicity, “race”, or past voting patterns of the people in the State, the Districts are invalid and must be redrawn, and no person serving as a Representative for that State is eligible to be re-elected as a Representative until another Congress has intervened.
Regards,
Ric
I suspect Coburn is too much of a team player, and that whoever is whispering in Thune’s ear has him looking at a loftier perch. McConnell’s biggest problem in the next two years is likely to McCain or Graham or another “concensus” builder. That’s the path that leads to DeMint.
Or dump the location aspect altogether. Surely WHERE you live is one of the least important things about you. How about if we can get together 200,000 IT workers, they get to have their own congresscritter. As long as they feed it and clean up after it, I mean.
In that case mojo, we wouldn’t be a republic anymore, we’d be a league of guilds.
Pity it’s not your “last breath.”
Ernst – he’s just another example of the Left’s “tolerance”…
Perfect Storm/Sinister Trampoline/RD/Dumbass is more of a Dick than a Moby, then.
Whatever.
LTC John – I clicked on to your web net to see what’s what.
Something tells me you are not a serious person.
Whereas me, I troll for like, hours every day. Because I’m so serious.
Look at me! Look at meeeeeee!
Lookit lookit lookit!
BBL. I have to pick up my son from school.
Oh, okay. You caught me. I’ve never so much as sniffed a pussy, and whacking off to NightRider never gets anyone pregnant.
Fuck off, troll.
That was very hateful.
Heh.
It may take a while. I slave away in the foothills of academia for practically no money at all.
Mostly sucking cock.
oh to be ward churchill on the magic mountain
#33: One of the fun ones I’ve seen is “proxies”.
That is: basic theory is, there’s no reason for representation. Show up yourself, in person, and take part in the process. But if you don’t care to do that, perhaps because it’s too much trouble, somebody else can take your proxy and participate in your behalf. Votes go by numbers. If there are 300,000,000 people represented, it takes 150,000,001 votes including proxies to pass anything.
This would easily encompass your suggestion. If a lot of IT people and/or slashdot readers wanted Eric S. Raymond to be their representative, all they have to do is send him their proxy. People who thought a local guy could do better for them would have that option as well.
If there are a restricted number of chairs available, you put a lower floor on it — you don’t get a seat unless you have (for instance) 30,000 proxies. It still takes 150 million plus one votes to pass a law, though.
Instead of canvassing for votes in an election, politicians would canvass for proxies. No doubt they would offer all kinds of incentives.
Downsides may occur to you.
Regards,
Ric
Another way on another thread that got into this subject.
Ric, there’s nothing whatsoever “parliamentary” about my proposal. The President would still be chosen exactly as he is now. The same separation of powers would exist.
I don’t see how enlarging the House would help much. It would give even more weight in the Electoral College to the largest states. With a thousand Representatives, a hundred Senators, and 19 or so Electors for the District of Criminals, you can get to 50% of the Electors with only ten states. The rest of us can just suck it, I guess.
Hey, there’s nothing that says state’s have to apportion their electors according to the popular vote totals, is there?
Nothing a few A-10 sorties couldn’t solve.
That implies that there is something stopping a state from apportioning its electors other than by popular vote totals. So not only are you an obnoxious fool, you’re a wrong obnoxious fool.
Article 1, section 2, US Constitution.
The same is true for the Senate since the ratification of the 17th amendment.
RD don’t know nothin’ ’bout no A-10 sorties.
Besides, the
communistprogressive Democrats have spent more than 50 years on their long march through our government institutions. Although I wish it were otherwise, it’ll take more than a slim majority in the House of Representatives for 2 years to turn that back; especially if Obama vetos any attempt to mess wif his legacy of hope-n-change…Bob, that means that if a state, say CA, decides to let 12 year olds vote in State election, it has to let them vote in Federal elections as well.
Assuming the Article 1 Sec. 2 quote was directed at me. If I wasn’t clear enough, I was referring to the Electoral College and how states select Electors.
Ernst,
I believe they are referring to the same electors you were speaking of, not the individual voters. So, however the state handles the electors of their most numerous legislature is the same for the US members of Congress.
You can see for yourself at the archives website or usconstitution.org. I could be misunderstanding.
Or this may provide a better explanation Ernst.
http://tiny.cc/6crok
I hate to use Wiki, but it seemed expedient.
Wonder what the Fed does the day after . I doubt you could stick a pin up Ben’s ass for the next several days .
The best election sign I have seen this season is “Re-elect Nobody.” I agree 100% on taking redistricting away from those likely to benefit. It is a conflict of interest.
But Senate districts can’t be gerrymandered and they tend to get re-elected.
Funny how nobody talked much about changing The Sacred Constitution until the POTUS got all African and stuff…
Yes. The first thing that occurs to us when seeing an effete, whiny, beta male pussy is “Oh no! A scary black man!”
I worked for a scary black man in Iraq – well, scary to the AQ and the Jaish al Mahdi….heh.
Yeah. If only there was a way of doing a site search for something like, say, “living Constitution,” to see if anybody here worried about changing The Sacred Constitution prior to Obama’s election…*
Joe,
Senate “districts” include the entire state they represent; they essentially serve at large…
I dislike Jimmy Carter because he’s a scary black man, too.
Hillary is a scary black woman.
I thought Billy Jeff was the first scary black President…
Teddy Kennedy was probably the scariest and blackest of them all. If I saw him staggering down the sidewalk towards me, I’d definitely cross the street.
Ah, one of the black Irish, no doubt…Or are you referring to his heart?
Article 1 Sec. 2 Election to the House of Representatives
Article 2 Sec. 1 Election of the President of the United States.
I think there’s a bit of talking past each other. The only point I was trying to make is the current way of electing the President is a convention. Bumping the Electoral college to 679 (increasing the size of the House by 1/3) or more would only make the convention more evident.
For whatever that’s worth.
I wish I could apply myself half as much to finding a job and getting that first touch of tit as I do trolling.
Then I wouldn’t be such a douche, with nothing more to do than be a douche.
I guess I misunderstood you Ernst. My apologies.
I’m confused JeffG,
There’s academic intitutions in flyover country? I thought it was all bitter-clingers.
At least that’s how the story is told back east
/sarc
No need to apologize Bob, since whatever point I thought I had wandered off like a small child. That happens to me alot.
“That makes no actual sense.”
JeffG,
What you need to do is install a crazy talk translater so the trolls can keep up!
“how are you voting on 25 lee?”
Sorry I’m late, that’s a no.
I do not want them to change the budget approval from 2/3 to 1/2 of the senate.
I might go from 2/3 to 3/4’s though. Then not pay them from the due date til they pass a budget.
Oh, I’m having sock trouble.
I’m just bitter because I thought by now I would have had more to do at night than troll rightwing websites anonymously.
The last sex I had was Janeane Garafalo giving me a handy behind the Piggly Wiggly.
In a dream.
Nope. Nothing requiring a popular vote either.
If the State decides that the Electors shall be left-handed red-heds selected by order of length of earlobe if necessary, the Constituion is fine with that.
OT: with the weekend coming up, we should have some kind of contest to see who can come up with the most outlandish October surpise.
two lame entries to start us off:
1) A CBS/NY Times poll of self-proclaimed tea-party supporters shows that most tea-partiers don’t drink tea.
2) Andrew Sullivan confesses that “sacred honor” forces him to admit that he knows for a fact that Trig is Bristol Palin’s daughter because he’s the baby-daddy.
Trig being a daughter being the surprise?
Sure, why the hell not?
This article sucks. Who’d have thought the GOP would win a senate seat in Massachusetts?
This election isn’t over, it is a prelude to 2012. If the Dhimmies don’t act rationally and desert the extremist Marxists they will become a shell of a party composed of deviants, welfare moms and union leaders and unwashed Marxists. Not very much to influence the American people with is it?
Yes Bob, I know that. The point is one who is elected does have the advantage. Even without gerrymandering. Gerrymandering for the House only makes it far worse.
The Gerrys and their mandering have been with us always.
Harry has his own protection plan.
Don’t sweat it, card check will be made retroactive to October 1st 2010.
And the angry African-American in the urban camo fatigues? He’s just there to held redirect you to your polling place. He’s only angry cause of all the lost crackers who keep showing up. And that baseball bat? That’s to protect you from voter intimidation, so show some gratitude, will you?
This little item on the Kansas ballot kind of took me by surprise:
@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
It came complete with strikeouts, italics, and everything. The good folks of Kansas seem to want to preempt any move by SCOTUS away from an individual Second Amendment right, but what the hell is up with the rough draft, and the standing armies?
Please ignore the font gibberish.
SW – I guess they have much more faith in the Kansas National Guard than the “standing army” … which is odd, as everyone was very nice to me when I was at Fort Riley or Fort Leavenworth.
Make all congress sit in a stripmall in their home district for at least 9 months a year. That way we can walk in a harass the SOB as his/her employer. They would think twice pulling the lever on some of those votes if we were literally peering over their shoulders. Make voting a virtual affair.
In addition, how effective would The Center for Progress be if they had to run all these guys down in 535 districts?
h/t Dennis Miller show
If you ever wanted to look at the epitomy of gerrymandering – take a glance at The Right Honorable She-la Jackson Lee’s district.
Courtesy of fuckstick Tom DeLay.
Just saw a commercial for Subaru with If I should fall from grace with god as the music.
I wept.
For joy.
Courtesy of fuckstick Tom DeLay.
Blame the Voting Rights Act of 1964 (1965?), not DeLay. That kind of Gerrymandering is court ordered and court approved! (Just don’t let the Dems know how it bites them in the ass).
Ernst – agreed. My Delay comment was this was an insider horse trading between Delay and the Dems during the last re-districting. Same root cause tho.
My theory is this – i think Rossi, Fiorina and Miller stand a good chance of winning if the east comes out early as a bloodbath for Dems. If McMahon and Bielat and O’Donnel either upset and get called early OR two races remain close to call … I think the Western Democract get whacked.
The SEIU and other unions are already there with their own union members. See #84 and follow the links to the complaint.
My theory is this – i think Rossi, Fiorina and Miller stand a good chance of winning if the east comes out early as a bloodbath for Dems.
Democrats wins will be called fairly rapidly, Republican wins will take some time. After all, the Main Stream lame ass fucking Media wouldn’t want to get those calls wrong and create a false impression, would they? Their reputations are on the line!
Except Foxnews. But their rightwing partisan hacks. Even Michael Barone.
LTC John,
I understand now. The Kansas State Constitution has, as article 4 in the Bill of Rights, the following:
4. Bear arms; armies. The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.
The amendment seeks to change it to:
4. Individual right to bear arms; armies. A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, for lawful hunting and recreational use, and for any other lawful purpose but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.
So, Kansans have always had the lack of love for the US Army, and want to curtail any end run by some future gun grabbers. Now, I’m clear. Wonder what they’ll have to do with the federal bases you mentioned.
Kansans have always had the lack of love for the US Army[.]
It’s a time honored tradition to suspect standing armies of being potential instruments of tyranny. Something to do with the way you guys treated your Boston cousins [grin].
SW, the standing armies thingy was borrowed from the Federal Constitution, most likely. Most states used it as a template when writing their own constitutions. And, what Ernst said.
The reason standing armies were discountenanced was the experience that they were mostly used to intimidate people into obeying unpopular laws. If you saw a soldier on every street corner, it tended to reinforce the impression that the King was In Charge.
Policemen, in other words.
Regards,
Ric
So, if standing armies are banned by the Kansas State Constitution, what are standing armies doing in Kansas?
And, any cousin of mine in Boston deserves what he gets.
Sitting? ;-)
Sitting, standing, or hopping. Don’t think there’s any of us in Beantown, although once upon a time I lived in Andover, but that’s another story…
SW – not so much banned as not looked upon favorably. The good people of Manhattan, Kansas would be pretty upset if anything happened to Fort Riley (KSU aside) as it is a big boost to the local economic situation. Leavenworth is right on the border, so maybe they could make it a museum and tourist attraction?
oh, sorry SW, I meant sitting in response to “what are standing armies doing?”.
The continuation of the U.S. Army has to be voted on by Congress every two years (or is it every year?) or the whole thing officially goes away. While I don’t think it’s ever been in danger of not passing, the possibility is there.
sdferr, I’m afraid if you are going to get clever with me, I’ll need a trigger warning. What passed for my brain gave up the ghost many years ago. I’m just working from memory these days.
heh, creeping age works ‘gainst us both SW, coming and going, as evidenced in my feeble pass at levity in a time of depressions.
Still, riddled with dementia, wracked with flatulence, plagued by incontinence and dribbling into a cup, we will always have our looks.
So, if standing armies are banned by the Kansas State Constitution, what are standing armies doing in Kansas?
The Armed Forces of the United States aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of the Kansas State Constitution. As a practical matter, what that means is that Kansas can’t buy tanks* for it’s state police/highway patrol (whatever it has). Which, if you think about, is a raw deal for General Dynamics and the rest of the fearsome military industrial complex.
*APCs are okay –the war on drugs must be won at all costs.
Meya/RD is on a real bender, huh?
“. . . our looks.”
So true SW: why I was told I appeared to be alive only a day or so ago.
#75 LBascom(maybe)
NONE of my socks fit me. And you think you have sock trouble? My honey thinks I’m 10 years old, and buys me socks accordingly…
Her problem is that she doesn’t understand that I am actually 12 or 13 years old, and still think that “it” is exciting.
I can’t wait to grow up.
Buchanan: “The country is up for grabs.”
Pat Buchanan was roundly and universally criticized for referring to a “culture war” way back in 1992. Can there be any doubt today that he was right? No one would dare to use the term today, but – just to use one example – what do you call the clash between people who, aware of the war we are in, express concerns about meeting Muslims on planes and those who call those who express those concerns racists bigots? What do you call the chasm between those who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and those who believe that definition represents homophobia?
The last president who represented the views of Middle America was Ronald Reagan. Bush-1 wasn’t; he could not wait to shed his presidency of Reagan’s cultural conservatism. His “thousand points of light” was a way to say that he was more culturally enlightened than Reagan. Of course Clinton wasn’t even close to being a cultural conservative. The first act of his administration was to open the military to homosexuals; later pulled back under furious assault from the military and the country to “don’t ask don’t tell.” And Bush-2, despite his avowed Christianity, focused like a laser beam on the war; letting stand all the bastions that liberalism gained in the past.
Obama represents the Liberal side of the culture war on steroids. He’s a true 60s radical animated by all the beliefs and hates that energized the Left during that time. He’s the Left side of the culture war in distilled and purified form. And that’s what the Tea Party movement is about; it’s Middle America mobilized because the troops that were supposed to represent their side were too weak, too dispirited … in fact many had switched sides like the ladies from Maine, Arlen Specter, Mike Castle and many, many more. Do you really expect Orrin Hatch to lead anyone’s charge against the encroaching Nanny State or the next assault on traditional values found in the penumbras and emanations of the constitution?
Buchanan:
Tuesday’s election, too, will be no embrace of the GOP, but rather a repudiation of what Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have come to represent. All are seen as power-hungry politicians of an out-of-touch regime that is seizing control of private wealth and private lives as it fails in its duty to win our wars, balance our budgets and secure our borders.
Republicans will be the beneficiaries of this repudiation, as Republicans are, almost everywhere, the only alternative on the ballot, and because they are seen correctly as having opposed the Obama agenda with near drill-team solidarity.
Every Republican in the Senate but Arlen Specter and the ladies from Maine voted against Obama’s stimulus bill. Every Republican in the House, save eight, voted no on cap-and-trade. Every Republican on Capitol Hill voted no on Obamacare. More GOP senators opposed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan than opposed any Supreme Court nominee in memory.
Tuesday, obstructionism reaps its reward.
The cultural chasm between town and gown has never been deeper during my lifetime. The student radicals from the 60s are now the deans and professors. Who can doubt the distance between the Right and Left in the media. The Left is calling the Right panicked know-nothings who deny science. Now we are seeing the revelation that there is an economic chasm between highly compensated public employees and their poorer counterparts in private industry. And need we mention the relegation of religion to its own ghetto by the culture and the courts?
I don’t think that many Republican officeholders realize what this is all about. They know that something is going on, but make the mistake in believing that Middle America will be satisfied by a seat near the foot of the table. They are under the impression that forcing Obama and the Left to compromise parts of his agenda will be perceived as a victory by the Tea Party movement. They could not be more wrong. The Right side has suited up and come on to the field and they are not just fiscal conservatives but culture warriors.
Many on the Libertarian side of the debate also misunderstand this movement. I don’t know how many times I have heard references to that fact that the Tea Party is focused on economic issues; leaving cultural issues alone. The MSM, when they try to give what they perceive as an unbiased look at the Tea Party, echo this theme. If you want to understand why this is wrong, attend a Tea Party rally and see the moms and kids; the middle class workers and the retirees. And then look at the gigantic rally that Glenn Beck managed to assemble in Washington; a rally that was purely about the culture. This rally was the Tea Party as culture warriors.
The next two years are, in my opinion, going to be like this nation in the 1850s when a very powerful, organic movement began to take shape. It was a time like today, when people saw something very wrong with the structure of the nation, not just the politics du jour. Quoting Emeril Lagasse, the culture war is going to turn the heat on this country “up a notch.”
Both parties have lost the mandate of heaven, and neither knows if its economic philosophy even works anymore.
We are in uncharted waters. The country is up for grabs.
If the Tea Party becomes a culture warrior party that espouses cultural conservatism, it will lose the argument. As long as the focus is on fiscal responsibility and smaller government, it will win the argument.
Buchanan is an isolationist nutter.
So true SW: why I was told I appeared to be alive only a day or so ago.
And I’ve been told I’ve a face like a skelpit erse. Go figure.
Even isolationist nutters find the acorn twice a day cranky. Where there’s room for common cause, it should be made and embraced. Liberal “culture” is expensive.
And Buchanan is an anti-semite isolationist nutter.
Buchanan is an isolationist nutter.
[..]And Buchanan is an anti-semite isolationist nutter.
Really, gentlemen, the adjectives are unnecessary.
Speak for yourself. I sold my looks for a nicer cup to dribble into.
[…] WISDOM– “A Referendum on the Redeemer”; and “Radical in the White House”; also “The Incumbent Protection Racket”; plus “The Democrats’ personal piggy bank: Bank of America” …. […]