Bobby Jindal is not considered a viable candidate? I thought he was one of the hot names in the Republican party.
Sad part for Dudley is that when all is said and done, he will easily be able attribute his defeat to the presence of the minor party candidates. As of now, 35,000 votes statewide went to a Constitution Party and Libertarian candidate. In their absence, I'd bet 65-70% of those votes would have gone Republican. Same thing that happened to Gordon Smith two years ago.
They gave him a chance to make a national speech, and he sort of muffed it. One bad speech shouldn't kill your career of course, he can recover, but that tended to take him off of people's hotlists. I expect he's "underrated" at the moment. barfo
It's a bad day to be a Democrat, but it's a good day to be an American. I'm hopeful that with a more even divide in power between the two parties, there will be a much greater temptation for both to reach compromises that are better for the country. Hopefully this is all a replay of the Clinton administration, where the first two years were completely stagnant even though the Democrats were running everything, you then had the sweeping midterm election, then the shutdown, and then several years of really pretty good divided government with rising prosperity and budget surpluses. Hey, a guy can dream.
I think we've learned not to vote for the guy that can give a good speech. Jindal would be a tremendous VP. I'm keeping an eye on Mitch Daniels.
That's when both parties were trying to capture the center. Now both parties are trying to capture their exteme wings. I'm pretty pessimistic about the state of the country right now. At least we stepped on the brakes, however.
Alex Sink concedes in FL. She was fucked by what the Democrats tried to do to Kendrick Meeks. LaPage (R) wins the governorship in ME. CT, VT, IL, MN and OR are still outstanding. If Obama can keep IL, it will be very good news for him. However, losing the Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio governorships was worse for Obama than losing the House. 2012 is going to present him with a very different re-election landscape.
The recommended method is to use the brakes. Putting it in R suddenly tends to destroy the transmission and then the car isn't drivable anymore. barfo
It's even worse when the car has been tricked-out with every bell & whistle in the book, coupled with the way overpriced extended warranty plan that (uh oh) doesn't even cover the drive train/transmission.
I look at it differently. I think 1994, much like now, signifies the end to some major fights. In the years preceding these two points, the objective for Republicans was always to accumulate power more than it was to govern. Just become relevant again. The way they went about that both times was to fight everything every step of the way to the best of their ability, and drum up as much support as they could on the far right of the party. They tried continuing that on after achieving real power with the shutdown, but soon realized it just wasn't a popular way to govern. So both parties worked hard at reforms that were good for the country (balancing the budget, welfare reform). I think the Tea Party movement is in for some real disappointments in the coming years. At some point politicians of all stripes get tired of not accomplishing anything (but scoring political points for their fringe) and want to get down to the business of actually governing. So they have to compromise. From what I've seen of the Tea Party, and from friends I have who are active in it, "compromise" is just not what they are into. On the left I already see it happening. I know a lot of lefties who are still fuming over the lack of a single payer option in Obama's health care reform. That's a small example where the party had to ignore the fringe because they wanted to actually govern while they had the chance. I think that temptation to compromise is only going to get stronger and stronger in the coming years. It's easy to be uncompromising to your principles when you have no hope of getting anything you want achieved (Republicans until now), or you feel you have an overwhelming majority (Democrats until now). When the balance is this close, it's just natural to "give a little" so you can "get a little."
I don't know if it is fair to say the Dems are trying to be more extreme. They surely will be more extreme now, but that's because so many of the moderate Dems got ousted by Republicans last night. Whereas the Republicans chose, via primary, to nominate more extreme candidates. barfo
The story that is flying under the radar is what the GOP did at the state level and how it will impact reapportionment. Here's a decent recap of what went down: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/11/03/the-tsunami/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I'm sure that's true, but I don't see how it affects the analysis. In what way are the democrats trying to be more extreme? Did they nominate more extreme candidates than they had previously? It doesn't seem like it to me. barfo
I heard that the Republicans are going to enact a law that makes all Democrats wear burkas, including the men.
I would argue that anyone who voted for a health care bill that is going to simultaneously raise costs and lower the quality of care is "extreme". I would argue that anyone that would allow structural deficits of $1.3T is "extreme". I would argue that anyone who would wipe out bondholders to put unions in the front seat is "extreme". The Democrats have been presenting us with "extreme" candidates for years. Like I said, we have different definitions.
Yes, but you aren't being consistent. First you said that they were trying to be more extreme, now you say they've been extreme for years. But my basic misunderstanding is that I thought you were talking about the election, whereas you were really talking about policy in the last few years. barfo
