Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

That stuff is justified, but of course you're clueless about it. The Republican Party has won big five times in the last 32 years. In 1980, 1984 and 1988 at the presidential level, and in 1994 and 2010 at the congressional level. Each time it was because the party was led by the conservative movement (1988 was merely a third term for Reagan, which quickly ended once Bush 41 botched it, which led to Ross Perot). Bush 41, Bob Dole and John McCain's losses, and Bush 43's narrow victories (and loss of Congress) were all products of the "establishment", moderate/progressive, inside-the-beltway, left-over Hoover-ite crowd.

The Democrats have put up a long string of left wing candidates and lost. They put up one moderate (Clinton) and won (barely), and then they won in 2008 with a leftist who pretended to be a moderate, who benefited from Clinton's shadow and now needs it again to rescue his campaign. The Republicans have put up a long string of moderates who have had limited success and massive failure. The few times they've run on a genuinely conservative message, they've won big. You would think at some point they'd catch on.

The point of the statements you quoted is that the Republican Party establishment, as an organization, is a failure because it should be winning in a landslide. And that message is coming from conservatives, not moderates and independents. The conflict between the "Tea Party" and the Republican establishment is something that I would not expect you to understand or comprehend, and obviously you don't.



I don't know exactly how to characterize this particular point of view coming from white left-wingers. The picture that emerges is of the minority of whites who hold left wing views creating an army of non-whites to get rid of all the non-leftist white people. If you use racial resentment and eliminationist rhetoric to get rid of people who look like you, what exactly makes you think you'll be spared? Eventually (and that point has possibly arrived), whites will begin to disappear from the leadership and elected representation of the Democratic Party. The flip side is that whites will increasingly vote the way minority groups vote, more and more overwhelmingly for the Republicans (another phenomenon that is starting to materialize). That's enough to prevent the victory people like you are predicting in the short run.

In the long run, the flaw in the "getting rid of white people" formula for Democrat victory is that almost all of the "non-white" population increase the left is counting on are Hispanics, and over half of all Hispanics in the U.S. are white. Keeping white Hispanics from assimilating into the broader white population the way every immigrant group has in the past is an impossible task. So while Hispanics are growing as a percentage of the population, the Democrats' advantage with Hispanic voters is virtually guaranteed to be a short term phenomenon.

The U.S. population is 72.4% white according to the census. 16.3% are Hispanic or Latino. 53% of Hispanics or Latinos are white. Some of the wilder projections of recent years to show whites dipping below 50% of the population rely on an indefinite continuation of peak immigration levels (which have already dramatically declined), and treat all Hispanics as non-white, regardless of the fact that half of Hispanics seem to be under the impression that they are. In other words, it's not going to happen. And remember that George W. Bush already got over 40% of the Hispanic vote. At most, the white share of the population will decline from 3/4 to 2/3. Meaning that those pesky, evil white people will be around (and voting) for a long time to come. Having a major problem with a group that is the overwhelming majority of the population is a lot more electorally dangerous than having a problem with a minority group. If the Democrats aren't very careful (and you might want to consider the wisdom of your own rhetoric here), their open hostility to white people could doom them rather than securing a permanent majority for them.

You may not realize how widely known and understood your "hahaha, we're going to get rid of white people and rule forever" fantasy is becoming. You should think about what it really means for the Democrats if the average voter catches on to it (and they are catching on). To put it for you in numbers, there are increasingly estimates that show the Democrats' share of the white vote dipping below 40%. That means the Republicans' advantage among whites (by far the largest population group, and an even larger share of those who actually vote) is reaching the same level as the Democrats' advantage among Hispanics.

It is tragic that the Democrats are pursuing that kind of openly racist electoral strategy, which will result in parties that are race-based rather than idea-based. But if they succeed in creating that kind of environment, they will lose in the process.

*Neither of those statements is true. The population is not urbanizing, and there are not more progressives (unless you mean an increase in the use of the word "progressive" as a label, which has recently become a popular replacement for "liberal"). The number of people calling themselves "conservative" has grown quite dramatically, and the most population growth is in suburbs, not cities.

Sorry, JPT, but your sense of black-and-white, pun intended, is way way off.

Unlike the severe split with minorities between Obama and Romney, the split with Whites is 52-41. Moreover that split is with Romney getting the old White males who, simply, are going to die off sooner than the other groups.

More telling for the future, Bill Clinton out polls Romney among Whites in the solid mid-60s! When Hillary runs, she will at least break even with the GOP candidate with the old White males and kill him with the White females regardless of age.

Also, urbanization is a process not a destination - from rural to exurb to suburb to urban. And that movement moves people to the Left. Please see OR, NV, CO, MT, NM, AZ, and eventually TX.

As far as your history, that's 3T stuff that is increasingly being shown to be a huge sugar high of neo-liberal economic policies that inevitable lead to a big crash.

It's going to become increasingly clear that your dog don't hunt no more. I understand but can't really empathize with your desperation. But, as a political force, don't go away mad, just go away.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Sorry, JPT, but your sense of black-and-white, pun intended, is way way off.

Unlike the severe split with minorities between Obama and Romney, the split with Whites is 52-41. Moreover that split is with Romney getting the old White males who, simply, are going to die off sooner than the other groups.

More telling for the future, Bill Clinton out polls Romney among Whites in the solid mid-60s! When Hillary runs, she will at least break even with the GOP candidate with the old White males and kill him with the White females regardless of age.

Also, urbanization is a process not a destination - from rural to exurb to suburb to urban. And that movement moves people to the Left. Please see OR, NV, CO, MT, NM, AZ, and eventually TX.

As far as your history, that's 3T stuff that is increasingly being shown to be a huge sugar high of neo-liberal economic policies that inevitable lead to a big crash.

It's going to become increasingly clear that your dog don't hunt no more. I understand but can't really empathize with your desperation. But, as a political force, don't go away mad, just go away.

You need to do some reading. Because left-leaning political commentators are increasingly concerned that Obama's share of the white vote will drop below 40%. There have been polls showing him getting about 37%. He only got 43% in 2008*. Of course, the polls these days are increasingly sketchy, and produce very different results from one to the other.

Ironically, the "old white male" in this conversation is you. Something you might want to take into account before you sound even more absurd than usual. That precise rhetoric, which has increasingly been openly displayed on MSNBC, is starting to get through to people. When you use "white" as an epithet, a put down, a disqualification for office, you're going to start seeing results from that. But go ahead and keep doing it.

*The exact numbers:

Among (non-Hispanic) Whites

Obama: 43%
McCain: 55%

Among Latinos

Obama: 67%
McCain: 31%


Compare to 2004:

Among (non-Hispanic) Whites

Bush: 58%
Kerry: 41%

Among Latinos:

Bush: 44%
Kerry: 53%

As you can see, a huge shift among Latinos doesn't make as much of a difference as a small shift among whites. Looking at the past numbers, and thinking about the last four years, do you think Obama has improved his standing with any group? If he has lost as much ground with white voters as many polls show him losing, and if turnout doesn't look very close to what it looked like in 2008, he will lose dramatically. That's why the polls showing a tie or Obama lead are so suspect.

Perhaps an even more important number:

2004 Independents:

Bush: 48%
Kerry: 49%

2008 Independents:

Obama: 52%
McCain: 44%

Obama's approval rating among independents has been heavily under water for several years, and continues to be today. Simply put, many polls throughout the summer have been weighting samples to be identical to 2008 in turnout, while dramatically over-weighting Democrats relative to actual Party ID composition of the electorate. You know how the Democrats go out and spend massive amounts of time and energy every election cycle trying to register people to vote, and make it easier for people to register? Well, a lot of those people don't end up voting. If they didn't have the interest in the first place to register on their own, they're likely not going to bother voting. So the Democrats get a Party ID number that far exceeds the vote they end up getting, and it results in polls consistently overstating Democrat support.

One more thing: don't forget that the election in 2008 would have been very different if the stock market had not crashed in September. Obama's margin of victory was a perfect storm, not a new baseline. But all of this will be sorted out in two months, so there's no need to spend a lot of time arguing about it.

To get out of the business of arguing this stuff, I strongly suggest anyone who's interested in what's really going on take a look at this poll, just released by ABC NEws/Washington Post:

ABC/WP Poll 9/9/12

Not exactly a notoriously right wing poll. Read through all the numbers, then note the last line:

901. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as (a Democrat), (a Republican), an independent or what?

Democrat: 32%
Republican: 26%
Independent: 37%

If I was a Democrat, I would look at that poll and panic. Because it doesn't look good for Obama to begin with, and it dramatically under-samples Republicans. It covers the immediate aftermath of any convention bounce for Obama, and shows the race tied among likely voters.

But who knows what will actually happen. Polls are increasingly unreliable in my opinion.

In the end, talk is cheap even to pollsters. Then again, there is Intrade. They have Obama winning the WH and GOP winning the House. See for yourself.

Now, we could do the same here, or something similar at least. I'll be happy to buy some ObamaBonds that double on an Obama win or go to zero on a loss. Alternately, I'll sell some RomneyBonds ... same deal but for Romney.

Any takers?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

If I was a Democrat, I would look at that poll and panic. Because it doesn't look good for Obama to begin with, and it dramatically under-samples Republicans. It covers the immediate aftermath of any convention bounce for Obama, and shows the race tied among likely voters.

Weren't ya paying attention in the other thread? The number of people who call themselves Republican is at near-record lows.



In fact, that ABC poll might be over-sampling Republicans.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Weren't ya paying attention in the other thread? The number of people who call themselves Republican is at near-record lows.



In fact, that ABC poll might be over-sampling Republicans.

I have noticed that after 2006 or so a LOT of conservative folks seem to have started calling themselves "independents", apparently Bush II made them embarrassed to call themselves Republicans. It's much like how after Watergate few people would admit voting for Nixon.

I think its worse than that Odin. I think Bush II actually damaged the GOP brand. On top of that the country is having a generational and demographic shift. Unless the GOP gets a huge influx of Blacks and Latinos (which they won't...racial minorities and racists don't mix well) and Millies, I don't think that the GOP is going to be around much longer.

Assuming that the state structure (constitution and whatnot) remains more or less the same we're going to enter a new party system in the US.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Weren't ya paying attention in the other thread? The number of people who call themselves Republican is at near-record lows.



In fact, that ABC poll might be over-sampling Republicans.

After looking it over, I may take it back with regard to the ABC poll. It provides results for both registered voters and likely voters, which is slightly unusual. The party ID numbers may refer to the whole sample, not the likely voter screen. In which case, the numbers they used roughly match Gallup's party ID numbers for all adults:

D: 31%
R: 28%
I: 41%

They don't provide a breakdown for likely voters, so it's impossible to know how or if they weighted that sample.

Since 2008, almost all of the growth in independents has come away from Democrats, not Republicans. The number of people calling themselves conservatives has spiked considerably, to where they are now a plurality ahead of moderates and liberals, in that order (talk to Gallup if you dispute me on either point).

Anyway, the poll shows a tied race in the immediate aftermath of the DNC. This is not a tracking poll, and it cuts strongly against the results of what those showed over the past few days. When you look at all the numbers in the poll (job approval, strength of opposition, etc) it is not positive for Obama.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

That stuff is justified, but of course you're clueless about it. The Republican Party has won big five times in the last 32 years. In 1980, 1984 and 1988 at the presidential level, and in 1994 and 2010 at the congressional level. Each time it was because the party was led by the conservative movement (1988 was merely a third term for Reagan, which quickly ended once Bush 41 botched it, which led to Ross Perot). Bush 41, Bob Dole and John McCain's losses, and Bush 43's narrow victories (and loss of Congress) were all products of the "establishment", moderate/progressive, inside-the-beltway, left-over Hoover-ite crowd.

Dubya was no moderate. More significantly he was an awful President who

(1) sponsored a speculative boom whose foundation was corruption and whose collapse was a certainty.
(2) got us into two costly wars that either should have been resolved earlier and more decisively (Afghanistan) or should have been avoided (the Iraq war that he lied his way into)
(3) promoting budget-busting tax cuts during a war

Maybe Dubya should have let a recession take its course and use it as a pretext for dismantling unions and cutting taxes selectively and entirely for the super-rich; such is what a real right-winger would have done. It might have made him a one-term President, but he would have done far less damage.

Dubya ended up presiding over the most dangerous economic downturn in nearly 80 years and "socialism through receivership".

The Democrats have put up a long string of left wing candidates and lost. They put up one moderate (Clinton) and won (barely), and then they won in 2008 with a leftist who pretended to be a moderate, who benefited from Clinton's shadow and now needs it again to rescue his campaign. The Republicans have put up a long string of moderates who have had limited success and massive failure. The few times they've run on a genuinely conservative message, they've won big. You would think at some point they'd catch on.

Jimmy Carter was a moderate -- and a failure as President. Bill Clinton got 370 electoral votes in 1992 and 379 electoral votes in 1996, which indicates that he was a good match for America at the time. Al Gore, a moderate on all but the environment, won the popular vote and could have won the electoral vote -- except perhaps for the shenanigans of some partisan hacks in Florida state government. John Kerry came close to defeating Dubya. The Religious Right, largely a Boomer phenomenon, was powerful enough to give many wins to right-wing Republicans and drive the Republican Party to something near fascism. But Boomers as a group are getting old, and the Religious Right is not winning converts among young adults. It can only shrink, and as in 2010 it can win big only in low-turnout elections.

Do we Americans like the Tea Party pols? If not, then many new voters and voters who thought that they didn't need to vote in 2010 will vote against those reactionaries. The generational cycle and early behavior suggest that the Millennial Generation, like GIs, will begin very liberal and become conservative only when they find a status quo under attack and worthy of defense. That is going to take some time because the economic order does not yet work well for the Millennial Generation. Add to that the Hard Right is antithetical to their collegiality, rationality, and egalitarianism.

The point of the statements (playwrite) quoted is that the Republican Party establishment, as an organization, is a failure because it should be winning in a landslide. And that message is coming from conservatives, not moderates and independents. The conflict between the "Tea Party" and the Republican establishment is something that I would not expect you to understand or comprehend, and obviously (playwrite) do(es)n't.

The old Establishment of moderate and even liberal Republicans went Democratic in 2006 and 2008. What remains consists of the Southern racists, the anti-modern Christian fundamentalists, and the hyper-rich economic elites. Two of the three are not growing constituencies. The Republicans will need to rebuild their base to include new constituencies that are not now comfortable with current core constituencies of the GOP. It used to be that membership in the GOP correlated closely to educational and professional success, and such is no longer so. The GOP used to not be so anti-intellectual as it is now, rejecting even the modest intellectualism of the K-12 science teacher. A Party that stands for the rapacious, ignorant, and intolerant components of American will fare badly among people who believe in mind as the source of solutions to economic and moral distress, a community that includes people not all white non-Hispanic Christians, and greater equity as the result of honest effort.

I don't know exactly how to characterize this particular point of view coming from white left-wingers. The picture that emerges is of the minority of whites who hold left wing views creating an army of non-whites to get rid of all the non-leftist white people. If you use racial resentment and eliminationist rhetoric to get rid of people who look like you, what exactly makes you think you'll be spared? Eventually (and that point has possibly arrived), whites will begin to disappear from the leadership and elected representation of the Democratic Party. The flip side is that whites will increasingly vote the way minority groups vote, more and more overwhelmingly for the Republicans (another phenomenon that is starting to materialize). That's enough to prevent the victory people like you are predicting in the short run.

The GOP is losing Hispanic, African-American, and Asian votes even as those groups assimilate more economically and would be voting more Republican if the GOP were more welcome. But could it be that anti-intellectualism attacks one of the more reliable means of joining the middle class? GOP policies are compatible with a permanent underclass consigned to hereditary roles in jobs that people born to any advantage whatsoever avoid -- like unskilled labor and domestic work.

In the long run, the flaw in the "getting rid of white people" formula for Democrat victory is that almost all of the "non-white" population increase the left is counting on are Hispanics, and over half of all Hispanics in the U.S. are white. Keeping white Hispanics from assimilating into the broader white population the way every immigrant group has in the past is an impossible task. So while Hispanics are growing as a percentage of the population, the Democrats' advantage with Hispanic voters is virtually guaranteed to be a short term phenomenon.

So is "Maria Quinlan", with an Irish-American father and a Mexican mother Anglo or Hispanic? Is "Adele Rodriguez", daughter of a Cuban-American father and a German-American mother Anglo or Hispanic? "Hispanic" sounds more like a cultural identity than a 'racial' identity. It is possible, of course, to assimilate into the mainstream of American life without becoming a Republican. Just look at Jewish demographics -- and the Jewish vote.

The U.S. population is 72.4% white according to the census. 16.3% are Hispanic or Latino. 53% of Hispanics or Latinos are white. Some of the wilder projections of recent years to show whites dipping below 50% of the population rely on an indefinite continuation of peak immigration levels (which have already dramatically declined), and treat all Hispanics as non-white, regardless of the fact that half of Hispanics seem to be under the impression that they are. In other words, it's not going to happen. And remember that George W. Bush already got over 40% of the Hispanic vote. At most, the white share of the population will decline from 3/4 to 2/3. Meaning that those pesky, evil white people will be around (and voting) for a long time to come. Having a major problem with a group that is the overwhelming majority of the population is a lot more electorally dangerous than having a problem with a minority group. If the Democrats aren't very careful (and you might want to consider the wisdom of your own rhetoric here), their open hostility to white people could doom them rather than securing a permanent majority for them.

George W. Bush promoted his "Opportunity Society", which implied the questionable opportunity for people to buy much more housing than usual standards of underwriting of residential loans suggests possible. Mexican-Americans were especially vulnerable to that appeal because they are more likely to buy real estate at the same level of income than almost any other identifiable group, often making great sacrifices to do so. They were almost certainly the people most likely to get burned when the housing bubble burst. Mexican-Americans about everywhere but Texas (which had a similar mess in the 1980s and reformed its banking and real estate laws to prevent further abuses) are not going to forgive the GOP for that.

You may not realize how widely known and understood your "hahaha, we're going to get rid of white people and rule forever" fantasy is becoming. You should think about what it really means for the Democrats if the average voter catches on to it (and they are catching on).

It is tragic that the Democrats are pursuing that kind of openly racist electoral strategy, which will result in parties that are race-based rather than idea-based. But if they succeed in creating that kind of environment, they will lose in the process.

Are you projecting some perverted dream? If so, how do you expect to recreate a "White Power" state in which non-whites are consigned to permanent and severe poverty and others are driven off?

*Neither of those statements is true. The population is not urbanizing, and there are not more progressives (unless you mean an increase in the use of the word "progressive" as a label, which has recently become a popular replacement for "liberal"). The number of people calling themselves "conservative" has grown quite dramatically, and the most population growth is in suburbs, not cities.

In fact, suburbia is becoming more urban in its characteristics as it loses its last traces of its rural origins. The suburbs have become less lily-white; they require increasingly-costly public services; they have bigger traffic jams and thus need for new highways or upgrading of existing ones just to meet bigger traffic needs; environmental stress becomes more of a reality. Add to that, suburbia is home to white-collar workers who less trust their employers than they once did. Barack Obama caught onto this fact, and if that fact is not simply a one-time phenomenon in politics it bodes ill for the current coalition that the GOP now represents. If it is only a one-time phenomenon, then Barack Obama will be a one-term President as America revers to old norms in politics.

Originally Posted by Weave

Romney has a better chance than most challengers in a Presidential election, at least as good a chance as Clinton in 92 (with a much less challenging economic environment) and Reagan in 1980.

The media is the only thing keeping this from becoming a Romney rout at this point by the non critical softball coverage of Obama. Can anybody tell me with a straight face that if Obama was Republican the coverage would be this easy on his record....Review the coverage of Papa Bush in 92 in a much, much better economy. I remember quite vividly the media decribing the economy in 92 "as the worst since the great depression" a canard that was patently false considering the 79-82 recessions...in fact the 3rd qtr of 92 was over 4% growth...

Trouble is Weave, Romney has absolutely nothing else to offer, and has offered absolutely nothing else, but to say "see things are not going well in the economy, so fire this guy." I think you and other Republican believers are going to find on Nov.6 that this was not enough. You need a positive reason to hire the alternative. He has nothing.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Since 2008, almost all of the growth in independents has come away from Democrats, not Republicans. The number of people calling themselves conservatives has spiked considerably, to where they are now a plurality ahead of moderates and liberals, in that order (talk to Gallup if you dispute me on either point).

Is this the polling data you're referring to?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148745/po...s-leading.aspx

Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.


Here's the salient information from that study: Republicans are less likely than independents or democrats to call themselves moderates, so most of the moderates in that study are leaning toward Democrats. As the Republican party goes more and more extreme in the hopes of appeasing its most radical ends, it alienates a larger part of the middle.

These people calling themselves moderates are going to vote for the moderate in this election, and Obama is the moderate. There is no liberal running for president in 2012 - unless you're speaking relative to that far-right fringe that sees every penny of non-military funding as socialism.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Weren't ya paying attention in the other thread? The number of people who call themselves Republican is at near-record lows.



In fact, that ABC poll might be over-sampling Republicans.

Excellent post. Sometimes it appears that voter turnout favors Republican leaning polls on election day. That didn't seem to happen in 2008; they were right on the money, and are getting better.

But something else I wonder; do pollsters call people on cell phones? How do they get the phone numbers. If they don't aren't they missing most of the youth vote, and the most tech-savvy vote, and for both reasons, more liberal and Democratic voters? I suspect at least that Republican pollsters like Rasmussen and maybe Gallup don't call cell phone users. Am I wrong?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

So is "Maria Quinlan", with an Irish-American father and a Mexican mother Anglo or Hispanic?

ಠ_ಠ

She must be Hispanic then, because Irish isn't Anglo

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Since 2008, almost all of the growth in independents has come away from Democrats, not Republicans. The number of people calling themselves conservatives has spiked considerably, to where they are now a plurality ahead of moderates and liberals, in that order (talk to Gallup if you dispute me on either point).

Yes, it is true that the latest round of independents (since 2008) are defecting from the Democrats. But as I showed in the second set of charts, this is a trend predominantly among Xers and Millennials who are much more liberal than average:



This is related to the general disillusionment of Obama the liberal campaigner vs. Obama the centrist president. Go down to an Occupy rally and the rad-libs will say they're independent, not Democrats. "That's a sell-out party, man." They're sure as hell gonna vote for Obama over Romney when it comes down to it, though.

Look at that though, just 18% of Millennials consider themselves Republican, and even the Xers are down to 24%. You whine and moan about liberal Boomers, but do you really understand how far left we'll be left with when they're all gone?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

But something else I wonder; do pollsters call people on cell phones? How do they get the phone numbers. If they don't aren't they missing most of the youth vote, and the most tech-savvy vote, and for both reasons, more liberal and Democratic voters? I suspect at least that Republican pollsters like Rasmussen and maybe Gallup don't call cell phone users. Am I wrong?

Rasmussen doesn't, but Gallup and Pew do include cell phones. Rasmussen uses a complex (and highly-secret) regional-targeting algorithm they claim matches the general population distribution. Gallup uses something like a randomized war dialer (Create a list of every possible phone number combination, put every nth number on to a second list, then randomly dial numbers from the second list until you get a sufficient sample participating)

The lack of cell phone inclusion is probably the primary reason why Rasmussen tends to be a few points right of the other major polling companies.

It's been a while since I took social statistics for political science, but it was taught back then that the regional-targeting algorithms used to be more effective before cell phones came along. Ten years later, I imagine that gap has only grown. Random dialing works fine for national polls, but it loses some effectiveness at the state level and it almost completely breaks down if you're trying to ask about municipal issues.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Yes, it is true that the latest round of independents (since 2008) are defecting from the Democrats. But as I showed in the second set of charts, this is a trend predominantly among Xers and Millennials who are much more liberal than average:



This is related to the general disillusionment of Obama the liberal campaigner vs. Obama the centrist president. Go down to an Occupy rally and the rad-libs will say they're independent, not Democrats. "That's a sell-out party, man." They're sure as hell gonna vote for Obama over Romney when it comes down to it, though.

Look at that though, just 18% of Millennials consider themselves Republican, and even the Xers are down to 24%. You whine and moan about liberal Boomers, but do you really understand how far left we'll be left with when they're all gone?

I think the left's quasi-religious belief in its own inevitability is the biggest red flag for its underlying fascism. It's one thing to present your arguments and hope for the best. It's another thing to stand there screaming "Progressives Uber Alles!!!!" or perhaps more appropriately "We will bury you!!!". We saw who ended up on the ash heap of history in the Cold War. And that is, of course, the real reason why the far left despises Reagan so much.

Meanwhile, the question is not whether younger voters tend to be more "liberal" than older voters. They always have been, and probably always will be. The question is whether they're more liberal than previous generations. We've been down this road and we've run the numbers. Over the course of their lives, Xers have been slightly more conservative than average. Boomers were extremely liberal in youth, have been split about 50-50 for some time, and have been trending right in recent years. Millenials thus far have certainly been off to the left. But the recent numbers there have swung substantially away from the Democrats, particularly among white Millenials. Obama won them 54-44% in 2008. They're now evenly split between Obama and Romney. Moreover, 17% of the 18-29 vote in 2008 was black. That's 5% in excess of their share of the population. It was an unusual election, to say the least.

Finally, you keep using Pew. Their results are reliably skewed to the left. Gallup is a good neutral ground, but this current discussion isn't even about Gallup, it's about ABC News/Washington Post...which it goes without saying does not have a conservative bias.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Is this the polling data you're referring to?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148745/po...s-leading.aspx

Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.


Here's the salient information from that study: Republicans are less likely than independents or democrats to call themselves moderates, so most of the moderates in that study are leaning toward Democrats. As the Republican party goes more and more extreme in the hopes of appeasing its most radical ends, it alienates a larger part of the middle.

These people calling themselves moderates are going to vote for the moderate in this election, and Obama is the moderate. There is no liberal running for president in 2012 - unless you're speaking relative to that far-right fringe that sees every penny of non-military funding as socialism.

A point that should be obvious and apparently isn't: a moderate, by definition, is someone in the middle. If they skew towards the Democrats, what they are is liberals who are ashamed to say so. As for Obama, polls have been done on the subject, which do not confirm your view from the far left. Most Americans view Obama as being a liberal, and more liberal than they are. I.e., he's not a moderate, he's well to the left of center. Only a complete fringe radical would view him as a moderate. Considering how radical the Democratic Party has become, it's not surprising that some feel that way.

It was a good speech.

http://youtu.be/i5knEXDsrL4



"we believe that "we're all in this together", is a far better philosophy, than "you're on your own"."

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

ಠ_ಠ

She must be Hispanic then, because Irish isn't Anglo

I think by "Anglo" he means "Non-Hispanic White". Besides which on governmental affirmative action forms and such (and yes in my line of work I have to fill those out) "Hispanic" is divided into "Hispanic White" and "Hispanic Black".

As such I've concluded that "Hispanic" is a linguistic designation rather than a racial one.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

A point that should be obvious and apparently isn't: a moderate, by definition, is someone in the middle.

LBJ once jested: the middle of the road is full of dead armadillos. That was long ago, when there really was a middle-of-the-road in American politics. The last figures of the middle of the road in national politics are the right side of the spectrum in some relatively liberal places and the left side of the political spectrum in 'conservative' places. Such pols end won because they were extremely competent at politics -- so good that they could buck partisan identity in their states. Such politicians have a built-in hazard: that they are not doctrinaire enough to be consistent. They can thus appear capricious, and they become vulnerable to attack ads. Thus Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln.

If they skew towards the Democrats, what they are is liberals who are ashamed to say so.

Few people take offense at being called either 'liberal' or 'conservative'. 'Liberal' applies to those who believe in social progress and social justice, usually viable positions. 'Conservative' has traditionally applied to those who resist drastic change because such would stunt economic activity on the whole. That position has vanished. The word has not disappeared, but it has become a euphemism for those who stand for class privilege irrespective of human cost, quick-buck economic activity likely to make the world a nastier place, wars for profit (direct purchases of military equipment; attempts to take over other countries so that American corporations can get command of resources, cheap labor, and consumer markets), promotion of pseudoscience and superstition as official dogma, and sexual repression). As a liberal I take offense when the word is applied to a Fidel Castro or a Hugo Chavez; the word conservative has often come to mean the endorsement of political and economic positions characteristic of Roberto d'Aubuisson or Agosto Pinochet.

About a quarter-century ago some groups held a "Kombined Konservative Kampground". There were plenty of robes and much racist rhetoric, and crosses were burned. Note the initials... which obviously indicates that the 'conservatism' expressed in that "Kampground" was not the sort that one could expect from William F. Buckley or Bob Dole.

As for Obama, polls have been done on the subject, which do not confirm your view from the far left. Most Americans view Obama as being a liberal, and more liberal than they are. I.e., he's not a moderate, he's well to the left of center. Only a complete fringe radical would view him as a moderate. Considering how radical the Democratic Party has become, it's not surprising that some feel that way.

America has almost completely lost its center-right in national politics. The defeats of Senators Bob Bennett (R, UT), Linda Murkowski (R, AS)* and Richard Lugar (R, IN) in Republican primaries exemplify how the GOP operates today. The Radical Right has taken over the GOP, and it has led the party into positions reminiscent in many ways of fascist movements -- militarism, anti-feminism, sexual repression, vehement nationalism, hostility toward organized labor, intensification of economic inequality, contempt for the poor and powerless, disdain for learning and science, and ferocious treatment of anyone who strays from their appointed norm in behavior.

We have an essentially bimodal distribution of political results -- on the Left, a fairly broad selection of moderate liberals to welfare-state socialists, and on the right, a very narrow group of ideologues who seem to believe that no personal ruin or human suffering is excessive so long as 'the Right People' can derive a profit therefrom. The two Senators from Pennsylvania demonstrate the reality: Bob Casey is one of the more conservative Senators in the Democratic party, and he is very close to the political center. Pat Toomey is just one of many Republican Senators, and he was the President of the Club for Growth, a shadowy organization that excoriates anyone who does not stand for pure plutocracy in America. Few members of the US Senate have voting records between theirs that aren't far from the voting records of those two pols. With the bimodal distribution of political figures (it is nearly as bad in the House) that fails to match the distribution of political stances that align most likely to a bell curve, millions of Americans are grossly underrepresented in political life, and there is little room for compromise among elected officials even if there might be political consensus for such among the public. It is no wonder that we have our decade-long Winter of Discontent. No warm front is scheduled to reach us.

Welcome to the Crisis Era, and to something that will need rectification (perhaps by major political change) if we are to get through it without catastrophe or apocalypse.

* even if she did win in a re-election against an extremist Republican and a weak Democratic candidate

More pollster conspiracy and subterfuge

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/p...,7259460.story

In boost for Obama, U.S. getting more optimistic: Reuters/Ipsos poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are becoming more optimistic about the direction of the country, giving a boost to President Barack Obama in the final stretch of the race for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Wednesday.

The telephone poll, conducted September 7-10, showed 39 percent of Americans believed the country was moving in the right direction, while a still-high 55 percent believed it was on the wrong track.

The numbers represented a sizable change from August, when 31 percent of those surveyed thought the country was going in the right direction and 64 percent on the wrong track.

It was the highest level for the "right direction" rating since April 2010.

The numbers are the latest positive sign for the Democratic incumbent, who polls show is slightly ahead of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the race to the November 6 election.

"It's good news for Obama, frankly, because the more people who think things are going in the right direction now, the easier it will be for him to get re-elected," said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

"As that number begins to creep up, it's all good news for the party in power."

The poll was conducted by telephone with 1,089 adults and is considered an accurate measure within 3.1 percentage points of how the entire U.S. adult population would have responded if surveyed.

Asked whom they would vote for if the election were held today, 48 percent said they would vote for Obama and 45 percent said they would support Romney. The three percentage-point difference was in line with Reuters/Ipsos daily online tracking polls

Work them numbers, JPT, work em hard!

http://tinyurl.com/9eabppr

In Florida, 8 Weeks Out: Obama 4 Points Atop Romney

In pivotal Florida, Barack Obama comes out of the Democratic National Convention 4 points atop Mitt Romney, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for WFLA-TV in Tampa. Romney leads among Florida’s white voters, but that lead is erased by Florida’s minorities: Obama leads by 16 points among Cubans, by 36 points among non-Cuban Hispanics, and by 67 points among African Americans.

Romney leads by 5 points among men, but that is trumped by Obama’s 12 point lead among women. Romney leads in Northwest, Northeast and Southwest Florida, but that advantage is overcome by Obama’s strength in Southeast Florida, and Obama’s comparative strong standing in critical Central FL, where Obama today leads by 6. Romney leads among voters age 50+, but Obama leads by even more among voters age 18 to 49. Party affiliation cancels itself out: Romney holds 84% of Republicans, Obama holds 84% of Democrats, Independents split. Obama leads among those earning less than $80,000 a year, Romney leads among those earning more than $80,000 a year.

Compared to a SurveyUSA poll 8 weeks ago, conducted at a time when Obama attack ads about Bain Capital were airing unanswered, there is effectively no change in the race. Then, Obama led by 5 points. Now, Obama leads by 4 points, a nominal 1-point difference. Obama today has a Plus 1 Net Favorability, Romney has a Minus 2 Net Favorability.

The problem with polls using the labels "liberal" and "conservative" has been pointed out before. Thanks in part to a decades-long coordinated attempt to demonize the word "liberal," and to change the meaning of "conservative" to fit a decidedly radical (and therefore must UN-conservative) agenda, few people have a clear idea what these words mean.

It is, however, an objective fact that President Obama has governed significantly to the right of positions taken during the 2008 campaign by candidate Obama. This is not dependent on poll responses or on anyone's opinion; it is observably, measurably true.

Some examples:

Candidate Obama pledged to close the detention center at Guantanamo. President Obama has yet to do so.

Candidate Obama talked of raising taxes on the richest people to fund increased jobs programs, etc. for the unemployed, to "spread the wealth around" -- he used exactly that phrase in a discussion with "Joe the plumber" and took flak for it from the right. President Obama has done nothing of the kind.

Candidate Obama talked of breaking up the "too big to fail" banks. President Obama has made no move that direction.

Candidate Obama wanted a single-payer health care system or at least a public option. President Obama took single-payer off the table before health-care negotiations started and did nothing to push for the public option.

Candidate Obama called for a return to economic liberalism in many ways. President Obama appointed Wall Street insiders to high economic posts in his administration.

On only one issue has Obama moved left, and that is marriage equality. On all other issues, Obama has either stayed where he was or moved to the right. The claim that he has lost support because he campaigned as a moderate but then governed as a leftist has absolutely no basis in fact. He did not do either of those things. He campaigned as a leftist (for a Democrat, anyway), but has governed as a moderate and in some ways as a conservative.

And anyone who thinks Obama is Far Left -- or, for that matter, who thinks that I am --- has never met a true raging Far Leftie. I have.

But then, I don't blame them for this lack. Far Lefties are actually very few and far between, and tend to have about the same amount of clout as Single-Taxers and End-Of-The-Worlders.

Iran/Isreali -

Bibi campaigns for Romney


"Opposition leader Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) blamed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for what he called the deteriorating relationship between the US and Israel, in a special meeting during the Knesset’s summer recess on Wednesday.

“Mr. Prime Minister, tell me, who is our biggest enemy, the US or Iran? Who do you want replaced, [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or [US President Barack] Obama?” Mofaz asked in the plenum. “How low are you prepared to drag relations with our closest ally?”

According to the opposition leader, world leaders have not turned their backs to Israel, but they do not trust Netanyahu. " Jpost
-------------------------------
Shaul Mofaz is a former chief of Staff of the IDF. He is of Iranian extraction.
There was a remarkable discussion on Morning Joe today. This discussion was on the subject of Natanyahu's gross interference in the US presidential election and his attempts to control US foreign policy and armed forces operations. The Israeli/ Likud side was represented by Donny Deutsch the vulgarian real estate mogul and Andrea Mitchell , notorious for her thinly concealed advocacy of Israeli positions.. The US side was represented by Lawrence O'Donnell and Joe Klein. O'Donnell and Klein made it clear that they believe that Natanyahu is making an open "play" to elect Romney who Natanyahu thinks is his "bitch." They also stated that Natanyahu seeks to control American foreign policy so that he can simply "order" US forces to attack Iran.

Then there's Libya/Egypt and Blustering/Bumbling from the peanut gallery -

State Dept. Confirms Death In Libya; Romney Attacks ‘Disgraceful’ White House

Protestors attacked United States diplomatic compounds in Egypt and Libya on Tuesday, killing one State Department officer, the State Department confirmed late Tuesday night.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the death at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, according to the Associated Press. Angry mobs descended on the consulate in Libya and the embassy in Egypt to protest an online film promoted by American pastor Terry Jones that denounces Islam.

In a previous incident tied to Jones, a riot at a U.N. mission in Afghanistan killed 12 people in 2011, including three United Nations workers and four security guards, after mullahs urged followers to protest the Florida pastor’s burning of a Koran. More were killed in additional protests elsewhere in the country.

The timeline of events, as it appears to have developed:

Earlier today, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Egypt issued a statement that “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” The embassy said the statement was drafted and released before the protests. But the succession of events drew widespread criticism in the United States after violence broke out for appearing weak in the face of threats.

The embassy later said on its Twitter account that it “still stands” by its condemnation but decried the breach of its compound. But a senior White House official insisted to Politico that the initial statement was never cleared by Washington and disavowed its content. The embassy’s account deleted its post-attack tweet standing by its words late Tuesday night as well as earlier tweets quoting the original statement. TPM caught a screengrab. Others are here.

In a separate statement Tuesday night, Clinton issued a condemnation of the attacks in Libya that explicitly decried their purported justification.

“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” the statement read. “The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

Mitt Romney seized on the embassy attacks as an opportunity to condemn Obama’s “disgraceful” handling of the situation in a statement late Tuesday. Despite the embassy’s assertion that its statement was drafted before protests began, Romney slammed the White House for turning to apologies as the “first response” to violence.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” he said. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

That didn’t sit well with the Obama campaign, who accused Romney of exploiting the crisis for electoral gain.

“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” Obama’s campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

Update: Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus accused the president of siding with the rioters:

Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt.Sad and pathetic.

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) September 12, 2012 Tweet

Romney - if you liked W's blustering and bumbling on the world stage, you're gonna love Mittens!