On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 12:05 PM, C. Hatton Humphrey <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Scott Stroz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I am already dreading the election in 2 years. It will be yet another > > election where we need to choose form the best of bad choices. We need > some > > serious campaign reform, sadly, no one currently in office would ever go > > for it. > > > > Actually, we need *politician* reform, hence my comment about both sides > fielding fresh candidates. > > And you're right, the two parties aren't that different from each other in > a lot of ways. The Dems did the same thing to Bush in 2006 that the GOP > did to Obama in 2014 and got the exact same results. I'd have to check but > I'm pretty sure the same thing happened with Clinton and Reagan. It feels > that way at least. > > And in both Obama and Bush's case, neither their own nor their > administrative actions (Federal administrative groups like Justice and > State) helped their cause. > > I just listened to McConnell (and yes, his anthropomorphic equivalent is a > turtle, you're welcome for that mental image). We'll have to see if he is > able to keep most of what he said. > > Until Later! > C. Hatton Humphrey > http://www.eastcoastconservative.com > > Every cloud does have a silver lining. Sometimes you just have to do some > smelting to find it. > The last President to not lose Senate seats in the midterm of his second term was FDR as it turns out. So there is that. There were structural things that were stacked against the Democrats this time around, no doubt, but in the end, the election was determined by the same thing that they always are: who showed up and voted. Democrats were roundly stomped on despite gas being under $3/gallon, unemployment going steadily down, the stock market being up, and more Americans having health insurance than ever before. Why? The people who showed up to vote were more pissed off at them than they were complimentary, believing that the country is going in the wrong direction. I don't entirely disagree with them, either. The electorate skewed markedly older and the minority vote didn't break as far in Democrats favor as when Obama was on the ballot. Individual Senators/Republicans didn't necessarily give younger voters and liberal minority voters a reason to turn out and vote and they didn't. In my state, we had recreational marijuana legalization (which passed), the ERA (which passed), GMO labeling (which failed narrowly), and driver licenses for undocumented immigrants (failed hard) on the ballot in addition to our governorship and one senate seat. The result? Pretty high turnout (projected to be about 70%), a younger, more liberal electorate than nationally, and unexpected pickups at the state level that have resulted in our House and Senate moving to larger Democratic majorities. I have various opinions on the ballot measures and local candidates, but regardless of my feelings for them, more liberal voters turned out because they were given reasons to turn out and it was easy to do so (vote by mail). Republicans seem to be doing well at this for most elections (Pro-life ballot measures, anti-immigration measures, candidates that appeal strongly to the base) and Democrats seem to do this less consistently. Want people who are supposedly ideologically aligned with you to get out and vote? Give them a reason to. Cheers, Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:372874 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
