DC dems - tread carefully

With 23 states under total control of the Republicans, and a severely divided electorate, obama and the dems in DC should think twice before following the obamacare model and ramming their socialist agenda through.

In a little-noticed footnote to last week’s election, state legislature elections this year have produced the highest number of states with one-party rule in 60 years. Democrats or Republicans now have sole control of the governorship and both legislative chambers in 37 state capitals around the country.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracks party representation in the country’s 50 state governments, Democrats now control all three bases of power — the governorship and both houses of the state legislatures — in 14 states and Republicans in 23, with only 12 states sharing power. (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is considered nonpartisan.)

Regional power bases are also emerging, with Democrats increasingly dominating state governments across New England.


Bill Bishop, author of the book “The Big Sort” on the growing polarization of American politics, said, “There are mores states that have tipped either increasingly Republican or Democratic over time. Even in close elections you have a majority of voters who live in counties where the election wasn’t close at all. The world they see at their doorstep is different than the rest of the country.”​

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/10/rising-number-of-states-seeing-one-party-rule/

With a few exceptions (Wisconsin is totally controlled by R's but went for obama), states totally controlled by D's went for obama, states totally controlled by R's went for Romney. And generally in a big way. Margins of victory were huge with the winning margin frequently >30%.

Even in some states that went for obama, the state itself is deeply divided along geographic lines. Florida just barely went for obama, but only 12 counties (4 cities) went for obama. The remianing 50+ counties went for Romney frequently by a huge margin - in many counties, obama got less than 25% of the vote.

As the article wrote, "The world they see at their doorstep is different than the rest of the country". Libs and conservatives dont see or share the same political aspirations and dont live in the same geographic, social, economic, and political world.

There is no national mandate for either side. The nation is deeply divided and if obama and the dems in DC arent careful, the divide will break us apart. If obama takes a "winner take all" attitude, it will be a mistake. Conservatives generally feel shut out of DC. Reid is talking about reducing the Senate filibuster power to remove the only influence R's have in the Senate. obama will appoint some supreme court justices which closes the judicial course of appeal to conservatives. obama will bypass the R controlled house using executive orders, the regulatory organizations (epa, labor board, etc), or flat out disobey the law (immigration, medicare advantage funding).

People who are totally politically disenfranchised and are being forced down a road they vehemently oppose will look for other avenues to vent their frustration. Conservatives hold total control of 23 states which generally share borders with each other, and with very strong support from their residents. obama can treat them as astroturf and walk oll over them, but there will be a backlash, and it wont be pretty.

 

Correction, Obamacare isn't socialist. It's Kaiserist. Yes, it was Wilhelm's idea, and we can't be borrowing any ideas from Germany.

And it's not really a suprise that Red states vote for Republicans, and blue for Dems. The people who do vote, are the ones heard, and I'm willing to take a good guess, that those people are the ones we would call extremists.

 

Three things (yeah, I know, I do this a lot):

1) Obama isn't socialist.
2) Am I the only person in this country that finds one party rule (for ANY party) terrifying?
3) Why do you expect Obama and the Dems to compromise with Republicans all the time, when Republican "compromise" is "do it our way"?

Oh, whoops. One more thing:

4) Now would be a really opportune time to break down every barrier preventing third parties from having a fair shot at getting elected.

 

Obama got a bigger "popular" vote than G.W. Bush did, and Bush seemed to think he had a "mandate", so I say Obama has a real mandate, and the Republicans should sit down and shut up. Obama'a approoval rating is 51%, Congress approoval rating is 11%, who has more backing? 332 Electrol votes, 5 new Democratic senators, a vastly larger number of Democrats won all over the country, California has a super majority of Democrats in both the house and the senate, what part of the memo didn't you get?

 

There are no legitimate third parties.

They are all extremist versions of the democrats.

Give us a legitmate third party and we'll talk.

 

Define legitmate.

 

A party that has platform that is over 50% different than either of the two major parties.

 

Just to clarify. Say I name a party, are you comparing one party by one party or by comparing the party to both the Dems and GOP at the same time.

 

I would compare one party to either the republicans or democrats since obviously they wouldn't compare to both at the same time.

Take the Tea Party for example, they are to similar to the republicans to be considered a legitimate third party. The communist party may be a legitimate third party but that's about all I can think of.

 

Libertarian? Green Party? Socialist? All fair guesses.

 

They are all offshoots of the democratic party in regards to their stances on issues. Especially the Green Party, almost identical to the democratic platform.

 

Yeah, in the sense you're comparing apples to oranges. Sure they're both fruit, but how they go about doing it makes them differnt. Libertarians and Dems support same sex couples, but Dems would make civil unions, while Libertarians would get rid of marriage all together.

 

That's bullcrap and I suspect you know it.

The Republican Party.

 

Ken's problem is that he's comparing platforms, rather than voting records. Voting records are the important thing, and often (especially with the GOP) contradict the platform, which is why his argument is flawed.

 

Yes but your never going to make inroads with voters when your basically the same as an established party. Basically your either for gay marriage or not and both of those views are covered by the major parties which doesn't lead room necessarily for a third view.

In order for a third party to differentiate from the main parties they would need to have views that are different but those views would put them outside of mainstream voters.

 

If we're talking about party platforms, I assumed that we would be taking it at face value, comparing each one. But I do agree with you that party platform doesn't translate into what a canadite will do.

 

How legislation gets passed is different than what you actually want to do in your platform. You have to negotiate and compromise so very little actually turns out the way you want it. None of those parties listed would do anything say in relation to gay marriage that the democrats aren't.

 

Doesn't really matter in this debate does it, if we're just talking about platforms. Whether or not people vote on them, is irreleveant, but that they have differnt platforms is relevant.

 

There platforms aren't different enough to make them legitimate in my opinion. They would be far more effective working under one of the established parties similar to what the Tea Party does. You simply will never get enough voters when your so similar to a major party.

 

When did the Democrats try to get government completely out of the issue of marriage?

 

You will if voters are unhappy with the two major parties.

 

What are you talking about, of course there differnt enough, if not for the example I just provided, how about for the economic policies of the Socialist and Democrats? I'm pretty sure you're going to find that they're quite differnt.

 

I believe a third party may get lucky if they run on a single issue platform. If something horrible happens in the nation and they run on just that they may have success. Trying to run with basically that same platform as a major party with only minor differences just will never work.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always a mandate no matter how slim the margin. Clinton claimed a mandate on his Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 which passed by 2 votes in the House and one vote in the Senate where they had to get Al Gore out of bed to come in and break a 50-50 tie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

Clinton's statement . . . "The vote was close but the mandate was clear."

 

Not when the system is stacked against third parties, no, but if our elections were actually fair, you'd see the GOP and the Dems fighting to stay in power.