Category Archives: Elections

Paul Ryan’s plan puts 2012 elderly vote in play – Glenn Thrush and Abby Phillip – POLITICO.com

Like I said, I think the GOP may have just committed Political Suicide….

From Politico.com:

Obama’s 2008 campaign was fueled by youthful enthusiasm and billed as a generational upheaval. But older voters, especially white working-class conservatives, were not a natural hope-and-change crowd, and he lost among seniors by nine points to John McCain. Many of them simply stayed home.

That skepticism, bordering on hostility, has carried over to his presidency.

Over-65 voters have given Obama the lowest marks of any age cohort in every weekly Gallup presidential approval survey taken since Obama took office. Last week, only 36 percent of seniors approved of his performance, seven points less than Obama’s overall approval rating and 12 points lower than his positive rating among 18-to-24 year-olds.

But Ryan’s plan, embraced by most Republicans, gives Obama a big opportunity in 2012 to regain lost ground in key battleground states and narrow the generation gap. “It finally gives us an argument to make with seniors… It’s a godsend,” said a Democratic operative allied with Obama who sees the issue as a way to make up lost ground with seniors in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Florida.

via Paul Ryan’s plan puts 2012 elderly vote in play – Glenn Thrush and Abby Phillip – POLITICO.com.

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The GOP’s 2012 Campaign Plan: Disqualify Eligible Voters | | AlterNet

This really is a disgusting tactic…

And very wide-spread….

While there are almost no documented examples of “voter fraud”, the GOP keeps claiming the need for more regulations….

Seems to me, they doth protest too much….

They also know most Americans support the policies of the Democrats, but GOP voters vote more regularly.  They are trying to do everything possible to drive down legitimate Democratic voting….

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are resurrecting one of their party’s favorite but most cowardly tactics to quote, win elections. They are seeking to create new barriers to voting by passing stricter voter ID laws intended to prevent the very electoral segments who helped to elect President Obama in 2008 from receiving ballots in 2012, particularly the young, poor and elderly, according to voting rights groups.

“Touted under the guise of addressing so-called ‘voter fraud,’ the proposals are part of a quiet but coordinated effort to reduce the voting strength of minority voters who saw greater turnout in 2008,” reads the Advancement Project’s new report, “What’s Wrong With This Picture: New Voter ID Proposals Part of a National Push to Turn back the Clock on Voting Rights.” “The 2008 elections saw record turnout by black and brown voters, offering a glimpse of what a more equitable voter participation might look like. The photo ID proposals are part of a concerted effort to turn back the clock on voting rights.”

via .

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Public Policy Polling: Trump takes the lead

The GOP Primary is going to be so much fun to watch!

This is going to be better than a three ring circus…

I’ve never seen such a bunch of ignoramuses, panderers  and publicity whores in one place.  Non of these people are really serious candidates….

President Obama can laugh all the way to his second inauguration…

He’s definitely the only grown up in the room with this crowd…

Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they’re willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory and those folks want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President next year. With the other 62% of Republicans- 23% of whom say they are only willing to vote for a birther and 39% of whom are not sure- Donald Trump is cleaning up. And as a result Trump’s ridden the controversy about Barack Obama’s place of birth to the highest level of support we’ve found for anyone in our national GOP polling so far in 2011.

Trump’s broken the perpetual gridlock we’ve found at the top of the Republican field, getting 26% to 17% for Mike Huckabee, 15% for Romney, 11% for Newt Gingrich, 8% for Sarah Palin, 5% for Ron Paul, and 4% for Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty.

Among that 23% only willing to vote for a birther Trump is cleaning up even more, getting 37% to 13% for Huckabee and Palin, and 10% for Romney and Gingrich. He’s a lot weaker with the 38% who say they’re perfectly happy to vote for someone who’s dismissed the birther theory- with them Romney leads at 23%, with Huckabee at 18%, Trump at 17%, Gingrich at 10%, and Palin at only 7%.

I’m still pretty skeptical that Trump’s going to run but if he doesn’t someone who taps into the same sort of hard, hard right sentiment he’s appealing to right now will get their votes- it’s hard to imagine these folks voting for a more centrist candidate like Romney or Pawlenty. And that means there’s a very serious contingent within the Republican Party that’s less concerned with beating Barack Obama than having a nominee who gets them fired up. That suggests many GOP voters have not learned the lessons of Nevada and Delaware and that Obama may survive despite his weak approval numbers because the Republicans end up defeating themselves.

via Public Policy Polling: Trump takes the lead.

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GOP Budget Plan Very Unpopular

The Republican War on Medicare just might be their Waterloo….

A new Democracy Corps poll finds the Republican deficit reduction plan gets only 48% support, “but when voters learn almost anything about it, they turn sharply and intensely against it.”

Key findings: “When the budget is described — using as much of Paul Ryan’s description as possible — support collapses to 36% with just 19% strongly supporting the plan. The facts in the budget lose people almost immediately — dropping 12 points. Putting the spotlight on this budget is damning. A large majority of 56% oppose it, 42% strongly. The impact is much stronger with seniors where support erodes from 48% to just 32%, with 57% opposed. Support with independents drops from 55% to 43%.”

via GOP Budget Plan Very Unpopular.

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Poll: Budget deal wins support, but Americans wary

Interesting numbers from USA Today/Gallup Poll…

In summary, the “public” is okay with the budget deal from last week, but most don’t want anymore cuts to Domestic spending…

They also want to rescind the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich…

And no one wants to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security…

I hope President Obama is willing to go to the mat for those programs…

I’m not yet convinced he will…

In the public’s view, so far so good.

By more than 2-to-1, 62%-25%, those polled say they approve of the deal, and few see it as a partisan victory. Three of four say it was a victory either for neither side (56%) or for both sides (20%).

There is less consensus on what to do next, though, and little encouragement for policymakers such as House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan who are urging bold action to control the exploding costs of Medicare.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” says Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. “People want a balanced budget … but they really don’t like the cuts that are involved.”

He questions whether it will be possible for the White House and Congress to strike a grand bargain that calls on both to take some political hits. “I’m not sure there’s enough mutual trust possible in Washington these days for that kind of deal to be made.”

In the poll, those surveyed:

• Are split over whether there should be significant additional cuts in domestic spending: 47% say no, 45% yes. On this issue, there is a yawning divide between the parties. Democrats by 2-to-1 oppose more cuts; Republicans by 2-to-1 support them.

• Overwhelmingly oppose making major changes to Medicare. By 2-to-1, they support minor changes or none at all to control costs, rather than major changes or a complete overhaul. Even a third of Republicans say the government should not try to control the costs of Medicare.

• Favor imposing higher taxes on families with household incomes of $250,000 and above, as Obama has endorsed: 59% support the idea, 37% oppose it.

Still, the divide on the issue could make Republicans less likely to compromise on it. While 78% of Democrats favor higher taxes on top earners, 60% of Republicans oppose it.

via Poll: Budget deal wins support, but Americans wary – USATODAY.com.

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Reclaiming the Politics of Freedom | The Nation

Another great article from The Nation…

The Conservatives really are PR geniuses.  They also have Street Smarts.

The Democrats have to look to history to frame their arguments in ways that have worked before.  This article has some good advice….

They also have to get over their fear of the GOP yelling “class warfare.”  The Class War is already on and the Middle Class is losing….

We must also change the argument about government. Government need not be a source of constraint, as conservatives claim. Nor is it designed to protect citizens from the vagaries of the market, as many liberals claim—a formulation that depicts citizens as needy and passive and opens liberals to the charge of paternalism and condescension. When government is aligned with democratic movements on the ground, as Walter Reuther and Martin Luther King Jr. understood, it becomes the individual’s instrument for liberating herself from her rulers in the private sphere, a way to break the back of private autocracy.

In forging his realignment, Roosevelt was careful to identify the enemy not as a political party but an economic aristocracy. Throughout the 1936 campaign, he barely mentioned Alf Landon. Instead, he denounced the Liberty League and the businessmen it represented. Realignments in America are like that: Jackson railed against the Bank; the Republicans ran against the slaveocracy; Reagan campaigned against the liberal elite. Part of this is strategic: it’s easier to peel away voters from the opposition if you can show that it is not their party you oppose but the interests it represents, which are not theirs. But part of it is substantive, reflecting a conviction that the task at hand is not simply to defeat a party or win an election but to free men and women from a malignant social form. If we hope to forge a comparable realignment, we must stop talking about the Tea Party or even the Republicans and start talking about the business class that stands behind them.

via Reclaiming the Politics of Freedom | The Nation.

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Shocking Truth Behind Donald Trump’s Hair Revealed?

Now that DT is running for President, this is potentially a National Security issue….

I hope they discover and validate the truth behind the world’s greatest comb-over before he’s elected and seals the information forever as a State Secret….

From Vanity Fair:

My baldly-stated thesis: this could be evidence of a rarely-sighted, possibly unprecedented “double comb-over.” It looks as if a length of hair growing from the part on the left side of Trump’s pate has been combed left-to-right over the crown of his head, while a second length of hair, growing from the back of his head, has been combed back-to-front over the first length of hair. Salon-strength hair products likely play a role in the final construction of this lattice-like structure—which could also explain the “ship’s prow” look one sometimes sees in side views of Trump.

Granted, there could be other explanations for the cross-hatching in Trump’s hair, such as a wood-grain tattoo on his scalp. Further study is clearly called for. Now that Trump is running for president, I nominate the Washington press corps to look into it, just as soon as they’re finished writing down everything Michele Bachmann says.

via Shocking Truth Behind Donald Trump’s Hair Revealed? | VF Daily | Vanity Fair.

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Shock poll: 46% of Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal | The Raw Story

I hope some time in my lifetime, Mississippi steps forward to at least join the 20th Century.  They’ve been stuck in the 19th Century for over 200 years now…

A new poll out of Mississippi finds that in a bastion of America’s south, many Republican voters have tightly held onto the old, hateful views of race as a dividing line in society.

A full 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans said they believe interracial marriage should be illegal, according to the left-leaning survey group Public Policy Polling. Only 40 percent said they thought it should remain legal, with the rest unsure.

Republicans who said they were in favor of banning interracial marriages were most frequently supporters of Fox News contributor Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor (R) who quit half-way through her first term. Their least liked candidate was Mitt Romney, the former radio executive and Governor of Massachusetts (R).

via Shock poll: 46% of Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal | The Raw Story.

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Trump For President? No Longer A Joke

I think he would be the perfect Republican Presidential Nominee:

  1. You can’t believe a word he says
  2. He’s a rich man out of touch with most people’s lives
  3. He changes positions to whatever is currently popular with the Tea Party
  4. He’s driven his companies into bankruptcy twice

Sounds like a modern Republican to me…

From the National Examiner:

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey has New York real estate mogul Donald Trump second (tied) to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among Republicans for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination. Romney’s support at 21% among nine candidate is not surprising given that he has been an undeclared candidate since 2008 and other polls indict similar rising support for him, but Trump’s standing at 17% (tied with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee) among national Republicans adds credence to the viability of a Trump candidacy heretofore dismissed as a public relations gimmick and far-fetched. A CNN polls published in late March had Trump with 10% support. A Trump candidacy may be gaining momentum as Trump himself has been ubiquitous on news shows immersing himself in political debates (he has doubts, for instance, about whether President Barack Obama is U.S.-born) and promoting the idea of a President Trump.

via Trump For President? No Longer A Joke – Washington DC RNC | Examiner.com.

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Cornel West: As Obama becomes ‘a puppet,’ America in the midst of a ‘radical democratic awakening’ | Raw Replay

Very thought provoking comments from Dr Cornel West…

From RawStory.com:

 

Black intellectual and Princeton professor Cornel West was once a vocal supporter of President Barack Obama. Today, that’s changed — a lot.

Speaking to Russia Today, West explained that in his view, Obama has morphed into “a centrist leaning toward the right” who acts as “a puppet of big business” at home and promotes “liberal neoconservatism” in lands abroad.

Amid it all, West said that Americans of all political stripes are in the throes of a “radical democratic awakening,” at least partially brought about by the lack of change brought by the so-called change candidate, Mr. Obama.

This video is from Russia Today, broadcast Monday, April 4, 2011.

Cornel West: As Obama becomes ‘a puppet,’ America in the midst of a ‘radical democratic awakening’ | Raw Replay.

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