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U.S. Politics, 12


TerraPrime

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Still, guys, really? That started a whole thread back.

I, for one, don't support a flat tax because it's bad for the economy. Empirical data shows that everyone, economically, does better when the tax rate is more progressive. Of course, there is a ceiling on that somewhere, because this ceases to be true under communism. So the argument should really be about whether it's the Nash point or the Rawls point, or what, not this retrograde ridiculousness about flat taxing being economically sound.

Flat taxers should stick with the fairness argument.

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Is that poll likely to be accurate? I'm confused as to how the Republicans have just done so well if there's such little support for their actual policies. ETA: Oh wait I misread that.

The problem with such a "prioritizing" poll is that it assumes, to some extent, that those concepts are unrelated. A solid majority of Americans believe cutting government spending would help create private secotr jobs.

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=4949

If you're one of the voters who believes that, then exactly how do you answer the question about whether "jobs" or "cutting the deficit" is the "highest priority"? And if those folks choose "jobs", and other people then want to infer that those same folks would support government action to create jobs, they'd be completely wrong.

Republicans did not do well in this election because they promised a bunch of federally-funded programs to create jobs. They did well because they said they were going to put the brakes on what this Administration and this Congress were doing. I fully realize there are plenty of folks on the left who think that those voters are daft for believing that government spending can inhibit private job creation, but I'm just saying that's what they believed, and that's what explains the results.

So they are knowingly giving power back to the GOP because the Dems couldn't fix things quickly enough. God, that is depressing. Fuck the average voter.

But they didn't give power back to the GOP. Obama is still in the White House, and voters know that. They don't have to love Republicans to have voted the way they did. They just had to not like what Democrats were doing when they had control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency.

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The problem with such a "prioritizing" poll is that it assumes, to some extent, that those concepts are unrelated. A solid majority of Americans believe cutting government spending would help create private secotr jobs.

I agree that it's not a particularly good poll but still it doesn't show a particularly strong mandate for the Republicans either so I'd expect a much less one sided result.

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I'm a little late getting to this answer, because I'm at work and posting from my phone, but Raids: if Obama and the Democrats want young voters -- who skew liberal -- who made '08 possible to show up, they should seriously consider not insulting them at every turn. Not blaming them in Obama's speech was a good start. We'll see if it continues.

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The problem with such a "prioritizing" poll is that it assumes, to some extent, that those concepts are unrelated. A solid majority of Americans believe cutting government spending would help create private secotr jobs.

FLOW, in the Gallup poll I posted it's phrased as "a new economic stimulus bill," not "jobs."

I'm a little late getting to this answer, because I'm at work and posting from my phone, but Raids: if Obama and the Democrats want young voters -- who skew liberal -- who made '08 possible to show up, they should seriously consider not insulting them at every turn. Not blaming them in Obama's speech was a good start. We'll see if it continues.

I am intrigued but have no idea what you are talking about. Did he accuse them of clinging to something?

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FLOW, in the Gallup poll I posted it's phrased as "a new economic stimulus bill," not "jobs."

Yeah, but of the four options given, only one of them -- the economic stimulus bill -- argues for a continuation of Obama's policies. And that gets a total of 38% of responses. But the other three options -- cutting the deficit, repealing health care, and extending the Bush tax cuts -- were core Republican issues, and 55% of voters chose one of those.

So to me, the poll is generally consistent with the election results.

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I will respectfully disagree on the theoretical Democratic primary challenge. Let us look at the core of the issue:

1. Unemployment is very high and not likely to improve before the election in 2012 by any appreciable number.

2. The President was by and large repudiated in this election.

3. Any candidate will need to start raising money and forming a PAC within the next 6 months

4. African-American voting during this election was very low. 10% as compared to 13% in 2008.

This sets the stage for a possible Democratic challenge to the President. If in the next 6 months voter apathy remains high and the Presidents approval numbers are still low the possibility of a challenge would be very high.

The only primary challenge I can see is coming from someone like Evan Bayh, because he's pretty much a Republican with a (D) at the end of his name. But he's a quitter and is politically done in this country unless he switches parties.

Other than that, you're living in a fantasy world if you really believe those things. Obama will win in a landslide against any current GOP prospect. There is no one.

Tea Party was new and unorganized, their task going forward will be finding more Rubio types rather than O'Donnell/Angle types.

Rubio types? You mean typical Republicans?

Then again, the crosstabs say it all: Fuck. Old. People.

The good thing about stupid old people is that they eventually die.

Republicans really need to step up and start pandering to groups other than the old and the gullible. Else they're going to be in real trouble in 10-20 years when most of the baby boomers are gone, minority groups are larger, and today's youth is older and in charge.

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The good thing about stupid old people is that they eventually die.

Republicans really need to step up and start pandering to groups other than the old and the gullible. Else they're going to be in real trouble in 10-20 years when most of the baby boomers are gone, minority groups are larger, and today's youth is older and in charge.

The "old people" in Shryke's crosstabs are everyone older than 39. They're hardly all baby boomers, and you're going to be waiting a long time for them to die.

A long time in which today's youth will get bored with marijuana and become as abstemious and "gullible" as today's doddering 42-year-olds, likely.

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Republicans really need to step up and start pandering to groups other than the old and the gullible. Else they're going to be in real trouble in 10-20 years when most of the baby boomers are gone, minority groups are larger, and today's youth is older and in charge.

Not a complete refutation of your point, but the "Baby Boom" is all people born between 1946 and 1964. Today they are between 46 and 64 years old. So the ages of those people in 2030 will be between 66 and 84. Given present average life spans, it's a good bet the majority of Baby Boomers alive today will still be alive 20 years from now.

The people who are now over 70 will almost all be gone. But they are from pre-babyboom generations.

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The good thing about stupid old people is that they eventually die.

Republicans really need to step up and start pandering to groups other than the old and the gullible. Else they're going to be in real trouble in 10-20 years when most of the baby boomers are gone, minority groups are larger, and today's youth is older and in charge.

What makes you convinced that todays youths will not become "stupid old people" in 20 years? Attitudes can change...

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OK, my mistake. It's not the baby boomers, it's the baby boomers' parents who are the gullible morons responsible for allowing fear and lies to take the place of facts and original thought.

Jaerv,

Probably because they lived through the 2000s and the two years to follow when Republicans screwed up our country.

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The "old people" in Shryke's crosstabs are everyone older than 39. They're hardly all baby boomers, and you're going to be waiting a long time for them to die.

A long time in which today's youth will get bored with marijuana and become as abstemious and "gullible" as today's doddering 42-year-olds, likely.

Uh, no, they aren't.

If you actually payed attention to the crosstabs, you'd see that it's pretty much a slap-you-in-the-face trend:

The older you get, the more you didn't support Prop 19

Which means as old stupid people die, the chances of it winning rise continuously. There's no real delineating line, it's a straight trend.

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Shryke,

Prop 19, though I supported it, would have been useless if Federal anti-drug laws remained enforceable after its passage.

Not useless, but certainly complicated. Let's face it Scot, pot is like approaching defacto legal in California as is. Federal laws haven't stopped that much.

But that doesn't change the fact that Prop 19 was viewed essentially as a simple "Should we legalize Marijuana?" question, so it's a good metric. And the trends you see in the Exit Polling are quite clear:

The older, the less educated and the more Republican you are, the more you were against it.

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Republicans did not do well in this election because they promised a bunch of federally-funded programs to create jobs. They did well because they said they were going to put the brakes on what this Administration and this Congress were doing. I fully realize there are plenty of folks on the left who think that those voters are daft for believing that government spending can inhibit private job creation, but I'm just saying that's what they believed, and that's what explains the results.

I generally stay out of political discussions because I don't feel I'm always up to snuff on some of the stuff you guys throw around.

However, if Republican positions were this, that they were going to forestall any programs what so ever and then that's it...grind all business of the country to a halt for at minimum the next two years...well, that's why I couldn't bring them my vote this year. (I'm generally independent and open when it comes to my vote). It seemed to be that their rhetoric was centered around stopping what the Democrats in the House and Senate and White House were doing, yet they offered no solutions or they offered things that might have been solutions but they couldn't be clear about...that's not going to get my vote. I hope that made sense.

Side note that's kinda political: In my house, we never talked politics when I grew up. I simply learned to do my own research and reading on subjects and I've voted how I saw fit through the last nearly twenty years. I found out yesterday that what I thought was mostly true, my parents are Republicans. My mom was flat out shocked I was mostly liberal and willing to vote Democratic. Mind you, mom also informed me that only the really good stuff that's happened in the last 100 years has been under Republican presidents...though I pointed out that FDR and Truman got us through the Second World War, she respsonded that, "Except FDR was a Republican!" I had to let her know she was wrong. I had to have dad confirm that...then I reminded her that Nixon left office in shame. She harrumphed at that one... :lol: Mind you, I think my mother basis some of her politics on how much she knows about the infidelities of the Presidents (i.e. Kennedy and Clinton). I love my mom.

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