stupidity of the midterms
18 Nov 2014, 8:34 pm
sonofghandi wrote:
Perhaps you have missed some of the reports where self identified consistently conservatives and those who get their news exclusively from Fox tend to score the lowest on current events knowledge.
Maybe you can link to that? It depends on what you ask people about. How many Democrats thought that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house? How many Democrats are well-informed about Obama's scandals? Maybe if Obama watched Fox News he would find out about his Administration's wrongdoings earlier. . .
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And as for shady voting shenanigans, perhaps you should consider that it took me over 5 hours of standing in line in my inner city district to vote, and saw dozens of people give up waiting. Not to mention that several of those living on my street were not on the rolls, only to discover that they had been victims of a voter purge as a "fraud prevention" measure. Not to mention that in 2012, the Republicans maintains a significant majority in the House despite the Democratic House candidates receiving more than 1.5 million more votes.
Maybe they weren't on the rolls because they weren't permitted or registered to vote for whatever reason. In 2012, Obama got 100% of the vote in some precincts. Right. Some precincts had over 100% turnout. How does that happen? How did Al Franken miraculously win in 2008 after a recount where he kept getting further and further ahead? Why do Democrats win the vast majority of close races? I think that, in many races, a Republican candidate needs to win by a comfortable margin so that the Democrats don't "find" a thousand ballots here or there until their candidate wins. Why are Democrats so opposed to voter ID laws if they don't engage in fraud?
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But to be honest, I think the absolute biggest reason the Democrats lost this go around wasn't because people like Republicans so much as a lot refused to vote because of all the failed Democratic promises. Primarily a complete lack of progress on immigration reform (low Hispanic turnout in most regions) and a failure to do anything about wage inequality, minimum wage, and stagnant wages despite much rhetoric flying about fixes (around a dismal 20% youth vote).
Combine that with some pretty effective fear rallying of the Republican base and you get yourself a whole lot of red seats.
Combine that with some pretty effective fear rallying of the Republican base and you get yourself a whole lot of red seats.
Also, almost all of the Republican gains in 2014 were in Red states. Iowa, which is arguably a purple state, is an exception. States like Minnesota and Michigan should have been in play. That Republicans had to fight so hard for seats in Red states during a mid-term election when Obama and the Democrats are screwing everything up, is troubling. Also, another problem is that it seems to me (I could be wrong) that Democrat Senators (incumbents) have a lot easier time holding onto their seats than Republican incumbents. For example, Norm Coleman was essentially tied with Al Franken in 2008, yet the seat was not even in play this election.
