”The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then get elected and prove it.”
—P.J. O’Rourke
Filed under Democratic Party, Politics, Republican Party, Uncategorized
I’ve come to accept me for me.
The left side of my brain seems to be Democratic. The right side seems to be Republican. Where it all meets in the middle I tend to pick and choose those ideas that seem appropriate for the situation.
Am hopelessly Independent … but happy that both sides are feeding me constant thoughts and ideas.
The Heart and Brain image was found while reading Sarcastic Mama on Facebook.
Filed under Democratic Party, Independents, Politics, Republican Party
U.S. Political Party Identification
For the first time since polls began asking the question ‘Do you consider yourself a ______’, both the Democrats and Republicans have significantly lost brand association with Americans.
I consider myself ‘an Independent’ overtook both Democratic and Republican brand identification in early-2011 and has held its #1 identification spot ever since.
Voter Identification by Party as of 2012.09.30 PollTracker
The biggest loser appears to be the GOP.
Loss of identification with being ‘Republican’ is strange since the the percentage of Americans that consider themselves ‘conservative’ remains a strongly dominating 46% over the 20% that identify as ‘liberal’. The Conservative brand has remained strong since 1980, never once dropping below 40% per Gallup.
Voter ideologic identification per Gallup.com
One response from some Republicans is that loss of identification with the GOP just represents those conservatives unhappy with the party itself, and thus they declare themselves to be independent.
HOWEVER, when Independents are asked which party they lean towards then the Democrats have consistently come out ahead (Gallup Sep 2012) which can only be interpreted as a significant number of center-right Americans find it difficult to sympathisze with the Republican Party itself as the better choice over the Democratic Party.
Party Identification as of September 2012 per Gallup.com
Sources: http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/contests/us-party-identification and http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Congress is an immoveable force where the majority of members vote as solid blocs. Fact or Fiction?
>> Check out the difference between Democrats in the House between the two Congresses.
All votes are averages across X number of congressional bills
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111th Congress
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>> House sample size: 1654 Bills
>> Senate sample size: 688 Bills
% = the number of times that House/Senate members voted as a majority for a bill.
Dems / House: 81% of bills / majority of the party members voted ‘yes’
Reps / House: 65.7% of bills / voted as ‘yes’ bloc
Dems / Senate: 63.5% of bills / majority of the party members voted ‘yes’
Reps / Senate: 57.3% of bills / voted as ‘yes’ bloc
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112th Congress
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>> House sample size: 1549 Bills
>> Senate sample size: 433 Bills
Dems / House: 52.7% of bills / majority of the party members voted ‘yes’
Reps / House: 56.6% of bills / voted as ‘yes’ bloc
Dems / Senate: 67.9% of bills / majority of the party members voted ‘yes’
Reps / Senate: 60.5% of bills / voted as ‘yes’ bloc
Source: Washington Post Congressional Votes Database, http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/112/
Filed under Democratic Party, Republican Party
Chances are good in 2012 that a majority of libertarians lean center-right and should favor Republicans.
Libertarians are a bit unpredictable. Leaning doesn’t mean pulling the lever.
From The Skeptical Libertarian, here is one view:
“A lot of people say that the Libertarian Party just works as a spoiler, because it can’t win. Well GOOD. That’s a valuable function: it penalizes the Republican Party for being anti-immigration, anti-gay, pro-war, and lousy on personal liberty. It shows that there’s a significant group of people who are fiscally responsible and are being alienated by the Republicans’ backward social priorities. That’s the kind of pressure we need to put on the GOP, since reforming it from within is evidently a failed project.”
“If it does nothing else but spoil the election for Romney, to me it will have served its purpose entirely.”
Filed under Election 2012, Libertarianism, Republican Party
Over and over the faithful repeat the mantra that President Barack Obama is the worst president in history, and the second coming of Jimmy Carter.
Keep drinking the koolaid: The GOP is doing itself longterm damage if it keeps up the mantra that President Obama is the worst president in history. That constant repetition would seem to absolve the GOP of coming up with ideas and having to appeal to people with real alternatives.
Repeatedly saying the worst president in history just means that the rest of America is comprised of idiots if they somehow don’t see it that way. Some of those idiots vote.
Bad news: when it comes to Obama being the worst president in history the rest of America doesn’t see it that way. Not the great majority nor a simple majority see it that way.
Surveys show that fewer than half of Americans blame Obama for today’s economic situation. Two-thirds still blame the Bush Administration — you can’t get to 2/3rds unless a sizeable number of Republicans also believe the same way … and they do.
Surveys show that independents such as myself would like to vote for a conservative candidate … but we aren’t buying the worst president in history mantra. Mitt Romney responded recently to complaints that he wasn’t bashing Obama enough — Romney noted that his own focus groups just didn’t buy in to the storyline of the worst president in history.
Yes, Obama made some promises that he couldn’t keep. As a conservative independent (a real one, not one that votes straight GOP and then claims to be independent), I’m disappointed in a lot of things as regards the Obama Administration. However, I also don’t believe that the GOP has acted in good faith over the last four years. The GOP has shown neither the ideas nor the maturity of real remorse to claim that it can do better than Obama.
I voted GOP and for John McCain in 2008. In 2012 I lean towards Libertarian Gary Johnson but will vote for Obama if it appears that Virginia is on the edge of tipping to Mitt Romney, which at this time it is not.
Yes, I want the GOP to lose. A big loss would be great. Super. I would like the GOP to have a come-to-Jesus moment where it really reflects on how we and it got here.
As a stalwart GOP member from 1980-2009 it hurts me to say that I would like the GOP to go down in defeat in 2012 — but it is also the truth.
For the GOP, the last four years have been all about ‘taking our country back’ … back to what? … and to when? … Occasionally the words get mumbled ‘We could have done better …’. Those few perfunctory words are neither sincere nor followed by examinable public policy that shows the GOP means action, real reform, and not just more empty words that can’t pass a Math 101 review.
President Barack Obama is not the worst president in history.
Chances are good that history will record Obama as a president with a difficult economy that includes an aging population and a revolution in business productivity plus massive outsourcing plus two wars on his hands. History will also record that anything that Obama achieved was done with one of the most intransigent oppositions ever in American history by a Congress that was at a low of 19% approval rating — and has since fallen to barely a 10% approval level lead by folks that want to take us back and to tell us that President Barack Obama is the worst president in history, and the second coming of Jimmy Carter.
Someone asked, and for a week now the GOP has put the question out there for you and me to think about: Are we better off than 4 years ago?
Life has been challenging. Business has been challenging — and I say that as a CEO of a small but global company.
I’ve always considered myself a conservative, a Reagan Democrat … a Blue Dog if you like that term. You can call me a RINO too — I don’t really care. I’ve become rather fond of the term RINO (Really Independent & Not Obnoxious).
Bottomline: I generally vote Republican 70-80% of the time … although my last three votes for governor and senator in Virginia have been for Democrats, but Republicans at the local level. As to that nagging question: are we better off as a nation than 4 years ago? YES, yes, yes. … We are a bit bruised, have low expectations for more than minimal jobs growth in the foreseeable future, and know that our world has fundamentally changed and it will never be 2007 again. There is nothing to take our country back to — back four years ago — that was better than today … not that I’m so crazy about today as to think life is just grand.
Better than four years ago? Yes. We are no longer hemorraging hundreds of thousands of jobs every month, month after month. We are no longer losing our savings and retirement funds to trying to save our homes and our businesses. We are not doing great, our income is a bit lower, but we are stable … and that fiscal cliff scares me. 2013 could be a real bitch of a year, and 2014 as well.
All recessions eventually work themselves out. But are we better off than 4 years ago? Things are fragile but stable … which beats the alternative of losing jobs every month.
As to that fiscal cliff, President Barack Obama did not bring or lead us to this point. If you want to point fingers we should all start with ourselves and the political leaders of both parties, past and present, that won’t make the hard choices and be truthful about 1+1=2 and deficits, and …
Bill4DogCatcher.com endorses ____.
I have endorsed Gary Johnson, Libertarian. I may well vote Libertarian in November. I have said I would and I am usually pretty dogged about doing what I say.
>> However, should it come to picking just between President Obama and Governor Romney then my choice would be to vote Obama.
There, I’ve said it. Hate me. Call me a RINO … I don’t really care.
I’m just going to sit here with my cup of coffee in my McCain 2008 coffee mug thinking to myself: what a bunch of nutcases the GOP has become. Call me when sanity knocks again at the door.
Best regards,
Bill G
Profits have been hard to come by for small businesses, which did the great majority of hiring of workers, but the last four years have been very good for someone … just not the American workforce.
Filed under Democratic Party, Election 2012, Elections, Republican Party
Paul Ryan’s speech review by Fox News — NOT what you think.
Fox News summarized Ryan’s speech as “Dazzling. Deceiving. Distracting.”
From Fox News: “… to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.”
I agree. I agree as someone that likes Paul Ryan and believe that he has/had a bright future.
Ryan’s speech was more pink slime than red meat. Why didn’t he stick to the facts? He actually made a very good case for not voting for the GOP in November. The GOP has truth issues — not that the Democrats don’t as well BUT the GOP really has some truth issues.
Filed under Election 2012, Lies and Tall Tales, Republican Party, Trash Talk
