I really can not wait for Rick Santorum to lose in November:
After saying in January that he would end his regular meetings with lobbyists, Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, has continued to meet with many of the same lobbyists at the same time and on the same day of the week.
Santorum, whose ties to Washington lobbyists have been criticized by his Democratic challenger, suspended his biweekly encounters on Jan. 30. His decision came as Democrats named him as their top target in November’s Senate races, and after the guilty plea of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to charges of conspiring to corrupt public officials.
But in the month since his announcement, Santorum has held two meetings attended by the same core group of lobbyists, and has used the sessions to appeal for campaign aid, according to participants. Both of those meetings were convened at the same time as the previous meetings — 8:30 a.m. — on the same day of the week — Tuesday — and they lasted for about as long as the earlier meetings — one hour.
I understand that one of the necessities for majority status is coalition building, but I am almost to the point that I would be willing to let the entire Santorum wing of the party die off- even if it meant minority status for the next ten years. Although on many budgetary issues this is the wing that holds down spending more than the rest of the coalition (given the spending of the past few Republican congresses, that isn’t saying much), I am sick of their antics, I am sick of their culture wars and their pet wedge issues, I am sick of them ramming God down everyone’s damned throat, and I just want them to go away.
Richard Bottoms
Me too. I’m doing my best to help.
searp
John: I guess you want a party that is actually conservative? That may take more than ten years.
srv
I wasn’t sure if you were talking about terrorists or evangelicals.
Richard Bottoms
I believe the old saying is: “If you sup with the devil, you better have a long spoon.”
Well here’s a more recent saying: “There is no spoon.”
It’s not we didn’t warn you. Fiscal conservatives made a bargin with the Christo-fascists so they could ascend to power. Now the bill has come due.
Tough titty.
tzs
Oh, I’m looking towards the fun that will happen when Roe vs. Wade is overturned. If the fundies are smart, they’ll stay with the state-by-state rules (and watch the population of women living in certain states drop), but they’ll probably try to go for the whole hog and a Constitutional Amendment.
Then the excrement will really hit the rapidly-spinning-thing.
As said, I’m going to watch this from far, far away.
Pooh
Why did I know that Richard would be all over this one like stink on shite?
So, John, what would they have to do for you to vote for someone else? (and by someone else, I don’t mean
lighting your ballot on firevoting Libertarian) Or am I overplaying my hand by asking the question?You are a maddening beast at times…
an american
Amen, brother.
capelza
He is like Penelope (only in a manly, non girly way), surrounded by suitors…waiting for Odysseus (his party) to come home. He’ll never marry the suitors, just entertain them…how’s that funeral pall comimg John?
Jorge
John – You already have minority status. When was the last time that your version of the conservative agenda got any play in Washington? This ain’t your team buddy – they just use your team’s name and mascot.
KC
Amen John. I’m sick of it too. That’s why I nearly gave my dad a stroke and registered Democrat a couple years ago. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an easy decision, and I’m hardly enthusiastic about the party. Right now though, I feel that a) if I want the government to leave me alone and b) believe the country could use some checks and balances on any number of issues, it’s the only option I’ve got.
Pb
Maybe we can cut a deal here–you guys get rid of the religious right, and we’ll get rid of the DLC… or would they both just re-form together into some sort of super-pandering, corrupt, opportunistic, exploitative, fear-mongering party?
Davebo
Shorter Whiney Cole
Damn it! Those damn Republicans are doing everything I knew they would do, and they promised they would do, when I voted for them in 2004!
Sorry there John. We can’t offer buyers remorse to customers who’s major bitch is that things went down the exact way their sales associate told them it would.
Perhaps you should form a new party? One just for voters such as yourself.
You could call it the schizocrats.
Lines
How can we convince Santorum (I feel dirty even typing that) to take up some Joementum and grab Lieberman on his way out the door?
Don
You feel like they’re more than one party? I feel like I’m in the political version of a mall food court where I can choose between two identical greaseburgers with marginally different paper wrappers.
ppGaz
Yes. Good idea.
Richard Bottoms
Oh snap!
I’ve made my position quite clear. Zero sympathy for people like John and and a belief that they will play Hamlet on voting for Dems forever.
The only option then is to put their noses in the Republican muck so deep that while incapable of voting foe Dems, they will be too disgusted to vote for Republicans either, or go the Libertarian route, thus throwing their vote away.
I don’t want his vote or anyone else who is wavering at this point. What is there to waiver about?
Torture?
Fiscal insanity?
Bumbling warfighting?
Teri Schiavo?
Warrentless spying?
Secret trials?
Mine safety?
Science bashing?
South Dakota’s Rapist Bill of Rights?
Naked port security?
If you can’t bring yourself to say the hell with it by now you are a lost cause.
You voted for this crap, now suck on it.
Pb
I feel like they’re detestable factions of two very different parties. Back in 2000, I thought there wouldn’t be much difference whether George W. Bush or Al Gore got elected, because at the time, they were both boring me to tears, blathering on about “getting prescription drugs for seniors”. Boy was I ever wrong about that one–it turns out that Al Gore was 100% right about George W. Bush, and meanwhile, George W. Bush was 100% wrong about George W. Bush.
Slide
John can I mail you Democratic Party registration form?
Jill
The Santorum-wing of the Republican Party? Are you kidding? He is the republican party’s future.
Mr Furious
Richard is a one-man wrecking crew today. I’m staying out of his way…
Richard Bottoms
Tim, meet the Dixie Chicks.
Captain Comeback
At this point, Santorum is basically trying to figure out just how stupid some people in Pennsylvania actually are. He knows his core base would let him get away with just about anything because they are stupider than a box of rice cakes.
It’s actually pretty hard for a politician to act more consistently smug and recklessly arrogant as Santorum is. When the creator made Santorum they broke the mold.
DougJ
Let’s get this straight: you’d rather have Howard Dean running the country than Rick Santorum? Didn’t you see the Dean scream? Don’t you know that he would make Cindy Sheehan Secretary of Defense?
Al Qaeda is laughing at us right now, because they see people like John turning their backs on the one man who can save us from Islamofascism: Rick Santorum.
Alan
As a Republican and conservative, I agree. I’m sick of the God Squad and their non-conservative/pro-life agenda. The most aggravating aspect, pretty much every conservative pundit is also a member of the friggin’ God squad–Rush Limbaugh on down. Conservatives and the GOP need new blood.
SeesThroughIt
That’d be fine with me. Let’s shuttle all the extremists of both sides off to Retardistan (which will probably be in Texas, but I’m open to other locations) and get to work trying to repair all the damage that’s been done over the past five years.
DougJ
Have you ever considered not voting for them?
scs
I thought the parties were supposed to be big tents, John? Why do want the whole party to agree with exactly the way you think? I’m afraid you’ll never have a party if you are waiting for that to happen.
Steve
Yeah, I am with scs here. Isn’t it worth putting up with a little wingnuttery and theocracy to play for the winning team?
scs
Well Steve, it’s not like the Dems are all a model of sanity either, and they are the losing team. You’ll have this in politics either way.
Richard Bottoms
I accept the premise that some voters thought that way in 2000. It’s the second vote in 2004 that is my beef. If you knew what they were and how well they had performed to that point in time and still voted for them then tough shit.
You brought the destruction of your party on yourself.
The Other Steve
The Republicans today are the Democrats of the 1960s and 1970s. That’s the Rovian Compassionate Conservatism.
That is, they think the way to win elections is to pander to anybody and everybody. Look at how Bushie responds to things, it’s always by tossing out some money. Then they whine when the people they give money to don’t show enough love.
The only way to stop this insanity is to kick them all out of office. Whatever you think the Democrats might do, you’re most likely wrong.
As far as Santorum goes, my only fear is I think Bob Casey is going to have a challenger from the left. Just like the stupid Democrats to split their own vote just because some one didn’t get his way.
Alan
Not when the wingnuttery and theocracy become the main focus of the party. I was fine when I thought the “pro-life” meme was just lip service. But now that they’ve taken over the party, I won’t ever vote for a pro-life candidate again. IMO, Rudy Giuliani may be the only candidate who can save the GOP come 2008.
The Other Steve
Interesting. So you really have no opinion of your own, you just sway with the wind blowing.
Paul Wartenberg
1) I am registered to no party at all. Neither party appeals to me.
2) We talk the talk, but the pity of it is there has been, and will be, enough people out there still buying the GOP crap to where this will never go away. We had 60 percent of Republicans from DeLay’s district vote him through the recent primary and that’s with his indictments and his well-documented ties to a corrupt lobbyist known from Key West to Anchorage. And do you think he’s the only corrupt, egomanaical Republican who can still court such support out there? It’s because people won’t see past their own small circle of the world to realize how many bad apples there are in this bushel, and that while their bastard may be corrupt it’s still THEIR bastard so they’ll support him the whole way.
3) The changes we need done in this country won’t come from the White House or from Congress because they both profit from the corruption and ineptitude. The changes need to be done by the voters themselves. And there’s the rub: even the voters won’t because for now even they profit from it. The greatest pity of all is that all this corruption and negligence and malfeasance (sp?) is going to lead this nation to a massive disaster that will affect every one of us. And by then it will be too late.
scs
If the Dems weren’t all such weenies nowadays, people like John and myself, who agree with certain things about the Dem platform and/or don’t agree with certain GOP platforms, might be convinced to switch. Haven’t seen any non-Dem weenies lately unfortunately.
scs
sorry – haven’t seen any Dem non-weenies above! Must get that poetic important sentence straight!
capelza
scs…you’ll never switch, that’s load of bollocks.
And please, share some of the recent “profiles in courage” displayed by the GOP lately?
scs
Well there are only two parties basically. You do what you can.
Richard Bottoms
Yes, I can see it now.
A pro-choice adulterer wins the nomination.
You guys are screwed.
DougJ
I agree completely.
Scs says:
I’m sure John is very flattered by this.
scs
I switched before. It might happen again. It all depends on the personalties.
Richard Bottoms
Bullshit.
scs
Well when you say people like myself, DougJ, that automatically includes about three dozens of the “posters” here.
capelza
And not the policies…so it’s a “OMG1!!!!, he’s soo Hawt” kind of thing?
scs
No, it’s more of a he/she doesn’t have presidential campaign website named “MiserableFailure.com” Remember that one?
Pooh
scs, you can’t remember what you had for breakfast, how can you remember why you voted against your best interests? Or does teh gay cut right through the haze?
(And preemptively, I’ll respond to you substantively when you add something of substance beyond your standard faux-naivitity.)
The Other Steve
Rudy will never get the nomination.
You have no idea just how far entrenched this pro-life crap has become.
Alan
It took Nixon to go to China. :)
scs
Pooh, I’d comment on your personality as well, but nothing about it stands out to me, so I can’t. I couldn’t pick you out from a hundered others on here. I guess I am naive when it comes to unoriginal posters like yourself.
Pooh
I’m not commenting on your personality. I’m commenting on your ‘debate’ style.
The Other Steve
Actually, Alan. Have you ever been to a Republican caucus?
If not, then you need to go. Just to observe. It’s terrifying.
scs
I can’t comment on that about you either. I don’t know you from a hole in the wall.
Steve
scs, do you come from south of the Mason-Dixon line?
Pb
No, no one remembers Dick Gephardt–you might as well mention Pat Buchanan or Al Sharpton. However, if you search for miserable failure in Google, guess who pops up?
scs
I grew up in and spent most of my life Pennsylvania, close to the Maryland border. Now, one thing I never figured out – I must google it someday… I was told the Mason Dixon line starts at the Maryland border, however DC is south of the line then and was part of the Yankee territory. How did that work? But no, I grew up north of the Mason Dixon line.
Pooh
The vast expanse of things which you wouldn’t know from a hole in the wall…yet that seldom keeps you from commenting on them.
scs
Not exactly. Gephardt was right smack in the center of the party, unlike Buchanon and Sharpton.
Richard Bottoms
Yes, but he came back.
scs
Where do you come from Steve? Fair’s fair.
Zifnab
That’s a said state of mind, because an end to the two-party system is the only garanteed way out of this mess. The reason the Republicans so quickly and easily found their way into power was their ability to successfully smear the only existing opposition. There was no Green Party or Libertarian Party to vote for, so when Rush Limbaugh told the nation Democrats are the devil, the nation was left with only one other voting alternative.
So now you’ve got your one-party system of Republican heavy-handed jackasses and you’re comforted by the idea that they’ll eventually be run out of office for sheer incompetence. Which will leave us with the one-party system of Democrats, or as I like to think of them, the second worst alternative.
I fail to see how trading rampant corruption and clinical incompetance for mild corruption and unhealthy incompetence makes this country better. We need an out. We need a viable third option. Someone to put our faith in who’s not “the only other guy on the ballot.” Worse and worser should not be the only two options in a Democratic system.
I say John Cole needs to go out and start voting like a libertarian by voting for a fucking Libertarian. Who knows, he might even start a trend.
McNulty
Well, voters here in PHilly are quite stupid. They re-elected a corrupt, incompetant racist as mayor, but unfortunately for Santorum, the really stupid voters in Philly are going for Casey.
CaptainComeback
Moderate Republicans and libertarian types get stuck in a bad position sometimes. I actually feel bad for them. On one hand, their love of deregulation and a scaled down tax brackets keep them voting Democratic, on the other hand they are also horrified by the increasing Christianist sect within the party that they usually cast a vote for. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I was them. At this point in the bazaar political landscape forces someone to choose from the following:
Democrat
Foreign Policy: mixed at best
Fiscal Policy: group mindset
Social Policy: individual mindset
Republican
Foreign Policy: collective mindset
Fiscal Policy: mixed
Social Policy: collective mindset
Libertarian:
Foreign Policy: individual mindset
Fiscal Policy: individual mindset
Social Policy: individual mindset
Green?:
Foreign Policy: individual mindset
Fiscal Policy: group mindset
Social Policy: individual mindset
Faux News
You can engrave that in stone, because Rudy has ZERO chance of getting the nomination.
Alan
I honestly believe the majority of Republican voters are not pro-life–not when it means transferring personal decisions to the almighty government. They may sympathize with the idea of pro-life, as many do on both sides of the isle. But they do not want the Government to make reproductive and end of life decisions for them. When candidates have said they were pro-life I don’t believe many of the voters took them serious. But now the pro-lifers have gone way too far within the GOP and the pendulum will swing back. At least I hope so.
Steve
I don’t get what Dick Gephardt has to do with the discussion, although I’ll agree he’s a mainstream, old-school Democrat. Before we start pretending he’s a big nobody just cause he’s kind of boring, let’s remember at least one source thought he was going to be Kerry’s VP pick.
Steve
I grew up in Detroit, scs, I’m a union-lover. I asked the question only because there’s a common thread of Southerners who say they’d like to see the Democratic Party to return to the way they remembered it.
scs
What I do know, Pooh, is that it is a mark of a poor debater and probably a mark of inferior intelligence to bring up personal insults or issues from the past to try to unfairly win the current debate, instead of just sticking to the facts at hand. So that much I do know about you now. Like I said, I don’t know much about you, but that shouldn’t matter to this or any thread. It’s not a personality contest, it’s an idea contest.
Richard Bottoms
Fine. I voted for John Anderson way back when, which will be about as likely to change things as your vote for a Libertarian party. But best of luck.
In the mean time everyone else has two choices, either the party that wants the Terri Hatcher’s of the world to have her rapist’s baby or the one that doesn’t.
scs
He was an example of a weenie mainstream Dem candidate we were supposed to vote for. There are others…
Richard Bottoms
I believe that was John’s reasoning for voting for Bush a second time. The pendulum must swing back theory. Or the, they can’t be more incompatent then they’ve already proved theory.
Didn’t work quite so well did it.
scs
Well, who knows, maybe my 10 mile proximity to the Mason Dixon line as a child colored my thinking. But I bet lots of former Dems think that way, not just southerners.
Jim Allen
Please note that Nixon went to China after he’d been elected, not before he got the nomination.
Steve
Yeah, but when the southerners say it, I know what they’re referring to. Other people probably have a million different ideas of what they’d like the Democratic Party to be.
Some people think Kerry would have won if he had picked Gephardt as VP, although I dunno. I certainly have nothing against the guy other than the fact he’s not very interesting. Around here he’s part of a promotional campaign that is designed to encourage better communication between parents and their gay kids (apparently he has one).
Lines
As I said yesterday, listening to a Libertarian can be closely approximated by visiting with the guy under a bridge that just drank 3 cans of sterno.
Democrats arn’t homogenous, no matter how much people like Zifnab would like them to be. People like Obama and Dean standing side by side with Lieberman and Daschle makes the party a richer place, a group of people that have to build consensus within their party before they can build it with the guys across the aisle are more likely to have hammered out a lot of the details.
Neither party should ever be in a vast majority ever again. And if the tables were turned and Democrats held the majority and played as unfairly as the Republicans, yeah, I’d probably find moderate agreeable Republican’s to vote into National office.
Now if any of those actually existed today……
Davebo
I see, so screw the issues. You’re just looking for someone with the right hair and attitude right?
Davebo
I hold out hope for you switcing again SCS.
But frankly, I’d rather you stay on that side than have my party adopt the type of “Southern Strategy circa 2006” that would be required to make you crossover.
I’d say when you switched in the past you went to the right side for the right reasons.
Pooh
Facts, you say? Praytell, bring some with you then and let’s have at it!
Mike in SLO
Paul is correct… the fault lies not in the stars but with ourselves. We keep insisting that to vote independent or 3rd party is throwing our vote away. With that attitude nothing will ever change. Both parties are beholden to the money interests that keep them in power and both parties often conspire together to keep independents and 3rd parties out. All the Dems encouraging John to vote Dem because he’s disillusioned with the Repubs are just as guilty. Do you really think Hillary is the answer? The answer is another revolution–take our country back from the corporate interests who act globally and care little for the needs of the US and who keep both parties subservient to their interests by bankrolling them. Joe Biden can scream about his National Security credentials, but he’s as beholden to the Banking industry as the Bushes are to the Energy industry. We will continue to give up our Bill of Rights, our freedoms, indeed our security until we get rid of both parties. You wanna change things? Throw the bastards out! All of them, dem and repubs. We get the government we deserve. We have the power to change it, but we won’t. But as a consolation, we will all be able to get a Mastercard so we can live beyond our means. We’ll be able to buy a new computer and start a blog, but if anything breaks down we will be unable to fix it–for that we will have to seek the help of low paying, highly educated workers in India. And soon when our Nuclear power plants need repairing, we’ll get to solicit help from India again. And if you get laid off, don’t worry, Wal-Mart and Mickey D’s are always in need of workers who can count change.
scs
Well, although you all may not believe it, I agree with some issues from both parties. So since there’s no clear cut party, it comes down to who you like more and who puts forth more ideas you like.
Jorge
Do you guys remember the issues in the 2000 election? The horrible problems plaguing us.
“My goodness – we’ve got a bunch of extra money here in Washington. More than even we can spend. What should we do with it?”
Gore – “reinvest it in the country.”
Bush – “I’ll write you a check for $300 if you vote for me.”
Good times.
Jorge
Liberterians are just Republicans who smoke pot and could give two craps about abortion.
Pb
There was a time when Buchanan was right smack in the center of the GOP–back when they were a conservative party.
And, in an attempt to get back on topic:
Pb
Steve,
Heh. I trust The New York Post to get anything right about the Democratic party about as far as I’d trust scs to–which is to say, not at all.
Krista
Mike in SLO – you’re right. We do that up here, as well. We sway back and forth between two parties, each equally bloated and corrupt, and never bother voting for a third party because we think it’s a throwaway vote. It makes me wonder how many people actually WANTED to vote for a third party, and what the results would have been if they had actually voted that way. That’s why polls piss me off (I’m sure wherever Paddy is right now, he just experienced a sharp pain). But seriously, polls are partly responsible for this — if you’re thiking of voting Green, or Libertarian, or Marijuana Party, or whatever, but get twice-daily bulletins stating that they don’t have a chance — well, after awhile you develop a case of the “why bother”s.
Jorge
Sorry – but in a non-parlimentary representative system of Democracy you aren’t ever going to have more than 2 parties. Because what the two parties in charge will do is find the exact middle and split from there. They compromise on the middle and then edge away at the extremes. A 3d party can’t come in and claim the middle because that is already taken. So they have to go out to the extremes and all they do then is weaken the centerist party that leans in their direction.
200 years from now we will still be complaining that there are only two parties. The best I could see happening is that one of the big parties becomes so corrupt that there is a revolution from the inside and a new entity is created that destroys the old. However, they’d still have the same philosophy they might just go about it differently.
Lines
Krista: Change the party, don’t try to start from scratch, especially when their foundation is one you agree on.
neil
Well, you’ll have to wait, the Democrats are busy having their die-off right now. By the way, here’s a tip: it helps if you replace the dying off people with better ones, rather than similar.
Pb
Krista, Jorge,
Yeah, first you’d probably want to push for a voting system other than first-past-the-post. Marginalized third parties seem to favor IRV; personally I’d prefer approval voting or maybe Condorcet.
Lines
neil:
that brings up an interesting point. So often the parties are so focused on retaining incumbants rather than enforcing policy. Zell Miller should have been ostrasized in 2002, but the party generally gave back feedback of “he’s not running again, don’t worry about it”.
Maybe in the reasonable future Democrats should also focus on winning primaries with pol’s that actually share their values rather than the guy that has an extra 10% chance to win.
Krista
Lines – I still think that voting for a third party can be effective. Even if they don’t get enough votes to form a majority, or even the official opposition, I still think it sends a message to those in power. Right now, a lot of people just don’t bother voting, because they think that the two major candidates are assholes. So we then get all of these pundits tsk-tsking about voter apathy, and nobody actually asks the question, “Could it be that nobody’s voting because the two major options are unacceptable?”
Believe me, I would love for our two major parties to change. However, certain pesonalities have been entrenched in their respective parties since my infancy. They’re not going without a fight, they’re corrupt as hell, and they’ve trained everybody after them to think the same way. Google “David Dingwall” for a stellar example of this. That’s why you rarely hear of Canadians protesting their governments – I think a lot of us are just so cynical now, that we really don’t expect any of them to have any principles.
Richard Bottoms
Un huh. Meanwhile the Republicans are falling over themselves to see who gets the blame for LOSING the war in Iraq.
The neocon wing has slunk off to their think tanks, while the lofy intellectuals write books about how George Bush screwed the whole thing up.
Delay, et. all are headed to prison.
Meanwhile, rapists can be sure their victims will bear their children in South Dakota.
Nice work.
Krista
Yeah, first-past-the-post is a major contributor to this. The number of seats winds up bearing absolutely no resemblance to the number of votes. I think that also contributes to the feeling that you’re throwing away your vote if you don’t go with the winning horse. My district is solidly, staunchly Conservative. I was either going to “throw away my vote” or I was going to go with the tide and vote for a federal leader whose philosophies I find abhorrent. Some choice, huh?
Richard Bottoms
No, winning at the polls sends a message to those in power.
Kicking their asses back to their hillbilly revival tent preachers sends a message to those in power.
“Your best? Losers cry about doing their best. The winner goes home and fucks the prom queen.”
— Sean Connery, The Rock
scs
No wonder I was confused…
Lines
Krista: The problem I saw with third parties is the “Nader Effect”. The new party is close to what one of the old parties is about, or is already covered by the platform of the original parties and only draws votes away from a candidate that is probably very much the equivalent of the third party candidate.
All that does is hand the election to the opposition.
Since you are a lefty, you’re just spliting votes off from a possible liberal and handing the election to idiots like Bush.
Steve
When you think about it, voting for the winner is just as much a waste of your vote as voting for the loser, unless the winner wins by one vote.
Richard Bottoms
There’s a difference between voting for Joe Snuffy, Libertarian Dogcatcher when you are in a district where it’s 90-1 against you.
Quite another to waste your vote in the presidential race to “send a message.”
Here’s the message: “Ha, ha, you lose.”
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Condorcet? Sounds like prescription meds that brings on extinction.
Caseyl
Let me second Richard on that. In fact, let me second him, approve the comment by acclamation, and declare it passed with flying colors.
The winning politician DOES NOT NOTICE who didn’t vote at all, and DOES NOT NOTICE who didn’t vote for him/her. The winning politician DOES NOT NOTICE votes which were meant as “sending a message,” or “signaling” something, or “protest votes” or whatever. The winning politician ONLY NOTICES ONE THING:
“Hey, I won!”
The losing politician also notices only one thing – “Hey, I lost” – and might, or might not, be motivated to find out why s/he lost. But, see, that’s pretty meaningless, because the politician who’s actually voting on bills, enacting legislation, and confirming judicial nominations IS THE ONE WHO WON – and, possibly, the one who won because voters were using their votes to “send a message.”
You want to send a message? Write a goddamn letter.
The voting booth is no place for a quixotic gesture.
Pb
Heh. Look it up, Robot Boy. I blame the Frenchies–maybe we can call it ‘freedom voting’ instead.
Pb
scs,
Fear not, they still have signs posted here and there, telling you where the Mason-Dixon line is.
tzs
Well, if there were a third party, what sort of platform do we want it to have?
I would continuously vote for a party that had the following as a platform:
1) Don’t spend more than you tax. Fiscally conservative.
2) Get out of Iraq NOW. (We’re in the middle of a shooting war, trying to hold off many groups that haven’t had a real tussle for a while and want to. They will either continue shooting at us until we leave and have their war, or we leave and they will have their war. I prefer the alternative that has fewer dead Americans.)
3) Push science and technology and education. Kick the Intelligent Design people into a corner and jump up and down on them. IMHO, YEC traits should be grounds for not hiring due to complete stupidity just as I wouldn’t want to hire someone for a nuclear power plant who insists on maintaining an erroneous belief about the critical mass of plutonium.
4) Universal health care…of a form. Basically, you get a choice–you get UHC and pay a little extra in taxes and we get to nag you about health check-ups and paying attention to your weight. Or you don’t get UHC and pay no extra in taxes and you get your own health care from whatever market is out there. Oh, and having some form of health insurance is mandatory. (Like car insurance.)
5) raise energy taxes of all forms. Some of the $$$ received go to pay off that damned war in Iraq, most of it goes for renewable energy.
6) Make the US totally independent of imported energy in 10 years.
7) Cut the DOD budget. We are spending more on our weapons and military than the rest of the world COMBINED. We can’t continue this. Cut DOD in at least half, spend some of the money on supporting veterans, use the rest to pay down the deficit and making us energy independent.
8) Abortions. Safe, legal, and rare, which means lots of sensible sex-ed and we have to get over our hang-ups about talking to our kids. I’m pro-choice, but abortion in my mind is the lock-the-barn-after-the-horse-has-fled solution. Oh, and let’s work on uterine replicator technology, so we can really piss off both sides.
9) Social Security and Medicare. We’re going to have to start raising ages and chopping benefits to keep SS going. I’d rather try to segue towards something sustainable rather than continuing partying until the whole thing crashes. Medicare–we’re probably going to have to start rationing and that’s the whole thing. Unless someone has a better idea, I’d like to either have an upper limit paid out per person or simply take more expensive treatments taken off the table. Anyone else have any other ideas?
10) Law and international law. We adhere to treaties we have signed, even if it “disadvantages” us. We don’t get to kick over the table simply because we don’t like how the game is being played.
11) Taxation: get rid of taxes for business, make all corporations tax-flow-through entities. Other side: all income is treated as equal–no different rates on long-term capital gains or anything. Cut a large percentage of the deductions. Finally, no double-taxation (which allows an exemption for state taxation.) Progressive taxation levels.(Surprising how all those moral majority people moaning about Ye Goode Olde Days of the ’50’s have kept conspicuously silent about going back to 50’s taxation levels.)
12) Gay rights: no discrimination, period. I’d prefer civil somethings rather than outright marriage because marriage historically has been an institution of unequal rights. But if marriage-for-gays is the only way gays will be allowed to have kids and adopt, then I guess marriage-for-gays.
13) Anything else: make a proposal. We’ll try it. If it works, we implement it. if it doesn’t work, chuck it. And I don’t give a damn if your belief in your imaginary sky fairy says “but it MUST work!”
DwightKSchrute
Giuliani:Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay Rights, Pro-Gun control
Yeeeaaahhhhh, have fun making through the Republican primary buddy.
tzs
Oh, I forgot to add the following:
14) definite separation of Church and State.
15) Get rid of the War on Drugs–it’s just silly. maybe keep some laws against the really dangerous stuff, but anything you can grow in your back yard should be fair game.
16) Environmental laws: dangerous stuff a company is responsible for the release of and we should have laws against–with teeth. Other stuff like carbon dioxide–let’s use the trading mechanism.
17) Outsourcing: any US company can outsource as much as it wants, but SS on all workers, both within and outside the US, MUST be paid into the US system. If said company has to pay double pension payments, both to the US and the foreign company, too bad.
18) Personal data: any company that stores any personal data about anyone is responsible for the accuracy of that data. No if, ands, or buts. Any release of that data without the individual’s permission is a felony. (I’d also like some really evil punishments for identity theft but am just dreaming.)
Perry Como
Pooh Says:
Good one DougJ. You almost fooled me there.
Lines
I was with you on basically everything but this. This will force companies to move out of the US, along with the jobs. The cut in overhead will easily make up for any tariffs that might be a result.
Lines
Havn’t we turned the corner on paranoid delusions?
jaime
Throw into the mix Donna Hanover and Gracie Mansion, his dealings with the mafia, his bestest buddy Bernie Kerik, the frequency of cop shootings during his tenure, his past history of cancer, his only being a mayor, and the fact that he was headed toward oblivion on September 10 and you have a failed Guliani primary bid.
Perry Como
The delusions are in their last throes.
scs
Hmmm. was that a clue? Is James Hathaway the real face of our dear Dungion and Dragons friend? We can all speculate.
ppGaz
They are simply the ideas of a bunch of dead-enders.
scs
SNU – Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma. Hmmm, that may explain the obsession with religion. Just a thought.
Perry Como
I think the real question is whether Santorum will make his fortitude saving throw this November.
tzs
Lines, how would you handle outsourcing? I’m sorta open-globalization but believe if you were to bring totally “in-house” to the US companies the costs of globalization you’d discover that it is, in fact, cheaper in the long run to have your production and R&D and everything else in the US. My snark about SS payments is my first attempt to make U.S. companies have to deal with it.
Of course, if energy costs–particularly transportation costs–go through the roof, I bet most of outsourcing will dissappear.
Oh, another thing I’d add to the platform:
18) encourage production and manufacturing inside the US.
Davebo
Too Cynical?
At a time when even 10 million purple fingered Iraqis aren’t enough to boost the sagging poll numbers what is one to do?
Chertoff: Bird flu possible in U.S. within months
Yeah, call me cynical.
Pooh
That’s just stupid. Bird flu is possible in the U.S. tommorow. Sick Bird + Plane, etc… that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen of course…that headline is of a piece with the Insty classic “Disturbing if true”
Ancient Purple
You go with the paranoid delusions you have, not the ones you want.
demimondian
He’s still got to make his perception save, too. He’s gonna need a natural twenty for that…and his d20 looks to be one side short of an icosahedron.
4jkb4ia
4jkb4ia
Insert pro-Pitt trash talk here
Pb
tzs, Lines,
Re: outsourcing, that’s actually the main thing I like about the Fair Tax proposal. I have my doubts about whether, as proposed, it’d actually be progressive enough as compared to the current system, or raise enough revenues, but I do think that it has some good ideas, and of course it’d be simpler.
4jkb4ia
tzs: I am in favor of keeping the capital gains tax. Privileging this form of income privileges people who do not have to work for a living.
4jkb4ia
I misread the post…going back to ’50s taxation levels means that the people who can afford it are taxed, arguing that capital gains should be taxed at a slightly higher rate. Also, what about unemployment insurance? This is a tax on the employer.
Krista
That’s the problem, though. The way it works in Canada, is, during a federal election, you vote for your local Member of Parliament. (What would probably be similar to your Congressional Districts?) Whichever party wins the most ridings, well, the leader of that party winds up being the Prime Minister. It makes it very difficult, because my local MP, a Conservative, is a fantastic guy, who works like a dog for his riding. But, a vote for him meant a vote for Stephen Harper, which I just could not do. I really, really wish we could do it another way, so that we could vote for our PM separately from our MP.
Mac Buckets
I trust that you understand that the only people who would want that to be a third-party platform are you and the entire GOP.
tzs
4jkb4ia–
I was originally thinking “50’s levels of taxation” in terms of the percentage paid by the highest income bracket. If you read the rest of my “platform”, you’ll see that I’ve traded off company taxation against appreciation getting taxed every year (and then added to the basis) and capital gains getting taxed the same as income.
I’m trying to keep it as “tax-neutral” as possible, meaning the individual should be indifferent as to whether he gets more money from higher income or more money from dividends/capital gains.
Anyone with an idea about unemployment insurance? I don’t know enough about the system to know whether it’s felt to be fair or not. Is there a reason why it shouldn’t continued to be paid by companies? Gets paid as an expense before the rest of the flow-through to the individual stock-owners.
I realize taking businesses off the table for tax stuff is somewhat throwing one’s hands up in the air and not dealing with the problem, but it does cut one Gordian knot.
scarshapedstar
I am almost to the point that I would be willing to let the entire Santorum wing of the party die off
I wasn’t aware there was another wing.
4jkb4ia
Insert more pro-Pitt trash talk
4jkb4ia
You know what? I am not alarmed at these people making statements of their personal religious belief. This is America. I am alarmed that the personal religious belief is so narrow and uninformed.
CaseyL
… and that they demand their narrow, uninformed personal religious beliefs be the basis for national law and public policy.
That alarms me, on a personal level.
It also alarms me on a national, historical level. Many countries have been theocracies. Some have been Christian theocracies. All were brutal, cruel and ignrornat. And all of them, ultimately, were losers. Economic, cultural, military and political losers.
CaseyL
Um. Ignorant, not igrornat.
M.A.
I would say the only thing that could save Congress would be to eliminate most of the features of the majority-minority system. It used to work, but it was based on the assumption that individual representatives had their own agendas and would cross party lines to work on things. It’s been turned into a system where both parties vote more or less in a bloc, every big committee vote is along party lines, and the majority party rules absolutely while the minority party spends most of its time trying to become the majorty party.
Some majority perks — like the Speaker of the House being from the majorty party — are fine, but there needs to be a shakeup to make sure that no one party can totally dominate the introduction of legislation, committees, etc.
Of course, this hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of happening. The Republicans enjoy their majority perks, and when the Democrats get back the majority, they’ll get equal enjoyment out of making the Republicans suck eggs. So no majority party is ever going to vote to reduce its own power to smack down the minority — but that’s what needs to happen. Because right now we’re insanely focused, with every candidate, on “will he help Party X get/keep the majority?” instead of “is he the best candidate?”
The Other Steve
I still say expand it’s size to one representative per 50,000 citizens.
And then no staff. I figure with 6,000 people sitting in Congress, there ought to be enough of them to get the work done by themselves.
Pb
You might as well create a House composed of all the mayors in America.
RonB
LOLOLOL!!! Oh, Lines, that was a good laugh, so true too…
4jkb4ia
Actual thought: the Muqata Purim parody blogs are going so well that there could be a central political parody blog for next year. We could have Pseudo-Markos, Pseudo-our host, Pseudo-LGF etc.
Lines
Maybe Rick Santorum is DougJ
Zifnab
I haven’t seen that guy online in a while… or have I?
Zifnab
I mean, the good news is that Congress as a body is tossing all political power to the wind to appease their High-Overlord-in-Chief so perhaps by ’08 it won’t even matter who controls Congress.
As it stands such practices as advise-and-consent statuettes and judicial review have largely gone out the window. Frist is threatening to overhaul the Intelligence Committee and after that… what then? Tyranny of the Majority. The Founding Fathers tried so hard to gird against it, but you can’t build a system someone else can’t take apart given enough time and energy. It’s almost a joke that the middle of the Clinton Presidency managed to bring such an overwhelming sanity to the US. Just enough crazy-ass liberal to keep us free and just enough facist-faced conservatives to keep us sane.
Otto Man
Congress will be dissolved in early 2007, shortly after Islamoterrorists are blamed for setting the Capitol Building on fire.
Marcus Wellby
Am I the only one who finds that chick in the Lane Bryant ad crazy hot?
Krista
Doesn’t Mia Tyler (daughter of Steven, sister of Liv) model for them? I think Kate Dillon does too…she’s stunningly beautiful.
The Other Steve
I’ll say it if nobody else will.
I miss Bill Clinton. My god, that man is looking to be such a better President every day that goes by.
Granted, so are Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Agreed. Clinton had the best run of anyone I’ve ever seen, but I’d be happy to have someone else–anyone else–in office too.
SeesThroughIt
Coincidentally enough, I was just emailing a friend this morning, and I said pretty much the same thing. Not that I was really much of a Clinton fan, mind you. He struck me as generally unremarkable–OK in some areas, crappy in others. But after five years of Bush, I’d love to have somebody as competent as Clinton back at the helm. Compared to Bush, Clinton goes from “decent president” to “candidate for Best. President. Ever.”
The Other Steve
Amen!
Pete
The sad fact is that when Santorum loses in November.. he immediately becomes the front-runner to become Pennsylvania Governor in 2010.
gswift
Hell, after 5 years of Bush Jr., I’d love to have somebody as competent as Bush Sr. back at the helm.
demimondian
Herbert Hoover is right up there with Jimmy Carter at the top of the list of effective and productive ex-presidents who did a lot of good for the world after they left office. I’m looking forward to George W. Bush taking his shots at that role; I hope he does as well as they did.
He hasn’t done as well as either of them did while he was in office, though, so I don’t know whether I’m optimistic.
Katherine
John: remember–you can’t vote for Republican minority status this time. You can vote for one party rule by a Republican party controlled by its worst elements, or divided government. Those are the options.
There’s no reason at all for them to change their strategy until it starts losing them elections. I’d guess your chances of a presidential nominee you can stand will be much greater if they lose one house of Congress.
Bob In Pacifica
Krista, back in the sixties I used to vote for a Marijuana Party every weekend, although sometimes we formed a coalition with the Drinking Party.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Alright. Now this is the type of posts I like to see.
I’m back for the weekend fuckers!
So I’ll see you all bright and earlier tomorrow…:)
Kazinski
Bush and Clinton now there is a comparison. Clinton was a very competent President, but he seemed to delight in picking small issues to champion, at least after the health care debacle. He might spend a hundred million or so on Americorp, or some soccer mom initiative, but he wouldn’t pony up billions for AIDS in Africa. He’d sign Kyoto, but when the Senate told him 98 to nothing not to try to send it up to them, he meekly rolled over. Clinton was a great politition, and was pretty good at government too. But after getting burned right off in his first half term, it was like he was afraid to try anything of consequence. But he still couldn’t keep himself out of trouble. Bush on the other might be a better politition, at least in terms of election results. It is unprecedented to pick up seats in three successive elections while you’ve got the White House. Problem with Bush is that he doesn’t just want to be there, he wants to do things. Massive Tax cuts, wars, doesn’t back down when he thinks he’s right like on Social Security reform or the Ports deal. And Iran better hope that that matter doesn’t come to a head while he is still in office because he won’t back down from that either. Bush right now does look like he his having trouble keeping a lot of balls in the air at one time, but Clinton never tried.
It’ll be interesting in 30-50 years to see what approach worked better.
As for Santorum, his god talk never bothered me much. As an atheist I know its irrelevent. It doesn’t seem John realizes that.
The Other Steve
News Flash: SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC FOUND DEAD IN JAIL CELL
Milosevic, 64, died of natural causes.
I can’t wait to go to redstate or freerepublic and find the real connection. That Clinton had him offed because he’d asked for him as a witness.
The Other Steve
This is interesting…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11770707/
This guy’s a big time Bushie. Bush appointed him a #2 man at Health and Human Services, then later to the appeals court. After being denied confirmation by the Democrats… Bush hired him as a domestic policy advisor.
And here he is stealing from Target.
Man even petty theft runs deep within the Republican party.
The people claiming Democrats should confirm every nomination of the Presidents appear to owe the Democrats some apologies. Eh, John?
Chefrad
In the name of love and the Prince of Peace, the Santorum crowd has cast every first stone, while coarsening the national dialogue.
I spent forty happy years never once having been called a traitor (even when I subscribed to the Catholic Worker). With this crowd I hear it once a week, for objecting to a war that 60% of the people also object to.
Their idea of debate is rudimentary but not ineffective:
1) To criticize foreign policy is to “blame America first.”
2) To criticize domestic policy is to “engage in class warfare.”
3) To criticize the war is to “provide aid and comfort to the enemy.”
4) To criticize the President is to be guilty of “knee-jerk Bush-bashing.”
One is put on the defensive from the start. What need to be done is to make enough fun of this little format so that people just roll their eyes at the phrares, like they do with “you’re doing a heckuva job.”
mike
The problem is two fold – the vocal minorities in each party often manage to drive the debate and one can only vote for two senators and one congressman. I made similar remarks in my own blog last month:
CaseyL
Bush’s approval numbers are down to 37% – I’m not sure he has anyone outside his own cult and apolitical people who just support whoever happens to be in the WH. The cultists are over-represented in Blogland, and by no means an accurate indication of how the electorate sees things.
Let the cultists continue their worshipful ululations. The louder and shriller they get, the more crackpot and psychotic their rhetoric, the better for the rest of us.
Anyway, Bush is a dead issue, politically. His numbers aren’t going to go up, because the erosion in support has been a slow, methodical process in reaction to the death and destruction he’s wreaked, which has finally outpaced his spinners’ ability to obfuscate. The GOP will spend most of the next 2 years trying to distance itself from him. The task for the Democrats is to make sure the public knows Bush and the GOP are Siamese Twins: that Bush could not have accomplished his scorched-earth ruination without GOP support and protection.
Bush can and will still do a lot of damage to the country – and, if he decides to launch military attacks against Iran, to the world. But there’s nothing we can do about that. If the Dems take at least one House of Congress this year, maybe then. Otherwise, we just gotta hang on and hope America realizes the GOP is a traitorous cabal that should never be entrusted with power ever again.
The Other Steve
Aye. Republicans have become everything they claimed to hate about Liberals.
I still found it funny when Bush attacked those who opposed Miers as being mysogonist. And those who opposed foreign control of US Ports as being racist.
Oh, and don’t get me started with all the ways I hate Christianity because I’m opposed to Republican agendas.
They’ve become a parody of themselves.
S.W. Anderson
Hard to imagine Santorum breaking all ties with lobbyists. He and his wing of the party look on lobbyists as fine, upstanding businessmen. To Santorum and his type, business is next to godliness, virtuous even when it’s driven by greed and consumed by pursuit of power and abuse of power.
To Santorum types, ethics and morals cover what people do with their bodies, especially their genitalia. So, a woman who sells her body to make a living is fallen, sinful, condemned to the fires of hell. But pols who sell their votes and influence are, well, successful practitioners of their chosen profession.
Furthermore, if Santorum were to divorce himself from lobbyists, he’d not only be losing valuable sources of funding, he’d probably be at a loss for coming up with legislation more complex than trying to outlaw sex toys and that kind of thing.
4jkb4ia
Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness! West Virginia vs. SIU-C! If not on Shabbos, expect constant trash talk here.
4jkb4ia
For today, I made sure to put on the T-shirt for the “Dawg Pound” with the saluki on the front.
4jkb4ia
Culture war game of the year: UCLA vs. Belmont.
4jkb4ia
Utah State! YEE-HA! (general liberal sympathies) How Seton Hall got in, I cannot tell you.
4jkb4ia
They took Northern Iowa.
Seton Hall and not Missouri State!?
Randolph Fritz
Sounds like you are just as unhappy with the R’s as this liberal is with the D’s. I think the D’s will make some gains in ’06 and ’08, if only because the Bushies have done so poorly, but I think we’ll still neither of us be satisfied.
So let me put in a word for the instant runoff vote, which might make third parties viable in the USA. For more about that, see: . Meantime, let’s get rid of the damn crazies, and then we can argue over the fine points.
dlw
Here’s the thing with third parties. Until they get some seats in congress there’s really no point in wasting the money to run a presidential candidate. If a Green/Constitutional/Libertarian/whatever were to win the presidency, the R’s and D’s would have to make sure that that president was the least successful in all of US history.
Win some seats in Congress, then we’ll talk.
Cyrus
As Mac Buckets point out, that platform in the abstract would be extremely popular. In fact, he makes it seem like only Republicans would approve of it, but I disagree. While there are some objectionable parts, almost everyone in the country would like almost all of it. Reactionaries might laugh at the implication that liberals would go for #1 or would be satisfied with 4, 12 and 16, but on the other hand, if numbers 2, 7, 10 and 14 had any traction at all on the right, Kerry would have been elected with 70 percent of the popular vote and John Murtha would be a national hero. But even that is just details – only a third of those points are even being debated, at my rough estimate.
So it’s popular, but that reminds of me one of the many “framing” debates. Ezra Klein pointed out that just having a platform people like isn’t enough: it also has to be something your opponent can’t co-opt. The examples that kept getting suggested in trying to come up with a appealing and sound-bite-ready message for Democrats were all stuff that no one could disagree with (because TEH LEFT has nothing else! /sarcasm. No, better suggestions came along as soon as Ezra made that suggestion), so they would have made bad platforms.
The platform I’d like to see is simplicity. A line item veto would be a bad idea because it doesn’t actually solve the problem (plausible deniability for pork might be a tiny bit harder to find, but horses would still get traded to pass any legislation) while incidentally giving even more power to the executive. But I could get behind pretty much any other measure to improve simplicity and transparency. Post the text of bills online for a certain period before they can be voted on. Forget the tax rates, but close the loopholes and make it harder to hide or disguise income.
Well, I’m sure people can think of more along those lines, but I have to get going. Sorry.
RixR
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