“Has anyone noticed,” our reader Eddie asked in a recent thread,
. . . that the most gay-unfriendly Tea Partiers lost? Paladino, Buck, and Miller at the top of the list (well, Miller hasn’t technically lost yet) Angle and O’Donell? Those are the ones who made comments or had positions that don’t set well with gay people. And don’t get me wrong, I would still have voted for any of those 5 over the Democrats, but I was just sayin’.
First, dispute Miss O’Donnell’s many inadequacies as a candidate, most of her comments that don’t sit well with gay people date back to the 1990s. I think she would have lost even without having said such strange things way back when. I do have some evidence that her attitudes toward gays have shifted since then — only that changed attitude, as far as I know, did not come out in her unsuccessful campaign.
But, Eddie is onto something. In the two of the three close Senate races where the Democrat prevailed, the Republican had said things that made it seem he (or she, in the case of Sharron Angle) had not accepted the social changes of the past quarter-century.
This should be a reminder to Republican candidates readying runs to challenge some of the many Democratic Senators whose terms come up for reelection next fall.
Best to focus on economic issues, adopting a live-and-let-live attitude on social issues — as well as fiscal ones.
If the question is about having just a few more votes to breach a majority, then you still have to exclude O’Donnell. She lost by a large margin. (Too many Republicans voted for the Marxist.)
Other than that, it’s very possible that it made a difference. On a few of them anyway.
I happen to think there was funny stuff going on in many of those places around the country. Harry Reid may be investigated next year for pressuring the employees of several casinos to vote for him. (Gaming Union) There is now video evidence that ‘friends of Lisa Murkowski’ may have also stepped over the line. Russ Carnahan suddenly received a large boost in votes, just after everyone went to sleep one night.
Paladino scared too many people. He still would have lost.
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gastor, ust a quick point of clarification the three close races I referenced above were CO, NV and WA.
Sharron Angle ran the strongest race maybe she had run before when she had run before.
We Republicans should have won Colorado, West Virginia and Delaware, but oh well.
Sharron Angle was ROBBED by the same people that ROBBED CA of Carly & Meg, the fact that Unions are starting to CONTROL that state.
Christine O’Donnell was LYNCHED from the moment she came onto the scene. The Lame Stream’s wanted to QUASH another Sarah Palin-type that most assuredly would’ve become famous.
BTW: The Lame Stream’s did forget to QUASH non-Sarah Palin(Chris Christie type stars, THE MORE DANGEROUS to the liberal movement)….Suzy Martinez, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley and the less folksy Sarah Palin (KRISTI NOEM).
Don’t forget Bielat was the homophobe du jour just before the election.
In the same way you could assert they lost because they were anti-gay, couldn’t you also assert they drew primary voters by being anti-gay?
Primary voters as a whole tend to be more conservative, so you could blame it just as much on their “anti-gay” views as you could the “anti-gay” primary voters who got them through the primaries to the general election…
I think their statements on gay issues did have a connection to their defeat. Not because it bothered voters, but because it bothered the gay mafia, both in and out of media, who then set out to destroy them.
By the way Dan, a “live and let live” attitude on gay issues would mean rejecting gay marriage. Legalizing gay marriage would be an “endorse and let live” attitude. But I suspect that isn’t what you had in mind.
Also, none of the aforementioned made social issues central to their campaigns, which is the stance you, up until now, said you were advocating. But suddenly that’s not good enough, and the mere fact that they oppose the gay agenda, even though they didn’t make it a focus of their campaigns is now what you disapprove of.
So it wasn’t running on social issues that you opposed at all, that was just code for “no social conservatives allowed”.
Fortunately a whole raft of fiscal, foreign policy and social conservatives from marco rubio to allen west, to sean duffy, and many others did not listen, and will be sworn is this January as the most conservative congress, upholding all three legs of the Reagan coalition, in many a year.
Totally confounding. Make an obvious statement that gays, as with short people, do not have the right to serve in the military and you’re the devil/Hitler incarnate with the desire to slaughter gays wholesale.
BUT if you surround yourself with terrorists and homophobes, suggest that we bite on a pillow for those who execute gays, and make all manner of nasty ASSertions about gays in defense of DADT and DOMA in court, Gay Inc. will suck your cock all the live long day as long as you carry a “D” after your name.
THAT is why they, and the faggot lemmings who follow them, are complete and utter frauds. Countervail, Kevin, Levi, Equality4mylefthand, Armyvet, the “gay community” etc. are all disgusting and despicable frauds who deserve little more than utter contempt.
I don’t know why people continue to beat this O’Donnell bush, she was a bad candidate, enough said. The writing was on the wall from her past attempts that also failed. I think some people just don’t want to believe that the conservative candidate was the bad choice but deal with it.
Angle lost because she lost the Hispanic vote, which is something you at least have to be competitive with to win out west. She was also a bad candidate and people act like Reid just bumbled himself into re-election. He had a game plan and got the person he wanted to run against, she self destructive and ran a bad campaign. She could never peel away enough Democrats to win, which is what she needed to do. Maybe if she had been more socially moderate and not make comments about Social Security, which is instantly going to turn off even moderate Democrats, maybe she would have won.
Norton might have won in CO, maybe she would have won more of the female voters and put her over the top. Buck was the closest to winning so I’m not going to rail on him too much.
kinda fun to review this from Nate Silver:
http://www.towleroad.com/2010/08/nate-silver-acceptance-of-gay-marriage-accelerates.html
Being a “social conservative” is in the mind of the beholder and it has been molded into an epithet by the political correctness police on the left. Think about that. If the political correctness police (“social liberals”) damn you, then you must prove they are wrong. The only way to do that is to morph into a set of “social views” that the “social liberals” will accept.
Watch “The View” or Rachel Madcow for 10 minutes to understand how the game is played. Agree or perish.
I dread the undercurrent of talk about conservatives running on the “issues” and leaving their “social conservatism” on the back burner. Just what are the tenants of “social conservatism?” If we don’t have them clearly spelled out, how can we avoid them?
We can’t. And that is the game. It is like “racism” and “homophobia” and all the other names the political correctness police have for those who do not obey them. So, any candidate who is going to “compromise” and “moderate” and “come to the middle” is already a target, because the political correctness police demand full conversion. No compromise, no moderation, no middle. It is all or nothing.
I have certain reservations about the world of being gay. I state them. I discuss them. I try to understand and be understood. That is a messy process compared to just pasting me with a “homophobe” sticker and tossing me off the site.
The “social conservative” is a natural skeptic. I don’t know what a social liberal is. I do not see how a person can throw billions on top of wasted billions on failed social engineering and be a free thinker. It is not optimism that propels Utopians. In may ways, it seems more like an unbridled cynicism. You just build the pyre higher and higher until it collapses and burns everyone around it. After all, if everyone gets burned there is a certain egalitarianism at work.
If this is to be an objective assessment of the question, we must keep in mind the relative size of the ‘gay vote’ as compared to the rest of the voting public. Results would surely be more important in areas that are more ‘gay-friendly’.
While every vote counts, what’s less important is where the vote comes from. Let’s not pander to groups who’s identity is defined by their own members; black, white, hispanic, and for whom freedom is no different than anyone else’s. There is no separate ‘white justice’, and ‘black justice’, there is only justice. Our Republic should respect no social order or hierarchy.
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By the way, the Journ-O-lista, Ben Smith, is asking a similar question about the Hispanic community:
Hispanic vote a 2012 wild card – POLITICO
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44758.html
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gastorgrab, welcome to the party… some here have been saying for weeks that Sharron Angle lost the hispanic vote with her (at-best) politically stupid “all immigrants are illegal carjacking wetbacks” campaign ad.
Karl Rove’s been trying to get the harsher, more intolerant voices inside the conservative movement & GOP community to understand that the work Reagan-Bush41-Bush43 did to encourage and court hispanic votes is being lost faster than the deaf-n-dumb Bessie in the barn can kick over the milking stool.
Angle should be a reminder to all that playing stupid with the hispanic vote will get you burned in 2012.
“had not accepted the social changes of the past quarter-century.”
“Have not accepted” or “is not required to accept”? Which one is more of a problem?
We know conservatives are almost required to accept the social trends of today with gays tolerance being the latest one, but come on, it really doesn’t end, and we are on the verge of doing a 360 when liberal gains means the return of Muslim moderates (not really existing) with the thin line of Muslims radicals seep in.
Today, there is no such thing as a Christian. We are all radicals. This change in perception, attitude, and beliefs will come back to bite you.
Hyperbole, right?
Look, illegal aliens are illegal. Hispanics make up the vast bulk of illegal aliens ….. if there are statistics to be believed.
Suppose we were to advertise for illegal aliens to self identify for the purposes of helping them become legal. Suppose we promised immediate deportation found after a given date for illegal aliens and all aliens (with papers) found to be felons. My bet is that there would be a rush of self-deportation and a move in the Hispanic community to help people get “legal.”
I do not consider this amnesty. I think this is just smart policing. And I think the Hispanic community at large would cooperate. I would also challenge the Hispanic community to explain fully and publicly what “La Raza” means in reference to the 14th Amendment.
I fully oppose kissing up to Hispanics by going Democrat lite or Republican “moderate” by looking the other way and/or greasing the “La Raza” pot.
On the question of Angle’s illegal immigrant ad and the approach to illegal immigrants, I have to say I’m with Heliotrope. One big sore spot of the Bush Administration with me was that while they were wasting time on demonizing gay taxpayers, they were making a mockery of the traditionally conservative position that illegal immigrants should be encouraged to get legal or get out. Jan Brewer would probably have been in just as much hot water with Rove and Bush had she been governor & introduced the Arizona law pre-2008 as she now is with Obama.
As far as anti-gay statements costing candidates, I would generally agree that to be the case for with Angle, Buck and most definitely Palladino. They went far beyond mere expressions of favoring traditional marriage and instead made it very personal… equating homosexuality with alcoholism and same-sex couples as akin to criminals. Sorry, but how are voters like me supposed to take that? Those kind of statements do convey a declaration of war on taxpayers who are just trying to make their own way like everyone else. Thus, I was angry to be in the position to actually have to root for a victory by a Cuomo progeny, pray for Buck to go down in flames and favor Angle only after determining that Reid was so craven and amoral that I could stomach her winning.
The deck was already massively stacked against O’Donnell, Rand Paul’s unfortunate statements came very early on so he apparently had time to recover and I think the whole Alaska cluster-fruit isn’t about ideology so much as about bruised egos and internal political factions.
In Ben Smith’s case, i think the idea is pure propaganda.
I fully intend to post ‘Journ-O-lista’ along side every reference i make to the obviously partisan hacks who attended that message board.
No, Hispanic Americans are as concerned, if not more, about illegal immigration as the rest of us. It is the popular perception of Hispanic Americans that is being damaged by the partisan politics of ‘Open Borders’. It is Hispanic American communities that violent illegal aliens are moving to.
What the left is most afraid of is the idea of work visas. They’re afraid that if we identify a difference between people who just want a job, from the rest of the violent thugs, that we may begin to ‘control’ our own border. We would have every right to expel the people we know are bad; those without a work visa.
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Statistical analysis shows that what defeated Buck and Angle was the women’s vote, which went strongly for Reid and Bennet. Those smears that Buck was pro-rape and Angle was pro-domestic violence had their intended effect.
If there is any justice in the world, Harry Reid will burn in hell for a long time. I hope bearing false witness against Sharron Angle to preserve his grip on power was worth it.
i think angle lost to the frequent voter, not because of gay issues.
“So it wasn’t running on social issues that you opposed at all, that was just code for ‘no social conservatives allowed'”. BINGO! B. Daniel isn’t against political candidates speaking on social issues; he’s against candidates speaking on social issues from a socially conservative perspective.
What’s happening here is a left-wing strategy. During the Cold War the Communist Party, USA had a policy of advocating unilateral disarmament by the US claiming it would be an act of moral strength. Of course, it would be no such thing. The CPUSA advocated unilateral disarmament by America because that would leave the world open to Soviet domination. People like B. Daniel are using this same strategy in the culture war. They say they want Republicans to be silent on social issues because that will help them get elected. But helping the Republicans isn’t what this is about; it’s about leaving the culture open to domination by the social left. Same old tactic but I, for one, am not falling for it.
Angle lost because she didn’t know how to play with the Republican establishment in Nevada. It’s that simple.
There’s an interesting post at Classical Values by M.Simon who is taking on social conservatives for their support Uganda gay killers.
It’s here: They Kill Gays Don’t They
I’m betting that the truth isn’t going to dissuade those voices here who would prefer to ignore it than admit to it, but the simple, inescapable truth in Reid’s win was that last minute deciding voters were breaking for Harry 2:1 in the closing hours of the race, the now infamous Angle “illegal wetbacks are carjackers” ad fired up the hispanic Dem base.
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13441043/minority-voters-turned-out-in-support-of-reid
It is a sheer fallacy to argue that women decided the race –the only woman who decided the race was Sharron Angle… when she ran her now infamous ad.
While I liked the way Angle handled the faked-outrage of Joy Behar about the ad, maybe dys’ing Behar only added fuel to the flames for NV voters?
Being sensitive to hispanic voters doesn’t mean “kissing up” to them or “being Dem lite”; honestly, that kind of stupidity is what will kill the GOP opportunity to gain back the WH and Senate faster than another Tom Delay scandal.
Hispanic voters are critical to the GOP future. We need to heed the common concern of legal hispanic immigrants -including native American-Hispanics- that immigration be reformed to allow a faster, more assured route to citizenship, that current illegal immigrants not be punished or deported but incorporated into the American experience and that public safety be protected judiciously, proactively and without regard to ethnic heritage.
Have we not learned anything about Bill OReilly’s stupid shorthand that “muslims killed Americans on 9-11”? Hispanics aren’t the problem; our antiquated system of citizenship is the problem.
Nobody said Hispanics are the problem, ModerateMatt. Liberals spin it that way, but it’s bullshit just like everything else that spews from their cake holes.
Mich-Matt:
1.) Show me the ““all immigrants are illegal carjacking wetbacks” ad, I can not locate it. [quote source: your #14 comment]
2.) Show me the “now infamous Angle ‘illegal wetbacks are carjackers’” ad, I can not locate it. [quote source: your #23 comment]
1.) What are the concerns of legal Hispanic immigrants that set them apart from legal immigrants that are not Hispanic? [Note: if Hispanics could pour into the US willy nilly, they would do so immediately. If I were a poor person south of the the border, I would take the US over El Salvador in a heartbeat. Haitians don’t risk life and limb to float next door to The Dominican Republic, the aim for the good life.]
2.) What is this “Native American-Hispanic” subgroup you have carved out? Is there also an “Inter-tribal Native American-Hispanic-Black” subgroup of the “Native American-Hispanic” subgroup?
3) How should “immigration be reformed to allow a faster, more assured route to citizenship?” Do you favor sending planes to the lower classes in Africa who can’t walk across a border to get here? Why not?
4.) You say that “current illegal immigrants not be punished or deported” but what about the illegal aliens next month and the years to follow who know that they won’t be punished or deported? Just open the damned border and let them flow? Shall we ask Mexico to open a pipeline so people can flow freely through Mexico’s tightly controlled southern border and flow freely into the US where they won’t be punished or deported? What is your master plan?
5.) How is being “incorporated into the American experience and that public safety be protected judiciously, proactively and without regard to ethnic heritage” anything more than a massive social engineering project?
The “Hispanic” part of the “Hispanic Minority” subclass is open to much debate. Have you got a blood test in mind? How do you “judiciously, proactively and without regard to ethnic heritage” identify the Hispanic minority that you do not identify by ethnic heritage?
Why do “you people” (“Hispanic minority” crowd) not seem to want to move up to “Hispanic-American” as in “Native-American” or just drop the “Hispanic” stuff altogether?
Which do you think: (a) Immigration is to provide refuge and opportunity or (b) immigration is to strengthen the United States and is restrictive? Understand that the latter embodies refuge and opportunity for the immigrant, but the former is primarily a welfare program.
I am involved with our local “Hispanic minority” in an effort to help them assimilate, stop harboring illegals, keep on the right side of the law and to become good Americans. I don’t begrudge them their cuisine, celebrations, differences, etc. But when of them gets caught in the judicial system, I see them as any other American with a legal problem. Hispanic gangs in the prison system are no joke or fluke. You might want to consider what you are getting into when your local government is confronted with transplanted barrio thuggery and violence.
Which brings us full circle.
“that immigration be reformed to allow a faster, more assured route to citizenship”
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We already have a route to citizenship! (Obey the rules.)
If you sneak into a movie theater without paying, the theater doesn’t owe you any popcorn, any Jujubes, or any diet Coke.
Removing all restrictions to border crossing is inherently dangerous. It forces us to tolerate a certain portion of corrupt individuals with every batch of future ‘upstanding citizens’. If a change is needed, we should increase the number of LEGAL immigration that is allowed, and never, never, never tolerate any illegal act. There is no ‘acceptable amount’ of corruption.
I happen to think that making exceptions to standing rules, based on racial identity, is inherently racist. The reign of terror of the Ku Klux Klan was only possible because the system refused to prosecute white men. That system ‘favored’ white men. (Preference for one interest is discrimination against all others.)
The United States doesn’t “need” to create a route to citizenship for anyone. We invite people into our home because we want to. We have a desire to interact with the world around us. And we have every right to expect that any guest, or any new member of our ‘family’, will respect the rules of our home. (or leave)
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Helio, there are 2 ads; variations of each aired beginning week E-Day10 minus 21. One called “The Wave”; the other “Best Friend” –all readily available on Sharron Angle’s YouTube page.
Balance those off with Reid’s blistering rebuttal of Angle being wrong on the SocSec issue claimed within the Angle ads. I don’t like Harry gReid a single bit –but his ads were effective against Angle’s two ads.
The “native-born Hispanic Americans” is a polling sequestration of the larger block to determine if there are variants among foreign born legal immigrants and native born hispanic american voters. It has nothing to do with Native American citizens.
The Pew research piece may help direct you in how those two groups break out differently on various related immigration issues –a standard mime here is to portray Hispanic Ams being somehow strikingly different in outlook on immigration issues from foreign-born legal immigrants; they aren’t.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1790/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-hispanic-vote
The RNC polling that demonstrates Angle lost her sizable lead over gReid three days after the illegals ads started to hit the TV sets in NV is proprietary and I’m guessing that it’ll be out in the mainstream in a week or two –it almost always does.
Until then, you have gReid’s testimony on E-Day night specifically thanking hispanic voters for supporting him in the waning days of the campaign… if I had a magic marker, I’d title his victory speech as “Angle snaps defeat from the jaws of victory”.
I don’t want to re-argue the electoral strategies of Reagan, Bush 41 or Bush 43 to actively engage in outreach to Hispanic voters, but Rove’s book spends a fair amount of time stressing the importance of that 3rd leg of the stool to recruit a base of voters to the GOP, now and in the future.
The GOP can stand in favor of meaningful immigration reform without the usual voices outside the Party declaring it to be McAmnesty Lite or some other politically stupid short hand. Frankly, with Obama’s loss of the House, it’s unlikely that anyone will tackle immigration reform in the next two yrs. Instead, we’ll be stuck with a failed system, unenforceable laws, divisive public policy and a WH that encourages further illegal immigration and a southern border that is as porous as cheesecloth –and about as effective. And that’s not a good thing for American citizens or our national security interests.
I guess the resounding defeat of Governor Jan Brewer in Arizona should serve as a lesson to Republicans who offend Hispanic voters.
Oh, wait. She won. In a landslide. 55% to 43%.
It weren’t the Hispanics sunk Angle and Buck. And it weren’t the queers. It were the ladies.
And, of course, the “Party First” moderate Republican establishment in Nevada (Republicans for Reid) might have something to do with it. When the chairman of the state Republican party endorses the Democrat… that’s kind of a big deal.
A moderate Republican (Castle) stabbing their party in the back (Crist) and not supporting the Republican Nominee (Moocowskee)? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. I mean those moderate republicans might have cost us the senate, running fossiles like Dino, and the Governourship of MA by running a retread instead of a young turk. (HT Conservatives for Palin)
Having control of the Senate would be meaningless without a super majority, and a super majority wasn’t possible. 67 votes are needed to override a Presidential Veto.
What happened is an almost ideal balance between; the power to stop idiotic legislation from ever passing, and a lack of any liability for the GOP. No one can complain that the GOP is forcing anything on anyone. They simply don’t have the power to.
The situation that resulted will be disastrous for the Democratic party. All failures leading up to 2012 will be of the Democrat’s own making.
It must really suck to be you guys right now. The Democrat bus is headed for a cliff, and the brakes have failed……..oh shit……oh shit……oh shit……
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V da K, you’ll never miss a chance to stretch across any aisle to slam moderation in any form… Barry Goldwater’s maniacal purity would find ample space in your bosom.
No, the ladies in NV didn’t do jack for Harry gReid. If you can’t understand polling and exit poll metrics, maybe you can understand the candidate who won:
11-3-10 Sen Reid: “… and I want to say a special thank you to Hispanic voters in this great state who stood by me and helped us win this race, this contest. Without you, we could not have done it. My words can never convey the gratitude I have for your help and support.”
Earlier you were trying to peg Angle’s loss on the advice of GOP consultants… now it’s the female vote that made the decisive stroke for Reid? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Gov Brewer, whom I like and have met, won because she had no credible opposition. But anyone who followed Janet “Napoleon” would probably be doing well with AZland voters anyway… even tho Gov Brewer has earned her stripes.
The only “female vote” that mattered in the Reid-Angle race was Sharron’s and it hurt the campaign.
gatorgrab, your supermajority requirement could be met on a case-by-case basis if GOPers are successful in convincing some blue dawg Dems that they’re vulnerable unless they join GOPers and toe-the-line.
It’s tough to get a veto-proof majority on a lot of issues; but if the GOP is smart and employs the now-standard Dem line of only needing 51 votes instead of 60, who knows what sausage can be made in an environment of fear and self-interest?
btw V, that supposed moderate GOP leader is the now-former NV Sen Caucus leader who’s been stripped of his leadership for endorsing Reid. “Party Firsters” was it?
I always wonder when an avowed anti-GOPer like you pretends to speak for the Party about partisan loyalty… you have no standing on those issues. That doesn’t mean you can’t still toss bricks at the people trying to rebuild the Party… we’ll just pick em up and use as the base for a stronger wall. And make sure guys like Nevada’s Bill Raggio are outside the wall on the important stuff.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44722.html
I pretend no such thing. I merely point out the hypocrisy of the party establishment demanding loyalty from the conservative wing while offering none in return when the base rejects their chosen candidates.
It’s not a subtle point. It should be easier to grasp.
Democrats in the majority: “Elections have consequences!”
Democrats in the minority: “It’s your duty to compromise!”
OK, since the ads run by Angle were brought up as a key factor in her loss, I decided to go to YouTube and watch her ads on both economic issues and the two “controversial” illegal immigration ads.
I would like to believe that the major factors was a mix of her statements on social issues, and the voter shenanigans Reid pulled. To me, the two ads, while a little sensationalistic, didn’t epress any views that SHOULD be considered ghastly, untrue and scandalous. Unfortunately, certain issues are charged by hyper-political-correctness to the point that no meaningful debate will be tolerated. Especially in terms of certain races and/or religions e.g. the way Gay Inc. will rush to defend the most radical of Muslims from ANY possible “insensitive” statement, people who will then turn around and say “thank you Gay Inc., if we ever get in power we promise to behead you all in the streets and make all your girlfriends wear burquas.”
And it will be a shame if it is proven that Angle was sunk because of being so “insensitive” in her ads. They had a message that needs to be said but will still trigger irrational reactions from a core of voters. Another reason I feel like I’m being made out to be a freak because I agree with Angle’s economic views if not her social stances, don’t want to see illegal immigrants being given more economic privledges than the rest of us, and I don’t trust the motives behind those who are building the mosque near Ground Zero.
PopArt, no offense but unless you are a voter who was motivated to pull the lever for gReid, what you think about the ads is immaterial. The polling, the electoral results, the comments of gReid himself and the corollary punditry of NV observers indicate that the ads motivated hispanics to get out and vote for the Democrat –in higher than normal numbers.
I wouldn’t anymore expect TP Central to come out and admit same than I would expect someone like Palin to accept responsibility for helping to advance GOP Sen candidates that couldn’t win the Gen E… we’ve got to move away from the purity Party purge nonsense that animates some unaligned voters and encourage GOP primary voters to pick electable candidates.
Politics is about winning; not about purity purges and litmus tests.
Unless the establishment candidate loses in the primary. In which case, it’s okay to abandon the nominee and even endorse his opponent.
Republicans May Yet Have Upper Hand in Senate – Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704737504575602312190896510.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1
On paper, the numbers tell you the Democrats held on to a majority in the Senate last week.
In reality, things won’t be quite that neat. In fact, on some issues the Republicans actually may have a functional majority, given the sentiments likely to prevail among certain Democrats who face the voters in two years.
Good point, gatorgrab. How eager are Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, and Joe Manchin to sacrifice themselves for the glory of Harry Reid?
V da K# 39> you’ve been dashed against the rocks on that claim in more than a few threads now… give the ax back to ILC; he loves grinding it endlessly and you’re proving yourself not to be too good at the wheel.
If by ‘dashed against the rocks’ you mean ‘watched MI-Matt redeploy to yet another thread every time it is brought up’, then yes, yes he has.
Nice try LiveW… that’s ILC’s gig: grinding those axes down to the handle over near ever piddling issue.
Nope, V da K was contending that a single GOP legislator in NV endorsing Harry Reid instead of Sharron Angle proved –PROVED– that GOP establishment elites were trying, yet again, to undermine the true primary winning Gods-Guns-&-Gals TPer Sharron Angle.
Only, it was a just the state senate maj leader… there was no “us” in that broad stroke allegation.
And when the senate came back into session after the election, the GOP caucus stripped that disloyal GOPer of their leadership.
Dashed against the rocks of truth is apt.
Of course, getting lessons from soc cons about partisan disloyalty is like asking Bill Clinton for tips on marital monogamy.
Yes, one example. Of course you like to keep ignoring ‘moderates’ like Castle, Crist, Murkowskee, etc, as examples of Moderates turning their backs on their party when they lose. To look to moderates for loyalty is like looking to Carter for Israeli diplomacy tips.
Um MichMatt – you kind of proved one of my points when pointing out that Hispanic voters were apparently motivated by Angle’s ads to vote for Reid. Why? From being hyper-sensitive about any criticism of illegal immigration. And even if it is a widespread attitude among certain populations, it is still sad. And I also indicated that had I been a voter there, I would’ve decided to put aside being offended at Angle’s anti-gay remarks because she at least offered more for me in terms of protecting my dwindling funds than gRied.
Re: your reference to V the K’s mention of the Republican endorsement of Reid, it is quite plausible that some of the rest of the GOP establishment were working against her behind the scenes. In the cases of Christine O’Donnell and Murkowski vs. Miller, the intra-party opposition happened to be more brazen but that could have been going on just as intensely in NV.
PopArt, I don’t think hispanic voters were motivated because the ads were insensitive to illegal immigrants –I know they were motivated because the ads were an indictment of hispanics as wetbacks comin’ to steal da’ Chevy.
And Reid was the enabler of them by giving away the farm, the bank, your wallet and –although Angle didn’t quite claim this– any white underage female virgins still to be found in AZland.
While local GOP candidates did a great job of nationalizing the election and making it a referendum on Obama… Reid took Angle’s ad and made it a referendum on the false allegation that TPers were extremists that voters couldn’t trust with public office.
I’d have liked to see the outcome if Angle hadn’t used the ads. It may have lead to a great (and funny) moment of the Right bitch-slapping Joy Behar with the flowers/fundraising schtick… but that’s kind of hollow victory if one loses, eh?
As for the line that moderates turned their back on the primary winner, I can only say that the moderate establishment in Delaware supported ODonnell with money and manpower; moderate RNC Chair Steele came to town to support and fund raise for ODonnell. Moderate GOP former mayor of NYC Giuliani came to town to assist ODonnell. Moderate Lamar Alexander prayed, played a basketball game to raise money for ODonnell and went door-to-door, editorial board to editorial board with ODonnell to raise her voter id. And moderate John McCain did a 239,000 voter mailing for ODonnell in the last ten days of the campaign –and his PAC paid for it.
Castle was talked out of running for the seat as a write-in by Mitch McConnell… Crist hasn’t been a moderate or a GOPer since the primary… he was just a opportunist par grand.
Murkowski should never have launched a write in campaign and wouldn’t have IF Palin-the-Powerful hadn’t made it a personal grudge match between two grizzled Mommas trying to see who could out-piss the other.
I have to wonder about the continuing charge in the comments section that moderate GOPers somehow were even slightly as disloyal as the soc cons who ruined the GOP brand and then turned their collective backs on the Party in 08 and gave Obama the keys to WH. I mean, you don’t get any closer to criminal political disloyalty than they did in 08.
Gay issues didn’t drive the Angle bus into the ditch. Her campaign’s failure to realize 24% of NV-voters probably wouldn’t appreciate being characterized with stereotypical images did her in… and with good reason.
Because of that error in judgment, it’ll now take 2 election cycles to win back the US Senate into GOP control. And we won’t be rid of Harry Reid’s infernal whining.