Anyone who is essentially a career politician in the heart of the state yeah. I don't think it's a slam at all. If you are an incompetent insider...that's a problem. Hell Wisconsin elected a Republican "outsider" (a career politician but from the boonies) as its AG and he's been an unmitigated disaster. At least he hasn't tried to power his way out of any DUI's while driving a state vehicle though, I guess.Tamanon said:
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PoliGAF Thread of PRESIDENT OBAMA Checkin' Off His List
- Thread starter PantherLotus
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Usually the term insider (when used in a derogatory way) refers to D.C. Coakley has never served any kind of position in or around D.C. She's only really held a prominent (state) office for a decade now.
Rahm Emmanuel would be a prime example of a Washington insider (when he ran for his seat in 2002).
Rahm Emmanuel would be a prime example of a Washington insider (when he ran for his seat in 2002).
Sirpopopop
Member
eznark said:
The Dems have never filibustered over a 100 times in one year. At least as far as I know.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/health/policy/21senatecnd.html?_r=2
Whitehouse could be wrong, but I haven't read anything to that effect.
Evlar said:
Whoops, sorry. I meant center-right.
And on the subject of Coakley/Brown, I'm not sure why this is so surprising. (I mean, after we're past the initial shock of the "Kennedy" seat being so up for grabs in the first place.)
Obamacare has an approval rating of about 35% with Americans, and yet the Dems have pushed, pushed, pushed to get this legislation passed with little transparency and lots of back-door deals.
Of course Americans are pissed.
Our representatives in Washington were hired through elections to serve the people, and both parties have been doing far too little of that for far too long.
The Librarian
Banned
:|Kolgar said:
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Dax01 said:
Yeah. Whenever someone uses the word, Obamacare, I tend to tune them out.
Not sure where he is getting his numbers though. Cause latest Gallup daily shows 49% For/Lean For passing healthcare, 46% Against/Lean Against, and 6% No opinion.
cartoon_soldier
Member
I agree with Rothenberg here. Scott Brown will win this.
So what are the PoliGAF opinions on MLK Jr day?
I just had lunch with some co-workers and their general sentiment was "Why do we need a federal holiday to celebrate him?". And there was one guy who said "Reagan should get his own day since MLK does".
PErsonally, I think a Civil Rights day would make more sense, but MLK Jr day is fine by me.
I just had lunch with some co-workers and their general sentiment was "Why do we need a federal holiday to celebrate him?". And there was one guy who said "Reagan should get his own day since MLK does".
PErsonally, I think a Civil Rights day would make more sense, but MLK Jr day is fine by me.
There does seem to be a bounce for Coakley in the last few days. And from an article linked in Nate's analysis:gkrykewy said:
Coakley's internals had her down 3 points a few days ago, then down 2. So in just a couple days they've swung back. No idea what kind of likely voter model they're looking at, but it does seem to be a tossup.
Edit: more from Greg Sargent:
I'm still predicting she'll pull it out in the end, by a few points.
Edit: Research 2000 has it a tie.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
LosDaddie said:
Racists.
You can tell them the other 364 days are already white holidays. And when they mention BET, you can say the other 200 channels are white channels. And when they mention Miss Black America, you can point out the 100 white Miss Americas. And when they mention Black History Month, you can mention the other 11 being white months.
C'mon people, this isn't hard. Stop being bigots.
We have MLK day for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, in retrospect, MLK is the most palatable civil rights leader to the white majority. We don't have Malcom X day, even though by the ends of their respective lifetimes, you could definitely argue Malcom X and MLK had sort of swapped in terms of viewpoints on a number of issues.
Also, I'm sure this was covered here a couple of weeks ago, but the Rolling Stone cover story on climate change legislation (and its associated misinformation campaign) makes my blood boil.
In some ways, I wonder whether we really are fucked as a country.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/
In some ways, I wonder whether we really are fucked as a country.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
eznark said:
Not racist.
phew...PantherLotus said:
So what is the general rule of thumb for bad weather? Good for the energized challenger whose supporters will vote come hell or high water or good for the (essentially) incumbent who has a larger base and the weather might scare off some johnny-come-latelys? Looks like snow in Massachusetts.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
Blame Game
What Obama can learn from Reagan.
E.J. Dionne Jr. | January 18, 2010 | 12:00 am
###
What Obama can learn from Reagan.
E.J. Dionne Jr. | January 18, 2010 | 12:00 am
WASHINGTON -- In June 2008, before the financial implosions that would come a few months later, I asked two smart financiers who happened to be Republicans about the future of the seemingly shaky American economy.
Defying the moment's conventional predictions that we would somehow muddle through, one of them offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up, investments would crash and the federal government would have to spend "at least $300 billion" to bail out financial institutions.
The other financial expert listened closely, took a sip from his drink, and smiled. "This," he said, "would seem like an excellent time for the Democrats to take power."
It wasn't that he liked the Democrats' policies. He just wanted the other side in charge when things came tumbling down. I doubt that my friend is as surprised as others are over the trouble Democrats face in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race that forced President Obama to Boston on Sunday for a last-minute campaign rescue mission.
I have thought often of that exchange while watching Obama and the Democrats struggle with the country's understandably cantankerous mood.
Underlying so much of the self-assured political analysis pouring forth in our multimedia world over the Massachusetts showdown is a debate over the reasons for the decline of Obama's popularity from the heights of last spring.
Conservatives blame it on "liberalism"--big government, big deficits, an overly ambitious health care plan, a stimulus that spent too much and other supposedly left-leaning sins of the Obama regime.
In explaining Scott Brown's strong run for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, conservatives highlight the Republican's strength among independent voters who are said to be alarmed over the ambition and reach of Obamaism.
Obama sympathizers counter that the president's approval ratings are quite healthy in light of an unemployment rate that's gone over 10 percent and a nearly unprecedented destruction of personal wealth.
The conservatives' focus on ideology, they say, is an opportunistic way of distracting attention from the mistakes of the Bush years and the role conservative policies played in bringing us to this point. To cite ideology rather than the economy in explaining the poll numbers is like analyzing the causes of Civil War without any reference to slavery or the rise of the New Deal without mention of the Great Depression.
It's not surprising that I lean toward the second set of explanations, and I wish that my conservative friends would be as honest as the Republican investor was in acknowledging that presiding over bad times always hurts the party stuck with the job.
But the success of the conservative narrative ought to trouble liberals and the Obama administration. The president has had to "own" the economic catastrophe much earlier than he should have. The vast majority of Americans understand that the mess we are in started before Obama got to the White House. Yet many, especially political independents, are upset that the government has had to spend so much money and that things have not turned around as fast as they hoped.
It's also striking that most conservatives, through a method that might be called the audacity of audacity, have acted as if absolutely nothing went wrong with their economic theories. They speak and act as if they had nothing to do with the large deficits they now bemoan and say we will all be saved if only we return to the very policies that should already be discredited.
The few exceptions to this rule--Bruce Bartlett and Richard Posner, the authors of two bravely dissident books, come to mind--find themselves excommunicated from the conservative movement.
Yet the truth that liberals and Obama must grapple with is that they have failed so far to dent the right's narrative, especially among those moderates and independents with no strong commitments to either side in this fight.
The president's supporters comfort themselves that Obama's numbers will improve as the economy gets better. This is a form of intellectual complacency. Ronald Reagan's numbers went down during a slump, too. But even when he was in the doldrums, Reagan was laying the groundwork for a critique of liberalism that held sway in American politics long after he left office.
Progressives will never reach their own Morning in America unless they use the Gipper's method to offer their own critique of the very conservatism he helped make dominant. It is still more powerful in our politics, as we are learning in Massachusetts, than it ought to be.
Defying the moment's conventional predictions that we would somehow muddle through, one of them offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up, investments would crash and the federal government would have to spend "at least $300 billion" to bail out financial institutions.
The other financial expert listened closely, took a sip from his drink, and smiled. "This," he said, "would seem like an excellent time for the Democrats to take power."
It wasn't that he liked the Democrats' policies. He just wanted the other side in charge when things came tumbling down. I doubt that my friend is as surprised as others are over the trouble Democrats face in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race that forced President Obama to Boston on Sunday for a last-minute campaign rescue mission.
I have thought often of that exchange while watching Obama and the Democrats struggle with the country's understandably cantankerous mood.
Underlying so much of the self-assured political analysis pouring forth in our multimedia world over the Massachusetts showdown is a debate over the reasons for the decline of Obama's popularity from the heights of last spring.
Conservatives blame it on "liberalism"--big government, big deficits, an overly ambitious health care plan, a stimulus that spent too much and other supposedly left-leaning sins of the Obama regime.
In explaining Scott Brown's strong run for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, conservatives highlight the Republican's strength among independent voters who are said to be alarmed over the ambition and reach of Obamaism.
Obama sympathizers counter that the president's approval ratings are quite healthy in light of an unemployment rate that's gone over 10 percent and a nearly unprecedented destruction of personal wealth.
The conservatives' focus on ideology, they say, is an opportunistic way of distracting attention from the mistakes of the Bush years and the role conservative policies played in bringing us to this point. To cite ideology rather than the economy in explaining the poll numbers is like analyzing the causes of Civil War without any reference to slavery or the rise of the New Deal without mention of the Great Depression.
It's not surprising that I lean toward the second set of explanations, and I wish that my conservative friends would be as honest as the Republican investor was in acknowledging that presiding over bad times always hurts the party stuck with the job.
But the success of the conservative narrative ought to trouble liberals and the Obama administration. The president has had to "own" the economic catastrophe much earlier than he should have. The vast majority of Americans understand that the mess we are in started before Obama got to the White House. Yet many, especially political independents, are upset that the government has had to spend so much money and that things have not turned around as fast as they hoped.
It's also striking that most conservatives, through a method that might be called the audacity of audacity, have acted as if absolutely nothing went wrong with their economic theories. They speak and act as if they had nothing to do with the large deficits they now bemoan and say we will all be saved if only we return to the very policies that should already be discredited.
The few exceptions to this rule--Bruce Bartlett and Richard Posner, the authors of two bravely dissident books, come to mind--find themselves excommunicated from the conservative movement.
Yet the truth that liberals and Obama must grapple with is that they have failed so far to dent the right's narrative, especially among those moderates and independents with no strong commitments to either side in this fight.
The president's supporters comfort themselves that Obama's numbers will improve as the economy gets better. This is a form of intellectual complacency. Ronald Reagan's numbers went down during a slump, too. But even when he was in the doldrums, Reagan was laying the groundwork for a critique of liberalism that held sway in American politics long after he left office.
Progressives will never reach their own Morning in America unless they use the Gipper's method to offer their own critique of the very conservatism he helped make dominant. It is still more powerful in our politics, as we are learning in Massachusetts, than it ought to be.
###
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
On the other hand, when dems who haven't been paying attention get to the polls and see "Kennedy" and an option, it could hurt Coakley.GhaleonEB said:
Skiptastic
Member
PantherLotus said:
You sound like my parents. When I was 8.
"Why is there a Mothers Day and a Fathers Day, but no Child's Day?"
"Because every day is Child's Day."
Let me guess, you also say "BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS WHITE STUDIES!" when someone says "Why is there an African American Studies major? Idiocy is not a retort for idiocy.
That being said, I don't see why they shouldn't have a MLK Jr. Day. I don't get it off, but I don't begrudge people that get the holiday off. MLK was important enough for a holiday.
PhoenixDark
Banned
PantherLotus said:
Good article. If the economy was in decent shape we wouldn't be talking about Croakly/Brown.
The fact that a tea bagging republican is about to take Kennedy's former seat should be proof that dems are fucked. If teabaggers can win in MA they can win anywhere, with the economy in bad shape.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
PhoenixDark said:
i guess, but haven't they lost pretty much everywhere else? it could be that MA had the perfect storm for teabaggers to get through.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
Skiptastic said:
I don't suppose you've ever taken a college history course, huh? I find it sad that you find African American studies to be idiocy, though.
gkrykewy said:
Personally, I was shocked that the Heritage Foundation and some representatives (from both sides of the aisle) where coal/oil are a big part of their economy were getting money. It's outrageous!
I'm still trying to determine if the tears in my eyes are from the outrage or the laughter induced by that flimsy article.
Skiptastic
Member
PantherLotus said:
No, I meant your childish retort would be idiocy, just as asking why we get a day off for MLK Jr. is idiocy. African American studies is perfectly fine, just as MLK Day is perfectly fine.
Hope that clarifies the metaphor for you.
PhoenixDark
Banned
quadriplegicjon said:
Where is "everywhere else" though. So far there's only been one race I can think of where an unabashed teabagger has run (NY-23). And he wasn't a republica which gave him a disadvantage but still only lost by a couple thousand votes iirc
PantherLotus: He didn't say AA studies classes were idiocy. Seems like the logic side of your brain explodes whenever you discuss race on this forum.
GhaleonEB said:
Ehh..his analysis was still using the Survey USA poll that had Coakley up 8- which was 3-4 days ago.
There is also the Suffolk "bellweather poll" showing Brown comfortably ahead in bellweather towns.
I'm inclined to say Brown wins by 4-5 points.
Polls over the last week are relevant. There's been movement since, but the point of his analysis was to look at and quantify that movement. And if you limit the polling to just the past day or two, you have too small of a sample to examine.schuelma said:
The polling today so far actually has me more confident that Coakley pulls it out.
GhaleonEB said:
I'm not understanding you- Silver's analysis flat out said things change if Survey2000 and/or Rasmussen come out with updated polls that show Brown movement (I believe he used Brown +5 as an example). Survey2000's poll showed a Brown +8 shift. That's my simple point.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
Skiptastic said:
So why is there no White History Month, daddy?
There's some shit polls being thrown out there. Specifically Cross Target and Merriman River Group. They accounted for a total of three polls and have Brown with a double digit lead. It seems far too much stock is being put into those.
Deus Ex Machina
Member
'Curling iron' rape remark leveled at Martha Coakley by Scott Brown supporter may burn GOPer
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...ha_coakley_by_scott_brown_supporter_may_.html
vile and disgusting.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...ha_coakley_by_scott_brown_supporter_may_.html
vile and disgusting.
Skiptastic
Member
PantherLotus said:
Because you touch yourself at night.
Fair enough. Though, the R2K poll was commissioned by a different organization than the first, and I don't think they used an identical LV model between them. Either way - tomorrow is going to be pretty damn interesting.schuelma said:
I think part of the reason I'm convinced Coakley will win is it's just too fucking depressing to think of a tea bagging nutjob taking Ted Kennedy's seat and ending Obama's entire domestic agenda in one fell swoop.
But even somewhat more objectively, I think the nature of the electorate and the machine advantage - not to mention the sudden raised awareness - will tip it to Coakley by four points or so.
Because while blacks have had to fight to overcome racism and oppression in this country, it was whites doing said oppression (not to mention invading the land initially and slaughtering the native peoples). Better to paper over that stuff and talk about how it's wonderful blacks have some so far in this great country of ours.PantherLotus said:
Price Dalton
Member
Deus Ex Machina said:
Is it me, or does he very clearly say, "We can do that" in response?
wayward archer
Member
Price Dalton said:
He says, "We can do this", but i'm not sure if it was in response or not. He obviously heard the comment though.
I love you.squicken said:
In the event Coakley loses:
Seems like plenty of time to finish and pass the bill given the time table the Dems are working on. I'm sure the GOP will be suing the piss out of everyone along the way to get Brown instated the day after the election anyways.
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