GOP Making a Comeback?

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That's right. It takes quite a bit of "effort and accomplishment" to take a great nation and trash it the way Bush and Cheney did.

That's right again. The issues be damned. What we want is more "personallity" in our leaders.

Which statements do you feel aren't getting enough of our attention, T2? I'll be glad to comment on them.

 

I agree with you pplr, but the 'backlash' is coming from the press, not necessarily the republicans. If it was just politicians speaking everyone would ignore them, but when the press gets a wild hair up their ass people start to see it as an issue (even when it's not).

Are you seeing a counselor about this? It's been almost a year and you're still having anger management issues....

I'd say the comments about the topic....

 

You are hilarious, T2. You really should take your show on the road. Just as soon as you get over your anger management issues.

 

That's a great point pplr, and I think I agree. Corzine (the incumbent Dem who lost the gubenatorial race in NJ) was extremely unpopular. Even though New Jersey is generally considered a blue state, it's not nearly as blue as the most of the northeast. One factor that contributed heavily in Corzine's defeat was that he is a former Wall Street executive (none too popular these days), and that his oppoenent, Chris Christie (terrible name by the way - what parent would so cruel as to name their child "Chris" when your last name was Christie?) focused much more on local issues.

Vitiginia is very different by comparison. For starters, there was no incumbent in this race (Kaine didn't run), and Creigh Deeds was not a particularly strong Democratic candidate. Moreover, Virginia can best be described as a reddish-purple state. Democrats have not performed well there historically. In fact, the last time Virginia voted for a Democratic president, excluding Obama in 2008, was in 1964 when they voted for LBJ.

The final reason why I don't see this as a backlash is due to some exit polling numbers I've seen. In both Virginia and New Jersey, nearly 60% of the electorate said that Obama did not factor into their decision of who to vote for, and the 40% that it did make a difference broke pretty evenly for the two candidates. (Slightly more who said Obama factored into their decision voted Democrat in New Jersey, while slightly more voted Republican in Virginia.) In both cases, the difference in votes would not have impacted the winner of the election.

 

I have just a few thoughts on the 2009 elections

1. From what I have seen it looks like the Democrats had problems getting the minority voters to the polls. This could be a problem in 2010 if they don't come up with minority candidates for them to vote for.

2. I'm not that impressed with the GOP picking up a couple of governorships. Virginia was the exact opposite of last year's Presidential election. No incumbant, the previous administration was unpopular, and the "incumbant party" put up a very weak candidate. The GOP doesn't have anything to strut about as far as I'm concerned.

3. The impact of the NY-23 election will take a long time to figure out and may have more far reaching implications then anything else that happened. For those who haven't followed NY-23 here is my brief synopsis. The GOP establishment selected Dede Scozzafava as their candidate for this seat. Dede is referred to by the MSM as a "moderate Republican". In other words she is what conservatives call a RINO (Republican in name only). She believes in abortion, gay marriage, and has a voting record of voting for tax increases and increased spending. Combine that with her getting support from ACORN, the SEIU, Daily Kos, being a supporter of "card check", and that her husband is a union organizer and it was a prescription for outrage among conservatives. Dede was endorsed by Newt, the NRC, the NRCC, and other Republicans. The Republican party spent it is estimated at over $1 million on her campaign.

Well what happened. An unknown by the name of Hoffman decided to run under the "conservative party" and the tea party/town hall people flocked to him. When Sarah Palin endorsed him it pushed him over the top. Dede decided to drop out of the race and in the greatest insult possilble she threw her support to her Democratic oppononet instead of Hoffman. In other words Republicans spent money to elect a Democrat. To make it even more laughable since she withdrew from the campaign so late her name was still on the ballot and if those votes had gone to Hoffman he would have won.

This is a major embarrassment to the GOP establishment as far as I'm concerned and I'm very curious as to how this will play out in anticipation of 2010 and 2012. I believe it was Rush who said something along the lines of "Alert PETA, RINOs are about to become extinct. "

The wisdom seems to be that the GOP needs to become more centrist (if not outright leftist). I question that wisdom as I question who it is coming from. The people giving that advice don't necessarily have the best interests of the GOP at heart. John McCain was the darling of the media during the presidential primaries, but where were his "friends in the media" when it came to the general election?

EDIT: To answer the question of is this a comeback, my answer is no.

 

Right, but everyone had problems getting anyone to the polls. No one really cared about these elections.

 

The loss of a couple of governorships is in no way correlated to Obama's popularity.

Republican spin on faux news has nothing to do with reality.

 

Thrasher, it was a lot more than Fox News asking those questions. CNN and MSNBC did, too. Of course, they came up with "no it isn't" as their answer, but it's obviously a question they felt the need to address.

 

It should be obvious without having to ask the question.

 

This is perfect for all the media outlets. They have really pounced on this as a Republican landslide, even MSNBC. All the major media outlets are driven by one passion: Ratings.

As I mentioned in my first post on this thread, the Dems are getting a signal. It is that "business as usual" isn't hip these days with the voters. Obama went to NJ 5 times in this cycle for Corzine, and I believe it was a big mistake. He needed to do the minimum, yes, just to be a good party player. But he really went after this one for Corzine and I think it backfired on him. The question I'm asking is, "where's the change?" And I'm sure a lot of liberals and progressives are asking the same thing.

 

Yep, this has always been my concern with Obama. Great on words, we'll see if he can actually accomplish anything. I voted for Hillary in the primaries for exactly this concern.

I think taking on health care first was very brave of him. It would have been a lot easier to make some smaller victories earlier.

 

You think that Hillary could have accomplished more? I HIGHLY doubt it.

Obama has another entire year to implement his policies and changes. I think that they mid-term Congressional elections will not feature a Republican surge as some people hope, no matter what these governorship elections show.

 

She's much more experienced. Obama's attempt to negotiate with the far right has gained nothing that I can see.

 

Perhaps, but I think Hillary's affiliation with the unsuccessful attempt to reform healthcare in the 90's would make it harder for her to do anything about it this time around. Maybe a fresh face like Obama was better. Also, I think he wanted to act sooner so that he could start with the momentum from the elections. With a financial crisis and a recession, his popularity was bound to dwindle. Maybe he thought he wouldn't have another chance.

Right now, I think one of the biggest gripes about him is that he's "dithering" on Afghanistan. I'm still shaking my head people can say this after all those years Bush did nothing on it, but it seems to be a fairly often repeated claim.

 

As I said, it's only an issue because the media is turning it into one (without any real basis for such a claim).

Shaman: I don't really hear any complaints about Afganistan here. In fact, I think the US public wants us out of Iraq before we build in Afganistan.

Thrasher: All politicians are great with words. It's the only way to get elected. Obama simply needs to step up and lead his party.

 

Well, history is definitely on the Republicans side here. No matter whether you're talking about Democrats or Republicans the party that controls the White House almost ALWAYS lose seats in the mid-term elections. This is even more true when the party in control of the White House also controls both houses of Congress, simply by virtue of the fact that they have more seats to defend. Right now, the Republicans are in pretty good shape to pick up seats simply because most of the "swing" districts are in Democratic hands.

Perhaps your sources are better than mine, but the only person I have heard who said that Obama is "dithering" on Afghanistan is Dick Cheney. That is probably the person with the LEAST credibility on foreign policy and military strategy that I can think of to make that claim. I just cannot take the guy seriously.

 

Karl Rove was wrong. There is no such thing as a "permanent party" in power. But I'm not really sure if he was being serious when he made that comment. I agree that it's not especially insightful or helpful to understand that historically power changes from one party to the other over time.

The formation of grassroots movements, on both sides, is proving more problematic from the standpoint of party unity. In the NY 23, the tea potters completely blew it for the Republicans, who otherwise would have won; on the Democratic side, I recently anwered a survey from MoveOn asking me if the organization should withold support from Democrats who will vote against health care reform. So, it cuts both ways. The real takeaway from this is that people are tired of not having their issues addressed. It is becoming less important if there is a "D" or an "R" on the front of the name, but who the name belongs to.

People who define their politics as "Republican" or "Democratic" may be in for some hard times.

 

So true. And it seems that a lot of politicians - regardless of the letter next to their name, belong to the insurance industry.

EDIT: And this article agrees with what Snook is saying. That this election does not necessarily signal a comeback for the GOP. Wins in gubenatorial races are nice, they are a poor indicator of what the people think about national issues, and are more much focused on the local politics in the state (which makes sense). In the two races that did focus on national issues (in California and the aforementioned New York election to replace vacated seats in Congress) the GOP lost both of those elections, including one that had been long held by a Republican.

 

I resonate with this. Something needs to be done about the corruption of elected officials because of campaign contributions. Obama was all about keeping those kinds of guys out of his administration, but what about Congress?

 

Well, yes and no. So far, I have yet to see any of them actually claim that this was a refferendum on Obama, just feel the need to point out why it wasn't (and, incidentally, they did so rather reflexively, before the results were even in). I think it's more that this is just a perenial claim in off-year elections.

Honestly, I thought it was a big mistake. Trying to implement massive and expensive health-care reform in the middle of an economic crisis wasn't wise. Even if the system will save money in the long term, most people don't think in the long term. They see higher taxes and have a gut reaction agaist it, moreso when budgets are tight.

In speech, yes. In practice, not as I've heard it. Of course, I don't claim to be completely up-to-date on the issue, but everything I've heard said that, at best, Obama made small improvements while making special allowances for the same-old-same-old.