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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the hypothetical market destruction leading to better schools scenario does not specify a timescale on which these changes happen. if it takes 10 years for a failing school to fail into nonexistence, then the kids at those schools are constantly doing worse in the duration. school administrators and entrenched teachers have obvious interest in keeping a school afloat along the critical failing line, and whatever performance report you get out of that situation isn't going to be very informative.
if the entire situation is dynamic, that is to say, there will always be some schools that are getting worse, because of an outflow of resources exacerbating their failing more, then there will be a stratification of mobilized students and noncaring students. the mobilized students (or rather, parents) are constantly hounding the school rankings (that has its own problems), while the kids with nonresponsive parents are still going to be in the bad schools, and doing even worse because they are FURTHER deprived of the one resource that is critical to making a successful student culture, other successful students.
btw, if a locality lacks funding right now, it will lack even more funding after its school fails. but, the problem is, those same people are still going to live in that area.
i don't know much about how teacher unions actually work on the ground to say what kind of problem they pose in all this, but it is clear that, in the immortal words of somebody else in this thread a while back, when you take away what little is left of the middle class give a fuck from certain schools, they will only do worse. the stratification continues and will produce bad results down the line.
yes, kids can be difficult. but this means that these kids are more in NEED of education resources, and from a younger age. this means smaller classrooms, more caring teachers, and better school environment. the problem, caused by chronic social neglect in the first place, won't go away on its own.
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A voucher system provides resources to schools. We could even set up the voucher system progressively so that poorer districts or at least individuals receive greater funding. There is nothing wrong with that.
The purpose of vouchers or school choice is not to destroy failing schools, it is to provide schools with SOME incentives to improve. As the system stands now, the only incentives schools have now are to teach to the tests because of No Child Left Behind, and to spend their resources on political campaigns to try and increase their funding. Neither of those things is a focus on improving the actual education being provided to children.
The stratification already exists by the way. It is called poor neighborhoods. And it sucks in a few individuals by force who might have escaped the life if we only we gave them the choice. I feel worse for the parents and kids who care and get forced into dangerous, dysfunctional schools than for the kids who don't care and are making the schools dangerous and dysfunctional. The point is choice, people choosing the life they want. Just because people may make poor choices does not mean we have the right to take their freedom to choose away.
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On December 20 2012 03:28 jdseemoreglass wrote:
A voucher system provides resources to schools. We could even set up the voucher system progressively so that poorer districts or at least individuals receive greater funding. There is nothing wrong with that.
The purpose of vouchers or school choice is not to destroy failing schools, it is to provide schools with SOME incentives to improve. As the system stands now, the only incentives schools have now are to teach to the tests because of No Child Left Behind, and to spend their resources on political campaigns to try and increase their funding. Neither of those things is a focus on improving the actual education being provided to children.
The stratification already exists by the way. It is called poor neighborhoods. And it sucks in a few individuals by force who might have escaped the life if we only we gave them the choice. I feel worse for the parents and kids who care and get forced into dangerous, dysfunctional schools than for the kids who don't care and are making the schools dangerous and dysfunctional. The point is choice, people choosing the life they want. Just because people may make poor choices does not mean we have the right to take their freedom to choose away.
You can't afford giving money to the poor failing schools cause the "good" schools are going to need way more money all of a sudden with all their new students.
We are talking about elementary school and junior high kids here not just high school kids, you say if the parents and kids dont care then scree them, but our job with schools is to forget no one, we can't abandon kids, especially at such young ages, They don't show up to elementary school 2 days a week in their current system because their parents suck or are working 2 jobs, or are addicted to a substance, etc. this is long before this kid gets to make a rational choice about caring or not. Their performance in these early years will affect their future, even if their performance is based on their parents choices and not their own. You say you feel worse for those parents/kids who both care but they thrive even in bad schools because it's so easy for them to stand out against other students effort and scores.
What about the students in high school who want to care now but are so far behind?
Feel bad for the kids who never had a chance.
These same parents are not going to give a shit and choose a different better school in the voucher system. They aren't going to care enough to look up what the best school is. You think a first grader is going to know how to Do that on their own?
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I'm pretty sure the NRA isn't a big fan of Biden on gun control laws...
Biden's selection to head up the task force gives some indication of the White House's approach to the issue. Biden, who the NRA called the "most anti-gun vice president in American history," has an "F" rating from the pro-gun group for his voting record in the Senate. Biden was one of the leading voices in favor of the 1994 ban on assault weapons, but that ban quietly expired in 2004. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday that she would re-introduce an assault weapons ban bill in response to the Connecticut shooting.
source
From the NRA website:
Last week, we highlighted the enormous differences between vice presidential nominees Sarah Palin (R) and Joe Biden (D). Most people are saying that Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate to compensate for his own lack of experience. After all, Obama has been in the Senate since only 2005, while Biden has been a senator since 1973, when Obama was 11 years old. But few in the Senate have as much experience as Biden in attacking our Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Just like fellow Democrats Edward Kennedy, Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, Biden has voted for, and actively pushed, major anti-gun bills, including those:
Banning semi-automatic firearms;
Banning hunting, sporting and self-defense ammunition;
Banning magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and
Imposing a waiting period on handgun sales.
Biden also voted against the law that prohibits lawsuits designed to bankrupt law-abiding firearm manufacturers and dealers. And he voted against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices who support the Second Amendment.
source
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On December 20 2012 05:53 BlueBird. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2012 03:28 jdseemoreglass wrote:
A voucher system provides resources to schools. We could even set up the voucher system progressively so that poorer districts or at least individuals receive greater funding. There is nothing wrong with that.
The purpose of vouchers or school choice is not to destroy failing schools, it is to provide schools with SOME incentives to improve. As the system stands now, the only incentives schools have now are to teach to the tests because of No Child Left Behind, and to spend their resources on political campaigns to try and increase their funding. Neither of those things is a focus on improving the actual education being provided to children.
The stratification already exists by the way. It is called poor neighborhoods. And it sucks in a few individuals by force who might have escaped the life if we only we gave them the choice. I feel worse for the parents and kids who care and get forced into dangerous, dysfunctional schools than for the kids who don't care and are making the schools dangerous and dysfunctional. The point is choice, people choosing the life they want. Just because people may make poor choices does not mean we have the right to take their freedom to choose away. You can't afford giving money to the poor failing schools cause the "good" schools are going to need way more money all of a sudden with all their new students. We are talking about elementary school and junior high kids here not just high school kids, you say if the parents and kids dont care then scree them, but our job with schools is to forget no one, we can't abandon kids, especially at such young ages, They don't show up to elementary school 2 days a week in their current system because their parents suck or are working 2 jobs, or are addicted to a substance, etc. this is long before this kid gets to make a rational choice about caring or not. Their performance in these early years will affect their future, even if their performance is based on their parents choices and not their own. You say you feel worse for those parents/kids who both care but they thrive even in bad schools because it's so easy for them to stand out against other students effort and scores. What about the students in high school who want to care now but are so far behind? Feel bad for the kids who never had a chance. These same parents are not going to give a shit and choose a different better school in the voucher system. They aren't going to care enough to look up what the best school is. You think a first grader is going to know how to Do that on their own?
I don't think you really understand how a voucher system works... The money follows the students. So saying "we can't afford giving money to poor schools" doesn't make sense in that regard. Neither does claiming that we are "screwing" kids and parents that don't care. They still have the same amount of money for their student, probably even more money since it would work on a progressive scale.
You people all seem to think it is entirely about moving kids around to different schools... that is not even the point. Most people would not even move their kids unless they had a very good reason to. The purpose of vouchers is to give incentives for schools to satisfy their customers, the parents and students, instead of working to satisfy politicians, unions, and No Child Left Behind test requirements.
Right now the incentives are exactly as I have described them. This notion that the parents who care need to be forced into bad schools in order to improve them... do you see that happening now? Do you see parents who care with some magical ability to stop a school from being shitty? Can they stop kids from beating each other up in school? Can they stop teachers from becoming detached and apathetic? The parents don't have ANY control or power at the moment, there is a monopoly in place. The stratification people fear already exists.
If anything, a voucher system could be even more progressive than the one in place. Since vouchers would be dependent upon income, a progressive scale would ensure that resources which currently get spent sending rich families' kids to public schools could get diverted into poorer neighborhoods. Not to mention any school which had a net loss of students would result in a smaller average class size, which improves the quality of education for those remaining.
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On December 19 2012 14:25 BlueBird. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2012 13:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 19 2012 03:58 farvacola wrote:
Look at it this way. Metropolitan areas are already suffering from an increased disparity between quality of life in the suburbs and the city, and voucher programs only feed into that disparity. We cannot just say "let the bad schools fail" when that amounts to a total dismissal of urban and poor demographics, demographics unable to manipulate their own educational market entry and consequently left in the dust. If the bad school fails (goes away) that means students went to better schools or new (and again, better) schools were founded locally to take their place. So I don't see a problem here. Yes there's a risk that the system will suffer a botched execution but that's the risk with any reform or improvement effort. If you want change (and we all do) then at some point we have to take the risk that we'll only make things worse. I mean I understand the concern you are bringing up but as far as I know countries that have voucher systems (like Sweden) haven't suffered the ill effects you have described. So it seems like a concern over the execution of a voucher system rather than a concern over the voucher system itself. On December 19 2012 10:37 Souma wrote:On December 19 2012 03:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
As for school vouchers - what's the alternative? How do you fix a failed school in the current system? Organizational change is extremely difficult in the best of circumstances. Given how hard it is for administrators to purge bad personnel I can only think that fixing a failed school would be even harder. By realizing that it may not be the school that's failing the students? To give an example, in my city we can pick any public school in the district to go to. Naturally, people tend to pick the better schools (which are unsurprisingly located in the more affluent parts of the city). You'd think this would solve education for most students. However, that's generally not the case. The high school that I went to used to be a pretty good school. But by the time I got there, it was full of kids who just didn't give a crap. Parenting is the biggest problem facing schools at the moment, and the biggest problems facing parents are generally socioeconomic obstacles/the results of a vicious cycle thereof. Catch my drift? To give a picture of how low the school had fallen, our test scores were low enough to relegate us to the threat of No Child Left Behind (though in the end I believe we managed to overcome that barrier, barely). The teachers, coaches, and other faculty were all amazing and supportive (at least, all the ones I had and knew), but the problems facing the entire school (might I add that the students outnumbered staff by a significant margin) were really out of their control. If the student culture is an "I don't give a crap" one then it becomes all the more difficult to affect change. That sounds like all the better reason to let the bad schools be replaced. You've argued these same points before, but what happens in theory is that the "best" schools become swamped and can't take care of that many students, spreading their attention and making them a "bad" school over time, and then the parents who can afford to send their children to the new best school send them to the new best school and that school becomes swamped etc how do you solve this issue, classroom overcrowding is not a joke, one on one time with the teacher is essential for some students, sure some students don't need it or can teach themselves with the book etc. At some point there is a cut off for how many students the school can handle, they only have so much space/room, only so many teachers, and how do you decide who does/doesn't get in with their voucher, everyone in the school zoning area gets in, so outside of the zoning area how do you decide who gets in when you have 1000 spots, and 10000 students applying? Are we going to start deciding who gets in to elementary schools like we decide who gets in to colleges, based on academic achievements in kindergarten? Since all students can use a voucher in your system, that means you need to provide for a bus for students travelling far distances to get to the best schools, this costs gas, puts more miles and wear and tear on the bus fleet, meaning more repair costs, pay the bus drivers more for longer hours.. This means higher taxes, since it's unfair to charge more for the bus for students travelling long distances for obvious reasons. You can't treat schools as you treat businesses, you can't just let the strong schools survive, and the weak schools fail.(also the fact the best schools are in the most wealthy areas is kind of a hint its not always the school at fault here, parents with money have more time to be involved with their students lives, it's hard for a single mom with 2 jobs to come home and help tommy with his homework) . In some places, like Clark County, the schools get money based on property taxes. That means that schools in a richer area get more money(so hey a new baseball field, or brand new computers, or hey everyone lets go to Hawaii or Italy on a field trip)m since the property is worth more in that area, compare that to a school on the other side of the town that can't afford paper for the kids to write on. I know not all school districts/counties use property taxes to determine the school budget but it's pretty dumb. .We have invested money and time in to bad schools, and their faculty are not all clueless teachers and lazy administrators(although there are a lot of those) no matter what their test scores might say, their are good people in there, as well as the bad. There are awful, horrible, lazy, dumb freaking teachers at "great top of the line" schools, I've met some, I've been taught by some, I've worked with some, I have seen "bad"/"awful"/"worst in the county" schools work their asses off trying to keep their test scores up or move up a few percent because if they didn't they would all be fired, they worked one on one with the kids, put in unpaid overtime, talked to parents, tried to communicate, tried to get parents involved, learned a second language just so they could understand what their student was trying to tell them. That particular school was an elementary school, and 85 percent of the students did not have english as a first language, and did not speak english at home. It's not rocket science why their test scores were so low, but they were held to the same standards under NCLB as any other elementary school. We also expected mentally challenged kids too perform at the same level as their peers without challenges, making it so schools tried to get rid of their handicapped kids since it brought their test scores down. How messed up is that. Basically their is a underlying problem with schools, and I don't feel like your voucher problem would solve any of them, we need to isolate the problem, and go after it, making a voucher system doesn't seem to solve any problems with our education system, and I have yet to see a good argument for it, or what it would actually solve.
You are making a lot of assumptions about a voucher system that just aren't true. Good schools won't be swamped - they will obviously have limits on how many students can enroll. Good schools will have more enrolling than get in - so what? -that's no worse than the current system!
This isn't treating schools like a business. This is treating schools like universities. You have a choice in where you go to college and the funding follows the students. Is that a bad thing?
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On December 21 2012 04:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2012 14:25 BlueBird. wrote:On December 19 2012 13:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 19 2012 03:58 farvacola wrote:
Look at it this way. Metropolitan areas are already suffering from an increased disparity between quality of life in the suburbs and the city, and voucher programs only feed into that disparity. We cannot just say "let the bad schools fail" when that amounts to a total dismissal of urban and poor demographics, demographics unable to manipulate their own educational market entry and consequently left in the dust. If the bad school fails (goes away) that means students went to better schools or new (and again, better) schools were founded locally to take their place. So I don't see a problem here. Yes there's a risk that the system will suffer a botched execution but that's the risk with any reform or improvement effort. If you want change (and we all do) then at some point we have to take the risk that we'll only make things worse. I mean I understand the concern you are bringing up but as far as I know countries that have voucher systems (like Sweden) haven't suffered the ill effects you have described. So it seems like a concern over the execution of a voucher system rather than a concern over the voucher system itself. On December 19 2012 10:37 Souma wrote:On December 19 2012 03:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
As for school vouchers - what's the alternative? How do you fix a failed school in the current system? Organizational change is extremely difficult in the best of circumstances. Given how hard it is for administrators to purge bad personnel I can only think that fixing a failed school would be even harder. By realizing that it may not be the school that's failing the students? To give an example, in my city we can pick any public school in the district to go to. Naturally, people tend to pick the better schools (which are unsurprisingly located in the more affluent parts of the city). You'd think this would solve education for most students. However, that's generally not the case. The high school that I went to used to be a pretty good school. But by the time I got there, it was full of kids who just didn't give a crap. Parenting is the biggest problem facing schools at the moment, and the biggest problems facing parents are generally socioeconomic obstacles/the results of a vicious cycle thereof. Catch my drift? To give a picture of how low the school had fallen, our test scores were low enough to relegate us to the threat of No Child Left Behind (though in the end I believe we managed to overcome that barrier, barely). The teachers, coaches, and other faculty were all amazing and supportive (at least, all the ones I had and knew), but the problems facing the entire school (might I add that the students outnumbered staff by a significant margin) were really out of their control. If the student culture is an "I don't give a crap" one then it becomes all the more difficult to affect change. That sounds like all the better reason to let the bad schools be replaced. You've argued these same points before, but what happens in theory is that the "best" schools become swamped and can't take care of that many students, spreading their attention and making them a "bad" school over time, and then the parents who can afford to send their children to the new best school send them to the new best school and that school becomes swamped etc how do you solve this issue, classroom overcrowding is not a joke, one on one time with the teacher is essential for some students, sure some students don't need it or can teach themselves with the book etc. At some point there is a cut off for how many students the school can handle, they only have so much space/room, only so many teachers, and how do you decide who does/doesn't get in with their voucher, everyone in the school zoning area gets in, so outside of the zoning area how do you decide who gets in when you have 1000 spots, and 10000 students applying? Are we going to start deciding who gets in to elementary schools like we decide who gets in to colleges, based on academic achievements in kindergarten? Since all students can use a voucher in your system, that means you need to provide for a bus for students travelling far distances to get to the best schools, this costs gas, puts more miles and wear and tear on the bus fleet, meaning more repair costs, pay the bus drivers more for longer hours.. This means higher taxes, since it's unfair to charge more for the bus for students travelling long distances for obvious reasons. You can't treat schools as you treat businesses, you can't just let the strong schools survive, and the weak schools fail.(also the fact the best schools are in the most wealthy areas is kind of a hint its not always the school at fault here, parents with money have more time to be involved with their students lives, it's hard for a single mom with 2 jobs to come home and help tommy with his homework) . In some places, like Clark County, the schools get money based on property taxes. That means that schools in a richer area get more money(so hey a new baseball field, or brand new computers, or hey everyone lets go to Hawaii or Italy on a field trip)m since the property is worth more in that area, compare that to a school on the other side of the town that can't afford paper for the kids to write on. I know not all school districts/counties use property taxes to determine the school budget but it's pretty dumb. .We have invested money and time in to bad schools, and their faculty are not all clueless teachers and lazy administrators(although there are a lot of those) no matter what their test scores might say, their are good people in there, as well as the bad. There are awful, horrible, lazy, dumb freaking teachers at "great top of the line" schools, I've met some, I've been taught by some, I've worked with some, I have seen "bad"/"awful"/"worst in the county" schools work their asses off trying to keep their test scores up or move up a few percent because if they didn't they would all be fired, they worked one on one with the kids, put in unpaid overtime, talked to parents, tried to communicate, tried to get parents involved, learned a second language just so they could understand what their student was trying to tell them. That particular school was an elementary school, and 85 percent of the students did not have english as a first language, and did not speak english at home. It's not rocket science why their test scores were so low, but they were held to the same standards under NCLB as any other elementary school. We also expected mentally challenged kids too perform at the same level as their peers without challenges, making it so schools tried to get rid of their handicapped kids since it brought their test scores down. How messed up is that. Basically their is a underlying problem with schools, and I don't feel like your voucher problem would solve any of them, we need to isolate the problem, and go after it, making a voucher system doesn't seem to solve any problems with our education system, and I have yet to see a good argument for it, or what it would actually solve. You are making a lot of assumptions about a voucher system that just aren't true. Good schools won't be swamped - they will obviously have limits on how many students can enroll. Good schools will have more enrolling than get in - so what? -that's no worse than the current system! This isn't treating schools like a business. This is treating schools like universities. You have a choice in where you go to college and the funding follows the students. Is that a bad thing?
Seems like choice is an illusion at that point. You overestimate the mobility of the individual and you seem to ignore the fact that if a good school is full, then the parents have no choice but to send the children to worse schools, those worse schools then get full but have the same funding as good schools. How does that help improve worse schools or the current system as a whole?
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The overburdening of good schools is not really the main concern, imo, though it could certainly come about as a result of the troublesome dynamic that a voucher system puts in place. Like I've already said, the problem with voucher programs is best understood in economic terms; attaching a monetary value to each student so that they can take their funding to good schools only makes sense if practically every student finds themselves in a position to rationally act upon the possible transference or "spending" of that value in the pursuit of that education. This is simply not the case.
Choice is good, certainly, but not when the effective implementation of that choice opportunity is incomplete. Education market access, especially in a geographic sense, is by far the most troublesome factor in this equation, as there exist entire student populations (and we aren't talking only those who live in urban areas) who are simply without certain forms of transportation, or to put it more plainly, are stuck going to the school closest to them. This is merely one amongst a host of factors that complicate the "marketization" of primary and secondary education, but most deal with the concept of "access" in one way or another.
Consider your average class of 1st graders. Amongst the 24 or so children, a fair number are going to have "good" parents, parents who care for their children and aid in the proper provision of their education. These are the parents who are going to be able to act upon the opportunities provided by a voucher system. But, what of the remainder? What of the children, who by no fault of their own, are not familiar with the providence of able parenting, and are stuck in a school that is continuously hit with budget cuts brought about by voucher transfers. "Letting schools fail" will never happen without students failing alongside them, and to just shrug this off in the name of the value of a choice that only some children are able to take advantage of is as clear a sign as any that the indifference of the market has no place in the provision and guarantee of a proper education.
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I really don't know what kind of cities you guys live in. I could literally walk to about 5 different schools near my house. In either case, if there was an actual market for education, you would not have a shortage. Wherever a demand exists, someone is going to seek to meet that demand, people aren't going to turn away government money. There will almost certainly be MORE schools and more options, and smaller class sizes if a voucher system were implemented. And that is because it would eliminate the primary barrier to entry into the market, the monopolized public school system.
If students leave a bad school, then the school has less students to cater for. This means they have LOWER COSTS as well. So the less funding is offset by lower costs. The only possible way for a school to "fail" in this scenario is if so many students leave that they can't even pay their overhead. If that is the case, it truly must be a terrible school. So what happens to the students in that scenario? The idea that can't go anywhere else is absurd... We could fucking BUS them if we have to, we already do! And in any case, someone will come in to meet the demand. It's simply a business opportunity, the money is with the children and parents themselves, which gives them the control and the power and the leverage.
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Why do you think that in most states it is illegal for children to not go to school? Whose authority is trumped in this situation in favor of adequate education provision?
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Luckily, I highly doubt that it will go anywhere. As I see it, this plan is a Republican attempt at looking reasonable in the face of the "cliff", hoping that Obama will cave in. He better not.
I went ahead and updated the OP, and stole yo link 
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
basic problem with the vouchers can lead to more progressive resource distribution argument is that this can be done without vouchers, by giving more resources to schools with low income students etc. and without the adverse effect of depriving bad schools of quality students that it needs to stay afloat.
voucher advocates tend to assume school and teachers are the only problem, and because of this, school quality is set in stone as long as teachers etc do not change. the students are assumed to be only consumers of this stationary good. this is ignoring the huge positive feedback effect of good students as an asset. student culture is very important because it is self reinforcing. good students together will lead to better students, bad students together leads to even worse students. when you take away the good students from a given school system, it is quite a bit of resources being lost that's not accounted for in the voucher dynamic.
i'm not hating on school choice. it is just that choice can sometimes lead to bad effects. to get more technical, it is a matching problem with a ranking system that ignores its own dynamic effect upon itself. it also could lead to overdemand on the perceived "good" schools depending on how selective a school is and how much it 'costs' to apply to a school.
a relative rather than absolute measure of "good" schools is encouraged by a voucher system. it is also not very effective at indicating true quality of education, leads to overdemand on hte high end and underdemand on the low end. So, when you are trying to smooth inequality in education, this is what you do not want to see. a more responsible approach, which also requires more work, is to do more early childhood intervention stuff and bring good culture to bad schools. this is the exact opposite effect a simple voucher system will produce.
a positive effect of vouchers is to encourage administration and teachers to work harder etc. this is pretty important, but idk if the options on the table right now are the best ones.
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Boehner is officially in the process of being excommunicated from the Republican party lol. He won't win his reelection without hardline conservatives, and I'm on the lookout for a strong Democratic contender in 2014. Even Mitch McConnell is immensely unpopular in his home state of Kentucky, and guess which presidential candidate Eric Cantor's state gave their electoral votes? Not looking good for GOP legislative leadership in any case.
Edited for accuracy.
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On December 21 2012 12:50 farvacola wrote:Boehner is officially in the process of being excommunicated from the Republican party lol. He won't win his reelection without hardline conservatives, and I'm on the lookout for a strong Democratic contender in 2014. Even Mitch McConnell is immensely unpopular in his home state of Tennessee, and guess which presidential candidate Eric Cantor's state gave their electoral votes? Not looking good for GOP legislative leadership in any case.
Boehner isnt in a competitive district so thats probably not going to happen. McConnell is a more interesting one though because he almost lost re-election last time he was up and he is probably very likely to be primaried which could force an open battle for the seat or him to go really really hard right and risk losing it anyway.
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On December 21 2012 13:52 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 12:50 farvacola wrote:Boehner is officially in the process of being excommunicated from the Republican party lol. He won't win his reelection without hardline conservatives, and I'm on the lookout for a strong Democratic contender in 2014. Even Mitch McConnell is immensely unpopular in his home state of Tennessee, and guess which presidential candidate Eric Cantor's state gave their electoral votes? Not looking good for GOP legislative leadership in any case. Boehner isnt in a competitive district so thats probably not going to happen. McConnell is a more interesting one though because he almost lost re-election last time he was up and he is probably very likely to be primaried which could force an open battle for the seat or him to go really really hard right and risk losing it anyway.
Yeah, that's just a bit of my Ohio grassroots optimism . Boehner will likely remain in Congress for at least a while longer, but his clout will soon be totally shot.
Edit: The last round of Republican gerrymandering in Ohio was truly a thing to behold, that much is true.
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On December 21 2012 13:57 farvacola wrote:
Edit: The last round of Republican gerrymandering in Ohio was truly a thing to behold, that much is true.
you should go look at a map of texas some time t.t
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United States13896 Posts
On December 21 2012 12:50 farvacola wrote:Boehner is officially in the process of being excommunicated from the Republican party lol. He won't win his reelection without hardline conservatives, and I'm on the lookout for a strong Democratic contender in 2014. Even Mitch McConnell is immensely unpopular in his home state of Tennessee, and guess which presidential candidate Eric Cantor's state gave their electoral votes? Not looking good for GOP legislative leadership in any case.
Mitch McConnell is a Kentucky Senator who was born in Alabama. He isn't terribly popular though, you've got that one part right at least.
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EPT
