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On February 20 2014 06:29 Nyxisto wrote:
Romney lost because he came off as a scumbag billionaire not a single person on this planet could identify with. It wasn't about his political stance. The problem with the GOP from my point of view is that they basically have departed from reality on several topics.
The majority of people are not going to vote for homophobic, science denying nut-bags. Given the fact that the Republicans historically started out as a progressive anti-slavery party that wanted to modernize the economy and are now sitting in the opposite corner is really ridiculous.
I think the GOP needs to throw away all of the social conservative stuff, take a grassroots approach on politics and economics, and depart from the bible belt nonsense.
60 million people voted for Romney
65 millon voted for Obama.
Give me about 500,000 votes to flip in 4 or 5 states and you can get President Romney pretty easily. IIRC NC and IN were dead even. So those would take 20,000 to swing. I'm seeing if I can find a spreadsheet so I can do the electoral vote math.
Edit...yeah.. subtract 60k votes from Obama, and +60k votes for Romney in VA FL OH IA CO and then throw some votes and any one of a couple smaller states and Romeny gets over 270 electoral votes.
So we are talking about 500,000 people switching sides in a pool of 125 million voters.
(And the NC/IN was the 2008 election I was thinking of).
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On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election.
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On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election.
I don't know what you mean by "progressive" in that context. They certainly were forward moving, away from slavery, etc. But now "progressive" has a particular meaning. And yes, the democrats held the monopoly on the south after Reconstruction.
I think your description is what needs to be fought, and this is why the Republicans suck. With all the cronyism, your stance seems true. But that's not the conservative position, which is why there is this "civil war" in the party. You can win when you get someone who can actually explain principles. I refuse to believe that this country is so far gone that the only way to win is to promise more food stamps.
You are making my point in way, but you seem to operating under the idea that the Republican party IS conservative, which it is not.
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On February 20 2014 05:48 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 05:21 aksfjh wrote:On February 20 2014 05:14 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 04:59 aksfjh wrote:
If those debt levels end up simply being a burden on the population without any of the economic trickle effects (unlike what happens with home purchases), it's definitely a bad sign. Oh yes, good ol' trickle - down economics. That worked out so well over the last two decades, oh wait except for the part where it totally didn't: + Show Spoiler + Probably just a language mix up here. I meant in terms of economic multipliers. When somebody buys a home, so much of the money goes right back into the "normal" economy, through workers and suppliers, where it quickly becomes consumption spending. Not much of it gets put into a retirement or "investment" account, or is moved overseas. Sure money never vanishes, but that's really not the point. You can take thousand bucks from every middle class worker and give it a CEO's rich kid to buy candy, someone will put the money back into the economy but that's not really an argument, that's just a given. There's just so much wrong with the student loan system. It's probably a bubble because the amount of debt is so large that at some point probably a lot of it has to be written off, which in the end will mean tax payers are going to save broke creditors. It's also a giant redistribution from bottom to top and people who drop out are seriously screwed. Also education isn't a tangible asset like a house. If you take a loan and buy a house you have a house you can sell. It's not so easy or guaranteed that you can turn your education into profit when you need the money.
The student loan system isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good. Some of the laws were changed a while back to make it harder to default, which is partly the reason why debt levels have gone up (less write offs, more cumulative debt). The other big part being students not finding work and so having their debt persist and compound. I don't think it's redistributes from the bottom to the top, at least no more than a European system that relies on taxes and spending.
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On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election.
The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic 
Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up.
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On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up.
Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking!
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On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up.
what happened to those liberal elitists who are condescending to those less educated (conservatives)? Or is that talking point out of fashion, because I used to hear it a lot. Conservatives are most often proud of their ignorance because they think knowledge is bad or that it'll corrupt them or something. "You have to be rich to afford liberal policies" is another one you'd hear
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Man straight up fuck Wendy Davis. Her campaign ad lies blatantly and she clearly has a character that is dubious at best. In one ad, she lies about her mother's level of education, the age at which she divorced her first husband, and how she paid for college. I also think it's pretty shitty that she left her kids and took her 2nd husband's money to pay for school until it was paid off, at which point she promptly divorced him. I only hope that Texas has enough sense to avoid her.
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What I basically want to say is that there is a very huge group of 'ordinary people' that are part of an eroding working class that have not benefited from the economical changes of the last few decades. The democrats seem like a good party for well educated academics and the Republicans seem to be a great choice for an oil tycoon.
But there's an insanely large group of people that have basically fallen off the political grid. Only 58% percent of people who could have voted in the last presidential election actually did. I don't know why people are obsessing over some swing states when there is a giant group of people that's not even voting for anyone.
Problem is these people are not going to vote for stupid laissez - faire policies or supply side economics that are going to hurt them even more, so if the GOP wants to win over some of these people they'd probably have to over-think their ideological position.
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On February 20 2014 07:16 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. what happened to those liberal elitists who are condescending to those less educated (conservatives)? Or is that talking point out of fashion, because I used to hear it a lot. Conservatives are most often proud of their ignorance because they think knowledge is bad or that it'll corrupt them or something. "You have to be rich to afford liberal policies" is another one you'd hear
Conservatives do tend to not like straight up academics, that's true. But people with a college degree tend to slightly vote Republican and those with only a HS degree or less tend to vote Democrat.
"proud of their ignorance"? I think you're just getting into partisan slander here. I'd be like me citing the Obamaphone lady..
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On February 20 2014 07:14 darthfoley wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking!
"wealthy" being 50K and up...
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They came out about even for the educated crowd in an election they lost. GOP tends to do well with education until post-grad. Not sure why, maybe a post grad bias towards government employment?
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On February 20 2014 08:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:They came out about even for the educated crowd in an election they lost. GOP tends to do well with education until post-grad. Not sure why, maybe a post grad bias towards government employment?
I'd personally argue that people who pursue an academic career are really turned off by the way the GOP handles topics that are 'scientific consensus'. For people that just go to college to get a good job that's probably not that much of an issue.
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On February 20 2014 07:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 07:14 darthfoley wrote:On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking! "wealthy" being 50K and up...
Sounds quite a lot to me, what percentile are we talking about ?
Also I have quite a few hunch for the postgrad stuff, different reason for pursuing stuidies might result in different carriers for instance.
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On February 20 2014 07:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 07:14 darthfoley wrote:On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking! "wealthy" being 50K and up...
$50k per year doesn't really buy you shit unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
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On February 20 2014 08:37 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 07:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 07:14 darthfoley wrote:On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking! "wealthy" being 50K and up... $50k per year doesn't really buy you shit unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
Depends if you mean household (2 people contributing to 50k) or a single person. Til you specify you're having very different conversations.
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On February 20 2014 08:49 Trumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 08:37 xDaunt wrote:On February 20 2014 07:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 07:14 darthfoley wrote:On February 20 2014 07:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 20 2014 06:47 Nyxisto wrote:On February 20 2014 06:38 Introvert wrote:
They are no longer anti-slavery? Do you even read what you write?
I guess not supporting massive, taxpayer funded green projects=opposing a modern economy?
You misunderstood me. The GOP started out as progressive party that had little foothold in the south, and today it's the other way around. The two main demographics of the GOP are socially conservatives with little education and well situated white males that have economical interest in tax breaks and less regulation. But these two groups are not going to win you a federal election. The GOP does well with older, wealthier and better educated voters. That's a pretty good demographic Edit: Wealthier meaning middle class and up. Hmmm... you're saying the majority of wealthy people support a party that bends over for them? Shocking! "wealthy" being 50K and up... $50k per year doesn't really buy you shit unless you live in the middle of nowhere. Depends if you mean household (2 people contributing to 50k) or a single person. Til you specify you're having very different conversations.
Even if it's for a single person, it's frightening how little that it buys you.
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what are you precluded from for 50k as a single person in us?
sounds like a good income with your cheap prices and low taxes.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/compensation_and_corporate_profits.png)
