Clinton helped facilitate a lot of the deregulation that made Wall St crash and precipitated our long national nightmare and our jobless recovery. Im not sure if he's the best. he certainly has/had his good points, but he wasn't some great president.

people who hate homos are dying off, literally. it will be akin to hating black people in a few years. having that as the head of your party is going to be an automatic loser.

mozartpc27 wrote:I don't know that this is wrong.

oh, it's wrong, all right.

Unless you're measuring your cycles in, like, 200 year increments

In part, it's wrong because incumbency brings advantages. I think the idea that it's tough for a party to hold the White House for more than three consecutive terms has much to do with the out party moving towards the center while it's out of power.

I've long held that what you're seeing with the Republicans now has some similarities with the Dems in the late 60s-early 70s. (Lots of important differences too of course.) The Dems were sharply divided (over the war and hippies) and lost to a pretty crappy candidate in Richard Nixon. Ted Cruz could be the Reps McGovern, and Hillary cold be the Dems Nixon. Maybe Christie is the R's Carter.

pacino wrote:Clinton helped facilitate a lot of the deregulation that made Wall St crash and precipitated our long national nightmare and our jobless recovery. Im not sure if he's the best. he certainly has/had his good points, but he wasn't some great president.

I said Bill Clinton was the best politician - not President - of my lifetime.

people who hate homos are dying off, literally. it will be akin to hating black people in a few years.

The word choice and the reality of continuing racial prejudice make these an odd couple of sentences right here.

TenuredVulture wrote:Maybe Christie is the R's Carter.

Christie would be a better politician than Carter even if you lobotomized him.

mozartpc27 wrote:

pacino wrote:Clinton helped facilitate a lot of the deregulation that made Wall St crash and precipitated our long national nightmare and our jobless recovery. Im not sure if he's the best. he certainly has/had his good points, but he wasn't some great president.

I said Bill Clinton was the best politician - not President - of my lifetime.

people who hate homos are dying off, literally. it will be akin to hating black people in a few years.

The word choice and the reality of continuing racial prejudice make these an odd couple of sentences right here.

the word choice is purposeful to highlight the abrasiveness of the bigot's views. people may be able to raise money off this or that or do it on a statewide or hyper-local basis, but it wont be a national winning strategy. it's not even now.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Maybe Christie is the R's Carter.

Christie would be a better politician than Carter even if you lobotomized him.

Carter's 76 campaign (especially his primary) was pretty solid. His presidency, less so.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Maybe Christie is the R's Carter.

Christie would be a better politician than Carter even if you lobotomized him.

you're young, and also in this case incorrect

pacino wrote:Clinton helped facilitate a lot of the deregulation that made Wall St crash and precipitated our long national nightmare and our jobless recovery.

If you're primarily referring to the Gramm–Leach–Bliley "Financial Services Modernization Act" that repealed much of Glass-Steagall, that was veto proof (362-57 and 90-8). While Clinton did sign it instead of a symbolic veto, he did fight to keep some of the restrictions (like those against minority lending discrimination, etc.) Gramm–Leach–Bliley originally was to repeal.


(BTW, don't ever type it as "glass steagles" because you'll never be able to unsee that)

-- Obama is speaking about Iran and the possible government shutdown right now

-- NJ voted to allow gay marriage

BigEd76 wrote:-- NJ voted to allow gay marriage

Not voted, just one lower court judge. It will go to the state Supreme Court.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I really, really, hope the Republicans nominate Cruz for Pres. He'd struggle to reach 40% of the popular vote.

I believe there are some folks in the Republican Party who have made the calculation that, in a rigid two party system like this one, you can get an ideologically pure candidate elected: all you have to do is wait. They haven't really done this yet, but imagine the Republican Party just kept nominating for President small government originalists who hate abortion, illegal immigration, and homosexuality. Eventually there would be a cycle when enough of the people would be sick of the in party either to fail to show up at all or to vote for the other guys. And when that finally happens, then they get their guy in, on his terms.

I don't know that this is wrong.

I suspect what's going to happen long before that is some centrist billionaire either winning the presidency and/or bankrolling a movement that will upend everything by a congressional takeover. It's so clear that our consensus-driven system and our conflict-driven politics are hopelessly incompatible... as could be entirely evident, with truly awful consequences, within the next few weeks/months.

Bill Clinton turned out to be the best politician of my lifetime, but how good did he have to be to beat the terrible George Bush in 1992, under the circumstances that presented themselves? Could a much more stridently liberal person have won if Democrats hadn't blinked after 12 years of Reagan/Bush?

I think yes.

I disagree. Bush had his issues, but the underlying economic circumstances probably were worse last year than they were in '92, and the incumbent still won. Were Romney the politician Clinton was, I bet it would have gone differently. Clinton's perceived centrism and his clear charisma and policy chops really mattered, as did his tactical brilliance. A Jesse Jackson or Jerry Brown or Tom Harkin wouldn't have beaten Bush.

UN voted unanimously tonight to require Syria to eliminate its chemical weapons. Automatic use of force wasn't approved yet

dajafi wrote:
I disagree. Bush had his issues, but the underlying economic circumstances probably were worse last year than they were in '92, and the incumbent still won. Were Romney the politician Clinton was, I bet it would have gone differently. Clinton's perceived centrism and his clear charisma and policy chops really mattered, as did his tactical brilliance. A Jesse Jackson or Jerry Brown or Tom Harkin wouldn't have beaten Bush.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends. By many measures, the economy and the international situation in 2012 was far better than in 2008. Certain, the Dow during Obama's first term did exceptionally well. Overall, the economy in 2012 wasn't great, but things were substantially better in 2012 than in 2008. And the poli sci models tell us that's what matters. Obviously, there isn't much data to really draw strong inferences, but still--2012 isn't such an outlier.

It sort of blows my mind that the same-sex marriage issue is still ongoing but it also took this country 70 years or so of fighting to give women the right to vote, so I guess morons still be moronin'.

TenuredVulture wrote:In part, it's wrong because incumbency brings advantages. I think the idea that it's tough for a party to hold the White House for more than three consecutive terms has much to do with the out party moving towards the center while it's out of power.

Certainly this has been the pattern - happened here in 1992 when Clinton won, and arguably again in 1994 when Clinton swung heavily to the right following the mid-term smackdown the Dems received. Over in Merry Old, Tony Blair "New Labour" is tye quintessential example of this phenomenon. Even Nixon really presented himself as quite the moderate to win back the WH from the Dems in 68 (and in many ways actually was quite moderate).

But I think a mounting number of Republicans (albeit not the ones with real connections or $$$$) are questioning whether this is the NECESSARY pattern. At a certain point, people will be fed up with the party in power. This happens all the time. The CW at that point is that the out party simply needs to nominate an "acceptable" - I.e., not crazy - alternative. This is supposedly what Reagan proved in his debate with Carter, for example.

But in a rigid 2 party system, is that even strictly necessary? Granted, the gay marriage thing they might need to give up on, at least publicly. But bashing immigrants and railing about moral decay has won a lot of elections. And I can't imagine fears of someone's orthodoxy on the issues of small government and constitutional originalism would stop anyone, as most voters really aren't too deeply familiar with what either of those things really mean, or what their consequences would be.

The right candidate (I.e., not Ted Cruz) in the right year against the right opponent could win on the hardright Republican agenda, sans the gay bashing.

I certainly won't say it will never happen. But the far right is certifiable. They're true believers--no evidence you present them that contradicts their beliefs either about ideology or winning elections will persuade them. I don't think they're actually playing the game you describe--keep nominating extremists, and eventually they'll win one Jacksonville Jaguars style. Rather, they believe that all they need is the right salesman, and the right salesman will be an unapologetic extremist.

In many ways, their psychology is similar to the old unrepentant communists who managed to convince themselves that the Hitler-Stalin pact and Soviet totalitarianism were all part of the inevitableness of history and would be justified by triumph of communism.

Just look at the reaction on Fox to the news that Ohio had gone to Obama. They were truly and sincerely surprised. Their universe would admit no evidence to the contrary. They in fact believe that voter fraud was what won it for Obama. It's a mindset that places ideology over experience and evidence.

dick morris STILL believes that romney won ohio

Also, I'm not sure ordinary incentives work with such people--maybe they're not serious, but you've got a bunch of people claiming to be so principled that they're signing pledges to not participate in obamacare, even if they would benefit from it. In other words, they're by definition irrational. So, losing elections probably doesn't matter much either.

Bucky wrote:dick morris STILL believes that romney won ohio

Because of how the state is Democratically controlled at the gubernatorial and legislature level?

Oh wait...