Four more years!

Four more years and the democrats hold the line in the senate, what went wrong for the G.O.P?

They ignored about 50% of the voting public and it will only be worse in 4 more years if they don't figure out that their social policies are out of step with the new realities of the electorates.

Not being a US citizen I probably shouldn't comment but, most other western democracies have polled about 80% support for Obama and I for one am pleased by the result.
Now every modern democracy will have universal health care, and we all have a reduced chance of war compared to having a Republican President.
On analysis Obama is politically equivalent to our conservative party, and the Republicans are well away to the right of most parties in equivalent countries. When we outsiders read the jibes about Democrats being socialists we find it comical.
Good luck for the next four years.

Daryl wrote:Not being a US citizen I probably shouldn't comment but, most other western democracies have polled about 80% support for Obama and I for one am pleased by the result.
Now every modern democracy will have universal health care, and we all have a reduced chance of war compared to having a Republican President.
On analysis Obama is politically equivalent to our conservative party, and the Republicans are well away to the right of most parties in equivalent countries. When we outsiders read the jibes about Democrats being socialists we find it comical.
Good luck for the next four years.

Agreed on that right wing thing. One political commentator in NZ here noted that even though he is a left winger in the states, Obama and most of the democrats are still very right wing for most other countries, While the G.O.P screamed about the left wing being the death of America. Hang on a mo, you are just picking between far right, and moderately far right. I think most G.O.P members would have heart attacks if they saw how far to the left of them some political parties are that still call them selves conservatives..... NZ's current government is right wing for us, but still far to the left of the democrats. its probably the same for most western countries at the moment.


And an interesting thing to note, is that one economist noted that presidents who lasted two terms always had the economy and government function better under them on average then multiple presidents with one term or one with one term sandwiched between two two termers. he noted this was because there was less turnover due to politics, and less program chopping and changing from a desire to have the previous presidents projects not go well while supporting their own. So this re election of Obama is good bot just for his own side, but for the 2016 president and the 2016 America as well.



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its not paranoia if its justified....
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I almost agree with you here.

Except personal responsibility took a major hit.

Major storm coming, "I don't need to go fill up the gas tank in my car or fill water containers, the government will come and save me", and so forth. No one needs to help your neighbor that's the government's job.

No I don't feel these are a good things. But it is what our masses seem to want.

Spend money you don't have because who cares about the future.

Funny thing is when you owe the "man" money you are working for him not yourself.

We get to enjoy the "benefits" of our decisions even if we haven't made the decision. Or agreed with it.

Oh well,
T2M

Daryl wrote:Not being a US citizen I probably shouldn't comment but, most other western democracies have polled about 80% support for Obama and I for one am pleased by the result.
Now every modern democracy will have universal health care, and we all have a reduced chance of war compared to having a Republican President.
On analysis Obama is politically equivalent to our conservative party, and the Republicans are well away to the right of most parties in equivalent countries. When we outsiders read the jibes about Democrats being socialists we find it comical.
Good luck for the next four years.

Alistair wrote:Four more years and the democrats hold the line in the senate, what went wrong for the G.O.P?

Several things. First is that they deliberately alienated the Latino community with their stand on "illegal immigration." I live in the US state of New Mexico, and that's not a small thing given the changing demographics of the US. Obama deliberately courted them with attempts (shot down by the Republican-dominated House for the most part) at immigration reform.

Second, the voter suppression efforts really backfired with the African-American and Latino communities. You don't think that the scenes of lines at the polls for hours after they were supposed to close were accidental? In heavily Republican areas there were lots of polling stations, no lines and they closed on time. In heavily Democratic areas there were few stations, long lines and they couldn't close for hours, delaying the reporting of results.

Finally, the really far-out right (Tea Party) managed to knock out moderate Republicans in the primaries in favor of foaming-at-the-mouth ideologs that even the Republicans couldn't stand. Two of the Republican candidates for the Senate committed political suicide by saying what they really felt on hot topics like the right to abortion.

Summary: the Republican base is heavily weighted to older, white and male. Demographic changes are against them.

KNick wrote:They ignored about 50% of the voting public and it will only be worse in 4 more years if they don't figure out that their social policies are out of step with the new realities of the electorates.

So if the Republicans had won, they wouldn't have ignored (the other) 50% of the voting public?

They had a chance of winning (a very good chance) if they had simply realized that their policies were alienating the very people they supposedly courting. People like me, older white male, who was turned off by their message to the point of voting Dem just to shut them up. I think Romney might have done a better job on the economy but his social stances scare the hell out of me. On that front his policies make very little sense to me.

As the electorate averages younger and younger, the Rep. platform will get further and further from what the people will accept.

Exactly! "(the other) 50%" was the half that
the Republicans were paying attention to!
(Except that they were only 49%.)

Pointy-Headed Liberal Map-addict

clancy688 wrote:below

KNick wrote:They ignored about 50% of the voting public and it
will only be worse in 4 more years if they don't
figure out that their social policies are out of
step with the new realities of the electorates.

Clancy688 replied:
So if the Republicans had won, they wouldn't have
ignored (the other) 50% of the voting public?

[quote="JohnRoth]
Several things. First is that they deliberately alienated the Latino community with their stand on "illegal immigration." I live in the US state of New Mexico, and that's not a small thing given the changing demographics of the US. Obama deliberately courted them with attempts (shot down by the Republican-dominated House for the most part) at immigration reform.[/quote]

So, the Latino community and Democrat party is all for illigal immigration, even at the loss of jobs for Americans?

Second, the voter suppression efforts really backfired with the African-American and Latino communities. You don't think that the scenes of lines at the polls for hours after they were supposed to close were accidental? In heavily Republican areas there were lots of polling stations, no lines and they closed on time. In heavily Democratic areas there were few stations, long lines and they couldn't close for hours, delaying the reporting of results.

What are you talking about. There were issues with lines in Northern Virginia suburbs, not exactly overwhelming non-White communities.

Finally, the really far-out right (Tea Party) managed to knock out moderate Republicans in the primaries in favor of foaming-at-the-mouth ideologs that even the Republicans couldn't stand. Two of the Republican candidates for the Senate committed political suicide by saying what they really felt on hot topics like the right to abortion.

The House didn't see any real movement. Granted, there are still twelve seats that haven't been decided yet, so those twelve could all go Democrat, but it still leaves Republicians with 232 seats, with 218 needed for control of the House.

Summary: the Republican base is heavily weighted to older, white and male. Demographic changes are against them.

No, the Democratic party is heavily weighted to the nanny state, see Europe.