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The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

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Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Handyman said:
Not to mention, he had the Xtians believing he was a godfearing bible thumper despite being a coked out partier. The man could play the game...
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None of that was him. It was all turd blossom.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Kepler said:
None of that was him. It was all turd blossom.
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While that is true, Rubio has none of that. Rubio is a darker skinned Scott Walker who is a bit less of a mouth breather. He will get trounced.
 
Kepler said:
None of it matters of we don't capture state legs. I wish we had non-partisan district drawing in every state, but in the short term at least it's foolish to pin all our hopes on what is a very slow, politically vicious, trudge through blood and quicksand.

Here is the composition of current legs.

Here are the 2016 swing states:

NV: straight R
CO: Split, D adv
IA: Split, R adv
OH: Straight R
VA: Split, no adv
FL: Straight R
NH: Split, no adv

Bad news for the good guys. Overall it's even worse. In state legs, R controls 30, D controls 11, the rest are split. That's a huge systemic advantage for the bad guys when it comes time to draw districts, and it results in stuff like the Democrats having a one million vote advantage in Congressional elections in 2014 and still being a voiceless minority in the House. Likewise R has 31 governorships, and we've seen how that is shortening the Dem bench both for president and also Senate races.
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In fairness, lots of states have only 1-2 seats, so it's tough to gerrymander any of those. Who cares if the Wyomings of the world are deep red?
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

unofan said:
In fairness, lots of states have only 1-2 seats, so it's tough to gerrymander any of those. Who cares if the Wyomings of the world are deep red?
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A couple of follow up points:

1) I completely agree that Dems need to do a better job on a statewide level in several places. In certain states I don't think there's a structural problem and would expect a bounceback. Remember how Tim Pawlenty was supposed to turn Minny red after his two terms? So, states like WI, MI, NV I'd expect to bounce back. I share the concern about a place like Florida where the state party seems atrocious and has been for years, no small wonder given that it yielded the world Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

2) Having said that, my proposal (well, I didn't come up with it) eliminates the wait for a 10 year state legislature reclamation project to bear fruit. Already states like CA, AZ, IA have independent commissions. The easiest way to get more is a ballot initiative. Lets get that done, pronto.

3) Lastly to uno's point, we're not talking that many states. One, two and even 3 district states really don't lend themselves to too much mischief. ME, NH, VT, RI, DE, ND, SD, KS, NE, MT, WY, ID, HI, NM, AK, WVA = 16 states where this is irrelevant. Of the remaining states AZ, CA, IA, NJ and WA have an independent process to some extent. In addition Florida has a law that incumbent protection can't factor into drawing the lines. So, lets pick and choose our battles (and in fairness Goopers should be pushing for this in Illinois). Really you're after 5 states (PA, WI, MI, OH, VA) to start with.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Rover said:
A couple of follow up points:

1) ...Remember how Tim Pawlenty was supposed to turn Minny red after his two terms?
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It wasn't just T-Paw that was influencing that idea within Minnesota. At that point, we'd had two terms of Arnie Carlson (R), then Jesse "The Governor" Ventura (I), and then Tim Pawlenty for two terms. By the end of Pawlenty's second term, it had been twenty years since our last DFL governor - Rudy Perpich.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Rover said:
A couple of follow up points:

1) I completely agree that Dems need to do a better job on a statewide level in several places. In certain states I don't think there's a structural problem and would expect a bounceback. Remember how Tim Pawlenty was supposed to turn Minny red after his two terms? So, states like WI, MI, NV I'd expect to bounce back. I share the concern about a place like Florida where the state party seems atrocious and has been for years, no small wonder given that it yielded the world Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

2) Having said that, my proposal (well, I didn't come up with it) eliminates the wait for a 10 year state legislature reclamation project to bear fruit. Already states like CA, AZ, IA have independent commissions. The easiest way to get more is a ballot initiative. Lets get that done, pronto.

3) Lastly to uno's point, we're not talking that many states. One, two and even 3 district states really don't lend themselves to too much mischief. ME, NH, VT, RI, DE, ND, SD, KS, NE, MT, WY, ID, HI, NM, AK, WVA = 16 states where this is irrelevant. Of the remaining states AZ, CA, IA, NJ and WA have an independent process to some extent. In addition Florida has a law that incumbent protection can't factor into drawing the lines. So, lets pick and choose our battles (and in fairness Goopers should be pushing for this in Illinois). Really you're after 5 states (PA, WI, MI, OH, VA) to start with.
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All good points.

Speaking of dirty tricks, whatever happened to that GOP scam where they were trying to get Dem stronghold states to go to proportional representation of EV while keeping their red states as winner-take-all?
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

St. Clown said:
It wasn't just T-Paw that was influencing that idea within Minnesota. At that point, we'd had two terms of Arnie Carlson (R), then Jesse "The Governor" Ventura (I), and then Tim Pawlenty for two terms. By the end of Pawlenty's second term, it had been twenty years since our last DFL governor - Rudy Perpich.
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Yeah, but tell the rest of the story. How the GOP had gotten elected and controlled both houses and they used their entire political capital on trying to get an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. It failed. If I remember right there was one other social issue that year as well and it also failed.

Then they lost their majorities.

Same thing the clowns are pulling in Washington.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

ScoobyDoo said:
Yeah, but tell the rest of the story. How the GOP had gotten elected and controlled both houses and they used their entire political capital on trying to get an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. It failed. If I remember right there was one other social issue that year as well and it also failed.

Then they lost their majorities.

Same thing the clowns are pulling in Washington.
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The state house and senate Republicans pushed their agendas after Pawlenty's second term ended, early into Dayton's first term in office. The two items were banning same-sex marriage and creating a voter ID law. Both items failed, the SSM issue went down hard while the voter ID issue was pretty close, IIRC. Still, that caused the Republicans to lose their opposition power and, I believe, secured Dayton his second term in office.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

St. Clown said:
The state house and senate Republicans pushed their agendas after Pawlenty's second term ended, early into Dayton's first term in office. The two items were banning same-sex marriage and creating a voter ID law. Both items failed, the SSM issue went down hard while the voter ID issue was pretty close, IIRC. Still, that caused the Republicans to lose their opposition power and, I believe, secured Dayton his second term in office.
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So, to continue the discussion. When Republicans gain power they never really work on the fiscal issues at all. They work on what gets them elected. Which is the 20% minority that pushes social agenda issues like Voter ID and Gay Marriage.

And this doesn't just happen in Minnesota. Voter ID issues are on ballots all over the country. And the amount of Abortion legislation that's worked on and passed by GOP Houses across the country is staggering.

This is why they have lost the popular vote 5 out of the last 6 Presidential elections. If it wasn't for Gerry Mandering they may not have any power at all.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

ScoobyDoo said:
This is why they have lost the popular vote 5 out of the last 6 Presidential elections. If it wasn't for Gerry Mandering they may not have any power at all.
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Even when the chickens come home to roost the Republicans will still have solid stretches of the deep south and the prairies amounting to 15 - 20 states which they will effectively never lose. They will dominate those state legs, send their idiots to Congress, and churn up the same social bitterness even as they evaporate. Televangelists never go hungry -- there are always rubes to fleece.

(* I'm only counting up to about 2060. After that y'all are on your own).
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

St. Clown said:
A squirrel with large nuts?
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Goddamit. I need to learn about posting images from Fark. Hmm.

It's supposed to be an animated GIF of the end of Michigan/MSU, without Gowdy's face over the Michigan punter and Clinton's over the MSU player. Yeah, it doesn't translate as well into words.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Go to Fark.com first. Then copy the URL into the address bar. The referring page has to come from within the fark.com domain.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

St. Clown said:
It wasn't just T-Paw that was influencing that idea within Minnesota. At that point, we'd had two terms of Arnie Carlson (R), then Jesse "The Governor" Ventura (I), and then Tim Pawlenty for two terms. By the end of Pawlenty's second term, it had been twenty years since our last DFL governor - Rudy Perpich.
Click to expand...

Arne was a small 'r' and Jesse was no big friend to the conservative base.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Shared not because of the article, but because of the headline.

http://gawker.com/house-gop-now-an-ouroboros-with-the-snakes-butt-eating-1738611285

It really is a perfect headline. The article is a rehash of a lot of other articles on how the GOP is black-holing itself, but might still be worth a read. It's a more gawker-like take on it which makes it interesting.

But yes, the headline is close to perfection.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

If Boehner pulls this off Ryan should remain on-call to orally pleasure him for the rest of his life as needed.

OTOH, the lizard brains will probably lace his scotch with strychnine before the week is out.
 
Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Kepler said:
If Boehner pulls this off Ryan should remain on-call to orally pleasure him for the rest of his life as needed.

OTOH, the lizard brains will probably lace his scotch with strychnine before the week is out.
Click to expand...

Boner is doing the weasel a big favor, although you have to think he made a deal with Ryan beforehand in order to get him to take the job.
 
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