Elections in USA.

[SirJosephPorter]

I am surprised nobody posted a thread about US elections last Tuesday, but here goes. It was a small election, only four states voted. And most of the elections were primaries (except one Congressional seat in Pennsylvania). However, there are a couple of election results, which do not portend well for Republicans in the November election.

The first is the Kentucky Republican primary. Normally it is an internal matter for the party and not worth commenting about. However, the antics of the other Kentucky Senator and Republican Senate leader McConnell were pathetic (and amusing) to say the least.

He strongly supported Grayson, Rand Paul’s’ opponent. Then when Paul won, McConnell couldn’t wait to endorse him, he ran as fast as he could to embrace Paul as the Republican nominee.

Until Paul opened his mouth, that is. Paul condemned Obama for criticizing BP for the oil spill. He strongly supported BP, spoke of BP in glowing terms for the efforts it was making to stem the oil spill. He admonished Obama to shut up and leave BP to plug up the leak as they see best.

He also expressed opposition to Civil Rights Act. He said the act was wrong to ban whites only businesses, segregated lunch counters, and if any private business wanted to exclude blacks, serve only whites, that was OK with Paul.

Now poor McConnell is trying to run away from Paul as fast as he can. But he is tethered to Paul; he can run away only so much, no matter how far he runs. He can run, but he can’t hide. Rand Paul promises to be a major embarrassment to Republicans in the November election.

The other election was one for the Pennsylvania’s Congressional seat. This is late John Murtha’s former seat. It is a socially conservative constituency, ideal Republican territory. Republicans had invested plenty of money and resources into the election. They were confident of victory.

Indeed, they were so confident, that they had already prepared the victory press release. Normally a party or a candidate prepares two press releases, one for victory and one for defeat. But Republicans were so confident of victory that they did not bother to prepare the release for defeat.

In the end, Republicans lost a safe, socially conservative seat. Democrats won. CNN was able to get hold of the victory release prepared by the Republican Party. It claimed the result was of national, monumental significance, that the Republican victory showed that Democratic Party was dead or dying, and Republican control of Senate and House in November was a done deal.

Instead, they issued a hastily crafted release, claiming that the election was of no national significance, that local issues were involved, and that they were confident of a victory in November.

But if Republicans cannot win in a strongly conservative district, where can they win? All the Republican sympathizers here who are drooling in anticipation, are licking their chops in anticipation of a Republican tsunami in November (comparable to the democratic tsunamis of 2006 and 2008 )may be in for a rude shock.

 

[DaSleeper]

And no mention of Obama reneging on his promise to help Arlen Specter ????


Good Spin

 

[SirJosephPorter]

And no mention of Obama reneging on his promise to help Arlen Specter ????


Good Spin

That is a primary and normally that is an internal matter for the party. The Republican primary in Kentucky was noteworthy because of the antics of both Rand Paul and of Senator McConnell.

Come November, McConnell will be forced to support Paul, he won't have any choice in the matter. Then his feet will be held to the fire, he will be asked repeatedly if he agrees with Paul that banning of whites only businesses, of segregated lunch counters was a bad idea, and whether he would support bringing them back as Paul would.

Kentucy primary was noteworthy because of a major embarrassment Republicans have created for themselves.

 

[Icarus27k]

Kentucky is an interesting state. The Democratic Party is the largest party there by far, but a great deal (perhaps a majority) of the Democrats are moderate to conservative. More so that the Dem Party nationally.

As such, the state wide elected officials are a mix of Dems and Repubs. The Gov, Lieutenant Gov, Attorney General, and two US Representatives are Dems, while 5 US Representatives and both US Senators are Repubs.

The last two US Senate elections (2004 and 2008) had the sitting Repub almost lose the seat to a Dem. Since the seat up for grabs this year is an open seat, and since the Repub candidate is Rand Paul, the Dem, Jack Conway, might win this.

I'm expecting a large voter turnout of liberal Dems in cities such as Louisville and Lexington, along with Dems everywhere else that vote party line.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Republicans were afraid that the incumbent senator, Bunning, may lose the election in November, that is why they persuaded him not to run again and that precipitated the primary.

Anyway, Paul also wants to abolish the Department of Agriculture, we will see how that goes down in Kentucky.

 

[YukonJack]

Regarding the recent elections in the States, primary or otherwise:

OBAMA is batting a big fat ZERO!

Anyone supported by Him came up snake eyes.

Could not happen to a nicer socialist. Especially one who supported a traitor turncoat like Benedict Arlen Spector.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Regarding the recent elections in the States, primary or otherwise:

OBAMA is batting a big fat ZERO!

Anyone supported by Him came up snake eyes.

Could not happen to a nicer socialist.

In case you are not aware, Obama did not run in the primaries. The only election which impacted Washington DC was the Congressional election in Pennsylvania, for John Murtha's seat. There Republicans managed to lose a socially conservative, Republican leaning district. And yes, the winner had Obama's support.

 

[YukonJack]

SirJosephPorter, in case you are not aware, Obama did the ultimate disfavour to at least four Democrats who came up snake eyes: He had the typical egotistical attitude that mistakenly assumed that His presence and support would guarantee a Democratic success.

Some little boys just refuse to grow up.

Obama did not run in any of the primaries. So, in a gracious gesture (something you would never know anything about) I agree with you. But his participation and His endorsement resulted in the correct and totally predictable conclusion.

 

[Icarus27k]

This line of anti-Obama attack doesn't make any sense. These were Democratic primaries. It's more chance in these sorts of elections about who the President of the same party supports. Usually, the President will support the incumbent of his party.

These primaries don't carry the same kind urgency as a general election, where a President has to go all out to make sure the candidate he supports wins.

The opinion you're expressing here is just, "I hate Obama", in so many words. Cause Arlen Specter losing in the PA Dem primary says noting negative about Obama.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

SirJosephPorter, in case you are not aware, Obama did the ultimate disfavour to at least four Democrats who came up snake eyes: He had the typical egotistical attitude that mistakenly assumed that His presence and support would guarantee a Democratic success.

Are you saying that four Democrats lost on Tuesday? If so that would be quite a feat, considering that there was only one real election on Tuesday, and a Democrat defeated a Republican in that election. And yes the victor definitely had Obama's support.

This line of anti-Obama attack doesn't make any sense. These were Democratic primaries. It's more chance in these sorts of elections about who the President of the same party supports. Usually, the President will support the incumbent of his party.

These primaries don't carry the same kind urgency as a general election, where a President has to go all out to make sure the candidate he supports wins.

The opinion you're expressing here is just, "I hate Obama", in so many words. Cause Arlen Specter losing in the PA Dem primary says noting negative about Obama.

Quite so, Icarus, primaries are mostly an internal matter for the party, others normally don’t comment on it. Kentucky primary was an exception.

And really, two Democrats run against each other, one wins. Where does Obama come in here, except he may have endorsed one of them? There are many reasons a candidate may win, Obama’s endorsement is only one factor, whether a plus or a minus.

Besides, where it counted, in John Murtha’s seat, Obama’s endorsement seems to have worked out pretty well. Republicans were confident of winning the socially conservative seat, they lost.

But conservatives will trash Obama for any reason (and without reason).

 

[YukonJack]

SirJosephPorter, unlike you, I look and see more than just what happened yesterday.

Obviously you forgot the rrecent REAL elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia.

 

[coldstream]

Rand Paul the Tea Party candidate who took the Republican nomination for Kentucky with his astonishingly stilted view of all government as a manifest evil shows just how shallow the party's platform is.

He has managed to alienate just about everybody in his first week as the nominee, deploring the Civil Rights Act, and incredibly telling Obama to get his foot off the throat of BP, the British Petroleum company whose mismanagement and lies have led to the biggest environmental catastrophe in America in 2 decades.

Left free of government interference and effective regulation BP has lied to the public about the extent of the oil spill, and its own culpability failing to take adequate precautions in sealing the drill hole, and has consistently tried to minimize its own role and cast blame on others.

If anything shows the necessity of effective government oversight it is this, and the Wall Street derivatives fiasco. The latter, which screams for regulation outlawing speculative and non transparent financial instruments, and re-instituting the Glass Steagall Act which separated Investment Banking and regular Commercial Banking is now held up and watered down to so much salt on a wound by Republicans under Tea Party, Libertarian influence.

On top of this a Tea Party official opposed the building of a Mosque near Ground Zero by characterising it as practicing the worship of monkees. When informed that Muslims do not worship monkees, he apologized to Hindus for getting the two mixed up. :roll:

With drooling fools like this, and with Sarah Palin as the brightest intellect in the movement, i'm quite sure they'll come to the same fate as the Bull Moose Party, McArthyism and other short lived American political enthusiasms. :smile:

 

[SirJosephPorter]

SirJosephPorter, unlike you, I look and see more than just what happened yesterday.

Obviously you forgot the rrecent REAL elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia.

We are talking about Tuesday's elections, YJ. No doubt we have discussed in detail the previous elections (and if you want to discuss them yet again, put up a separate thread).

We are discussing here what happened on Tuesday. And two election results on Tuesday, the one in Kentucky and the one in Pennsylvania, do not bode well for Republicans.

Rand Paul the Tea Party candidate who took the Republican nomination for Kentucky with his astonishingly stilted view of all government as a manifest evil shows just how shallow the tea party's platform is.

He has managed to alienate just about everybody in his first week as the nominee, deploring the Civil Rights Act, and incredibly telling Obama to get his foot off the throat of BP, the British Petroleum company whose mismanagement and lies have led to the biggest environmental catastrophe in America in 2 decades.

Left free of government, it has lied to the public about the extent of the oil spill, and its own culpability failing to take adequate precautions in sealing the drill hole, and has consistently tried to minimize its own role and cast blame on others.

On top of this a Tea Party of official opposed the building of a Mosque near Ground Zero by characterising it as practicing the worship of monkees. When informed that Muslims do not worship monkees, he apolagized to Hindus for getting the two mixed up. :roll:

With drooling fools like this, a with Sarah Palin as the brightest intellect in the movement, i'm quite sure they'll come to the same fate as the Bull Moose Party, McArthyism and other short lived American political enthusiasms.

The real loser out of Kentucky primary is Senator McConnell. Rand Paul has nothing to lose; at most he may lose the election in November. But McConnell has the unpleasant task of supporting Paul in November, and somehow try to gloss over his opposition to Civil Rights Act.

And if Paul wins the election in November, it is even worse. In fact, if Democrats are smart, they won’t campaign too hard against Paul, they would let him win and come to Washington Then they should try to make him the spokesman for the Republican Party. With his outspoken views and him not being hesitant to express them, it may be possible. He could become another Gingrich.

If he gets elected and becomes the face of Republican Party, McConnell is really sunk. That is why I think the real loser on Tuesday was McConnell. I don’t envy him his task of supporting Paul in November.

Anyway, if there were any who thought that Tea Party did not represent the right wing fringe in US politics, the views expressed by Rand Paul should remove any doubt.

 

[Icarus27k]

SirJosephPorter, unlike you, I look and see more than just what happened yesterday.

Obviously you forgot the rrecent REAL elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia.

Sure, Obama can be held responsible to a degree for the Dems losing those elections, but like all elections, those had their own circumstances.

It's a cop-out to say "We lost an election because we had a bad candidate", but in the case of the New Jersey governor's race it might actually be true. Background: Jon Corsize was the incumbent Dem governor running for relection, and he lost to a Repub. I certainly didn't like Corsize, and I'm a liberal Dem. I've only heard bad things about his tenure as Governor. In fact, if I lived in NJ, I would've voted for a third party. I don't think many Dems are weeping that he is gone.

In this thread, no one has mentioned the Arkansas race yet, which in some ways, was my favorite race of the night on Tuesday. The election is going to a run-off on June 8, and it's between incumbent Dem Senator Blanche Lincoln and challenger Bill Halter.

I think Halter was the best candidate running anywhere on Tuesday. At the same time, you have him potentially unseating one of the worst current US Senators.

 

[YukonJack]

SirJosephPorter, I am glad that you finally learned that the senior Senator from Kentucky is NOT MECCANO.

But the real loser is Benedict Arlen Specter, and by extention, his avid supporter, The Annointed One.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Sure, Obama can be held responsible to a degree for the Dems losing those elections, but like all elections, those had their own circumstances.

It's a cop-out to say "We lost an election because we had a bad candidate", but in the case of the New Jersey governor's race it might actually be true. Background: Jon Corsize was the incumbent Dem governor running for relection, and he lost to a Repub. I certainly didn't like Corsize, and I'm a liberal Dem. I've only heard bad things about his tenure as Governor. In fact, if I lived in NJ, I would've voted for a third party. I don't think many Dems are weeping that he is gone.

It is not only that, Icarus, but traditionally, the out of power party wins New Jersey and Virginia governorships, it is nothing new.

Thus when Clinton won in 1992, republicans pick up both governorships in 1993 and 1997. When Bush won in 2000, Democrats picked up both governorships in 2001 and 2005.

The out of power party traditionally pikes up these governorships, traditionally claims that the wins are a huge big deal, that it represents a shift in politics in their favor. The in power party invariably claims that the elections were governed by local factors, and not too much need be read into the results.

So what happened in New Jersey and Virginia is what has traditionally been happening for a long time now, it is not significant. It may or may not be significant, time will tell.

 

[YukonJack]

Another totally insignificant election result is Scott Brown, a Republican, who took the Senate seat held (or more correctly, bought) by the gratefully, but far too late departed Democratic beached whale.

Scott Brown's opponent was also fully and unconditionally supported by The Annointed One.

 

[The Old Medic]

Once again, people from outside the country, with nothing but 3rd hand knowledge, attempt to figure out what the PRIMARY election results actually mean.

These people don't realize the the district where Representative Murtha had been the Congressman enjoys a more than 2-1 registration advantage for the Democrats. That makes it almost impossible for a Republican to win, and the Republicans knew that.

As for Kentucky, once again these people have no knowledge of what they hell they are talking about.

Rand Paul is not a Republican at all, he is a Libertarian. Like his father, he runs as a Republican, because no Libertarian can get elected. Were he to get into office (unlikely, the Democrats will likely win that seat), he would be just as ineffective as his father has been.

Representative Ron Paul has never gotten a single bill through the Congress. He refuses to work with anyone, will not compromise at all on anything, does his own thing, and he is beloved by all of the ultra right wing nuts. His son Rand is of the same ilk, and if he gets into office, he will be able to do nothing for Kentucky, and would only serve one term.

The election in Arkansas is another one where lots of noise has been made about very little. The Democrats could not choose a candidate for the November election, so they will have a run-off election. Blanche Lincoln is NOT favored in that run-off, but even if she wins it, neither of the democrats are favored come the November election that will actually put people into office.

It must be very confusing to so many Canadians, that elections are actually held to determine who the candidates will be for the upcoming election. The people actually get to choose who gets to run. How quaint, how silly that is.


And we actually elect the people that get into our Senate! That is really radical, since your Senate is filled with the cronies and lackeys of the P.M. and former Prime Ministers. They are appointed for life, and the people have absolutely no say in who they are.

If that system were tried in the States, the politicians that proposed it would be out of politics permanently. It strikes me as strange that the Canadian people have never seen any necessity to change that system of having an appointed house of government. I guess you prefer to have "your betters" make the decisions for you.

It's simply a version of the old House of Lords. Those political Lords get to sit in office as long as they breathe, stopping or passing legislation and drawing salaries forever.

But, these are primary elections folks. They mean very little. In most cases, they are merely selecting the candidates to fight out the real election this coming November.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

These people don't realize the the district where Representative Murtha had been the Congressman enjoys a more than 2-1 registration advantage for the Democrats. That makes it almost impossible for a Republican to win, and the Republicans knew that.

The party affiliation does not mean a whole lot in USA; the district is a solidly conservative district. Social conservatism rules the day. Republicans had high hopes of winning it; they had invested lot of money and lot of resources into the election. It was a bitter disappointment for them not to win it.

Rand Paul is not a Republican at all, he is a Libertarian. Like his father, he runs as a Republican, because no Libertarian can get elected. Were he to get into office (unlikely, the Democrats will likely win that seat), he would be just as ineffective as his father has been.

Representative Ron Paul has never gotten a single bill through the Congress. He refuses to work with anyone, will not compromise at all on anything, does his own thing, and he is beloved by all of the ultra right wing nuts. His son Rand is of the same ilk, and if he gets into office, he will be able to do nothing for Kentucky, and would only serve one term.

Sure Paul is a Libertarian, he has said so himself (or at least he claims to be a Libertarian, some conservatives claim to be Libertarian rather than conservative, I suppose it sounds more respectable). However, now he is the Republican candidate and Republicans are stuck with all the baggage he carries.

And a senate election receives much more coverage than a house election (his father is a House member).

The election in Arkansas is another one where lots of noise has been made about very little. The Democrats could not choose a candidate for the November election, so they will have a run-off election. Blanche Lincoln is NOT favored in that run-off, but even if she wins it, neither of the democrats are favored come the November election that will actually put people into office.

That is an internal matter for the Democratic Party, I doubt that the two candidates are that much different.

And we actually elect the people that get into our Senate! That is really radical, since your Senate is filled with the cronies and lackeys of the P.M. and former Prime Ministers. They are appointed for life, and the people have absolutely no say in who they are.

Elected Senate in USA is of relatively recent origin, initally Senators used to be elected by state legislatures.

It strikes me as strange that the Canadian people have never seen any necessity to change that system of having an appointed house of government. I guess you prefer to have "your betters" make the decisions for you.

It's simply a version of the old House of Lords. Those political Lords get to sit in office as long as they breathe, stopping or passing legislation and drawing salaries forever.

In Canada, senate is supposed to be the chamber of sober second thought. Not all appointments to the senate are political appointments; PMs many times appoint experts in particular fields to the Senate (though of course there are political appointments as well).

It is patterned after House of Lords and it is not that unusual, many countries have a chamber of sober second thought. Indeed, It is rare to have a fully elected second chamber, same as the lower chamber. In Australia, Senate is elected by proportional representation, not first past the post system.

I remember Spanish system was in the news a couple of years ago, when they legalized gay marriage. The Senate was opposed to legalization, but it is only considered chamber of sober second thought, it could not stop gay marriage.

Unelected second chamber works pretty well. It has its advantages and disadvantages.

But, these are primary elections folks. They mean very little. In most cases, they are merely selecting the candidates to fight out the real election this coming November.

Quite so, that is why I said that it is an internal matter for the party, usually others don't comment on it. There are exceptions, obviously, like the Kentucky primary.

 

[pgs]

Wow You must approve of the appointment of David Braley to the senate.
And of course Nancy Greene Raine is an expert on skiing,sure to be a benifit when sober second thinking.
I am impressed.
lol