Did Sarah Palin cost the GOP control of the Senate?

russ_watters

I certainly agree that the Tea Party is not a single monolithic movement. I'm not even sure such a thing really exists when you start getting very large numbers of people involved. So I don't really see a difference between our points.

Proton Soup

i don't think he thought it was a mandate so much as an opportunity. he had to try to get everything now, otherwise he might never get it. and, the honeymoon is obviously over now.

russ_watters

I'm not sure if he thought it was a "mandate" or not, but any smart politician would say it was even if he doesn't actually believe it. But only a serious ideologue would consider this election or the last one to be a fundamental shift in the ideology of the country.

Certainly, though, the practical reality is that Obama had (and knew he had) an opportunity with his filibuster-proof majority which is why issues such as healthcare were on the table so early in his Presidency. It's been 70 years since a President had such an opportunity and I consider us fortunate that Obama didn't make better use of that opportunity before he unexpectedly (with the death of Kennedy and his eventual replacement by a Republican) lost it.

I think that Obama's adjenda was part of the problem for Democrats. You have to sieze an opportunity when you get it, but I doubt he actually believed the country suddenly overwhealmingly favored things like cap and trade, the stimulus and universal healthcare. So when he started pushing for such things, there was a 'hey wait a minute, I wanted Bush out, but I didn't mean we should...' sort of backlash. The tea party reflected the more extreme side of that backlash.

mugaliens

While they may attract the extreme, they also attract a lot of common sense, as well. Case in point: "What We Believe," which covers several parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

mheslep

Great piece, hits all the fundamentals of conservatism. The history is spot on. Certainly covers what I believe. I haven't seen the others yet, but they could have stopped with just the first half of this one.

turbo

Miller's observers are challenging write-in votes in which there might be slight misspellings of Murkowski's name or poor penmanship. Desperation time.

mugaliens

Lol, yes, they could. Mr. Whittle had "a few" things to say about Sarah Palin, too.

mheslep

Thanks for the links mug.

CAC1001

Good links!

Gokul43201

I think part 2 will make you gag. I found part 1 started well and deteriorated. Your experience when you stand at a BMV/USPS/Immigration Office line - that bit is a blatant appeal to emotion. Would we be better off with privately run immigration services? No one can complain about that annoying gun being pointed at their heads by lousy government employees forcing them to stand in line for hours for their passports.

BobG

Yes, it is. Historically, this argument almost never works. The general rule is if it's clear who the voter intended, then the vote counts. The only time minor misspellings matter is if you have two write-in candidates with similar names. Almost every state requires even write-in candidates to register as candidates just to clear out the clutter of write-in votes for Mickey Mouse, etc, so the write-in vote only has to be similar enough to one of the "official" write-in candidates to count. The argument that the voter might have intended to vote for someone not registered as a write-in candidate virtually never holds water.

The write-in candidacy of Shelly Sekula-Gibbs won in spite of voting machines that didn't have a hyphen character when entering write-in candidates names - in other words, it was impossible to enter Sekula-Gibbs's name correctly on most voting machines. In the end, they had 28 page list (28 page, not 28 name) of acceptable variations of Sekula-Gibbs's name. Even "Shelly DraculaCunt Gibs" was considered acceptable, since it was clear who the voter was referring to (it's unclear which side was pushing for counting this vote - her supporters or her opponents).

Char. Limit

I would hope that women have more sense than to vote for someone based on their gender.

WhoWee

If you want to gag - watch this.

http://my.barackobama.com/Nov4thThankYou

Hepth

Seems like a standard thank-you video to those that helped the democratic campaigning? A little BS-sentimental stuff at 2:00 but other than that I don't see it as in poor taste or over the top. Do you? And why?

WhoWee

I don't view it as being in poor taste or over the top - just disconnected from reality. He's still talking about re-making the country into his ideal - the election message clearly didn't penetrate his camp.

Hepth

I don't think that was addressed to the entire population; and I didn't get from it that he has some ill-conceived notion of the majority of voters still supporting democrats in the house (in the face of the election).

I think it'd be much worse if all of a sudden his message was "We lost quite a few seats in the house this election, so we're going to change our core ideals to better fit the population in the losing districts in effort to gain more votes." Could you imagine the tearing apart he'd receive? Both from the right (recall "flip flopper"), and from the left seeing him as abandoning what they stand for in effort to gain some seats. A sell-out.

I think it was exactly what needed to be said to his core supporters, no more, no less.

WhoWee

If you recall, I posted something to the effect of - if you want to gag - watch this...