Friday Open Thread [10.25.13]
In 2015, according to the Back to the Future movies, we are supposed to have flying cars. Yet, in 2013, I don’t see any in our skies. That is about to change!!!
The thing looks a little rickety, and I thought flying cars worked on thrusters and hover technology rather than being actual planes with wingspans. But I will take what I can get.
Polling released this week by the Washington Post and ABC News found the GOP’s unfavorability ratings among Americans at an all-time high of 63 percent.
But a closer look at the numbers reveals that this has been accompanied by a massive collapse in 2013 of the GOP brand among core constituencies important in midterm elections: Independents, women, and seniors. The crack Post polling team has produced a new chart demonstrating that in the last year — since just before the 2012 election – there’s been a truly astonishing spike in the GOP’s unfavorable ratings among these core groups.
The […] chart […] shows the GOP’s unfavorable ratings have jumped 19 points among seniors, to 65 percent; 17 points among independents, to 67 percent; and 10 points among women, to 63 percent. Those are all key constituencies in midterm elections.
[S]eniors tend to be a larger percentage of the vote in midterms than in presidential years, so any Dem inroads into traditional GOP dominance among them could matter. “Seniors tend to be very reliable voters in midterm elections,” Duffy says. “They turn out in great numbers. In the past few elections, they have favored Republicans. If Republicans start losing seniors in large numbers, they have a very big problem.”
Is it possible the 2014 elections will really be about the GOP brand, given that Democrats control the White House? This turns on a nuance of recent electoral history. In 2010, Dems tried to make the elections about the dangers of a return to Republican rule, arguing, famously, that voters should not give the keys back to the guys who drove the car into the ditch. That didn’t work, because voters didn’t see 2010 Republicans through the prism of the Bush years. Obama had been in charge for two years and had failed to turn around the economy, which remained in horrific shape. Voters in 2010 didn’t know what post-Bush GOP-rule meant.
But now, Democrats believe, voters do know what post-Bush GOP rule means — they have grasped the governing implications of a GOP that has been radicalized by the Obama presidency — and these core groups are recoiling. “The chances that the election could be about the GOP brand are over 50 percent,” Duffy tells me.
Yeah, the GOP is not racist at all:
The Daily Show
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Those unfavorable ratings — I’d contribute to the DNC in a NY minute if I thought they would effectively capitalize on this. Too cynical?
My favorite part of that Daily Show clip: “I’m in that picture!”
“…they (seniors, independents, women) have grasped the governing implications of a GOP that has been radicalized…”
About fucking time.
This guy in NC gets canned for telling the truth. That puts him in line for some juicy wingnut welfare.
Love the Mandatory Black Friend Rule to vote from that video! I’m thinking we can get some market-based wealth redistribution happening now!
@c “Love the Mandatory Black Friend Rule to vote from that video!”
At first I thought he was trying to be amusing with that line… but he was actually serious. That someone could actually utter those words in a serious manner in 2013 is truly amazing. The cluelessness of the GOP has no bounds.
Oh I get it — and when I hear people say that, it is incredibly tough to take them seriously. But that guy saying it wasn’t nearly as interesting as using it as a qualifier for people to vote. That’s an industry waiting to be born!
I love how Aasif Mandvi finally breaks in, “You know we can hear you right?”
It’s actually refreshing. The GOP isn’t even trying to speak in code anymore.
I *love* this story — Senator Carnival Cruz has been cracking wise that the Obamacare website was made by Nigerian email scammers. The Nigerians take serious umbrage.
Of course, it all makes sense now. President Obama is selling liberal’s down the river.
It is just now being reported that Michelle Obama’s classmate at princeton is an executive at the company given the NO-BID contract to build the failed Obama Care website.
http://freedomslighthouse.net/2013/10/26/report-classmate-of-michelle-obama-an-executive-at-company-given-no-bid-contract-to-build-failed-obamacare-website-102513/
What liberals fail to realize, is President Obama is now gone so far that he is actually hurting your liberal brand, and the legitimate causes you believe in.
Huh?
Rusty, How again does Obama hurt liberals?
If he acts like a scoundrel conservative, we just want him to be more like a real honest and ethical liberal. He certainly is not “hurting the liberal brand”.
The problems with the ACA rollout disprove two of the conservative talking points. First that nobody will sign up and second that private sector always works better. The web site was overwhelmed by the numbers of people interested in Obamacare. It was an outside firm that set up the website.
“The web site was overwhelmed by the numbers of people interested in Obamacare. It was an outside firm that set up the website.”
Actually it was several outside vendors who set up the site & seemingly no one was in charge.