Cons Win When Dems Stay Home
In what should come as no surprise (again) to any fence sitting or left leaning person in the US, Conservatives won big (again) in off-year elections because of poor voter turnout (again) especially among Democrat supporters (again). It seems we’re too addicted to the sh!t show produced by the GOP and right wing extremists in this country to actually get up off our sofas and do something (again). This is not unlike our fascination with “Reality” TV. Except unlike “reality” TV, these election results will continue us on the path toward becoming the ultimate laughing stock in the civilized world. (No, I do not think we’re there… yet).
Kentucky has a new Republican governor-elect, Matt Bevin, who has promised to continue futile, costly, and wasteful efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and ‘defend’ Kim Davis. If there’s one thing Republicans love to do (other than wasting money, making shit facts up, being unnecessarily invasive in our personal lives, hating women, hating science, and hating, it’s beating dead horses, usually ones that have been dead for (42) years. OH! And one of his “top” priorities is turning Kentucky into a “Right” to Work state. Huzzah!
Mississippi’s Governor Phil Bryant won reelection and the state’s House increased its Republican majority by 6 seats, to 73 total. I know, you were hoping along with me that MS would become the new bastion of liberalism. Maybe next time.
Ohio shot down marijuana legalization by a 2-1 margin. Good thing too. We don’t want to go legalizing anything that has the potential to impair our judgement if we consume it.
Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance failed:
In the months that followed, those who opposed the law — including a group of pastors who brought the legal action and prompted the referendum, as well as one All-Star Houston Astros baseball player, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott (R) and others — insisted in commercials, on television and in newspaper stories that allowing transgender women (individuals born male who identify as women) would leave women and girls suddenly vulnerable to attacks by crafty and now legally enabled sexual predators.
They told Houston voters that male sexual predators disguised as women (or as one ad put it, “troubled men”) would find it easy to waltz right into a women’s restroom to target victims. They said Houston voters who supported “freedom” and “safety” simply had to vote against HERO.
This picture from the Houston Chronicle really epitomizes not only the opposition to the anti-discrimination law but, I feel, the Republican party in general: Old, white, male, and bigoted.
San Francisco’s sheriff was ousted.
Virginia’s State Senate remains red.
It’s not all bad news though:
Maine voters passed additional campaign finance reforms that strengthen an already existing transparency in election funding law. (Maine’s political candidates are able to opt-in to the clean campaign system, garnering them public funds for their races and barring them from raising private donations.) It adds new levels of transparency, reporting, creates harsher penalties for violating the law. It puts new, higher caps on the amounts to be allocated:
Under the new formula, gubernatorial candidates will be able to receive a maximum of $3.2 million, Senate candidates $65,000 and House candidates, $16,500.
However, the law does not specify the source of the public campaign funds. Even with that caveat, Delaware might find a system like that useful. The country might find it useful, too.
New Jersey increased its Democrat majority in the state assembly in a slap to Chris Christie’s face.
Salt Lake City elected Utah’s first openly gay mayor and the city’s second female chief executive.
And what I think is the most interesting result from yesterday:
Jefferson County, Colorado recalled 3 “conservative” big-business and charter school loving school board members. Not even Americans for Koch Prosperity could save these three.
Williams, Witt and Newkirk sought to inject competition and business principles into the management of Colorado’s second-largest school district. They passed a merit-pay system for teachers that uses a controversial evaluation system; they equalized funding for public charter schools, so charters receive the same amount as traditional schools; and they pledged to create more school choice for families.
Activists behind the recall effort alleged that the three board members violated open-meeting laws, spent lavishly on legal expenses and hired a new superintendent at a salary significantly higher than his more experienced predecessor. They also said the conservative majority was to blame for higher-than-usual teacher turnover.
That sounds…familiar.
Of note, all 5 seats on the board were up for election. The other two were vacated by the incumbents.
Tags: Conservative, democrat, election, liberal, Republican, Voting
I’m never sure how much of the blame should be heaped on lazy Dem voters, and how much should be heaped on our suck-ass party that STILL has no coherent messaging that might encourage voting, other than to say that are slightly better than the alternative.
I tend to blame the suck-ass party that STILL has no coherent messaging, more than I blame individual lazy voters.
I wish voting meant more to people. But why should citizens engage with something that both directly and indirectly impacts basically everything about their livelihood? Going out to vote is critical, but it can only be step one, it has to be followed up by staying engaged and involved.
Jason330 I feel it’s connected though, because if candidates had coherent messaging wouldn’t more people feel compelled to vote, because they would believe in what they are doing and believe that candidate will make a difference. It seems to me like it kind of goes hand in hand.
Jason – Good insight. You have to give somebody something to vote for rather than something to vote against. It works a little bit at the national level because the ridiculous spectacle of the thing motivates people to go vote the way people voted for the best produced cover song on American Idol. Elsewhere is doesn’t work.
Turnout in Kentucky, where the governor’s office topped the ballot, was 30.7 percent. More than two-thirds of the voters couldn’t be bothered to choose a governor.
Republicans win when Democrats stay home.
You have to give somebody something to vote for rather than something to vote against.
Most of my votes are to keep Republicans out. Some of our Democrats are so bad I would gladly vote against them if only their opponent wasn’t even worse.
“Jason – Good insight. You have to give somebody something to vote for rather than something to vote against. ”
thats how conservatives win everything. Vote against the gays, vote against the moochers, vote against the potheads. Dems get pissy because they cant vote for EXACTLY what they want and all conservatives want is for “them” to have nothing. If lazy-liberals havent figured that out by now, we’re doomed.
Lazy-liberals ? I think you mean the lazy Democratic Party. We fail and they win on salesman ship and brand building. Sure they are liars and hucksters, and their customers are easily bamboozled dupes. And yet they win and we lose.
They’ve figured out how to package and sell toxic waste as a health food, but we have the moral high ground. Huzzah!
On the KY Gov’s race:
Go figure. I hate the chickenshit, loser hole Democratic Party nearly as much as I hate the fucking nutso GOP.
Going after the voters that probably would never vote for you while burning off your base? Winning! That’s how the Democratic Party rolls.
Call liberals lazy till your last breath, but if your candidate’s big selling point begins and ends with keeping the opponent out of office the moment of your final grasp is going to be a very disappointed moment indeed.
Q. Do black lives matter? A. Can’t really say.
Q. What changed about TTP that makes it so unappetizing now? A. Stuff.
Q. What changed about the Keystone XL pipeline that caused you to finally take a stand? A. There was one?
Q. Shouldn’t we abolish the Death Penalty? A. Pardon me?
Q. Shouldn’t we consider reestablishing Glass-Steagall type banking controls? A. Maybe I’ll evolve on that one.
Unless you’re nipple deep in the political soap opera the anti candidate candidate is not attractive. So you can name call and bellyache, but it’s inutile plan and simple.
Q. Do black lives matter?
A. Everyone walking on this earth- their lives matter.
Q. What changed about TPP that makes it so unappetizing now?
A. It’s a crap deal to begin with simply on the basis that we don’t know what’s in it.
Let us read the damn thing, and maybe we could give a more detailed answer. Knock off the “what about our neighbors?” crap and worry about the people who need work here.
Q. What changed about the Keystone XL pipeline that caused you to finally take a stand?
A. Nothing. It was a crap deal to begin with. It’s not creating any lasting jobs, it’s not providing any tangible benefit to the United States. We don’t need to buy up farmland in the Midwest, we don’t need to funnel more fossil fuels from Canada to the Gulf ports. The amount of frigging time and money wasted on this would have been better invested in renewable/sustainable energy research.
Q. Shouldn’t we abolish the Death Penalty?
A. Yes.
Q. Shouldn’t we consider reestablishing Glass-Steagall type banking controls?
A. No we shouldn’t consider it. We should just do it. Further, break up the government granted monopolies to utility companies, internet service providers, cable companies, mega food producers, anything that’s stifling competition.
Q. What about the NSA?
A. Yank their funding til they knock off their secret courts and warrantless domestic spying.
Q. Discretionary Military budget?
A. Cut it, use the money for education, Medicare expansion, and infrastructure and public works projects.
Q. TSA?
A. Eliminate it.
There. Now who’s going to bankroll my campaign for Congress?
Inutile means useless or pointless. I didn’t know that until 10 seconds ago.
Oh I get it. The candidate needs to be intentionally coy & noncommittal enough to grab the campaign dough. I’m only making the point that the voters, although not funders of campaigns, don’t care for the equivocation and caveat. Hence have no impetus to vote for the person party politics deems the candidate. This is the double bind Jason is describing I think.
How you get the money has a direct correlation to how the common voter perceives a candidate. It’s in fact inverse. This is why the regular person hates politics & politicians & rarely if every votes.
I wonder what percentage of people in the Us can name their state and federal reps and senators
“I hate the chickenshit, loser hole Democratic Party nearly as much as I hate the fucking nutso GOP.”
How far we have come, Va Jay Jay…..how far we have come!
It’s very similar on issues that really matter
“It seems we’re too addicted to the sh!t show produced by the GOP and right wing extremists in this country to actually get up off our sofas and do something (again)”.
WOW, you blame someone else for not getting out and voting for your own candidates. That says a lot, Brian!
“Some of our Democrats are so bad I would gladly vote against them if only their opponent wasn’t even worse.”
Brian, Maybe you should run for office?
That says a great deal for your party!
I am blaming those who did not bother to vote yesterday for each and every one of the election outcomes. It happens in every off cycle election. And we collectively slap our foreheads and wonder why we keep seeing the crap hit the fan. It’s sad to see such disengagement, especially from my peers.
30% turnout for electing a governor is dispicable.
I don’t consider Democrats “my” party. We don’t have a liberal/progressive party in this country. We have center (with left leaning members sprinkled in here and there) and far right parties.
Running for office? I need the paycheck I’m earning from my current job. I don’t know how I’d support my family, my job, and campaign at the same time.
Dem’s only vote when there are giveaway’s at stake. Let’s face the truth.
Clearly not Tom, or we would have seen way more registered dems voting for GOP candidates yesterday.
“I am blaming those who did not bother to vote yesterday for each and every one of the election outcomes.”
Do you blame the wife when the husband smacks her? Of course not. You are being duped. The Democratic Party loves that you blame the powerless for their powerlessness. It allows people like Tom Carper to keep muddying up what it means to be a Democrat and thereby continue working both sides of the street.
Jason, I just want to follow your logic here. You’re saying that the reason so many people decided not to go out and vote yesterday is because they’re (perceptibly or actually) powerless?
Relative to the engaged and active conservatives, who are constantly empowered by the coherent messaging of their party – yes. That’s what I’m saying.
Perhaps they should go shirtless in the public square as a protest?
Let’s hope they have been doing P90x!!!
P90 People power? I like it. Thanks for commenting. BTW – This one is fine, and I’d love to keep you on, but I think we both know that you’ll be crossing a line in the very near future.
Maybe their tired of the career politicians!
Anon, the acceptable alternative to re-electing an ineffective ‘career’ politician is to vote for whomever primaries him/her, or vote for the opposition (assuming the opposition isn’t a lunatic). We don’t have that though. We have people who just stay home, can’t get off work to vote, or just don’t vote on principle.
But the line is always schoolmarmaliciously subjective, Va Jay Jay.
Makes it so hard to force you to be reflective on your ideological faults and social-authoritarian proclivities.
It really isn’t subjective. Not if you’ve been paying a little bit of attention these past …3…39? years.
“social-authoritarian proclivities”
Uh-oh. Callow libertarian warning.