Delaware Dem

Friday Open Thread [7.3.15]

David Russell:

Like all mood changes that take place in a mass society, it takes a great deal of groundswell for there to be any uprising that forces government to change. The cycle we are in has been 40 years in the making. The Republican Party has been masterful in using culture war wedge issues as a means of attracting and distracting voters, while they used their time in office to repeatedly pass legislation that favored business over workers and downshifted costs to individuals, which accelerated the erosion of stagnant wages. They have smugly gone about the business of enriching themselves and their sponsors, comfortable in the knowledge that Americans are largely uninformed and do not pay attention to the details of the legislative process.

This time around, however, the evolution of the Republicans will come too late for them to maintain the control they have had over their base. As the party is forced to shift away from cultural issues, it will become increasingly clear that the Republican stance on economics has not benefitted small business, as they claim; it has not benefited American families, as they claim; it has not benefitted students; and it has not benefitted workers. However, the Republican stance has uniformly and consistently disadvantaged the working American under the guise of “unwarranted government welfare,” “freedom to chose,” and “liberty from government interference.”

As that reality is broadcast by an increasingly progressive Democratic Party, combined with a president who only recently realized that he could display his liberal side, economic issues will continue to erode the Republican Party’s control over the public it seeks to attract.

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Thursday Open Thread [7.2.15]

“For Democrats, Donald Trump amounts to a kind of divine intervention. With the Republican Party on an urgent mission to woo Latino voters, one of its leading presidential candidates has been enmeshed for two weeks in a nasty feud over his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants,” the Washington Post reports.

“The comments — and many more since — have prompted an uproar among Latino groups and acrimonious breakups between Trump and various corporate partners. His outlandish rhetoric and skill at occupying the national spotlight are also proving to be dangerously toxic for the GOP brand, which remains in the rehabilitation stage after losing the 2012 presidential race.”

The New York Times says that the “Democrats relish the situation.” I am always a more “be careful what you wish for person.” I remember when everyone wanted that idiot Bush junior to run because he could be easily beatable. But then again, there is always the Christine O’Donnell Factor: sometimes you are just so fucking crazy that no one will vote for you.

Meanwhile, in our polling results, Hillary Clinton absolutely destroys all Republicans in a new poll. We are talking 45 state landslide take back the House and Senate margins.

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Wednesday Open Thread [7.1.15]

I’m busy compiling the final Vote Tracker for the year to recap the final day of the legislative session for the General Assembly. So have at it.

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Tuesday Open Thread [6.30.15]

We have a lot of polling information that I collected over the last 10 days while I was doing battle with man-eating sharks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, so here goes….

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Monday Open Thread [6.29.15]

I’m back from vacation, and it looks like my 10 day departure from political world were ten days of great political consequence that forever made this country a more progressive place. The lesson here is that I should go on vacation more often.

Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly:

It would be hard to identify a recent day in the more saturated with “history” than Friday, June 26. You had an epochal marriage equality decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, still echoing from its decision the day before rejecting what could have been a traumatic and politically overwhelming challenge to the Affordable Care Act. down in Charleston, the President of the United States–you know, that secular socialist–delivered a eulogy at the funeral of slain pastor/politician Clementa Pinckney that (I can assure you from my correspondence) made cold-blooded political analysts weep and atheists murmur the lyrics to Amazing Grace.

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