2010 Mid-terms » Jsmog Blog

Tag: 2010 mid-terms

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Who do the GOP have to beat Obama in 2012? Oh, that’s right- NOBODY!

by Calickizzle
Monday, April 19, 2010 at 08:22pm

Of course the GOP will pick up some Congressional sets in the 2010 mid-terms, in both the House and the Senate. After the huge gains the Democrats made in 2006 and 2008, that should be expected. Currently, however, Congressional Quarterly is projecting only ONE definite pick-up in the House for the GOP at this point, despite the astroturf efforts of the Tea Baggers.

Now that the common wisdom of Republican gains in the mid-term elections can be readily accepted, let’s look a little farther down the road to the Presidential contest of 2012. Which candidates do the Republicans have that can prevent a second Obama term? As Ed Kilgore of Salon makes clear, the current crop of front-runners for the GOP Presidential nomination are completely underwhelming. Mitt Romhey? He is struggling to explain how his Romneycare served as the model for the recently-passed health care reform to the GOP’s new base of old & rich Tea Baggers. Mike Huckabee? A record of gubernatorial tax hikes and pardons of unrepetant felons & future murderers can’t be white-washed with feel-good pastor speak or whatever lunacy passes from his lips on his Fox talk show. Sarah Palin? Her traveling circus sucks all the air and attention from any Republican candidates who might have a chance of winning a general election, thus allowing Democrats the opportunity to egg the half-term Governor on to pursue the GOP presidential nom in 2012.

I guess the only conclusion one can surmise is that we might as well go ahead and start making plans for Obama’s second inauguration right now…

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CPAC: Complete lack of conservative common sense

by Calickizzle
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 01:21am

Once a year at CPAC, a bunch of angry white people get together to yell and complain about things they know nothing about. Granted, I’m not on the ground so I can’t provide first-person eyewitness, but according to Thom Hartmann, who worked radio row at the conference, he spent his time “looking at a sea of white people.”

CPAC has been described by the Washington Post as the “preeminent gathering of conservative activists,” and so I was eager to hear some of this mythical “conservative common sense” I keep hearing so much about, but yet see succeed in any manner. Unfortunately, with the conference now wrapped up, it appears that the amount of substance contributed at this conference could fit into a 140-character post on Twitter.

Nah, scratch that. Probably more like half a Tweet, 70 characters followed by a string of hashtags, such as: #obamasucks #nobama #wheresthebirthcertificate, etc. etc. You know, the extent of wit as provided by conservatives…

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Massachusetts Senate results- what now?

by Calickizzle
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 11:01am

If there is one thing to take away from the Massachusetts result, it’s this: People like to whine.

Voters granted huge Democratic gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections because they were whining about how the Bush administration was ignoring certain issues, issues that festered and only got worse on its watch. Buried under Obama’s rhetoric of “hope and change” was an underlying promise: the federal government was no longer going to sit on its hands and ignore the problems our country faced, a course of (in)action that the Republicans proved all to good at. So Obama- implausibly- secured the White House, and promised an era of responsive government.

So, now voters are whining that the government should not be as responsive as the Obama administration has- haltingly, it could be asserted- been in its first twelve months. The pattern could be broken down as thus: You’re ignoring my problems? I’ll elect leaders that respond to them. You’re responding to my problems? I’ll elect leaders that will ignore them.

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2010 mid-terms | Massachusetts Senate race | Obama | Scott Brown | View Comments

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Conservative House Democrats are the most vulnerable

by Calickizzle
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 09:20pm

Over at Five-Thirty Eight, Nate Silver examined the 39 Democratic House seats that are deemed “most vulnerable” by the Cook Political Report, and found that of that group, 21 members of these Most Vulnerable Dems voted against one- if not all three- of the key pieces of legislation passed by the House that comprises Obama’s agenda: the stimulus package, the climate change cap-and-trade bill, and the recent vote on health care reform.

Conclusion? It may be more of a detriment for Democratic Congressman to not vote like Democrats in the run-up to the mid-term elections. Let’s consider: Republicans are going to be out in full force in 2010, and if the Democrats are going to stem the tide of Congressional losses, they need to assert themselves, grow a pair of balls, and vote like Democrats. Otherwise, its going to be hard to convince Democratic voters in closely contested districts to come out and support a member of Congress who is voting like a Republican. Silver cites data collected from a Research 2000 survey which indicates that 81 percent of Republican voters say they’re “definitely” or “probably” going to vote in the mid-terms, as opposed to 56 percent of Democrats, who must feel content on simply handing over their long-fought control of Congress after just two Congressional sessions.

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2010 mid-terms | View Comments