TheManWithAUsername
Post 01/22/2012 10:47     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
takoma wrote:
TheManWithAUsername wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The dysfunction of this primary is the direct result of the untenable list of extreme positions required to survive the primary process.

That's a big part, but I think the bigger part is the Dems pushing the Reps to the right for decades. They've left them nowhere to go but crazy.

Do you truly believe the Dems are pushing rather than allowing themselves to be pulled? That's an explanation that, for me, is both new and hard to believe.

That's mostly tomaito/tomahto IMO. My phrasing certainly isn't news to the Reps, who complained bitterly about Clinton co-opting their agenda. How fucking funny is that? The leader of the opposing party starts doing exactly what they always said they wanted, and they complain b/c it will make their campaigns a little trickier.

If you took me to be implying that the Dems were determined to go to the right as an end in itself as opposed to an election strategy, that wasn't my point there, though I do think that's the case for many Dems on some issues (e.g., finance regulation). I think the factors are:
- Dems are corporate whores
- Dems are gutless
- Clintons and their ilk caring about almost nothing other than getting elected
- faux Dems joining as convenient, notably in 2008

Anonymous
Post 01/22/2012 09:57     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
Anonymous wrote:He is the President America deserves.

If he flaunts his religion while everything he does is contrary to it, if he is a racist, if overestimates his own intelligence while denying global warming, is he so different from the country he seeks to lead?


Oh is he denying global warming now?



Interesting, he looks a lot happier there than now. He's smiling, apparently enjoying marriage and his lobbying work. Now as a candidate, he's scowling, irritable, angry. I don't think the Presidency suits him. Go back to being Happy Newt, where you are free to believe what you want, make some money without shame, and spend it on your wife.
takoma
Post 01/22/2012 09:51     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
TheManWithAUsername wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The dysfunction of this primary is the direct result of the untenable list of extreme positions required to survive the primary process.

That's a big part, but I think the bigger part is the Dems pushing the Reps to the right for decades. They've left them nowhere to go but crazy.

Do you truly believe the Dems are pushing rather than allowing themselves to be pulled? That's an explanation that, for me, is both new and hard to believe.
TheManWithAUsername
Post 01/22/2012 09:43     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
Anonymous wrote:The dysfunction of this primary is the direct result of the untenable list of extreme positions required to survive the primary process.

That's a big part, but I think the bigger part is the Dems pushing the Reps to the right for decades. They've left them nowhere to go but crazy.

Anonymous wrote:Once again, the Republican Party needs to pare down its platform to focus on what is truly important, or it will doom itself to also-ran status. Whether this happens in this election or in twenty years from now, the writing is on the wall.

That's not very encouraging to me. In another 20 years like the last, they can "accomplish" a lot.

It may be that things don't turn around until the plutocrats make things so bad here that even all their wealth can't make it livable. That would take decades of pain.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2012 08:31     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
He is the President America deserves.

If he flaunts his religion while everything he does is contrary to it, if he is a racist, if overestimates his own intelligence while denying global warming, is he so different from the country he seeks to lead?
takoma
Post 01/22/2012 08:16     Subject: Ahhhhhhh my head is exploding!!!!
Gingrich won SC by using a politely stated question as an excuse for a pandering, over-the-top, attack on the press, while Huntsman fell by the wayside because he tried to stick to serious discussion of the issues. I think we are wrong to say that the economy is the number one issue; I think the gravest danger facing our country is that we allow the choice of a potential president to be made by such a circus of a process.