An article by Sasha Issenberg in The New Republic that focuses on the correlation between voting Democratic and skipping nonpresidential elections. The answer to "how" — I would guess — has to do with understanding the minds of these people so that they could be fired up to vote in the midterm elections. But Issenberg says:
The real reason Democrats have embraced a progressive agenda has not been to energize their own base but to lure Reflex voters from the other side.
"Reflex" voters = people who vote regularly (as opposed to "unreliable" voters, who only vote in presidential elections).
Obama and his party’s candidates talk about the minimum wage in the hope that working-class whites skeptical of Democrats on other matters will become more ambivalent about voting Republican. Democrats’ renewed interest in women’s issues—including a defense of Planned Parenthood and embrace of equal-pay standards—is also designed with defections in mind. In 2012, the Obama campaign’s entire direct-mail program on women’s issues was targeted at reliable voters who leaned Republican: Field experiments in the first half of that year had showed that the messages were most persuasive among voters whose likelihood of voting for Obama previously sat between 20 and 40 percent.
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44 comments:
Because, as any sensible person knows, the progressive agenda is wildly popular in the population at large. The farther to the Left you go, the more popular you become! With everybody!!
Government by poll-takers.
Nothing short of denying their Messiah three times is likely to work. Their party's hubris is going to meet its nemesis.
I would imagine that convincing people to abandon reason and rationality in favor of appeals to emotionality is a tricky science. It's easier to make your opponent look bad than it is to make yourself look good. It's easier to suggest that republicans are racist, sexist, homophobic ect. than to actually be accountable for ones own actions (Obamacare).
I wonder if the Democratic Party is really trying to "lure" more moderate Republicans by trumpeting these hot-button issues. People don't vote Democrat just because they are "ambivalent" about Republicans. They stay home. I suppose this sort of soft voter suppression is fine, but wonder if it could be scandalous if aimed at other groups.
The republicans may help by being obnoxious and off putting. They usually do.
...all we like sheep have gone astray
- Krumhorn
A few phony ballots can't hurt.
Did anyone else get a giggle over the phrasing "Democrats can avoid going down"?
That's the trouble with Democrats: they always try to avoid going down on you. They'd rather stick in your ass instead.
Interesting. Whether accurate or not, it exposes the professional politics of The Evil Party. The Stupid Party is unable or unwilling to protect itself from the sophisticated machinations of the Democrats.
That's why Romney didn't know what hit him.
Lying well takes practice.
I bet there's a (negative) correlation between knowing the proper role of each branch - indeed knowing that there are three branches- and voting solely in presidential election years
This is the pre-mid-term silly season. Nonsense like this popped up in April of 2010 too. I say let the Dems delude themselves as the tsunami engulfs them in November.
@sunsong, yes, after reading the entire long article, that's the sense I get: the writer indicates that the D's best hope in November is that enough racism, sexism, and gay hate will be perceived as coming from the R's by the "Unreliables" that it will trigger the sleeper "Unreliables" to go to the trouble of voting if only to cancel out R votes and try to keep the perceived obnoxiousness at bay and feel better about their unreliable selves. :-)
It just might work for the D's.
My advice to R's: suck it up and speak out against the obnoxiousness as soon as you see it. It will behoove you to take the lead in pushing back racism, sexism, and gay hate wherever it pops up.
THe dems can't get people jobs at the existing minimum wage. Its a jobless recovery. So, what's going to happen when govt tells companies the entry level job now MUST cost them 4 dollars more an hour. Do the dems really think that it's going to lead to more job creation?
As Glenn (repeatedly) said to R's in 2012: "Don't get cocky."
And yet THEY DID! (I said that).
Repubs can simply tell the electorate all this war on women, war on minorities crap is just a diversion from the real war on the middle class perpetuated by the left.
Obama has now had 8 years of recovery under his belt. How has he done?
He hasn't helped with the deficit OR getting people back to work.
I doubt that many Dems think that few of those in the GOP base will change any more than vice versa.
IMHO, the real Dem strategy is to turn the low-info (re political info, that is) guy/gal into a mis/dis-info Dem voter.
OK, it's the strategy of all pols.
The only problem, Mrs. Lincoln, is whether & how reality affects low/mis/dis-info people personally in any given election & whether & how they vote.
And, um it also depends on one's definition of reality.
In my experience, for instance, the pro-life RC clergy & lay Social Justice advocates will somehow always get out to vote for a pro-abortion Dem as POTUS, but do not always turn out in mid-term elections.
The R's didn't get cocky. They were bumbling idiots. They couldn't avoid stepping on the own dicks if someone was holding it up for them.
It might work for the D's. My advice to R's: suck it up and speak out against the obnoxiousness as soon as you see it. It will behoove you to take the lead in pushing back racism, sexism, and gay hate wherever it pops up.
Meade,
Good advice! The R's could catch a clue from Pope Francis. Being kind, helpful and respectful, (even though not specifically mentioned in the Constitution), are not anti-American values :-)
Structural inequality, especially in large population centers (e.g. urban), needs to be addressed. The effort to deny or obfuscate the problem through financing and welfare only enables the causes to fester. Unmeasured or liberal immigration policies only exacerbate the problem, both in America and in other nations.
Progressive morality, especially when it engenders selective exclusion, needs to be addressed. Selective normalization of dysfunctional behaviors is a step back. However, the consequences of technological change need to be considered and reconciled.
Obamacare needs to be repealed. There is no reform which not only preserves the status quo but exacerbates it through redistributive change and reduced health care. We need to address the causes of progressive inflation, poor education, and economic stagnation, which prevents positive progress.
Planned Parenthood, or the normalization of abortion/murder, for money, sex, ego, convenience, and a reduced problem set, needs to be addressed and rejected. The demand to support and tolerate an unprecedented violation of human rights is insane. Women, and men, need to accept responsibility for their "burden".
The war on individuals needs to end. The Democrats need to discover tactics which do not denigrate individual dignity, and do not devalue human life, and do not sponsor general corruption of people and society. They need to reject their predisposition to form monopolies, especially when backed by authority. They need to reject their "religion" of selective principles. They need to curb their ambitions to consolidate capital and control in minority hands.
If you can't fool all of the people all of the time, then try to fool part of the people all of the time, or try to fool all of the people part of the time.
That's Science.
sunsong said: "The republicans may help by being obnoxious and off putting. They usually do."
None of that on the left side for sure(Rep. Alan Grayson, Tinkle Leg, Rep. Jim Moran, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Ted Rall, Keith Olberman, Special Ed Shultz).
Meade
your advice to the GOP:
It will behoove you to take the lead in pushing back racism, sexism, and gay hate wherever it pops up.
But of course.
But, IMHO, faux racism, sexism, and gay hate, reported by the LSM as real GOP racism, sexism, and gay hate, amounts to an almost insurmountable problem for the GOP with low/did/mis-informed people.
Again, IMHO, it is an article of faith among a large number of RC Clergy that the GOP is against your tired, your poor, your humble masses yearning to breathe free & that they must vote against GOP candidates.
Advice to the Democrats: Keep a camera on John Boehner at all times. The man is a walking gaffe. He will do your dirty work for you. Every time he opens his mouth 10,000 Republicans remember the George Wallace line "There's not a dimes's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats." Advice to John Boehner: Sober up and shut up. Remember, John: even Wilbur Mills eventually lost control of his liquor. You don't want that to be your legacy, do you John?
I have no doubt that the Republicans can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory too. They're perfectly capable of doing something silly like nominating a Witch or someone who believes that vaccinations cause autism... or some sitting representative could say something really dumb about rape.
Benghazi smoking gun: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/29/newly-released-wh-email-shows-rice-talking-points-on-benghazi-politically-motivated/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/29/newly-released-wh-email-shows-rice-talking-points-on-benghazi-politically-motivated/
The Dems don't have anything to worry about. When the GOP leadership in the House rams through immigration "reform," the base will say, "Screw you," shrug its shoulders and stay home on election day.
I know I'm not going to vote for a party that rams through Shamnesty.
The GOP will be shocked - SHOCKED! - that they didn't take the Senate.
Funny, never any D obnoxiousness for Ds to eat.
What is the case for electing any Democrats come November? In the case of my own state, we have a Democrat senator up for reelection in November who had been very effective as governor through his centrist policies and overall to bipartisanship. Since being elected to the Senate in 2008 he has been a rubber stamp for Harry Reid. He makes a show of trying to work across the aisle, but it's nothing but a show. For all the use he's been, he might as well have stayed home and let Harry Reid press the voting buton for him.
If I believed in conspiracies, I would be pretty worried here.
Imagine for a moment that there is deep and wide spread voter fraud. How do you get people to buy it when the Democrats win in the midterms, surprising everyone, without immediately going to fraud?
Write stories like this before the election.
While the Democrats had a pretty solid turnout operation in '08 and '12, I don't see it happening here in an off-year election. Without Obama on the ticket, the prospects of the First Black President (if you don't count Clinton, Toni Morrison!) being defeated aren't in play. What is exactly at stake here?
If the Democrats managed to hold the Senate--or even improbably win the House--they will have done so by electing people in red states or districts that may be persuaded to approve another Sotomayor or vote for a hacked up ACA, but let's face facts--in all likelihood, all that this really means is that the GOP wouldn't be able to pass legislation for Obama to veto. We have two more years of gridlock no matter what.
The Republicans have slightly more at stake, because control of the Senate means if any judicial vacancies open up Harry Reid won't be able to go nuclear and ram nominees through. (Also, of course, any gains by the GOP provides a cushion for 2016, which should be a harder year for them when the class of '10 is up for re-election in trickier states like Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania).
The minimum wage is not going up in the next two years, unless the GOP decides it will (in exchange for something, possibly). No major legislative fix for Obamacare is likely, either. This is true regardless of whether Reid is still Majority Leader. So how is any of this going to goose Democratic turnout?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/04/29/benghazi-emails-show-blaming-video-was-effort-to-protect-re-elect-obama/
So the smoking gun comes out on Benghazi. They coached Susan Rice to lie to prevent a narrative of policy failure from taking hold. They dragged a man out of bed and threw him in prison for creating a piece of art after falsely blaming him for sparking the attack at Benghazi.
Of course none of this will bother the apologists for Obama, I am sure, but this came out of an email from the WH.
What tax surprise target the fragile emotional woman. War on women, indeed! Can't hold their liquor, can't say no can't handle strong language and so sexually wanton can't pay for their own bc.
Must be protected coddled and have absolutely no responsibility.
"I know I'm not going to vote for a party that rams through Shamnesty."
Me neither.
Chef Mojo:
Certainly not without addressing, and demanding that advocates and asylum seekers identify and describe, the causes which motivate around 1 million people annually to leave their homes.
Unmeasured immigration displaces Americans, and immigration which exceeds rate of assimilation causes dysfunction. Selective applications of "equal protection" are a cause of progressive corruption. Ignoring the causes which motivate mass emigration is a human rights violation and offers incentive for its progress.
Then there is the misinterpretation of the constitution, which grants native born status to anyone born in this legal jurisdiction to illegal aliens, visitors, etc. Whoever thought that a nation could be invaded and conquered through reproduction? That defeats the purpose and legitimacy of a rule of law; but, Americans are cowed by their government, civil "rights" businesses, and other oppressive institutions.
Starting to see some of it here in Colorado. Anti-Udahl "White Ad" was fairly effective. So, the Dems (and their supposedly uncoordinated fellow travelers) are hitting his opponent with two things. One is Koch money. The other is giving the oil industry, which has apparently has had "record profits", special tax benefits. The first is ridiculous on its face, and is misleading since the "Koch money" was not used directly by the Republican challenger, but independently (just like the pro-Udahl ads that are not supposed to be coordinated with the Udahl campaign). And, the oil/gas company giveaways is also misleading, because they actually don't get special benefits and giveaways - most of that was ended decades ago for the big oil companies, and what remains is essentially equivalent to depreciation, which all companies get to deduct. And, of course, any special deals for the oil/gas industry had to pass the Dem controlled Senate.
I think that there is also an ad out that Sen. Udahl (despite having been a deciding vote for it) is working to fix ObamaCare. As usual, no explicit proposals from him.
In other words, a lot of lying and misdirection. It may be enough to save his seat - we shall see. ObamaCare hasn't been as disastrous in CO, except for the outrageous prices, as in much of the country.
Nonapod:
Yeah, the problem with witches never ends. Burn them at the stake! The old cults never die.
Vaccination is the intentional introduction of a weakened or deconstructed pathogen. While it does not possess the full antigenic potential of its precursor, it does still cause inflammation, which is especially a concern when it happens in a developing brain. There is also a concern for the selected adjuvants included with production of vaccines, which have their own side-effects, including causing inflammation.
So, burn the witches at the stake, or dunk them according to your preference, and exercise judicious restraint to mitigate risk.
My advice to R's: suck it up and speak out against the obnoxiousness as soon as you see it. It will behoove you to take the lead in pushing back racism, sexism, and gay hate wherever it pops up.
That's a losing strategy. Remember the "binders full of women" bullshit. No one could explain why it was bad but they all knew it was bad. Best to just its a phoney crap to distract from their disastrous rule.
Bill, Republic of Texas:
Romney should have built a database full of people, then executed a selective search to build a report full of women. That's the proper way to manage affirmative action and other policies of selective discrimination. His binders analog is too gauche and not acceptable in polite company.
Mitt Romney, nice guy or not, must know how to tear up some ass in an office. You don't get to where he is without that talent. Remind me how it is when a guy like this is with a guy like Bob Schaffer or huh lOL Hope woman beast whatever like that Crowley, and does not I know how to in their place. Binders full of women. How do you know I do not look the person in the eye and say you don't mean that do you? You're just saying that to be funny, or to make a point or something? You understand perfectly well what I mean don't you? Don't you feel silly for getting off on horse or or however you would say making these ridiculous analogies? Those any rational person think that I have notebooks with the bodies of women in them? This is the day that the metaphor the simile it is not clear enough for you? Its it's degrading to have no books and folders with the names and the CA's of women in them to be considered for the position of responsibility? Isn't this on a level with gross out you were? Like Garbage Pail Kids or a booger jokes? Center of a limit to have you can hook decency question answers itself but unless you're a serious person with a serious responsibility in forming and sometimes even guiding the nation. The First Amendment adverts to you or privilege and responsibility this is the best you can do? What ask why you would ask me that and then you would ask Obama how he likes his green tea ice cream? You look at it like that sir, ma'am, but you feel a little bit silly? Don't you feel like you're abandoning your responsibilities? The collecting your duty? What am I doing here talking to you? What are you doing here talking to the American people? II apologize for letting you waste my time and I think you should apologize to your audience for wasting theirs. Haha I know if you apologize to me, we can go on otherwise you'll wish you a good day.and please, I can see you're not a fool, please don't ever played the fool with me again. Thank you.and before you say that I shouldn't tell you how to do your job, I'm quite confident that you had all your colleagues feel there is no better support and telling me how to do mine. Now if she's got an ounce of cuts, put that on the air.
stupid Android voice to text. I'm just going to post that and see how it looks. Sorry.
"Romney should have built a database full of people, then executed a selective search to build a report full of women. That's the proper way to manage affirmative action and other policies of selective discrimination. His binders analog is too gauche and not acceptable in polite company."
The bigger problem is that he was trying to use a personal story to show that he, Romney, did personally try to find qualified women for jobs in his administration, when the question was about the overall pay gap. And remember, Obama's answer to that question--some claptrap about the Lilly Ledbetter Act--was incredibly lame, and gave Romney a good opening. What should Romney have said instead?
"The president just gave you his solution to the gender pay gap--he wants to extend the statute of limitations on pay discrimination lawsuits, to help his trial lawyer supporters. Considering that equal pay laws have been on the books for half a century, it's safe to say that this will do a whole lot of not much! What would I do if I were president? I'd focus on the real cause of pay gap--the fact that women are more likely than men to need flexible schedules, as women are more likely than men to be the primary caregiver for children and elderly relatives. We Republicans recognize that many women have to make these sacrifices, and if we can find ways to make it more desirable for businesses to adopt telework policies and flex time for their employees, the women who can take advantage of this will not have to sacrifice their employment prospects for the family obligations that they choose."
Boom, halfway decent answer and exposes Obama's glib reply. Instead all we heard about were the binders for the next week.
Lying does take practice. My first wife lied even when the truth would have served her better. She did it to stay in practice. I almost believed everything she said up until the end.
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