Help Elok fathom Republican rhetoric

[KrazyHorse]

Feel free to start another party.

[HalfLotus]

I will....













IN MY PANTS!


No but seriously, parties seem to work to the detriment of the American political system, by and large. How about if people just think and vote as individuals and (hopefully) rational people, and not as "repubs" or "dems"?

People are too herd-like to do so, but something will emerge from the current mess - hopefully it will be positive. Right now we're ****ed in a big way.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I'm guessing in light of this boards response to the Tea Party movement (which took as many shots at Repugs as Demonrats) the likelihood of anyone embracing a third party short of the communist party is unlikely.

[rah]

Yes both parties suck these days.

But that's another problem. It's one thing to obstruct (being successful is something else), but I guess I'm just getting tired of the same ole same ole partisan crap. In my opinion you're supposed to obstruct to be heard or to get a compromise that's good for everyone, (granted compromises can sometimes get you the worst of everything) But these days the repugs don't sound constructive, but just whinny.

This being afraid crap in Illinois is just too embarrassing.

[rah]

Feel free to start another party.

Easier said then done. The system is stacked against it.

[HalfLotus]

It's not that there aren't enough parties, we have dozens of them in the US. It's that only two have any significant influence, and they collude to exclude others from the political process.

You see what happens to up and coming "parties" like Tea Baggers. They get slammed by both sides of the establishment, and too many voters will ingest and regurgitate whatever partisan smears they hear from our pathetic media system. The ideological shift is immediately stunted.

Then there's the enormous hurdle of partisan electoral politics which is nigh insurmountable. No young upstart party can loose the stranglehold of the D's and R's.

Positive change in the US will be driven by a decentralized revolution of ideas, irrespective of parties. I suggest that Americans should look to their history and embrace our traditional value of life and liberty, for all. Right now we afford limited liberties to ourselves, and B2s & UAVs, or the threat of them, to everyone else.

[GePap]

one would need some sort of agenda to start a real working political party - the only things that unite the entire "Tea Party" movement are fear and anger. Beyond that, there is really nothing that holds born again evangelicals, ron paul type liberterians,and objectivists (and a smatering of white supremasists just for ****s and giggles) together.

And there are many existing political parties in the US already, but as rah said, the two party system in this country is very strong and there is clearly a long standing structural aversion to having a party system with more than one party - some parties (Federalists, Whigs) die and are then replaced, the existing parties may migrate in their positions, but in over 200 years third parties have never been of significant important more than a couple of election cycles, if that.

And on the Gitmo issue:

The biggest PR problem with gitmo is that it is an offshore, legally ambigious site, which is why it was chosen in the first place. At this point, its reputation is unsalvageable.

If we are going to be spending vast amounts of dough on keeping these people perpetually, then might as well use it as economic development and increase domestic employment at some local site. That the inmates at guantanamo would probably hate it is only another "benefit."

And no, the terrorist are no more likely to break out of some supermax or supermax like facility than anyone already in one of those prisons, and even if one of them broke out, they would not last long on the outside.

[Ben Kenobi]

and a smatering of white supremasists

Is this why Robert 'Sheets' Byrd has a D by his name?

[Asher]

I like how because there's a racist democrat, there's no racist republicans. To live in the Benaverse.

[Drake Tungsten]

Speaking of racist Democrats...

On page 37, a remark, said "privately" by Sen. Harry Reid, about Barack Obama's racial appeal. Though Reid would later say that he was neutral in the presidential race, the truth, the authors write, was that his...

...encouragement of Obama was unequivocal. He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2010/01/the_juiciest_revelations_in_game_change.php

[Drake Tungsten]

Slick Willy a racist? I refuse to believe it...

One of the enduring mysteries of the 2008 campaign was what got Ted Kennedy so mad at Bill Clinton. The former president's entreaties, at some point, backfired, and the explanation has never quite emerged.

I've finally gotten my hands on a copy of Game Change, in which John Heliemann and Mark Halperin report:

[A]s Hillary bungled Caroline, Bill’s handling of Ted was even worse. The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0110/Teddys_anger.html

[Drake Tungsten]

The relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden grew so strained during the 2008 campaign, according to a new book, that the two rarely spoke and aides not only kept Biden off internal conference calls but refused to even tell him they existed. ...

Obama himself was growing increasingly frustrated with his running mate after Biden let loose with a string of gaffes, including a statement that paying higher taxes amounted to patriotism and criticism of one of the campaign’s own ads poking fun at John McCain.

But when Biden, at an October fund-raiser in Seattle, famously predicted that Obama would be tested with an international crisis, the then-Illinois senator had had enough.

“How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?” he demanded of his advisers on a conference call, a moment at which most people on the call said the candidate was as angry as they had ever heard him. ...

When the ticketmates talked a few days after Biden’s prediction that Obama would be tested, Obama lit into his running mate. But Biden didn’t apologize – or even indicate he understood why his comments in Seattle were problematic, though McCain’s campaign had already cut an ad featuring the dark warning.

Speaking to his own staff, Biden insisted that it hadn’t really been a gaffe. And feeling a bit defensive, he invoked one of the worst memories of Obama’s primary campaign.

“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t say anything about bitter people who cling to their guns and religion,” Biden cracked, the authors paraphrase.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31302.html

Biden

[Ben Kenobi]

Bitter clingers.

[Guynemer]

From the same upcoming book:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/2008-campaign-all-over-again-in-new-book/?hp

* In the days leading up to an interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson, aides were worried with Ms. Palin’s grasp of facts. She couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations and she did not know what the Federal Reserve did. She also said she believed Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

[Drake Tungsten]

The stuff on the Edwards' campaign is even better than what's been posted here. This book sounds awesome.