Who are American politicians beholden to? The People? The Constitution?

[kentonio]

By forcing them to pay for their own damn contraception?

You think the cost of contraception was why Republicans lost the womens vote by a simply vast margin? That kind of thinking does however explain why you lost the womens vote by a vast margin.

[Ben Kenobi]

You think the cost of contraception was why Republicans lost the womens vote by a simply vast margin? That kind of thinking does however explain why you lost the womens vote by a vast margin.

By asserting that women are perfectly capable of supporting themselves without outside assistance?

[kentonio]

By asserting that women are perfectly capable of supporting themselves without outside assistance?

Here's a free hint, when you are willing to take away low income women's only source of access to things like cancer screening, pregnancy care, sexual health checks and contraception due to your own religious dogma, then women tend to get rather cross.

[Ben Kenobi]

Here's a free hint, when you are willing to take away low income women's only source of access to things like cancer screening, pregnancy care, sexual health checks and contraception due to your own religious dogma, then women tend to get rather cross.

So only low income women purchase contraception? Contraception coverage should only cover low income women? Interesting positions, sir.

What qualifies one for being 'low income'?

[kentonio]

So only women purchase contraception? Contraception coverage should only cover women? Interesting positions, sir.

Well done, your long running streak of making irrational statements that are in no way connected to anything anyone said continues. Good work.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well done, your long running streak of making irrational statements that are in no way connected to anything anyone said continues. Good work.

Hey, I'm not the one who's on the record saying that health care benefits should be available only to low income women. Whatever 'low income' means.

[kentonio]

'low income women's only source' does not mean 'should only be available to women'.

Even by your standards that is some pretty bad reading comprehension.

[DinoDoc]

Here's a free hint, when you are willing to take away low income women's only source of access to things like cancer screening, pregnancy care, sexual health checks and contraception due to your own religious dogma, then women tend to get rather cross.

Poor women and women generally, have other options for seeking primary care, contraception, STI testing, and cancer screening than Planned Parenthood. In addition to the tens of thousands of U.S. doctors and hospitals providing this care, there were 1,048 federally qualified health centers in the U.S. provide women cancer screening, contraception, and STI testing. Removing Federal funding from PP also wouldn't significantly hamper the organization since it has approximately 1 billion in net assets according to the most recent report I can find.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Like I said, you probably think Palin said she could see Russia from her back yard...

is right. Like I said, I listened to the noise coming out of her pie-hole. Don't need any librul media to see that Palin was an ignorant, policy-illiterate relentless self-promoter. McCain's biggest mistake by far, except Palin and her media promoters got quite a ride while the cash cow still gave milk. We even had Bristol Palin get in on the act.

No, that would imply there is some kind of commodity value. There is none.

And there's "commodity value" in Two and a Half Men or the Kardashians? Entertainment is a commodity value. Ratings = money. End of story.

It is all marketing and propaganda. It's a popularity contest. Who has the smoothest delivery, pleasant features, etc. Networks report everything Obama does with a smile and a gee-whiz-ain't-it-great, and everything any Republican does with a frown and a what-will-happen-to-the-women-and-children.

Yeah, I hear O'Reilly really loves giving ol' Obama's boots the spit-shine. Are you conveniently forgetting that part of the media (which makes tons of money) that vilifies Obama as the Kenyan Muslim Soshlist Anti-Christ? Or, for that matter, all the attention the evil lib networks gave to Trump and his mindless horse****? Trump sold, therefore Trump got an audience in the "liberal" media. It's just part of the conservative playbook - everyone would be conservative if they weren't brainwashed. We're the enlightened patriots surrounded by (insert villain of the era here) and we're the last bastion of freedom and blah blah blah.

The speaker had already purged a couple of outspoken chairs in favor of party loyalists, and no serious campaign was made by anyone with seniority. The conservatives want to work within the party, not start a third party. The freshmen of 1994 had the same problem and most dropped out after a couple terms.

Well, apparently if they want to work within the party, they're not doing a very good job of it if Boner still has a lock on control. Maybe support for "conservatives" isn't all they think it is?

Really? Al Gore, incumbant VP, in a strong economy, environmental prophet, inventor of the internet, liberal media favorite, he was a weak candidate? Really?

Yep. If he was a good candidate, he would have won with those advantages. Ever see him live or listen to his speeches? The "liberal" media castigated him as "wooden" and that was an understatement. Campaigns are about efficient, smoothly run hucksterism. Clinton is the current living master. Gore tried to distance himself from Clinton, and once he was no longer in Clinton's shadow, he sucked on the campaign trail. He didn't motivate liberal voters, despite their distaste for GWB.

You said a Democrat clone Republican would win, but a Democrat clone Democrat couldn't overcome the "compassionate conservative" Bush?

I said the only way the Republicans could win is with a Democrat clone. That doesn't mean a Democrate that sucks on the campaign trail is a shoe-in.

Romney had strong organization and fundraising, yet couldn't overcome an incumbent with a poor performance rating in the worst economy in a generation?

What do they smoke where you are? Can you send me some? Romney had a strong organization? Perhaps in comparison to Perry, Bachmann or the walking cluster**** that was Gingrich's campaign, but Romney was flat-out owned in the field by Obama, just about everywhere. Fundraising? Romney spent a bunch of money fighting off primary challenges and cleaning mud off him, then was at a disadvantage early in the general campaign. All the SuperPAC money spent on either side seems to have been a total waste - very little discernable effect, and no bang for the buck compared to the ground organization, which Romney and his senior campaign management wrote off as secondary and outmoded.

But GWB can't possibly have won because the electorate is actually fairly conservative. Nope, conservatives are wackos, not normal people.

Keep tellin' yourself that. If the electorate is so conservative, why did GWB have to soft-peddle and try to distinguish himself as a "compassionate conservative?" In fact, why did he even come up with that phrase, if the electorate generally accepts conservatism? GWB largely owes his election and reelection to Rove, but like many political animals, Rove had his superbowl win, it doesn't mean he's going to do it again. The electorate has been fairly split with the difference being a combo of a shifting centrist/independent pool, and/or motivation/demotivation levels from one base or another.

Because he's a progressive trying not to run as a progressive, but also trying not to run as a conservative...

Romney's a progressive now? Romney tried to be anything he thought his audience wanted to hear, and he couldn't make the sale to his own base. Then came the "etch a sketch" moment. You can't buy that kind of stuff, it has to be given to you.

You said a Democrat clone would win, which he was and yet he didn't.

I said the only way a Repuiblican can win is being a democrat clone. Not the same thing. Particularly in response to your insane notion that a candidate further to the right would have won.

Wrong on each point. First, the media and Obama portrayed him as waffling and offensive, and repeated every minor gaff hoping some might become a meme, and some did.

First, half the media is your hacks, who vilify Obama at every turn. Second, Swift Boating goes both ways. A good campaigner defines himself, a bad campaigner lets his opponents and their proxies define him. All the little right-wing primary ankebiters were dead weight around Romney.

They never treated Obama's gaffs the same (much less Biden's). Then again you've already admitted your willfull blindness to the bias in the media, so no wonder you swallowed those lines, hook and sinker.

Funny how you define the media as "that portion of the media which doesn't support my point of view." So what do you call talk radio, Fox, Drudge, et al? In my book, that's media too. All participating in one big market. And Biden's gaffes are comic stuff - we expect it from ol' Joe. If what Romney has to offer is "the media picked on me but not the other guy" then that's all you need to know. It's the loser's mantra.

Second, the proof of your error is in the debates. He was hardly on the radar the day before, and after the first debate he gained from 14 to 18 points on Obama. Why? Because that's the first time the average media-dulled voter actually heard Romney speak, state his position, and be his charming self (and he is, which offends you so much you have to pretend he's some sort of toad).

Nope, it's because he was prepared and Obama was tired, lazy and entitled. Romney owned Obama in that debate, no doubt. At that point, it was too late - he couldn't sustain it, and didn't do it earlier in the primaries or otherwise with near the same effect. And Obama made a rare campaign ****up - he assumed he could just cruise. End of story, the bounce didn't last, and Romney lost. Keep working the "lost cause" angles, though, it's amusing.

Third, you are wrong in that he refused to repudiate Romneycare, even to the end. He defended it as "right for Massachusetts but not necessarily as a national program."

He couldn't deny that he'd created it. He couldn't say "I did it as governor, but I ****ed up and would never do it now." That's political suicide. So he danced, but he didn't endorse his own program and eventually said his first day he'd repeal it.

He refused to sign the pledge to repeal Obamacare until the end of July, and he did it like a kid being forced to eat his veggies. By then it was too late to rally the conservative base. FACT.

If defeating the Kenyan Anti-Christ and saving America from socialisim wasn't enough to turn out the base, nothing Romney could have done would have made a difference. Of course he signed the pledge like a kid forced to eat his veggies - those kind of pledges are exactly that in politics, and what you gain (if anything) from the base, you lose in the general among independents and undecidededs because your pandering and flip-flopping becomes campaign fodder.

FACT: Obama received 3.5 million less votes than in 2008, and Romney received a million more votes total than McCain in 2008. Turnout in 2012 was significantly lower, and a lot of the base on both sides stayed home. Also, generalizations like that are meaningless. When a state is never in play and never contested, then out-party turnout can drop in those states - and also, like mid-terms, important state contests affect turnout. There is also psychological messaging by voters. Do you think Republican voters in California really thought they had a chance of making a difference in the result? So those who didn't like Romney could safely not vote. That wouldn't be the case in a swing state. Republicans spent four years foaming at the mouth about making Obama a one-term president. Do you mean to tell me they'd forego the chance because Romney wasn't pure enough for the base?

3 million fewer Republicans voted for him than for McCain 2008, and that means the base didn't turn out.

[Ben Kenobi]

'low income women's only source' does not mean 'should only be available to women'.

Interesting. Then why are low income women specifically relevant to this conversation?

[kentonio]

Poor women and women generally, have other options for seeking primary care, contraception, STI testing, and cancer screening than Planned Parenthood.

That's the thing you see, in lots of places they don't.

In addition to the tens of thousands of U.S. doctors and hospitals providing this care, there were 1,048 federally qualified health centers in the U.S. provide women cancer screening, contraception, and STI testing.

America, it's a big place.

Removing Federal funding from PP also wouldn't significantly hamper the organization since it has approximately 1 billion in net assets according to the most recent report I can find.

Ah, so you want them to provide vital services to American women, but you don't want the country to lend a hand with that in any way. Good to see you Republicans wanting free handouts again.

[kentonio]

Interesting. Then why are low income women specifically relevant to this conversation?

Why are they relevant? How about because they are the primary recipients for these services?

[Ben Kenobi]

How about because they are the primary recipients for these services?

Define 'low income'. I bet it's more than I make. Please explain to me why I should be paying for services that I don't want or need for people who make more than I do?

[kentonio]

Define 'low income'. I bet it's more than I make. Please explain to me why I should be paying for services that I don't want or need for people who make more than I do?

Who gives a **** about what you want? You don't get a say in what federal taxes go towards, and as you earn less than most paperboys your 'contribution' is laughable anyway. You think that poor American women shouldn't be able to get cancer screenings because you are still living in 14th century Rome in your head? Get ****ed.

[Ben Kenobi]

Who gives a **** about what you want?

Why are my wants and needs less important than 'low income woman'? Why are their needs more important?

You don't get a say in what federal taxes go towards

True, I don't. But American citizens do. Your case essentially amounts to, "I want it, therefore it must happen". Pretty ****ty argument. Oh, and some good patriachal insight that 'poor women need their contraception paid for because they can't be trusted to keep their legs closed". Well said, Kentonio.

You think that poor American women shouldn't be able to get cancer screenings because you are still living in 14th century Rome in your head? Get ****ed.

No, I'm tired of liars who use women. You've already admitted that Obamacare doesn't just cover 'low income women'. It covers everyone- and I end up paying not just for the low income women but for everyone's condoms. Rich or poor.

This is why your argument is garbage. If it were truly about poor women, Obamacare would provide benefits only for them. But it doesn't, so that's just a smokescreen. At least Obama's honest about his desire to **** the poor.