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

[MichaeltheGreat]

After his confirmation hearing debacle and refusing to disclose financial information to Congress, how well do you think that case will stick should it gone down in defeat a la Harriet Miers?

That sort of thing always gets lost in the spin. Besides, with Romney's cherry picked returns, can the Republicans really have much credibility jumping up and down about providing tax returns beyond the statutory requirement for disclosure?

[Straybow]

Maybe it would help if the Republicans stopped trying to do horrible things to children and women?

And what, exactly, are the "horrible things" Republicans do to women and children?

[Hauldren Collider]

Republicans never did anything horrible to me when I was a child. Or anyone I knew. They have never done anything horrible to any women I know, either, and in fact, a great many of them voted for Republicans last year.

[Straybow]

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.

You have something to back that claim? She's got hours of material on youtube, pick one and make your argument. No, Palin was the only spark of life in the McCain campaign, despite being so poorly managed: incompletely prepped for prime-time media, muzzled from being a conservative voice.

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

Wrong again. There is no difference between getting your entertainment from a sitcom or reality TV. There is a difference between swallowing the crap on the liberal networks and realizing how biased they are.

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.

O'Reilly isn't on the networks. Fox News Channel is not Fox Broadcasting Company.

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****?

It seems you've forgotten that the liberal networks vilified Trump for forcing Obama to produce a birth certificate, and criticize everything else he says about fiscal responsibility and other matters in which he opposes O the Great and Powerful. They spend time because he brings points they have to work hard to negate, which they want to do because they are supporting Obama and the liberal Dems.

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?

The people who voted TEA Party candidates in didn't get to vote for Speaker, did they? We already know the party leadership doesn't support the conservatives, they actually endorsed a Democrat in one race and refused to give financial support to another. The conservatives elected in 2010 and 2012 can't rewrite the rules on how the Congress operates, nor how the Party operates. Seniority governs, and they can only change it if they can stomach the status quo long enough to get there.

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.

First, the mainstream media never called him "wooden" on the evening news, or the headlines, or the front page articles. Maybe on the editorials and op eds or articles buried pages deep that most voters never read, and the late night CNN talk shows with negligible audiences, or on Maher and Leno and Letterman who are entertainers and not newscasters. Second, you seem to have forgotten that Gore won the popular vote. He just didn't have enough votes in a few battleground states, and though his organization blocked thousands of military absentee votes and kept calling for recounts it wasn't enough to steal Florida.

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.

No, Dem SuperPAC money was very effective. Didn't you just say the Dems had successfully "owned" Romney in the field? Unless you think the mainstream media bias alone was responsible it must have been the Dem spending. It was not that the Republican money or organization was insufficient, it was their position and strategy that failed. Romney refused to counterattack with the plentiful ammunition available because it would be politically incorrect, and disarmed himself on the only issue that resonated with Republican core for fear of being branded a waffler.

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?

Because of the media bias that incessantly derides conservatism, just as you do. You have to have the ability to speak past the media (GWB didn't have Reagan's charisma or talent) or you have to come up with another way to sidestep the media's attacks.

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.

Yes, Romney is a progressive. That's what he called himself for a dozen years in Massachusetts before the 2008 primaries. This was pointed out in the 2008 and 2012 primaries, and nothing he did could quite wash it clean.

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.

You think a candidate who isn't further to the right would somehow rally the conservative base who turned out in 2010 to paste the Dems in 600+ state legislature seats, a dozen or so state governorships, and 62+6 House/Senate elections? Really? How does that work?

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.

Wrong again, only a fifth of the media is right wing. Swift Boaters got their message out despite everything the media tried to do to quash it, using youtube, radio, and relentlessly repeating their message at grass roots level. The media tried to smear the SBers back but since it wasn't the candidate being smeared it had little effect. Romney failed to use the 2012 equivalent of Swift Boat, which was the pledge to repeal Obamacare.

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.

You are so wrong it is comical. How does, say, NBC, address their competitors at ABC? Not the way they address Rush. Why? Because although they compete for position they're on the same side: overwhelmingly Dem, overwhelmingly lib, and the bias comes across in everything they do and say. Look at the present scandal in NJ. Drudge and the conservative media have been on it for weeks. Has it even been mentioned on the mainstream networks?

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.

You've ignored why Obama was tired, lazy, and entitled: Obama and the media drank their own cool-aide. The way the Dems and the media portrayed Romney you'd think he was less charismatic than Dole and less articulate than GWB. Romney 0wn3d because he is charismatic and articulate. If he weren't, Obama's poor performance wouldn't have made a difference and there would've been no bounce at all.

Second, you ignore why the bounce didn't last. In the next debate Obama and Crowly tag-teamed on Romney with Obama's "get the transcript" line and Crowly, as the "moderator," jumping into the debate on Obama's side! Are you that tone-deaf you can't hear the orchestration? I don't want whatever you're smoking or drinking, it's made you oblivious to reality.

Lastly, the bounce didn't last because he'd already branded himself as not "that kind of conservative" and it was indeed too late to reverse that. It wasn't just Romney, either. There was a continual drumbeat against the conservatives in House and Senate races from both the lib media and from the Republican Party itself. Or maybe, again, you are just oblivious to what was happening?

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.

So, Romney implemented progressive health care as the centerpiece of his governorship, yet you're still positing that he isn't a progressive? Of course he could not admit that his progressive program was wrong, that premiums rose and red tape increased. Yes, he could not admit that the only reason it worked as well as it did in Massachusetts was because the state was able to kick expenses back to the federal programs. Yes, running on his record as a progressive would've been political suicide because the Republican base is conservative. Which is why his signing the pledge to repeal was too late to be effective as a campaign tool. He'd already defined himself in the primaries and by his record.

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.

Again you misunderstand, yes, the conservative base would have turned out in droves for Romney if he'd admitted Romneycare was a failed experiment and rallied against Obamacare. The Dems and media could have shouted "flip-flopper" from the rooftops and it wouldn't have mattered, this was an election about an issue. The conservative base had no confidence that Romney would actually kill Obamacare because he'd already positioned himself otherwise.

Second, you are wrong about pledges. You conveniently forget that the Contract With America was used to unite the Republican Party (only two candidates did not sign). Republicans won 54 House seats and 6 Senate seats, then four Dems switched parties and two became independent. Conservatism wins when applied. Third, a conservative pledge only creates a problem with flip-flopping if any change doesn't meet the smell test. He changed too little, too late.

...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?

No, the TEA Party and talk radio spent four years campaigning to make Obama's tenure short. The Republican Party spent four years trying to keep the media from playing the race card against them. None of the leadership had the guts to stand against Obama. The Republican Party actively campaigned against conservatives as mentioned above. More people did vote for Romney than for McCain, but not enough to change the result. The psychological messaging by the voters is that both Romney and the Republican Party distanced themselves from the conservative base, despite the fact that conservatives showed in 2010 they could turn out for strong candidates and get many moderates and independents to come along as well.

[DaShi]

Republicans never did anything horrible to me when I was a child. Or anyone I knew. They have never done anything horrible to any women I know, either, and in fact, a great many of them voted for Republicans last year.

You've probably just repressed the memories.

[MichaeltheGreat]

[QUOTE=Straybow;6194763]You have something to back that claim? She's got hours of material on youtube, pick one and make your argument. No, Palin was the only spark of life in the McCain campaign, despite being so poorly managed: incompletely prepped for prime-time media, muzzled from being a conservative voice.[/q]

Why would I bother? You're hung up on a failed #2 candidate from two elections ago, not me. She got her 15 minutes, end of story. You can build a Lost Cause II myth around her if you want, but I've got better things to do.

Wrong again. There is no difference between getting your entertainment from a sitcom or reality TV. There is a difference between swallowing the crap on the liberal networks and realizing how biased they are.

It's the old minoritarian "we're the guardians of all that is right and virtuous, and if people only knew, they'd always elect us, but that durn librul media got us again." mantra. If it helps you sleep, that's good, but it won't win you elections.

O'Reilly isn't on the networks. Fox News Channel is not Fox Broadcasting Company.

Oh Really is in the media. e.g. there's right wing viewpoints, left, and everything else, as the market dictates.

It seems you've forgotten that the liberal networks vilified Trump for forcing Obama to produce a birth certificate,

The birth certificate non-issue was a dead duck years ago to everyone outside Outer Whackjobistan. So you, I can see

and criticize everything else he says about fiscal responsibility and other matters in which he opposes O the Great and Powerful.

First, given his financial shenanigans in his business, Trump talking about fiscal responsibility is about as credible as Ron Jeremy talking about abstinence. Second, with Trump's over the top blowhard shtick from his TV shows to anything else, he devalues any serious message if he ever had one. Trump is a buffoon, end of story. If that's who you want packaging your issues for the media, by all means, go for it!

The people who voted TEA Party candidates in didn't get to vote for Speaker, did they?

"The people" of any ilk have never voted for speaker. The people who they elect, however, do.

First, the mainstream media never called him "wooden" on the evening news, or the headlines, or the front page articles. Maybe on the editorials and op eds or articles buried pages deep that most voters never read, and the late night CNN talk shows with negligible audiences, or on Maher and Leno and Letterman who are entertainers and not newscasters. Second, you seem to have forgotten that Gore won the popular vote. He just didn't have enough votes in a few battleground states, and though his organization blocked thousands of military absentee votes and kept calling for recounts it wasn't enough to steal Florida.

Hell, Gore's performance on the campaign trail was widely panned. Sorry you missed it. He won the popular vote? Really? News at 10. That doesn't get you elected President, does it? Nor does it negate that he inherited massive advantages and blew them.

Didn't you just say the Dems had successfully "owned" Romney in the field? Unless you think the mainstream media bias alone was responsible it must have been the Dem spending. It was not that the Republican money or organization was insufficient, it was their position and strategy that failed.

We agree on the poor strategy. The Dems owned Romney in the field because that was their focus with the resources available, and the GOP took a different, unsuccessful approach.

Because of the media bias that incessantly derides conservatism, just as you do. You have to have the ability to speak past the media (GWB didn't have Reagan's charisma or talent) or you have to come up with another way to sidestep the media's attacks.

I thought this was a conservative country (per your assertion) and those people don't listen to librul "lamestream" media? So why would Dubya have to soft-peddle his way away from the values of his majority conservative country to dance around the evil librul media that conservatives don't listen to in the first place? BTW, I don't have a problem with conservatism, I have a problem with social conservatism, conspiracy theory conservatism, and anti-intellectual conservatism.

Yes, Romney is a progressive. That's what he called himself for a dozen years in Massachusetts before the 2008 primaries. This was pointed out in the 2008 and 2012 primaries, and nothing he did could quite wash it clean.

No, he pandered as a progressive because that's expected of the governor of the People's Republic of Taxachusetts. Then he tried to pander as something else this time around. Romney isn't anything ideologically, he's an etch-a-sketch.

You think a candidate who isn't further to the right would somehow rally the conservative base who turned out in 2010 to paste the Dems in 600+ state legislature seats, a dozen or so state governorships, and 62+6 House/Senate elections? Really? How does that work?

Where was that "conservative base" in prior elections? Yeah, people react to partisan overreach. Misreading that as a mandate or a majority base is stupid on either side. National elections are decided in the center. Every base vote picked up by one side or the other's pandering = more votes in the independent or undecided column who flip or stay home.

Wrong again, only a fifth of the media is right wing. Swift Boaters got their message out despite everything the media tried to do to quash it, using youtube, radio, and relentlessly repeating their message at grass roots level.

Uh, dood? youtube and radio are media.

You are so wrong it is comical. How does, say, NBC, address their competitors at ABC? Not the way they address Rush. Why? Because although they compete for position they're on the same side: overwhelmingly Dem, overwhelmingly lib, and the bias comes across in everything they do and say. Look at the present scandal in NJ. Drudge and the conservative media have been on it for weeks. Has it even been mentioned on the mainstream networks?

They compete for the same audience. How does Rush address O'Reilly? Not the same way he addresses MSNBC or whoever. If you're competing for the same core audience, and the opposite audience won't touch you, you don't offend the core audience, and have nothing to lose with the opposite audience.

a bunch of rationalization about why Romney lost

Uh, dood? The rest of us have moved on. Best focus on 2014 and 2016, cuz you ain't gettin' a do-over on 2012.

Second, you are wrong about pledges. You conveniently forget that the Contract With America was used to unite the Republican Party (only two candidates did not sign). Republicans won 54 House seats and 6 Senate seats, then four Dems switched parties and two became independent. Conservatism wins when applied.

Then a few years later, it loses again after the media gimmick of the pledge loses its shine. You act like it was CoA that won, rather than Dem overreach and less focused messaging.

No, the TEA Party and talk radio spent four years campaigning to make Obama's tenure short.

Man, they must still be hurtin'.

The Republican Party spent four years trying to keep the media from playing the race card against them. None of the leadership had the guts to stand against Obama. The Republican Party actively campaigned against conservatives as mentioned above. More people did vote for Romney than for McCain, but not enough to change the result. The psychological messaging by the voters is that both Romney and the Republican Party distanced themselves from the conservative base, despite the fact that conservatives showed in 2010 they could turn out for strong candidates and get many moderates and independents to come along as well.

You guys keep saying that.

[kentonio]

I find it hilarious that the party of free market economics seem to spent so much time wailing about the mainstream media being overwhelmingly liberal. Correct me if I'm wrong, but being for-profit organizations wouldn't that make a majority of Americans 'overwhelmingly liberal'? Something that doesn't appear to be born out by little things like elections?

[Hauldren Collider]

People who become reporters trend liberal for various easily explained economic reasons, such as preferring in-kind compensation over actual money. This becomes somewhat of a snowball effect as they have a bias towards hiring those of similar political leanings.

[MichaeltheGreat]

But, since they're mostly for profits, and subsidiaries of non-media entertainment, if they don't bring home the dollars, they change. They fill market niches - if there was no consumer demand, they'd do something else instead.

[Hauldren Collider]

I am referring to why individual reporters tend to be liberals, which tends to shift the entire industry to the left against "normal" market forces.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Individual reporters, yes, but they like to whine about editor/producer pushback. The point is they can't be too far out of the market norm - if they are, their ratings decline, and niches open up for other types of reportage and point of view.

It's just kind of a funny mantra of a lot of conservatives, then a lot of the whiny uber left types that make Pelosi look like a Rockefeller Republican, except they whine about the evil right-wing corporate media. You know, the Kucinich type of lefty whack-jobs. My view is the market will correct any *real* significant offset between media as a whole and the electorate as a whole - you get a big mix of all different types, but all demands get filled, and if anyone is way out there, their audience shrinks and thus goes their revenue.

The whole "we woulda wun except the evil media decieved the sheep" thing is just laughable excuse-making, whether it comes from the right or left.

[Dinner]

And what, exactly, are the "horrible things" Republicans do to women and children?

How about medically unnecessary forced vaginal probes? Just to name one which has been in the news this week.



Smaller government, my ass.

[regexcellent]

Uh...you realize that transvaginal ultrasounds (lol "vaginal probes" you make it sound like a 50s alien invasion flick) are the standard for very early abortions? Planned Parenthood requires them.

[kentonio]

Uh...you realize that transvaginal ultrasounds (lol "vaginal probes" you make it sound like a 50s alien invasion flick) are the standard for very early abortions? Planned Parenthood requires them.

Sure, that's why Bob McDonnell came out against it and said..

I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. I am asking the General Assembly to state in this legislation that only a transabdominal, or external, ultrasound will be required to satisfy the requirements to determine gestational age. Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images and information that will be an issue for the doctor and the patient. The government will have no role in that medical decision.

Don't try and defend this bull****. The pro-life tried to overreach and got rightly slapped back down for it. The sad thing is that they still managed to get a reduced form of the bill through, despite it being utterly demeaning to the intelligence of the women it affects.

[regexcellent]

Bob McDonnell came out against it to save the Virginia republicans after the retarded ****storm. It's actually a medical necessity, so making it mandatory doesn't even change anything for almost anyone. The point of the ultrasound bill, in any case, wasn't to force women to have something shoved up their vaginas. It was to force them to see that they were about to kill a living thing with a beating heart etc etc.