Democrats not as doomed as GOP wants you to believe - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

FuglyStick · 05-16-2010, 10:38 AM

Quote:

AP-GfK Poll: Voters tilt back toward Democrats
By ALAN FRAM (AP) – 18 hours ago
WASHINGTON — People want Democrats to control Congress after this fall's elections, a shift from April, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Saturday. But the margin is thin and there's a flashing yellow light for incumbents of both parties: Only about one-third want their own lawmakers re-elected.
The tenuous 45 percent to 40 percent preference for a Democratic Congress reverses the finding a month ago on the same question: 44 percent for Republicans and 41 percent for Democrats. The new readout came as the economy continued showing signs of improvement and the tumultuous battle over the health care law that President Barack Obama finally signed in March faded into the background.
"To the extent that Democrats can focus on job creation rather than health care, they tend to do better," said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at California's Claremont McKenna College.
Democrats hold a 254-177 majority over Republicans in the House, with four vacancies, while Democrats control 59 of the Senate's 100 seats, counting support from two independents. Despite those disadvantages, the GOP has gained political momentum in recent months and its leaders hope to win control of at least one chamber of Congress this November.
Compared with the last AP-GfK poll in April, the survey showed Republicans losing some support among married women, a key component of many GOP victories. Democrats picked up ground among young and rural voters.
"I'm a new Democrat," said Harley Smithson, 51, of Baltimore, who said he had recently switched from the GOP. "I want to be with a party that's for something instead of against everything."
Even so, the poll underscores that the political environment remains ominous for Democrats.
Just 35 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest measured by the AP-GfK survey since a week before Obama took office in January 2009. His approval rating remains at 49 percent, as low as it's been since he become president.
Congressional Democrats win approval from only 37 percent, though congressional Republicans score an even drearier 31 percent. Democrats and Republicans are about evenly trusted to handle the economy, an issue Democrats once dominated and one that is crucial at a time when the country's job situation, though brightening, remains grim.
Only 36 percent said they want their own member of Congress to win re-election this fall, a noteworthy drop from the 43 percent who said so in April and the lowest AP-GfK poll measurement this year. Much of the restiveness seems to be among Republicans: While Democrats were about equally divided on the question, Republicans expressed a preference for a new face by a 2-to-1 margin.
"I want to send a message to Washington loud and clear that I'm not happy, I'm really unhappy, both with Republicans and Democrats," said Diane Mullens, 54, of Huntsville, Ala. "If that means I have to vote everybody out and make a stand with my one vote, I'll do it."
The poll was conducted more than two weeks after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began and during the weekend of the abortive car bomb attack on Times Square in New York. The survey detected no significant changes in the public's trust in Obama for his handling of the environment or terrorism.
In recent days, the anti-incumbent wave has already spelled defeat in party primaries for a pair of Washington fixtures: Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va. Other veterans such as Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., have announced their retirements, and Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., face primary challenges Tuesday that could add them to the political casualty list.
Among those most eager to turn incumbents out of office are the one in four who called themselves supporters of the conservative tea party movement. Two-thirds say they want a new person representing them in Washington, compared with half of everyone else.
"The Republican Party has more or less left me," said Mike Miller, 40, of Republic, Mo., a tea party backer who wants a new member of Congress. "Everybody's shifted to the left."
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted May 7-11 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media. It involved cell and landline telephone interviews with 1,002 randomly chosen adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Associated Press Polling Director Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
On the Net:
Poll site: Welcome to the AP-GfK Poll Homepage

The Associated Press: AP-GfK Poll: Voters tilt back toward Democrats

Sorry, Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Rove, et al. It looks like the only people who are buying what you are peddling are fans of the number one propaganda network--and they still don't make up a majority. Unfortunately for Teabaggers and Republicans, the economy is recovering too quickly for them to continue to paint the Democrats as the cause of the problem, or maybe people just have long enough memories to remember under whose watch it was when the economy went bust.

Will the Dems lose seats? Oh yeah, they're going to lose seats--and they should. Far too many members of Congress have been ineffectual at best, and cowardly opportunists at worst. But the argument that the country is largely a conservative one, and that the elections of 2008 were nothing but an "aberration", is nothing but wishful thinking.

The numbers aren't great, but they are a sign that people are not as anti-Democrat as Fox would have you believe, and those numbers will continue to improve as elections approach.

Seaver · 05-16-2010, 11:14 AM

I don't believe the Republicans will win a majority in the midterms. They've had a fantastic opportunity handed to them to regain Congress, and squandered it.

The poor economy (I've honestly seen 0 improvement... I'm STILL unemployed), ineffectual government (failed financial reform), and a 0 sum insurance "reform" which fixes almost nothing, all help remove any momentum the Democrats hope to have. This effectively kills their base and puts independents to sleep.

Unfortunately, the Republican party has been wholly taken over by the ludicrous Right. The Intellectual Republican, which gained the Presidency and the Congress of the '80s/90s if effectively dead or has been silenced. Gone are the days of the Big Tent, gone are the days of party of new ideas.

I've only ever voted Republican, but I won't vote for them until they become the party they once were.

ASU2003 · 05-16-2010, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The poor economy (I've honestly seen 0 improvement... I'm STILL unemployed), ineffectual government (failed financial reform), and a 0 sum insurance "reform" which fixes almost nothing, all help remove any momentum the Democrats hope to have. This effectively kills their base and puts independents to sleep.

I think the media just wants a fight. It will be boring if one side is a majority and there is no controversy, and their ratings will suffer.

The next thing is I wonder how many people will vote selfishly veruses what is the best direction for this country to head in. I mean, I think that both parties need to start reducing the deficit in major & unpopular ways, and we need to stop spending so much money on oil from unfriendly nations (and thinking we can make up the difference by drilling here). But, I'm not sure how much someone should blame the government for not getting a job. The unknown laws were causing some problems, but once the businesses know what the rules will be, they will be able to plan for the future and hire again if they need to. I think the financial system has recovered and I think millions of people that were about to retire when their 401k's lost half their value would be happy. And at the end of the day, there were some improvments to the health insurance system, yet it was the Republicans that got in the way of 'real' reform and left nobody happy.

SecretMethod70 · 05-18-2010, 06:38 PM

Tonight's primary results seem to agree with you Seaver. Not only did Rand Paul win in Kentucky, but he did so while getting fewer votes than even the second place Democrat in the primary. People need to remember - on both sides - that different does not always mean better. (Unless you're Joe Sestak, in which case you're both different and better than Arlen Specter!)

Seaver · 05-19-2010, 04:42 PM

Only nutjobs or those who don't actually understand his politics would vote for Ron Paul... I know nothing of his son but I imagine it's more of the same.

dc_dux · 05-19-2010, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Only nutjobs or those who don't actually understand his politics would vote for Ron Paul... I know nothing of his son but I imagine it's more of the same.

What the Rand Paul victory in KY did was to put an almost sure thing Republican Senate seat in play in November.

The guy he beat in the primary polled much stronger in a general election match-up with the Democrat.

The Republican establish is quaking in their boots with these more extremists candidates winning the primaries.

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:25 PM ----------

The other big victory for the Democrats was John Murtha's open House seat in PA.

A blue collar district that went for McCain in 2008 and where Obama's approval rating is much lower than the national average.

The Republicans targeted this one and the Democrat won by 8 points.

SecretMethod70 · 05-19-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Only nutjobs or those who don't actually understand his politics would vote for Ron Paul... I know nothing of his son but I imagine it's more of the same.

Rand Paul is even crazier from what I understand.

I have a feeling that things are going to get worse for the Republicans before they get better. I don't mean in terms of political power so much as I mean in terms of political sanity. I think it's better for the country to have two viable, sane parties arguing competing viewpoints, and I hope we can return to that sooner rather than later.

Derwood · 05-20-2010, 06:40 AM

Rand Paul won by appealing to the Tea Partiers, but between now and November, the Democrats are going to let Paul's supporters EXACTLY what he believes in, so we'll see if he'll keep his support.

Baraka_Guru · 05-20-2010, 06:46 AM

Well, I would assume much of this would indeed be a result of the rift happening on the right. If you're sitting on the fence and you see what's happening with the Republicans, the Democrats are looking mighty stable and principled.

The Tea Partiers are doing their thing, and now the Republicans know they can't be ignored. Interesting times.

But let me get this straight—help my socialist Canuckistan brain out a bit—the Tea Partiers, generally, are concerned about the Republican party having moved too far left? What has changed with the Republicans in the post-W era?

Derwood · 05-20-2010, 07:23 AM

I think the Tea Partiers (at least the original ones) are for less taxes, smaller government, etc., which is something that the current Republican party hasn't been about for awhile. Paul and his ilk can pander to that idea very easily. The problem is that they bring with them a lot of extra baggage.

Jinn · 05-20-2010, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The poor economy (I've honestly seen 0 improvement... I'm STILL unemployed), ineffectual government (failed financial reform), and a 0 sum insurance "reform" which fixes almost nothing, all help remove any momentum the Democrats hope to have. This effectively kills their base and puts independents to sleep.

This might be a silly question, but you do recognize that you still being unemployed is not a effective measure of the economy, right? I'm also curious how you get "0 sum insurance reform" .. sounds awfully talking-point-ish..

snowy · 05-20-2010, 07:24 AM

This shift towards Tea Party candidates in certain parts of the country like Rand Paul alienates moderate Republicans, intellectual Republicans, and independents in the middle who might have voted for a Republican candidate. It will certainly be an interesting midterm election, though I'm annoyed that I keep hearing "Will this be another 1994?" over and over again in the press. The fact is, the Republicans are not nearly as united as they were in 1994 with the Contract with America. Certainly, the Tea Party people have tried to come up with their own, but I see a lot of sensible Republicans I know just rolling their eyes at the whole thing.

Here in Oregon, though, the Republicans chose moderate Chris Dudley as their candidate for governor. He's inexperienced and up against former governor John Kitzhaber, who is running as a centrist Democrat. It should be a good race.

Seaver · 05-20-2010, 07:28 AM

Quote:

But let me get this straight—help my socialist Canuckistan brain out a bit—the Tea Partiers, generally, are concerned about the Republican party having moved too far left? What has changed with the Republicans in the post-W era

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0oU0xKq4W

... It's multiple factors.

During the W administration, the Republican party lowered taxed but turned around and ramped up spending to ridiculous amounts. The majority of Republicans gave him slack, and Congress, as we had 2 wars going on and debts happen in war. However, most of us didn't realize how much the spending had been increased until the last few years of the administration. In essence, the Republican voter was betrayed by their party. The Reps ignored/forgot the political movement and policy which gave them the House/Senate/Presidency of the "Pay As You Go" (which now allows Dems to try to steal the thunder of, even though they opposed it at the time).

At the same time, the Grand Ol' Party (Big Tent Party of all inclusiveness) turned to religious fervor. Homosexuality, sexuality of any kind, et al were suddenly crusades being fought that many of us didn't want to impede on. I, myself, stopped calling myself a Republican during this time and started calling myself a fiscal conservative.

As the exodus of voters abandoned the party because of these two pivotal changes, the hollow egg appeared. In this void, with no discernible leadership, it was any man's game. Republicans, in a desperate attempt to gain any momentum/support (as their base had disappeared) fanned the early flames of the Tea Party. They hoped to use it as a tool, corral the partiers. However the bulls got out of the pens and quickly turned on the Reps.

We're in a situation where the moderate Republicans are gone. Anyone who's even willing to discuss non partisan issues is being exiled for cooperating with the Dems. This is causing an even faster exodus of moderate Republicans which is by default making the partiers stronger.

Eventually the party will figure out they will never win a majority with only a minority, and the Grand Ol' Party will return. Until then, I'll be voting Dem to hopefully speed the process up.

Quote:

This might be a silly question, but you do recognize that you still being unemployed is not a effective measure of the economy, right? I'm also curious how you get "0 sum insurance reform" .. sounds awfully talking-point-ish..

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0oU4Ea4ZF

You're right... banks are making a killing selling money given free on loan from the Government back to the Government which they need to give interest free loans to banks. However when everyone is cheering over news that employment is up and it's still what, 9.7% officially (officially I'm not unemployed anymore, my unemployment benefits ran out).

dc_dux · 05-20-2010, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowy

....Here in Oregon, though, the Republicans chose moderate Chris Dudley as their candidate for governor. He's inexperienced and up against former governor John Kitzhaber, who is running as a centrist Democrat. It should be a good race.

As a former NBA center, Dudley can take Obama one-on-one on the hard court.

And former Redskin tight-end Clint Didier just got the Palin endorsement for the Senate race in neighboring Wash.

05-16-2010, 11:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I don't believe the Republicans will win a majority in the midterms. They've had a fantastic opportunity handed to them to regain Congress, and squandered it. The poor economy (I've honestly seen 0 improvement... I'm STILL unemployed), ineffectual government (failed financial reform), and a 0 sum insurance "reform" which fixes almost nothing, all help remove any momentum the Democrats hope to have. This effectively kills their base and puts independents to sleep. Unfortunately, the Republican party has been wholly taken over by the ludicrous Right. The Intellectual Republican, which gained the Presidency and the Congress of the '80s/90s if effectively dead or has been silenced. Gone are the days of the Big Tent, gone are the days of party of new ideas. I've only ever voted Republican, but I won't vote for them until they become the party they once were. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

05-18-2010, 06:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Tonight's primary results seem to agree with you Seaver. Not only did Rand Paul win in Kentucky, but he did so while getting fewer votes than even the second place Democrat in the primary. People need to remember - on both sides - that different does not always mean better. (Unless you're Joe Sestak, in which case you're both different and better than Arlen Specter!) __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

05-19-2010, 04:42 PM	#5 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Only nutjobs or those who don't actually understand his politics would vote for Ron Paul... I know nothing of his son but I imagine it's more of the same. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

05-20-2010, 06:40 AM	#8 (permalink)
Derwood Who You Crappin? Location: Everywhere and Nowhere	Rand Paul won by appealing to the Tea Partiers, but between now and November, the Democrats are going to let Paul's supporters EXACTLY what he believes in, so we'll see if he'll keep his support. __________________ "You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

05-20-2010, 06:46 AM	#9 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Well, I would assume much of this would indeed be a result of the rift happening on the right. If you're sitting on the fence and you see what's happening with the Republicans, the Democrats are looking mighty stable and principled. The Tea Partiers are doing their thing, and now the Republicans know they can't be ignored. Interesting times. But let me get this straight—help my socialist Canuckistan brain out a bit—the Tea Partiers, generally, are concerned about the Republican party having moved too far left? What has changed with the Republicans in the post-W era? __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

05-20-2010, 07:23 AM	#10 (permalink)
Derwood Who You Crappin? Location: Everywhere and Nowhere	I think the Tea Partiers (at least the original ones) are for less taxes, smaller government, etc., which is something that the current Republican party hasn't been about for awhile. Paul and his ilk can pander to that idea very easily. The problem is that they bring with them a lot of extra baggage. __________________ "You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

05-20-2010, 07:24 AM	#12 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	This shift towards Tea Party candidates in certain parts of the country like Rand Paul alienates moderate Republicans, intellectual Republicans, and independents in the middle who might have voted for a Republican candidate. It will certainly be an interesting midterm election, though I'm annoyed that I keep hearing "Will this be another 1994?" over and over again in the press. The fact is, the Republicans are not nearly as united as they were in 1994 with the Contract with America. Certainly, the Tea Party people have tried to come up with their own, but I see a lot of sensible Republicans I know just rolling their eyes at the whole thing. Here in Oregon, though, the Republicans chose moderate Chris Dudley as their candidate for governor. He's inexperienced and up against former governor John Kitzhaber, who is running as a centrist Democrat. It should be a good race. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau