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[Nikov]

And that you need more than a fifty per cent majority to pass a law.

... Phmcw, what's 61/100, aside from what I just said was all they needed.

Aqizzar, are you really going to stand by that Republicans will sooner filibuster a reasonable defense budget rather than let a single bill pass? Dear me, how ever will Democrats get anything done if they can't get four people to agree with them.

Its also noteworthy the current gridlock is constitutionally working as intended.

[Leafsnail]

Wait a second... how can you possibly call yourself conservative while supporting a 23% sales tax?  It's just insane.  Not to mention a fantastic way to wreck the economy.

How do you hold a bill hostage against a majority in the House and Senate? There's 41 Republican senators. All Democrats have to do is come up with a bill the two most liberal Republicans can agree with. Or maybe thats too bipartisan for them?

Here is the problem in a nutshell.  The Republicans seem determined to wreck anything and everything the democrats put forward, whether they agree with it or not, and whether it ultimately harms the country or not.  Case in point: Republicans cheering when America didn't get the Olympics, since it made the Democrats look bad.

[mainiac]

Wait a second... how can you possibly call yourself conservative while supporting a 23% sales tax?  It's just insane.  Not to mention a fantastic way to wreck the economy.

They have no shame.

[mainiac]

And don't give any of that crap about not hating us.

This tells me there's no point talking to you. If you are convinced I hate you, and tell me to not bother explaining myself, you have a hatred of me, where "me" is whatever person you want to make as an target for yourself.

The sole issue you have cited for your voting patterns is the fact that you want me to be treated as a second class citizen.  How do you think I should feel about this?

[Leafsnail]

Looking at the Labour leadership election, I suddenly thought - are the unions a major force in American politics?  Over here, they are the main backers for Labour, and have a lot of influence in their policies.  I haven't really heard about the Democrats having much support like this...

[G-Flex]

It's my impression that here in the US, unions affect politics more on the state level than the federal level. I could be wrong, though, and I'm sure there's a whole lot of lobbying going on at the federal level too.

[Aqizzar]

I really shouldn't bring this back up, I have a policy of not responding to threads more than a few hours old without a good reason.  But the way you insist on going on wrong about the world and being insufferable about it is a pretty good reason.

Aqizzar, are you really going to stand by that Republicans will sooner filibuster a reasonable defense budget rather than let a single bill pass?

Yes, that is exactly what I'm going to stand by.  Because that's exactly what they did last year, when they tried to filibuster a defense spending bill, openly admitting it had nothing to do with the bill itself but was simply intended to stall up the Senate and delay a vote on the healthcare bill.  Luckily, that time a few Republicans actually came to their senses and voted for cloture, but of course, once you inject anything having to do with gays into the mix, all the breaks are off the party machine to make sure nobody breaks ranks.

Dear me, how ever will Democrats get anything done if they can't get four people to agree with them.

If you're not going to believe the explanation I already gave you, I'm not going to type it out again.  And before you start whining that a provision to remove DADT should be passed separately, because it was passed as part of the defense appropriation bill in 1993, it can only be changed by being part of another defense appropriation bill.  That's how this shit works.

Its also noteworthy the current gridlock is constitutionally working as intended.

Wrong.  In several ways even.  There is no filibuster in the constitution.  What the constitution does is provide for the Senate to write its own rules on debating, which have changed a few times over its history.  Currently, the rules allow for any member to hold a bill open for debate as long as they want, barring a 60% cloture vote; those rules could be changed, provided for a requisite filibuster-breaking vote, at any time, which I'd say renders it something a little less sacrosanct than anything called "constitutional".  Unfortunately, we've moved passed the days of actually forcing a senator to stand at the podium for two days reading a phone book, and now all the Republicans have to do is say they intend to filibuster, and everyone throws up their hands and goes home.

Spoiler: Not to mention, the Republicans have used the filibuster as many times in three years as the forty years prior. (click to show/hide)

Just as intended, right?

For that matter, I find it hilarious how often you carp about the sanctity of "majority opinion", including your imagined understanding of public opinion on DADT, while in the same breath insisting a legislative minority have a constitutional duty to clog up any bills they don't like.

[mainiac]

Looking at the Labour leadership election, I suddenly thought - are the unions a major force in American politics?  Over here, they are the main backers for Labour, and have a lot of influence in their policies.  I haven't really heard about the Democrats having much support like this...

Unions are a significant, but hardly major.  The biggest reasons for this is the the US is a very anti-union country and only like 10% of the workforce is unionized.  Unions play a part in two ways. They make "soft money" contributions to the democratic party which, thanks to a recent supreme court ruling will matter a lot more.  And secondly, they encourage their members to vote.  Given that unions are so small, neither of those is a game breaker, although they can be a deciding factor in some democratic primary race, but not always.

A democratic party campaign is mostly going to be made up of whoever is interested enough to give a weekend of time.  Looking at the congressional campaign I'm involved in, in our area it's about 25% done by the sole paid staffer who works for a pittance and was a poli-sci major and 75% done by who ever he talked into showing up for a morning.  Looking at the local elections around me, it's mostly being done by the candidates themselves and sometimes their spouses.  It's mostly a matter of the American public being really, really apathetic about democracy, so anyone who has the slightest bit of interest constitutes the grass roots.

[Leafsnail]

That could go some way to explaining why America remains so right wing compared to European countries.

I mean, Labour originated entirely from unions, and they provide funding for left wing causes.

[Aqizzar]

Among other considerations: labor unions, or at least their numerical membership, in America has plummeted in the last thirty years, as most of the unionized manufacturing jobs have left the country.  And that the union-member stereotype profile - lower-to-middle class, suburban or rural, older white men - overlap heavily with the "values voter" the Republican party focuses on appealing to; they find themselves frequently conflicted on whether on who vote for, weighing their opinion on stronger union protections versus keeping the Gays from marrying.

[mainiac]

The whole lower class culture warrior image is problematic at best.  Poor people tend to vote the bible in the south, yes.  But everyone tends to vote the bible in the south, rich and poor alike.  But there's a crapton of poor people in the south (partly because everyone was busy voting the bible instead of voting for better schools which is the best way to reduce poverty long term.)  So because theres so many poor bible thumpers in the south and there's more poor people then rich ones there, we think that bible thumping is a poor southern phenomena.  Just think of the stereotypical bible thumper, a poor southern hick.  Meanwhile outside the south, there are plenty of culture warriors who are rich.  The average tea partier for example is far more wealthy then average.

[RedKing]

In other news, the Tea Party (and Sarah Palin's) handpicked choice in the Delaware senate race, Christine O'Donnell, apparently admitted to "dabbling in witchcraft" as a teen, and going on a date "on a Satanic altar".

Now...I'm hardly antagonistic towards witches/Wiccans/whatever, but that's not exactly an admission you want to make if you're going to rely on the votes of people for whom Bible-thumping Republicans are "too liberal". And more indication that the Tea Party vetting process for candidates basically goes something like this:

Interviewer: "Do you love America?"
Candidate: "Yes."
Interviewer: "Do you hate Democrats?"
Candidate: "You betcha."
Interviewer: "Do you firmly believe that Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born socialist Muslim Nazi who is secretly planning to replace the Constitution with Sharia law?"
Candidate: "Yup!"
Interviewer: "Okay, good enough for us. We have to screen out the crazies, you know."


Also, now I'm wondering if Palin will have to choose between O'Donnell and Palin's Nigerian witch-hunter mentor. Or possibly pit the two of them in gladiatorial combat and back whoever wins.

[smjjames]

@the OP: Yea I remember that. Ralph Nader managed to grab Oregon and screw everything up. The last time we had such a debacle involving a third party was with Theodore Roosevelt and his Bull Moose party.

[RedKing]

Depends on your point of view. It could be argued that Ross Perot and the Reform Party were essentially disaffected Republicans who didn't care for the George H.W. Bush years. And which then split the conservative vote (I believe Perot got about 18% of the popular vote, but about 30% of the vote among independents and liberal Republicans).

In that situation, it was a case of 3rd party candidate stripping away the centrist votes from one party disproportionately, which is somewhat rare.

In this case, because the Tea Party doesn't appear to be planning to field many 3rd party challengers in the main elections, it won't work that way. Instead, what's happening is that the "vote splitting" is occurring in the primaries, in some cases causing ultra-conservative candidates to score upset wins, but then dramatically decreasing their chances of victory in the general election, because they'll lose the support of moderates and the liberal-moderate wings of the Republicans. Basically, they're sticking ideologues in the general election, regardless of the fact that many of their candidates are woefully inexperienced, extreme to the point of scaring the bejeezus out of everyone who hasn't drunk the Tea, and in some cases downright pants-on-head inept as campaigners.

Because of this, I wish them all the best. Please, give us more election contests of "Boring Traditional Democrat" vs. "Crazy Tinfoil-Hat Guy".

[Nikov]

Because of this, I wish them all the best. Please, give us more election contests of "Boring Traditional Democrat" vs. "Crazy Tinfoil-Hat Guy".

You mean guys like Alvin Greene?