Why didn't the Democrats run more aggressively on the economy this year?

[DC Al Fine]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

[Indy Texas]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

I don't keep a notebook of the policy positions of everyone who posts on here. By choosing to have a blue avatar or a red avatar, you are implicitly endorsing the views of the national party as a whole. I honestly don't understand why some of you even bother associating with whichever party you have in your avatar. I can assure you that if you went to my precinct's GOP meeting and said you want to raise the minimum wage and EITC, you'd be drawing comparisons with Mao Tse Tung.

[DC Al Fine]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

I don't keep a notebook of the policy positions of everyone who posts on here.

Policy positions my foot.  You've been here for years. You ought to know that Yankee =/= Rush Limbaugh.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Most of this prosperity has been concentrated with the elites. To most voters, Obama has been an economic failure.

That's a longer-term structural issue with the economy though. You can hardly pin that on Obama.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Very few people give a damn about "the economy." People care about maintaining their standard of living and maintaining a sense of material security. Since improvements in GDP, the stock market, unemployment, or whatever no longer bear more than a weak apparent relationship with either of those concerns, why should that motivate anyone to vote for the party in power? These will only become subjects of interest for most of us during the next crisis, when we are told that we cannot but accept cuts to services, lower wages, reduced job security, and all of the rest to an even greater degree than we have already.

Good post.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Very few people give a damn about "the economy." People care about maintaining their standard of living and maintaining a sense of material security. Since improvements in GDP, the stock market, unemployment, or whatever no longer bear more than a weak apparent relationship with either of those concerns, why should that motivate anyone to vote for the party in power? These will only become subjects of interest for most of us during the next crisis, when we are told that we cannot but accept cuts to services, lower wages, reduced job security, and all of the rest to an even greater degree than we have already.

Good post.

     Agreed. The fundamental issue with how people discuss economic recovery in these academic terms is that it does not bear on how most people experience it. Many people are not experiencing any improvement, so it does not impress them to speak of one.

[Indy Texas]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

I don't keep a notebook of the policy positions of everyone who posts on here.

Policy positions my foot.  You've been here for years. You ought to know that Yankee =/= Rush Limbaugh.

No, but Yankee = John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, et al by choosing the partisan identity that he does. So do you, for that matter.

I get really tired of, "Well, I happen to disagree with my party on [basically every major issue]." If you don't want to have to apologize for what your party says and does, then find a different one or better yet none at all.

[AggregateDemand]

When you're borrowing faster than the economy is growing, you can't run on the economy. We're still moving backwards, we're just buying ourselves out of the pain associated with recession. Furthermore, the lower-middle class is only just starting to recover because we blew their stimulus money on entitlement spend thrift, rather than jobs.

However, the oil boom has probably been enough this year to turn the tide for the first time since 2007. If the election were next year, maybe they would have just enough traction to mention the economy, but probably not to run on the economy.

[GaussLaw]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

I don't keep a notebook of the policy positions of everyone who posts on here.

Policy positions my foot.  You've been here for years. You ought to know that Yankee =/= Rush Limbaugh.

No, but Yankee = John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, et al by choosing the partisan identity that he does. So do you, for that matter.

I get really tired of, "Well, I happen to disagree with my party on [basically every major issue]." If you don't want to have to apologize for what your party says and does, then find a different one or better yet none at all.

The only reason I have an R avatar is because of abortion(particularly when it comes to judges), guns, and to a lesser extent, coal/oil.   While I can't speak for them, DC Al Fine and Yankee probably are similar in that respect.  Plenty of Republicans do support a minimum wage increase and expanding Medicaid based on ballot measures.  And there are GOP officeholders who do as well, though they're at the more moderate/populist wing of the party.   In the past, plenty of Southerners identified as Democrats even though they disagreed with many  national party planks.  It can be the same thing. 

The GOP avatar (which for me is a new one) reflects a fairly-recent conversion I've had
I could easily make a corollary  case with you.  You seem to  side with the Dems in nearly everything (though your PM score seems to disagree, weirdly enough) at least rhetorically; you might as well furnish a D avatar. 

To be honest, you seem awfully anti-GOP given your Political Matrix score.  It seems like you'd have some common ground with them given your E score........people with significantly lower S/E scores seem more forgiving of the GOP than you, IndyTX.

[Indy Texas]

The only reason I have an R avatar is because of abortion(particularly when it comes to judges), guns, and to a lesser extent, coal/oil.   While I can't speak for them, DC Al Fine and Yankee probably are similar in that respect.  Plenty of Republicans do support a minimum wage increase and expanding Medicaid based on ballot measures.  And there are GOP officeholders who do as well, though they're at the more moderate/populist wing of the party.   In the past, plenty of Southerners identified as Democrats even though they disagreed with many  national party planks.  It can be the same thing. 

The GOP avatar (which for me is a new one) reflects a fairly-recent conversion I've had
I could easily make a corollary  case with you.  You seem to  side with the Dems in nearly everything (though your PM score seems to disagree, weirdly enough) at least rhetorically; you might as well furnish a D avatar. 

To be honest, you seem awfully anti-GOP given your Political Matrix score.  It seems like you'd have some common ground with them given your E score........people with significantly lower S/E scores seem more forgiving of the GOP than you, IndyTX.

I don't want a red avatar because I don't agree with the Democratic Party's platform wholesale and do not want to be in the position of having to defend it. My criticism of the GOP and its elected officials is low-hanging fruit - the fact that I think their party is full of bigoted, small-minded fundamentalists who can't come to terms with things like climate change and a non-Biblical treatment of government social policy does not mean I am enthralled with the Democratic Party. It simply means that as an American - particularly as a Texan - in 2014, I find myself mainly voting for Democratic candidates because the alternatives are so unpalatable. This year, I voted for Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians in the various races on my ballot.

If my rhetoric does not seem to match my PM scores, it's probably because my centrist, neoliberal New Keynesian economic views are by and large shared by most Democrats whom I have voted for - including President Obama and Blue Dog Democrats like Chet Edwards. They are shared by an increasingly dwindling segment of the Republican Party - people like Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jon Huntsman and others whom I have voted for in the past.

The problem with the Republican Party is that they want to have an argument that their side won years ago - the Bush Sr./Clinton era, to me, is evidence that the center-right consensus had the last laugh. They act as though our current crisis is a debate between free market capitalism and authoritarian communism when it's really just a debate between people who understand that we are facing an economy whose greatest challenges are insufficient aggregate demand and inequality-induced instability (the mainstream Democratic Party), and those who are still living in 1978 and think the problem is that taxes are too high and inflation is out of control (the mainstream Republican Party).

Even if the GOP were to resolve that issue, there is a four-letter word that I'm not sure I can ever forgive them for and that word is I-R-A-Q. They deserve a generation-long punishment for that, not unlike the generation-long punishment the Democratic Party got for the Vietnam War.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

3-something. I supported regulating wall street, I have been railing against big oil for almost a decade, big agra on subsidies and big business in general on immigration. I also support raising the minimum wage in conjunction with a likwise increase in EITC, medicaid expansion (though the program has long term structural problems that need to be fixed)...

The problem on here unfortunately is that many posters argue against the GOP platform rather than the conservative they're talking to. I can't tell you how many times Link said something like "but conservatives don't believe in government action" to me back when he was still here.

I don't keep a notebook of the policy positions of everyone who posts on here.

Policy positions my foot.  You've been here for years. You ought to know that Yankee =/= Rush Limbaugh.

No, but Yankee = John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, et al by choosing the partisan identity that he does. So do you, for that matter.

I get really tired of, "Well, I happen to disagree with my party on [basically every major issue]." If you don't want to have to apologize for what your party says and does, then find a different one or better yet none at all.

The US has been dominated by the two party system for about 95% of its political life. The only road to achieving goals is to associate with the ones who will advance most of what you want. I am pro-life, pro-gun (though I do support Manchin-Toomey), oppose cap and trade, and support entitlement and pension reform, also my immigration views are to the right of every Democrat (somewhere between Marco Rubio and Mike Pence) now. Aside from a few exceptions, the Democrats are 95% hostile to what I want whereas the Republicans are with me about 75%-80% of the time.

No offense, but independent is the path of disgusted protested and disengagement from Parties, which perpetuates the problems the Parties have, not solve them. You are free to hold with disdain the non-purists within Parties for not leaving, but I hope you will understand that such comes from a perspective that views independent as a viable option. I don't share that approach, even as I different significantly with my own party in certain areas. The Parties will never be destroyed and leaving them will only make them worse.

And ftr I actually sent emails to GOP congressmen about not voting to reelect John Boehner as GOP leader in the House. I expect to have to own support for Mittens because yes, I supported him for President for six years, except when I cosnidered Pawlenty for about a month.

[IceSpear]

Maybe Indy Texas doesn't bash the Democrats nearly as much because his PM score is actually fairly representative of the median Democratic politician these days? Let's not pretend the Democrats are equally left from center as the Republicans are right from center.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

These are Democrats we're talking about. You should be happy that they're not lying on the floor cowering in fear of Republicans.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If someone is assuming that a person agrees with a certain position because they identify with a particular party, they don't understand how political parties work.

[Mister Mets]

There are a few problems.

It requires confidence in the outcome. They need to campaign on that consistently and early. Which leaves them very vulnerable to a change in fortune. It might have been a gamble worth taking.

It helps incumbents, which could make it tougher for anyone challenging incumbents. They were optimistic in Maine, Florida, Kansas and Wisconsin.

Voters might still feel differently.

An emphasis on economic problems can make voters favor the safety net.

[hopper]

The only reason I have an R avatar is because of abortion(particularly when it comes to judges), guns, and to a lesser extent, coal/oil.   While I can't speak for them, DC Al Fine and Yankee probably are similar in that respect.  Plenty of Republicans do support a minimum wage increase and expanding Medicaid based on ballot measures.  And there are GOP officeholders who do as well, though they're at the more moderate/populist wing of the party.   In the past, plenty of Southerners identified as Democrats even though they disagreed with many  national party planks.  It can be the same thing.  

The GOP avatar (which for me is a new one) reflects a fairly-recent conversion I've had
I could easily make a corollary  case with you.  You seem to  side with the Dems in nearly everything (though your PM score seems to disagree, weirdly enough) at least rhetorically; you might as well furnish a D avatar.  

To be honest, you seem awfully anti-GOP given your Political Matrix score.  It seems like you'd have some common ground with them given your E score........people with significantly lower S/E scores seem more forgiving of the GOP than you, IndyTX.

I don't want a red avatar because I don't agree with the Democratic Party's platform wholesale and do not want to be in the position of having to defend it. My criticism of the GOP and its elected officials is low-hanging fruit - the fact that I think their party is full of bigoted, small-minded fundamentalists who can't come to terms with things like climate change and a non-Biblical treatment of government social policy does not mean I am enthralled with the Democratic Party. It simply means that as an American - particularly as a Texan - in 2014, I find myself mainly voting for Democratic candidates because the alternatives are so unpalatable. This year, I voted for Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians in the various races on my ballot.

If my rhetoric does not seem to match my PM scores, it's probably because my centrist, neoliberal New Keynesian economic views are by and large shared by most Democrats whom I have voted for - including President Obama and Blue Dog Democrats like Chet Edwards. They are shared by an increasingly dwindling segment of the Republican Party - people like Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jon Huntsman and others whom I have voted for in the past.

The problem with the Republican Party is that they want to have an argument that their side won years ago - the Bush Sr./Clinton era, to me, is evidence that the center-right consensus had the last laugh. They act as though our current crisis is a debate between free market capitalism and authoritarian communism when it's really just a debate between people who understand that we are facing an economy whose greatest challenges are insufficient aggregate demand and inequality-induced instability (the mainstream Democratic Party), and those who are still living in 1978 and think the problem is that taxes are too high and inflation is out of control (the mainstream Republican Party).

Even if the GOP were to resolve that issue, there is a four-letter word that I'm not sure I can ever forgive them for and that word is I-R-A-Q. They deserve a generation-long punishment for that, not unlike the generation-long punishment the Democratic Party got for the Vietnam War.

Inflation? No Republican is talking about inflation these days. Taxes-Well Republicans are always looking at how our tax system to make it simpler. Republicans in Congress and "The Obama White House" also know we need corporate tax reform and maybe even individual tax reform(not sure about that though.)

As for comparing Republicans/Iraq and Dems/Vietnam the Democrats still owned majorities in the US House(till 1994) and in the US Senate till 1980.) The Dems did get punished in the Presidency though after LBJ's tenure with only winning one Presidential Campaign from 1968 to 1988 though. Vietnam kept the Dems divided as a party till 1992( when Clinton won the Presidency)the way  "The Tea Party"  kind of divided the Republican Party from 2010-2012 or still kinds of the party in the present if you will.  

I will say though "The Romney Presidential Campaign" in 2012 it seemed like it was out of the 80's for some reason to me. That's what your post made me think of "The Romney Presidential Campaign" in 2012  for some reason or another. In the debates Romney's persona against Obama it seemed like Romney was from the past(from the 80's) where as Obama's persona it seemed like it was in the present.

[Kraxner]

The only reason I have an R avatar is because of abortion(particularly when it comes to judges), guns, and to a lesser extent, coal/oil.   While I can't speak for them, DC Al Fine and Yankee probably are similar in that respect.  Plenty of Republicans do support a minimum wage increase and expanding Medicaid based on ballot measures.  And there are GOP officeholders who do as well, though they're at the more moderate/populist wing of the party.   In the past, plenty of Southerners identified as Democrats even though they disagreed with many  national party planks.  It can be the same thing.  

The GOP avatar (which for me is a new one) reflects a fairly-recent conversion I've had
I could easily make a corollary  case with you.  You seem to  side with the Dems in nearly everything (though your PM score seems to disagree, weirdly enough) at least rhetorically; you might as well furnish a D avatar.  

To be honest, you seem awfully anti-GOP given your Political Matrix score.  It seems like you'd have some common ground with them given your E score........people with significantly lower S/E scores seem more forgiving of the GOP than you, IndyTX.

I don't want a red avatar because I don't agree with the Democratic Party's platform wholesale and do not want to be in the position of having to defend it. My criticism of the GOP and its elected officials is low-hanging fruit - the fact that I think their party is full of bigoted, small-minded fundamentalists who can't come to terms with things like climate change and a non-Biblical treatment of government social policy does not mean I am enthralled with the Democratic Party. It simply means that as an American - particularly as a Texan - in 2014, I find myself mainly voting for Democratic candidates because the alternatives are so unpalatable. This year, I voted for Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians in the various races on my ballot.

If my rhetoric does not seem to match my PM scores, it's probably because my centrist, neoliberal New Keynesian economic views are by and large shared by most Democrats whom I have voted for - including President Obama and Blue Dog Democrats like Chet Edwards. They are shared by an increasingly dwindling segment of the Republican Party - people like Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jon Huntsman and others whom I have voted for in the past.

The problem with the Republican Party is that they want to have an argument that their side won years ago - the Bush Sr./Clinton era, to me, is evidence that the center-right consensus had the last laugh. They act as though our current crisis is a debate between free market capitalism and authoritarian communism when it's really just a debate between people who understand that we are facing an economy whose greatest challenges are insufficient aggregate demand and inequality-induced instability (the mainstream Democratic Party), and those who are still living in 1978 and think the problem is that taxes are too high and inflation is out of control (the mainstream Republican Party).

Even if the GOP were to resolve that issue, there is a four-letter word that I'm not sure I can ever forgive them for and that word is I-R-A-Q. They deserve a generation-long punishment for that, not unlike the generation-long punishment the Democratic Party got for the Vietnam War.

Inflation? No Republican is talking about inflation these days. Taxes-Well Republicans are always looking at how our tax system to make it simpler. Republicans in Congress and "The Obama White House" also know we need corporate tax reform and maybe even individual tax reform(not sure about that though.)

As for comparing Republicans/Iraq and Dems/Vietnam the Democrats still owned majorities in the US House(till 1994) and in the US Senate till 1980.) The Dems did get punished in the Presidency though after LBJ's tenure with only winning one Presidential Campaign from 1968 to 1988 though. Vietnam kept the Dems divided as a party till 1992( when Clinton won the Presidency)the way  "The Tea Party"  kind of divided the Republican Party from 2010-2012 or still kinds of the party in the present if you will.  

I will say though "The Romney Presidential Campaign" in 2012 it seemed like it was out of the 80's for some reason to me. That's what your post made me think of "The Romney Presidential Campaign" in 2012  for some reason or another. In the debates Romney's persona against Obama it seemed like Romney was from the past(from the 80's) where as Obama's persona it seemed like it was in the present.

I was watching a video of Ben Shapiro speaking at UCSD, basically Romney did a lot of mistakes especially with the 47% video. And failed to define obama first before he could define him. And romney had this crude personality and did not look like many positions he argued for was naturally his during the election. Also had it not been for that 47% video, romney could of made a greater effort to attract seing votes from those who were struggling/unemployed yet the 47% video greatly took that chance away.


So basically the election boiled down to, Good manager/Dull personality who hates the poor named Romney vs Bad manager/cool personality who cant stop talking about how he loves the poor, aka Obama.


Also the media had a huge role in helping Obama, even today many people do not even know his approval ratings are underwater compared to when during Bush it was underwater since there were much more reports back then on Bush's low approval ratings than Obama's low approval ratings.  The media shielding him all these years sinvce 2009 probably  is giving him a 5% bonus in approval compared to if they were natural.