Alabama Gov. Bentley had affair with former staffer

[Kingpoleon]

...and another family values sanctity of marriage hypocrite bites the dust.

I have noticed that it's much easier for a right-wing family values hypocrite to survive a sex scandal that it's for a Democrat.

Hes not conservative actually (raised taxes, moderate on all issues) and I disagree with your statement

I guess Ronald Reagan is a liberal, then. Good to know.

Ronald Reagan is really a liberal compared with 75% of present day Republican congressional caucus. Gerald Ford - with 90-95%.... Essentially the same among Democrats: Lyndon Johnson (always considered as moderate-liberal by standards of that days) would be in 10% most conservative members of Democratic caucus now. Center is absolutely not represented in present political system.... There is simply no party to look for it's interests..

Gerald Ford would be slightly left of center nowadays. Carter in 1976 would probably be center, maybe very slightly right of it.

I meant in corresponding caucus. Ford (for example) was generally pro-choice. How many members of Republican House caucus are more of less solidly pro-choice now? I have difficulties naming someone besides Hanna and Dold.

Frelinghuysen! But that might just be about the end of the list, unfortunately.

Dent, Peter King, Lee Zeldin, LoBiondo, Hardy, Lehtinen, Rodgers, and etc.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

...and another family values sanctity of marriage hypocrite bites the dust.

I have noticed that it's much easier for a right-wing family values hypocrite to survive a sex scandal that it's for a Democrat.

Hes not conservative actually (raised taxes, moderate on all issues) and I disagree with your statement

I guess Ronald Reagan is a liberal, then. Good to know.

Ronald Reagan is really a liberal compared with 75% of present day Republican congressional caucus. Gerald Ford - with 90-95%.... Essentially the same among Democrats: Lyndon Johnson (always considered as moderate-liberal by standards of that days) would be in 10% most conservative members of Democratic caucus now. Center is absolutely not represented in present political system.... There is simply no party to look for it's interests..

Gerald Ford would be slightly left of center nowadays. Carter in 1976 would probably be center, maybe very slightly right of it.

I meant in corresponding caucus. Ford (for example) was generally pro-choice. How many members of Republican House caucus are more of less solidly pro-choice now? I have difficulties naming someone besides Hanna and Dold.

Frelinghuysen! But that might just be about the end of the list, unfortunately.

Dent, Peter King, Lee Zeldin, LoBiondo, Hardy, Lehtinen, Rodgers, and etc.

I know for sure that Zeldin, Hardy, Ros-Lehtinen, and McMorris Rodgers are pro-life, but I'm not sure about the rest (other than Dent, who is pro-choice).

[This account no longer in use.]

Both Peter King and LoBiondo are very solidly pro-life.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Both Peter King and LoBiondo are very solidly pro-life.

I think, then, it's just Hanna, Dold, Dent, and Frelinghuysen.

[smoltchanov]

...and another family values sanctity of marriage hypocrite bites the dust.

I have noticed that it's much easier for a right-wing family values hypocrite to survive a sex scandal that it's for a Democrat.

Hes not conservative actually (raised taxes, moderate on all issues) and I disagree with your statement

I guess Ronald Reagan is a liberal, then. Good to know.

Ronald Reagan is really a liberal compared with 75% of present day Republican congressional caucus. Gerald Ford - with 90-95%.... Essentially the same among Democrats: Lyndon Johnson (always considered as moderate-liberal by standards of that days) would be in 10% most conservative members of Democratic caucus now. Center is absolutely not represented in present political system.... There is simply no party to look for it's interests..

Gerald Ford would be slightly left of center nowadays. Carter in 1976 would probably be center, maybe very slightly right of it.

I meant in corresponding caucus. Ford (for example) was generally pro-choice. How many members of Republican House caucus are more of less solidly pro-choice now? I have difficulties naming someone besides Hanna and Dold.

Frelinghuysen! But that might just be about the end of the list, unfortunately.

Dent, Peter King, Lee Zeldin, LoBiondo, Hardy, Lehtinen, Rodgers, and etc.

All, but Dent, are solidly pro-life. So, yeah, it's 4 at most. And now - compare that with the names i mentioned above. And i could easily add some in Senate, and dozens - in House.

[user12345]

A move to impeach Gov. Bentley has been opened in the House. http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-alabama-governor-impeach-20160405-story.html

[RightBehind]

Infidelity is wrong regardless of politics, but the Republicans look like hypocrites in doing this.

I'm glad this isn't part of the Dem platform. Sure, a great family is ideal, but there are more pressing issues to us.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

To be fair, there are appearently more important issues prompting the impeachment than Brother Bentley's phone sex.

[pbrower2a]

I'm sick of "family-values" pols who then get caught in adultery. 

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I'm sick of "family-values" pols who then get caught in adultery. 

I'm not. It's always amusing.

[Ebsy]

Very excited for Kay Ivey's tenure as Governor of Alabama.

[RINO Tom]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

[smoltchanov]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Yes, but generally the same can be told about Republicans in most of the North-East and Pacific coast.

[Kingpoleon]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Yes, but generally the same can be told about Republicans in most of the North-East and Pacific coast.

REP Governors in: MA, ME, NJ, MD

DEM Governors in: LA

Kentucky Democrats have a deep bench(Chandler, Grimes, both Beshears), as do FL and GA Democrats. Republicans have McMahon and Sims in CT, Sununu and Gatsas in NH, Scott in VT, and Rhode Island has plenty. In the West, Rossi, Walden, Cathy M. Rodgers, Meg Whitman, and so on and so forth all exist.

[smoltchanov]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Yes, but generally the same can be told about Republicans in most of the North-East and Pacific coast.

REP Governors in: MA, ME, NJ, MD

DEM Governors in: LA

Kentucky Democrats have a deep bench(Chandler, Grimes, both Beshears), as do FL and GA Democrats. Republicans have McMahon and Sims in CT, Sununu and Gatsas in NH, Scott in VT, and Rhode Island has plenty. In the West, Rossi, Walden, Cathy M. Rodgers, Meg Whitman, and so on and so forth all exist.

No. These are persons, who are personally popular, but no deep bench and party popularity in general.. Scott Avedisian in Rhode Island may win governorship in 2018 if he runs (for now he is trying to make Warwick a "model city", and routinely gets about 75% of vote in 60% Obama city), but this doesn't make Republican party of Rhode Island more influential. The same - with Scott in Vermont, Baker in Massachusetts, and their like. Jodi Rell was extremely popular governor, but after she decided to retire Democrats regained governorship of Connecticut in awful 2010 and held it in equally awful 2014. And so on..

P.S. And you forgot Jim Hood in Mississippi))))

[BuckeyeNut]

...and another family values sanctity of marriage hypocrite bites the dust.

I have noticed that it's much easier for a right-wing family values hypocrite to survive a sex scandal that it's for a Democrat.

Hes not conservative actually (raised taxes, moderate on all issues) and I disagree with your statement

I guess Ronald Reagan is a liberal, then. Good to know.

Ronald Reagan is really a liberal compared with 75% of present day Republican congressional caucus. Gerald Ford - with 90-95%.... Essentially the same among Democrats: Lyndon Johnson (always considered as moderate-liberal by standards of that days) would be in 10% most conservative members of Democratic caucus now. Center is absolutely not represented in present political system.... There is simply no party to look for it's interests..

The second generation New Deal Democrats of Johnson were a lot more liberal than today's Third Way-New Democrats of the Clintons and Obama.

[smoltchanov]

...and another family values sanctity of marriage hypocrite bites the dust.

I have noticed that it's much easier for a right-wing family values hypocrite to survive a sex scandal that it's for a Democrat.

Hes not conservative actually (raised taxes, moderate on all issues) and I disagree with your statement

I guess Ronald Reagan is a liberal, then. Good to know.

Ronald Reagan is really a liberal compared with 75% of present day Republican congressional caucus. Gerald Ford - with 90-95%.... Essentially the same among Democrats: Lyndon Johnson (always considered as moderate-liberal by standards of that days) would be in 10% most conservative members of Democratic caucus now. Center is absolutely not represented in present political system.... There is simply no party to look for it's interests..

The second generation New Deal Democrats of Johnson were a lot more liberal than today's Third Way-New Democrats of the Clintons and Obama.

On economy - may be - they were redistributionists. On social issues - surely no. I am absolutely sure that half of the "Roosevelt Democrats" were pro-life and almost all would shudder about idea of "gay marriage"...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Let's dispel with the fiction that only liberals can raise taxes.

[RINO Tom]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Yes, but generally the same can be told about Republicans in most of the North-East and Pacific coast.

Agreed, but the lead was never that big.  By the 1990s, the VT legislature was pretty evenly fought for, but states like Mississippi literally had like 7 Republicans, haha.

[smoltchanov]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Yes, but generally the same can be told about Republicans in most of the North-East and Pacific coast.

Agreed, but the lead was never that big.  By the 1990s, the VT legislature was pretty evenly fought for, but states like Mississippi literally had like 7 Republicans, haha.

Yes. But the answer for rapid transformation of Deep South legislatures may be given by one word - "Blacks". Nowhere else vast majority of whites seems to have said: "after all that struggle in courts and in Congress we can make only one thing: leave party that betrayed us and our principles (and yes, in 60es and, to some extent, 70es, this included segregation too) and go where we will feel comfortable and even welcomed - conservative environment with few blacks nearby (read - Republican party)". Transformation of North-East legislatures went quite differently...

[Miles]

^ When Jay Dardenne first was elected to the LA Senate in 1992, he was one of three Republicans.

[smoltchanov]

^ Exactly what i wanted to say. It's my feeling that white Democrats  in Deep South (and, partially, in Peripheral too) were prompted to leave party by combination of 2 factors: rapidly growing black influence in party  (whites could grudgingly tolerate black participation in party, but not black leadership, even less - dominance), and erasure of differences between national and state parties (in 1960th or 1970 you could say "i am an Mississippi (or Alabama or Louisiana) Democrat" and that meant something like "i am an extremely conservative Southern segregationist", by 2000 Mississippi Democratic party platform was almost as liberal as national's party). When national party began use "loyalty" as a criterion for support or opposition many Southern whites went to choose "principles over (old) party"

P.S. Of course i speak only about "typical southern whites" here, as there are many counterexamples, but statistically it's majority behavoir that matters...

[IceSpear]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Alabama is not Louisiana. Alabama would vote for Satan (R) over Jesus (D).

[smoltchanov]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Alabama is not Louisiana. Alabama would vote for Satan (R) over Jesus (D).

Alabama already did that. By voting for Roy Moore as Supreme Court Chief Justice...))

[Kingpoleon]

This is why it's just really stupid to ditch your "DINO" and "RINO" politicians.  If the national Dems had put in serious money to keeping the local South solid, they'd at least have a decent enough bench of socially moderate Democrats to ALWAYS capitalize on a scandal like this or a super unpopular politician like JBE did in Louisiana.

Alabama is not Louisiana. Alabama would vote for Satan (R) over Jesus (D).

Alabama already did that. By voting for Roy Moore as Supreme Court Chief Justice...))

Roy Moore was Jesus??