Talk Elections

Where Democrats carry something like 44 states?

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Under say, a Scoop/Lieberman/Bayh type, but extremely charismatic and forceful. A younger Zell that actually got the nomination against Santorum?

It's possible, it depends on who is nominated by each party. If the Democrats nominate Barack Obama, the Republicans nominate a pro-choice moderate type, and an Independent runs a very Conservative campaign. There would have to be a third party involved.

Zell Miller is NOT a Democrat

I'd challenge you to debate him on that.  I think you're confusing Democrat and Liberal.  In that case, Zell Miller is not a liberal, but he most certainly is a Democrat.

Well, yes he is.  His party registration says so.

Whether or not there's a single Democrat that agrees with him is in debate, but whether or not he's a Democrat is not.

He can call himself a Democrat all he wants, but what reason is there for him to be one? There is none, the same way there's no reason for me to call myself a Republican.

No, because Democrats can't win the rural west.

But of course Democrats can win pretty big, Clinton did in '96.

Georgia has a Democrat-controlled legislature.

How many of them do you think agree with you?

No big landslides - too many christians.

Christians split 50/50, moron. Unlike other blocks of voters who split 90/10.

I mean the ones that actually mean it, not the ones who put that nonsense in proper perspective.

It's true that the ones who don't mean it vote Democrat

What nonsense?

Religion.

I said what nonsense?

I say that anyone I wouldn't vote for is not a Democrat.

There is no condition in existance where I would vote for Zell Miller. I'd even vote for someone like Rick Santorum over him, since at least ultra-right wing Republicans have enough brain cells to realize what party they belong in.

And I answered.

wow, a fairly reasonable and not rididculously partisan biased post from you! I'm impressed!

Now if Democrats were as stupid as most Republicans, we probably would argue here "someone like Ben Nelson or even John Breaux could possibly win those way out west states". But since Democrats realize such a person could never win the nomination, unlike deluded Republicans who honestly think the Religious Right would let Guiliani be nominated. And no, I'm not referring to you in the second part.

As mentioned earlier, Georgia has a Democrat-controlled legislature. So do many other southern states.

I guess you have more of a right than all those people to decide what the Democratic party is?

How are those people different from Republicans?  I suppose having both major parties beholden to political Chrisitanity is a possibility.

They could say, what's the difference between you and a Republican?

Who me?  A revulsion to theocracy I suppose.  I do like the right-wing economics, of course.

I want to make prostitution, drug use, and gambling legal. I want to end the anti- smoking legislation and the FCC.

That makes me a supporter of theocracy?

Anyway, you can call them false Democrats, but they could call you a false Democrat as well.

All good positions, none of which is furthered by voting Republican.

I attack any ideology that is intolerant and has the agenda of imposing its will upon others.  Also incidentally I find the act of faith absurd, but thats not my business.

Republicans aren't the ones trying to ban smoking from restaurants.

Some Democrats believe in things like drug legalization, but they're rare and far between.

I'll admit that both parties are horrible institutions - or rather they reflect their awful constituencies.. but I'm confident the Democrats are a lesser threat.

The Democratic party exists for the sole purpose of molding society through government.

Feminists, anti-smoking nazis, gays, etc.

I know hardcore atheists who think the idea of the pledge being unconstitutional is hilarious

Liberalism mostly wishes to remove impositions upon the individual, such as the pledge of allegiance to which you allude, or exclusion from marriage, etc.  I agree that in some cases, such as affirmative action, liberals are abominable.  However political christianity is the worst of a bad lot, in that its agenda is far more consistently against individual freedom.

The pledge and marriage don't restrict the individual

Ok.. so you've stated your opinion.  Not very interesting, but I suppose if you enjoyed it, that's all that matters.

If you want to actually interact, you might include some sort of argumentation.

I just stated the facts

Gay marriage is the current glaring example.  Another is abortion.  Others include the censorship of media and 'pornography'.  Also much of our long time social interventionism, such as drug laws and laws against prostitution are motivated by religious voters prejudices.  Prohibition was a prime example.  Religion is by nature an intolerant mental condition, and implies that one can know what is right or best for another person.

If the 2000 percentages are any frame of reference, for the Dems to win 44 states, the map would look like this...

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I suppose it's possible, but very difficult (winning over 50% in Kans., Okla., S.D., etc.)

that's actually pretty close to my best ever President Forever game. I was Clinton in 1996, and won 46 states + DC over Dole. Dole only took Kansas, Idaho, Utah and Alaska.

Obama will landslide

If Nixon could have run for a third term and survived watergate and dodged impeachement and the democrat was a Clintonesque style candidate, THEN I could see that happening.

Yes, I can see John Edwards winning the entire eastern half of the country. 

Yea, this is true.  But many of the southern democrats are extremely close to republicans on almost every issue.  That's the point they are trying to get at.  But they can call themselves Democrats all they want.  I just don't want to hear it anymore about how the party has betrayed them from the Zell Miller types.  Socially, the two parties have switched, and if they don't like it, by all means, leave.   

The rural west is libertarian.  The democrats are moving towards social libertarianism, so if we ever get into another 1992-type election where decisive social issues are the focus of the campaign, a democrat could probably win the entire west minus Idaho and Utah.

The DEMOCRATS moving towards social libertarianism?! These people are trying to ban cigarettes and firearms!

2nd hand-smoke hurts people, and I didn't say they were social libertarians, but they are moving somewhat in that direction. 

At some point, but not in the near future due to the culture wars. Still, once TX, VA, NC, FL, AZ, CO and NV have trended Dem more seriously it will happen.

Putting Democrats in the same sentence as social libertarianism is laughable.

Democrats love to legislate based on questionable science; 2nd hand smoke, global warming, etc.  The national party would just assume overturn the 2nd Amendment.  Today's Democrat party is run by feminists that would shut you up if they disagree with you.  Let's not forget the Kerry campaign's threats towards book stores that dare carry "Unfit for Command" and towards Sinclair Broadcasting.  Reeks of censorship to me!

The Republican Party isn't perfect, but I do believe most Republicans are stronger on social libertarian issues than most Democrats are.  Don't get me started on economic issues. :)

Opebo - When did you switch to the Democrats? Sorry, I've been away for a while.

A few weeks ago.  I've always been a Republican voter based on a lesser of two evils analysis, and have always had grave reservations about the party's social positions.  I had an epiphany during the anti-gay constitutional referendum amendment here in Missouri, in addition to some other issues.  I realized that the GOP is controlled by the Christian right, and my freedoms are greatly threatened by their agenda.  I wouldn't want to be in the same party as people like that.   The slight impositions Democrats might make on me economically seem like nothing by comparison.

That's interesting. I personally never understood the GOP's popularity, since many of its ideals (particularly those stemming from the religious right, as well the Straussian/neo-conservative wing of the party) seem to tread on the very notions of individual freedom and liberty which the United States was based on. But that's a more general thought.

I'm a conservative, and I hate freedom.

You're about to see the most crushing defeat of an incumbent since 1980.

Republicans are gonna be speechless.

Yes! The polls all indicate that!

What?  I protest.  You can't hate freedom; that's our job.

How about a hatefest? :)

Good point… I’ve been on this site for darn near two years (?) and I’m a democrat but I’m not a liberal, I’m pro-life and pro-war… pretty much on a par with Evan Bayh only a little bit more to the left economically. 


As for Zell, I’m not sure what happened to Zell he was one of Clinton’s biggest supporters back in 1992 and gave a great speech at the 1992 convention… but I think having had so little contact with the liberal wing of the party he was genuinely shocked and reacted against it when he became a senator.

Tch. Don't you know the polls are part of the big conservative conspiracy against freedom?  ;)

How do you figure this if his inclusion on the ticket is not even bringing  a blip on the North Carolina radar screen?

If the Democrats would adopt supply-side economics and tone down their left wing social and domestic policies, they would never lose an election.

Why are you voting for Kerry?

Because of the Iraq War.  I was on the Bush bandwagon early in 1999 before most Republicans were.  I'm not a moderate, wishy-washy Republican.  But I cannot in good conscience vote for him.  I agreed with him on Afghanistan as that had to be done. 

He said that the war against terrorism would be a different kind of war, one fought in the shadows.  But I saw nothing more than a conventional war in Iraq that has become a 4th generation guerilla war.  And even if Iraq becomes a successful beacon of democracy (which is unlikely), so what?  That's one Muslim country out of many?  If Bush's plan is correct in reducing the risks of terror, we would have to do to the entire Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia, what we did in Iraq.  The Iraq war was even more pointless in that Iraq was one of the most Westernized Muslim countries and Saddam wanted to be our ally.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest problem is Islam and its inability to produce a functioning well-balanced society.  It is a religion filled with inherent problems that are only made worse in a modern industrialized globalized world.  The fact that we don't have a leader who is willing to address this problem is very distressing.  But occupying Muslim countries isn't the answer.

I believe Kerry understands the world better than Bush.  Strengthening the position of pro-Western Muslims while simultaneously being firm on Islamic terrorists, and enticing Muslim governments to cooperate with the US will require a certain degree of finesse and nuance, traits Bush doesn't have.  Maybe, just maybe, Kerry can make things better.  If he does, then that's good for him.  If not, then perhaps a higher quality conservative candidate can win in 2008.  But this group of Republicans has lost the right to govern.

If Kerry were in power, Saddam Hussein would have nuclear weapons today.

He opposed Reagan left and right during the Cold War. He voted for a unilateral nuclear freeze. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, John Kerry voted against the First Gulf War.

Saddam having nuclear weapons by now is something that is is extremely unlikely.  Are we to go to war with every country that aspires to develop nuclear weapons?  The only way to make nuclear weapons obsolete is by building a missile defense system that is reliable.  That way countries won't even bother trying to make them.  Furthermore, the bigger risk doesn't come from governments and their possession of WMD.  9/11 was done by individuals based in Florida who employed box cutters. 

I'm aware that Kerry opposed Reagan during the Cold War.  But so did the right wing, particularly the neocons, oppose Reagan when he decided that Gorbachev was someone that could be dealt with.  George Will called him a "useful idiot".  Reagan has the reputation of being a rigid ideologue, but he was flexible.  The Cold War is over, those were different problems.  I'm not going to justify or defend Kerry's Cold War policies, as he is a Leftist, and is hardly and ideal candidate.  But he couldn't be much worse than GW Bush, who is so hated and distrusted that even leaders who want to help the US are hard pressed to do so because of domestic pressures.  And that is dangerous to America.

A regime like Hussein's could very easily pass a nuke on to Al Qaeda to be used in an American city.

Saddam Hussein would almost certainly having nuclear weapons by now. The reason he didn't get them is because we've been containing him for ten years since the first Gulf War ended. (You know, the one Kerry was against)

It is more dangerous to chose our leaders based on world opinion than it is to have rigid ideologues hate us.

So could a regime like Kadhafi's have done something like that.  There's someone who actually did commit terrorism against the US, yet he's not considered a bad guy anymore.  Amazing.  Iran is closer to developing nukes than Iraq was, yet we're not very eager to go to war with it.  There was never a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.  Saddam was never involved in terrorism against America.  Why was he an OK guy from 1979 onward but when he goes into Kuwait he's suddenly a crazy monster?  He had some legitimate gripes against Kuwait, as it was slant drilling under the border.  And Saddam thought that our ambassador April Glaspie had given him a green light to go it.  So Kerry voting against the 1991 war was his greatest moment.

In an effort to prevent all sorts of theoreticals, such and such might happen, this could happen, we are making a mess.

Clinton signed into law the death of the Hussein regime in 1998. A sworn enemy of the United States for 10 years is the next natural step in the War on Terror.

Read the 9/11 report. It's been proven that there was a Hussein / Al Qaeda connection. They didn't work together on a terrorist plot. They DID communicate with each other. That's a threat.

What mess?

Philip,

As the election draws nearer we will have these Democratic operatives coming on the boards claiming to be a Republican to try and sway fence sitters. Don't buy into it.

Damn. He found us out.

Quadafi gave up his weapons to us knowing that Bush was keeping his eye on him.  I'm sure he knows how to reacquire in case of a Kerry victory.

Collective was last active Today at 06:08:19 PM

Hmm...

Gee. I sure am speechless.

Here, here!

Yeah, they would. They'd get their asses kicked by the new third party.

In case you have not noticed, the Loony Left makes up a minority of the Democratic (and losing) party.

In 2028, when I'm running for reelection...of course there will be.

You'll be running for reelection as a Republican?

No.

If I feel I can't get the Democratic Nomination I would run as an Independent...would never join the Republicans.

You said there'd be a Democratic landslide when you ran for reelection. I naturally assumed that meant you'd run as a Republican.

No, I will be a popular President, but Ill only be 38 when I run in 2024.. thats why there wont be a landslide until 2028.

Zell Miller is not a Democrat (even if he claims to be one); if one looks at his voting record, one can see that he is a far right-wing conservative, socially, economically, and foreign policy wise.  He once said that if he wasn't so old that he would have switched parties.  I just thank goodness that he retired this past year.

Actually he is a true southern conservative. Something that is sadly missing from your party.

We really don't like to look at our party members as Southern or Northern.... we are just fine as Americans.

There is an old saying in politics...

Friends come and go.... but enemies accumulate

In a few more election cycyles the GOP will become old, and corupt and out of ideas, while during that time the Dems will find new faces and new ideas.

Out with the old, and in with the new :)

This is neither praise for the dems nor criticism of the GOP. it's just the way it is...

In 1994 the Dems got punted from the House because after 40 years they were just, well, old and tired and corrupt and the GOP had new Ideas and new faces...

Today the GOP is still rising towards the top of the wheel, but the wheel keps turning... and soon it goes the other way...

It's just the way it is..

In IL that process only took 8 years - from 1994 to 2002. Sometimes the wheel spins pretty fast.

And it looks like it's still spinning rather fast.

Running out of ideas? You kidding me? We haven't even struck down the whole New Deal yet!

The biggest threat to the new Republican majority is ourselves. If we forget who got us where we are, or tie ourselves to the status quo, will will lose Congress, and we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

I don't see any signs of yet, but it's something to look out for.

I agree with all of this Philip. Striking down the New Deal and "Great" Society should be key goals of a Republican Congress and Whitehouse.

Priceless...priceless...

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Don't you think there's just a slight possibility that impoverishing the bottom 80% of society to Depression-era levels could come back to haunt you?  After all, Americans voted Left once before - when they were desperate.

So was the bottom 80% of society impoverished in the Roaring 20s?

Yes, certainly more so than they were in the 1945-1975 era.  So if your point is that people will put up with a shocking amount of poverty, I certainly agree - obvously they do now.  Of course that poverty reached a desperate level around 1930-31.  What makes you think it won't again?

The poverty rate was nowhere near 80%, even during the darkest depths of the Great Depression.  In his 1936 SOTU speech, FDR pegged the poverty rate at 1/3.  While that is shockingly high, especially by today's standards, it doesn't begin to approach 80%. 

Yes, the Great Depression has been way overblown by historians. The effects of the depression were very mild in the Pacific west, Northeast and parts of the midwest.

I never said that 80% of the population was poor, I said that 80% of the population was getting poorER due to Republican policies:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie1.html

Definitions of poverty differ, but there is no doubt that wages and incomes have been in decline for decades for all but the top 20%.  This has, as we all know, been masked by the move over the same time period from single-breadwinner households to two-breadwinner households.

Yes, though not anytime soon. 

For a modern day election:

Warner/Bayh 518
Snowe/Chafee 20
Huckabee/Tancredo 0

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The GOP ticket you have there would do far better than you give credit for, but only really in the Northeast.  Snowe would most definitely carry her own state, at the very least.

As a Warner/Bayh vs Tancredo/Huckabee (not Huckabee/Tancredo) map, though, it's pretty accurate.
Although I'd give the Dems Alaska. :P

Tancredo would not lose that badly, especially if the immigration debate heats up.  Against the right candidate he could win.

Well actually the unemployment rate was about about 25% at the height of the depression - and to call it overblown is kind of ridiculous - like all national issues it does affect different areas in differing ways.

Of course areas that relied on a mechanised workforce were hardest hit, or those that were at the mercy of the market - but some agricultural areas were not AS badly affected.

On the question.... It's a toughie as the population shift toward Republican areas has made it kind of difficult.

I would require a Bayh/Warner pres Candidate with someone from the South or SW as a STRONG VP.

That's when I lost respect for Reagan forever - when I heard him say "the continued integrity of our nation is the destruction of the great society".

Made me shudder. 

I doubt either side will land-slide in at least a while. I think the parties have become too professional to allow themselves to lose their touch with the people to such an extent in the future.

Of course, although probably not any time soon.

He's not up against the right kind of candidate (Who do you have in mind? Is it Dennis Kucinich, or Al Sharpton?) in this scenario.

Yay

Depends on what you mean by "landslide".

11/2/2008 answered that question.

In my opinion a landslide is when the winner recieves at least 400 electoral votes.

My definition of a landslide is someone who wins with more than double the amount of electoral votes of his opponent. In that definition, yes, we had an electoral landslide.

In terms of getting an obscene amount of states, something like 40+, it could happen, it's just not likely to happen because of such divisive campaigning from the right. Their tactic has been to mock and divide the country for well over 20 years now, and because of such it's possible it could take a generation before we see another huge landslide.

Obama managed to expand quite deep into traditional GOP zones. We're not talking the GOP deep dixie core but he managed to expand outside of the tossups/standard swing states.

Would you call this a landslide:
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don't you mean 11/4/08?

As of November 4, 2008 there is a gap over nearly a century between 303 electoral votes (JFK 1960 and Truman 1948) and 365 (Obama 365).  It's beyond doubt that Obama's victory is much closer to one of the two by Clinton than to any of those generally considered "squeaker" elections.  Maybe it's a "landslide light", but it is definitely no squeaker.

Good reason exists for nobody winning around 330 electoral votes since about 1908 (which was enough for Taft to get about the same percentage of electoral votes as Obama, and when there were neither Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, nor the District of Columbia with voting rights): at such a point a nominee knows that he is losing and takes chances that either push him toward a bare victory (even if he falls short) or risks giving the opponent chances to win. Sometimes the gambles work; sometimes they don't. Someone behind 51-49 (roughly 274-268) in projected electoral votes is going to take fewer unconventional chances than someone behind 60-40 (roughly 330-238) will make quixotic efforts to try to win states that few think that he can win. By trying to flip such states as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and finally Pennsylvania and failing in each, John McCain probably threw away such chances as he had to hold onto Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. But when he was losing Virginia, and a loss of Virginia without a challenge to what Democrats considered "safe" states, he was going to lose the election. McCain was in that position late in the electoral season and ran out of time.

A 330-238 split is unstable at any stage of a Presidential election. The election will get close or else it will diverge.


 

2012 could be an Obama landslide.

We'll be to broke for a presidential campaign by that point.