Democrats

January 2, 2011April 18, 2020

Ohio GOP sweep tied to low Democratic voter turn out

A report released by the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics maps out the Republican sweep of Ohio statewide offices and the open US Senate seat in 2010. The report, which includes maps, show the percentages of votes and turn out compared to the results in 2006. The numbers show that the turn out by Democrats was much lower in 2010 and that helped the GOP with their sweep.

“The pendulum has swung, this time in favor of Ohio Republicans,” John Green, Bliss Institute director, said in a press release. “Low voter turnout across the board and a poorly performing state economy contributed significantly to the 2010 Ohio Republican sweep.”
Akron U report maps GOP wins in November; contrasts results with 2006

It is clear that there was less voter turnout in 2010 than 2006 in almost every county. The East-West pattern emerges again in this map. There was, in general, less of a drop in voter turnout in the Republican-leaning western regions of the state as opposed to the Democratic-leaning eastern regions of the state. This indicates that Democratic-leaning counties had less-enthused voters compared to those counties that tend to lean Republican. It helps to explain why Democrats did so well in the 2006 state-wide contests and fared so poorly in the 2010 election.
Mapping the Republican Sweep: The 2010 Election Results in Ohio

The report doesn’t look at why people voted the way they did but it showed that when a particular party doesn’t turn out their candidate loses. It seems that’s election 101.

(click on picture for fullsize version)

November 12, 2010April 18, 2020

Thirty percent stayed home on election day

The pundits and Republicans are wrong. The election result wasn’t a rejection of the Democratic agenda, 30% of the electorate stayed home, disappointed in the results of the Democratic majority. The GOP won by default – not by mandate.

A new CBS News poll finds that a majority of Americans are either disappointed by the outcome of last week’s midterm elections or simply don’t much care.
While 40 percent do say they are pleased by the election outcome, that’s a significantly smaller percentage than the 58 percent who were pleased following the 2006 midterm elections.
Poll: Disenchantment Remains After Midterms

(h/t Daily Kos)

Still bad for the country but also means that Democrats should maintain their positions on issues like letting the Bush tax cuts to expire.

November 2, 2010April 18, 2020

Early thoughts on 2010 Election results

The 2010 election is not official but it looks like a bad night for Democrats both nationally and here in Ohio. The economy was part of the reason – people out of work – blame the party in power. I have some other thoughts on it.

It looks like the GOP will be sweeping all the offices in Ohio but at this hour Governor is still too close to call.

MSNBC had some exit poll info that showed the main reason for turning out the Democrats was JOBS JOBS JOBS. Anger at the government (the Tea party argument) was only 24%.

Genius Chris Matthews asks maybe if the Democrats had forced the GOP to fight for their ideas instead of letting them obstruct real economy recovery solutions and financial reform the results might have been different.

You think Chris??? Duh! Where have been for two years?

Lawrence O’Donnell was upset that the dirty hippies hurt Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas in the end.

No Larry, Blanche hurt herself being a blue dog Democrat and throwing labor under the bus.

The only good thing is now the GOP has their chance to try to govern. Good luck to them and may heaven help us all. They have been saying “No!” for so long they don’t have any real idea what they will do to “give us jobs”.

A good spin I would put on it is like a close football game. It is 21 to 20 with 3 minutes left in the game.

Your team is behind and is driving down the field. You end up scoring a field goal to move ahead 23-21 but there is 2 minutes left in the game.

Commentators usually ask “Did you score too soon?”

What then sometimes happens is the other team drives down close enough to kick a field goal and ends up winning 24-23.

In my world the GOP is the team that scored too soon since the 2012 election counts more than 2010.

We will see.

One note is that the GOP is not winning as many seats as they did in 1994 when the economy was not as bad as now.

October 30, 2010April 18, 2020

Couple of false assumptions about the “Rally to Restore Sanity”

Rally I spent Saturday afternoon watching the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” and enjoyed it for the most part. But reading some of the tweets from the pundit class showed some of them missed the point. The only problem I had with it, is the idea that the political insanity comes from both sides equally. That’s a false equivalency.

People like David Corn and Talking Point Memo’s Brian Beutler seemed under the wrong impression that the rally was a GOTV rally and complained throughout that no one on stage mentioned voting. Mainstream media outlets also assumed it was a partisan political rally because they tripped over themselves to ban their employees from attending or participating in it.

Jon Stewart made clear that it was a comedy show to point out the problem of our current rancid political debate in the country not a GOTV show. It was definitely not partisan.

While I do agree that we need more civility, the rancid aggressiveness is one sided and the side that is most aggressive is the Tea Party/GOP side. They need to tone down thousands of percent more than those on the left side.

That is where Stewart is naive. There are two (or more) points of view but NOT all are equally valid. Most from the right are based on complete lies.

I agree we should work on toning down the rhetoric but progressives and others on the left side should NEVER drop our guard and hope and pray the right joins us in working together. That’s why the President and the Democrats are going to take a hit on election day.

How many times do we need to be beat up before people like Stewart get it?

October 28, 2010April 18, 2020

The Tea Party-GOP doesn’t care about YOU

Thanks Fox of keeping us infromed The Tea Party/GOP thinks you are stupid and want to keep you that way. How else could the Big Corporate world, who back the Tea Party/GOP, convince you to vote against your own best interests? How else could you complain about government run health care before going to a doctor appointment paid for by Medicare? Why else would the TP/GOP candidates complain about deficits yet want to give bail outs and welfare to the Big Corps. The Tea Party/GOP doesn’t care about you.

They hope you don’t remember we had tax cuts from President Bush in 2001 and they didn’t help the economy. Ask yourself – where are those jobs that Bush promised? Over 8 years he only helped create a net of 3 million jobs. President Clinton helped create around 26 million in his 8 years.

They hope you don’t remember that they blocked any attempt to hold the bankers that crashed our economy accountable for their crimes. If the banks hadn’t been allowed to do what they did by the relaxing and non-enforcement of banking policy (changed in the mid-1990s by the GOP), and if the banks hadn’t relaxed their own standards to keep up the housing bubble, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

They want you to forget they got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq based on lies. There were no WMDs and Saddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

That is why the GOP lost in a big way in 2008.

Voting for the TP/GOP or staying home means one wants to continue the failed Republican policies of 2001-2008, messing with programs that help real people like the Health Reform Act and Social Security, and electing someone who wants to deny reproductive rights for women, for a start. Not to mention the other rights and liberties they want to roll back.

Since President Obama took office the TP/GOP voted against the unemployed, health care reform, small businesses, against a bill that would prevent medical expenses to be included in credit scoring, against veterans, and voted against the 9/11 first responders. And they are doing it funded by anonymous and in some cases foreign big business interests.

The TP/GOP doesn’t care about YOU.

Two years is not long enough to fire the Democrats. Bush and the TP/GOP messed up the country over 8 years. We almost slipped into a depression. Although not the best results, the Democrats passed a health care reform package, fiance reform, equal pay rights for women, helping bring the promise of the Internet to the country side, rescuing the auto industry from collapse, and much more even while the cheap labor conservatives in the TP/GOP said “No!”. And they said “No!” about everything coming from the Democrats.

The TP/GOP doesn’t care about YOU. They only care to make the rich richer and middle class extinct. They want to GO BACK to what the world was like before January 20th 2009. They want you to forget what it was REALLY like back then. They want to create a fascist state where the merchant class owns and rules the nation while us regular people SERVE them. The top six laws the TP/GOP think need to go away help a majority of people in this country. Voting for them means you don’t want social security, Medicare, Minimum Wage, and Unemployment Benefits to start.

If that’s what you want, if you want to prove you are stupid, then vote for the Tea Party/GOP or stay home, but don’t complain when you are not better off then you in 2012 then you are today.