republicans – Page 2

Gallup notes that the GOP is looking about as good as Democrats to Americans these days.

Excuse me while I give this non-integral and unsecured support beam for the Democratic party base’s sense of self a good, hearty kicking:

Americans’ views of the Democratic and Republican parties are now similar, mainly because of their more positive ratings of the GOP.

[snip]

Americans view both parties negatively overall, with a 40% favorable and 57% unfavorable rating for the Republican Party, and a 42% favorable and 54% unfavorable rating for the Democratic Party.

Oh, Gallup. Tell the truth: you guys just enjoy watching the chaos that results when you toss a poll like this into the room, don’t you? Continue reading Gallup notes that the GOP is looking about as good as Democrats to Americans these days.

Democrats paying their minority staffers around 3/5th of White staffers’ salaries.

Fine, fine: it’s more like seven-tenths. Three-fifths has more of a… resonance, though.

…there is a racial pay gap in campaign politics. Asian, Black and Latino staffers are paid less than their white counterparts, according to an analysis by the New Organizing Institute.

For example, African-American staffers on Democratic campaigns were paid 70 cents for each dollar their white counterparts made. For Hispanic staffers in Democratic campaigns, the figure was 68 cents on the dollar.

I’m not going to give The Daily Beast opportunities for agitprop: they’re rather desperate to make this a bipartisan problem. However, if you take the time to pull the original numbers by NOI, you’ll find the following: Continue reading Democrats paying their minority staffers around 3/5th of White staffers’ salaries.

Pat Quinn thinks black Republicans are like Jewish collaborators to Nazis. …No, really.

I… am having difficulty processing this story.

Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is in some hot water with the Jewish community after his campaign tweeted—and then quietly deleted—several messages urging backers to read an article comparing black Republican voters to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis.

That is indeed what the article said, and my difficulty is not in believing that Pat Quinn might think that such a comparison was warranted. I am fully aware that he could think that, and does think that. What is causing my head to short-circuit is that the Quinn campaign did not immediately have whatever fool intern was responsible for the governor’s endorsement of bigotry – over Passover weekend, no less! – drawn, quartered, and the pieces displayed as an attempt to placate critics. What the Hell was Pat Quinn thinking? Was Pat Quinn thinking?

Continue reading Pat Quinn thinks black Republicans are like Jewish collaborators to Nazis. …No, really.

@SeanTrende runs the numbers on the 2014 Senate, nearly suffers total protonic reversal.

My eyes keep skittering over this Sean Trende piece about likely 2014 Senate losses. Not because it’s bad news: it’s not.

[Sean’s calculation table] is a grim picture for Senate Democrats, suggesting that the president would have to get his approval above 50 percent by Election Day before they would be favored to hold the chamber. This is also consistent with what we’ve seen in polling, which shows the seven “red state” Democrats in truly severe states of distress, while Democrats in Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Colorado are exhibiting surprising weakness. If these 11 seats are showing similar signs of weakness in November, Democrats will have an extremely difficult time holding the chamber. At Obama’s current 44 percent approval rating, we’d expect Democrats to lose somewhere between nine and 13 seats.

Continue reading @SeanTrende runs the numbers on the 2014 Senate, nearly suffers total protonic reversal.

Heliocentric theory has a well-known conservative Republican bias.

Of course I’m going to mock the Left for this. Karma, baby, karma: if I have to listen to cr*p about how Republicans don’t believe in evolution*, then I will happy to respond about how Democrats don’t believe that the Earth revolves around the sun. Until maybe we can all shaddap about these surveys for a change?

Continue reading Heliocentric theory has a well-known conservative Republican bias.

Two cheers for The New York Post’s opposition to fusion voting.

The New York Post almost gets it, here:

In its lengthy report exposing mischief in New York’s political system, the Moreland Commission missed a major target for real reform: the state’s minor political parties.

Because of a quirk in state law, minor parties in New York wield influence far beyond their numbers. That’s because New York is the rare state that allows minor parties to cross-endorse candidates of the top two parties.

It’s an invitation to corruption: Cross-endorsements give minor parties power by allowing them to extract promises — or cash — out of major-party candidates in exchange for giving them an extra ballot line or doing their dirty work.

Continue reading Two cheers for The New York Post’s opposition to fusion voting.

Younger Millennial voters shifting hard towards GOP.

Background: Harvard University’s Institute of Politics did a study on Millennial (18-29 year old voters), and came to some interesting conclusions:

Republican and Democratic leaders should find little solace in the results. The survey found that 33 percent of young Americans consider themselves Democrats and 24 percent identify with the GOP. The largest and growing segment is independents, 41 percent of the total.

Democrats’ advantage among young voters is fading. Among the oldest Millennials (ages 25-29), Democrats hold a 16 point lead over the GOP – 38 percent say they’re Democrats and 22 percent call themselves Republicans. Among the youngest of this rising generation (ages 18-24), the gap is just 6 points, 31 percent for Democrats and 25 percent for Republicans.

Um. Republican leaders should TOTALLY find solace in the results. That age-based 10 point shift towards the GOP pretty much gut-shoots one of the Democrats’ long-term demographic strategies*. And that’s just voters who are 18 to 24 now. There’s going to be more of them in 2016, and I can’t see them being any happier with Barack Obama, the Democrats, or Obamacare… Continue reading Younger Millennial voters shifting hard towards GOP.

Quote of the Day, They CAN Be Taught! edition. #obamacare

The WaPo actually wanted to write a story about this:

…in recent days, Senate Republicans have been urging their members to tout new “Your Story” Web pages in English and Spanish that invite people to vent about the shortcomings of the health-insurance initiative.

…but it’s the WaPo, which means that they just can’t come out and say The Republican party won the messaging battle over Obamacare, and Democrats are ever-so-slowly scrambling to come up with a counter. That would imply that the Democratic leadership is made up of incompetent goofballs who spent two months twiddling their thumbs while Obamacare blew up on the launch pad. And then irradiated some kittens. While blasting out Nickelback tunes. Continue reading Quote of the Day, They CAN Be Taught! edition. #obamacare

Attention, Republican legislators: let the Democrats vote FIRST.

As I have said, many times: I do not know what the right answer is when it comes to intervening in Syria. Every option is bad, with negative consequences and poor results. If I was a Member of Congress I would be frantically trying to go through what information I have available, in order to determine the least-worst scenario and vote for that. Because of all of that, I cannot in good conscience call for Members of Congress (Republican AND Democrat) to do anything except vote their consciences: if I don’t have the right answer myself, I shouldn’t try to second-guess a legislator’s own sense of morality.

But I will so totally give tactical advice on when to vote. Glenn Reynolds’ advice here is spot-on:

If I were the GOP — in both the House and Senate — I wouldn’t let a single Republican vote be cast until all the Democrats have voted.

Continue reading Attention, Republican legislators: let the Democrats vote FIRST.

Advice to Members of Congress regarding #syria.

Apparently, somewhere about half* of Republicans in Congress follow @redstate on Twitter, so there’s a decent chance that they’ll see this advice. Anyway, I’ve been banging a drum on this issue all weekend, but I’ll bang it again: vote your conscience. Don’t feel pressured to vote against intervention, for intervention, for a different kind of intervention than the one you favor, or any other combination or scenario. There’s a reason why Speaker John Boehner signalled that he hopes other caucus members will vote to authorize, or why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor only intends to vote for intervention: they’re not going to whip the vote, and there’s not going to be a push to rush the process.

So don’t rush into this, and vote for what you think is the best, or more likely the least bad, option.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: As I noted here, I don’t actually know what the best option is. Every one of them ends poorly.

*The exact number is 51.5% of all Republicans with ‘official’ Twitter accounts. Apparently 97% of all Congressmen have Twitter accounts, so it’s safe enough to say that about half of the GOP members of Congress are at least monitoring RedState.