At the time that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, polls had people against it slightly in the majority. When the Republicans continually move to repeal it, it's because that's what makes their voters happy, so that's what they do.
Currently polls have acceptance of Congress at 15.2 percent, approval of Republicans slightly lower and approval of Dems higher. (http://realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html) If you look into it historically, the opposition party traditionally has a lower acceptance rating than the party in power, due to the fact that they are playing as spoiler. However, recently, there have been two points in the last year where democratic approval ratings have dipped below GOP ones.
Both parties aren't doing their job. I feel like an argument about who is doing their job less is ridiculous, when it's patently obvious that both parties need to make GIANT strides towards taking responsibility and bipartisanship. Yes, the Republicans are father behind, but when it's a dekameters, and you have kilometers to go...
I think both parties need to come back to the middle, most definitely but idk - to me it's incredibly disingenuous to say "This is what your constituents want" in relation to Republicans because they have since 2010 had the opportunity to rig the system their way, meaning there is no need for them to answer to either their constituents or to even worry what the general populace thinks. In my home state they're pretty blatantly trying to kick any and all Democratic senators out of Richmond for no other reason than to keep a majority. So it's very hard for me to see to see where exactly they're serving anyone but their political party anymore.
Oh I'm sure they would have - but I doubt they'd have done so as severely as the Republicans have (and continue trying to) because moderates were still welcome into the party at the time before the Tea Partiers wiped them out. Unfortunately, we don't know and I don't think we'll see until maybe 2020.
Frankly, I was hoping that the Tea Party would go fullhog and Bull Moose it up during the 2012 election, so that they could get their asses kicked, and the GOP could go back to being sane. Hell, it says something when the most rational and effective portion of your party, the Log Cabin Republicans, is part of a group that a large portion of your base systematically oppresses.
Oh yeah. I won't lie about it - if John Huntsman had gotten the nod and had actually shown some knowledge in terms of economic health and you know, not shown his arse in the Great Rape Debate of 2012 I might have had a harder time deciding on who to vote for. But what worries me now is that the Tea Partiers really aren't going anywhere unless people get really, really sick of them. And even if they do, the districts they represent don't have enough of a split for the Democratic challenger to even have a chance. And that even if they do, the Republicans have enough control on a state level that they can just adjust the districts again in their favor.
I really, really want to see people get pissed off enough about it that we get a very neutral redistricting so that both parties HAVE to answer to the people they represent, instead of their just their party. I don't see it happening though.
I hear that. It would've been nice to have a candidate that didn't go around pissing off our allies on a world stage. Mitt Romney couldn't be in a country five minutes without sticking his foot in his mouth, and President Obama's snubbing of Israel and Pakistan... I liked Huntsman's foreign credentials a lot.
One of my friends jokingly suggested that we elect people by randomly opening up a phonebook and throwing darts. Is it bad that I feel like that might actually accomplish something?
Yeah. I place a LOT of emphasis on how someone handles things on an international level because the President ends up being "the face" of America and by and large has to deal with the world at large whereas most of the laws and whatnot that they talk about - that whole "LOWER GAS PRICES! TAX CUTS!" is going to come from Congress anyway.
I kind of feel like they just need to rid them of all those nice government benefits they get and make lobbying a hell of a lot harder. Those seem to be the two perks pretty much everyone wants to run for anyway so if they can't receive them, it would weed out the career politicians. Also - grading by your constituents determines your bonuses.
and per the Affordable Care Act / Patient Protection - how much of that was people genuinely against it versus people who were against it thanks to Republicans / Fox News trying to turn it into a dirty word? It's a chicken-and-egg thing to a point, but beyond that it's another case of propaganda and rhetoric.
Unfortunately, we'll never know. I would love if the data had that sort of granularity though. I mean how many people were for better healthcare reform, but against the ridiculous amount of money that it's going to cost?
I'd like the data too. Just from where I live (which is a very conservative district that also suffers from a severe lack of funding and education) most of the responses were of the Fox News variety moreso than actual discussion about it. And obviously some post-electoral paranoia about the fact that Obama had won in the first place.
That's another thing that pisses me off. What the hell happened to journalism? We have three major news sources, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. The first is ridiculously right, the second ridiculously left, and the third is just ridiculous,.
I understand that yellow journalism has been a thing for quite a while, but it's ridiculous that in order to get an accurate representation of what's actually going on in politics, you have to pay attention to multiple news sources, and then go fact check things yourself. And don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of Facebook propaganda bullshit.
That's really off topic. Sorry.
But yeah. Data. I love data. Actual data that doesn't have a bias, that just exists.
No worries. I don't even watch television news anymore because it's pointless and not news (and then if there's a tragedy they swarm like hyper-irritating locusts of course). I tend to either read the newspaper or just browse the Internet. Much better for my sanity.
both parties need to make GIANT strides towards taking responsibility and bipartisanship.
When we had a Democratic majority in Congress they bent over backwards trying to be 'bipartisan' and compromise with Republicans. On the other hand the first thing Republican leadership said after Obama won a second term was that the Democrats would have to compromise more, as if Obama and Dem leadership haven't already been forced to compromise their ideals just to hammer out a vague budget plan
I'm a bit perplexed because you say Obama shouldn't stick to the old Bush policies but then you say both parties need to make strides to bipartisanship. The problem is that realistically Republicans seem to believe bipartisanship means doing everything their way.
I don't remember any bipartisanship while the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Of course, that doesn't mean that it wasn't there, by any means. I was a little busy during that time period.
But, considering that in terms of Budget we haven't even been able to get both parties to agree to a full federal budget, even post 9/11 when everyone was holding hands and singing kumbayah...
Currently polls have acceptance of Congress at 15.2 percent, approval of Republicans slightly lower and approval of Dems higher. (http://realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html) If you look into it historically, the opposition party traditionally has a lower acceptance rating than the party in power, due to the fact that they are playing as spoiler. However, recently, there have been two points in the last year where democratic approval ratings have dipped below GOP ones.
HuffPo actually has it lower... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/congress-poll-approval-rating_n_2458914.html
Both parties aren't doing their job. I feel like an argument about who is doing their job less is ridiculous, when it's patently obvious that both parties need to make GIANT strides towards taking responsibility and bipartisanship. Yes, the Republicans are father behind, but when it's a dekameters, and you have kilometers to go...
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I really, really want to see people get pissed off enough about it that we get a very neutral redistricting so that both parties HAVE to answer to the people they represent, instead of their just their party. I don't see it happening though.
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One of my friends jokingly suggested that we elect people by randomly opening up a phonebook and throwing darts. Is it bad that I feel like that might actually accomplish something?
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I kind of feel like they just need to rid them of all those nice government benefits they get and make lobbying a hell of a lot harder. Those seem to be the two perks pretty much everyone wants to run for anyway so if they can't receive them, it would weed out the career politicians. Also - grading by your constituents determines your bonuses.
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I understand that yellow journalism has been a thing for quite a while, but it's ridiculous that in order to get an accurate representation of what's actually going on in politics, you have to pay attention to multiple news sources, and then go fact check things yourself. And don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of Facebook propaganda bullshit.
That's really off topic. Sorry.
But yeah. Data. I love data. Actual data that doesn't have a bias, that just exists.
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When we had a Democratic majority in Congress they bent over backwards trying to be 'bipartisan' and compromise with Republicans. On the other hand the first thing Republican leadership said after Obama won a second term was that the Democrats would have to compromise more, as if Obama and Dem leadership haven't already been forced to compromise their ideals just to hammer out a vague budget plan
I'm a bit perplexed because you say Obama shouldn't stick to the old Bush policies but then you say both parties need to make strides to bipartisanship. The problem is that realistically Republicans seem to believe bipartisanship means doing everything their way.
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But, considering that in terms of Budget we haven't even been able to get both parties to agree to a full federal budget, even post 9/11 when everyone was holding hands and singing kumbayah...
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