The New York Times published an article about a new effort to adjust the Republican Party to a more moderate image with its conservative base in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience.
And Cantor did by borrowing heavily from President Obama in the process, almost verbatim in some instances; and tried to co-opt the same Republican ideas with Obama's language.
“Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.”
Cantor in 2013:
“Our goal - to ensure every American has a fair shot at earning their success and achieving their dreams. In America, we do have higher expectations for our nation. Since our founding, we believed we could be the best hope to mankind. That hope led generations of immigrants to
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Blue Dogs lost to more conservative Republicans in 2010, in heavily leaning Republican leaning districts, and they were only elected in 2006 / 2008 cycles that were toxic for Republicans. And most of the blue dogs that did run again, weren't primaried by more liberal Democratic candidates-- unlike Republican / Tea Partiers that consistently ran more extreme candidates (which by the way cost them control of the Senate). When redistricting hit after Republicans took control of several state houses in 2010, it was even more difficult.
Truth of the matters is that the "centerists" have been been purged from both parties
Not true. The Republican party has become much more conservative and the Democratic party has in no way had an equivalent pull to the left, which as I pointed out earlier, Vote View (a database maintained by UCLA's political science dept of EVERY vote in Congress since the founding of the Republic): remember I said originally compared over the last 25 years?
I get that but it's an example of circular reasoning is it not?
If a proposal's left or rightness is determined by the party affiliation of those who support it, saying that the right wing party has moved right over the years is a lot like saying the number 8 has becom more "8-esque" over the years than the number 7.
If the real metric is the number of proposals with bipartisan support then it should have been presented as such. There are far clearer / more efficient ways to present this information, but I suspect that they would not have presented the same bias - look at the blue squiggly line look how extream it is!- that the author wanted.
Finally there is the issue that Jeff raised. The graph is not normalized for popular support / affilliation. A party that is say 65% "right wing" in an nation where the population is also 55 - 60% right wing is not "extream" it's a point* or less away from being moderate.
If you truly are unfamiliar with it you should really get thee hense and enjoy. Doctor Munroe is also much better about citing sources and showing work where appropriate than any journalism major.
The vertical axis is represents time and time is a very common vector of normalization when performing statistical analysis. In fact it is pretty much the default.
And Cantor did by borrowing heavily from President Obama in the process, almost verbatim in some instances; and tried to co-opt the same Republican ideas with Obama's language.
Video comparison here.
[Details back here]
Point One: “Fair Shot”
Obama in 2011:
“Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.”
Cantor in 2013:
“Our goal - to ensure every American has a fair shot at earning their success and achieving their dreams. In America, we do have higher expectations for our nation. Since our founding, we believed we could be the best hope to mankind. That hope led generations of immigrants to ( ... )
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Blue Dogs lost to more conservative Republicans in 2010, in heavily leaning Republican leaning districts, and they were only elected in 2006 / 2008 cycles that were toxic for Republicans. And most of the blue dogs that did run again, weren't primaried by more liberal Democratic candidates-- unlike Republican / Tea Partiers that consistently ran more extreme candidates (which by the way cost them control of the Senate). When redistricting hit after Republicans took control of several state houses in 2010, it was even more difficult.
Truth of the matters is that the "centerists" have been been purged from both parties
Not true. The Republican party has become much more conservative and the Democratic party has in no way had an equivalent pull to the left, which as I pointed out earlier, Vote View (a database maintained by UCLA's political science dept of EVERY vote in Congress since the founding of the Republic): remember I said originally compared over the last 25 years?
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If a proposal's left or rightness is determined by the party affiliation of those who support it, saying that the right wing party has moved right over the years is a lot like saying the number 8 has becom more "8-esque" over the years than the number 7.
If the real metric is the number of proposals with bipartisan support then it should have been presented as such. There are far clearer / more efficient ways to present this information, but I suspect that they would not have presented the same bias - look at the blue squiggly line look how extream it is!- that the author wanted.
Finally there is the issue that Jeff raised. The graph is not normalized for popular support / affilliation. A party that is say 65% "right wing" in an nation where the population is also 55 - 60% right wing is not "extream" it's a point* or less away from being moderate.
*"point" as in decimal place by the way.
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Circular reasoning is exactly how people identify themselves, by comparing their positions to those of others. Remember this graph?
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This is a graph...
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If you truly are unfamiliar with it you should really get thee hense and enjoy. Doctor Munroe is also much better about citing sources and showing work where appropriate than any journalism major.
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The vertical axis is represents time and time is a very common vector of normalization when performing statistical analysis. In fact it is pretty much the default.
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