Battleground Georgia: Dems see 2014 flip (room, color)

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by bu2

And the same thing isn't true with the "progressives" in the Democratic party? The Democratic party (the people who vote in primaries) made a dramatic move to the left in the 70s and have kept moving left. The Republicans took a dramatic turn to the right starting in the 90s (again, the people who vote in the primaries).

no, actually it is not true. only 77% of house democrats vote with their party 90% of the time or more. and a paltry 18% vote with their party 95% of the time or more, compared with over a third (37%) of republicans.

[CCATL]

Ethics complaint claims Jason Carter held an ‘illegal’ star-studded fundraiser | Political Insider blog

A few months ago, I never would have said I thought Jason Carter, as a Democratic candidate, had a great chance of becoming the next Governor of Georgia. However, in the past few weeks, Deal and his fellow Republicans are showing just how afraid they are of him. One article after another of stunts Deal is pulling, or things he is saying, that show just how truly nervous he and his party are getting. In the content at this article, I really think they grasping at straws - trying to cover much more severe ethics complaints against Deal with complaints against Carter that normally wouldn't even be newsworthy.

It's really great to see this happening in a red state, and even if Jason doesn't win this election, it's hopefully going to give Republicans the knock on the head they need to realize that their actions actually ARE having an effect on their constituents voting, and not in the way they want it to. I think this is going to be a close race if Jason Carter keeps with this momentum - this might actually be a race in which every vote truly does make a difference!

[atler8]

JoeP was completely on the mark here yesterday at 5:16 pm, despite the rebuttal(s) following his thoughts.
And I didn't need convincing by the librul media that the tea party rep from my county I spoke to on the phone 3 years ago was bat-**** crazy. She did a great job of convincing me of that all by herself. In other words her own words convicted her, as in carrying on about the Communists in our county government, etc.
When I specifically asked her, "Where were you folks..." when Bush, jr. ran up the deficit & largely put the Iraq war on our national charge card & kept coming back for supplemental budget requests to fund it, she had no real answer other than her assurances that, "We were there." That was a blatant lie if I ever heard one.
And if anyone thinks that the debt did not "explode" until Obama took office, they are either deluding themselves or seriously misinformed.
A frank & unbiased year-by-year look at the national debt over the last 3 decades for example will reveal that to be the case.
Cheney even famously said while vice president, ""..Reagan proved that deficits don't matter".
I didn't then & still don't appreciate being lied to about our national debt by politicians or in posts here on the forum.

[JoeP]

Look at turnout in 2006 and 2008. They stayed home.

That is not isolated to debt.

And it wasn't until Obama that the deficit really went through the roof (even if you blame it entirely on the recession started during W's term, it still didn't get really big while he was in office).

That's because the bottom fell out in 2008, causing 800,000 people to lose jobs on a monthly level in 2009, destroying tax revenue.

Add to that that Obama put the wars on the books. If you recall, W didn't want that debt visible.

Add to that the stimulus funding, which all presidents of both parties and both parties in Congress typically supported before 2009 and in all cases for economic crisis no where near the levels of what happened in 2008.

When it got big, that's when the movement started up again.

Because they didn't understand history or policy and then you add in the neo-Confederates and well, there you go.

And again, you've bought the media's confusion of different strands of Republicans.

Don't blame the media for the GOP's actions.

The media is overwhelmingly liberal,

The media is overwhelmingly conservative. They OWN the media. You've bought the clever librul media effort that started with Nixon and his especially Agnew. I wonder why they didn't like the media. Add to that southern conservatives who hated the media for highlighting them beating the s h i t out of innocent Americans and highlighting many acts of domestic terrorism from "Christian" groups who wore hoods and were on a rampage during the civil rights movement (now the same groups call themselves militias).

[mattee01]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

So all of those non-Tea Party Republicans are going to have to become moderate? And, I don't think you could push the Tea Party hard enough to the left for them to become conservative.

I don't think they're all that wacko. Yes, the Republican party would be largely gutted at first, as many of them do lean staunchly conservative. However, you do have those that don't become so concerned with social issues or those with varying views who would do well in a moderate environment. Keep in mind, some Democrats would find themselves in this middle ground too. Think Democrats running in GA, SC, and NC. They are moderately conservative on fiscal issues and range conservative to liberal on social issues.

Back on topic though, I'm voting for Carter and encourage everyone else as well. I see more in him than the Libertarian candidate, plus Carter actually has a chance this year. I can't wait to see a Georgian where the politicians actually have to stand for something and stop being against the good of the majority of citizens or it's capital. It's really hilarious how the Republicans ate so scared of losing power that they want to compare Jason to Jimmy in a bad light. LMAO. I wasn't alive then, but I can't hear a single bad thing about his grandfather regarding his governership. If you fear what his presidential campaign might be like, then don't vote for him when he runs for president. Until then, this man looks like he could offer Georgians a much more prosperous Georgia than do-nothing, partisan, old man Deal.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Cameron H

That's not true. The Democrats hit peak Loony Left with McGovern, then moved right by nominating Jimmy Carter -- a social and fiscal conservative. The party nominated (losing) traditional liberals in the 80s before moving dramatically right with the DLC and Clinton's "New Democrats."

Unlike the Tea Party wing of the GOP, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is extraordinarily weak, even in the wake of the Great Recession. You can see this in the 2016 polling, where centrist (to a fault) Hillary Clinton is a runaway favorite and most Democrats don't even know or care about progressive heroine Elizabeth Warren.

You're talking about Presidential candidates. I'm talking about Congress.
With the Republicans, since Reagan there's been HW, Dole, McCain, and Romney, all in the middle or left part of the Republican spectrum. W had more conservative challengers and isn't that far right of the Republican center.

And Hillary DID lose in 2008 to a more liberal candidate. We don't know yet what will happen in 2016.

Georgia's most conservative Republicans are pretty consistently losing in the statewide primaries. Its Congress where extremes in both parties win. People tend to be more pragmatic about executive positions than legislative.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by CCATL

Ethics complaint claims Jason Carter held an ‘illegal’ star-studded fundraiser | Political Insider blog

A few months ago, I never would have said I thought Jason Carter, as a Democratic candidate, had a great chance of becoming the next Governor of Georgia. However, in the past few weeks, Deal and his fellow Republicans are showing just how afraid they are of him. One article after another of stunts Deal is pulling, or things he is saying, that show just how truly nervous he and his party are getting. In the content at this article, I really think they grasping at straws - trying to cover much more severe ethics complaints against Deal with complaints against Carter that normally wouldn't even be newsworthy.

It's really great to see this happening in a red state, and even if Jason doesn't win this election, it's hopefully going to give Republicans the knock on the head they need to realize that their actions actually ARE having an effect on their constituents voting, and not in the way they want it to. I think this is going to be a close race if Jason Carter keeps with this momentum - this might actually be a race in which every vote truly does make a difference!

I don't think its desperation. They just want it resolved and behind them. They had challengers in the Republican primary. It was a close battle 4 years ago. Galloway had an interesting editorial in the AJC that the "ethics" committee had merely become a political get even committee as there were lots of frivolous cases brought just to stain someone's reputation. He wasn't saying Deal's were all political, but that was how all the people in the Capitol viewed the committee and the contacts weren't unusual.

I think they expect the race to be close. Carter has a well known name, he's telegenic and has tons of money from out of state Democrats. Deal has some negatives and the return of jobs in Atlanta has only recently surpassed the national average recovery. The recession was deeper here and recovery slower than most states.

Nunn will probably fall well behind in the polls as we get closer to election day, but people are pragmatic in executive elections. Massachusetts has elected Republican governors. The governor's race will stay pretty close.

[bu2]

The fact that national Democrats are pouring so much money into these two races indicate they believe they can flip the state.

[Cameron H]

Originally Posted by bu2

Its Congress where extremes in both parties win. People tend to be more pragmatic about executive positions than legislative.

Again, the "progressive wing" of the Democratic Party is extraordinarily weak, even in the legislature. They couldn't even get a public option -- or so much as a vote on single-payer -- in the Democrats' signature health care legislation when they controlled both houses of the legislature! They couldn't even get a vote on cap-and-trade when they owned a supermajority in the Senate! The fact is, progressives have very little actual power or influence in the party, in stark contrast to the Tea Party/ultraconservative "wing" of the GOP.

P.S. Clinton won the popular vote over Obama in the Democratic primaries. Her campaign was outplayed.

[JoeP]

And to add to that cap and trade had been a GOP approved policy a while back.

As mentioned the Democrats didn't even push a liberal health policy. It was Heritage Foundation Bob Dole/Romney care and yet look what happened, the GOP went more to the right.