Romney a Lock - You Can Put it On the Board YESSSS!!

With all due respect, that's a crock.

Republicans are elected to join an institution that they desperately want to restrict and in some areas abolish. They are beholden to corporations and people who want to do the same. It's like electing termites to build a house.

Democrats are elected to join an institution that they want to see improve, both itself and the lives of the people it serves. They are beholden to those people and the social groups that want to do the same. It's like electing beavers to build a dam.

Are there some Republican politicians who think Government can actively improve people's lives? Maybe. Are there some Democratic politicians who see Government solely as a means to line their pockets or the pockets of supporters? Sure.

But there simply is no equivalency.

 

I agree with you that the assertion they're equivalents is woefully simplistic. But I must also say that just because a given politician does or does not want a "more active" government doesn't tell me whether that politician gives a rat's ass about improving people's lives.

 

Take a look at donors who will give to both Romney and Obama, and you can get a sense of how both parties are the same at some level. As for politicians in general, do we assume most are well-meaning, especially as freshmen, but soon give up hope due to how difficult it can be to pass meaningful reform?

It's easy enough to send some money to your state or district, but trying to change an aspect of the system means you're up against a number of interest groups who will won't hesitate to try to destroy those who seek to upset the status quo,

 

Stitch, I was referring more to the implied idea that the only way a politician lives out his/her commitment to improving people's lives is by supporting a more active (i.e., "bigger," more-intrusive) government.

 

Michael - are you telling me to shut up (in a nice way)? You are more intelligent than that but I guess when people of your political ilk run into people who disagree with them - that happens to be the knee-jerk reaction.

 

Oh Lord. Are we going to have board conservatives cherry pick polls throughout the entire summer the way they did in 2008?

One of the days used in a three-day average of a poll the Investors' Business Daily conducted of 80-year-old Baptists has Obama losing by something within the margin of error! Therefore McCain wins!!!!!

 

Widely-divergent tastes in SCOTUS noms will serve as Exhibit A.

 

Rasmussen . . . apparently the repressed, self-loathing Dick Morris' very favorite pollster -- wonder why? Gee.

 

he has nice feet?


I never saw the usefulness of the straight up poll. It would mean something that Romney was polling at 48 and Obama at 45 if we actually used popular vote to pick our president, but as anyone who was alive in 2000 can tell you, we don't. When will pollsters start releasing state-by-state numbers? Even a poll of just states Obama won in '08 and Bush won in '04 would be more useful that what we get.

 

Agree ... Iowa futures market's winner-take-all contracts are trading with Obama at $0.60 and Romney at $0.40. Some trending convergence (i.e., Obama down, Romney up) but, at present, suggestive that vote share polls are irrelevant.

 

Perhaps we can make RCP the official barometer of this thread. They have the electoral college, the daily poll of polls and InTrade - plus a bunch of other good stuff.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html