Bernie Sanders' poll is rising as Hillary goes down

[Jay]

All you need to know about Walker is he just cut 250 million dollars from the university of wisconsin system and then is about to sign a 250 million dollar tax increase to pay for the new Milwaukee Bucks arena.

 

Those measures were passed by the state legislature correct?

[nate]

Those measures were passed by the state legislature correct?

 

And signed by him.

 

The budget was his, the stadium is more of a state senate proposal.

[Jay]

And signed by him.

 

The budget was his, the stadium is more of a state senate proposal.

 

Right but we're not talking some sort of Obama-like executive action, these were measures that had bipartisan support in the state legislature.

[nate]

No, the state legislature is very republican.  Bipartisan is not a part of it.

 

Anyway it doesn't matter, they aren't running for president, he is.  If he were really against higher taxes then he wouldn't sign the bill for the arena since it is bad for the state of Wisconsin.

[gotbeer]

So Sanders just make a juke move?

[Vegas Halo Fan]

That is one nasty picture you have placed in all of our minds Geoff.

 

 

3 week ban.

 

I'm still having nightmares over the lingerie photo of Hillary and Pelosi that was posted here a while back.

[nate]

Between Bernie rising and HIllary going down I am not sure this election could get any worse.

[Rico]

Not enough options in the Democratic side, but I'm happy Jim Webb tossed his hat into the field.  (military guy, swing state)

[Spirit]

Keeping fingers crossed that Biden joins the circus. 

[juansavage1]

Not enough options in the Democratic side, but I'm happy Jim Webb tossed his hat into the field. (military guy, swing state)

Webb is more like an old style anti-communist/Kennedy democrat. He's out of step with his party, which now makes Marxist assumptions on most issues. I think most of the Dem party leaders believe that "gender" is a social construct, for example.

[red321]

Is your thought that if you keep tossing that same tripe in all threads, like a fart in a car it will sneak up on folks and suddenly...bam...the AW message board will all believe Democrats are all secret Marxists?

[red321]

Not enough options in the Democratic side, but I'm happy Jim Webb tossed his hat into the field.  (military guy, swing state)

 

Challenge for Democrats is they haven't really built that next generation of "leaders". In some respects that's probably because someone like Obama "skipped" his turn in line and sucked a lot of oxygen out of the air for the next generation and someone like Warren is better suited for the Senate where she can focus on her issues for decades. Your next set of leaders probably come from out in the states. A latino like Juan Castro, or Kamala Harris if she picks up the CA Senate seat. Probably some western governors who have good crossover appeal.

 

Webb comes from the old blue dog democrat side of the house and I think that part of the party is dead...in large part because they don't have any crossover appeal in states that are Republican...why vote for Republican Lite when you can have the real deal.

 

I think a strong run from Sanders would be interesting, contrary to what the resident genius may think, the left wing of the Democratic party has long been under served by the Democratic party. Even the communist, sorry, marxist, Obama has fairly moderate positions on a lot of things like trade, wall street, national security, domestic surveillance, health care, etc.

[Spirit]

 

Webb comes from the old blue dog democrat side of the house and I think that part of the party is dead...in large part because they don't have any crossover appeal in states that are Republican...why vote for Republican Lite when you can have the real deal.

 

 

 

The reason Webb could/would have a lot of crossover appeal is because more and more of the country is self identifying as Independent.  43% the last I saw.  So having a candidate that's Republican Lite or Democrat Lite might not play strongly with the Kool Aid drinking bases of those parties, but it could interest (and even energize) the thinkers in the middle. 

 

That said, it's the Kool Aid drinking bases of both parties that end up picking their nominee.  So, yeah ... Webb doesn't stand a chance of making it out of the primary.  

[Jay]

When it comes to fundraising especially from large corporate donors I think a centrist candidate like Clinton will fare better than somebody running more to the left like Sanders.

[Rico]

The reason Webb could/would have a lot of crossover appeal is because more and more of the country is self identifying as Independent.  43% the last I saw.  So having a candidate that's Republican Lite or Democrat Lite might not play strongly with the Kool Aid drinking bases of those parties, but it could interest (and even energize) the thinkers in the middle. 

 

That said, it's the Kool Aid drinking bases of both parties that end up picking their nominee.  So, yeah ... Webb doesn't stand a chance of making it out of the primary.  

Did the kool aid drinking base pick Romney or McCain for the Republicans?  

[Spirit]

Did the kool aid drinking base pick Romney or McCain for the Republicans?  

 

Of course they did.  

[red321]

The reason Webb could/would have a lot of crossover appeal is because more and more of the country is self identifying as Independent.  43% the last I saw.  So having a candidate that's Republican Lite or Democrat Lite might not play strongly with the Kool Aid drinking bases of those parties, but it could interest (and even energize) the thinkers in the middle. 

 

That said, it's the Kool Aid drinking bases of both parties that end up picking their nominee.  So, yeah ... Webb doesn't stand a chance of making it out of the primary.  

 

Good number of people self identifying as independent are nothing more than people embarrassed to admit they are Republicans or Democrats.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-12/are-independents-just-democrats-and-republicans-by-another-name

[mtangelsfan]

or maybe they are dissatisfied with their parties and looking for something more but are pragmatic and still vote based on that.

[Spirit]

Good number of people self identifying as independent are nothing more than people embarrassed to admit they are Republicans or Democrats.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-12/are-independents-just-democrats-and-republicans-by-another-name

 

 

I think that's probably the first step in their journey.  And I do believe that (at this point) the lion share of them probably still end up voting D or R.  But I also think if people had a true middle of the road third option (an I), that we'd see a significant movement in that direction. 

 

Probably will never happen in my lifetime though. 

[red321]

There will never be a third party, a viable third party, in this country until you clean up the money in politics and pass workable campaign finance reform.

 

I will say though, the Republicans and the tea party actually seem to be doing a pretty good job of moving away from being a party. With clowns like Trump, Cruz, Paul and some of these governors like LePage in Maine...they seem to be more interested in blowing things up than governing.

[Thomas]

Increased voter apathy and depressed voter turnout would seem to indicate anything but the same continued appetite for the status quo.

[Puget Sound Angel]

The best thing about a possible Hillary election? Seeing all the right-wingers heads explode.

[the dude abides]

I'm fairly left-leaning and my head will explode if she's elected.

[Adam]

She might be a democrat, but she's as big a neocon as anyone on the right

[Jay]

My head won't explode but I might throw up a little bit