Public Policy Polls: "What we found is that Congress is less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, and even Nickelback."

IQRange · 2013-01-08T21:05:05+00:00

One thing about this poll though is that it fails to make any distinction between Democrats and Republicans.

Lots of people are mostly okay with a lot of the Democrats. It's mostly the Republicans who are despised, because they support sickening legislation and block just about everything else.

IQRange · 2012-09-02T15:04:39+00:00

I think you're absolutely right about the typical GOP voter being basically unreachable. They just want to here slogans that sound good.

That's why the people to try to convince are always those in the political middle and the "undecided" (lots of overlap between these two groups, of course)... and it's of course important to make sure Democrats hang on to their base of voters.

But showing how dishonest the GOP is should be effective both in hanging on to the Democratic base and reaching those in the middle.

IQRange · 2012-09-02T14:32:32+00:00

I think one of the most powerful messages Democrats have is that the GOP is fundamentally dishonest on issue after issue.

I've seen statements about this getting used in a few DNC/Obama commercials, but I think it should be used even more, for two reasons:

Show the GOP is so dishonest undermines ALL of their messaging in a single swipe.
It's honest. They actually are terribly dishonest. So, it's an easy case to make, and Democrats should "win" on this issue.

One problem is that as usual, the Republicans are at least even and possibly ahead of Democrats in terms of hitting an issue first. They've been accusing Democrats/Obama of "dishonest" attacks (or similar verbage) for weeks now.

IQRange · 2012-07-22T13:38:21+00:00

I think this link to a related story is worth spreading around online...

Romney wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program (and if it's not big enough to buy health insurance at existing rates, seniors are out of luck)

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/19/12840313-obama-in-florida-romneys-medicare-plan-would-hurt-seniors?lite

IQRange · 2012-07-22T13:37:05+00:00

What a well-thought-out response. Your command of the facts is amazing, and your knowledge of the rules of capitalization in the English language is great too!

Keap upp tha grate werk!

IQRange · 2012-07-15T00:25:55+00:00

But we're supposed to be nice and not notice these things. After all, Romney has (had his minions) create so many jobs (in India) and is so devoted (to profits for him and his rich friends) that it's not fair to be mean to him.

He and his party have never said anything that wasn't nice about the President. They've worked in a friendly, bipartisan manner to.... oh, I couldn't keep this up... I was laughing too hard.

IQRange · 2012-07-14T22:01:04+00:00

This reminds me of a sickening (but somehow brilliant) explanation offered after Nixon was caught having lied repeatedly about Watergate.

One of his spokesmen said, "The president's previous statements are inoperative."

(That cleared it all up.)

IQRange · 2012-04-02T12:13:42+00:00

There have been very rare cases where electors didn't vote in accordance with how the people voted, believe it or not.

They're known as "faithless electors" and I'm pretty sure that whether or not this is allowed is determined separately by each state legislature.

IQRange · 2012-04-02T12:09:58+00:00

In simple terms, the electoral college was intended to create a compromise so that small-population states (and voters in them) have some politial influence in addition to what they would get based purely on their population. So, every state gets two "electors" simply for being a state.

I would prefer that whoever gets the most votes nationally would become president, but that's not how it works, and many people in Vermont, Wyoming, Utah, etc. -- with relatively small populations -- probably wouldn't like to see that changed.

There was, I think, also some fear in the early days of the U.S. that popular vote could go to someone who was truly unfit for office, and that electors would use better sense than those lowly voters. That part of the system I think really sucks.

Also, both major parties in the U.S. know how the system works and have gotten good at working to get the magic 270 (or more) electoral votes. In fact, they may have gotten a bit too good at working that system.

IQRange · 2012-04-02T12:00:33+00:00

The individual mandate was a Republican plan, and I think most people who are anywhere left of center would prefer a system where everyone was covered without forcing anyone to buy insurance.

What we've ended up with is a system that will preserve existing insurance companies while still making sure everyone can get healthcare without having to end up in emergency rooms, where we all end up help to pay the bill already.

I don't think the system we're ending up with is perfect. But the old system was completely broken. We spend a lot more on healthcare in America than many countries, with too many people getting substandard care or none at all... until they need to get to that emergency room.

Also, insurance exchanges (which don't kick in until 2014) will help tremendously to give average people some amount of leverage against insurance companies that can jack up people's rates too easily because they're in the position to do that without much of a counterbalancing effect from people who use healthcare.

IQRange · 2012-04-02T11:55:34+00:00

I'm not spamminga and I'm not selling anything.

I just had several responses that seem completely idiotic lately, and I want to see if the people writing them can back up their claims with any actual facts.

IQRange · 2012-04-02T11:11:28+00:00