Election 2014

[Panacea]

Well, hell. I'm feeling mighty pissed right now.

That asshole Thom Tillis beat Kay Hagan to become my new Senator. He is a TOTAL DICK.

I am so frustrated right now. I expected the other GOP wins, but I did not want this guy to become my Senator.

He won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote in state history: 48.47%.

[victory sabre]

I'm also frustrated that Governor Mark Dayton got reelected here in Minnesota. With the $160 million MN Sure debacle, he should have been thrown out on his rear. And Senator Franken getting reelected? Well, we continue to be a bad SNL joke. Oh, well, I'll be leaving this State some day.

The only good news is that a friend that I've known for over 20 years got elected to the State Legislature.

[Duelist925]

Fucking Mary Fallin. -_-

[Rapscallion]

Fucking Mary Fallin. -_-

Is that like 'Who's Nailin' Palin'?

Rapscallion

[Rageaholic]

Go to hell Rick Snyder.

[Greenday]

People voted this year to legalize marijuana.
People voted this year to make gay marriage legal.
People voted to raise taxes to pay for a lot of stuff.
People voted Republican more than Democrat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxfZbj5vf7Y

[otakuneko]

I didn't pay attention to the campaign.
I didn't pay attention to any news.
I didn't even bother to register to vote. Heck, I forgot about the election entirely.

I went out to lunch today, and the restaurant happened to have CNN on. I looked up, saw that the Derpublicans gained control of the Senate, and shook my head.

The past four years did this to me. The Do Less Than Nothing Congress has made a mockery of democracy, and neither party has the balls to make the changes needed to prevent another Do Less Than Nothing Congress.

So fuck 'em.

[victory sabre]

Is that like 'Who's Nailin' Palin'?

Rapscallion

She's Governor of Oklahoma.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Really nothing abnormal about the cycle.

Midterms tend to favor older demographics. Just given who votes for what coupled with a lot of geopolitical factors not contributing to make the sitting President look good and it kind of looked like it might be a blood bath.

Not enough people actually seem to care in the American system that you really need to be active every election if you actually have an agenda and that results in these partisan swings that often cater to the fringes.

Or yea, maybe everyone hates Obama's polcies with the recovered stockmarket, employment numbers, and healthcare. Fuckin moron. He shoud have declared war on Putin when he had the chance.

I may not be taking the electorate seriously at this point.

[Teysa]

I had a hard time getting excited about the election. While my official state of residence is Texas, I spend a lot of time in Alaska for my summer job and Oklahoma visiting family. In fact, I haven't even been back home since April. Guess I will have to see how things are with a new governor in Texas.

[Gilhelmi]

I have also heard that Millennials (younger voters) are starting to lose faith in Pres. Obama's policies. They are starting to vote Republican to spite the Democrats. Affordable Care Act is raising premiums (and the whole "read it after it passes" thing Sen. Pelosi said, your job is to read and debate laws before you pass them), the fact that Pres. Obama is trying to rule by executive orders; some of which was unanimously thrown out by the Supreme Court, and a few other decisions leading to his slip in popularity.

I think the fact that Pres. Obama lacks real leadership in bringing the two parties together is really what lead to this defeat. He needs to remember that Congress was elected by the people also.

[Rapscallion]

I the fact that Pres. Obama is trying to rule by executive orders

*cough*

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php

Actually, he's currently at the lowest average per annum of executive orders for all presidents going back until Grover Cleveland.

I think what this demonstrates is that the media has more shown its power than the truth.

Rapscallion

[Panacea]

I have also heard that Millennials (younger voters) are starting to lose faith in Pres. Obama's policies. They are starting to vote Republican to spite the Democrats. Affordable Care Act is raising premiums (and the whole "read it after it passes" thing Sen. Pelosi said, your job is to read and debate laws before you pass them), the fact that Pres. Obama is trying to rule by executive orders; some of which was unanimously thrown out by the Supreme Court, and a few other decisions leading to his slip in popularity.

I think the fact that Pres. Obama lacks real leadership in bringing the two parties together is really what lead to this defeat. He needs to remember that Congress was elected by the people also.

Millennials are actually tuning out of politics more than voting out of spite. That's a problem for Democrats who need them to vote, as the old white fart part of our population is declining in total numbers, but wields a lot of influence because they ARE politically engaged.

Nancy Pelosi's "we have to pass the bill to know what's in it" comment is one of the most distorted and taken out of context comments in political history. Now bear in mind . . . I think Pelosi is an idiot. But she was actually right. The House version of what became the ACA was changing by the hour as the bill was being debated . . . it was impossible to keep track of the changes to know what would actually make it into law. So when she was asked what would be in the ACA, she actually gave an honest answer because she really didn't know. Provisions were coming in, going out, being changed far too rapidly for her to make any definite statements.

Unfortunately, she didn't phrase it well, and Republicans pounced, and the nutjobs won't let go of the trope.

I'll agree Obama has not been showing much real leadership in the past couple of years. I'm not sure why, but politics seems to be the main reason; he keeps trying to walk on eggshells and it just doesn't work. He's got to take some real risks to break through the log jam. The election results really don't mean a whole lot; Republicans do NOT have enough votes to override vetos, but they ARE in charge of Congress and will now have to put up or shut up about actually governing.

Obama has not been ruling by EO. The fact is, he's issued far fewer of them than many of his predecessors. The claim is just another smear by Republicans who have successfully operated a plan of governing by obstruction (or rather not governing and grinding government business to a halt). Snopes does a pretty good job of demolishing this claim: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama...tiveorders.asp

[TheHuckster]

Nancy Pelosi's "we have to pass the bill to know what's in it" comment is one of the most distorted and taken out of context comments in political history. Now bear in mind . . . I think Pelosi is an idiot. But she was actually right. The House version of what became the ACA was changing by the hour as the bill was being debated . . . it was impossible to keep track of the changes to know what would actually make it into law. So when she was asked what would be in the ACA, she actually gave an honest answer because she really didn't know. Provisions were coming in, going out, being changed far too rapidly for her to make any definite statements.

The fact of the matter is, it greatly concerns me that people seem to be shrugging off what I consider to be a massive epic fail of our democratic process: We're passing laws that we cannot even read and understand fully.

And congress is enabling this kind of fucked up process by simply saying, "alright, let's accept this law and see what it says afterwards."

And we see what has happened as a result for at least the past 15+ years: The people realize what was passed, throw a tantrum over certain parts of it, congress goes into defensive mode saying "We didn't realize what we signed", the supreme court makes a circus out of the bill, and then everyone winds up bitter and electing a new group of people to congress that will just repeat the same screwed up process...

...and people wonder why Millenials are discouraged from voting.

[Gravekeeper]

Wasn't voter turn out something like 37%? Talk about political apathy. Not that I blame them. The US political system, especially of last 10-12 years or so, is basically an Ouroboros with its head up its own ass at this point. Most politicians have no interest in actually governing or finding solutions to problems.

Well, if nothing else Obama's post presidency tell all book about dealing with politics during his presidency should be entertaining.