Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Daily Kos — GOP Columnist: The VERY Bad News FOR THE GOP in the GOP's Midterm Victory


The 2014 wave election was hardly the indication of coming GOP sweeps, as some conclude. The GOP looks to have a serious demographic problem. They have boxed themselves in with wedge issues that don't have mass appeal. Worse, there is no one on the horizon that can change this declining direction and survive a GOP primary under present conditions.

The upshot? The decisive elections will be decided in Democratic primaries between the neoliberal and progressive wings until the GOP can get its act together again. This is a pretty strong predictor for HRC in 2016 if the analysis holds. After 2016, the GOP collapses demographically unless they can regroup.

Daily Kos
GOP Columnist: The VERY Bad News FOR THE GOP in the GOP's Midterm Victory
murphthesurf3

15 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

It seems like on every issue there is this fake-rhetoric divide.
Take something divisive like climate change, we know ice has melted, we know weather is changing. But we also know that climate models have never once yet been correct. They've always estimated far more dramatic changes than ever occurred and have often been completely wrong about timing magnitudes and impacts, not much different from economics.

Most Americans outside the parties have the negative capacity to understand that climate scientists and environmentalists have an interest in being overly dramatic. While oil producers, automobile owners, natural gas and electricity users tend to underestimate their impact. Most people know we need to change but need be careful so we don't run head first into new issues, like happened when "clean natural gas" was all the rage and instead of helping, it actually accelerated climate change.

Listening to the party rhetoric and blathering economists dying to reduce externalities and thump their chests in a display of testosterone, you'd think there was this massive disagreement in the world when there isn't.
Except around the edges by people who are paid to be disagreeable exaggerate the disagreement. Scientists, Environmentalists, PetroEngineers... who ever wants to capture the trillions of dollars of investment go on acting.

Maybe the real problem for the parties is that the majority of the population aren't very divided and sit in the middle right and unless the parties take pretty extreme positions people really aren't very motivated by all the silliness. From my perspective, if the Dems would move to the left, the Repubs could back out of the far right. The center will move left as all the Dems who try to be very smart people start to talk left issues as being the only not stupid option like they do right now about center right issues.

Malmo's Ghost said...

The HOR will stay firmly Republican in 2016. The Senate could swing back to the Dems, but I haven't broken down who's up for election so I'm not sure here. Of course if the economy is in the crapper I don't care what Chris Ladd thinks, HRC or any Dem for that matter, will get their tails whupped (She's no slam dunk with a healthy economy either).

His list of what the Republicans will focus on such as climate denial is fanciful. Climate alarmists are the ones who will get taken to the woodshed IF anyone cares at all about the issue, which most polls say they don't.

As for the racial machinations Ladd is fronting, don't bet the farm that Democrats will win on that score either. Any party that aligns itself with such dubious martyrs such as Michael Brown or Eric Garner will find themselves fringe at best. Cop bashing, too, is another dead end horsehit meme that criminals love along with Libertardians, but that the overwhelming majority rejects.

No matter how much the mainstream press attempts to marginalize Republicans (like that was a success in the midterms--lol)Republican/conservative sentiment constitutes nearly half the electorate, especially with likely voters. However, it will still come down to swing voters determining who's the next POTUS. And the economy will be the tipping point at the ballot box rather than Ladd's laundry list that's been predicted all the back when Country Club Republican, Kevin Phillips, spilled wasted ink on the subject.

Dan Lynch said...

Demographics mean little. For example, many Hispanics and Asians are conservatives.

On the issues, Jeb Bush is perhaps to the left of Hillary.

In any event, issues do not matter. As Noam Chomsky said, sometimes the parties flip flop 180 degrees on the issues and nobody even notices. What Republicans stand for today has no relevance to what they may stand for in the future. Voters have short memories (with the exception of gun owners).

Republicans don't have to do a single thing right in order to win in 2016, they merely have to be the alternative to Democrats. People don't necessarily vote FOR candidates, they vote AGAINST candidates.

No matter which party wins, the 1% will still be in control. NeoCon wars will continue, Neoliberal economics will continue, and the police state will continue. On that you can bet on.

Malmo's Ghost said...

What Dan said!
Establishment Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. Obama's election and subsequent tenure have demonstrated that much. Also, as Dan pointed out, Asians are essentially 50% Republican and Hispanics are unpredictable at best. Anyone banking on a Democrat slam dunk in 16 will likely be very disappointed. They might take the prize, but even if they do it won't matter for the 99%. And one more time. Global Climate Change is simply a non issue among the 99%. Google it if you have doubts.

Tom Hickey said...

The post is about adding up electoral votes under a winner take all system such as presently exists and the GOP would desperately like to change. It's not about the popular vote.

His point is that the GOP has to radically alter its strategy to win the presidency with the current blue state advantage. The GOP has to win some currently blue states and the present course is not working. The GOP last the last two presidential elections, when it seemed that 2012 should have been an easy win after the "wave" mid-term election of 2110, when the GOP swept the House.

Political strategists do not look at the number of votes alone but more importantly where they are. What he is saying is that the present red-blue divided gives the Dems a pretty secure 257 electoral votes and if now purple VA goes blue as it has been tending, then the magic number of 270 is locked in and the GOP is locked out of the presidency unless and until they can overcome this numerical advantage in electoral votes, the only votes that actually count in electing a US president.

Malmo's Ghost said...

Tom,

This is a dated article from Zero Hedge, which I read over a month ago. I get what you and he are/were saying about the electoral college, but I don't buy it. Electoral college or no electoral college, if the economy sucks, like I think it will by 2016 then Republicans can win POTUS...easily. And all his belaboring the racial divide, blah, blah, blah and or climate denialism among other electoral nonsense is simply drivel. I get the Blue Wall too. I also can see Republicans winning all the tossup states, blue wall notwithstanding. No biggie. Bottom line, though, is that even if Dems win with, say, HRC, life won't change nary a bit for the 99%. Sigh.

MRW said...

Tom's comment --> dead right for the presidential election.

"Political strategists do not look at the number of votes alone but more importantly where they are. What he is saying is that the present red-blue divided gives the Dems a pretty secure 257 electoral votes and if now purple VA goes blue as it has been tending, then the magic number of 270 is locked in and the GOP is locked out of the presidency unless and until they can overcome this numerical advantage in electoral votes, the only votes that actually count in electing a US president."

I followed the districts in each state during the the 2008 election and could see how they were going to come out by using two pollsters on realclearpolitics.com (can't remember their names) and reading local news reports, who the papers were supporting, etc.

I was doing it, however, in tandem with whatever Nate Silver was coming up with on FiveThirtyEight. (He was using a pseudonym then.) Silver was so good at the numbers that it was easy to come along afterward and do the easy stuff.

BTW, it was also how Obama won. Remember how Hillary was doing the classic 'just hit the big states' thing? CA. TX. OH. NY. NH. FL. PA. VA. Obama was counting the electoral votes in states Hillary waved at.

MRW said...

Hillary? Oh jeezuss. AT 3 AM, she'll make the emergency phone call to Bill, and he'll give her the same advice he got.

MRW said...

Don't forget that the people who didn't vote in the midterms will come out for the 2016 presidency vote.

MRW said...

"But we also know that climate models have never once yet been correct."

NOAA couldn't get its October 16, 2014 Winter prediction right, couldn't even see the record-shattering (since 1880 in Georgia) blizzard in the Southeast that happened two weeks later, or this:

"Last year’s winter was exceptionally cold and snowy across most of the United States, east of the Rockies. A repeat of this extreme pattern is unlikely this year, although the Outlook does favor below-average temperatures in the south-central and southeastern states."

That's just working with weather forecasting tools. The climate models are even more loony. They don't model the oceans, the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), the AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal oscillation, water vapor (95% of greenhouse gases), ENSO (Hansen said he couldn't do El Ninos, La Ninas), and they can't even model the radiative action of CO2 accurately at the various atmospheres, which is where CO2 acts in the infrared as a greenhouse gas!

And what's the smallest model grid size now? 100 km cubed? But only on one or two models. Until the mid-1990s, the grid cells were around (500 km) 311-miles cubed. So, LA to East of Vegas at the AZ border (Grand Canyon, north side) was one weather cell: one temperature, one precipitation, etc. See for yourself: http://eo.ucar.edu/staff/rrussell/climate/modeling/climate_model_resolution.html

And they discovered in the last three years that the roughly 60% of the weather stations on the ground are now urban heat sinks, previously in rural areas (where they should be), now surrounded by airports and air conditioners, behind office buildings, or situated in parking lots. Some of them stood at the end of a runway and got blasted by jets taking off. But the public never hears about that because there's a news embargo on telling people the truth about it.

MRW said...

"But we also know that climate models have never once yet been correct."

NOAA couldn't get its October 16, 2014 Winter prediction right, couldn't even see the record-shattering (since 1880 in Georgia) blizzard in the Southeast that happened two weeks later, or this:

"Last year’s winter was exceptionally cold and snowy across most of the United States, east of the Rockies. A repeat of this extreme pattern is unlikely this year, although the Outlook does favor below-average temperatures in the south-central and southeastern states."

That's just working with weather forecasting tools. The climate models are even more loony. They don't model the oceans, the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), the AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal oscillation, water vapor (95% of greenhouse gases), ENSO (Hansen said he couldn't do El Ninos, La Ninas), and they can't even model the radiative action of CO2 accurately at the various atmospheres, which is where CO2 acts in the infrared as a greenhouse gas!

And what's the smallest model grid size now? 100 km cubed? But only on one or two models. Until the mid-1990s, the grid cells were around (500 km) 311-miles cubed. So, LA to East of Vegas at the AZ border (Grand Canyon, north side) was one weather cell: one temperature, one precipitation, etc. See for yourself: http://eo.ucar.edu/staff/rrussell/climate/modeling/climate_model_resolution.html

And they discovered in the last three years that the roughly 60% of the weather stations on the ground are now urban heat sinks, previously in rural areas (where they should be), now surrounded by airports and air conditioners, behind office buildings, or situated in parking lots. Some of them stood at the end of a runway and got blasted by jets taking off. But the public never hears about that because there's a news embargo on telling people the truth about it.

MRW said...

Forgot the NOAA prediction link: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20141016_winteroutlook.html

MRW said...

Forgot the NOAA prediction link: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2014/20141016_winteroutlook.html

MRW said...

Necessary correction. It's New Year's Eve; guess I had one too many.

The grid isn't cubed, or that would mean the mid-1990s' grid would go 311 miles up. The altitudes vary depending on what they are modeling. Lower or middle troposphere, top of the troposphere, tropopause, stratosphere, etc.

MRW said...

Sorry for the dupes. I swear the only pressed "Publish Your Comment" once.