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Did the Reps win, or did the Dems lose?

Did the Reps win, or did the Dems lose?

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
Slyfox696 said:
I agree with most of this. In 2012, the Republicans constantly shot themselves in the foot. This time, whatever the reason for the difference may be, the Republicans mostly avoided any overly disastrous and ridiculous comments. Combine that with the fact 6 year midterms historically go against the President, as well as the absurdity of Democrats running from their leader, and they deserved to win.
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good points

last time round, the GOP did not manage primaries well so some fringers beat more established candidates (remember the "I am not a witch" twit?) who in turn lost seats to mediocre democrats. This time that sort of crap didn't happen

we also know that there is always about a 35% core for either side that will vote party no matter what. I voted against John Kasich in 2010 in favor of the incumbent Ted Strickland. Kasich earned my vote this time but the DEM contender was a complete joke yet he got 35% of so of the vote even though his complete campaign was awful. Kasich was hardly a right wing bot and his opposition didn't run any ads in SW Ohio that I am aware of

what the GOP did was did a much better job in appealing to that 30% that will go back and forth
 
lizzie said:
As fickle as our electorate seems to be, I'd say that we are always in a state of trying to get rid of what we have, and trying the alternative, just long enough to figure out that we don't like their policies either. There is a base on each side who vote the same every single cycle, but there seems to be a growing segment who want to just ride the fence.
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I have a theory on this. Basically...

One party makes all the promises we want to hear so we elect them. Then, they get in office and do pretty much nothing that they said they'd do. Meanwhile, the other party appeals to our disenchantment and promises us what we want to hear, so we go that way. Then, that party fails to follow through, and we get disenchanted again... rinse and repeat, back and forth, never-ending.

My biggest frustration is that we keep falling for it.

"We" being generic, overall, as a society.
 
Both lost IMO. The people are disatisfied with BOTH congress and the president, so this wasn't a surprise really.
 
tres borrachos said:
Oh me too, Pol. It may be nice the next 2 years. I really hope so.
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Our Governor Kasich looked good last night - pleased but humble in his remarks! I liked that! He's a good man, and he has turned our State around - and he was rewarded by the voters in Ohio. :thumbs:
 
radcen said:
I have a theory on this. Basically...

One party makes all the promises we want to hear so we elect them. Then, they get in office and do pretty much nothing that they said they'd do. Meanwhile, the other party appeals to our disenchantment and promises us what we want to hear, so we go that way. Then, that party fails to follow through, and we get disenchanted again... rinse and repeat, back and forth, never-ending.

My biggest frustration is that we keep falling for it.

"We" being generic, overall, as a society.
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To me, the most disheartening factor is that we (collective, not you and I) vote for someone based on promises of what they will do for us personally. Imo, if you are looking to government to do things for you, or give you favor, you're pretty much screwed already.
 
radcen said:
I have a theory on this. Basically...

One party makes all the promises we want to hear so we elect them. Then, they get in office and do pretty much nothing that they said they'd do. Meanwhile, the other party appeals to our disenchantment and promises us what we want to hear, so we go that way. Then, that party fails to follow through, and we get disenchanted again... rinse and repeat, back and forth, never-ending.

My biggest frustration is that we keep falling for it.

"We" being generic, overall, as a society.
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I think society continually falls for it because we lack perspective. So many people don't seem to realize that everyone they vote for (including the President) is simply one person amongst hundreds of people, all who have varying degrees of power. Sometimes even politicians seem to forget that (Obama being a prime example, I believe).
 
lizzie said:
To me, the most disheartening factor is that we (collective, not you and I) vote for someone based on promises of what they will do for us personally. Imo, if you are looking to government to do things for you, or give you favor, you're pretty much screwed already.
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Which is a big reason for this huge disconnect... 80-90% Congressional disapproval and 80-90% Congressional re-election rate. All those other Congresspeople are crooks, but mine is good because they "bring home jobs", etc. Never mind that mine is actually doing the same things as the others whom we disapprove.
 
polgara said:
Our Governor Kasich looked good last night - pleased but humble in his remarks! I liked that! He's a good man, and he has turned our State around - and he was rewarded by the voters in Ohio. :thumbs:
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The clown he ran against mounted the most pathetic campaign for governor I have ever seen since I started voting (1978 was my first federal election)
 
i had 15 chances on my ballot yesterday morning

i voted pub 11 times, and dem 4 times

i couldnt stand a few of the pubs running....even for the "dogcatcher" type seats

and there are two very moderate dems that i have now voted for 3x apiece (at least i know what i get with them)

what surprised me were the results for the governors race

Brown ran a very bad race.....vote for me because i am black....and i worked for the old governor

That was his entire platform.....Hogan made a few mistakes, but you knew where he fell on most of the main issues

Our taxes are one of the highest in the country.....the people are speaking......

Question is.....will they listen to what we said, or just go back to the same old ****
 
radcen said:
Which is a big reason for this huge disconnect... 80-90% Congressional disapproval and 80-90% Congressional re-election rate. All those other Congresspeople are crooks, but mine is good because they "bring home jobs", etc. Never mind that mine is actually doing the same things as the others whom we disapprove.
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A perfect case in point, California. Probably one of the worst run states in the US as it relates to jobs, opportunity, etc., and to my knowledge, not a single incumbent lost. Stay the course, the cliff can't be that high.
 
polgara said:
Our Governor Kasich looked good last night - pleased but humble in his remarks! I liked that! He's a good man, and he has turned our State around - and he was rewarded by the voters in Ohio. :thumbs:
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He's awesome. I used to watch Fox a lot when he was on it. Such a great man!
 
Given the low opinion we have of Congress I have a hard time saying anyone really won. Calling the Republicans winners is like saying one guy out bowled another 17 to 16. Both suck.
 
TurtleDude said:
The clown he ran against mounted the most pathetic campaign for governor I have ever seen since I started voting (1978 was my first federal election)
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Good morning, TurtleDude. :2wave:

Kasich's name has been popping up when 2016 is mentioned - I wonder?
 
GOP did win but dem affliluation with BO damaged its congress critters.
This should force dems closer to the edge to be independant and side with the gop to kill off BOs boondoggles.
Make the veto moot.
 
ocean515 said:
A perfect case in point, California. Probably one of the worst run states in the US as it relates to jobs, opportunity, etc., and to my knowledge, not a single incumbent lost. Stay the course, the cliff can't be that high.
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I was born, and lived most of my life, in California. I left nine years ago for many reasons, but the three primary reasons are/were...

1) The politics in California are absurd. Dysfunctional.
2) Too many people. Too many rude people.
3) No matter how much money I made, no matter how many raises I got, I always felt that I was only treading water. Here in the mid-west I make less in raw dollars, but my standard of living is better and more stable.
 
polgara said:
:agree: The people spoke last night loud and clear, and made it a night to remember! Wow! They want bipartisan cooperation, and I hope the divisiveness is replaced by cooperation so everyone benefits. :thumbs:
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I do not want bipartisan cooperation. I sure didn't vote for that either. I don't want more done, I want stuff dismantled, people fired and government shrunk. Will that happen? Probably not.
 
radcen said:
I was born, and lived most of my life, in California. I left nine years ago for many reasons, but the three primary reasons are/were...

1) The politics in California are absurd. Dysfunctional.
2) Too many people. Too many rude people.
3) No matter how much money I made, no matter how many raises I got, I always felt that I was only treading water. Here in the mid-west I make less in raw dollars, but my standard of living is better and more stable.
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Good move, and it's only gotten worse for people over the last nine years. Such a shame to see so many capable and deserving people utterly bamboozled by glittery promises that will never come true.
 
ocean515 said:
Good move, and it's only gotten worse for people over the last nine years. Such a shame to see so many capable and deserving people utterly bamboozled by glittery promises that will never come true.
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If were not for the fact that right now oil is doing good here I would have left already. As much as I love were I live, I am seeing changes I don't like. I am going to hang out long enough to for my other business to get established and head for better shores. It sucks thinking about leaving my home I have lived all my life.:(
 
PirateMk1 said:
If were not for the fact that right now oil is doing good here I would have left already. As much as I love were I live, I am seeing changes I don't like. I am going to hang out long enough to for my other business to get established and head for better shores. It sucks thinking about leaving my home I have lived all my life.:(
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I completely understand. I've travelled extensively throughout the US for many decades, and at the end of the day for me, I love it in Southern California. However, I've been trying to get my kids and their families to consider moving to some other state. They just aren't interested. I can't say I can blame them from the weather and lifestyle standpoint.

My ancestors on both sides of my family settled in Southern California in the 1870's. Serious roots for California, but if not for business, and grandchildren, the Mrs. and I would be gone.

What a shame.
 
I think it was less about democrats vs. republicans than it was people being tired of the incumbent party.
 
ocean515 said:
I completely understand. I've travelled extensively throughout the US for many decades, and at the end of the day for me, I love it in Southern California. However, I've been trying to get my kids and their families to consider moving to some other state. They just aren't interested. I can't say I can blame them from the weather and lifestyle standpoint.

My ancestors on both sides of my family settled in Southern California in the 1870's. Serious roots for California, but if not for business, and grandchildren, the Mrs. and I would be gone.

What a shame.
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We have similar roots here, similarly deep, but the writing is on the wall its time to move. Many of my family have already left, some to Texas, some to Montana, some to Iowa. I will probably be the rear guard on the families exodus out. Pop and I are planning on riding the oil boom here til it peters or my other business requires more time. I have already located my other business in Missoula, MT and have property there, it just a matter of picking up and going. I just hate having to leave the place I have. Its been in the family for generations. Definitely a shame.
 
I think that mostly, the Democrats lost. As others have said, the main campaign from Republicans was "we're not Democrats," and the main campaign from Democrats was... um...

People weren't voting for anything in particular except "I hate this congress and I'm sick of the president," and they weren't really given anything else to vote on for that matter.

Could the Democrats have possibly won if they'd actually gotten out of the fetal position for a minute? Hard to say, obviously, but maybe. No one in mainstream politics of either party would ever have the balls for this, but running on a platform of divorcing the Democratic president and blowing the former Democratic party to smithereens to actually support things they're supposed to might have at least garnered them more attention.

People didn't vote against liberal policy, because the Democratic party isn't actually liberal in their deeds. They voted against a do-nothing congress and a president who's seen as ineffective (I actually don't agree, although I don't like Obama either, but most people aren't paying attention to the finer details of what's been going on).

And the fact that they mostly voted against things rather than for them is why this is more of a Democratic loss than a Republican win. The people saying it's a bit of a Republican win just because most of them managed not to say anything ****-nuts insane and ruin their own campaign shows how far our politics have really fallen. If not being catastrophically crazy is all you need to be considered a "winner" of a candidate in this country, we got problems.
 
I chose to turn my TV on a few minutes ago, and just to see what they were saying turned to MSNBC.

Right now, they are talking race and how it effected the elections, and that the Progressive Agenda is very popular with Americans but that the Democrats didn't talk about it enough.

I have to say that I'm not surprised by what they are saying.

I haven't looked at Fox this morning, but I would hazard to guess that they are saying how the voters are in love with the Republicans.

To me, the election was about two things: President Obama and his historical failures (all of them both foreign and domestic), and; the gridlock that was caused by the Democratic controlled Senate. The average American is not stupid, and understood that Harry Reid refused to allow over 300 bills from the Republican controlled House of Representatives to even be brought to the floor for debate, much less a vote. They understand that, even though the Democrats blamed the GOP for the gridlock (and still are this morning BTW), it was the Democrat leadership that forced their agenda through and stifled the GOP at ever turn.

Now, the GOP made some huge mistakes, like listening to anything Ted Cruz said including shutting down the government over ObamaCare when it was obvious they didn't have any Democrat support to change a dang thing about ObamaCare, and harping on private social issues like abortion and anything anti-gay. Those were and still are issues that will kill the GOP in the public opinion sphere, with the exception, maybe now that they have the Senate, of making changes to ObamaCare.

The GOP needs to understand that they have a mandate on very few issues. ObamaCare, job stimulating legislation, economic issues as a whole and regulatory overreach by many of the Executive Branch Departments (USEPA, NLRB, etc.), are what they DO have a mandate to work on. Social issues? Not so much, other than to get the costs of social programs under control.

I look forward to seeing what Paul Ryan (Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget) does in the next few months, and what his counterpart in the new Senate (probably Jeff Sessions from Alabama) comes up with as well.
 
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