And the trend is also in their favor. Look for even bigger margins as the economy improves.
No one should be betting that Republicans hold the House in November. Even a poll from Newscorp's Wall Street Journal can't spin this for the Pubes.
Democrats polled to win congress by Wall Street Journal
By iwog Follow Fri, 3 Feb 2012, 11:38am 2,187 views 33 comments
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The whole primary season is really helping the Dems.
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Hopefully. Even though I want Obama to lose the presidency election, I'm hoping that Democrats will sweep the House and Senate. The Republicans have been holding the country hostage demanding tax breaks for the wealthiest 0.1% for too long.
Of course, it would be nice if the incumbent Democrats in the Senate were replaced with new ones. The incumbents Senators are mostly scum.
thunderlips11 says
True. The Republicans have been quite vicious turning on each other for the glory of becoming president. Personally, I think the only type of person who would make a good president is the type that doesn't want the job. It's disgusting how these politicians lust for power.
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Dan8267 says
I had a convo with my wife about this the other night.
I said the Presidency, Congress, etc. should be a service something like jury duty. Your number gets called along with a few other people, and the public votes for the best one for Senate/President/Representative after a one or two month campaign.
All these guys have dozens of staffers and advisers, can consult with multi-billion dollar agencies with thousands of staffers, etc.
When one considers the qualifications of our prior two-term President, and the resources available to elected officials, the lack of skill/aptitude objection is one I don't find compelling. Truman ran a hattery, Carter was a farmer, Reagan was an actor, Bush was a scion of a rich family who wouldn't have made it beyond a good salesman in a car dealership had he not been born with a silver spoon in mouth, and Obama is a "Community Organizer".
It's also more likely a non-professional politician will tell you honestly what they'd really do.
I think Debbie Reynolds in the AP department of Mid State Office Supply can do just as well or better than a Farmer, Actor, or "Baseball Team Manager" as a Congresswoman.
She'd probably bring more real life experience than Sonny Bono's wife, whose qualifications include being a professional gymnast with a generic Bachelor of Arts degree from the USC.
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It would be odd if the House & Senate both flipped.
Dems have a real tough row to hoe in the Senate:
Of the 33 seats up, 23 are Dems. 7 of these will be open seats. Only 2 of 10 Rs are retiring. Also, 10 of the 16 running Dems are first-termers.
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thunderlips11 says
I like that idea, but I'm not sure to what extend it would alleviate the problems. I would be worried that Joe the Plumber could get in office.
I've had a few ideas on reform myself.
1. The Senate should be abolished and the House of Representative should make all legislation.
2. All congressional districting should be removed. Instead, in each state representatives should be assigned according to proportional voting.
3. A person can only enter one branch of government regardless of the level of office (federal, state, local). So only a governor could not run for Congress and a congressman could not run for president. This would keep the three branches of the government separate. Since politicians chum up and switch branches, the branches don't really keep each other in check as intended. If the power were clearly separated on a personal level, there would be far more incentive for the people in each branch to keep the others in check.
4. To prevent nepotism between branches, a person could not enter a branch if he had a relation of second cousin or closer in another branch. Now, this would make a few people ineligible to run at all, but that's a good thing since you don't want any family to become too powerful.
5. The election for presidency should be ran as an instant runoff election.
6. Any legislator or president who votes for a bill that is determined to be Unconstitutional or a violation of human or civil rights, even in part, should be automatically removed from office and barred from holding public office ever again.
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Dan8267 says
Dan, those all sound too reasonable ever be put into practice. Are there any examples of countries who have similar systems?
Also, the only one I am hesitant on is #6. Rather than punish people for making possibly "innocent" mistakes. Bills should be vetted as constitutional before a vote is cast.
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Dan8267 says
Why one earth would anyone hope for Romney to be president?
Or...gingrich? Jesus. I think that'd be the end right there.
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leoj707 says
Some European countries use proportional representation. The other items are kind of U.S. specific.
leoj707 says
#6 is a bit strict, but it could be revised. The important thing is that there should be a deterrent to attempting to undermine rights. Otherwise, there is no reason for politicians to not try taking our rights away. Unfortunately, voting alone isn't much of a deterrent when all the politicians are the same.
Kevin says
Because who is president for the next four years is not as important as making sure the Democrat party doesn't turn into the Republican party. If Obama isn't kicked out of office, then all Democrats will think they can violate our rights with impunity because we'll still vote for them out of fear of Reptilian, er, Republican rule. If Obama is kicked out of office, the next Democrat learns that he can't act like a Republican and stay elected. And in the long run, that's more important.
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I think if Romney wins the election, the democrats will just decide that they have to act more like Romney.
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GameOver says
Because all the economic numbers, the stock market numbers, the GDP, and the CPI are fake right?
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Obviously the economy only ever gets worse. As we know, every year is worse than the one before it.
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Kevin says
The one thing that politicians are smart at, is realizing why they lose elections. It's what keeps the money flowing into their bank accounts.
If Obama isn't elected because his pro-torture, anti-civil rights, anti-human rights policies pissed off his supporters, you can be damn sure he and all other Democrats will learn the lesson.
You can't teach a person something if it's acceptance would decrease their income. But it's damn easy to teach someone something that will protect their income.
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I will probably vote for Obama. But it has occurred to me that if taxes need to be raised, Romney might have a better chance of doing it than Obama.
You bring in a democrat like Clinton or Obama to move conservative agendas forward (and republicans scream bloody murder the whole time). Maybe it can work the other way around with Romney ?
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Republicans will NOT raise taxes this decade. They learned from Pappy's brutal treatment in 1992.
They might pass their hare-brained flat tax, but that will just shift the taxation burden further down the income stack, making the competition to reduce one's tax rate more American by having the higher earners pay less tax -- what could be more American than rewarding winners and penalizing losers?
There's a certain moral logic in that that the rubes might even buy into.
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Dan8267 says
aha ahah ahah hah.
Man, you really must still smell of turnips.
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Bellingham Bill says
I have no idea what that means, but I can tell it's not much of a counter-argument.
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Dan8267 says
Last time the left voted against a Democrat in large numbers it was for Ralph Nader who got 80 thousand votes in Florida in 2000. That really worked out well for everyone. I hope they learned their lesson though it isnt the one you wish for.
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Dan8267 says
Think so? It's a truism that, given a Republican or Republican-lite, voters will choose the real republican every time. The Dems do this frequently though.
Even now, Romney could be considered "Democrat-lite". The voters will likely choose head over heart--electability will win out, and lose the General (as Coulter once predicted).
History repeats, and the wealthy incumbents misread the tea leaves, repeatedly. Could be they're in the DC bubble, but you give them far too much credit.
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CL says
That's easy to do.
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Sure, we could "reform," but the new system would turn out to be just as corrupt. As long as there are people with enough money to buy politicians, bribery will occur. That's been going on for as long as civilization has existed.
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wthrfrk80 says
I got a fix for that. Get rid of the politicians.
There are multiple ways to do that. My personal favorite is to automate government. It's not like those fucking geniuses do anything that a well-written servlet couldn't do.
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Dan8267 says
If Obama were to lose (he won't), it would have jack and shit to do with any of these things. It's all about the economy.
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Dan8267 says
Hey, I'm all for getting rid of politicians.
Only issue with an automated government: who gets to program the computer? The top 1%? I think we all know who will end up designing the code.
If(peasants=revolt)then
do: unleash death robots
endif
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wthrfrk80 says
The High Programmers of course.
Reminds me of Paranoia:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/us/rpgs/paranoia.html
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wthrfrk80 says
It would have to be open-source, subject to world-wide peer review, and managed by scientists and engineers with no political ambitions. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a good place to start gathering project leaders.
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Would there be automated robot police?
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wthrfrk80 says
Automating government and automating the police force are orthogonal issues. You can do either one without the other or both. I'm more concerned with automating government.
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I would actually like to see an automated government, but I think I would rather have the:
"...open-source, subject to world-wide peer review, and managed by scientists and engineers with no political ambitions."
Develop an autonomous AI government that once "released" is no longer in human hands.
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wthrfrk80 says
yes, please.
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RoboCops?
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wthrfrk80 says
Android cops from THX1138
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Nice poll. And what percentage of the respondents are Democrats? Republicans? Independents? Did this include cell phones or not? Registered voters and not likely voters?
Polls are easily spun by the pollster for desired results. There's an awful lot of Democratic Party activists on this site that worship the party that bailed out Wall Street bankers and the fat cats at General Motors.
Bush added $5 trillion in debt from 2001-2009. Obama has added $5 trillion in half the time. And the next Republican (in 2012 or 2016) will be even worse than Obama, King of the Bankers. all of the sheeple in this country are in denial. The Democratic talking-heads on this site need a real reality check, the same way that the delusional Bush apologists in the Republican party did.
Nothing will get better if you elect Democrats. Or Republicans. Funny how unemployment "fell" to 8.3% on the same day that 1.2 million people mysteriously vanished from the labor force, isn't it? The BLS is lying for Obama, the same way that it lied for George W. Bush. The same way that it will lie for Millionaire Romney or whoever comes next.
There are very few leaders today like Ron Paul or Ralph Nader that are actually intellectually honest with the American people, and candidates like that get buried by the same two-party establishment that works in a bipartisan manner to bankrupt the middle class and feed itself off the flesh of working people.
To cheer on the Democratic Party over the Republicans is akin to rooting for Napoleon and the hogs against Farmer Jones.
You'll be just as disappoined in your revolution as the Republicans are about their "Tea Party" class of hypocrites.
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PartyLikeIts1776 says
Bullshit.
Please detail the spending increases signed by Obama that total $5 trillion.
I can do it for Bush. The Iraq war, Medicare D, massive tax cuts for the rich. Besides the stimulus package, what did the Democrats pass that comes anywhere near $5 trillion?
PartyLikeIts1776 says
I hear this a lot, however every two years most of the polls call the election almost perfectly. There's no data to support the assertion that polls are biased with the exception of Rasmussen.