TSE Chat Room: What Election Night 2009 Means

Biggus: Regarding your Obama-Palin point, the two races are quite different. Also, Palin is considered a polarizing figure by most people, while Obama was to a be post-partisan, post-racial, post-whatever well-loved guy.
me: I was actually just pointing out that it’s absurd to tie such races to individuals of either party with sole responsibility for the outcome
Biggus: Yeah, but they do that all the time.
me: like the absurd point that Obama wanted the Chicago Olympics, they didn’t get them, so it was nothing more or less that a personal repudiation of Obama himself
Conservatives rightly mocked the idea in some Obama supporters that everything was about Obama. But now in their minds everything seems to be about Obama
Conservatives probably viewed the Yankee victory last night as a personal repudiation of Obama
Biggus: You might be overstating what conservatives actually believe.
I guarantee you that we’d be hearing about Obama’s awesome saviorific powers if Corzine had won.
me: it’s as Tim Kaine said, two governors races in an off year mean nothing about the general mood of the country, but if they had gone our way I’d probably feel differently
and with Corzine let me use the same line that most Republicans did after the 2008 election with McCain
Biggus: I think they do but Republicans can’t simply take it for granted that they’ll win in 2010.
me: yeah he lost but he was a shitty candidate
so with Virginia you take nothing from the fact that they’ve always voted opposite of the President regardless of party for over 20 years?
Republican under Clinton and Democrat under Bush
they elected a black democrat under Reagan
and Chris Christie ate 6000 Corize voters and that’s hardly fair
Biggus: I take it to be a coincidence.
I think there is general concern about the massive expansion in Washington, which should have been pretty easy to predict as this is still a center-right country.
me: The Democrats should have won NJ and had no business winning NY 23 or Virginia
Biggus: And the economy still sucks.
Why did they have no business winning NY23?
The Republicans fucked it up.
me: a congressional district that had not voted Democrat since US Grant?
Biggus: We went through the reasons for that race yesterday.
me: As I said on my blog, this should say to the Democrats that it’s not 2008 anymore and they can’t coast on that and expect not to lose in 2010, that being said this Republican revival idea is the same bullshit that had Miami and FSU back early in this football season
they certainly arn’t dead but them being back is premature
Biggus: No, they have to make good choices in candidates, but after all the bullshit about a political sea-change in 2008 it’s a start.
me: 44% of the public is now registered independent, you don’t think that’s a sea-change
and where the fuck does the term “sea-change” derive from?
Biggus: 40% of the public call themselves conservative too. Which if I had to guess is only slightly up from whatever it was in 2002.
Shakespeare
me: 22% identify themselves as Republican, where does that leave the Republican party?
and a Democrat can be conservative
Biggus: Needing to appeal more to fiscal conservatives.
me: Reagan proved that
Biggus: Democrats can be individually. The leadership of the party is not.
Not even close.
me: I didn’t say that
Biggus: How many registered Democrats do you think call themselves conservative?
me: more that you would be willing to believe
Catholic Democrats
which there are many
Biggus: If it’s more than 10% I’d be stunned.
me: many can believe in fiscal responsibility, social justice (I know you hate the term) and have religious faith
Biggus: You’re a Catholic Democrat, and you are in no way shape or form conservative.
me: the point is they can be a voting block for Republican candidates if Republicans start believing again that they exist
It’s what I’ve always found curious is the legitimate lessons of Reagan are often lost on modern day Republicans
even the 11th commandment seems dead
Biggus: I would wager that most Reagan Democrats are no longer Democrats. They’re likely independent voters these days.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 9:09 am and is filed under Biggus Chat Room, Politics, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.