Political Splits: Dem/Dem, Repub/Repub…

[amicus]

Curious goings on within the two established Political Parties in the US.

With an unstoppable majority in both the US House and Senate, Democrats have been arguing among themselves over health care, with a portion of elected Democrats being more ‘conservative’ than the mainstream, so called, ‘blue dogs’, who do not support the ‘public option’, nationalization of health care in either house.

Among the Republicans, even more dissention as, using a New York State election, a ‘moderate’ Republican candidate was forced to resign as a more ‘conservative’ one is challenging a Democratic candidate.

Pundits are saying this is a major shift for the Republican Party, one that may destroy it or rebuild it along more conservative lines, but Democrats deny any such fundamental change in their Party.

The results of tomorrow’s elections may bring forth more questions than answers for both Party’s.

There are also Ballot Measures concerning Gay Marriage, perhaps another indicator of the direction of the thinking of the Voters in other States.

Curious, eh?

Amicus

 

[JamesSD]

The Democrats are paying for the "Big Tent" strategy of bringing on Spector, not throwing Lieberman to the wolves when he ran against the primary winner for his Senate seat and bringing in moderates to take senate seats in very "purple" states. The Democrats have been happy to run almost anyone willing to put a (D) after their name regardless of any litmus test, where deviating on any single issue often leads to "RINO" accusations for Republicans, the most recent example being Olympia Snowe, who has always been a bit more moderate but is still generally a reliable Republican vote on most issues.

NY-23 is a wonk's dream. It has been one of the most interesting and exciting special elections ever. Unfortunately, we won't learn much from the actual results unless one candidate happens to pull of a huge landslide. Perhaps the saddest part of it is the fact that a moderate can't win in a moderate district under our current two party political system.

As for Maine's Gay Marriage related Prop 1, the most interesting thing to see will be how accurate the polling data was. The results will be driven by turnout for this off-cycle election; in 2010 Prop 1 would have no chance of passing, but since most of the voters will come out specifically to vote on Prop 1 there is a somewhat slim chance it could prevail.

As for the Governor races, again, probably don't actually tell us much about the national scene. NJ is a 2 horse race with a spoiler, and the number of Dagget supporters who stray to another camp to vote for someone who actually has a chance of winning could easily make or break it.

 

[amicus]

Hello James...nice to know there is at least one other, political 'wonk', out there that keeps abreast of current events. I have listened to three different cable news channels, several different opinions on everything we both mentioned and it is amazing the continuing polarity between different advocates...most interesting..

Thank you...

Amicus