Is the voting public sick of the Republican party?

For the third time recently, an off year congressional special election has resulted in a democrat taking a congressional seat that was republican for years if not decades.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24613179/

First it happened in Illinois as the seat of former Majority leader Hastert went from long term Republican control to a Democrat. Then it occurred in Louisiana, and now it has occurred in Mississippi.

I can't speak for the public at large, but in my mind this administration and the Republican majority Congress that was in power until 2006 severely twisted much of what Americans expect from a government.

Next up... a rather big election this Fall.......

 

Probably. And in an ironic twist, it also looks like the Republicans are sick of the voting public.

 

Absolutely they are. This will be a landmark election and a new beginning for America.

John McCain and the rest of GOP who want to continue George W. Bush's insane policies will go down in defeat this November.

http://www.bush-mccainchallenge.com/

 

It's pretty clear that there is going to be voter backlash against the policies of the neo-conservatives who have hijacked the GOP over the last 7-8 years or so. The only real question is - will the GOP base wake up and reject the neo-conservatives before the Dems completely shackle the country?

 

The problem is that people are expressing their dissatisfaction with the current problems we face and the Republicans who have not lived up to the core beliefs of the party.

The bigger problem is that the Dems do not have answers to any of the issues and if they do a sweep in November, we will be shackled with much higher taxes and a plethora of social programs that won't fix anything.

It is a lose-lose situation for the American people.

There aren't any good "electable" choices for November. I have been voting for 30+ years, but for the first time I will not vote this coming November.

 

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer coming this fall

The US already has trillions in social programs and we are headed back to the 1970s where the public thought that Jimmy Carter would fix their problems.

 

I'd say that Republican leadership in Congress walked in lockstep with the administration. In so doing, the nation lost the checks and balances of a legislative branch and the policies of the Bush administration were advanced in virtually every arena.

Between 2 wars, a miserable economy, a sinking dollar, serious inflation, and a variety of contentious issues that have not been resolved the new president and congress will have many struggles.

While I'd love to see democrats tackle health care, I suspect that current deeply ingrained financial issues and problems that arose over the last 8 years may prohibit those efforts. If a Democrat comes to office I hope they can approach their pet interests in the same vein as a Democratic Governor such as Kaine in Virginia. Kaine came into office wanting to sponsor a pre-school education program. The proposal and program got dropped due to budget constraints.

That is fiscal responsibility. Frankly attacking democrats on fiscal responsibility is lucacrous in view of the Bush record and that of the Republican Congress over the first 6 years of the administration.

During the above referenced 3 special congressional elections the democratic candidates were each attacked with the same historical and histerical claims of fiscal irresponsability. In each case the voters rejected this political claim. In each case the congressman elected made enormous gains in popular and percentages of votes versus any past democratic campaigns for congress or as compared to the votes for bush by the district in 2004.

I think the experience of this administration and congress may well have nullified the charges of spending and taxes that typify republican campaigns.

 

I agree!

The Dems record on increasing the size of government is the bigger issue IMO. The Dems have a much longer track record for expanding government entitlements and spending.

I'm not sure that attributing the budget surplusses during Clinton's terms to fiscal responsibility on the Dems part is valid either. I will be exceedingly surprised if the next POTUS forces anything close to a balanced (much less responsible) budget.

 

According to Gary North, unfunded entitlement obligations are now around $70 trillion. The Dems brought in the entitlement system, and have been just as guilty as the GOP of destroying it.

 

Bernard:

In each of the 3 special elections the dem candidate was tied to the claims of big dem spending. It didn't work in any of the elections.

I gotta add one other thing from today's news. McCain is stating that he sees the war in Iraq ending in 2013. Ugh...double ugh. $600-1,000 trillion ugh.

Forget the fact that he is telling Americans we need to be in a war for a total of 10 years. Think about the costs. Lets just take a rough estimate of $150 billion/year (close to what we are spending now). That is another $600 billion down the drain.


In terms of big spending....last time we had a dem as pres was clinton. he increased govt spending at one half the rate of bush. Last dem as president before clinton was Carter. I don't remember any big spending programs from him, off the top of my head. Before Carter--Johnson. He was a big spender.

As far as I can see you are repeating a republican claim that has a 40 year old history behind it and is anything but current. Since then there has been tons of government spending by primarily Republican presidents.

I got this feeling if you are entrenched in republican thinking you buy into that argument automatically. If you aren't entrenched in that thinking.....it doesn't carry much weight.

 

The American voting public is hypocritical, they vote for one thing, and then when it doesn't go well, they want it changed. If the people hate George Bush's policies so much, why did they vote for him in the first place? From what I know, George Bush's policies have remained the same since his first term, and that is what you voted for, so just accept it... The war in Iraq was the general public's choice, that is why George Bush was elected, and I hope McCain will be elected to keep it going... The war in Iraq is 100% necessary.

 

Democrat or Republican, the issues facing the country today go beyond partisan divides. The financial future of the country is in horrible shape, and we're going to need a successive run of Presidents and Congressmen willing to address it to keep things from getting very bad.

If people are afraid of Islamo-fascism or terrorism now, wait until we are too poor to defend ourselves.

 

So what are you suggesting? Isolationism? Have you ever heard of a magical thing called World War II? The early signs of WWII started in the early 30s, and the U.S. ignored the actions of Germany, and Japan, because they were too worried about stabilizing the economy.

 

Carter took over during a period of severe stagflation. His hands were basically tied. Still, he managed to create the Dept. of Energy and the Dept. of Education. He did his share to expand the size and cost of government.

I am aware of Republican deficit spending exploding since Reagan, but that doesn't have anything to do with the validity of the argument vis a vis Dems.

The Republican spending by and large has not been the result of enacting entitlement programs. The only caveat was Bush's prescription drug idiocy that is going to cripple this country as the baby boomers age.

BTW, I fully expect Obama to win and likely face a similar economic malaise as Carter, but he will push ahead with misguided health care 'reform' IMO.

 

I'm simply saying that the big program/big govt argument may not have a lot of weight for the general public who aren't caught up in republican thinking, especially considering gop efforts in the 3 special election races.

I have no problem w/ Obama going after health care legislation....BUT....this financial situation is so bad..it might be wise to bag it...and just focus on getting out of the debt mess. We will see going down the line.

 

Dude, this isn't a joke. We're going to be completely broke in 30 years. It's not funny, and it's not going away. It's reality. We have nearly 10 trillion in debt now, with 70 trillion more in unfunded liabilities. Do you really believe the next 3 generations of Indians and Chinese are going to work at poverty levels to supply our economy and senior citizens with cheap Walmart goods?

And btw, war is not only morally reprehensible, it's economically destructive. That we create many of our own wars, then destroy our prosperity is truly sad, but the average citizen is more interested in being a cowboy, a "winner" than they are with providing a future for their children and safe guarding the Republic.

 

Kolgames you can check my many posts about our nation-government building games in iran and other countries starting in the 1950's and i dare even to say the current administration and spread of extremism islam is because of those covert actions of our government since that time.

Do you think the educated iranian today would prefer their current leader or mossadegh? If we had ron pauls policy in the 1950's our world would have been a much kinder gentler place for all humans to live in.

 

When did I say this was a joke? I take it seriously... I am the one that this shit will be effecting... I am the next generation...

But really... You gotta learn from our past mistakes! We cannot ignore the ever growing threat in Asia! That is was we did for WWI and WWII... You people are thinking that if we pull out of Iraq, the problems will fade away. They won't my generation, "The new generation", will be stuck with a larger war on our hands because of the current generation's mistakes. You want to be an Ostrich when you could be a hawk... We need to take out the problem before it takes out us... I am not saying we need to be "cowboys" as you said. But why pull out of Iraq and risk another attack on the U.S. I recognize the problems facing the economy, but you aren't seeing the problems facing us if we pull out of Iraq. We cannot bury our heads in the sand thinking this thing will blow over... It won't! We ignored The treat of Germany and Japan in the 30s, and the conflict in Europe in the 10s (that sounds odd)... We cannot do that again, or we will end up involved in something much bigger than the Iraq conflict...

 

Also, I am not familiar with Ron Paul, I will read up on him right now...

 

This ^^^ is a joke right?

You haven't heard of Ron Paul? You probably won't like him. He's antiwar. He understands that war destroys prosperity and undermines our security and civil liberties.