Nobody runs for VP.
Nobody runs for VP.
So is the field set or is there a GOP candidate who can still come out of the woodwork? If it is set, it looks like a two-man race between Romney and Perry. I can't see any scenario where Cain, Bachmann, or Paul has any chance at getting the nomination.
I dunno, I think Biden was doing it for years.Originally Posted by Menzo
I suspect Romney is not tone deaf enough to put a Bush on the ticket.
I think it is now a two man race between Romney and himself. I think it will take a major sex (like that is going happen) scandal, or financial or religous scandal for Romney to lose.
I think Obama is to vulnerable for Republicans to take a chance on political neophyte like Cain, Perry has struck out in too many debates, and Bachman time has come and thankfully gone.
At what point does Romeny offer to suck americas dick? I mean he tries so hard and his party is ho hum. He really needs to do the Macgruber I'll suck you dick thing.
Debate cleanup!
GOP reality.
Romney gets really specific about how he's repeal PPACA - reconciliation. Kevin Drum notes he'll unleash a hornet's nest of angry insurance companies if so:Paul Waldman captures this magical thinking in last night's debate:
- Health care in general, and Medicare in particular, are bankrupting our country.
- But government should never try to figure out which treatments are effective.
- Medicare should pay for any treatment anyone wants, regardless of whether it works or what it costs.
- If an insurance company refuses to pay for a procedure, that's their right as actors in the free market; if Medicare refuses to pay for a procedure, that's Washington bureaucrats trying to kill you.
- We need to cut Medicare benefits, because don't forget it's bankrupting our country.
Crucially, though, this is a regulation that's not budget related. This is why the main healthcare bill was passed via regular order, not reconciliation, and it's why it can't be completely repealed via reconciliation either. And while insurers don't like community rating much, they were willing to accept it as long as everyone, not just the sick, was subsidized by the government and required to get insurance. Jon Chait explains the real-life choices Republicans will have once this becomes clear:
So things aren't so simple. Unless Republicans get rid of the filibuster, they can damage Obamacare but they can't kill it completely. And health insurers, who know perfectly well that repealing the mandate and the subsidies while leaving community rating in place would destroy them, will make their position perfectly clear. For them, repeal is an all or nothing affair.If they eliminate the subsidies but leave the regulations in place, you’ll have insurers required to sell policies to people who are sick, but no way to bring healthy people into the risk pool. A few states tried that. It created a cost spiral that collapsed the whole market. Romney would end up screwing the health insurance industry, which is much harder to do, politically, than screwing the uninsured. The industry has lobbyists.
Those lobbyists were happy to preserve the old system, which screwed all the uninsured and none of the insurance companies. They were fine with the Obama plan that screwed none of the uninsured and none of the the insurance firms. They're not going to be happy about creating a system that screws some of the uninsured and all of the insurance companies.
It will be interesting. Several people at work who are very conservative and "anti-Obama care" have put their kids, who have graduated college but are unable to get a job, on their work insurance and have made comments like "well, THIS part of the health care plan I like." I'm sure there are a lot of conservatives out there who have done the same in this economy (as well as enjoyed being able to get insurance for a kid with chronic problems now, etc.) who would be extremely unhappy if suddenly that got taken away.
I do wonder if the GOP wins it all they'll suddenly calm down and go right back to Bush's first-term of incrementalism, or be so incredibly enraged they'll do an own-goal and junk the filibuster to repeal ALL THE LAWS.
In other news, Congressional polls continue to be really, really strange. Overall Congressional approval is jaw-dropping, unbelievably low - 82/13 disapprove. The congressional generic ballot has Democrats at +1 at the moment = no really, it does - but 18% can't even pick. Basically, everyone hates everyone in charge.
Last edited by Jason McCullough; 10-12-2011 at 08:35 PM.
My prediction still is dem congress, republican president and its a blood bath for incumbents.
Eeee hee hee hee, Brett made a prediction!!! Mine: repub congress (but only slightly), dem president and... actually, bloodbath for incumbents is not a bad guess, probably just as many tea partiers going down as anyone else.
We could only hope. I know I know, super painful short term, but the fillibuster *has* to go.
I don't think the filibuster has to go. It might be better to reform it so it's more difficult and public. At this point the Republicans in the Senate just have to make vague farty noises for a few seconds to kill legislation.
My guess, as well.
Yeah, just look at the polls - the voting public hates *everyone* in a very bi-partisan (and frankly, appropriate) manner. If there ever was a time for a third party candidacy it would be now, but Bloomberg apparently doesn't want to.
A third party candidate would do the same thing every third party candidate has ever done. They'd split off some votes from indies and a slice from either side (a larger slice from the side they lean to) but never enough to actually win, thus basically ensuring the victory of the party they lean against.
Let's not delve into the Filibuster in this thread - we've had many threads on QT3 on that, and I think all the points for or against have already been made there.
As for a 3rd party candidate, what you're basically saying is we need Bachmann to run as a 3rd party Tea Party candidate? :)
Only a few of them have ever done that. The vast, vast majority of them have made no impact at all.
I think that even conservative Obama haters would admit that the current health care system is broken. They just don't like the idea of the government running it. They also have no idea of an alternate way of fixing it and so they just bitch about Obama's attempt.
They didn't run during an election cycle where both major parties have approval ratings this low, either.
I seem to remember a lot of people (read: dopes) claiming that the US had the best healthcare system in the world back during the health care debates.
Serious question: anyone have the approval ratings for both major parties for the '92 election cycle (when Perot ran)?
The right fears government control of health care, of losing their own doctors and their "freedom of choice". However that doesn't mean they are "happy" with what they have. When your monthly health insurance bill surpasses your mortgage payment you have a problem. A system that expensive cannot continue, especially in these economic times but even under the best of circumstances.
Then it's a good thing the health care law doesn't do either of those things. Someone talking about government takeover of health care is a good sign that you can ignore anything further they have to say on the subject.
Since it's politics and game related: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1008952.html
Long before Cain was running for president and getting attention for his 999 plan, the residents of SimCity 4 -- which was released in 2003 -- were living under a system where the default tax rate was 9 percent for commercial taxes, 9 percent for industrial taxes and 9 percent for residential taxes. (That is, of course, if you didn't use the cheat codes to get unlimited money and avoid taxes altogether.)
Every time a third party candidate successfully breaks into the mainstream, their inevitable legacy is being blamed for spoiling the election for someone else. A lot of people are fed up with the government, but it'll take more than that to break up the power base of the two major parties. For now we're stuck with that pendulum swinging back and forth and hitting us all in the nuts.
Does anyone have stats comparing disapproval with Congress and approval for their own representative? Because I seem to recall the latter is always quite a bit higher than the former.
Yes, but that is what the right's news sources (Faux News, Rush, Hannity etc) are telling them.
I suspect they'd just turn on him immediatelly. Unlike 1992, where Perot moved the terms of debate on the deficit, I have no idea what the policy opening would be for a third party today.
Interesting trivia: when George Wallace ran in 1968, on what was essentially a segregation platform, he got 13% of the vote and won 5 states.
I would be willing to bet that a good, popular person with a strong business background running as a 3rd party candidate could get 25% of the popular vote this time. I'd love to see it.
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