Politics

[KCMax]

Kinda interesting polling in Kansas.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main ... llany.html

-Hillary does better than most Dems have historically done in KS as a potential Pres candidate, but still falls well short to candidates like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan

-Bob Dole is very popular. No one knows who Pat Roberts or Jerry Moran are (both are the current US Senators)

-Sam Brownback is very unpopular but would still win handily against any Dem

-Gay marriage not surprisingly is not approved by Kansans, but its not as bad as you would think (39-51). And 63% of Kansans support civil unions for gays. IN KANSAS. Let's get this legal people.

[KCMax]

Thought this was kind of interesting. Political scientists find that state legislators think their constituents are more conservative than they actually are.

Broockman and Skovron find that legislators consistently believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. This includes Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. But conservative legislators generally overestimate the conservatism of their constituents by 20 points. “This difference is so large that nearly half of conservative politicians appear to believe that they represent a district that is more conservative on these issues than is the most conservative district in the entire country,”

[shinatoo]

You know why there aren't moderate politicians? Because they have no answers for the reasonable people, so they have to play to the extremism.

[chaglang]

You know why there aren't moderate politicians? Because they have no answers for the reasonable people, so they have to play to the extremism.

There's also less chance of the extremists voting for the other candidate. The closer to the center you get, the more likely a voter is to drift over to the other guy.

[KCMax]

GOP proposes to strip ACORN of federal funding, even though it already stripped all federal funding of ACORN already. And the fact that ACORN no longer exists.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/0 ... lp00000003

[phuqueue]

There are plenty of moderate politicians, there just aren't any moderate Republicans.

[aknowledgeableperson]

How do you define "moderate"? One could say there aren't any moderate Democrats just as easy. Maybe your moderate Dems are in reality DINO's or Democrats in name only.

[chaglang]

How do you define "moderate"? One could say there aren't any moderate Democrats just as easy. Maybe your moderate Dems are in reality DIMO's or Democrats in name only.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Given the amount of time after the 2012 election and the goings-on now maybe a new topic, "2014 Election" is needed.

Anyway, given how the stock markets are acting maybe the sequestration is a good thing. The Dems get their Defense cuts and the GOP gets its Budget cuts.

[KCMax]

Given the amount of time after the 2012 election and the goings-on now maybe a new topic, "2014 Election" is needed.

Anyway, given how the stock markets are acting maybe the sequestration is a good thing. The Dems get their Defense cuts and the GOP gets its Budget cuts.

I just split it and made it a generic "politics" thread.

My sis works at Homeland Security and has been given notice they will be furloughed for most of April. So its not good for everyone.

[chaglang]

Given the amount of time after the 2012 election and the goings-on now maybe a new topic, "2014 Election" is needed.

Anyway, given how the stock markets are acting maybe the sequestration is a good thing. The Dems get their Defense cuts and the GOP gets its Budget cuts.

The stock market is a gauge of what the stock market likes. That's all.

[earthling]

My sis works at Homeland Security and has been given notice they will be furloughed for most of April. So its not good for everyone.

This could be bad for KC given the Feds are the largest employer here. Many think the sequester issue is a manufactured crisis like the fiscal cliff thing but the sequester could directly impact KC and pretty hard. If even for just a short time, I wonder if it could hurt momentum on things like GSA move into downtown.

[chaglang]

I don't think there's any question that it's a manufactured crisis. Like the fiscal cliff. Like the debt ceiling.

[phuqueue]

How do you define "moderate"? One could say there aren't any moderate Democrats just as easy. Maybe your moderate Dems are in reality DINO's or Democrats in name only.

I don't really get what you're trying to argue here. If their political position is moderate and their party affiliation is Democrat, they are moderate Democrats. I honestly can't parse out what the "DINO" comment is supposed to be getting at. Are you trying to argue that in fact moderation is a trait of the GOP, and that any "moderate" Dems actually belong in the Republican party? Or are you complaining that "moderate" Dems only appear so insofar as they're too far right to fit with the supposedly left-wing Democratic party, and their having abandoned leftism while retaining the Dem affiliation makes them appear "moderate" when in fact they're outright conservative? Or maybe the opposite, that the Dem party should be centrist but many Dems are too far to the left and are no longer really Dems?

I would define "moderate" as being willing to make compromises and incorporate some of the other side's ideas to reach an agreement; according to that definition, there are precious few remaining moderate Republicans. On the other hand, if anything, I would say the problem with the Dems is that they're too moderate -- they don't just incorporate some of the GOP's ideas, they basically pass GOP legislation (eg ACA), which the GOP nonetheless rejects just...because. The Republican slogan at this point should be "give us an inch and we'll take a mile." Effective governance requires politicians to meet in the middle on most issues, but that doesn't mean the politicians themselves must always be centrist -- the GOP is dragging our political conversation much too far rightward and there aren't enough genuinely left wing Dems to keep the "middle" anchored in a reasonable place. Couple this with the fact that people tend to assume that when there are two sides to an argument, both are equally meritorious -- when the far right GOP clashes with the center-right Obama, it simply must be the case that both sides have staked out positions on opposite extremes, right? -- and we end up deciding there are no moderate politicians left.

[earthling]

I don't think there's any question that it's a manufactured crisis. Like the fiscal cliff. Like the debt ceiling.

However it could impact KC negatively even if it is.

[grovester]

Not sure what you all are implying by it being "manufactured". It's real and will have consequences that will become more serious over time. The hope is that it will get resolved in the coming CR, but it's not a given.

[chaglang]

Not sure what you all are implying by it being "manufactured". It's real and will have consequences that will become more serious over time. The hope is that it will get resolved in the coming CR, but it's not a given.

It was in reference to the construction of apocalyptic penalties around things that have never been treated like that before. Everything is now a pretext to shut down the government.

[KCMax]

Not sure what you all are implying by it being "manufactured". It's real and will have consequences that will become more serious over time. The hope is that it will get resolved in the coming CR, but it's not a given.

It was in reference to the construction of apocalyptic penalties around things that have never been treated like that before. Everything is now a pretext to shut down the government.

I thought the "manufactured" reference always meant it was a crisis entirely created by Congress and the President.

[grovester]

Well, it was created by the both of them, but not without necessity. It was the result of the first debt limit stand off. It was supposed to be so draconian and idiotic that it would never come to fruition. Needless to say, everyone underestimated the lack of moderation in congress.

[chaglang]

And the first debt limit standoff was a manufactured crisis. That had been a simple procedural vote for years.