jmc wrote: I've always been unaffiliated but with the gerrymandering of the parties, I need to push for less wingnuts and since I live a republican elrction cinch, I am going to become a partisan to vote in the primary and hopefully get a more rational representative. Wish me luck.
I've been considering this myself, for the very same reasons. I feel like the Republican party ran out moderates like myself 25 years ago, but maybe it's time to come back and give the nutters a run for their money.
Of course there are some "nutters" on both sides, but on balance, the fiscally conservative reps are flexing their muscles to take the party back. What is nutty about wanting to live within your means?
My problem with the Republicans is they didn't care if we lived within our means when times were good, which is the sensible time to be building up surpluses for the inevitable recessions, at which times it makes more sense to be running something of a deficit. We wouldn't be in the hole we are in now if these same flakes hadn't insisted on slashing taxes while failing to lower expenses. They believed in a bunch of unicorn dust that was somehow going to allow them to have their cake and eat it, too. To me, there is absolutly nothing "fiscally conservative" about the way the Republicans have been behaving for decades.
And I am not impressed at all with the tantrums of the Tea Party, which make no internal sense and often are contradictory. They, too, want their cake and to eat it. They don't want the "government touching their Medicare" and at the same time want to practically dismantle the whole government. If their "policies", if you could call them that, are allowed into law it will probably destroy not only the government, but the whole country. They are not the "conservatives" they claim to be, they are as radical a bunch of ideologues as I have seen in my lifetime.
CinnamonGirl wrote: JMC it is all cheating. You should be a ashamed of yourself.
The pols gerrymander to keep their job security and take money. That is cheating nitwit!
So you cheat back. Sure that makes sense. :Loco:
I wouldn't see it as cheating. I would see it as nudging the Republican party back onto the rails from which it ran off at least 20 years ago. There are still some conservative Democrats but when was the last time you heard of a liberal Republican? I can still remember when there used to be some. I think it hurt this country to see the parties (especially the Republicans) lose the full range of viewpoints. The Republican party has become increasingly narrow and paranoid and obsessed with political "purity", which keeps driving it farther and farther to the extreme right. I think it would be a good thing if the political parties became inclusive enough of differing degrees of orthodoxy to the point where it wasn't uncommon for people to cross party lines when voting for Presidents. Right now I cannot picture the Republicans coming up with a candidate I would vote for. Maybe if more moderates and even liberals became part of the political process within the party that would change.
The shame of it is, in my view, is that at heart I agree more with the principles of the Republican party than I do with that of the Democrats but they have pretty much gotten off course on those principles in pursuing the agenda of the religious right. The whole "culture war" thing has almost destroyed the ability of the political process to actually effect any positive change.
CinnamonGirl wrote: JMC it is all cheating. You should be a ashamed of yourself.
The pols gerrymander to keep their job security and take money. That is cheating nitwit!
So you cheat back. Sure that makes sense. :Loco:
I wouldn't see it as cheating. I would see it as nudging the Republican party back onto the rails from which it ran off at least 20 years ago. There are still some conservative Democrats but when was the last time you heard of a liberal Republican? I can still remember when there used to be some. I think it hurt this country to see the parties (especially the Republicans) lose the full range of viewpoints. The Republican party has become increasingly narrow and paranoid and obsessed with political "purity", which keeps driving it farther and farther to the extreme right. I think it would be a good thing if the political parties became inclusive enough of differing degrees of orthodoxy to the point where it wasn't uncommon for people to cross party lines when voting for Presidents. Right now I cannot picture the Republicans coming up with a candidate I would vote for. Maybe if more moderates and even liberals became part of the political process within the party that would change.
The shame of it is, in my view, is that at heart I agree more with the principles of the Republican party than I do with that of the Democrats but they have pretty much gotten off course on those principles in pursuing the agenda of the religious right. The whole "culture war" thing has almost destroyed the ability of the political process to actually effect any positive change.
CinnamonGirl wrote: JMC it is all cheating. You should be a ashamed of yourself.
The pols gerrymander to keep their job security and take money. That is cheating nitwit!
So you cheat back. Sure that makes sense. :Loco:
I wouldn't see it as cheating. I would see it as nudging the Republican party back onto the rails from which it ran off at least 20 years ago. There are still some conservative Democrats but when was the last time you heard of a liberal Republican? I can still remember when there used to be some. I think it hurt this country to see the parties (especially the Republicans) lose the full range of viewpoints. The Republican party has become increasingly narrow and paranoid and obsessed with political "purity", which keeps driving it farther and farther to the extreme right. I think it would be a good thing if the political parties became inclusive enough of differing degrees of orthodoxy to the point where it wasn't uncommon for people to cross party lines when voting for Presidents. Right now I cannot picture the Republicans coming up with a candidate I would vote for. Maybe if more moderates and even liberals became part of the political process within the party that would change.
The shame of it is, in my view, is that at heart I agree more with the principles of the Republican party than I do with that of the Democrats but they have pretty much gotten off course on those principles in pursuing the agenda of the religious right. The whole "culture war" thing has almost destroyed the ability of the political process to actually effect any positive change.
Exactly! I voted "in the past" for R's more than D's not anymore.The social issues and "pledge" BS has dumbed them down that I now think the pols from the left are the lesser of the 2 evils.
AV, really this is not about the republicans. It happens on both sides. The dems are just as screwed up.
And the system was not set up to do it by having the opposite party vote in a primary. That is similar to signing up more than once at a voting booth and that is called fraud. I see it as the same. Sorry to be blunt. Legal but should it be? If you are doing it deliberately it is cheating.
CinnamonGirl wrote: AV, really this is not about the republicans. It happens on both sides. The dems are just as screwed up.
And the system was not set up to do it by having the opposite party vote in a primary. That is similar to signing up more than once at a voting booth and that is called fraud. I see it as the same. Sorry to be blunt. Legal but should it be? If you are doing it deliberately it is cheating.
Then the pols out the gerrymandering role. Naive at best!
CinnamonGirl wrote: AV, really this is not about the republicans. It happens on both sides. The dems are just as screwed up.
And the system was not set up to do it by having the opposite party vote in a primary. That is similar to signing up more than once at a voting booth and that is called fraud. I see it as the same. Sorry to be blunt. Legal but should it be? If you are doing it deliberately it is cheating.
Again, there are conservative Dems but show me a liberal Republican these days. The polarization and extremism has happened far more in that party. And how is is "the opposite party" voting in the primary if an unaffilated voter like myself decides to vote in the primary with the Republicans by declaring as a Republican? Would you say the same thing if I went from unaffilated to voting with the Dems in the primary?
