He's moderate relative to his party, which as a whole has moved to the Right. I'm not neccesarily defending him either, I've said this in another post, but he's big a part of why the GOP moved to the right. Because Obama exists. He was all in on that strategy. Incite your base into voting by calling the President a villain intent on destroying your America.
After all... we need to dispel this fiction that Rubio doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
Isn't that exactly what the Democrats are doing? (not to the President, but to the Republican hopefuls)
Either the Democratic base is a lot smarter than the Republican base or the GOP's vilification has clearly been worse than anything the Democrats have done, because otherwise the GOP wouldn't be disintegrating right now.
Dude. "Mexicans are rapists, drug dealers." "Ban all Muslims." Feigning ignorance about David F***ing Duke. Seriously. Give me a break. It might work for the Donald to play stupid. It might have worked for the GOP establishment to play ignorant of the bullshit they've been encouraging for the last 20+ years. But we're not. Nice f***ing try.
As I've noted before, this used to be true. In a highly polarized, highly sorted political environment (like we have today), there's far less electoral reason to moderate for a general election. You don't win elections these days by appealing to the moderate, swing vote. The moderate, swing vote barely even exists. You win elections by driving turnout among your base. TV pundits who are still spinning the same shtick as 30 years ago don't know what they're talking about. You cite some of the correct data, but your electoral effect is antiquated. It has not been common in recent elections to run to the center during a general election. There simply aren't that many swing voters in the center.
Most voters are still in "the center." The edges have bulges a bit, but the center is still very large. The "Change and Continuity" series of books, as well as 'Red State Blue State' can articulate this better than I.
You're overlooking that last sentence in my post. "There simply aren't that many swing voters in the center." It doesn't matter if they're in the center - or at least map onto the center. What matters is whether their votes are up for grabs. But voters are highly sorted into party boxes these days. Even us independents! Voter turnout among your base is decisive these days. Not turnout among a very small percentage of get-able, swing voters in the center. Indeed, the most likely reason they're "swing voters" at all is because they're not very well engaged with politics, don't have clear views or opinions, and just basically don't really care enough to sort themselves within the parties. Those people, come election day, usually just stay home.
No. Name a single pro-active policy idea that House has offered that has nothing to do with Obama. Everything they produce has to do with Fear Of Obama, with the exception of the Budget - which is what they HAVE to do anyways. Hillary, for all of her lack of overarching vision, has a raft of policy ideas that she promotes that she thinks will help America. She has stuff on College Education, Community relationships with the police, Healthcare, all of it. At it's most basic level, the GOP's platform is designed around the idea that Obama is evil, must be stopped along with his evil America hating Democratic comrades, and we must take the country back from him and stop them. At it's most basic level, the Democratic platform is designed around the idea that the Middle Class is getting screwed and this is how we're going to solve it. They've expanded that to include minorities these days, and they've taken an ugly tone towards Corporate America. They view the GOP as enemies who want to block them. They don't wrap their entiry policy base around the idea that the GOP is evil however. This is NOT a "pox on both houses" issue. This is a problem caused by one side, simply because they lost an election.
Appoo has explained why Donald Trump could run as a Republican, but not as a Democrat. In other words, the parties are quite dissimilar in approach and mindset.
I've long thought that Trump probably contemplated running as a Democrat (doesn't matter to him either way as he's only in it for the media attention) but concluded he would gain no traction with Democratic voters because they want a serious candidate, whereas the Republicans are more than willow to follow a demagogue.
I doubt that. From what I gather, a lot of Trump's original impetus for running was a personal animosity toward Jeb Bush. (Then things just took off.) You don't pick a fight against Jeb Bush by running as a Dem.
Why is he still around then when he accomplished his mission? Not that he doesn't hate Jeb Bush, but it's far easier for me to believe he got involved in this thing primarily because he craves media attention.
Shit happens ... Like I said, things took off. And no doubt he's getting far more media attention than he probably expected.
[ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/in-case-you-missed-it-congress-passed-some-big-bills-in-2015/ Look at all that Obama fear in there.
I was responding to Apoo who said to name one bill/policy enacted by the house that wasn't about Obama hate. This congress hasn't exactly covered itself in glory, but I really do hate the hyperbole on the left sometimes.
Actually, as @superdave pointed out, the article you posted only proves that sometimes, even the worst congress of them all, can pass a few key bills. What do you think are the reasons behind the record low achievements of the 112th and 113th congress. 114th is looking better but basically because the bar is very low. Why do you think that the last 5 years have been the epitome of gridlock in Washington? I would phrase @appoo 's assertion differently: House GOP members seem to be against most proposals that are somehow linked to Obama directly and they seem to spend a lot of time trying to reverse whatever legislation or executive orders that he has signed. And they also seem to spend a lot time trying to prove debunked theories and incidents related with Hillary. We can theorize why they do it; some of us see racism, partisanship, radicalism and stupidity. But hey, we might be wrong.
Bad thing we missed it. Seems that it was the most deep thought mature debate of them all... http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/30/politics/republican-town-hall-takeaways/ In his pocket, he carried print-outs of Fields' initial description. She'd said Lewandowski "grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance." He mocked Fields' description, saying Lewandowski had really just brushed past her and that she didn't come anywhere close to stumbling to the ground. "She says, 'Ohh, look at my arm,'" Trump said. "She's not a baby," he added. ------------------------------------------ Trump also refused to back down from a fight when Cooper asked him about the fight with Cruz that involves both of their wives. "I didn't start it," Trump said. Cooper shot back: "With all due respect, that's the argument of a 5-year-old." "No it's not," Trump responded. "Exactly that thinking is the problem of this country. I didn't start this." -------------------------------------------------