Why Is the Republican Field So Extreme? (Read 2137 times)

I've voted in every local and national election  since I was able to vote

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I could not wait to register to vote once I turned 18 and have since also voted in every election.

Lateral shift: All mail voting. My county was the last hold out and still offered in person voting. It took a bill pushed through the state legislature to shut down this option and force everyone in county (and now state) to vote by mail.

I don't really buy into trying to compare stats between two such vastly different states outside of the proper context that may explain many of the described differences

Neither do I, which is why it makes no sense for Romney to let Perry trumpet his "job growth" record and for him to turn defensive about how Massachusetts has "lagged behind" in job growth.  Tougher to grow jobs when you already have one of the lowest unemployment rates and highest per capita incomes in the country.

Lateral shift: All mail voting. My county was the last hold out and still offered in person voting. It took a bill pushed through the state legislature to shut down this option and force everyone in county (and now state) to vote by mail.

This makes me a little sad.  Queuing up with your neighbors at the polling place is a kind of civic statement or ritual, even.

I see your point.  However, I also remember the headache of trying to drag a screaming infant and cranky 2-yr-old through the process with me.

 ...just try dragging a dead guy in there!  Sheesh! 

Our kids got dragged in there when they weren't cranky.  Civics lesson, you know.  The dead guys came in through the back door.

This makes me a little sad.  Queuing up with your neighbors at the polling place is a kind of civic statement or ritual, even.

Yeah- me too. I miss going up to the local fire station and seeing neighbors, local volunteers-we're in a  pretty small rural precinct.

 

Meanwhile Massachusetts' unemployment rate (7.4%) continues to be more than a full point lower than Texas' (8.5%), the median household income is higher, percent of adults who have graduated high school and have advanced degrees is higher, divorce rates are much lower, crime rates are much lower, murders per 100,000 people are about half of Texas', roads are safer, population is healthier, etc. etc.

 

And in health care it's not close.  Perry likes to mock "Romneycare" as the model for "Obamacare" but his state has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the US (27%) while Massachusetts hast he lowest (3%.)  And while it's true it did not stop the spiraling costs, since Romney passed the MA healthcare law, healthcare costs in MA have grown slower than they have in many other states, including Texas.

 

 

Massachusetts ahead of the curve again. I was living in Boston during the 1972 presidential election when McGovern's only win against Nixon was Massachusetts-great times. Within 2+ years Nixon resigned in disgrace.

My sister is a 99% protestor of various things.  I told her to please leave the cops alone.  I added that the protestors should read "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" by Vonnegut, quoting large sections of the book on their websites if they wish, and then go home.  Most everything they are trying to say was said in that book almost 50 years ago.  It's not like things have changed greatly.  Here is a sample:

Noah and a few like him perceived that the continent was indeed finite, and that venal office holders, legislators in particular could be persuaded to toss up great hunks of it for grabs, and to toss them in such a way as have them land where Noah and his kind were standing.

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest and industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked for a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American Dream went belly up. turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited , filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.

E Pluribus Unum is surely an ironic motto to inscribe on the currency of this Utopia gone bust, for every grotesquely rich American represents property, privileges, and pleasure that have been denied the many.An even more interactive motto, in light of the history made by the Noah Rosewaters, might be: Grab much too much, or you’ll get nothing at all.

It's not as short as "Jump you Fuckers".  So it doesn't fit on a sign.  But it's rather well written angst against the capitalistic machine.