Smooth early voting
This is a big thank-you to the folks who ran the early voting site at Harper Hill Commons Shopping Center (Peacehaven and Country Club roads). My husband and I voted at Harper Hill on Oct. 30. From start to finish, it took 25 minutes.
With early voting, an election official has to help with the machine, putting in your number and at what precinct you are registered. It took longer than it usually would. The election officials were very informed.
This is the first time I have early voted. We will do it again. Hurray for the Forsyth County Board of Elections!
ELLEN RAMM
Winston-Salem
Threats
The greatest threat to imperialistic governments is the intellectual, the artist, the activist, the visionaries who oppose their tyrannical rulers. The greatest threat to a society is an invented god whose voice is that of man. The greatest threat to man is other men.
A knife on the table is a tool. A knife held in anger is a weapon. Any holy book can lead to paths of spiritual enlightenment. Yet the same book in the wrong hands becomes a tool of suppression and control. And those who do so mock the words of their gods.
God is love. Period. My vote is my voice. Can you hear me screaming?
MIKE CHARLES
Winston-Salem
Showing vets appreciation
I hope, this Veterans Day and in the future, many private sector CEOs and senior managers show appreciation for the veterans who work in their midst.
I had the good fortune to work 32 years for a great corporation alongside wonderful fellow employees who developed, manufactured and marketed essential consumer products. Every Nov. 11 was a regular workday if it fell on a weekday. Not once in my three decades there did a CEO, president or human-resources executive recognize veterans on that special day. The national holiday for veterans passed as if it did not exist.
While our top management singled out cultural, ethnic, gender-specific and religious events, veterans and Veterans Day were never recognized.
It would have been uplifting to veterans if our CEO had sent a memo, email or voice message to all employees to express thanks for the service some rendered by serving in uniform. Veterans’ names could have been listed in correspondence so everyone would know who could be thanked personally, but it never happened.
Fortunately, every day, many individuals make a special effort to express their sincere words to veterans. Veterans deserve our appreciation and recognition of their service and sacrifice. This Veterans Day I encourage all organizations to take appropriate action to express thankfulness to those who answered the call of our nation to stand in harm's way.
MIKE MABE
Pfafftown
Foxx is a champion
In the days before the election, there was a barrage of letters in support of Elisabeth Motsinger's candidacy for the 5th District congressional seat. I am sure Motsinger is as fine a person and friend as her supporters claimed. Those of us who didn't write letters in support of Rep. Virginia Foxx spoke in the voting booth and she won by a comfortable margin.
It may console Motsinger to attribute her loss to gerrymandering, as the Journal reported her saying (“Foxx beats Motsinger for 5th district,” Nov. 7), but I believe Foxx won because she is a champion of fiscal responsibility, something sorely needed in the economy we face today. That's why she got my vote and why I am pleased she will continue to represent this district.
PAULINE G. CHAPMAN
Winston-Salem
Another blunder
In 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected president the first time, I thought America had been sadly tricked. I was sure we would correct this mistake in 1996, and all we could do was blunder it again.
We proved again on Nov. 6 that we are no longer the country we were founded to be 200 years ago. We continue to slip as a Christian nation and this is a blow to our Constitution and to our children's future. I am pretty certain that God has removed his hand of blessing from our nation.
The slim majority of Americans have spoken again by voting for a president and administration that has embraced huge government spending, gay marriage, unprecedented and unsustainable debt for our children and grandchildren to repay and struggled to add God's name to their party's political platform.
Oh I forgot; this is all George Bush's fault. We just need to give the president four more years to further redistribute the wealth and practice his walking on water.
PERRY HUDSPETH
Winston-Salem
LTE #1 - From what I saw, Ms. Ramm is correct. Maybe we could send a team down to the Sunshine state to teach them how it's done.
ReplyDeleteLTE #2 - Hmmm…
LTE #3 - When I was a kid nearly every city had a Veteran's Day parade and big crowds turned out. Of course, that was when every city had thousands of ambulatory vets who had participated in winning wars.
LTE #4 - Foxx is just as sleazy as Akins, Mourdock, West & Company.
LTE #5 - Oh boy, we'll be seeing a whole lot more of this.
Gotta love the anti-Clinton TBs. The US had its best period of prosperity in my lifetime under Clinton.
Oh, and national exit polls taken on Tuesday show that 50% of Americans still firmly blame W. Bush for the situation that we find ourselves in today. In Florida, it was 53%.
The blame Bush excuse is way old. Obama has had four years to correct Bush's alleged economic crisis, and he has only made matters worse.
DeleteThe economic crisis that U.S. endured was brought on by soddy banking practices pushed by Barney Frank (D) and his banking committee buddies. Add in an economic crisis in Europe and the country's economy took a dump.
People fail to remember that for much of Bush's eight years, the economy did quite well. Much better than it's doing now.
So, people can foolishly believe liberal story tellers and its counterparts, the liberal media, or the truth. That's the bottom line.
Obama cried, and a good portion of America is crying over the recent election.
ReplyDeleteStock Market taking a dump after Obama's reelection. Talking about lack of confidence!
Hang on folks. It's going to get worse before it gets better after four years.
I still think he was reelected because people don't like to admit that they made a mistake by electing him in the first place.
To paraphrase Herman Cain: "If you don't like the election results, if your party doesn't have the White House or the Senate, don't blame the Democrats, Blame yourself."
Delete" . . . he was reelected because . . . they made a mistake by electing him in the first place."
ReplyDeletehuh???
. . . wait for it . . .
DeleteJust another example of the fantasy world that Karl Rove and the Republican Party are living in.
DeleteHere's how "The Economist" sees it:
"It (the election) was a telling moment of denial, much like the comforting myth that there is no such thing as climate change or, if there is, that humans are not involved. Ensconced in a parallel world of conservative news sources and conservative arguments, all manner of comforting alternative visions of reality surfaced during the 2012 election. Many, like Mr Akin’s outburst, involved avoiding having to think about unwelcome things (often basic science or economics). It became a nostrum among rank-and-file Republicans that mainstream opinion polls are biased and should be ignored, for instance, and that voter fraud is rampant and explains much of the Democrats’ inner-city support. Both conspiracies sounded a lot like ways of wishing the other side away.
Thoughtful Republicans are not oblivious to the dangers that they face. Optimists hope that new leaders will emerge to lead their movement rapidly towards greater realism, and greater cheeriness. If not, electoral defeats far more severe than those inflicted this time will surely impose such changes. Republicans may look back and wish the reckoning had started sooner."
How about quoting the entire sentence Rielle? It'll make more sense to 'most' people.
DeleteI'm not Tim Britton before you make that stupid allegation again.
Hee Hee...when liberals make a mistake, they love to do it over and over a-la reelecting Obama.
Of course you're not Tim Britton; you're Limp Dick.
DeleteCorrection: Useless Limp Dick.
DeleteHow much do you weigh Rielle? 250 or 300? No wonder Schatzman is afraid of you.
DeleteHee Hee...oh lordy lordy.
Let's be honest here, Tim. Why WERE you fired as a volunteer?
Delete. . . btw, Charlie Bean says hello.
DeleteSorry Rielle.....I'm not Tim. However, you can keep making a fool of yourself if you wish. You seem to enjoy it.
DeleteI have no idea who Charlie Bean is.
Yes you do. You also know Nancy Thomas.
DeleteI know Charlie Bean. In fact, I know three Charlie Beans. I used to know a fourth Charlie Bean, but he has been dead for some years now.
DeleteI also knew a Libby Bean. Cute little redhead. Haven't seen her for many years and have no idea whether she is dead or alive. I hope the latter.
Imagine that. I have known four Charlie Beans and one Libby Bean. But Useless Limp Dick does not know any Charlie Beans and probably never knew any cute redheaded Libby Beans either. Apparently the only Beans that he knows are Pinto and Kidney and Pork 'n'. Maybe Navy. Certainly not Black.
Poor thing.
Me thinks that Tim doth protests too much.
DeleteIndeed.
DeleteIf you accused me of being a child molester or Gloria Whisenhunt, I might respond once, saying that I am not. After that, if you continued to accuse me of being a child molester or Gloria Whisenhunt, I would simply ignore you.
But every time "Tim" comes up, Useless Limp Dick is compelled to deny that he is Tim. It must be very important for him not to be Tim, the most likely reason being that he is Tim. Perhaps he is afraid that someone will take umbrage at his disgusting personal attacks on people and drive out to Murray Road and take one of his stupid looking knives and shove it where the sun don't shine, although I think that he would actually enjoy that.
At least, I can understand why it is so important for him not to be Tim, because I have heard from people at FTCC and elsewhere that Tim is a jackass.
Of course, we already knew that, didn't we?
The only reason I respond that I'm not Tim is because I know how stupid and vindicative liberals can be. I don't want him to have to take any responsibility for my words.
DeleteLTE1..I too like early voting and always do it. Standing in short lines with so many ole buzzards I know is fun.
ReplyDeleteLTE2..Threats. Interesting way of putting things. Screaming won't help. A low voice speaking calmly will convince more people in the long run.
LTE3..I hope so too, but this country has always found a way to treat most vets a bit shabbily.
LTE4..No body is a champion of fiscal responsibility. Our annual deficits are evidence of that. What will be "cut" and what will be protected is the battle line. One is negotiated on camera and the other off camera. Let C-Span cameras record all of it and maybe the people will start to believe something their government says.
Re #1: I felt uncomfortable the first time I voted early...it seemed as if something was missing. But now I love it. It seems that every time I run into somebody I haven't seen in 20 years and we end up having lunch.
DeleteRe #3: Worse than shabby. I am not a joiner, but for over 30 years I have been working one-on-one trying to help my less fortunate Viet Nam comrades.
My latest project is a non-Viet Nam vet, a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant. His first duty station after basic and BITS was the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, where he woke up under a pile of rubble, stunned, terrified and lucky to be alive. He served two tours in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, then retired. But one colonel and one general kept calling him up and asking him to take on special missions for them. He cannot talk about those.
He is suffering from severe depression and PTSD and lord knows what else. The VA's solution was to give him a grocery bag full of drugs once a month. My friend Fam and I talked our doctor into taking him on as a pro bono, so he is now getting proper treatment and is improving. The VA and the Marine Corps just didn't give a damn.
Re #4: WW, you are a dreamer. CSPAN in Congressional offices? More likely that Donald Trump will say something intelligent.
OT...you are doing the right thing re your veteran friend. Good work and well done. I am afraid that as time goes on and budgets become tight, too many vets will slip through the cracks...as usual.
DeleteYes I'm a bit of a dreamer I guess. When I hear that a majority of Congress is about to reach a major deal, I figure a big time bohica is on the way.
Yes, bohica...another of those great terms coined by our ever suffering GIs.
Delete"The Economist" article is correct.
ReplyDeleteRe Clintons and prosperity. Willard left us a recession as he went out the door to go to Shanghai to collect his 30 pieces of silver. But, he and his wife certainly did prosper as a result of his 8-year regime, becoming multi-millionaires in the process.
Yes, I would think that almost anyone who was elected President would prosper. If they didn't, it would be their own fault. The pension is not so much, but books and speaking engagements should bring in quite a bit. A spokesperson for George W. Bush admitted the Texan had earned some $15 million in speaking fees since leaving the Oval Office in 2009. But it wasn't Bush, nor was it Bill Clinton, that first mastered the art of an ex-president taking home big bucks for private speeches. In 1989, Ronald Reagan was famously paid $2 million by Fujisankei Communications for his role in a nine-day Japanese tour organized to boost the company's public relations
DeleteI remember when you blamed Clinton for the 00-02 recession AND Great Recession, and gave GHWB credit for the late 90's internet boom. That was one of your better efforts.
DeleteBring it.........
DeleteWe brought it on Tuesday, where were you!!!
DeleteNever thought I'd say it Bob, but your 'ass' is cute.
DeleteHere's a delicious little piece from the GQ website:
ReplyDelete"At some point, early Wednesday morning, when Gov. Mitt Romney and family were tucked into bed, a quiet call went out on the radio channel used by his Secret Service agents: "Javelin, Jockey details, all posts, discontinue."
Of all the indignities involved in losing a presidential race, none is more stark than the sudden emptiness of your entourage. The Secret Service detail guarding Governor Romney since Feb 1. stood down quickly. He had ridden in a 15-car motorcade to the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston for his concession speech. He rode in a single-car motorcade back across the Charles River to Belmont. His son, Tagg, did the driving."
Another blunder. With the razor thin majorities now deciding elections, all voting groups must be convinced to vote for their "best interests" while at the same time, a campaign has to keep its base locked down. In this scenario, any little event-misspeak, video off hand remark can be used to sway this tiny block of uncommitted voters. Political campaigns like this are taking the place of big ideas and big campaigns with substance. We will stay locked in this retail "small ball" style politics for quite a while until math forces us out. This miserable condition status quo is an unsustainable : let’s-have-it-and-not-pay-for-it transfer state that both parties have promised to maintain. We are stuck with this condition,just as we would have been under President Romney. What now? As more detailed analysis from the election comes in, we will interpret and missinterpret rinse and repeat. All democracies begin a decline period and we are well into the transfer phase. Somewhere at some point we pull out by our own hand or math will do it for us.
ReplyDeleteYes, Reagan did collect $2MM for going to speak in Japan, a friend and ally. And there was a great media clamor about it. Willard goes off to visit our adversary (remember Wang Wei and our observation plane?) for several million, with the approval of the watchdog media.
ReplyDeleteI, too, like early voting. Confining it to a single weekday is archaic and limits participation. Those who try to limit it should be ashamed. Early voting may benefit candidates who aren't my preferences, but elections are supposed to represent the will of the electorate, even if the outcome is less than desirable from my standpoint.
ReplyDeleteNoting all sorts of reasons given for Romney defeat. My thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. He looked like country club member.
2. Ryan added nothing to ticket.
3. Ryan looked like tennis club member.
4. 47%
5. Abortion/rape comment in MO.
6. Abortion/rape comment in IN.
7. No new taxes message didn't sell.
8. I'm not Obama message didn't sell.
9. Diminishing R issues: crime not an issue,
and Communism no longer relevant.
10. White guys and geezers are insufficient demographics.
#10 is the biggie. The post analysis by the Fox News group that had predicted a Romney landslide showed that none of them realized that the demographics in the US has changed. The GOP can no longer just cater to white conservatives and ride that to the bank (sorry for the cliche). Both O'Reilly and Dick Morris seemed to be almost in shock that "this is no longer our (meaning white) country".
DeleteTennis club member? Did they not know that Ryan is a mighty bow hunter? His soup kitchen "photo op" was a failure. Maybe he should have done one of him slaying the fearsome northern Wisconsin blacktail.
DeleteAnd I'm not sure that the white geezer demographic even exists. In my white geezer group, about 85-90% voted blue. And the rest stopped sending their crazy e-mails about 11:15 Tuesday night...haven't heard from them since. Maybe they've already moved to Costa Rica.
Approximately 55% of white males have voted Republican since 1972.
DeleteI'd put their intelligence up against 55% of the browns.
Regarding demographics, I think the country finally reaped the benefits of the Hyde Amendment.
DeleteInsider dope from Huff Post:
ReplyDeleteThe scene at the Boston Intercontinental Hotel after NBC called Ohio for Obama:
Mitt was "shellshocked". Ryan was merely "shocked". Anny and Janna were crying.
A question: Is the Boston Intercontinental on another planet or something? Answer: Yes…the planet Rove.
Some more excuses so far:
Rich Noyes of Media Research Center:
The media (slanted reporting)
The media (biased fact-checkers)
Christopher Ruddy of Newsmax:
Hurricane Isaac washed away the first day of the GOP convention and "all of Romney's presidential aspirations"
Obama was mean and Romney was nice
General:
Hurricane Sandy
Chris Christie
Romney wasn't conservative enough
Latest from Karl Rove:
Democrats suppressed the vote. In case you missed that, I'll say it again. Democrats suppressed the vote. Again. Democrats suppressed the vote. I think that this is called "projection".
He also inadvertently blamed himself when he mentioned that the campaign failed to adequately defend Romney's business record, that after his two PACs spent $300 million trying to do just that.
Senator Ron Johnson R-Wisc)
Americans are basically ignorant.
Well, Ron, most of us already knew that. It is the burden borne by all political campaigns. Wisconsin voters must be particularly ignorant to have elected you.
"Mitt was "shellshocked". Ryan was merely "shocked."
DeleteThat's what happens when you start believing your own bullshit. In a way, Fox News has been good for the Democratic Party. It allows the right to stay in its own media bubble rather than confront uncomfortable truths and actually deal with reality.
Exactly...
Delete"When it became clear about midnight that President Barack Obama was safely on the way to re-election, a handful of cranky and inebriated Republican donors wandered about Romney's election night headquarters, angrily demanding that the giant television screens inside the ballroom be switched from CNN to Fox News, where Republican strategist Karl Rove was making frantic, face-saving pronouncements about how Ohio was not yet lost."
___CNN
"Heading into Election Day, the Romney campaign's final set of internal poll numbers showed their candidate with a 6-point lead in New Hampshire, a 3-point lead in Colorado, a 2-point lead in Iowa, a 3-point lead in Florida and near ties in Virginia and Pennsylvania."
___CNN
They never at any point had such leads in any of those states. All they had to do was look at the Real Clear Politics averages to see that. But FOX was telling them that the regular polls were slanted...which is, of course, just plain stupid. Polling companies make their living on their reputation for accuracy...so of course they are not going to put out phony polls. Is it possible that the best minds in the GOP cannot understand that? If so, they better start looking for some better minds.
And it didn't just benefit the Democrats. A couple of months ago our TT Party friends started agitating to make bets on the election. We tried to persuade them to take a look at RCP and Nate Silver, but they said "Fox says that's all Democrat bull."
I learned long ago that betting is not a good idea. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (sorry Word Watch), and they were insistent. So over the next few weeks, I will become several thousand bucks richer, laughing all the way. I've already told them that I'm donating my winnings to the Forsyth County Democrat Party.
BTW, the CNN article cited above is an excellent early analysis of all the things that went wrong. Read the whole article here:
Karl Rove's Waterloo
Good afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: I'm a big fan of early voting as well and became a huge fan of the new touch screen machines after using one this past Saturday. Kudos to the election board for the purchase.
LTE 2: Ummm...ok. Party on.
LTE 3: Other countries that celebrate their veterans or military victories have the day off and celebrate with parades. Veterans Day in the US is celebrated with a white sale at the local department store. I suppose July 4th has become the all encompassing day to celebrate all things Americana including veterans and victories, but can't we do better than a sale on sheets and towels?
LTE 4: The 5th district is almost 60% R and Ms. Chapman doesn't see that as having an impact on the result? Since the 5th was redrawn to favor R candidates, how many D's have won the 5th? Quick answer: none. No matter how you spin it, gerrymandering was the prime reason behind 86% of the House results. Btw..fiscal responsibility means being responsible on the revenue side as well as the expenditure side.
LTE 5: Cry me a river. The economy boomed during the Clinton years resulting in a record low UR and budget surpluses. That hardly qualifies as a "mistake" to me. Of course, this isn't the same country it was 200 years ago, nor are any of the other countries...and that's a good thing! 200 years ago, people owned other people as slaves. Women's only roles were to birth and raise children. Life was very hard and people died young from diseases that are easily cured today. The US was not, is not and never will be a "Christian nation". Christianity is the dominant religion, but the US is not a theocracy. Cut out the sour grapes and learn to deal with the fact that Obama will be the POTUS for the next 4 years. The country belongs to everyone, not just white, conservative Christians.
Gerrymandering.....? Are you complaining? I'll bet Mel Watt isn't.
DeleteConversely, it doesn't just belong to the hate mongering liberal bigots either.
DeleteQuestion for our esteemed panel:
ReplyDeleteThis was the first POTUS election after the SCOTUS Citizen's ruling. As expected, hundreds of millions were poured into PACs in order to affect the results. The majority of that money was spent on just 10 swing states. The results from the Rove /Koch /Adelson side were abysmal: 1 for 10.
After this debacle, what do you envision going forward will be the affect on future decisions by the uber-wealthy on whether to pour tens of millions into presidential campaigns? Does this mean the end of the so-called "super PACs"?
Arthur, I'll stand by my blaming. 00-02 recession began in March 2000, when Willard was in office. I do not remember attributing subsequent rebound to GHWB, but if you say I did, well and good. I'll ponder that bit of logic.
ReplyDeletePresidents are blamed or credited more than they deserve for the condition of the economy, but in Willard's case, the credit given him is disportionately high, and blame disportionately . . . well, nonexistent.
Dotnet, I suspect the money will still be spent, but allocated in different ways, perhaps oriented more toward voter turnout than advertising, which probably was something of a voter turn-off.
ReplyDelete3:54PM EST November 9. 2012 -
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON—CIA Director David Petraeus has resigned from his post citing an extramarital affair,.
In a letter to CIA personnel, Petraeus said he met with President Obama on Thursday and asked to resign because of personal reasons. Today, Obama accepted his resignation, Petraeus said.
"Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA," Petraeus wrote. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation."
__________
Didn't anybody tell him they were going ask those questions on the CIA polygraph? Who cares? Nobody passes that portion of the test.
Re white geezers, from above: I actually wasn't sure about that segment, either. The back-and-forth over Medicare, and who's taking money from it must have been confusing to that electorate. but if it is a segment, it must necessarily be diminishing.
ReplyDeleteIf the R party is to survive, it is going to have rethink immigration, and give up on social issues. An increasingly large part of the electorate does not agree with the R platform on abortion and gay marriage. If the R party does not survive, then elections will held during primary season, and perhap substantive ideas would come to the fore, rather than the vapid crap slinging that passes for campaigns now.
My, my, Stab, you're getting to be as much of a dreamer as WW.
DeleteSubstantive ideas??? Next you'll be babbling on about truth and honesty and decency. I'm not sure that the Republic would survive.
Nowadays, when a politician says something, the next thing that happens is that their spin doctor starts explaining that that was not what they really said.
In 1860, after Lincoln made his hugely important speech at Cooper Union, he went over to the print shop of Horace Greeley's New York Tribune and helped set the type to be sure that every word was correct.
OK, with Florida now being called for Obama, it's over.*
ReplyDeleteTime to get started on 2016. Here are the first numbers, according to PPP, who by the way, was the most accurate polling outfit in the 2012 election, calling all 10 of the swing states correctly:
REPUBLICAN
Chris Christie 21%
Marco Rubio 14%
Condoleezza Rice 13%
Jeb Bush 11%
Paul Ryan 10%
DEMOCRAT
Hillary Clinton 60%
Joe Biden 10%
The TT Party has sworn to take over the GOP by 2016…obviously hasn't happened yet.
Condoleezza has made it clear that she is NOT interested…she's very happy with the academic life.
Biden, who refuses to vote for himself, said Tuesday that he was not voting for himself for the last time.
* Except in Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties in Florida, where Allen West had a Karl Rove moment so has gone to court making all kinds of unsupported insane allegations. You'd figure him for a sore loser, wouldn't you. The judge in Palm Beach County has already thrown out his case. St. Lucie will follow.
Can't really blame him, I guess. If he isn't in Congress, what is he going to do. The Army certainly won't take him back, and Scott Sexton has a lock on the jackass job at the Journal. Oh, I know, Karl Rove's spot at Fox…yeah, he'd fit right in there.
When you apply at Fox, they give you a polygraph test. If you answer even one question truthfully, you're out.
Osteoporosis is not for women only.
ReplyDeleteTwelve million men have bones that are getting thinner and more brittle each day.
So how about a beer? The bone-saving secret in brewskis is silicon, a chemical that stimulates collagen production. What's collagen? A protein that makes your bones denser and your joints more flexible. Brews with the most hops and malted barley are the richest in silicon. (That would be stuff like Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and craft brews, especially India Pale Ales.)
___RealAge
RealAge doesn't give a dosage, but my thinking is if one beer is good, three is three times better.
So raise those glasses and give a toast: "To bone health!"
I'll bet the liberal reporters and writers over at the Journal will be whimpering like new born pups for the next couple of years. Why? Because the Republicans control the strings of power in Raleigh.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't hear diddly out of the Journal concerning 'ol Bev's pathetic leadership as governor of N.C. Watch how the Journal peps-up and speaks out about every little hang-nail the state has now.
You gotta love liberals. They think they're so smart and they're fooling people too. Hee...Hee....oh jeez.
Yes, Bucky. N.C. now looks like S.C. Art Pope has taken control of the state house :(
DeleteSomehow you've fallen for the liberal left's propaganda that northern and urban states are more 'progressive' than southern ones, hence they are better.
DeleteMany of those 'better' states are going bankrupted with their liberal ideas-both morally and financially. Just follow California as a good example and see what happens to its future.
Having lived in many states, and other countries as well, I say with a certain amount of authority that N.C. is one of the most livable places in existence. And its 'because' of its people's conservative baseline, not in spite of it.
Save Bev's punchline for someone that believes in her BS.
A bit early to handicap 2016, I guess, but I'd say barring any screw-ups, Christie would have the best chance of winning the general election, provided he could survive the R primaries, no easy feat, given his more sensible stance on social issues. Rubio adds needed diversity, but he may be too far out of sync with voters in some respect.
ReplyDeleteThe R's should take notice that unless the Dems run a pair of turkeys, a pair of R candidates who look like country club board members isn't going to work.
Rubio will be president one day. Mark my words.
DeleteChristie is too rough around the edges. He'll never make it.
Looks like George P. Bush will be making a run at politics. He seems to be sharp as a tack too.
The liberal media has successfully smeared his surname though. It'll be tough for him.
More likely Julian Castro. Rubio's family camr to this country prior to Fidel's take over of Cuba. They came for economic reasons not to escape communism as his political biography originally claimed. This little detail and act of deceit makes his story much less appealing. Obama even won the Cuban vote in Florida this time around.
DeleteYes, Julian Castro is an enormous force in Texas politics and has the potential to lead a transformation of the way things are done in the Lone Star state. One of my grumpy old former Republican white man friends down there has taken a shine to this rising star and touts him as a future governor and maybe more.
DeleteP. Bush also seems to have a lot of potential, but he also wears the albatross of his uncle, W. I was surprised that he chose Texas over Florida, where his uncle might have been less of an encumbrance. We shall see.
As to the Cuban-American vote, not surprising. Having spent a good bit of time on Calle Ocho over the last 35-40 years, I have seen dramatic change in the demographics of the area. In the '70s and '80s, the terrorist groups Alpha 66 and Omega 7 ruled Little Havana. Anyone straying from the anti-Castro orthodoxy was punished, some severely. And because the leaders blamed JFK for the failure of the foolish Bay of Pigs operation, they were hardcore Republicans.
But by the late '90s, two factors were working in Little Havana. One was the rise in percentage of people who had grown up under Castro before leaving and knew that he was not quite the demon that the US government made him out to be. And whereas many of the earlier refuges, aided by the anti-Castro stance of the US government, had found a fairly easy road to prosperity, the later immigrants had a much harder struggle to establish themselves. Most of them are not living in Coral Gables; much more likely to be stuck in Hialeah.
The other was that the rising third generation from the original refugee population had no memory of Cuba and the Bay of Pigs and had become pretty much assimilated into the wider culture. Their focus changed from being Cuban-American to simply being American.
As late as 2000, 80% of Cuban-Americans voted for W. Bush. By 2004, Bush got only 68%. I'm not sure what the numbers were, but Obama made great strides in the Cuban-American community in 2008, and became the first Democrat to win Florida's overall Latin vote, enough to tip Florida to Obama. A poll taken in 2010 showed that barely half of Cuban-Americans identified as affiliated with the Republican Party.
So with the specter of a Republican candidate in bed with the hardcore racist anti-immigrant loonies, it is not at all surprising that Cuban-American finally tipped to the Democrat Party.
Beer and bone health: I believe in a healthy regimen, too.
ReplyDeleteThis just in...shocking pic of Hurricane Sandy devastation:
ReplyDeleteThe Horror, the Horror