H. Cain
2011-11-10 15:25:56 UTC
The Mississippi personhood vote-down killed my chance of becoming a
father of, possibly, 600 persons.
Ah, well. Let's await the "twinkle-in-the-eye" pre-person referendum.
Them hillbillies is always creative when it comes to God's Holy Will !
---------------------------------
"The right-wing’s shellacking"
Op-ED
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
November 9, 2011
THIS WEEK'S ELECTIONS around the country were brought to you by the
word “overreach,” specifically conservative overreach. Given an
opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead
pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry
voter rebellions.
The most important was in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly defeated
Gov. John Kasich’s (R) bill to strip public-employee unions of
essential bargaining rights. A year ago, who would have predicted that
standing up for the interests of government workers would galvanize
and mobilize voters on this scale? Anti- labor conservatives have
brought class politics back to life, a major threat to a GOP that has
long depended on the ballots of white working-class voters and offered
them nothing in return.
In Maine, voters exercised what that state calls a “people’s veto” to
undo a Republican-passed law that would have ended same-day voter
registration, which served Maine well for almost four decades.
What’s often lost is that the conservative Republicans elected in 2010
aren’t simply pushing right-wing policies. Where they can, they are
also using majorities won in a single election to manipulate future
elections — by making it harder for young and minority voters to cast
ballots, and by trying to break the political power of unions. The
votes in Maine and Ohio were a rebuke to this strategy.
In Mississippi, perhaps the most conservative state in the union,
voters beat back a referendum to declare a fertilized human egg a
person by a margin of roughly 3-to-2. Here was overreach by the right-
to-life movement, which tried to get voters to endorse a measure that
could have outlawed popular forms of birth control and in vitro
fertilization.
The war against overreach extended to the immigration issue, too.
Russell Pearce became, as the Arizona Republic noted, the first
sitting state Senate president in the nation as well as the first
Arizona legislator ever to lose a recall election. Pearce, who
spearheaded viciously anti-immigrant legislation, was defeated by
Jerry Lewis, a conservative with a mild demeanor. Lewis correctly saw
his as a victory for restoring “a civil tone to politics.” This was a
case of old-fashioned conservatism beating the Tea Party variety.
And in Iowa, Democrats held their state Senate majority by winning a
special election that had been engineered by Republican Gov. Terry
Branstad. Occupy Wall Street, notice that elections matter: A
Republican victory over Democrat Liz Mathis would have opened the way
for Branstad to push through a cut in corporate income taxes.
Mathis’s defeat could also have allowed conservatives to amend the
Iowa Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Mathis prevailed despite
robocalls from an obscure group instructing voters to ask Mathis which
gay sex acts she endorsed. (It should be said, as the Des Moines
Register reported, that better-known organizations opposed to gay
marriage denounced the calls.)
The one potential bright spot for Republicans was not as bright as it
was supposed to be. In Virginia, both sides had expected the GOP to
take over the state Senate. But at best, the Republicans will achieve
a 20-to-20 tie, giving Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) a decisive role. And
their chance of getting even to 20 hangs on the recount of an 86-vote
margin in one district.
The split means Virginia has not reverted to its earlier status as a
Republican bastion. It remains a purple state. Especially significant,
Democratic consultant Mo Elleithee observed, were the party’s
successes in the Washington suburbs and exurbs and in Hampton Roads,
precisely the areas where President Obama needs to do well if he is to
carry Virginia next year, as he did in 2008. Democrats also
comfortably held the New Jersey Legislature, suggesting the limits of
Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) much-touted political magic.
One of the only referendum results the GOP could cheer was a strong
vote in Ohio against the health-insurance mandate. While health-reform
supporters argued that the ballot question was misleading, the result
spoke to the truly terrible job Democrats have done in defending what
they enacted. They can’t let the health-care law remain a policy
stepchild.
That useful warning aside, Tuesday’s results underscored the power of
unions and populist politics, the danger to conservatives of social-
issue extremism and the fact that 2010 was no mandate for right-wing
policies. They also mean that if Republicans don’t back away from an
agenda that makes middle-class, middle-of-the-road Americans deeply
uncomfortable — and in some cases angry — they will lose the rather
more important fight of 2012.
[***@washpost.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-wings-shellacking/2011/11/09/gIQADgGq5M_story.html
father of, possibly, 600 persons.
Ah, well. Let's await the "twinkle-in-the-eye" pre-person referendum.
Them hillbillies is always creative when it comes to God's Holy Will !
---------------------------------
"The right-wing’s shellacking"
Op-ED
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
November 9, 2011
THIS WEEK'S ELECTIONS around the country were brought to you by the
word “overreach,” specifically conservative overreach. Given an
opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead
pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry
voter rebellions.
The most important was in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly defeated
Gov. John Kasich’s (R) bill to strip public-employee unions of
essential bargaining rights. A year ago, who would have predicted that
standing up for the interests of government workers would galvanize
and mobilize voters on this scale? Anti- labor conservatives have
brought class politics back to life, a major threat to a GOP that has
long depended on the ballots of white working-class voters and offered
them nothing in return.
In Maine, voters exercised what that state calls a “people’s veto” to
undo a Republican-passed law that would have ended same-day voter
registration, which served Maine well for almost four decades.
What’s often lost is that the conservative Republicans elected in 2010
aren’t simply pushing right-wing policies. Where they can, they are
also using majorities won in a single election to manipulate future
elections — by making it harder for young and minority voters to cast
ballots, and by trying to break the political power of unions. The
votes in Maine and Ohio were a rebuke to this strategy.
In Mississippi, perhaps the most conservative state in the union,
voters beat back a referendum to declare a fertilized human egg a
person by a margin of roughly 3-to-2. Here was overreach by the right-
to-life movement, which tried to get voters to endorse a measure that
could have outlawed popular forms of birth control and in vitro
fertilization.
The war against overreach extended to the immigration issue, too.
Russell Pearce became, as the Arizona Republic noted, the first
sitting state Senate president in the nation as well as the first
Arizona legislator ever to lose a recall election. Pearce, who
spearheaded viciously anti-immigrant legislation, was defeated by
Jerry Lewis, a conservative with a mild demeanor. Lewis correctly saw
his as a victory for restoring “a civil tone to politics.” This was a
case of old-fashioned conservatism beating the Tea Party variety.
And in Iowa, Democrats held their state Senate majority by winning a
special election that had been engineered by Republican Gov. Terry
Branstad. Occupy Wall Street, notice that elections matter: A
Republican victory over Democrat Liz Mathis would have opened the way
for Branstad to push through a cut in corporate income taxes.
Mathis’s defeat could also have allowed conservatives to amend the
Iowa Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Mathis prevailed despite
robocalls from an obscure group instructing voters to ask Mathis which
gay sex acts she endorsed. (It should be said, as the Des Moines
Register reported, that better-known organizations opposed to gay
marriage denounced the calls.)
The one potential bright spot for Republicans was not as bright as it
was supposed to be. In Virginia, both sides had expected the GOP to
take over the state Senate. But at best, the Republicans will achieve
a 20-to-20 tie, giving Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) a decisive role. And
their chance of getting even to 20 hangs on the recount of an 86-vote
margin in one district.
The split means Virginia has not reverted to its earlier status as a
Republican bastion. It remains a purple state. Especially significant,
Democratic consultant Mo Elleithee observed, were the party’s
successes in the Washington suburbs and exurbs and in Hampton Roads,
precisely the areas where President Obama needs to do well if he is to
carry Virginia next year, as he did in 2008. Democrats also
comfortably held the New Jersey Legislature, suggesting the limits of
Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) much-touted political magic.
One of the only referendum results the GOP could cheer was a strong
vote in Ohio against the health-insurance mandate. While health-reform
supporters argued that the ballot question was misleading, the result
spoke to the truly terrible job Democrats have done in defending what
they enacted. They can’t let the health-care law remain a policy
stepchild.
That useful warning aside, Tuesday’s results underscored the power of
unions and populist politics, the danger to conservatives of social-
issue extremism and the fact that 2010 was no mandate for right-wing
policies. They also mean that if Republicans don’t back away from an
agenda that makes middle-class, middle-of-the-road Americans deeply
uncomfortable — and in some cases angry — they will lose the rather
more important fight of 2012.
[***@washpost.com]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-wings-shellacking/2011/11/09/gIQADgGq5M_story.html