Thoughts on the 2011 Election Results
Mostly it was encouraging. Ohio voters kidney-punched Governor John Kasich, trouncing his Koch-ordered union-crippling law in a statewide referendum. The 99 percenters have got some momentum now. Next stop — Wisconsin. And Michigan, Florida..
And you’ve gotta love John Kasich’s concession speech after his signature law got repealed:
“It's clear that the people have spoken. My view is when people speak in a campaign like this, in a referendum, you have to listen. I've heard their voices. I understand their decision. And frankly I respect what people have to say in an effort like this. As a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath and spend some time reflecting on what happened.”
Gee, ya think? How magnanimous of the pompous little prick.
Maine voters showed they can’t be purchased by a jillion-dollar anonymous bribe. Maine’s legislature and teajob governor passed a voter-restriction law — basically eliminating a decades-long tradition of allowing voters to register on Election Day. Voters put a referendum on the ballot to overturn the voter-restriction law. Just a few days before the election, an anonymous conservative donor contributed $250,000 to the rightwing campaign to keep the disenfranchise-the-voters law in place. Didn’t work. Once again, Maine residents can register to vote on Election Day.
Arizona voters have recalled state Senator Russell Pearce (R—Ku Klux Klan), the architect of Arizona’s infamous “he looks swarthy, let’s stop and frisk him” law.
And thank you Jesus, Mississippi voters trounced the state’s “personhood” amendment. This was an attempt to define life as beginning at fertilization. This would ban all abortions — no exceptions! — and some forms of contraception as well. Even though this abortional idea (pun intended) got squelched by the voters, the Salem Witch-hunters who are promoting it might keep putting this question on other state ballots. This could be the “gay marriage” of the 2012 election — a scheme for getting every snake-handling fetus-humping Biblewipe to crawl out from under their rock and into the voting booth.
On the downside, Mississippi voters did approve a law requiring all voters to present a government-issued I.D. in order to vote. (I thought conservatives didn’t trust them government bureaucrats.) And in Washington State, Costco has discovered that if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you CAN get a different result. (More on that in a later post.)
Labels: Costco election, John Kasich, Maine register election day, Mississippi voters, Ohio voters union law, personhood amendment, Russell Pearce
posted by Tom Harper @ 1:30 PM
21 Comments:
Don't be too happy, I was hearing last night the Ohio Unions had to spend plenty to overturn that law and you know Republicans, they'll be back again and they'll try to wear them down.
Erik
Wake me when we have a new system. I'll be sleepwalking through the tulips.
the country looses to collective bargaining because now it will not only be harder to compete but we will see massive layoffs and tax increases because there is no money to pay for it. And of course we know who will get blamed for it.
I find it amazing that Gerry Brown(D) Ca and Andrew Cuomo (D) NY are shielded from criticism for doing massive public sector cuts
I think 1183 passed because people here in Washington hated the ads so much and would do anything to avoid ever having to deal with the issue again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-DPA6VBe00
Yep, the same thing happened to Schwartzy, he supported 3 initiatives at the beginning of his stint and lost, became a RHINO and now people and businesses are leaving CA faster than ever and the state is going broke.
Erik: I'm not swilling the champagne yet. Basically the public doesn't like either political extreme, or when a party overplays its hand. And that's exactly what the GOP has been doing since January. They needed a comeuppance and they got one.
Randal: OK, I'll wake you up sometime around 3011.
J: I was against 1183 mostly because I hate to see 1,000 people lose their jobs. And the fact that Costco poured $22 million into this campaign -- they've got something in mind beyond just "getting the government out of the liquor business."
Jeannie: What does the "H" in RHINO stand for? Or are you saying Schwarzenegger has horns, hooves, inch-thick skin, and wallows in the mud all day?
Purists from both sides can yell all day about RINO and DINO, but that's what moderate/swing voters want, and they're the ones who decide elections.
OK, so he doesn't have horns. And yes, democracies will fail when the majority of people discover they can just vote themselves freebies and confiscate others' stuff.
It really was no surprise that liberal Democrat Ed Lee, who became acting mayor of San Francisco when incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom was elected lieutenant governor last year, easily won a full term Tuesday. The news is that Lee is spelling out the debt his city is wallowing in and proposing not-so-liberal solutions to cut spending and deal with the problem of city employees’ pensions. As State Republican Chairman Tom DeBeccaro put it, “While Oakland protests, [and gets in the news and on youtube,] San Francisco goes understated. Mayor Lee, using simple math, has plainly stated San Francisco’s budgetary and pension problems and gone about proposing solutions. Apparently, normally liberal San Francisco has gone with math over mass protest.”
This should probably be on the Dimocrats realizing that the Republicans are right page.
Were the founding fathers extreme?
Is the Constitution extreme?
"Democracies will fail when the majority of people discover they can just vote themselves freebies and confiscate others' stuff."
No government can last with the kind of lopsided wealth gap that the U.S. has. Democracy, police state, you name it -- when 1% has the other 99% in a stranglehold, there's going to be trouble.
For the most part, I loved the election results, especially the "personhood" vote in Mississippi and the Ohio results re. Kasich.
Now let's see how the "Recall Scott Walker" movement goes in Wisconsin. If the voters succeed in getting him out of office, I'd say the results in Ohio and Wisconsin will be a "bellwether".
The country loses if collective bargaining is not allowed. As the conservative will argue that gun registration is the first step on a slippery slope toward getting rid of gun ownership, I argue that getting rid of collective bargaining is the first step toward getting rid of unions altogether and ultimately getting rid of the middle class.
If more conservatives, particularly those who consider themselves middle-class, could understand how this works they wouldn't be so supportive of people like Herman Cain and those who fund him (the Kochs).
Kasich listening to the people — imagine that. I bet it doesn't last past the next time people make clear something that doesn't fit with his hard-right ideology and his political need to favor the rich and corporations.
My missus says she's seeing that $22.5 million Costco spent on buying passage of its ballot measure reflected in the prices on a lot of what Costco sells. Big surprise there.
Two things I'm sure of: 1, state liquor stores didn't get replaced because they were doing a bad job; and 2, Costco didn't spend all that money buying an election result out of a desire to right a wrong or better serve the public in some way.
Meanwhile, if a host of potential problems do materialize, guess who'll get to pay to deal with them. Hint: it won't be Costco.
Collective bargaining for public unions does get rid of the middle class-the ones who pay for it.
Unions should not receive more benefits than the ones who pay for it.
The liberals always lump people together when convenient. We are talking Public Unions,not Labor Unions
So, either I am misinformed or you are. The people are allowed to unionize but the taxpayers are not forced to pay for it.
Tom - There is no problem with the wealth gap.
How am I in a stranglehold?
Snave: I think you're exactly right. Getting rid of public employee unions is Step One. Step Two -- getting rid of all the rest of the unions, whose lowly blue-collar workers don't make enough money to contribute to political campaigns. What good are they?
SW: Kasich's speech had to be the most condescending "concession" speech I've ever heard.
I wouldn't doubt Costco is raising their prices to recoup their election purchase. Our membership expired awhile ago and we're not renewing it. The nearest Costco is next door to a Grocery Outlet, which also has excellent products at low prices.
Jeannie: Obviously we disagree on whether the wealth gap is a problem. The wealthiest 1% of the population has the entire government -- legislators and regulators -- in their pockets. It's a self-contained country club that has no connection with real people who have to pay bills and work for a living. And it's a vicious circle: the wealthier the 1% gets -- via purchasing preferential tax treatment and lax "regulations" from their congressional prostitutes -- the more political clout they have. And the more political clout they have, the more concentrated the nation's wealth becomes.
I think it's a problem; you don't.
I'm sure Jeannie and Lisa and many of the rest of the conservatives would love to get rid of the unions, whatever the variety (public or labor), even the ones they might be members of. People who are members of any kind of union who vote GOP are beyond my understanding, and I know a few who are like that.
A consequence of getting rid of all the unions might be that there could maybe be more jobs. The people who are not creating jobs now could afford to hire more people because everything would be run like WalMart; more people might be working, but they would mostly likely barely be able to subsist because they'd be working at minimum wage. And they wouldn't get any benefits from their employers.
Getting rid of unions or crippling them only works to the advantage of those who, sadly, are currently not creating jobs.
Who, at minimum wage, can afford health care?
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