“It’s a tough state, and you need good candidates. The Republicans have got to keep fighting.”
So said Karl Rove in explaining why the GOP wave stopped at California at a fundraiser with Dan Logue in Sutter on the weekend. (Rove also sold copies of his book).
The write-up — including Rove’s comments on Obama and the GOP — were in an article in the Marysville Appeal-Democrat. It is here.
On the GOP: “The Republican Party is on probation. (Republicans) have to do in office what they said they’d be doing on the campaign trail.”
On Obama: “Obama came in with goodwill. And instead he’s been very partisan, very negative.”
Exit Question: Who’s been more negative? President Obama or the tea party.
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Jeff,
If the question relates to the President the answer is obviously the Tea Party who had nothing good to say about him while he sees no problem with how he has governed even after the elections.
If the question relates to our nation I would argue it is President Obama who has struggled to find anything positive to say and wants everything to “change,” while the Tea Party folks have been calling us back to our exceptional potential.
John
Who has been more negative?
Definitely Obama, because he failed to lead and govern. His inexperience showed out of the box. He is no statesman and he fails to understand what happened in this election. He loves to blame others; but fails to be inclusive.
The Tea Party was just a reaction to his leadership failure.
Rove is correct…No more No’s on economic issues for certain. We have a participatory system. Accountability will be required. Rove is wrong about the wave though. It was most of the west…which, because we care deeply about maintaining its unique and breathtaking beauty, voted smart–not rich, for a much needed change. The GOP is responsible for many voters giving a very “green” light to Brown, et al. And providing a green “O”asis in a sea of spleen venting red. Kate Hancock
Who has been more negative? The party of NO, obviously. Instead of doing everything they could to help our country recover from the economic mess their Administration, Congress, and Supreme Court (yes, Republicans owned it all before the House went Democrat in ’06) created, they stuck their heads in the sand and concentrated on doing everything they could to cause the new Administration and Congress to fail. If the country has not made as much progress toward recovery as we should have, the blame rests on the shoulders of the Republican Party and their misguided and selfish policy the past 2 years.
Pat . . .
Many of us are fed us with those that don’t take responsibility.
It was the Democratic led California legislature that let salaries and pensions get out of control in California. It was and is unsustainable. Jerry Brown has a mess to clean up. Good luck.
And the Democrats are as much to blame for the housing mess as the Republicans. Again, the Fannie/Freddie mess has as much to do with Democratic encouragement as lack of GOP oversight. We can trace a lot of the mess back to the Clinton years that just continued under Bush and got even worse with the Democrats in control of Congress.
Selfish? I could easily point fingers at both parties. Why don’t you? If you are going to solve problems, stop blaming.
The party of no? How about saying no to this madness of over-expenditures and blaming the rich. Why do you want to tax a small business owner who is successful at 50 percent (state and federal) marginal rate instead of 45 percent. When is enough enough.
Can you show where the Republicans made a major effort to keep the prison guard unions in check, either on wages, pensions, or numbers of prisons?
I think Obama’s leadership was perceived differently by different brains, eyes, and ears.
In the midwest, where most communities are blanketed with single-source media, those brains, eye, and ears were conditioned to question Obama’s leadership the moment he took office. The poisoning of the health care debate was immediate.
On the coasts, where media are highly evolved, the blue brains, eyes, and ears took umbrage at the obvious propaganda from the industries who would be disrupted by health care reform, and reacted with anger by becoming more “blue.”
As Mike Murphy, Meg’s chief strategist in her campaign for California governor, said on Meet the Press yesterday, “California is blue and getting bluer.”
Go take a drive out into the midwest and listen to the radio or watch TV for a couple of days. You’ll see and hear what I mean.
Single source media? I would beg to disagree.
Those days are long gone. It does not matter where you are anymore. People in the Midwest have just as much access to Huffington Post as they do their local media. Except for a few local channels, they still have the same 200 TV channels. You have to be careful . . .your post starts coming across as arrogant (like we know better than those elsewhere in the country). We don’t . . .our values might be different, but certainly not our intelligence.
Obama promised eight percent unemployment. He did not deliver. He focused on healthcare when he should have been more worried about the economy.
Some of us rightfully believe that the constitution does not give Congress the right to force us to buy something. That is a dangerous slope you are going down. The debate was poisoned for good reasons. We could well see Obamacare thrown out by the courts soon.
I would suggest you go back and read this link:
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/11_04_10_state_ballot_measures_democrats_lose_all_but_two_republicans_win/
This was written by a Democrat!
Maybe California is not as blue as you think. It just might be the GOP has not figured out how to put up the right candidates. Again, the real test will be in 2012 after California gets redistricted by a commission instead of politicians. Will the GOP be able to respond?
So maybe the better question is — ARE BOTH PARTIES OUT OF TOUCH WITH VOTERS? I say yes.
Chris,
You are correct that I am describing a condition in the Midwest that was rampant a decade ago and before, but that is rapidly changing with new media. That being said, the rural areas of the Midwest continue to lack adequate broadband (we went from 3rd best to 17th in broadband, comparing all nations, during the Bush years) which is so necessary for new media access. This is the main reason ARRA has been so focused on broadband. In those media-poor rural areas, Clear Channel continues to carpet bomb the suffering citizens.
Fixing health care was supposed to help bring up the employment numbers because it has been a giant suckhole of cash for businesses for many decades–bringing down health care costs would theoretically give business the extra dollars to expand (and consumers the extra dollars to buy). Didn’t work out that way, and Obama should have shifted to focusing on a National Energy Policy once he realized that single payer was going nowhere. Obama’s fumbling that single strategic decision is why we are where we are today.
A National Energy Policy would have also helped to reduce business costs. I agree that helping private business grow the economy is Job 1, and everything else has to be put on the back burner.
Michael A.
A “commission” will evolve to just as bad as the legislature itself.
The only fair system I can conceive of is using the census data, and a group of students and faculty, from a different UC campus computer science department each election, to design a program that defines the lines of the districts, one year in advance of the election. The program is run 3 different ways, faculty final design, student final design, and compromise, including design elements of both. Faculty and students work together to get to a near final design.
The legislature then has 30 days to take one of the three, or it defaults to a coin toss.
While Jeff is right about Nevada County’s move toward the center, a look at the electoral map shows that most of the red wave broke at the Coast Range. (With the Tahoe region and big cities as islands.) That thin sliver of land is all that stands between the Dems and the Midwest version of reality.
It’s up to Governor Jerry and his band of Merry Legislators to reverse the trend. If California’s economy doesn’t show improvement in the next two years, the red tide may still wash over the Golden State. One factor may be the threats by conservatives to leave us for foreign shores, but how that would help the Dems is unclear. Would more liberal businesses move here to fill the void, even if it’s cheaper to make a widget in Georgia?
What no one in the GOP, especially the Tea Party, is addressing is the fast changing demographics of the country. The hispanic business entrepreneur (one of the fastest growing) was not only ignored but insulted all across this country. Our children, the milennials, have very different views about these demographics and acculturation. That is why the west is representative of the future…not the south, or midwest. If Texass doesn’t quit pounding their fists on the table and not helping all its people take care of their business they’re gonna be a very lonely, pale island unto themselves.
Kate . . .
Those “hispanic business entrepreneurs” tend to vote Republican. Their values are better matched.
The new senator from Florida, Hispanic and Republican
The new Congresswoman from the state of Washington’s ninth district, Hispanic and Republican
The new governor of New Mexico, Hispanic, Republican and female.
Be careful of the broad brush you try to paint.
From the Washington Post:
The Democrats’ Plight: Worse than it seems
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/11/the_democrats_plight_worse_tha.html
My point, things are always more complicated that it seems.
And in Washington state, voters said overwhelmingly no to a state income tax that only taxed those with incomes above $250,000. A vote like that in a so-called progressive state should be listened to by Obama . . . instead he keeps on wanting to raise the taxes on high income earners. Isn’t 35 percent enough, already???
He just doesn’t listen.
Chris:
Citing the marginal rate would be appropriate if that was what the wealthy actually were paying. But as Warren Buffet keeps pointing out, he is actually paying a lower rate overall tax rate than is his secretary. The marginal rate may be approaching 35 or 50% in a loopholeless world. But that is not where we actually live.
I would also point out that some of the wealthiest and most productive countries in the world in terms of gnp/capita have actual tax rates in this range.
Tony
At the risk of bursting the happy face bubble of civility …
I have to ask why anyone pays attention to what “Bush’s Brain” has to say, particularly now that we all understand in what nether region Bush’s brain actually resided?
Rove aside, the question why the red wave broke up on the coasts is a good one, and Kate’s reference to demographics and the significant growing power of the Hispanic vote is right on.
If our empire doesn’t crumble further, and actually recovers after some years of recession, then these happy blue demographic trends will continue and deepen.
If, on the other hand, we sink into a decade or more of Japan-style stagnation, with no end in sight, then all bets are off. Then the red wave could even swamp the coasts, God help us.
In which case (“Then the red wave could even swamp the coasts, God help us.”) the red wave may come externally, not internally. Are the Repubbys willing to sacrifice the country to “save” it? Their no taxes on the rich would seem to indicate this. BTW, if no tax increases on the rich will improve the number of jobs, then, using that logic, no taxes at all for those making over $250,000 year should result in total employment, and the extra employees can take up the slack….hardie…har…har…
Chris, Rubio had a very large Cuban constituency, and any tea party pledges are going overboard quickly with him in the V.P. Race, trust me. What I was actually referring to was Pete Wilson helping Queen Meg, ticket spitting in Nevada between Sandoval and Reid by 20% of voters in Nevada,signaling great demographic insult by Angle and the coup de gras: Arizona…the land of crazy and insulting and by the way, how IS ole sheriff Joe these days? Still pretty in pink I trust…Kate Hancock
Chris, I replied to the question, as did you. As for blame, if we are to know where we want to go and how to get there, we must realistically look at where we have been, and how we got there, too. Being a centrist Democrat, I am not that far from moderate Republicans in many of my views and values, but I see the Republican Party as having fallen too far under the control of its hard Right faction with Bush/Cheney and their pet policy maker and counselor, Rove, which means to me, corporate America, particularly the military industrial industry and financial Wall Street. After it hit the fan during the last months of Bush, /Cheney, necessitating the 800 billion dollar bailout, the GOP seemed take a good look and realize where its right wing had taken it, and moderates regained control, though this did not bring about any policy change for most which would mean cooperating with the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress. The hard Right morphed into the Tea Party, and is battling to regain control of the GOP. Now I am not saying that corporate control is only to be found with conservatives, or that corporations and the financial industry should not have a voice in the affairs of the U S, it is all a matter of balance, and that is why we have a 2 party political system, and maybe should have more parties, but certainly all of the varied interests in our country should be represented. I am not, as a Democrat, unhappy with the results of the 2010 election as it could mean a better political balance if there is an honest attempt to work together on the part of both major parties for a solution to the country’s economic problems. I will be unhappy should the majority Republican House work only to obstruct any progress which might come about through the prorams of the Obama Administration.