Joe Conason: From Wisconsin to Florida, Strong Winds of Political Remorse

[babylonsister]

From Wisconsin to Florida, Strong Winds of Political Remorse

Posted on May 27, 2011

By Joe Conason


Still spinning in the vortex of the May 24 tornado in New York’s 26th Congressional District, Republican leaders insist that Democrat Kathy Hochul’s upset victory on their party’s turf was meaningless. They say that Republican nominee Jane Corwin lost because of her own weak campaign, or the presence of a big-spending “tea party” candidate on a third ballot line, or just about anything except the Republican scheme to slash Medicare—which became the dominant topic of debate during the special election’s final weeks.

Yet there are signals not only from upstate New York but around the nation that the Republicans face surging discontent, as voters learn what they intend when they attain power. With a majority in the House of Representatives, they have devised a budget plan that would help nobody except the wealthiest taxpayers, while devastating the nation’s health insurance programs, physical infrastructure and environment.

With most of the nation’s statehouses under Republican control, they have inflicted harsh cutbacks in education, health care and public safety, while assailing every public employee, from teachers to firefighters and cops.

Evidently, the people do not approve of these assaults on the standard of living of the American middle class.

According to recent public opinion polls, in fact, the people feel a keen sense of “buyer’s remorse” for supporting the Republicans last November. From the Canadian border down to the Florida coast, swing-state voters are expressing deep regret over the results of the midterm elections.

more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/from_wisconsin_to_florida_strong_winds_of_political_remorse_20110527/

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. k&r

:kick:

[dionysus]

3. why are you kickin people with that donkey? are you angry? those sound like fightin' words to me...

PUT UP YER DUKES!11!
:hi:

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. dion, DAMMIT! Quit scaring the hell out of people.

Gee Thanks, I'll never be able to sleep again. :scared:

On another note, this is the first time I noticed that you could drive a Winnebago through Cornel's two front teeth. Daayyyuummm!

[CakeGrrl]

18. Clarence Williams III will get the movie role hands down.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3527183872/nm0929934

:rofl:

[Tarheel_Dem]

19. CakeGrrl, you nailed it! Hairdo & all!

:rofl:

[RedSpartan]

2. Remind them of this

every month, day and hour from now until November 2012 and beyond!

[AtomicKitten]

4. They're on the record voting to kill Medicare and protect oil subsidies.

That should give them something to cry over come election time.

[Dawson Leery]

6. Voters expressed similar regret in 1947.

[tblue37]

7. It is impossible to find the article. The link takes me to a

page for comments, and even googling Conason's name and the article gives the same URL, which leads to the same comment page.

Crap. Does Truthdig actually require one to register in order to read articles?

I won't register for an online article.

[babylonsister]

8. I just clicked on the link in the OP and the article came up;

I'm not registered at truthdig. I dunno; maybe try again?

[tblue37]

10. It's extremely frustrating, because I like Conason's writing and I really

want to read the article.

Even when I use Google or the Truthdig search function and click the link that is provided, I get the same nothing page!

[babylonsister]

12. Hey...

are you on FB? Here's the article...

https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/jconason

[tblue37]

13. Damn! I went to FB and logged in, and then went to JC's site. I clicked

the link to the article--and it took me to Truthdig, where the page said:

Comments
Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

Add Your Comment

[tblue37]

22. For the record--babylonsister saved me by PM-ing me the article so I could

read it. A public thank you to DUer babylonsister for coming to my aid.

[tblue37]

11. (I posted under the wrong post.) This is what I get when I click the link:

Comments
Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

Add Your Comment

[tblue37]

9. This is what is on thepage that comes up when I click the link:

Comments
Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

Add Your Comment

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. Try a different browser maybe? I can read it fine and I'm not registered on truthdig either.

[DCBob]

15. voters fell for the lies and misrepresentations..

now they/we are paying for it.

[Arkana]

16. Did I no say is MISTAKE to elect Republicans?

But no no no! Nobody listen to me! And now we have the REPUBLICANS!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. I'm glad "buyers remorse" is setting in

It's exasperating that people often either throw temper tantrums and vote for the other party simply out of anger and spite or simply don't take enough time to think through everything BEFORE they enter the voting booths. Although there is a good possibility that voters will be able to fix some of the mess they made last November this year, we're all going to still be stuck with some of the bad apples and psychotic stepdads until 2013 and beyond. :banghead:

[tblue37]

24. They are often very busy and listen to only the M$M, who always promote the

bad guys as the best option in any race. Many voters are nitwits, but many are just the victims of an all too effective and pervasive propaganda machine.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

27. The M$M is definitely a HUGE part of the problem

I'm not really that upset at individual voters but more at the fact-free light-on-substance coverage that the M$M provides most people that enables/facilitates the lack of any critical assessment of candidates during political campaigns. Of course, I think that the Republicans pulled a pretty slimy "bait-and-switch" job last November in general too. Had any of the candidates actually ran proposing the kind of extremist ideas and policies they are gleefully implementing now, it is quite possible that some, if not most of them, wouldn't have even been elected. They took voters' anger about the economy and lack of jobs and ran with it- promising jobs but ending up delivering primarily an extremist social agenda, as well as attacks on working class people. :puke:

[tblue37]

20. I think that what should worry us the most is the fct that Republicans are so

clearly not worried about alienating a large majority of the voters in this country. That strongly suggests that they know something we don't know--something very, very scary.

[paulk]

21. key paragraph

"If Democrats can at long last learn to explain how they differ from their right-wing adversaries—and if they stand fast in protecting the middle class—then the election of 2012 will be theirs to win."

it's getting harder all the time to argue that the Democrats are "protecting the middle class" now, much less will be in some imaginary future.

http://www.alternet.org/story/151108/why_the_democratic_party_has_abandoned_the_middle_class_in_favor_of_the_rich?akid=7025.200602.8VGiMM&rd=1&t=2

[Zenlitened]

25. Yep:

"If Democrats can at long last learn to explain how they differ from their right-wing adversaries—and if they stand fast in protecting the middle class—then the election of 2012 will be theirs to win."

:thumbup:

[ccharles000]

23. k/r

[Jennicut]

26. I am glad to see people having buyer's remorse but how does one not know that Repubs

only are there to serve the richest? Kind of obvious to us, isn't it?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. Obvious to people like us whom actually pay attention and don't get all of our news from the M$M

Unfortunately, the MS$M seems to have some kind of bizarre preference for Republican dominance in government and when the Republicans are in power, the M$M tends to support them more or less unquestioningly and are willing to overlook some (a lot) of their faults, at least until things get so bad that it's impossible to ignore (i.e. 2005-2008). However, to the right-wing and their M$M enablers, having the Democrats in charge in government is often treated as an abomination to the Constitution itself and one step closer to a left-wing dictatorship and the M$M does everything to highlight and advance the the "loyal opposition", which ultimately has the effect of obfuscating and distracting people from the Republicans' actual agenda. Once the Republicans have succeeded in getting back into power and get back to work on implementing an extremist radical agenda that harms people, people do react and get upset ("voters remorse) but by then, of course, it's too late and we all just have to suffer and hope things don't get too bad until they get turned out of office again, which is, in most cases two years at the minium. Rinse.wash.repeat.
:banghead: