in Wisconsin, GOP retakes state Senate and full control of state government:
Republicans recaptured the state Senate on Tuesday, once again giving them the complete control of state government that they used to enact sweeping changes in the last legislative session.
Yet this, Tammy Baldwin tops Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin and this:
Theory. Wisconsin voters had a reason to vote for Walker control, they didn’t see a reason to vote for Thompson-Romney control.
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There were also big shifts to GOP (or non-shifts to Dem) governors across the country. My take – people really want fiscal responsibility at the local level, but for some reason think a generous fed is better. Plus the social issues tend to turn of a lot of voters regardless of fiscal positions of candidates.
Ah, the ol’ “damned social-issues conservatives costing us elections!” excuse
Riiiight. That’s why people voted themselves Republican governors and statehouses, even though social issues are necessarily more prevalent in state-level elections.
Wrong assumption. Try again.
Actually, that’s exactly what I heard from my (too young to vote) kids. Ya might want to check out places where kids get their news, such as Reddit.
Tommy Thompson was weak and old. That did not help.
That’s my take too. Running retreads is a bad idea. There are a lot of people that won’t vote for them due to leftover bad feelings from when they were in office before. They tend to be old and short on energy. They also don’t have any ideas that seem new or exciting to anyone.
If WI had a middle-aged, energetic, Tea Party candidate (like, say, Ron Johnson), I think he’d have won.
Good grief CalMark, why do you take it so personally? I’m simply reporting from my observations – McCaskill was NOT well liked in MO. She won. Akin made the most incredibly inexplicable ‘mind over womb’ comment I have ever heard a politician make. If he simply said, “no opinion”, he might likely be the next Senator from MO.
What is your observation?????
That’s the Establishment catch-all: damn conservatives and their social issues, costing us elections.
Yes, I take it personally. Social issues have become a bludgeon against movement conservatives. I’m sick and tired of it.
“Conservative” means more than just responsible spending. It also encompasses social issues. It’s a whole package. But the Establishment types are theoretically “kind of” fiscally conservative and don’t like to deal with the “social” stuff. When that’s all the Dems talk about (abortion, birth control, etc.)
Well, CalMark the numbers aren’t very supportive of your hopes. If you look at surveys (polls) and some of the voting results, you’ll find that rigidly including the full slate of conservative social positions will put candidates in a minority. While there may be some districts that will fully support a Representative who fits that bill, it would be difficult for any other statewide politician to make it, whether as governor or to DC, adopting such strong positions. It’s not a comment or right or wrong, but on how the electorate at large may have changed.
Whether you or I like or not, progressives and liberals have set that agenda pretty solidly. Unless the GOP and each individual candidate can successfully reverse that trend, it will make nominating such candidates a futile effort.
Perhaps then the party needs to be able to support a new kind of conservative that can speak to those who are more socially moderate…
I am going to blame the results in Massachusetts on mental illness of more than 50% of the state…
As for Wisconsin, you may be right.
“Plus the social issues tend to turn of a lot of voters regardless of fiscal positions of candidates.”
That would explain why Obama, who talked non-stop about abortion and avoided the economy, lost yesterday. Oh, wait….
My theory is that American voters are brain dead zombies, and we are all marching unaware towards the zombie apocalypse on 12/21/12. All hail the mayans! /sarc off
I can only blame the MSM.
They know enough locally the MSM couldn’t bullsh*t them.
But is that true? Many of the voters who put Dems into Senate positions still voted for Romney. And as the Prof states, WI went further red locally while putting some very left liberals into DC. Go figure….
obastard and his cronies don’t care what the states do. They intend to, and already are, controlling the states pretty tightly. They will do more of it now. They are about to put the boot down on the states. And who do we have on our team who can actually lift a finger to help? John Boehner.
This year has proven that communists perfected the “election night results” rigging. Putin got roughly 30% of the vote, in real numbers as reported by locals, but “won” the election. Chavez “found” the required votes on the night of the election. Now we see state after state prove numerically something that cannot happen. Not only WI, but take a look at NV. GOP winners for Senate and House seats and yet somehow, miraculously, same voters then decided they want a D for president. You want that bridge in what color?
Nothing short of massive rigging of the results by the SEIU, who man the voting machines in most states. Last night was not an election, it was “vote counting” and we all know what Stalin said about that.
Expect same “formula” to be used in future elections. GOP not only “lost” last night, they showed the liberals that they won’t put up a fight nor ask simple questions to explain these rigged numbers. GOP has to dissolve, it is done.
Allen West seems to be putting up a fight. He wants a recount. Good for him.
I like him. We need many more like him. He’s one of the few Real Men in the GOP.
Even if he loses his recount, he’ll have stuck it to them and shown that he can’t just be run off. What’s he got to lose? I hope the GOP Establishment doesn’t blackmail him into stopping.
After all, everyone knows that only Dems are allowed to demand recounts. Look at all the “brand damage” George W. Bush did! /sarc off/
I couldn’t sleep last night, and I kept thinking that the Dems must have perfected their cheating to a fine art. Although the Chicago thugs are awfully good at it, O might have gotten pointers from Chavez and Putin.
The rigging was by the lamestream media’s pied pipering and the Sheeple following right up the shute.
How does this happen…
On-target question, IMHO. I asked something similar in the previous thread:
Theory. Wisconsin voters had a reason to vote for Walker control, they didn’t see a reason to vote for Thompson-Romney control.
Well, sure, but what were the reasons? Without them, the statement is innocuously general. casualobserver has taken a reasonable first cut, but I don’t know how it fares under a case-by-case assessment.
I think it’s simple. House races are cheap and easy recounts. The ‘rats didn’t want that. They would have had to have rigged way too many of them to get the House back. Enter Plan B. Let the ‘pubs keep the House. Boehner is easy to bulldoze anyway and they’ll get a lot of what they want from him. They will use the next two years that the ‘pubs have the House to demonize them and roll them. Then, after two years of hammering by obastard, his minoons and the media, they’ll get the House back and obastard will be back to controlling two branches of government such that he has unfettered carte blanche to do everything he wants to do to finish this country off once and for all during his last two years.
Oh, crikey.
Not only Allen West … Mia Love lost, too?
One word: FRAUD.
Mia Love’s district went big-time for Romney, but she lost. (Huh?)
Allen West was leading by 2,000 until some (guess her party) voting supervisor did a “recount” of early votes…and suddenly, West was trailing by 2,400.
I have no theory to explain why the Wisconsin electorate voted the way it did. It seems irrational to me.
I have TONS of questions about last night that I’m sure smart people will be writing about over the next week or two. For example:
Why did Romney get millions fewer votes than McCain?
What happened to the Republican enthusiasm everybody was talking about?
In a population that’s increased by about 10 million since 2008, why did 14 million fewer people vote?
If it’s true Republican identification was a record high and Independents were breaking sharply for Romney, why did he lose almost all the battleground states – some by a large margin?
Apparently, a lot of people weren’t all that fired up about voting for a Wall St. insider who was also the creator of Robomneycare. Just a guess…
Both those assertions reveal an amazing ignorance.
OK Rags, since you think I’m ignorant, then please enlighten me. How do you explain the fact that Romney got 4 million fewer votes than McCain did in 2008? How do you explain the fact that in several states, Romney either lost or squeaked by while state and local offices went overwhelmingly to Republicans? I sit humbly at your feet and wait to be educated.
You do see you just changed the subject, right?
I think there is a simpler explanation. Voters in Wisconsin (and elsewhere) know their local Republicans are not ‘Bible Belt’ social conservatives out to take their lady parts away or crazy racists. National Republicans, not so much, and plenty of people who will vote for the local Republican they know, voted against Romney on the basis of the war on women and racism attacks.
I think that unless the social conservatives realize they cost more votes than they provide, the current Republican coalition is dead.
That’s what David Frum has been saying about the Tea Party. I used to dismiss his arguments and I still don’t buy them, but maybe there’s a baby in the bathwater.
A theory totally based in ignorance and your own bias.
Paul Ryan is a staunch Catholic. His district is majority Deemocrat.
I (or you after you do some cursory research) could name lots more examples.
You completely miss my point. People in Wisconsin know Ryan, know he’s a staunch Catholic, and also know he’s not dangerous to their exercise of rights he disagrees with. They’re not afraid of him. It’s when you move to the national stage, and people who don’t know Ryan or any other particular candidate, that they turn off.
Besides, Ryan’s main emphasis has been the budget, not social issues. You want an all social con party, great. Have it. Nationally, however, you’ll never score a victory again.
Nonsense. PLUS…!
“I think that unless the social conservatives realize they cost more votes than they provide, the current Republican coalition is dead.”
That is a completely irrational statement.
First, what do you expect SocCons to do…just SFTU, lay back, and think of England…?!?!
IF you pour out the SocCons, WTF is left of the “current Republican coalition”? I mean…coalition-ally speaking?
Thanks, Cato. That’s what I thought you meant.
I think that unless the social conservatives realize they cost more votes than they provide, the current Republican coalition is dead.
Here, however, I think you overgeneralize, as Rags has hinted with his characteristically nuanced understatement. 😉
IMHO the great majority of social conservatives are sensible, patriotic people who do a lot of good for the conservative cause. IMO an extremist minority behaves counterproductively, and the Left stereotypes all of us by their conduct. I don’t know much about the socon leadership, but I’ll hazard a guess that it contains people who play the same games with the socon agenda that RINOs play with the GOP.
It’s a complex situation which I’ve described very superficially, but I don’t think it’s impossible to resolve.
Perhaps I overgeneralize. I think it’s true that many social conservatives understand that it’s wrong to try to use the law to impose their views, however strongly held. By that definition, I’m personally socially conservative, though classical liberal enough to believe it’s not my business to legislate morality. Moral behavior only works when it’s socially enforced by people making free choices, not when it’s enforced by the state.
However, we have a substantial number of social conservative absolutists – and the Ultramontane Catholics like Santorum – who really do want to enforce a particular moral code with the weight of the law. Now, I can live with them because I’m pretty sure they’ll never succeed and I’ll take their ‘good’ votes on fiscal issues, but a whole lot of people who would otherwise be at least open to fiscal conservative arguments let themselves be scared to death by these absolutists. Maybe it’s an unfair smear, but it has worked for 20 years.
“…though classical liberal enough to believe it’s not my business to legislate morality.”
C’MON…!!!! EVERY law…without exception…is the imposition of a moral position.
Cripes!
Ah, the ol’ “damned social-issues conservatives costing us elections!” excuse
Riiiight. That’s why people voted themselves Republican governors and statehouses, even though social issues are necessarily more prevalent in state-level elections.
Wrong assumption. Try again.
Anyone have a good suggestion for a wine to wash down all the crow I’m eating today?
No wine suggestions. But I generally avoid the need to eat crow by limiting my political comments to when I’m under the cover of internet anonymity. It works!
I’m not a drinker, so I have been taking alternate bites of humble pie with my crow.
Still tastes yucky though, and I think I’ll be quite sick for a while.
The numbers are amazing for sure. I’m tempted to start digging into them at district level, but then what?
Good man, elbogz. I salute you for grasping the nettle.
I’m no athlete, but I gather that the losing coach in a championship game sometimes addresses his team as follows. Remember this. Remember exactly how it feels. Don’t look away; watch them celebrate. Never forget it, so when you get another chance, you won’t accept this outcome again.
There was far more at stake than a championship. We should have won this election.
Theory. There were a whole lot of voters who voted for the presidential election but couldn’t tell you if their lives depended on it who their other elected officials are. Either they didn’t vote in these elections or they did what they do on bubble tests in school: random fill-in.
I think the problem is that Republicans are incapable of learning anything. Everyone rationalizes losses through the prism of the belief system that they already hold. One never encounters anything resembling wisdom or real introspection on days like this.
2 rich guys who don’t represent their values and will say and do anything to get elected? That’s what I’m guessing
It makes perfect sense if you assume cheating occurred in the presidential election, but that the other races simply were not important enough to take the extra effort.
Can I prove it? No, but someone should study the software in electronic voting machines and try to determine whether they were hacked or altered so that, for example, every 5th vote for Romney would register as a vote for Obama.
It might not have even had to have been cheating. In my state (NC), voting straight party ticket does NOT tally a vote for the presidential candidate – the vote for president has to be cast separately. So I’m wondering how many Republicans hit the “Straight Republican” button and then forgot to press the touch-screen for Romney.
“Theory. Wisconsin voters had a reason to vote for Walker control, they didn’t see a reason to vote for Thompson-Romney control.”
Ron Paul supporters are claiming to be as much as 10% of the Repub primary electorate and are saying this is the key fact. So far, I am not persuaded.
My theory: people today have been indoctrinated, their whole lives for the most part.
The media, from early childhood on, has been inundating them with socialist/Marxist/progressive propaganda; compounded by school textbooks, co-opting and redefining language and terms to confuse and/or make a “taboo” acceptable, liberal teachers support and condone liberal social values – pushed even at the youngest students. Then, those who might have survived intact are hit hard by the professors and colleges. Few survive that intact. (Professors – I ask you, am I right?! Teachers – I ask you, am I right?! Media people, past and present – I ask you, am I right?!)
Parents have also been indoctrinated and brainwashed, as well, IMHO. Parents forgo most of their parental influence and responsibilities in multiple ways, for a variety of reasons. Adults don’t sacrifice like they did in the past – think of those who went without and worked to provide a better future during the Great Depression. Ultimately, as Rush said today, “Santa Claus is hard to beat.” And parents are Santa 24/7 to most “children.” (This includes even the 30+ crowd, in many cases!)
Now, young people don’t think Marxism is bad – it’s cool. Che is cool. Parents and people who work are “stupid” or beneath contempt. They want their toys – NOW! And YOU need to buy them ALL NOW! And parents want to have it al, and give it all, without any responsibility and consequence (in MANY cases….not all, of course).
How to undo it all? How to stop the media, the entertainment industry, the schools from this propaganda/agitprop indoctrination? That is the issue, IMHO………
(a good book to read on this topic: Primetime Propaganda, by Ben Shapiro (of Breitbart fame))
I buy the SEIU hacking probability. It’s what got Dingy Hairy (Pederast) Reid elected in 2010.
IT IS PAST TIME TO “PROGRESS” TO PAPER BALLOTS!!!!
That’ll never happen now.
WHERE IS THE HACKERS WHO PUBLISHED THE E MAILS FROM THE CLIMATE RESEARCH UNIT OF UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA?
We need them to shine a spotlight on the voting machines of WI, OH, FL, PA.
Where are… I edited and failed to change the verb…
Thompson was thrust upon conservatives by the Republican party. Over 60% of primary voters did not vote for Thompson. Thompson went out of his way to shun true grassroots Tea Parties throughout the state. Thompson has a long history in Wisconsin. He saddled this state with Agenda 21 inspired legislation and is widely known to be in love with Amtrak to mention just two reasons why so many people couldn’t stomach voting for the man. I believe the same people who would not vote for Thompson are the same people who wouldn’t vote for Romney. I voted for both men while holding my nose but understand why, even with everything at stake in this election, many conservatives did not. They’ve been pleading with the Republican party to give them someone worth voting for. The Republican party has failed to do that and we see the result today.
If a Scott Walker type candidate had been on the ballot, I’ve no doubt that person would be representing us instead of Baldwin.
In broad-brush terms, ol’ Tommy sounds a LOT like Mitt. Especially the part about, “went out of his way to shun true grassroots Tea Parties.”
They despise us, but expect our votes as of right. (One-way street; see Mourdock d. Lugar, Indiana.)
What is WRONG with these guys? Conservatives are the base, as they very well know. They can’t win without us. Yet these RINO dinosaurs seem to make it a perverted point of honor to win elections by pointedly snubbing their base.
Sadly, they don’t appear to be able to win with the Tea Party either…
Our party better be able to reach out and attract young people and minorities or we will slowly die.
The fear that a Republican president would make it law (via SCOTUS appointments) that life begins at conception (abortion hence illegal), was real. I know it even influenced (not religious) conservative women. It was over-hyped in Democrat ads, but there was a reason for the dramatic reaction to Akin, (even though his ignorant statements were beyond the pale).
If the hard core evangelicals would even compromise to maybe three weeks, where there is still no brain or blood, it would help a lot. But they seem to want to prove how (self) righteous they are, by contaminating any group they join with their “life begins at conception” religious law.
The Tea Party was started by Santelli, over smaller government. Then here comes the religious right to co-opt a vibrant movement, and muck it up with the “Huckabee Syndrome”. Beck and others seem to insist on co-opting a piece of the TP action, merging it with religion.
I don’t know if that was a reason in this WI case exactly, but I wish the more religious would keep religion out of the Tea Party. A religious zealot at one meeting complained “why do we always have to have this fight?” (over right to life) Because YOU insist on inserting a draconian religious belief into the small government movement. They insist everyone swallow their “poison pill”.
A “poison pill” makes it hard to take over a company … in this case, it makes the grass roots movement undesirable in open election, but influences the primary. Forcing theology into a conservative cause gives the left this barn door to drive through. Akin survived on the district level, but not the state or national level.
at least that’s my gripe … conservative does not equal religious.
Perfect…thumbs up for me Rhino. Some women think we’re the rape party. It’s crude but that’s their impression.
What is your obsession about abortion and disdain for religious people?
Some of us believe that abortion is WRONG, OK? We believe it’s a human life. There’s something diabolical about discussing the time period in which it’s OK to murder a baby. Or, if you prefer, destroy a developing human life.
You’re pro choice? Fine. If it’s that overwhelmingly important to you, become a Democrat and vote with them.
Otherwise, accept that movement conservatives are “the whole deal”: fiscal AND social, the latter of which means “pro life.”
If you can’t accept that, and our primacy in the conservative movement, get lost. Seriously. Some things can’t I’d rather lose on an important moral principle than compromise. How come conservatives are always the ones to compromise? Liberals never do, and they always seem to win nowadays when it really matters.
Mark, you’re getting mad at the wrong person. This is what is going on out there. Our party needs to widen the tent. That’s what this election should be telling us. Obama cobbled together an odd coalition of voters to forge a win. We need to be able to do that.
I have no problem with your position but it appears the value voters stayed home. If we can’t cut and paste a winning coalition then we will always get surprised and outflanked.
Funny, isn’t it? Actually, no it isn’t funny at all.
The big tent always means, “STFU, Social Conservatives. We want abortion/gay marriage/[insert other fave perversion here] and YOU are standing in the way of a glorious political coalition. It’s ALL YOUR FAULT we’re losing these elections.”
You know what? I happen to hold my moral beliefs dear. Somehow, it’s OK for you to have your moral beliefs, because they’re progressive and enlightened and all that. I, on the other hand, must join you or be considered a problem. Actually, that’s a pretty left-wing attitude.
Here’s a message to all you “social progressive/fiscal conservative” types: you’re not conservative. You’re a limited-government moderate. If social conservatives bother you that much, get out and join the Dems. If it’s THAT important to you to dismantle the core values entire movement to follow the social fads of the day, you don’t belong there.
If this means you: Bye. Don’t let the door hit you.
sorry I’m late getting back .. not sure anyone still reading this
I’m measuring by my Facebook friends. … mostly real friends but very diverse background, none really political junkies. I spent 11 years full time in “religion”, running fellowships, teaching the Bible, studying texts, etc. That was a few decades back. Have had time to experience/recognize a lot of hypocrisy and zealotry.
At some point the “fetus” becomes a child, some believe that is conception. FINE. But that is a religious belief. We should be instead deciding FIRST, will our country go communist/fascist, or move back toward freedom.
Should a statement about life beginning when the sperm penetrates the egg wall, (and taking a morning after pill should hence be grounds for a murder conviction), be a poison pill required to be swallowed by any Republican?
That’s the stain on the blue dress our candidates are being forced to wear, by fanatics that want to force their religion on everyone. If that is murder, that “aborter” will have to be judged by God, OR we can surrender our country and freedom as a show of how devoted we are to principle without compromise. Chile I think, is the only country left with such draconian law on abortion. Yet some “right to lifers” think it is a fine requirement for those wanting to win a majority in the USA.
Despite that being right or wrong, it is a poison pill, and I thought suicide was wrong. (sorry for the sarcasm, trying to be clear)
Dare I say “AMEN”? Our local tea party fell apart over the issue of religion. The faction that “won” demanded bible verses on all our publications, prayer at every meeting and as a result, half the members just walked away.
I believe one has started down a dead-end philosophical path if one thinks the concept of individual rights applies only to Christians.
I much prefer Ayn Rand’s inclusive interpretation of the “Endowed by their Creator” clause in the Declaration of Independence. To paraphrase, “Whether you believe that man was created by God or by nature, he was endowed with unalienable rights.”
That does not explain why womeni can ‘t. Get on with the times & get some birth control. kids I can understand.
What is so difficult ..W hy is Angelina a wonderwoman for having multiple babies but other
Celeb babies mubents sent to human waste disposal s.
Ipad!
“but other non celeb babies must be sent to human waste disposal?
Yu can quietly accept abortion but ….
Really you can’t love babies & abortion.
I pointed out Thompson’s aversion to the Tea Parties because he expected the extraordinary circumstances of this election to override the memory that fiscal conservatives have of his big-government, big-spending ways of governing. Regardless of how anyone feels about the divides in the Tea Parties, he needed their support to win as well as the support of fiscal conservatives who are not members of any Tea Party group. He is not a beloved memory for many Wisconsinites. He could not afford to turn away anyone but he overtly did and I believe the results reflect that.
You’re right. And it explains both 2010 and now 2012. 🙁
No one would have ever thought that Romney is going to get less votes than McCain. Obama was expected to lose millions of his votes from 2008 and he lost 9-10 millions of them indeed but no one anticipated Romney getting less votes than McCain… Therefore the D+7 polling averages was very suspect because we anticipated a huge loss from Obama 2008 voters but we did not anticipate any loss from the McCain voters… The D+7 polls averaging sample came more like a FLUKE than anything else…
I am as mystified as anyone. Perhaps it’s social policy that made the difference, as I have no clue what Walker’s positions on social policy even are. Again, from my conversations with various bammy voters, pro-life-ness is fatal to a politician’s chances. And yet i recall polls showing majorities think abortion is immoral — it’s just that majorities want it kept legal. So that’s my theory: there are two Republican-would-be voter groups that are committed to mutual exclusion. I used to think that rep voters understood that the POTUS couldn’t do very much about abortion, but it seems the pro-choice crowd has hardened. OTOH, it could also be that Wisconsin is insane, that something’s in their water, milk, cheese — it sure has seemed that way since 2010. wtf wisconsin!
FYI, one of the rep-leaning voters who complained bitterly about Romney’s abortion position, and who believes abortion is immoral, is my wife. What can i say? she’s a low-information voter, which pisses me off, but c’est la vie. Point is, this is what we’re up against! Take it as you will. Call me a social liberal, sneer even, but you’ll be missing the point.
My point above is that many many people are not coherent on abortion.
Personally I quite approve of abortions for people I don’t like.
I knew a lady that had had 9 & she was an absolute B**tch. HEHE.
Then again I quite admire people who crusade for all the non born.
Existential life issues wil never go away (hopefully ).
But logic has it if your wife is for abortion what are the chances she will be there to care for you when you are old or terminal?
I could go on …
heh, well, she’s not for abortion, she’s for not banning it — a subtle difference to her even if none at all for a hard cor pro-lofer. Me? i want Roe and subsequent cases overturned, but i don’t want the federal govt banning abortion, i want it a state matter.
Also, i’ve been pondering economics-based approaches to making abortion rare- that which billy boy promised but did nothing about. That’s another aspect of ’92 as a watershed year.
The only way to out smart them is to put a state charge on every foetus & associated tissue that needs to be incinerated.
At least $ 1,000 plus fees for shock & trauma experienced by staff transporting it & feeding it into the chute.
If the state requires a burial for still borns eg 17 weeks -then require a burial for aborted foetuses of 17 weeks.
In the end it is the women who will not have those future children & grandchildren bedside when they are dying themselves. These days of “” hang on in there “”medicine it can be a long time being lonely & regretful.
The rest of us can look forward to being reunited with all our former pets whilst the kids look sad.
🙂
I like the fee idea. 🙂
Obama won not because of social issues, really.
He won because he had some highly-sophisticated model to target small, highly-specific groups for GOTV. He also held rallies at universities and put kids on the bus for early voting (otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have voted). The former is ingenious and admirable; the latter is unscrupulous.
Romney had dinosaur GOP consultants; Obama had sophisticated modern methods. However, Obama’s was based on what amounts to racial profiling and highly selective fear-mongering.
i wish you were right, but the numbers and anecdotes tell me you’re wrong. And as we’re not going to resolve the social policy schisms anytime soon, we’ll be stuck with hard left dems for the forseeable future.
You know what pal?
Movement Conservatives — social and fiscal — run the show. That’s how it is. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a movement.
Don’t like it? Form an allied fiscal conservative movement and parallel us. Don’t demand we give up our beliefs so you can have your warm fuzzies about your social agenda. They’re core moral beliefs. Don’t like it? Don’t associate with us.
Not good enough? Get lost and become a Democrat, because if left-wing social issues are THAT overridingly important to you, you really belong, with the abortion/birth control/gay “marriage”/etc. crowd in the Dems. Maybe you could moderate them.
Bottom line: come aboard and welcome, but don’t tell “full” conservatives how to run the movement; otherwise, leave and don’t let the door hit you.
I think it’s more technical. In Milwaukee area state senate races, it doesn’t matter if the dem wins 55-45 or 80-20 they only get one seat, but those votes will impact the senate and presidential races. So, district layout can make a big difference in keeping the state house.
Also, in 2010 (a non-presidential election) only 200k votes for the democrat governor candidate showed up in Milwaukee county vs 320k in this presidential election. If Scott Walker had run Tuesday he would have lost.
Tommy is long in the tooth and people didn’t miss him after 16 years as the gov, but he got pretty much the same % as Romney.
Our state is moving the right direction just not fast enough. 🙁
Initially, I was baffled by the results. Then I started checking. Nearly 3 million people voted in Wisconsin on Tuesday. That’s about 600,000 more than voted in the recall election in June, and about 900,000 more than what voted in 2010 election that elevated Walker to governor to begin with.
What this means is that out of the extra voters who voted for President, many more of these voted for Democrats. My guess is that if you looked at turnout by county, you’ll see a disproportionate number of the incremental voters came from Milwaukee, Kenosha and Rock counties — all heavily left communities in Wisconsin.
There was rampant vote fraud across the nation. I SAW firsthand the enthusiasm for Romney in Loudoun County, VA, long known as ground zero in this election cycle. I and my family and friends walked many precincts, hitting every door multiple times. Romney was ahead, 53% in the early results, yet somehow he lost VA???? There had to be a lot of cheating in the swing states for Obama to win every single one by a slim margin. Democrats know that they needed the White House and Senate to pass treaties and appoint Supreme Court nominees, while the House wasn’t as important to their plans. I saw and experienced long lines at the polls, with poll watchers running out of sample Republican ballots, so it’s not credible that the vote count could actually be less this year than in ’08. You know the quote attributed to Stalin: it’s not important how votes, but who counts the votes. We can’t allow ourselves to believe the lie that the U.S. has suddenly made the TEA Party irrelevant, but must keep fighting. Let’s focus on the states and elect good people to office locally, who can minimize the damage Obama will wreak.
The Milwaukee Journal ran a story that basically confirmed my hunch. Massive upticks in participation rates in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Rock counties, plus that in Brown county essentially accounted for the swing votes.
That tends to follow racial grounds too. The first three contain most of the African-American communities in Wisconsin. They appear to have voted massively in favor of President Obama. For other state wides and local elections, they don’t show up. The Governor is elected in off presidential years. Most of the Democrats are heavily weighted in a few cities, with a large number of purplish counties. Those purplish counties tend to elect Republican assemblymen and senators. Hence, the demographics of the state and current voting patterns (based on who shows up at the poll) suggest that the Republicans may control the state, but will have a hard time going that way in a Presidential election. At least not until the African-American vote either (1) stays home, or (2) Republicans peel off a chunk of that vote.