Once again the Republicans are rapacious, self serving, duplicitous evil bastards, and the Democrats are feckless, paste-eating, card-carrying members of the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Even when the Republicans publish their plan for jacking the electoral process in a national newspaper the Democrats still fail to show up to the fight. Or even know where the fight is. Or who is winning.
- The political “smart set” in the media and the capital, however, has long resisted the idea that gerrymandering matters. They see it as part of the game. They look for a counterintuitive way to explain it, like the “Big Sort” theory that like-minded people choose to live around like-minded people. The Republicans knew better–they knew that drawing the lines meant making the rules. They knew that staring down a demographic barrel, they had to change the rules if they wanted to win. And the amount of energy and money the brightest minds in the party spent on this in 2010 and then again drawing the lines in 2011 should help put the “Big Sort” theory to bed. We have been sorted.
https://www.leafly.com/news/headlines/what-states-are-most-likely-to-legalize-in-2016 Weed is 2016's Defense of Marriage Act. IF you're going to come out to vote for marijuana, are you really gonna leave the rest of the slate blank?
In Oregon the Republican party is so inept and marginalized it's almost painful. The Dems here would benefit from a capable opposition that kept them honest. The governor's office was theirs for the taking and they put forth one of the least likeable candidates imaginable who was way to the right of the median voter. He was also a terrible campaigner. At one point they touted their new bill board campaign as the thing that would clinch the victory (I shit you not, a fucking bill board campaign). Check this hot mess of a bill board out. I won't bother you with what this cryptic steaming mess of wasted campaign money means, I pay attention and had no idea that it was even related to politics when I first saw it. Poly sci teachers couldn't even parse the damn thing out. The lady the ran against the semi vaunerable first term senator had recently been hit with a restraining order for creepily stalking her ex boyfriend and scaring his kids. She was a doctor who's big appeal was supposed to be all the health care wisdom she was going to bring to bear in an effort to appeal Obama care. Most of the health care stuff she put out turned out to have been plagerized. She had more bizarre problems that were fairly reminiscent of that other lady running for Senate that had campaign that she wasn't a witch. It's almost too bad. The Dems generally get to do whatever stupid shit suits their fancy without being held to the bounds of reality but I feel assured that no creepy womb control fetishist is going to impose their values on my daughter when she grows up. It's worth looking at the Congressional districts here, I'm on my phone or I'd find a decent pic. There is one massive Republican district that holds the eastern half of the state, than there are 4? Democratic districts along the coast. We were something like 30k shy of getting anothet district this census, probably would have been dem as well with the way redistricting works here.
Why don't you run? A guy from my fraternity ran and got on the ballot as the republican candidate for Washington so it can be done. You probably can't win because too many people just hit the R or D box and know nothing about the person running but if you have a cool name maybe you have a shot
I'll not attempt to answer for cgod, but I kinda will. The guy recently opened a business. For anyone that has not ever opened your own business... imagine you take all of your ancillary time, put it in a box, then you take that box and put it in a blender, then you take the contents of that blender and put it in an incinerator, then you take the ashes from that incinerator and put them on a rocket and then you launch that rocket in to deep space and then while in deep space that rocket is sucked in to a black hole. Now you have an understanding of the amount of free time new entrepreneurs have. Thanks for the opportunity to vent, guised as if I'm defending someone else :) I'd vote for cgod!
Fuck being a politician. They even have less time to fuck around than new business owners (and thenewgreen isn't wrong). No matter what they do their name will be drug through the mud. If you meet a politician or a prominent reporter look for the wariness in their eyes when you meet them, there is a trace of fear that they are about to get verbally assaulted by someone that hates their guts. No matter how hard they try to do the right thing they will end up necessarily fucking over some good people because that's how hard choices go. A great deal of their time is spent begging for money and that shit just isn't in my character. I love meeting them but I'd never want to be one.