The issue is and has been for a while that the GOP exists in a post-policy landscape. It's not a political party, it's the political wing of a entertainment/fundraising/retail complex.

There's a reason rara has dodged the question about how the Democrats have moved left since 1992, and it's not that he's struggling to think of one. It's that he has no idea what miajag is talking about. Policies? What's that?

You don't need to explain why the DemonRATS are a socialistic existential threat of Liberty and Freedom and Family, that's the PREMISE.

Colbert's truthiness sketch was like 7 years ago, but it's absolutely the case. Rara doesn't want to have to keep up with actual gun control proposals and ****, it's WAY EASIER to cast yourself as the tireless defender of THE US CONSTITUTION(which was divinely inspired doncha know) and call it a day. So it feels like Obama is a terrifying radical, and that's really as far as the analysis needs to go.

http://www.businessinsider.com/house...#ixzz2hq3HVcmM

You people think rara gives a **** about actual policies? He just wants to be told he's good and right and that he's standing against the great masses of darkness and evil. The difference in tax policies between Obama and McCain were THREE PERCENT ON A SINGLE BRACKET. Fighting for a rich dude's percentage doesn't make you feel righteous, though, so instead it's defending the ONE TRUE IDEA of America from the atheist Muslim socialist menace.

Who cares who was gay in 1857? Your funny bro.

I just said that we already had one, you said I made it up. I show you links then you say who cares because it happened a long time ago..

Never said you made it up.

Said "lol gay prez's"

I'm sure more prez's than we know were sexually different from the norm. Point is nobody who's opinion matters gives a flying ****.

As usual, Rara completely missed the point. Yea there might have been a gay prez in the past. But he wasn't an athiest married to another man and have adopted children when he ran for president.

Posner says he wrongly decided voter suppression case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us...-id.html?_r=1&

This feels like the judicial equivalent of shooting someone in the face while playing with a shotgun you didn't realize was loaded, then saying, "My bad!"

I mean, I guess the admission that he screwed up is a little bit helpful in the current discourse over voter ID laws, but the damage is already done and is going to be very difficult to reverse.

If Democrats don't run against every single House Republican next year with some variation on the slogan, "this is the party that brought you the shutdown," lol Dems. It's fun and all to point and laugh, but rara has a point when he says wait until the next election to see who gets the last laugh. If Dems can't take the House next year, people are dumb and the system is dumber.

Funny part is I think this whole thing will scare the Dems into actually doing a better job at getting more voters to the polls. The TP kinda took the Dems by surprise in 2010. No way the Dems aren't more prepared this time around.

R's are still big favorites to take the House next year since they didnt nuke the economy through default and have a structural advantage through the last round of redistricting.

Senate hopes...not so much high.

Remember this bull**** is going to happen probably 2-3 more times before the midterms, so there will be plenty more opportunities for the Republicans to leave no doubt as to their insanity and childishness.

Noted liberal Lindsey Graham pretty much guarantees he's going to get primaried out next year:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4102213.html

meh, see polling data i posted somewhere in one of these threads. Ds currently favorite due to moderate republicans getting their asses kicked in swing districts.

It is absolutely incredible what has happened in the past three years. Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are now seen as moderate and reasonable.

I actually dont think that will happen.

Even most the true believers who think Boehner is a RINO and that if the moderates just hadnt folded that a groundswell of support to beat back the ACA would have forced it into the dustbin of history understand that they lost and can figure out that they will lose in the same way next go round.

As horrible as Congress is, 75%+ of members have absolutely bid for default and the polling on shutting down the government is pretty clear cut. With extraordinary measures, the next real deadline isnt going to be until June or so of next year. Bluffing at the debt ceiling is futile, and the far right will likely convince themselves that they'll win the midterm elections and have a stronger debt ceiling hand to play after the mideterms.

There's no real way to even repeat the defund the ACA gambit in a few months. The next time will be closer to elections, so just feeding red meat to the base is more dangerous, whatever they do will be fresher in voters memories.

I dont think we see another blowup like this until after '14. I actually think we're basically done governing until the '14 elections at this point barring crisis, pretty much nothing other than temporary extensions of things are passing (no immigration reform, certainly no gun control, almost certainly no budget or grand bargain type stuff).

Feel free to bump this and call me out for being naive if Im wrong, but this was probably the worst that we'll see.

Nate Silver wrote an article last week about how the polling data today probably isnt going to matter 12 months from now and I tend to agree with him.

Id gladly lay 55/45 and take the Republicans winning the House in '14.

My prediction is the Dems winning the national House vote, and picking up a few seats, but GOP retains control. Dems hold the Senate. Nothing much happens until 2016.

Jay Bookman for AJC:

Amazing. The beat goes on.

Right, that would be the same rational EV maximizers who learned the lesson from 2012 that Romney was a fake and a real conservative would have won. They'll comprehend their own toxicity to a majority of the voters, just as soon as it turns the 12th of Never.

Incumbents are really hard to overturn. Presidents party doesn't make gains in off years very often iirc. It'd be a pretty epic win to take back the house.

From a mailing list I'm on with that buddy of mine who's turning straight frother in front of my eyes (really disheartening):

Also this most conservative guy on there posted this fun gem: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...35231053555194
To which my buddy replied:
FFS

Jacksonian is about right.

Andrew Jackson was one of the most popular presidents in American history, and one of the worst.

His greatest legacies as president:
Waging war on banks, plunging the country into the worst recession ever (at the time).
Ushering in an era of machine politics (read, political favors)
Waging war on Native Americans, not coincidentally enriching his land (which he owned on the Indian frontier) in the process.

And conversely, now that the House is maybe gonna shut up let the law roll out fully -- as the public ovewhelmingly supported in the polls, in preference to this recent stunt -- once the country doesn't fall apart, and a few perfectly healthy people pay a bit more, but a lot of previously uninsurable people don't have to treat losing their job as a death sentence -- then there will be no doubt this is a Democratic success. That won't stop them trying to claim credit for this, of course, as they've done with Social Security and Medicare.

Does killing off the GOP and sprouting something in its place count as forcing major changes to the traditional D-R balance?

From Ruy Teixeira today: Decline in White Voter Support Spells Disaster for GOP. (A tad speculative, but not really, given the ****show going on right now. Even losing a good part of the 1/4 moderates is going to leave them absolutely screwed.)