I noticed that although Kentucky usually votes Republican in Presidential elections, they have had mostly Democratic governors in recent history. Why is this? What other states have a split like this between two statewide-elected positions?
Note: This thread is NOT for bashing one side or the other. It's a fine line, please don't cross it.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F9%2F96%2FThe_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png&hash=36e23353278e90eb570404edd236155168bd54a6)
There are plenty of people like myself who vote the person, not the party. Parties tend to be more moderate on both sides at the local level. See Mitt Romney the governor vs. Mitt Romney for presidential candidate for a good example of how a politician can adjust his or her politics to suit the race and locale.
IMHO,
I get TV commerials from both KY, OH and WV, all of which have said "split politics". The major theme of the democrat ads seems to be how they disagree with every major premise of the national democrat party, but rather agree with the national Republican party. The major theme of the Republicans is that a democrat is a democrat.
This works. My recent governor's race was 50% democrat, 48% Republican, with 1% for the greenies and 1% for the Libertarians. IMHO, you can divide the democrat vote into those that know the democrat is lying and are happy about it, and those that actually think otherwise.
Gerrymandering certainly helps this phenomenon when it comes to state legislatures.
There's no such thing as a "Democrat Party."
No one's really answered the question yet, though. Gerrymandering would apply to local elections on up to state and Federal representatives, but those aren't elected on a statewide level.
Gerrymandering. Also, the timing of elections. (for example) Ohio holds their statewide elections the opposite even number years that the federal elections are held.
Quote from: Steve on November 26, 2012, 09:38:24 PM
Gerrymandering would apply to local elections on up to state and Federal representatives, but those aren't elected on a statewide level.
Good point (unless there's a state-level electoral college? Does this ever happen?). But it may still have a secondary effect, making voters more familiar with members of the dominant party in the state legislature.
Quote from: NE2 on November 26, 2012, 11:04:09 PM
Quote from: Steve on November 26, 2012, 09:38:24 PM
Gerrymandering would apply to local elections on up to state and Federal representatives, but those aren't elected on a statewide level.
Good point (unless there's a state-level electoral college? Does this ever happen?). But it may still have a secondary effect, making voters more familiar with members of the dominant party in the state legislature.
In NJ, redistricting has resulted in more Republican districts than Democratic, but our senators, governors, and Presidential electors are usually Democrats, as one would expect. These are all based on the popular vote. So I'm really wondering why the popular vote in Kentucky would go Democratic (hey SP Cook, use the proper names for ALL parties, k?) for one type of election and Republican for another.
A state could set itself up like the electoral college but none have . There was less splitting in this election
http://capitolfax.com/2012/11/26/illinois-new-super-majorities-one-party-control-arent-unusual-at-all-these-days/
I would add that even in super majority Illinois there are many spits within the democratic party and the minority republicans as well
Wyoming is the same way- their current governor is a Republican but most of their governors have been Democrats in recent history.
Montana also has a Democrat governor.
Virginia's gubernatorial election is held a year after the presidential election, and the party that won the presidential election there has lost the gubernatiorial election since before my lifetime.
2009: McDonnell (R)
2005: Kaine (D)
2001: M. Warner (D)
1997: Gilmore (R)
1993: Allen (R)
1989: Wilder (D)
1985: Baliles (D)
1981: Robb (D)
Quote from: Steve on November 26, 2012, 07:03:23 PM
I noticed that although Kentucky usually votes Republican in Presidential elections, they have had mostly Democratic governors in recent history. Why is this? What other states have a split like this between two statewide-elected positions?
Note: This thread is NOT for bashing one side or the other. It's a fine line, please don't cross it.
Arkansas has a Democratic Governor, but voted Republican for President. We also have a predominantly Republican State Legislature. Gov Beebe has lowered the grocery tax
twice, but Republicans keep pushing for tax increases.
I don't necessarily think there's anything odd about someone conservative voting for a Republican at the national level and for a Democrat at the state or local level if he believes in the principle that local government is better suited to provide constituent services because the local government has a better ability to assess constituent needs. Given that as a general matter the Democrats are seen as the party more interested in providing government services (which at the local county level might include things like schools, public libraries, parks, etc.; the exact nature would depend on how your state's government is set up and what they allow localities to do), I can certainly understand the idea of splitting your vote in that manner.
I tend to vote for the candidate and not the party. I think the only office for which I've never voted for a Democrat is for president, though that doesn't mean I've always voted for a Republican for president either. For just about everything else I can think of times I've voted Republican, times I've voted Democrat, and times I've voted third-party. Sometimes I decide partly in reaction to a candidate offering no platform of his own. For example, back in 1997 Jim Gilmore ran for governor on the platform of phasing out a portion of Virginia's hated personal property tax (generally called the "car tax"). People can agree or disagree as they wish on whether that was a good idea, but what I found notable was that his opponent–then—Lieutenant Governor Don Beyer, who was pretty popular on the whole–spent the campaign railing against Gilmore's "No Car Tax" slogan and never came up with a real platform of his own. I feel pretty strongly that a candidate needs to give me a reason to vote FOR him and that if he spends all his time railing against his opponent's ideas, or telling you why you shouldn't vote for his opponent, then it shows that he has no ideas of his own and can't come up with a reason why he deserves your vote.
BTW, a follow-up on Takumi's comment–Virginia law prohibits a governor from serving consecutive terms. A governor can pull a Grover Cleveland and be re-elected later, but that's extremely rare (only happened once in the 20th century–Mills Godwin served four years as a Democrat from 1966 to 1970, later switched parties and was elected again for the term from 1974 to 1978). Former governor and current US Senator Mark Warner has been suggested many times as someone who could win another term if he chose to run, but last week he said he won't run next year. Warner was governor from 2002 to 2006. Anyway, I suspect the lack of an incumbent in gubernatorial races might be one factor in why Virginia often swings the opposite way the year after a presidential election–simply because it's two new candidates every time and so it's hard to draw any connection.
For anyone who doubts that elections can matter in your day-to-day life, consider that if the Republicans hadn't taken control of Congress in 1994, the National Speed Limit would not have been repealed the following year. The Democrats were against it, but the Republicans got it through Congress as part of the highway funding bill and Bill Clinton signed it into law despite opposing the speed-limit repeal because he felt the highway funding was too important. Here in Virginia we wouldn't have gone back to 70-mph speed limits on rural highways had the Republican candidate not won the last gubernatorial election–he made that issue part of his platform (and his opponent, rural senator Creigh Deeds, didn't really address transportation at all).
Quote from: US71 on November 27, 2012, 08:41:42 AM
Quote from: Steve on November 26, 2012, 07:03:23 PM
I noticed that although Kentucky usually votes Republican in Presidential elections, they have had mostly Democratic governors in recent history. Why is this? What other states have a split like this between two statewide-elected positions?
Note: This thread is NOT for bashing one side or the other. It's a fine line, please don't cross it.
Arkansas has a Democratic Governor, but voted Republican for President. We also have a predominantly Republican State Legislature. Gov Beebe has lowered the grocery tax twice, but Republicans keep pushing for tax increases.
Arkansas' state house only flipped Republican with this month's election. The Democrats had done a good job juggling the districts to this point. Although in Arkansas it's hard to tell the two parties apart, most members of each are conservative.
http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/11/gops-takeover-of-arkansas-legislature-boosts-partys-control-in-the-south-updated.html
Minnesota is rather interesting politically, we have Democrats (technically the DFL) controlling all the major positions now, but that hasn't been the case for years. The Twin Cities has a lot more middle-class, Republican suburbanites than rust belt cities , and those and the conservative farmers tend to balance out in the DFL northern mining and urban areas.
It wasn't to long ago that we elected a third party pro-wrestler as a Gov, who wasn't noticably worse than any of the carreer politicians...
Quote from: 1995hoo on November 27, 2012, 09:14:49 AM
{long}
My personal political views tend to run more conservative at the national level and more liberal at the local level. I guess maybe I'm not alone in that.
It's also worth noting that many southern Democrats are indistinguishable from northern Republicans.
The structure of primary elections, and their knock-on effects on candidate recruitment, can have an effect on cross-ballot party splitting in a given state.
Many states, like Kansas, have closed primaries, whose turnouts are poor except among the committed party faithful because they offer the opportunity to choose candidates for only one party. What this translates to is de facto minority rule, especially when one party (in Kansas, the Republicans) dominates state politics so thoroughly that the primary election for that party determines which candidates prevail in the general election.
Take my state senate district (the 25th) as an example: in the August Republican primary, Michael O'Donnell prevailed over the incumbent Jean Schodorf by 2785 votes to 1949, while in the Democratic primary Tim Snow defeated Perry Schuckman by 957 votes to 874. In both cases the primary results ran counter to the editorial board endorsements of the Wichita Eagle, which tend to be highly influential among educated middle-class voters. O'Donnell has aligned himself with the conservative wing of the Republican party in Kansas, which is riding high at present--indeed it was in this primary election (not the general election earlier this month) that it vanquished the moderate wing, with which it has been in a civil war for years. The race between O'Donnell and Schodorf (one of the leading moderates) was very bitter, and sucked up more than 90% of the media attention, so there has been very little analysis of what happened on the Democratic side, but it has been suggested that Schuckman (a native Kansan who came back after several decades in the San Francisco Bay Area) got stealthed by Snow, who apparently has ties to the Occupy Wichita movement.
Because the Legislature's failure earlier this year to agree new districts resulted in Kansas getting them through federal court action, the boundaries do not reflect fine-grained political considerations. So the Kansas Senate 25th District is very diverse in socioeconomic terms--it includes LGBTs in Riverside, very conservative lower-middle-class "striver" types in southwest Wichita, and educated professionals, successful small-business owners, and public-sector workers in northwest Wichita who, as a group, go either lavender or lilac-pink in Presidential elections. This type of diversity can be a recipe for vote dilution since federal courts are obliged only to avoid "dilution of minority voting strength" in redistricting cases--they don't have to consider other socioeconomic characteristics, or other goals (like the one mooted in the Legislature) such as keeping Lawrence and Manhattan in the same Congressional district to form an "universities seat."
O'Donnell was very widely disliked and coverage in the runup to the general election focused on his failure to pay property taxes on a house he rents from his father's Baptist church. In Kansas a property is tax-exempt if it is occupied by a person discharging ecclesiastical duties, and O'Donnell claimed at various times that he qualified for this exemption since he did unpaid handyman work at the church. The county assessor's office does not agree and has sent him a bill for unpaid back taxes. His story, which shifts from time to time, fits in with a past history of manipulating residency in order to put himself into the correct district for a race he sees as winnable. His hypocrisy on the property tax issue is considered especially glaring since it is widely suspected that if and when Governor Brownback's tax cuts (which O'Donnell supports) lead the state into deep deficits, property taxes will have to be increased to make up the difference. Meanwhile, a few days before the election, it was revealed that Snow, who was already seen at best as a "diamond in the rough" since he is taking college classes while on unemployment, is also a recovering alcoholic with a string of unpaid debt judgments in connection with smoke shops he used to run in small-town east-central Kansas.
So, bottom line, in the general election O'Donnell won over Snow by a paper-thin margin--9117 votes to 8797, a 2% margin in an election where the Libertarian no-hoper got 7% of the vote, double the usual third-party percentage of 3%.
Kansas has a population of 2.871 million, so under the rule of one person one vote, each Kansas Senate district has a population of 71,700. For the 71,000-plus souls living in Senate District 25, O'Donnell was effectively chosen by a hyperminority of 4,734 people voting in the Republican primary, not by the 19,469 people who voted in the general election. If the voters' disgust with O'Donnell's tax evasion had risen to a level sufficient to let Snow in, he would have been chosen by an even smaller hyperminority of 1,831--as matters stand he benefited from a quite significant swing compared to registered party affiliations statewide.
What this means is that closed primaries have the ability to empower committed extremists. In the most likely counterfactual case, with an open-primary law allowing people to vote in the primaries of multiple parties regardless of their registered party affiliation, the Volvo Republicans in northwest Wichita would have been able to vote for Schuckman to keep out Snow, while Democrats (who in Kansas have a roughly 2:1 disadvantage in registrations compared to the Republicans) would probably have had the votes to keep out O'Donnell since the total votes cast in the low-turnout Democratic primary is roughly double O'Donnell's edge over Schodorf in the Republican primary. This means the likeliest general-election matchup would have been between Schodorf and Schuckman, both of whom were much closer to the political center than the candidates that defeated them in the primary.
Even if open primaries had resulted in a general-election matchup between O'Donnell and Snow, both candidates would have had to play to the center. This would have given the voters a better idea of what they might do if actually elected because, under our tripartite system of divided government, centrists tend to be better positioned to pursue policy goals through compromise.
Quote from: deanej on November 27, 2012, 12:12:32 PM
It's also worth noting that many southern Democrats are indistinguishable from northern Republicans.
And that's just inside Illinois. :-D
Seriously though, the main split in this state is Chicago and Not-Chicago. That split crosses the R vs. D divide. Downstate Dems are as fond of Chicago Dems as downstate Republicans are. And by downstate, the split often occurs as Cook, DuPage, and Lake Counties vs. the rest of us.
Is Kane still considered downstate at this point?
Quote from: deanej on November 27, 2012, 12:12:32 PM
It's also worth noting that many southern Democrats are indistinguishable from northern Republicans.
You can usually tell the difference by their haircuts. That's how I do it.
Quote from: corco on November 27, 2012, 07:22:25 PM
Is Kane still considered downstate at this point?
Kane is a part of Chicagoland, but the voting patterns of Kane (as for McHenry and Will) tend to be more in line with the adjacent areas downstate (Kendall, DeKalb, Boone, Kankakee, Grundy). There's a lot of anti-Chicago sentiment in McHenry, Kane, and Will Counties. Probably more so in McHenry and Will than Kane though.
Generally what Brandon says ....but I would say far southern dems are more conservative than even the more recent shift of suburban republicans to the right. On election night the southern IL dems did well and suburban repubs didnt
Kane went Obama so did the western downstate counties. Will and Mc Henery went Romney
Also most sub and downstate dems declared anti Chicago unity on a complicated illinois issue known as the pension cost shift
i would also agree with Brandon on the anti-Chicago sentiment in those counties. I would say its worse than in some of the downstate counties
As the resident Kentucky political guru, guess I should chime in since I have personal knowledge and observation. (citation needed)
It's a power thing. Registration in Kentucky runs 3:2 D to R. In many counties, local elections are decided in the Democrat primary because there are either no Republicans running, or the opposition is token to minimal. Many people register D just so they'll get a chance to have a say in who wins local races for judge-executive, sheriff, county clerk, tax assessor, etc.
That carries over to statewide races. The overwhelming voter registration advantage is also borne out in elections for statewide offices.
There are a few liberal Democrats in Kentucky, but they're outnumbered by conservative D's -- "Reagan Democrats," if you will. It's really funny to read the lib bloggers in Lexington and Louisville whining about how Democrats out in the state are more in tune with Reagan than they are Obama or Teddy Kennedy. Natural resources (coal in particular) are very important to the economies of both ends of the state and there is a perception that liberal Democrats on the national level have done harm to the coal economy. There's also a strong religious belief system in Kentucky, a loyalty to the Second Amendment, and other factors that separate the beliefs of Kentucky Democrats from the national party.
Being Democrat and voting for Democrats allows Kentuckians to have a say in who runs the local and state governments, and people who are politically active can exercise power by being party leaders. But their beliefs run more toward conservatism than liberalism, so they vote GOP in national elections.
The Republicans are making gains in registration numbers and in winning legislative and local elections, however.
KS v IL -IL has open primaries and huge turnouts compared to most states and that is what kept both parties to the center until very recently . There were many cases of well known politicians of one party that were found to have voted in opposite party primaries. I have a pattern of switching parties depending on the race and year.
As to newspaper endorsements. The Chicago Tribune was the kiss of death For some bizarre reason both parties have tried to appease their editorial board.
I would say Southern Illinois is just like Kentucky...but no one lives there. The rest of the of the state is moderate to Liberal at least socially. It used to be more anti-tax. No one paid a price for the big tax increase 2 years ago though
California has been fighting with partisan deadlock for decades now, but recently implemented reforms essentially give Democrats control over the entire state, at least until the GOP decides to check out of the mental ward. (Ironically, these reforms were pushed through by Gov. Schwarzenegger, who was frustrated with the hardliners in his own party.)
First, a non-partisan redistricting commission eliminated some of districts which were gerrymandered to give the GOP the enough seats to block the annual budget (which they did, every single year).
Second, we've eliminated the party primary and replaced it with what is essentially a runoff election, with the top two advancing to the general election, even if they are of the same party. This should boost moderates of both parties.
The next step, in my belief, is to eliminated (or greatly increase) the legislature's term limits. While term limits are popular among voters, they tend to encourage partisan hacks who have no independent political base, in my view.
Quote from: hbelkins on November 27, 2012, 11:33:33 PM
As the resident Kentucky political guru
Oh, how we tend to overrate our importance...
Quote from: 3467 on November 27, 2012, 11:37:19 PMKS v IL -IL has open primaries and huge turnouts compared to most states and that is what kept both parties to the center until very recently. There were many cases of well known politicians of one party that were found to have voted in opposite party primaries. I have a pattern of switching parties depending on the race and year.
Actually, if I understand these pages correctly, the system Illinois has now is very similar to what we have in Kansas.
http://www.bluerepublican.org/welcome-to-blue-republican/illinois/
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Voting_in_the_2012_primary_elections
The main difference is that in Kansas, the Democrats will allow unaffiliated voters to register Democrat when they vote, but with the Republicans you have to register in advance. What I consider to be a true open-primary system is one where the voter can show up at the polls on the date of the primary election and request ballots for any and all parties, vote them, and have the votes be counted. I am not sure there are any states classified as open-primary which actually allow the voter to vote multiple parties' ballots. Blanket primaries, the current California system, are not the same thing since they entail a choice of two candidates for each post regardless of party, and thus do not afford the same opportunities to block unsuitable candidates or promote good candidates from the weaker major party. In my Senate district, a California-style blanket primary would have resulted in a Republican-versus-Republican general-election runoff between Schodorf and O'Donnell.
Some of the other reforms Flowmotion mentions for California, such as a nonpartisan districting commission (which I understand is also used in Washington state), sound promising. Experience with the formally nonpartisan Boundary Commission in the United Kingdom, however, suggests that such bodies are not completely successful in eliminating structural biases for one party (the current boundary map is considered to favor Labour over the Tories).
QuoteAs to newspaper endorsements. The Chicago Tribune was the kiss of death For some bizarre reason both parties have tried to appease their editorial board.
The
Eagle is a bit spotty. It is a McClatchy newspaper and McClatchy has its HQ in Sacramento, so the black-is-white, lie-big rightwingers in Kansas like to portray it as a bastion of socialism. But actually the editorial line is more subtle. Most of the endorsements are sensible (focusing on the candidate's qualifications rather than fealty to party line), though there are some more tenuous endorsements for Chamber of Commerce types which I regard as rent paid for the ability to support the more liberal candidates.
On the straight reporting side, the
Eagle is quite good at wrapping subtle denigration in valentines--a journalistic technique familiar to German newspaper reporters under the Nazis who were writing for big dailies other than the
Völkischer Beobachter. For example, the
Eagle ran a multi-day feature on the Koch family which was widely criticized for slathering them with praise, airbrushing out the siblings who have been squeezed out of the family business, etc. But this wedding-cake of sycophancy still managed to leave you with takeaways showing how creepy the Kochs are, such as Charles' remark at one point that the company had learned the hard way not to hire smart people who would question or dispute the orders they were given.
Quote from: bugo on November 28, 2012, 12:15:49 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on November 27, 2012, 11:33:33 PM
As the resident Kentucky political guru
Oh, how we tend to overrate our importance...
Well, I am the only Kentuckian here who takes an active interest in politics.
Do you have a comment on my analysis, or are you just here to take personal potshots?
Illinois has a true open primary. You just have to walk in a request the ballot of whatever ballot you want no registration,
Iowa is more like Kansas where there is registration but the parties vary on how they let indepndats vote in primaries or their famed caucus
Virginia has open primaries as well because we do not register by party. Nominations for statewide office aren't always handled via primary, however; the Republicans frequently use a convention to nominate the gubernatorial candidate. They last used a primary in 2005 and wound up somewhat embarrassed when the anointed candidate in a largely uncontested primary (then—attorney general Jerry Kilgore) only got 82% of the vote.
Quote from: 3467 on November 27, 2012, 11:37:19 PM
I would say Southern Illinois is just like Kentucky...but no one lives there.
Saint Clair County: pop. 270,000+
Madison County: pop. 269,000+
Williamson County: pop. 66,000+
Jackson County: pop. 60,000+
Yeah, that Saint Louis place is itty bitty.
Quote from: hbelkins on November 28, 2012, 09:26:35 AM
Quote from: bugo on November 28, 2012, 12:15:49 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on November 27, 2012, 11:33:33 PM
As the resident Kentucky political guru
Oh, how we tend to overrate our importance...
Well, I am the only Kentuckian here who takes an active interest in politics.
*cough* bandit73. I know you don't consider him human, but he is just as interested in Kentucky politics as you are, if not more.
Quote
Do you have a comment on my analysis, or are you just here to take personal potshots?
I gave my comment.
Quote from: bugo on November 28, 2012, 11:24:49 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on November 28, 2012, 09:26:35 AM
Quote from: bugo on November 28, 2012, 12:15:49 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on November 27, 2012, 11:33:33 PM
As the resident Kentucky political guru
Oh, how we tend to overrate our importance...
Well, I am the only Kentuckian here who takes an active interest in politics.
*cough* bandit73. I know you don't consider him human, but he is just as interested in Kentucky politics as you are, if not more.
Quote
Do you have a comment on my analysis, or are you just here to take personal potshots?
I gave my comment.
Tim really doesn't seem to do much commentary here other than in the photos section.
Quote from: bugo on November 28, 2012, 11:24:49 AM
*cough* bandit73. I know you don't consider him human, but he is just as interested in Kentucky politics as you are, if not more.
That's not true. I disagree with him and I think he would benefit from medication sometimes, but I don't consider him to not be human, and he doesn't really participate in the discussions here, as stated above.
Quote
I gave my comment.
Which wasn't about my analysis or observations, but was about me personally.
Quote from: hbelkins on November 28, 2012, 09:26:35 AM
Do you have a comment on my analysis, or are you just here to take personal potshots?
I think the answer to that is pretty clear.
Anyway, I do have a comment. I've always considered WV and KY politics to be similar, and I get KY political ads and news on local TV.
I really do not see in WV this "Reagan democrat" "conservative democrat" whatever thing. I think it is more of a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" thing. Here in my state we are on our fourth in a row, and, interpted by a single RINO term, sixth out of the last seven govenor's terms of people who portray themselves as "conservatve democrats". The legislature (which is going to be 55-45 in the House, the best GOP showing in 80 years) is primarially people who portray themselves as "conservative democrats". The Supreme Court (which is partsian elected) has been of late populated by at least three (a majority) people who portrayed themselves as "conservative democrats".
But, in-between them and the civil service, are the "will and pleasure" appointees. The secretaries, under-secretaries, commissioners, etc, who are supposed to carry out policy. And these people are the farthest left-liberal extreme people. Freed from actually running for office, they are free to express how they really feel. The civil service is put in the position of seeing the Governor, et al, saying one thing; but the department they are in being run by people that tell them to do the exact opposite.
At the federal level, at least one of our Senators and our sole remaining democrat congressman, just got re-elected, despite stating their opposition to basicly everything the democat party has done or wants to do.
Two conclusions are possible. Either a succession of people smart enough to get elected to high office are so stupid as to not know what their personal reports believe, or what is actually going on in the government they head. Or the more simple conclusion. These are simply people who say one thing, but believe (and eventually do) the exact opposite. Putting together a coalition of people who understand this and are happy about it and just enought people who buy the lie of "conservative democrat" to get just over 50%.
I don't think Kentucky is really very different.
S.P., it's interesting to see how you evade the moderator's instruction to use correct names equally (including equal capitalization) for the Democrats and Republicans by using "GOP" exclusively for "Republican."
Quote from: flowmotion on November 28, 2012, 12:05:09 AM
The next step, in my belief, is to eliminated (or greatly increase) the legislature's term limits. While term limits are popular among voters, they tend to encourage partisan hacks who have no independent political base, in my view.
I strongly agree. I don't have a problem with limits on chief elected officers (governors and presidents) of two or three terms, but term limits on members of legislatures is not a good thing, and I think may make matters worse.
Post Merge: November 29, 2012, 07:52:10 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on November 29, 2012, 07:25:37 AM
At the federal level, at least one of our Senators and our sole remaining democrat congressman, just got re-elected, despite stating their opposition to basicly everything the democat party has done or wants to do.
The New Republic ran this today - Jay Rockefeller's in Big Trouble in West Virginia -- and So Are the Dems (http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/110549/democratic-losses-in-coal-country-put-rockefeller-in-danger)
Quote from: cpzilliacus on November 29, 2012, 11:10:34 AM
Quote from: flowmotion on November 28, 2012, 12:05:09 AM
The next step, in my belief, is to eliminated (or greatly increase) the legislature's term limits. While term limits are popular among voters, they tend to encourage partisan hacks who have no independent political base, in my view.
I strongly agree. I don't have a problem with limits on chief elected officers (governors and presidents) of two or three terms, but term limits on members of legislatures is not a good thing, and I think may make matters worse.
Term limits are supposed to get rid of career politicians. In fact, I would not be opposed to replacing elections with a random draft, like the military one.
Quote from: deanej on November 29, 2012, 11:30:54 AMTerm limits are supposed to get rid of career politicians.
The problem is that they don't; at best they impose an up-or-out promotion system for them, and also create an incentive to support policy proposals with severely backloaded costs as long as the costs fall after the term limit has run out (by which time the politician who has irresponsibly voted for it is either out of office or in a new post where he or she cannot be held accountable). Term limits also guarantee that you lose the benefit of institutional memory, which is necessary to avoid policy cycling in some complex areas of public policy.
QuoteIn fact, I would not be opposed to replacing elections with a random draft, like the military one.
That is an even worse idea--there are excellent reasons why we now have an all-volunteer military,
at the military's own initiative. A person chosen at random may very well outperform a crook, but to choose your legislators randomly because you have zero confidence in your ability to weed out the crooks is a counsel of despair.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 29, 2012, 10:17:50 AM
S.P., it's interesting to see how you evade the moderator's instruction to use correct names equally (including equal capitalization) for the Democrats and Republicans by using "GOP" exclusively for "Republican."
The Republican Party has used "GOP" on many occasions, and the Democratic Party has used "Democrat Party" as well in the past. It's only been recently when some have gotten rather touchy about it.
Are we going to fight about this sort of silly shit?
Only Demublican and Republicrat are correct.
Quote from: SP Cook on November 29, 2012, 07:25:37 AM
Anyway, I do have a comment. I've always considered WV and KY politics to be similar, and I get KY political ads and news on local TV.
I really do not see in WV this "Reagan democrat" "conservative democrat" whatever thing. I think it is more of a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" thing. Here in my state we are on our fourth in a row, and, interpted by a single RINO term, sixth out of the last seven govenor's terms of people who portray themselves as "conservatve democrats". The legislature (which is going to be 55-45 in the House, the best GOP showing in 80 years) is primarially people who portray themselves as "conservative democrats". The Supreme Court (which is partsian elected) has been of late populated by at least three (a majority) people who portrayed themselves as "conservative democrats".
But, in-between them and the civil service, are the "will and pleasure" appointees. The secretaries, under-secretaries, commissioners, etc, who are supposed to carry out policy. And these people are the farthest left-liberal extreme people. Freed from actually running for office, they are free to express how they really feel. The civil service is put in the position of seeing the Governor, et al, saying one thing; but the department they are in being run by people that tell them to do the exact opposite.
At the federal level, at least one of our Senators and our sole remaining democrat congressman, just got re-elected, despite stating their opposition to basicly everything the democat party has done or wants to do.
Two conclusions are possible. Either a succession of people smart enough to get elected to high office are so stupid as to not know what their personal reports believe, or what is actually going on in the government they head. Or the more simple conclusion. These are simply people who say one thing, but believe (and eventually do) the exact opposite. Putting together a coalition of people who understand this and are happy about it and just enought people who buy the lie of "conservative democrat" to get just over 50%.
I don't think Kentucky is really very different.
Much of what you describe in WV is, as you point out, very much like Kentucky. A lot of the appointees are much farther to the left than what the governor portrayed himself to be when he ran. And many of the same appointees have been in their jobs for years. It really didn't matter which Democrat they may have supported in the primary, they kept some sort of appointed position (maybe the same job, or maybe they got moved, or maybe a director became a commissioner and a commissioner got demoted to a director). As much as I liked Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky's last GOP governor and the first one in 32 years, he kept way too many appointees from his D predecessor. They had no loyalty to him and were just holding on (in some cases actively undermining him) until another D could be elected.
Speaking of our governor, he was an outspoken opponent of a lot of Obama's actions and proposals concerning the EPA, coal mining, etc. He even went so far as to demand the EPA "get off our backs" during one of his State of the Commonwealth addresses. Yet instead of supporting Romney, whose positions on coal mining were much more favorable to Kentucky and in line with his stated opinions, he blindly supported Obama.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 29, 2012, 10:17:50 AM
S.P., it's interesting to see how you evade the moderator's instruction to use correct names equally (including equal capitalization) for the Democrats and Republicans by using "GOP" exclusively for "Republican."
I think this thread applies...
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=8159.0
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 29, 2012, 01:00:34 PM
That is an even worse idea--there are excellent reasons why we now have an all-volunteer military, at the military's own initiative. A person chosen at random may very well outperform a crook, but to choose your legislators randomly because you have zero confidence in your ability to weed out the crooks is a counsel of despair.
I'm of the opinion that someone who actually wants to be a politician is probably someone who shouldn't be trusted to make policy; it's actually been shown that there's a higher than normal percentage of sociopaths in politics because one needs those personality traits to be a successful politician!
So it would be better to have someone with no aptitude, desire, or experience to hold a position?
Quote from: kphoger on November 30, 2012, 01:04:05 PM
So it would be better to have someone with no aptitude, desire, or experience to hold a position?
I have the aptitude and desire to hold high position. In order to get the experience, I have to abandon my morals. So it goes.
And I guess I'm seeing one possible answer to the original question: Parties are a name, but whereas a Presidential election is national, a senatorial or gubernatorial (who the hell came up with that word?) election is statewide, and state politics under the same name as the national party can vary toward the sentiment of the state overall.
Quote from: deanej on November 29, 2012, 11:30:54 AM
Term limits are supposed to get rid of career politicians. In fact, I would not be opposed to replacing elections with a random draft, like the military one.
This is a terrible analogy, so I apologize up front. A Career Politician is like a wife you have to live with. A term-limited politician is like a prostitute with one eye on the clock.
On a couple occasions, a legislator thought he could express his independence and cut a deal with the other side. Guess what, the GOP laid down the pimp-hand and ran a successful recall election in his district.
I'd rather have a Career Politician, with name recognition and some popular support, who can give the finger to the party establishment if he wants to. Term Limits were put in place to get rid of Willie Brown, but they ended up weakening the minority Republicans most of all.
Quote from: Steve on November 30, 2012, 05:49:50 PM
gubernatorial (who the hell came up with that word?)
'Governor' came to the English language by way of French (governeor). 'Gubernatorial' came directly from Latin (gubernator) without bothering to stop in France along the way.
Quote from: flowmotion on December 01, 2012, 04:14:11 AM
Quote from: deanej on November 29, 2012, 11:30:54 AM
Term limits are supposed to get rid of career politicians. In fact, I would not be opposed to replacing elections with a random draft, like the military one.
This is a terrible analogy, so I apologize up front. A Career Politician is like a wife you have to live with. A term-limited politician is like a prostitute with one eye on the clock.
On a couple occasions, a legislator thought he could express his independence and cut a deal with the other side. Guess what, the GOP laid down the pimp-hand and ran a successful recall election in his district.
I'd rather have a Career Politician, with name recognition and some popular support, who can give the finger to the party establishment if he wants to. Term Limits were put in place to get rid of Willie Brown, but they ended up weakening the minority Republicans most of all.
I'd say a career politician is more like living with someone who wants to kill you. I'd also get rid of political parties. IMO they do nothing but harm our country for their own self interests.
Quote from: Steve on November 30, 2012, 05:49:50 PM
Quote from: kphoger on November 30, 2012, 01:04:05 PM
So it would be better to have someone with no aptitude, desire, or experience to hold a position?
I have the aptitude and desire to hold high position. In order to get the experience, I have to abandon my morals. So it goes.
I would rather be Karl Rove than George W. Bush. Or to keep it bipartisan, I'd rather be David Axelrod than Barack Obama. I have no desire to ever hold elective office, even though I've been encouraged to run for everything from city council (when I lived in a city) to state representative. I would not want the public anal exam that goes along with being a candidate for office. For right or wrong, your private life gets picked apart by people looking for anything they can use against you.
I'd much rather be a behind-the-scenes adviser (or are they back to spelling it advisor?) to a high-ranking elected official than the official him/herself.
QuoteAnd I guess I'm seeing one possible answer to the original question: Parties are a name, but whereas a Presidential election is national, a senatorial or gubernatorial (who the hell came up with that word?) election is statewide, and state politics under the same name as the national party can vary toward the sentiment of the state overall.
It's very much true in Kentucky.
Quote from: deanej on December 01, 2012, 12:41:15 PMI'd say a career politician is more like living with someone who wants to kill you.
Nope--if you are dead, you can't vote for them. They have a mercenary interest in your vote.
QuoteI'd also get rid of political parties. IMO they do nothing but harm our country for their own self interest.
When I was your age (assuming the age on your profile is your true age), I used to feel similarly. I thought all elections should be nonpartisan and that all voting, both by the ordinary citizen in the voting booth and by the elected representative in the legislature, should be by conscience alone. But life experience and a decade's study as an economic historian (which entails learning about institutional economics) has forced me to abandon this view. Party formation is all about reducing the costs of transacting political business. Political parties simplify decision-making for the voter because party affiliation relieves the voter from having to interrogate each candidate as to his stand on every single issue. Within the legislative process, they make it easier to organize collective action on public policy issues by creating an expectation that members of the party will vote the party's position on a given issue out of loyalty. This is why political parties are sometimes described as an "emergent property" of political systems (http://www.science20.com/emergent_fool/blog/why_political_parties_exist_why_they_are_bad_and_how_eliminate_them) and also why it is difficult to prevent the formation of parties without quite significant repressive measures.
You might also want to consider Arrow's impossibility theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem) and its implications for what the political system can do, regardless of whether parties exist or not. The empirical observation is that most voting systems navigate around Arrow's impossibility theorem by relaxing independence of irrelevant alternatives. A practical example of what this means: Suppose you strongly support highway funding, and are strongly pro-choice on the abortion issue. Suppose Candidate A is pro-choice but wants to cut highway funding, while Candidate B strongly supports highway funding but is anti-abortion, and the political system does not permit additional candidates. This means that you have to choose on the basis of one issue or the other and accept a downside regardless of which choice you make--either a cut in highway funding or the possibility of further abortion restrictions. This is something that happens regardless of whether a party is involved.