OT: Who's stupider?
ilbbaicnl
Keep it in my pants when I do OTC. If I were a stripper it would stand for I like big bucks and I can not lie.
The large group of people who don't vote at all, or the large group of people who vote in presidential but not mid-term elections? Clearly the latter, I think. The first group, for understandable reasons, have given up, or just doesn't see much direct effect on their lives. The second groups is too stupid to realize they are voting for deadlocked government. Maybe there should be a law that, if you were able to vote but didn't in the last mid-term election, you're not allowed to vote in the presidential election.
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Not voting (whether all the time or most of the time) allows the hard core bases to divide the country and allows the establishment (both parties) take power away from we the people. More civic involvement would (at least in principal) lead to more centrist tolerant governance.
Moreover, the relative ease of shifting opinion in those few districts with rspending only leads to corruption. Fuck, $3.7 billion was spent in our last election. No possibility of corruption there...
We need a serious shift to non-partisan redistricting commissions to eliminate gerrymandering. In many districts it is pointless to vote (except possible in the primaries). The electoral college may have had a point early in American history, though even then it is debatable and some of our founding fathers wanted direct elections (albeit with far from universal suffrage).
Now the electoral college is simply anachronistic. The election is decided by a few swing states...one of which is FloriDUH. And that's pretty fucked up right there.
Big point, there actually isn't much point to voting. If there are ballot initiatives you can have an impact there. But, frankly, American democracy has largely become an illusion. I vote because it doesn't take that much time. I usually research any ballot initiatives and try to evaluate them. But voting, whether it is in a presidential election or the midterms, is largely pointless. Maybe some people recognize this intuitively. Of they've thought it through. Perfectly reasonable decision to avoid voting, or only vote if you feel a bit more strongly about one election vs another.
...relative ease of shifting opinion in competitive districts with ridiculous spending...
DandyDan my man, I'm not sure where you live but I think you hit one of the important points, especially if you live if it is a competitive district or swing state. As I see it, you're vote on many issues really doesn't matter. Most states and districts aren't competitive. But those that are competitive have incredible amounts of money spent.
Citizens United was one of the worst decisions in the history of the US. we'll see corruption go from horrible to incredible to truly astounding. And paralyzed government is not a good thing at all. It is no coincidence that the only real expansion of freedom in recent years (marijuana legalization) has come from ballot initiatives.
Like marijuana or hate it we're spending money fighting the "drug war" and we're locking up otherwise innocent people. Pointless. And it costs money. And it is a fundamental limitation of freedom. As long as people don't do anything that can harm others, like getting all stoned a driving, they should be left alone.
If you really worry about freedom the only way to expand it is a legislative branch with the guts to expand it and a strong, independent judiciary that blocks problematic bills. Not the status quo. And neither branch should be bought and paid for.
No wonder people are cynical and don't vote.
I live in the Omaha area, and Nebraska's second district (which is basically Omaha) may have been the only district where the Republican incumbent (Lee Terry) lost out to the Democratic challenger (Brad Ashford). It seemed like all anyone wanted to say about Lee Terry was that he had done nothing in 16 years in Congress and all anyone wanted to say about Brad Ashford was that he supported Nebraska's good time law, which basically cuts prison sentences in half, which allowed the insane killer Nikko Jenkins out so that he could kill some people. Also in Omaha, we got stuck with Iowa commercials, which included Joni Ernst's Senate race and whatever the SW Iowa district is, which was also considered close.
@ilbbaicnl-
I agree that it's half assed, but the fact is, most people don't really care about anything other than the Presidential election, which is sad, because there is other stuff to vote on. And since the other stuff is more local than the Presidential election, it has a more direct impact on your life. The one big local thing here in Nebraska was that they are now raising the state minimum wage.
I assume the comment about raising the Nebraska minimum wage reflects its inclusion as a ballot initiative. To me, that emphasizes my point. People are very disconnected from the people they send to congress and easily swayed by money. Given the low population of Nebraska I doubt there is any gerrymandering. I haven't looked at the map, but my gut tells me that gerrymandering would be unnecessary (and probably impossible).
Was the minimum wage initiative a squeaker? Roughly the same percentage of "yes" votes as the Democratic congressman-elect?
I'm betting no -- I bet the margin on the minimum wage victory was way bigger than the margin of the dem's victory. If so, there is a bit of a disconnect. Regardless of the merits of either congressman or the minimum wage bill, I bet it was true that there were many supporting the wage increase and also supporting a dude from a party that generally opposes a government role in setting a minimum wage. You have to wonder what drives that.