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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoesn't Matter How Bad Walker Or Brownback Are They Would Be Elected Again.
I believe Walker and Brownback would get elected again no matter how bad they are. Walker survived recall and won another term. Brownback was elected easily again. You cannot fix stupid voters.
The real reason Dems lose is that so many voters believe that Dems give their money to undeserving blacks. The GOP meme seems to work very well. And it works up north as well as the South.
They have been repeating that black welfare meme for decades. And white voters who are actually on these programs vote for the GOP. In reality the white population in many states far outnumber blacks and other minorities. And in truth poor whites hate government health care because they believe minorities benefit most.
Walker and Brownback are the best examples of how race baiting works.
Logical
(22,457 posts)We are a hell hole of GOP idiots.
still_one
(92,204 posts)world wide wally
(21,744 posts)Duuhmerica the beautiful?
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)They want to assert that blacks aren't in the majority of people who need welfare.
But in their eagerness to assert that truth, they support cuts that hurt those that do need that aid.
Perhaps the larger thought is if the rug is pulled out from under the white recipients, the idiot GOP who have been making the false associations will come riding to the rescue and be forced to the restore the programs.
But I think they will just be overjoyed they finally got away with getting rid of "welfare" and another aspect of Big Government for their rich benefactors. They don't really care about the poor white folks, either.
It makes me sick to my stomach every time I hear a politician slyly coding a speech to associate welfare with black people as their prelude to why it's filled with "waste and fraud" and why it should be cut.
Ps. The other big race-bating is "Mexican immigrants are taking your jobs".
napkinz
(17,199 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)LBJ was right then and always will be.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)brooklynite
(94,585 posts)...after electing Walker and then supporting him in the recall.
Boiling all State issues down to simplistic assertions of racism isn't useful.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)He clearly stated during the campaign that his hero was Ronald Reagan.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)2008 Obama ran on "Hope and Change". Not "I'm slightly less bad than the Republicans". Then once in office, he tacked right.
2012 Obama tried to rekindle some "Hope and Change", had the benefits of incumbency, and couldn't run away from what he did in office.
And if you go just to the next few sentences of the speech, you'll find that it was because of Reagan's ability to transform the country. The guy says he wants to help the little people by transforming the country, and they aren't going to presume that meant continuing moderate Republican policies.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)I heard him. Why didn't anyone else?
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Here, I'll just copy and paste it here so you can try again.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)Most people now, who voted for him, including me, are disappointed with his presidency, although he has obviously been better than the alternatives would have been.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Why this is, is as you say, not a simple problem, but it most assuredly has elements that demonstrate patterns that involve race. Race per se as an explanatory factor is questionable but it does appear to be a highly correlated confounder to yet named effector that moves the pattern.
Wisconsin, like many states, has a population that isn't distributed uniformly, most of the people live in urban areas, and most of them in Milwaukee:
https://s.yimg.com/fz/api/res/1.2/CwErGhC1ki8670x12pux1g--/YXBwaWQ9c3JjaGRkO2g9NjAwO3E9OTU7dz02MDA-/
This distribution creates something of a everyone else vs Milwaukee political arena, although it isn't always just Republican against Milwaukee (nw WI, wsw WI, and Janesville-Madison area have democratic strength but except for Madison low population/little power).
Because the distribution of African Americans largely follows the urban vs everyone else pattern, it's easily mixed into attempts to explain WI politics. There is no doubt racism is a strong undercurrent in Milw. The impact of discrimination against blacks is still an important factor in explaining almost every social and economic issue in the city and the county.
The national democratic party struggles against its image as an urban party, but by the numbers it turns out that most WI dem voters are urban and significantly African American (the largest exception to this is the Green Bay-Appleton-Oskosh corridor, which while basically urban has low African American population and identifies with much of the northland as anti-Milwaukee and is republican)
Urban democrats in WI (as shown above, largely blacks) tend to have a significantly lower turnout in off-year and special elections than in national elections. Why is that? Possibly because significance of such elections is viewed as less important. Perhaps because local and state politics have had a history of making less difference to the lives of these voters than have national politics.
Perhaps because polling equipment is unequally distributed to make voting time consuming, perhaps because part-time workers can't risk their jobs by committing time to vote. It is a plaguing but unresolved question.
Whatever underlies the problem, its a dynamic that involves black voters in WI. The off-year turnout penalty realized by WI dems is at the heart of the ~5%-~8% swing in Democratic strength between gubernatorial elections (off year, and one special elections) and national elections in WI. It largely accounts for how this purple state routinely goes for Democratic presidential candidates, but goes for Scott Walker
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Walker faced a Republican-lite challenger. That lead to low turnout and victory.
Brownback also faced a Republican-lite challenger. That also lead to low turnout and victory.
Give voters someone to vote for, instead of "vote against the Republican", and they'll show up. And Democrats win.
Logical
(22,457 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)Logical
(22,457 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)A lot of evidence is coming out about electronic vote fraud. As the saying goes, it was close enough to steal, and they did.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)Those constituency that would likely re-elect Walker and Brownback, are they more or less likley to vote for Sanders? It would seem to me that they are (politically speaking) polar opposites.
I have claimed several times in the last few days that Wisconsin is a wild card when it comes to their POTUS selection, and this apparently didn't go over to well with Bernie supporters. They were rallying and thumping chests because of a recent straw poll putting Bernie within 9 points of Hillary.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Turnout in Walker's and Brownback's re-elections was bad. The Democratic candidates in those races failed to interest many people in voting.
The theory behind a Sanders victory in WI is based around his ability to get higher turnout. So the electorate would look much more like 2008 than 2014. You'd also get synergies between Sanders and Feingold that would help drive turnout.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)But you are now implying that the straw poll is NOT an indicator of voting habits, its an indicator of potential voter turn out for a political party? Not sure how that interpretation is made.
It would appear that Bernie folks should not be crowing over a straw poll then, and hitting me over the head with it because I had hurt their feel goods by stating the straw poll is not a reliable measure of final constituency voting. They should rather be trying to use your analysis for Bernie's possible sweep of a state, I happen to think is unpredictable and a huge, giant toss up.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)It really only shows you who has the most excited activists, and only at this point in time. Sanders "appearing out of nowhere" is a big deal, in that it means lots more volunteers and donors than could be expected before. But it doesn't do squat for predicting the results on primary day, much less on election day.
But it doesn't do squat for predicting the results on primary day, much less on election day.
I think we finally agree on something!!!!!!!!!