What would it take for the GOP to lose the House?

[Savannahmann]

29. Well let's see.

Let's start simple. Minimum wage. Support for increasing the minimum wage falls off when you point out that the GAO said half a million jobs would be lost. Support for the higher minimum wage falls to below forty percent then, which is just below where President Obama is now. Perhaps it's a result of the Propaganda about fighting the Job Killing Minimum Wage Hike. Propaganda that got a big boost from the GAO who said an estimated half million jobs would be lost.

Polling shows that people want answers to the immigration problem. Biggest group favors deportation and stopping the flow. But hey, those people probably think it's all the Rethugs fault. Or not.

Obamacare? 55% of the people oppose it. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

Now, on to SCOTUS. How do you overturn it? It requires a Constitutional Amendment, or another suit arguing that the sitting Justices were wrong. That takes years, and there is no way anyone is going to put forth a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United.

So the Rethugs are on the populist side of several issues. Israel, the polling shows that most people blame Hamas, and more of the people support Israel.

Not to worry, they will all be convinced that they are wrong by shouting at them and calling them idiots.

So what is the point? Talking to the people and convincing them of your ideals. GOTV for the sake of GOTV hurts us. We won't win the House. We won't win seats in the Senate. We won't win a majority of Governor's races. We'll be lucky to hold onto a bare majority of Senate Seats. The reason is that people are not impressed by clever little pictures with propaganda text on it. They are impressed by that only if they already feel that way. A Picture of Miami with the tagline Miami greatest city in the world will get good responses, in Miami. In New York, not so much.

FDR proposed things that nobody had considered, and nobody had thought about. Lend Lease for example. He explained what he wanted to do, and then told the people why. Truman and JFK were the same way. They told the people what they wanted, and why, and convinced the people. JFK's moon speeches are awesome. They inspired the entire nation. He outlined the goal, the way we would achieve it, and then told the people all the problems we faced in trying to achieve it.

By contrast, President Obama goes out and gives a grand vision. Instead of calling on people to flood congress with phone calls and mail in support of his program, he says that he can't do anything because the Rethugs oppose it. So he doesn't propose any definite action, just vague things and says nothing can happen because of the Rethugs. JFK would have gone out and gotten the people inspired.

And you can't tell me that political opposition is the brick wall. Ronald Reagan went on TV and told the people his view on taxes. The Rising tide lifts all ships speech. People all over the nation flooded congress with phone calls and letters. A congress in which both houses were Democratic. Tip O'Neil was the Speaker in those days.

By the same token, W called on immigration reform, and the public buried Washington in bricks. He didn't convince them, Reagan did.

You can't treat the voters like children, telling them that they are going to do this because you said so. That moves more people in opposition to you. You have to tell them why, they aren't employees, nor subjects, nor minions who exist only to do your bidding.

If you want them to vote for you, you have to tell them why. Arguing that they are idiots who vote with the 1% is not getting you anywhere. If it got you somewhere, we would be sitting pretty right now looking at winning the House and Senate handily. Instead, we are looking at losing the one, and moving to an even smaller minority in the other. Stop calling the voters racists when they oppose you. Listen to them, talk to them, and convince them. Yes, a minority of the Rethug voters are Racist, but it is a very small minority. Most of them are insulted by the way we talk to them, or should I say at them.

If they are not motivated by race, calling them racists is insulting and they will reject any further argument that you have to make. They just won't listen. Democrats have to learn to talk to people again. This lost art is not something we can just ignore. We have become little more than cheerleaders. Our team rules, and we're going to win the Homecoming game. Yay team.

Tell them what we believe, and why. Give them speeches and positions that argue our point. Put legislation forward in the public eye that addresses these problems.

Start arguing that we can do things without raising taxes. We'll cut the money from the NSA and use it to fix the bridges and highways. That's a populist two for the price of one. It cuts the spying on the citizens, and addresses the infrastructure. It puts Republicans on the stage either agreeing to reign in the NSA, or shouting that the war on terror means no one, except them, can have privacy. But we don't want that, because we are afraid. We're afraid of getting blamed if or should I say when there is another attack. So despite the fact that we haven't stopped one damned thing, we're going to keep throwing money into the furnace of the furnace burning hot with National Insecurity on the side.

Companies are moving to Europe, which had higher taxes. Now, how can Britain have lower taxes, and yet still have good highways, good bridges, and national health care? The answer? They don't fund the massive Military Intelligence Industrial Cabal.

But instead of looking at these issues and proposing solutions. We shout that GOTV is the answer. We come up with pity slogans, which get great responses from our friends. They don't convince anyone to join us, but we can increase the us versus them rhetoric a bit.

Honestly, I'm about ready to just walk away. I'm so sick and tired of posting the same things over and over again. I'm tired of sending emails and letters to the White House. I'm tired of writing congress and telling them what the people think. I'm tired of bashing my head on the wall as we continue to degenerate and de-evolve. The rethugs have a message, they oppose the job killing insert program here. Our message is that Rethugs suck, and while we suck too, we don't suck nearly as bad as they do. But our message is we won't do a damned thing until we have a majority in both houses. The truth is that everyone in Congress is viewed unfavorably by people who are not in their districts. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

Latest poll, 7% approval rating. But nearly all of the congress critters are going to be re-elected. So what the public is saying is I like my congressman, but your congressman sucks. Why don't you change yours.

Why? Because the Representatives play to the voters in their districts. They play to the voters they answer to. So shouting that Paul Ryan is an ass doesn't make a bit of difference, because his district is sending him back to Washington. When the candidate doesn't win, it's usually in the primary that the incumbent loses. I may not like several congress critters, and thinking of them I once suggested we pick people at random like jury duty to do one term in congress and then come home. I figured we couldn't do any worse picking names out of the phone book than we could with elections. The point is I don't have any say in any district but the one I live in.

We'll probably lose the senate. Because what we've done is insult the voters, bellowed at them, and ignored them. Instead of trying to find some common ground with Rethugs, for the pretense of an effort at Bipartisanship, we refuse to agree that day is light and night is dark. It's a pox on both our houses. Only the Rethugs are reading the polling information and adjusting their message for the will of the people.