Election // Current

Poll: GOP voters think ACORN stole election for Obama

Talking Points Memo is pointing to a Public Policy Polling survey showing that a... more

afitzgerald
added this
8 hours ago
|
18 comments

Would You Re-Elect President Obama One Year Later?

November 18, 2009 CNN (Briefly discusses the Mammogram Panel in the beginning).

Jenime
added this
2 days ago
|
23 comments

The Four M's of Millennial Politics

Pundits were quick to point out that the percentage of Millennial voters (those 29 and... more

sarahkatheryn
added this
11 days ago
|
0 comments

The Great Teabag Disaster in New York

On a night when conservatives expected a landmark victory in New York’s 23rd congressional district, the movement’s anointed candidate, Doug Hoffman, instead went down in a startling defeat to Democrat Bill Owens. The official Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, had dropped out days before and thrown her support to Owens after the conservative movement backed Hoffman in a campaign to destroy her, attacking her as a closet socialist with a cynical, hidden agenda—the same terms they have used to demonize President Barack Obama.

Hoffman’s rejection by rank-and-file voters in a solidly Republican district dampened the conservatives’ mood on an otherwise upbeat night and raised serious questions about the movement’s attempt to purge moderates from party ranks. Now, many of Hoffman’s right-wing cheerleaders are struggling to explain their dubious gambit, while others fear repercussions for their zealotry.

With endorsements from the National Rifle Association, the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican Party elders Newt Gingrich and New York Rep. Peter King, Scozzafava was assured an easy victory. Then Hoffman declared his candidacy on the Conservative Party line. Hoffman was a lawyer and Tea Party activist who did not live in the district and, according to the local Watertown Daily-Times, “showed no grasp of the bread-and-butter issues pertinent to district residents.” Offered as his only selling point: ideological purity.

Hoffman instantly became the point man for the national conservative movement, dedicating himself to fulfilling the right’s dream of a complete purge of moderate elements in the GOP. Campaigning in a local constituency of mostly Republican regulars, Hoffman behaved as though he were running in a presidential primary. He slammed Scozzafava for supporting abortion rights and gay marriage, substituting the hot button issues that had electrified the national Tea Party movement rather than the bread and butter concerns of the working class district he campaigned to represent.

Hoffman’s appeals to cultural resentment attracted zealous support from a who’s who of far-right icons, from Fred Thompson to Glenn Beck, from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin. The former Republican vice presidential nominee recorded a robocall for him a week before Election Day. Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota, sought to establish his conservative credentials in advance of an expected 2012 presidential run by endorsing Hoffman. The National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay religious right group, commissioned a poll supposedly proving Scozzafava’s support for gay marriage had doomed her (the sample size was only 318 likely voters). Meanwhile, cash poured into Hoffman’s coffers through conservativeoutfits from the Club For Growth to the American Conservative Union.

More @ link

http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/11/the-great-teabag-disaster-in-ny-23/On a night when conservatives expected a landmark victory in New York’s 23rd... more

Future_America
added this
15 days ago
|
0 comments

Election Results May Boost Immigration Reform in Congress

Viewed through the lens of the immigration issue, the overall results of yesterday’s... more

YouthOutlookMultimedia
added this
15 days ago
|
0 comments

Young Voters Flexed Muscle to Elect Their Own, Democrats Need to Pay Attention

Despite the chatter from the punditry, yesterday was a big day for Millennials. While... more

sarahkatheryn
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

Karzai (the song)

Yo, Current: Just http://InTheLoopShow.net, celebrating the news of the week, as... more

intheloop
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

Republicans set sights on 2010 after Virginia, New Jersey wins

Republicans swept the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia Tuesday, ending... more

Future_America
added this
16 days ago
|
0 comments

What Yesterday Says About Young Voters

Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What became consistent was the impact of the lack of outreach on the youth segment of the electorate and the diminished rate of enthusiasm.

In Virginia

“Only 1,973,868 of a total 4,955,755 voters participated in the gubernatorial race — “a miniscule number when you consider there were 3.7 million voters in the 2008 election,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communications director at the University Center for Politics… He added that generally one-third of Virginia voters in presidential elections choose not to participate in gubernatorial elections, and that, as such, yesterday’s voter turnout was even lower than usual.”

One difference this year than in 2008 was young voters had a candidate at the top of the ticket who actively sought their vote. This isn’t generally the standard in other elections, despite our efforts to teach candidates otherwise. Outreach is so important, asking young people for their vote is key, and peer to peer outreach is a must. All of these things happened nation wide in 2008, in large part because the Obama campaign placed a high importance on getting out the vote for young people.

Let’s also not forget the huge outreach done by non-party groups like HeadCount, Rock the Vote, and state youth groups around the country. I did receive a “Go Vote” email from HeadCount yesterday but didn’t receive a text messages from Rock the Vote, and no facebook reminders from any groups. There just wasn’t the kind of work done this year that was done last year from national youth groups. (I did receive an email from Rock the Vote saying they did send texts out to target areas, no word on if those target areas were NJ and VA but not Maine or who they “targeted”).

This was echoed in a brilliantly articulated piece in the Washington Post

“It doesn’t seem to have been enough, and one immediate lesson from these off-off-year elections is already clear: Democrats have a lot of work to do to bring Obama loyalists to the polls, particularly the young. Early exit polls suggest that the share of the electorate represented by voters under 30 will be cut roughly in half compared to 2008. No one expects that young voters will be as excited by this year’s election (or by next year’s midterms) as they were by Obama’s own candidacy. But Democrats are more dependent on young voters than ever before – something I wrote about earlier this fall. Virginia should bring home to them the imperative of mobilizing the millennials with more than just a nice ad toward the end of a campaign.”

Read the rest here: http://www.futuremajority.com/node/9147Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What... more