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This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 6:00 pm
by Lord Jim
The two most unpopular major active political figures in America are also the two with the strongest chance of winning their respective party nominations:
Poll: The Popular 2016 Candidates Aren't the Ones Leading the Pack
The only popular candidates for president in 2016 have one thing in common: They're not winning.
Only two remaining White House hopefuls in the latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll enjoy a net positive rating among registered voters : Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich and Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
On the other hand, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump remains very unpopular with Americans as a whole, with almost two thirds of voters giving him a thumbs down. His top GOP rival, Ted Cruz, and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton are also deeply underwater when it comes to their overall favorability.
According to the poll, just about a quarter (24 percent) of Americans give Trump a positive rating, compared to 65 percent who give him a negative one, adding up to a net negative rating of -41, a historic low for a major presidential candidate in the NBC/WSJ poll.
Clinton is 24 percentage points underwater, with a 32 percent positive rating compared to a 56 percent negative score. That's the former secretary of state's lowest rating since the poll started tracking her favorability in January 2001.
And for Cruz, it's 26 percent positive, 49 percent negative.
Kasich, who badly trails the other two remaining Republicans in the race and is already mathematically eliminated from achieving a nomination-clinching 1,237 delegates, enjoys the highest net positive rating at 31 percent positive, 19 percent negative. Kasich also remains the least well-known presidential hopeful, with 19 percent of respondents saying they don't know enough about him to form an opinion.
For Sanders, who is continuing his hard-fought race against his Democratic rival despite long odds to surpass Clinton in the delegate math, it's 45 percent positive, 36 percent negative.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted April 10-14. The margin of error for 1000 interviews among registered voters is ±3.10%
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-r ... ck-n556851
If we didn't have such a huge clusterfuck going on with
our nominating process, the big story of this election season would be how a badly divided Democratic Party was poised to nominate a candidate so widely disliked and distrusted that even a half-way decent GOP candidate could beat her easily....
Of course "halfway decent" seems to be a bar too high for us this year...
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 9:28 pm
by Gob
Sits back....gloats smugly to self......
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 2:37 am
by Scooter
I'm just waiting for when Jim announces that he put a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker on his car.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:28 pm
by Lord Jim
Yeah, well, that wont be happening...
Even if Trump is nominated and I'm forced to vote for Slick Hillie, that doesn't mean I have to advertise...
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:36 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
Here you go, LJ:
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:38 pm
by BoSoxGal
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:36 pm
by Bicycle Bill
I won't be putting anyone's bumper sticker on my car.
It means I'd have to cover up the
"Lance and I ride TREK" sticker that's already there.
-"BB"-
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:43 pm
by Lord Jim
At this point, I'm not sure that being associated with Lance Armstrong is really all that preferable to being associated with Hillary Clinton...
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:51 pm
by Joe Guy
I agree. A Lance Armstrong bumper sticker is like a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker on steroids.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:19 pm
by Big RR
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 11:55 pm
by rubato
The Republican "Hate Hillary" machine has been running full tilt for 20 years and all they have are the same troglodytes who would never vote for a black man? Pretty weak tea.
They were hating on Hillary when she had no record as an elected official to hate her for. They have manufactured bullshit against the Clintons since Whitewater, Bills "impeachment", the Bengazhi bullshit and now the invented email "scandal" and all they have are the knee-jerk racist base who can barely read?
Pathetic.
Obama proved that no one needs that particular 24% of the population to get elected to national office.
Get over it, bitch. Guess who is voting for Trump?
yrs,
rubato
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:12 am
by Econoline
rubato wrote:The Republican "Hate Hillary" machine has been running full tilt for 20 years
Exactly. I saw one article that theorized that the reason why younger Democrats view Hillary less favorably than older Democrats is that millennials have spent pretty much their entire lives seeing nothing but this distorted version of her in the media.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:26 am
by Crackpot
And now they have the Bernieites doing it for them.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 10:55 am
by kmccune
Well a lot of this wasnt supposed to be done this way,it seems that the forefathers wanted overwhelming majorities on important matters ,now it seems critical things are decided by simple majorities ,so I postulate that we need more political parties. Correct me if i am wrong ,it seems to me if simple majorities decide ,then lets have more choice a lot of people grudgingly vote party lines because they have no alternative .When the chickenhawks are in power it seems they can send us kicking and screaming into battle ,when even a majority of people are opposed to it ?(how about DST for example-I have a hard time finding anyone who has to actually work liking it ) Maybe I am contradicting myself ,if so someone please steer me on the correct course .
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:55 am
by Crackpot
Our system favors two major parties. The issue is the parties have gotten so strong that instead of acting as an aid to the political process they are now actively hindering it.
This current election cycle may lead to a correction or make things worse
Personally I wouldn't be opposed to stronger regulation of the parties as well as mandated independent redistricting.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:13 pm
by Long Run
Crackpot wrote: The issue is the parties have gotten so strong that instead of acting as an aid to the political process they are now actively hindering it.
Isn't the problem the exact opposite? That the parties have gotten too weak relative to the individual legislators? The devolving power really got going after Watergate when Congress used the moment to swing power its way and created a bunch of subcommittees. Now, it is hard to find a good legislator to lead a party in Congress because there are so many legi-critters who only want to push their own agenda, and the parties have no effective control. Maybe an unintended consequence of power to the people.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:21 pm
by Crackpot
The very idea that "purity oaths" are being floated speaks to the idea that the party comes before the people.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:48 pm
by Crackpot
Thad partisan gridlock of the last few cycles shows the primacy of the party over the people.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 4:00 pm
by Sue U
It's really both: The parties are structurally weak, subject to the whims of radicalized factions and moneyed interests, and craven in the extreme for fear of losing any bit of real or perceived power; moreover, because our system is focused on electing individual politicians rather than a party list, the parties have no real policy program to implement or mandate to actually govern. At the same time, the parties are far too strong, by virtue of the institutional entrenchment of the "two-party system" (it really is the only game in town) and the stranglehold they have on the House of Representatives through the congressional redistricting/gerrymandering process, ensuring an overwhelming majority of "safe" seats.
If you want to have an actually functioning democracy that effects the will of the electorate in an efficient and cost-effective manner, the advantages of a parliamentary system should be obvious -- particularly one that incorporates proportional representation. However, if you want an expensive and impotent clusterfuck of governmental inaction, then the system we've got is pretty much ideal.
Re: This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 7:20 pm
by Big RR
Sue--are there many one house parliamentary systems? It seems the proportionality suffers when an upper house is included, whether it's senators or lords or whatever. Also, my understanding is that in parliamentary systems "safe" seats are just as important to assure that party leaders who are to be appointed to high level positions are elected.
I personally like the position put for the by the libertarians years ago; there should be a "none of the above" line in every election and, if it wins, we will have to hold another election with completely different candidates. It would be hard to implement at first, but once the novelty wore off and people saw their votes counted, I'd bet it would be come much better as would the candidates. At the very least, there would be much less voting for the lesser of two evils, as well as parties taking their base voters for granted.
