Is the Republican party just Anti-Obama no matter any bipartisanship?

[colourwheel]

I am not so sure it is so much "anti-Obama", as it is "anti-democrat" policy. If a dem suggests it, republicans hate it. Even when it is a suggestion that was originally brought up by a republican at some point in the past.

It use to not be this way until Obama took office. Republican use to be thrilled if democrates supported republican policies.

 

Do you guys really think that each and every bit and piece of legislation is all about what the name of the legislation describes? Please don't tell me that this and that senator doesn't add a few million dollars of pork onto these bills for this and that project, until it's too much even for it's sponsors to support.

Not sure if you understand this but through out history legisation has been this way for decades and decades. I fail to see why Republicans recently think of this as an escuse to stop government. Looking back to the recent fiscal cliff debate Republican Mitch McConnell threw in with the extention of the bush tax cuts a new farm bill social plan that Republican in the house were totally against but without it most likely the bill would have not gotten through the senate. (OMG a republican that secretly threw in pork to a bill for a farm social plan to help out farmers on a tax cut bill extention. What is the world coming to?!?!? Republicans in favor of a social plan!!! lol)

 

President Obama is just as much of an ideologue as George Bush was an idiot. Both sides are so sure of their aims and ideals that they see any opposition to them as being Evil. I think the term the spin doctors are using these days is, "Out of step with The American People." which is ludicrous. These people have pollsters that actively search for ways of wording the polls they take so that they can say "The America Public" is behind them .

Being an ideologue, this is just politics. But if you are suggesting credible polls are purposely skewed to reflect in favor of one political side that is just non-sence. For one thing this would undermind the polling organizations who do these polls. They have a reputaion to up hold. Are you suggesting gallup polls are wrong?... congress approval rating is at 15% according to recent gallup polls. Republican party has a 26% approval rating nation wide, etc... Same polls done by wall street journal almost complete accrate off by 1%. republican party national approval rating is at 27% according to wall street journal.

 

Credible Pollsters do not affiliate to any political party because they have a reputation to uphold. If word got out this was not the truth then their credibility nation wide would be dissolved and no one would ever take them serious anymore...

 

You might think pollsters are skewed purposely in favor of one political party but without evidence to show the arguement here hardly holds up for credible sources...

 

I don't really think that either side is entirely for the American people, since the interests of either party is to be re-elected and look as good in their mud wrestling clothes as humanly possible in the time between elections. Their policies are formulated to turn America in the direction they envision and to help those contributors who have been most financially supportive of their causes. This doesn't mean that these supporters are in it to aid the rest of the public and for either side not to add this calculation to the sum and total of their appraisal of either side is dangerous to the very ideal of democracy.

I would have to disagree with you on this. In this particular situation now Obama is not worried about being re-elected. If his interest are not entirely for the American people why would he be pushing so hard for an agenda that mostly is against the interest of business financial supporters who help elect people in his own party? I honestly believe Obama really is trying hard to help our country despite the political grid lock on capital hill.

Edited February 20, 2013 by colourwheel

[kvnchrist]

Quote

Being an ideologue, this is just politics. But if you are suggesting credible polls are purposely skewed to reflect in favor of one political side that is just non-sense. For one thing this would undermined the polling organizations who do these polls. They have a reputation to up hold. Are you suggesting Gallup polls are wrong?... congress approval rating is at 15% according to recent Gallup polls. Republican party has a 26% approval rating nation wide, etc... Same polls done by wall street journal almost complete accurate off by 1%. republican party national approval rating is at 27% according to wall street journal.

 

No, being an ideologue is not being political. It means having no conceptual idea that anything you do can be considered wrong or that anything you do may not work. The man is a community organizer, not a politician and his legislation bears that out. almost everything his done has been pushed through including the affordable care act and we still don't know how much the insurance and pharmaceutical companies made out in that deal. He may have not had very much of a finger on that, but the speed that it was pushed had his fingerprints all over it. I think you would find few people here who would agree to a contract backed by a person who stated, "We have to sign it in order to find out what is in it beyond the fog of debate". Would you buy a house under those circumstances? I wouldn't.

 

I'm also sorry, but I think that you have your facts wrong, when it comes to polls. Note, I didn't say national because I wasn't sure the poll I took was national, but it was skewered. The rest you can indeed word a question in order to alter the outcome. I know, I've seen to many of these debates to not understand that. I refrain from saying words like Niave and nonsense, which has a tenancy to be taken personally by some. I'd rather someone say that my facts are wrong or that I had been misinformed.

 

For the record I had two phone polls taken by me over the past few years. I will not say which party because I am sure both parties do this, but both I took the first question was what I thought of the overall performance of one political party. I was given a list of numeric responses from 1 to 5. Me being myself and finding political parties distasteful I gave the lowest response. The same exact question was repeated and I responded appropriately. The question was again repeated and I gave the noncommittal response to which the question was again, repeated. I responded this time with the highest remark and surprisingly the next question was asked. I then hung up the phone thinking the test had a glitch in it. I try to give everyone a chance. No on and nothing is infallible. That was until I received the same poll, though I didn't know wither it was given by the same body. It started out and ended the same way as the first. I won't ask you to infer anything from that, but it is fact that I took it.

 

As far as credibility, the news and print media also has this to think about and how many of them skew their information towards their target audience?

Credibility has become a commodity in today's world, just like sincerity and offense I see you are confident enough in these polls to quote a few. I think you would find a fairly consistent score, no matter which party was in power there at the time. Also If you are going to bring up these polls, would you at least post the scores for the Democrats as well. I really see no point in polls sense, even if I'm in error, for which I apologize for in advance, they are a snapshot in time and relate more to what someone perceives than any kind of reality.

 

Case in point, we elected George the II twice. The second time because the country was afraid. To tought the present polls as anything more meaningful is to ignore the electoral history. High marks today doesn't mean in three days the same people won't be in the crapper.

 

 

Quote

 

I would have to disagree with you on this. In this particular situation now Obama is not worried about being re-elected. If his interest are not entirely for the American people why would he be pushing so hard for an agenda that mostly is against the interest of business financial supporters who help elect people in his own party? I honestly believe Obama really is trying hard to help our country despite the political grid lock on capital hill.

 

He is an ideologue = A true believer in what he is trying to do. More power to him sense the Democrats elected him to do their bidding. Any Democrat or Republican, for that matter needs to follow their vision of The America they chose. To not do so is to deny the voice of those who elected them, but does that mean what they want in any way workable? There are those on the left that think President Obama didn't go far enough and I'm not sure that they aren't correct. Especially with healthcare. Everybody on the right, that I've talked to calls the man a socialist and I'm not sure wither they see communist when they say socialist. Not many that I've talked to even know there is a difference.

 

 

True Communism has in my opinion, never been achieved by any government, but the right still had McCarthy totally destroy hundreds of citizens futures just be cause they believed in an idea. This, sentiment, I think has never gone away. This mortal fear of an idea. I think America has been toying with the idea of socialism for a very long time. I think it's time we need to see what full socialism is in this country and find out for sure if it will work here. If not there's not a lock on the door that will stop us from changing back or instituting something altogether new. Heck wasn't it an idea that created the U.S. to begin with. To be fearful of a different idea, now doesn't exactly make us shine.

 

What do you think?

[sukeban]

@Polls

 

Just to sort of clear the air with respect to political polls, I think that both of you are right in certain instances.

 

1. Some polls, usually done by disreputable polling institutions (Mason Dixon, American Research Group, increasingly Rasmussen, etc.), can be and are intentionally skewed to advance a previously selected narrative. There IS a certain way that polling has transcended it's usual conception of "being a snapshot of reality" and instead sometimes creates reality. That is what these "push polls" (suggestive or non-neutrally worded polls) are attempting to do--to paint a favorable portrait for their cause in the hopes that said portrait will, in turn, influence voter behavior. You could see this in the closing weeks of the campaign with conservative polling groups and the Romney campaign releasing "idealistic" polls of states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, hoping that, if voters thought the races were truly lose and that their individual vote actually mattered, that their targeted voters would be more likely to vote.

 

2. Internal campaign polls can do this as well, and most campaigns selectively release "leaked" internal polls that show their candidate doing exceptionally well (controlling for context). They also--if they are actually doing their job properly--have a separate, call it "realistic" set of polling that they use to actually plan campaign strategy with. Romney's people might not have done this, however, and they might have been using their "idealistic" internal numbers for strategy purposes, which would explain why they were so visibly dumbfounded when they lost so decisively.

 

3. A polling institution DOESN'T have to be politically non-aligned to be credible. In years past, Rasmussen (conservative) had been pretty accurate and nowadays SurveyUSA and Mellman (liberal) polls have also proven to be reliably accurate. Neutral parties (CNN, Reuters, Quinnipiac, etc.) still tend to have good track records (minus Gallup, actually), but it is a myth that only non-partisan pollsters can be trusted. All you need to be a reliable pollster is to be honset about the data that you collect and to have a sound methodology--that can be done by any pollster with integrity regardless of their political affiliation.

 

4. The "art" of polling presently undergoing somewhat of a shakeup, as voters increasingly do not have access to landlines and, as such, are completely missed by many traditional, large pollsters. Other firms have experimented with internet polling--Google did especially well in 2012 with this--but this method is still in its infancy. Robodialing--the dominant polling method of the 80s/90s/2000s--seems to be on the way out (though manual-dialing is much more expensive) as response rates have dipped to around 4% of people called. Compound this with different--and changing--demographic "weights" that individual pollsters apply to their data, and you have an industry is extreme flux. However, polling is becoming more accurate rather than less, and I would very much caution against not monitoring the results of reputable polling firms.

 

In this way, I'd say that you're both right. Polling is a tool--a powerful one, but one of many--for understanding the general trends involved in our current (and past) politics. Good polls can be very good, and bad polls are, well, bad and misleading (oftentimes intentionally so). Whenever you see a poll, seek out as much information as you can on the pollster--often times this will shed a great deal of light as to explaining their numbers. Best of all, however, most pollsters publish their entire result, from the actual data, to the questions asked, to the weight that they are using, and you can check for yourself whether or not the poll asks leading questions or otherwise is abusing the data that they collect. So polls are neither always right, nor always wrong, nor the be all and end all, nor irrelevant. Rather, they are what you, the end-user, make of them.

[HeyYou]

even some of the more reputable polling institutions can skew data, either in the way the questions are asked, or, the way in which the data is presented. I could write a poll that would pretty much assure I would get the responses I wanted, and I only dabbled in psychology in college..... (it was fun too....)

 

Unless I can see just WHAT the question presented are, and the RAW data, poll numbers are pretty much meaningless.

[Beriallord]

The Democrats are doing such a phenomenal job at running this country, how could anyone legitimately question them? Why not just lock the Republicans in jail as political prisoners? :biggrin:

[Harbringe]

The Democrats are doing such a phenomenal job at running this country, how could anyone legitimately question them? Why not just lock the Republicans in jail as political prisoners? :biggrin:

 

 

Oh come on now lets not get crazy and saying inflammatory things to provoke a crazy response , no one ever said the Democrats were doing a phenomenal job .lol

[Beriallord]

 

The Democrats are doing such a phenomenal job at running this country, how could anyone legitimately question them? Why not just lock the Republicans in jail as political prisoners? :biggrin:

 

 

Oh come on now lets not get crazy and saying inflammatory things to provoke a crazy response , no one ever said the Democrats were doing a phenomenal job .lol

Was intended to be sarcasm :biggrin: .

 

Anyway I hope those evil Republicans completely stonewall anything the Democrats try and pass. The ones who voted for Republicans are the ones who want partisan gridlock. So the threats about them losing seats if they don't compromise, uh? No? Its actually the other way around. If they compromise ANY on lets say gun control? Then its likely they could lose a primary to a challenger.

[colourwheel]

 

 

The Democrats are doing such a phenomenal job at running this country, how could anyone legitimately question them? Why not just lock the Republicans in jail as political prisoners? :biggrin:

 

 

Oh come on now lets not get crazy and saying inflammatory things to provoke a crazy response , no one ever said the Democrats were doing a phenomenal job .lol

Was intended to be sarcasm :biggrin: .

 

Anyway I hope those evil Republicans completely stonewall anything the Democrats try and pass. The ones who voted for Republicans are the ones who want partisan gridlock. So the threats about them losing seats if they don't compromise, uh? No? Its actually the other way around. If they compromise ANY on lets say gun control? Then its likely they could lose a primary to a challenger.

 

So you think the sequester spending cuts are a good idea for the Republicans to stonewall just to create partisan gridlock for no apparent reason when both parties right now think the sequester is a bad idea? If both political parties think sequester spending cuts are a bad idea now, why doesn't the republican majority speaker of the house bring it up for a vote to repeal?

 

Are guns are more important than the well being of the countries economy? Doing nothing about the sequester spending cuts would be a job destroying tragedy not only to private job creators but also ultimately endup shutting down parts of the government. Good luck buying guns if you work for a company that lays you off because they lost billions in government buisness.

 

For the record Deomcrates have a higher national approval rating than the republicans right now. Democrates are around 49% and Republicans at around 27%

 

And i would have to say the democrates are doing a phenomenal job on capital hill despite the partisan gridlock. looking back to the end to the 112th congress every corner the Republicans have tried to stop important legislation the republican party has blinked. lol

Edited February 21, 2013 by colourwheel

[kvnchrist]

colourwheel, on 21 Feb 2013 - 04:18, said:

 

Beriallord, on 21 Feb 2013 - 01:34, said:

 

 

Harbringe, on 21 Feb 2013 - 01:15, said:

 

 

Beriallord, on 20 Feb 2013 - 23:40, said:

 

The Democrats are doing such a phenomenal job at running this country, how could anyone legitimately question them? Why not just lock the Republicans in jail as political prisoners? :biggrin:

 

Oh come on now lets not get crazy and saying inflammatory things to provoke a crazy response , no one ever said the Democrats were doing a phenomenal job .lol

Was intended to be sarcasm :biggrin: .

 

Anyway I hope those evil Republicans completely stonewall anything the Democrats try and pass. The ones who voted for Republicans are the ones who want partisan gridlock. So the threats about them losing seats if they don't compromise, uh? No? Its actually the other way around. If they compromise ANY on lets say gun control? Then its likely they could lose a primary to a challenger.

So you think the sequester spending cuts are a good idea for the Republicans to stonewall just to create partisan gridlock for no aparrent reason when both parties right now think the sequester is a bad idea? If both political parties think sequester spending cuts are a bad idea now, why doesn't the republican majority speaker of the house bring it up for a vote to repeal?

 

Are guns are more important than the well being of the countries economy? Doing nothing about the sequester spending cuts would be a job destroying tragedy not only to private job creators but also ultimately end up shutting down parts of the government. Good luck buying guns if your company lays you off because they lost billions in government business.

 

For the record Deomcrates have a higher national approval rating than the republicans right now. Democrats are around 49% and Republicans at around 27%

 

And i would have to say the democrats are doing a phenomenal job on capital hill despite the partisan gridlock. looking back to the end to the 112th congress every corner the Republicans have tried to stop important legislation the republican party has blinked. lol

Why are you so polarized on this? You seem to think that the President Obama isn't working on his own on some of these backroom deals. He has already went around congress so many times it isn't funny. He even sidestepped Herry Reed on a deal he wanted to make with the republicans. If you ask me there are three entities working here. President Obama ideological pushing this way. The Democrats in congress trying to keep their seats while trying to justify some of President Obama ideals and the Republicans, trying to do the same, except they want to highlight the more idealist of the presidents proposals in order to cast him in the light they wish to.

 

Do you really think that the opposition is for this sequester or against it based soley on that. There are other matters that are afoot here and I don't think any party should roll over on every other piece of legislation just to stop one. The Democrats are not doing a phenomenal anything. They are playing the same kind of politics that the republicans are. Why do you think that President Obamas budget proposals haven't been backed strongly by either the Senate or the House. Note the Senate is in Democratic hands.

 

The republicans are not shutting down or stopping government. They are doing the constituents bidding as well as they can and The Tea Party is right in their demigoging everything like the drama queens they are. Personally, I though they'd have been absorbed into the body of GOP by now, but I guess there like a bad case of herpes. They pop up and irritate the crap out of everybody.

 

Sorry but it's never an either or scenario in Washington. It's not Guns or the sequester and you are still using poll numbers as if they are the thermometer of the country. I think we pretty much discounted that assumption in the last couple of posts.

 

The qualifier "Important" is an opinion. as to the relevancy of as legislation's noting the desire of politicians to add things that have nothing to do with the legislation at all. Some could argue that some legislation is important only to one side or the other. Just because something is produced by a favred party doesn't necessarily make it important.

[HeyYou]

Washington is dysfunctional. Both parties are to blame. Takes two to play the partisanship game.... and both sides are playing it to the hilt. The american people are the ones that suffer from all this drama.

 

I would also point out, that the sequester won't touch the senators/congress persons salaries... they are exempt, and they planned it that way. The sequester was scheduled to take affect on the last day of the 112th congress. Law forbids congress passing any legislation that affects their salaries in the current term. It was an end run to make sure THEIR pockets continue to be lined.