11 thoughts on “The Iowa Idiot Vote”

  1. Hmmmm… Straw… Poll… Idiots…
    Are we sure that the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” that Dorothy found hanging on a pole in that field didn’t get there from Iowa and not Kansas?
    Iowa Republicans: “If I only had a brain…”

    And this applies to Cantor, too:
    “We were not elected to raise taxes or take more money out of the pockets of hardworking families and business people.”
    And I’m sure that someone from your district didn’t elect their Congressman in 1940 to vote to get the US into a 2 front war. I’m sure no one voted for the coming tax increases and rationing back then. And I’m 100% sure that no one voted to become a “Gold Star” Mom or Dad.
    You are a US Congressman, which means that yes, you have to look out for the parochial interests of your district, but you also have to take national and global approaches, too. The fact that you and others are too stupid in Congress to realize that is one of the reasons you just got our rating lowered.
    The only plus I’m starting to see is that actual members of the financial world and ecomonists are putting blame on the Republicans in Congress. And so are some members of the MSM. We need more of that. And we need the President to do that.
    _____________________________________________________________
    Waaaaaaay OT: But I’d like to see a national discussion about one of two things – either elimination of gerrymandering, or establishing term limits for both houses in Congress.
    Districts are gerrymandered to make sure that one party or the other holds that district for as long as possible – usually with a particular incumbant in mind. Take a look at what districts look like on a map – in almost any state. You will never see anything so convoluted in your life, with many looking like corkscrews, others still more bizarre, and almost none of them look anything like a rational human would consider to be geographic unit with anything else in mind but seperating, literally, brown voters from white voters. A long time ago, it was decided, well, if blacks and Liberals MUST vote, give them their own districts to safely re-elect their Congressman – just don’t let any spill over and be allowed to taint our district, and maybe elect someone other than the ones we’d want.
    How would term limits solve this? Well, look at the polls. Congresses popularity is at an all time low – however, most people polled would still vote to re-elect their own member, because, somehow or other, it’s always the other assholes fault.
    At least then, if we don’t rationally gerrymander district back to something democratic, then people will be forced after 2, 3, or 4 terms for the House, and 2 for the Senate. This will force people look at someone new and not reelect ‘the devil we know.’ And yeah, I’m aware there are problems with that too.

    Well, when I said OT, I meant OT, didn’t I?
    Sorry, it was something I had to get off my chest. Entrenchment means entitlement, and it also means ossified thinking. Thinking focused on only on one thing – reelection. We need to take some hard looks at our form of goverment. If a parliamentary form is out of the question, we have to look at how we can make our current form more (small “d”) democratic.

  2. It’s funny. The Iowans I have met seem like sensible, down-to-earth people. Could it be the straw poll is rather self-selecting? Seems obvious.

  5. The Straw Poll voters were able to dissociate two issues that are married. Benefits & Revenues. Ask Iowa voters how they feel about handing over Social Security to Wall Street shysters. Ask Iowa seniors how they feel about handing over Medicare to private insurance companies creating a situation where retirees on fixed incomes having to dig deeper and deeper in their pockets every year to make up the difference… or die for the gaps in coverage they were not rich enough to cover. Ask Iowa voters if they want to cut national defense by 75%.

    The Tea Party Hobbits refuse to accept the math. These are the consequences (in some mix) of a balanced budget with no new revenue. The BEST thing that can happen between now and 2012 is draconian cuts by the Tea Party… in National Defense.. in Medicare… in Social Security. These cuts are unpopular with moderates & conservatives who are not in the Tea Party asylum. Democrats need to object to.. and then reluctantly allow any Non-systemic changes that will enraged the voters against the Tea Party.

    Non-systemic changes. We don’t allowances balanced budget amendment. We don’t privatize Medicare. We don’t privatize the Post Office. (That’s on the agenda – Sept) We allow the Tea Party to alienate their base with concessions that can be reversed by winning Congress in 2012.

  6. Idiots indeed; the results were more or less inversely related to electability (thank god).

  7. Responding to CUND GULAG. Yes & no. Gerrymandering is wrong regardless of who benefits because it distorts the electoral process. However, term limits are also a distortion of the electoral process. If I have a representative like Ted Kennedy, should he be disqualified after 8 years robe replaced by a rookie?

    The problem is campaign money. Only people or PASs supported exclusively by people should be allowed to participate in ANY part of the electoral process and I include issue or candidate advertising.

  8. Doug, you’re right of course.
    Both on term limits, and on campaign money.

    But I wonder how the SCOTUS, as currently constituted, would treat any new efforts at keeping money out of the campaign process?

    They’ve been pretty clear about saying that any attempt to limit said money is unconstitutional because it abridges the 1st Amendment right of free speech.

    I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure.
    maha?

  9. SCOTUS won’t do a thing about it. The problems go back to Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, in which a Burger/Rehnquist led court struck down New York’s attempts to limit campaign finance spending. Citizens United merely expanded Buckley to allow unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns. Another decision from the 1970s that has come back to haunt us is Marquette Bank, which allowed credit card issuers to export their interest rates of the state in which they had their principal place of business nationally, even if said interest rates were treated as usurious under the law of the state in which the cardholder lived. That is why so many card issuers are located in North Dakota and Delaware, because neither state caps the amount of interest credit card issuers can charge their borrowers.

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