{"id":4274,"date":"2011-03-11T06:48:13","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T14:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4274"},"modified":"2011-03-12T09:35:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T17:35:24","slug":"will-voters-stay-home-in-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/11\/will-voters-stay-home-in-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Voters Stay Home in 2012?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not forgotten the run-up to the 2010 elections when some said that the Democrats were the lesser evil and making some progress, and others said there is no difference between parties and vowed to vote third party or stay home in protest.\u00a0 It seems that the latter position won that argument, because turnout was low, especially among younger voters.\u00a0 Did they teach Obama a lesson?\u00a0 Did they get back at the Democrats? Did they make America better?\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at the outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"11wisconsin\"Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have reversed half-a-century\u2019s middle-class progress in the state by erasing collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Union members, caught off guard and infuriated by the Senate vote on Wednesday and the Assembly vote on Thursday, immediately talked of legal challenges and general strikes, but the outcome was probably inevitable given the Republican success in the 2010 elections<\/strong>. Now union members have to make sure they do not stay away from the polls again when their rights are at stake<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The vote, pushed by Gov. Scott Walker, would have happened weeks ago if Democratic state senators had not fled to Illinois to deprive the Senate of the supermajority it needs to pass bills that are considered fiscal matters. Republicans then moved the bargaining rights from a larger budget bill to a separate bill that they could pass by proclaiming that the rights were not a fiscal issue.<\/p>\n

And, in doing so, they reluctantly exposed the real truth behind the maneuver: stripping the unions of their rights was never about the budget, especially once the unions had agreed to significant concessions on pensions and health care. It was always about politics. Governor Walker had hoped to hide behind a cooked-up budget crisis, but the fleeing Democrats at least succeeded in pulling away that facade.<\/p>\n

Undermining public unions \u2014 and the support they give to Democrats \u2014 has been a long-sought goal of the Republican Party and many of its corporate backers. Koch Industries, one of the party\u2019s biggest supporters, spent $1.2 million last year to help elect Mr. Walker and other Republican governors who want to eliminate or reduce bargaining rights. On Wednesday, the State Senate\u2019s Republican leader, Scott Fitzgerald, told Fox News<\/a> that if unions lose the battle for their rights, they would have less money to help President Obama win re-election\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the video of Scott Fitzgerald:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems to be going very well\u2026 for Republicans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow connects the tactics of Republican majorities in several states to Republican strategy in DC.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/span><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans want to take away out votes.\u00a0 But that should not surprise us, when so many didn\u2019t use that right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nameless, one of our readers, left a link to this fantastic article, that saved me a bunch of work writing an explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"11regressives\"\u2026All across the country, the True Liberals’ efforts to teach Barack Obama a lesson are paying off in spades. Their plan could not have worked out more perfectly. After a year of shouting to the highest heavens about how much they were disappointed in President Obama and the Democrats, after a year promising to withhold their support during the 2010 Midterm campaign and, more importantly, at the ballot box, they got their wish: Democrats stayed home in droves. Huge numbers of Democrats across the country, many of whom had voted for the very first time in 2008, got up and went to the fridge instead of the polls that late Fall Tuesday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, in Wisconsin, the tea party Governor and his cadre of Republican Senators figured out a way to bypass Senate Democrats’ exploitation of a loophole that allowed them to put the brakes on a GOP effort to drive a stake into the heart of unions in their state. Most collective bargaining rights for teachers and public employees are now gone as if they were trash taken to the curb. Sure, Scott Walker’s favorables took a beating there for awhile. If it weren’t for that pesky quorum loophole, this would have all been taken care of weeks ago and his numbers wouldn’t have tanked so far. But that’s water under the bridge and now they are back on track. The unions have been squashed like bugs and they can go back to laughing at the protesters as they are frisked and searched and scanned just to enter a public building.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama has really got to be smarting over that, eh?<\/strong> He’s really paid the price now, by golly.<\/p>\n

In Michigan yesterday, the GOP-controlled Senate passed a bill that enhances the Republican Governor’s ability to declare financial emergencies in municipalities and appoint an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM). This EFM will have authority to do pretty much whatever they wish including suspending contracts with unions and other groups and even firing the existing elected officials<\/strong>. Rachel Maddow explained it very well the other night. There was a protest at the Capitol<\/a> before the vote, of course. Over 700 people showed up, mostly union employees. Know what the Republican who introduced the bill said about the protest? “I don’t think it had an effect outside of the fact we had to talk a little bit louder today.” Ouch. They had to talk a little louder.<\/p>\n

But that’s not all that is coming down the pipeline in Michigan. The Republican Governor’s budget taxes public and private pensions that helps the elderly. It eliminates the Earned Income Tax Credit that helps the poor. It eliminates a huge tax credit for filmmakers in Michigan, killing that job-creating baby in its crib. It eliminates tax credits for vehicle battery manufacturers, strangling a nascent industry before it even gets off the ground. It eliminates tax credits for redeveloping brownfield sites, ensuring that new industrial development will take place on undeveloped, pristine lands rather than on already-despoiled soil. Here’s one: there’s a union-busting bill in Congress to make Michigan a “Right to Work” state or, as the unions call it, a “Right to Work for LESS” state. All of this and businesses are getting billions of dollars in tax breaks, paid for by the elderly, the poor and whichever other down-trodden groups you can name.<\/p>\n

“Eclectablog, what shall we do???!” I’m asked. “We can’t let this stand. We must protest. Where is OFA???”<\/p>\n

What can we do? We can’t do ANYTHING! In Michigan, the Republicans control the House. The Republicans control the Senate. The Republicans control the Supreme Court. The Governor is a Republican. When we protest, they just talk a little louder. And after they get done redistricting our formerly solid-Democratic state this year, we’ll be lucky if our dog catchers are Democrats.<\/p>\n

Protest at the Capitol? Sorry, I won’t waste my time.<\/p>\n

But, I’ll tell you this: President Obama has surely learned his lesson. These union-busting, pro-business moves by the Michigan GOP have got to be chapping his britches something fierce<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s happening in Florida, too. Tea Party Governor Rick Scott is unstoppable. He’s solving his state’s multi-billion dollar deficit by cutting taxes on businesses by several billion dollars and he’s cutting teachers’ pay to do it. He’s rejecting federal funds to develop high-speed rail.<\/p>\n

Take that, Obama!<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>>\u00a0 Originally posted at <Electablog<\/a>><\/p>\n

\"GOPgo\"If I were an idiot from Alaska, I might say, \u201cWow\u2019s that Stayey Homey thing working out for you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously, those who stayed home and those who voted 3rd party in close races in protest are every bit as responsible for the dire current events we face as the Republicans who are carrying out their misbegotten assault on freedom.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even want to here \u201cObama this\u201d and \u201cObama that\u201d.\u00a0 I\u2019m disappointed in Obama too.\u00a0 Any regular reader here will tell you that I post far more material critical of him than supportive of what he is doing.\u00a0 I feel let down by him.\u00a0 But I know that there is still a difference between the parties.\u00a0 If you think there isn\u2019t, look around at what\u2019s happening in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, New Jersey, Arizona, Texas\u00a0 and more.\u00a0 It\u2019s too late to change your non-votes.\u00a0 The damage is done.\u00a0 But in 2013 we can start undoing some of that damage, if and only if, we remove Republicans from power.\u00a0 Democrats are the only ones who can.\u00a0 Now I\u2019ll be the first to admit that the Democratic party has multiple problems that desperately need fixing, but by comparison, the Republican Party is nonredeemable.\u00a0 Now that you\u2019re seeing the greater evil in action, does not the lesser evil make sense?\u00a0 The Democratic Party is a swamp that needs draining, but to do that, we need to get rid off those Republican alligators.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not forgotten the run-up to the 2010 elections when some said that the Democrats were the lesser evil and making some progress, and others said there is no difference between parties and vowed to vote third party or stay home in protest.\u00a0 It seems that the latter position won that argument, because turnout […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}