Ladies and Gentlemen, I truly believe we are watching....

[Rosco T.]

.. the destruction of the neo-con/tea-bagger version of the Republican Party.

Now, that's not to say the Republican Party will go away.. but I think after this debacle of 2012, the few 'sane' ones will break away and form a new political faction leaving the remnants to choke on their own filth and fade away in time.

I also think that we are seeing a resurgence in 'real' news reporting from some sources, the press corps are tired of being kept in the dark and fed shit by the likes of the GOP and they are starting to bite back.

The next few years will be interesting to say the least.

[kath]

1. Now if only the so-called "Democrats" in DC would go back to the way the Democratic Party was 75 or

so years ago and start representing WORKING PEOPLE AND THE POOR again and stop being Repub-lite corporatists...

FDR/LBJ Democrats like me are so frickin' disgusted with DINOs and Trojan Horses...

[johnlucas]

9. THAT'S what I'm talking 'bout!

The Democratic Party we want to support was built by FDR, JFK, & LBJ.
Kath, I think the Vietnam War is what ruined this party.
They lost the bigoted "States' Rights" Democrats (AKA Dixiecrats) with the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act but I think the party still had enough strength then.

Vietnam split this block into factions & Nixon swooped in & took over.
Then when they shot RFK & killed him a lot of bite was taken out of the Democrats from then on.

I don't know if Obama will return to that FDR mode in his 2nd term but if he's smart he would do that.
It's what he should have done in his first term.

This Third Way stuff has got to end.
FIRST WAY from now on.
STRONG & PROGRESSIVE to move the country FORWARD.
John Lucas

[polichick]

16. Agreed!

[VotePedia]

2. political social media

politicians have been leveraging social media to its fullest this year, voter have also used social media as well, along with youtube, Russian today, blogs, the internet in general. we are getting a better picture of whats actually going on in the world, we can have eyes and ears in evey part of the world. people arnt stupid and when they know something is broken, i'd like to this at least a few of us want to fix it.

[k2qb3]

3. I think you're half right...

The Republican party has essentially been falling apart for a decade now. I think the decisive moment, the representative moment was the firing of Paul O'niel, W's fiscally conservative and honest sectreas that blew the whistle on Iraq and a bunch of his economic disasters but never got enough attention.

However, the attempts to wrest the GOP from the neocons haven't gone very well, which is why they are what they are today. The tea party was itself a protest movement within the party, as was the libertarian/Ron Paul insurgency. One of the responses to these fractures has been the consolidation of power and party control within the RNC, the rules changes made at the convention were draconian, and made grassroots reform of the party much more difficult. There will be negative consequences to having half of the body politic crashing.

I've always thought this country needed two serious, adult political parties working in a reasonable representation of good faith for the national interest, and we only have one that's doing a passable job of that. Part of the reason for that is that conservatism is a horrible organizational principle to build a political movement around, and that being the case so is progressivism.

I hope people are right, and a great many people are predicting it, that a major realignment is coming. We really do need it.

[sofa king]

10. I've been thinking about a coalition Congress lately....

It's easy to forget that our two-party system evolved from a parliamentary, coalition-style vision that didn't last long in practice.

But it's not as far away as one might think. Even now, the Democratic party contains a coalition element within it, in the form of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. It is only an affiliate of the Democratic Party (in theory), and has two Senators and four Representatives of its own in Congress. Democratic control of the Senate also currently depends heavily on the one Socialist in Congress, Bernie Sanders, and one corporatist pseudo-con, Joe Lieberman.

So the Democrats right now are a "coalition" in just about the most minimal sense it can be.

The Republican Party has much bigger problems with their own lock-step leadership style, and thus seems to me to be more vulnerable to a full-on fracture and split. A month ago I thought it was genuinely possible that a third party might spawn from the Romney headache, but I was totally wrong--so keep that in mind as you read this!

Toss in the quickly evolving information landscape, where voters can be much better informed on issues that interest them than ever before, and I think it is inevitable that we will see more and more single-issue independents being elected to the House. Once enough of them get in there, they can begin to weigh in on procedural and rule changes which may someday relax the two-party stranglehold on our legislature.

It's not a totally crazy prediction, because marginalized Representatives from both sides of the aisle will temporarily agree on awarding themselves a louder voice and more influence. But the big parties which can control the message will always be able to control the debate better than the splitters. I think the real problem is that the two parties have long since dealt with this sort of thing and have gamed the table so that one-issue loons don't have enough time or influence to change the rules.

Anyway, I don't know where I'm really going with this, except to say that I would welcome a bit of fractionation. In other, more modern governments, shifting coalitions in the legislature have forced those countries to build strong and flexible bureaucracies which provide more efficient and consistent government services and prevent assholes like George Bush from wrecking an entire nation in a few short years.

The United States of America won't survive another Bush, so we'd better be thinking about it.

[jeff47]

4. I don't think so.

The Democrats are playing for the moderate Republicans. There's no room for a new Republican party.

IMO, there's two scenarios:
1) Republicans regain sanity after big losses in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Both parties move back to their traditional positions.

2) Republican party becomes a rump party, getting more and more extreme. Democrats move right to capture former Republicans. This causes a new major party to appear on the left (new-to-being major, could be an existing party). Democrats settle in to the traditional Republican position and the new party settles in to the old Democratic position.

#2 scares me. I'd love the final result if it plays out how I state there. But those kinds of shifts can be risky - a variety of "crazy" could take over, as in Germany before WWII

[madinmaryland]

5. I think the racist tea-bagger and bible thumper wings will survive. They may even merge together

again at some point. There is always going to be the 29%'ers as we referred to them in the 2007's and 2008's that still supported Bush. That is what will be left of that party. Teabaggers and bible thumpers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Shrub Bush imploded GOP. Tea parties were the "dead cat bounce". nt

[Doctor_J]

7. Not a chance

they will keep the House and probably take the Senate.

They're not going anywhere until we do something very assertive about Big Media and Hate Radio.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

12. Hate Radio is dead....

The internet killed it.

Seriously. Look at Rush Limbaugh of 1992 and Rush Limbaugh of 2012. It's not just that he's become a pathetic charicature of himself, it's that he's become a non-entity. His fan base includes only a cadre of dead-enders who would never vote Democratic even if there were no Republican opposition.

[Doctor_J]

15. You really think millions aren't brainwashed by Hate Radio???

Then how do you explain 50% of social security recipients believing that they don't get any help from the government? The reason is that Hate Radio and Fox tell them that only low-lifes and minorities get help. Edit: The entire Teabagger movement was a creation of Hate Radio and Cable "News". they went from nothing to a congressional majority just from the sheer volume and saturation of the propaganda.

If you don't think Hate Radio still brainwashes millions of Americans, you're part of the problem - your denial is so deep that you can't help solve it.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

18. Yes I'm part of the problem...

Because if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem

If you not with me, you're against me.





Simple solutions tend to have a stsrong appeal to simple minds.

[Doctor_J]

19. well, you're half right

Because if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

20. Thanks for proving my point...

The world truly is a paradise for those not cursed with self-reflection.

[desertduck]

22. I am not sure i agree that hate radio is dead. Limbaugh is dead b/c of limbaugh.

But i do think that we are at a pivotal point in politics where they have taken crazy dogma of the right as far as they can go. If mitt wins, we will go back to the 1950's. If Obama wins, they will be forced to reshape their ideology....translation: they will abandon the tea party ideology and go back to being real republicans again. As clinton so aptly puts it: hopefully the fever will break soon.

[Cosmocat]

13. THIS

These people sell hate, fear and division, and throughout human history, people have ALWAYS been willing to buy these products.

They will find SOMETHING to get a toe hold on, and you are absolutely right, big media WILL validate and promote it.

Though, on edit, I think if it were today the Ds would keep the senate, and I do feel this election breaking left pretty clearly right now. But, the "liberal media" WILL find a way to push things back the Rs way, they way they did with this pathetic hissy fit "tea party" in 2010.

[Doctor_J]

17. And it is every single radio station in the country

There is no access to the truth for most of america. None. Next time you're in the car turn on the AM radio and press "seek" ten times. You will get one sports station and one infomercial station. The other 8 are hate radio stations, all reciting the day's lies and propaganda.

I cannot believe anyone on our side believes that Fox and AM Radio aren't the root of the problem. A big reason why it keeps getting worse is that people are in denial about how bad it is.

[Cosmocat]

23. I have done my share of campaigning

I have knocked doors, and literally, heard Rush on the background as I talk to people.

I have heard Rush on at public employee places of employment.

Faux is ALWAYS on at my gym, in 90% of the hotels I stay at, doctors offices ...

My mom was a rock solid JFK democrat.

She got hooked on CNN in the late 80s/early 90s, then moved to Faux in the late 90s.

By the early 2000s they got her, good.

I remember eating lunch with her and being flabbergasted when she said how embarrased she was of Howard Dean and the democratic party.

[Rosco T.]

25. Which is why I have XM

Stephanie, Ed,Thom,Malloy... I never listen to local radio...

Oh and BBC World Service, WorldNet Radio

[Harry_Scrote]

8. That much hate

...Does not disappear. It festers until it explodes.

[TexasCPA]

11. Sadly, the neocons are winning in Texas

I will have to live with Ted Cruz joining John Cornyn in January. What is wrong with my state?

[Cosmocat]

14. Unfortunately, not

Bill Clinton was a VERY good president. Saw a great economic period, ran government well.

They spent the entire 8 years in a fitful rage, and managed to get a moron elected over a competent and decent man because the moron was a guy you would want to have a beer with. They argued that having a balanced budget was bad because it meant government was going to start buying up business.

The moron allowed 9-11 to happen on his watch, and they used it to their electoral advantage for the next half decade.

They left the country in smoke and ashes, and there was NO reason to give the Rs any lever of power after 06/08, but the media breathlessly babbled about the tea party throwing a hissy fit and how ANGRY the country was as a means to get a new batch of lunatics elected just two years ago.

The Rs have to be THIS bad to lose elections.

If things are not THIS bad, the media plays things to allow them to sell their bullshit to win elections.

It will not go away.

This is just a down period for them.

But these are the clowns who won elections screaming about fluoride being in water.

What they sell - fear, anger, division, will ALWAYS sell, and the scumbag, sell out "liberal media" types will always carry water for them until they get THIS bad.

[Mad_Dem_X]

21. I really hope you're right.

[yellowcanine]

24. And out of the ashes will emerge...........wait for it.....