Going to be hard to get people engaged when the approval of Congress hovers around 25%. Most seem to think “why bother.” Thanks, Teddy

Teddy!

It has been fairly apparent for quite a while that the GOP knows that it is a minority party nationally and cannot win on the merits (hence all the voter suppression efforts). I wish I could be more optimistic about efforts to get more voters to the polls, but I just do not see it working well enough to make a difference. Most people who do not vote simply do not believe it makes any difference and in many ways they are right. The big money interests have largely captured both parties, though the Dems are still better on economic issues and substantially better on social issues. Unfortunately that economic difference is not great enough to motivate the apathetic.

All too true. You run on your record and this Congress has precious little to run on.

I’m thinking of someone here at fdl who worked hard on his state’s campaigns. Election night (or the night after), the local Democratic chief thanked the workers and told them, “well, that’s it til 2016. See ya then!”
Paraphrase, of course.
But I keep remembering it; it’s a wonder Dems win anything at all. Too many party workers still living in a political world that ended decades ago, but they don’t know it. (Hmmm, nice Downton Abby parallel, post WWI)

Until we have tens of thousands of people working for registration of voters and issue campaigns, selection of candidates, etc., etc., continuous campaign work…like the Repubs do, we haven’t got a chance.
We need someone with the guts and power to redistrict whenever they can, just like Tom deLay did. Chutzpah all seems to be with the wingnuts, not Dems.

There is, of course, the bread and circuses aspect,too; our celebrity culture that distracts people from political life. And people working two or three jobs tend not to have much time to inform themselves well on issues, let alone to get the poll to vote on them.

That’s the part I really despair over. Don’t see it ending anytime soon.

I’m thinking it’s pot.

But whether the Democratic Congress is smart enough to get on board with pot is quite another matter.

I do know the GOP never will. Their base hates fun. And medicine!

It’s hard to get interested in some guy (usually) who is going to Congress, never really work another day in his whole life and steal your money 24/7, no matter which party.

What we really need are grassroots organizations (like ACORN used to be) that organize people around issues important to them, get them registered to vote, campaign for candidates who support their positions, and turn out the vote. That is the only way we we break the corporate stranglehold (at least until a substantial number of Supreme Court Justices die). The National Party is too dependent on those big money donors.

The media actually make things worse (which I think is their actual function) with all the “He said/She said” horseshit and the horse race reporting without any in depth analysis of policies or their likely impact on people.

That is not entirely fair. There is a lot of that for sure, but far from all congress critters are that bad. There are a number of people in Congress who genuinely work hard and try to do what they think is best for the country, or at least their constituents.

They talk a good game and when it’s voting time they fall right in line. Sorry, but I’m so angry and disappointed in my party and, I must say, in my country.

The vast majority of Representatives and Senators vote with their respective caucus, no matter what. And the caucus votes are more about pork and lobbyists and their own re-elections than they are about the good of the average American.

Do exceptions exist? Yes. Do they carry the vote? Never. And their own parties will not support them in primaries.

Both Republicans and Democrats could not wait to cast a bipartisan, unconstitutional vote to kill ACORN and the constitutional law lecturer in chief, who had worked with ACORN in Illinois to enhance his chances of getting elected state senator, couldn’t wait to sign it.

By the time a court declared the vote unconstitutional, it was a hollow victory for both ACORN and voter registration, as ACORN was dead in the water.

Honestly, what kinda of ‘filibuster reform’ that had been much ballyhooed, happened on the Senate side…? Seems like it’s the Same Ol’ Situation, in both Houses…! A Pox on both of ‘em…! 8-(

Reid recessed rather than adjourned the Senate, so when they return on 1/22, it will still be Day One.

Don’t you wish you could control the calendar like that at YOUR work? “Hey boss I’m still in the first week of this project!” in, say, month three?

Ooh, That was nifty of Reid, I’m surprised that I’d missed it…! ;-)

Now, can he build the necessary coalition…? I’m sure Mazie and Schatz would give him an assist…! ;-)

DrDick, what you said about the media, times two or three. I sometimes think they bear the chief blame, and that it started when newspapers began to earn big profits, and reporters began to get paid well, to be hired from college instead of working their way up from copy boy(or something), and they started to call themselves journalists, not reporters.

They bear a heavy burden for the failure of our system, no question in my mind.

According to the Jan. 4 final tally by Cook’s David Wasserman after all states certified their votes, Democratic House candidates won 59,645,387 votes in November to the Republicans’ 58,283,036, a difference of 1,362,351. On a percentage basis, Democrats won, 49.15 percent to 48.03 percent.

I am not understanding the point of this kind of analysis or what it proves. We do not elect Representatives (or Senators or the President) by a popular vote of the entire nation.

Republicans broke records in 2010, before this latest bit of gerrymandering, which is why they got to re-draw the districts after the 2010 census.

If Democrats had won that election, they would have re-drawn the districts to benefit their incumbents, too. It’s how all incumbents play that game, not only Republicans.

Why the pretense that it is something unique to Republicans or unique to 2010?

This kind of politics may benefit politicians of both major Parties and their wealthy owners, but I don’t see how it helps average Americans. So, why would average Americans want to play this kind of game?

You’d better ask your new Senators to get aboard the Merkley anti-filibuster train, not fall for the Levin-DiFi-McCain Faux Filibuster Reform bullshit.

The differences are vast, as you can imagine by looking at the names of their sponsors.

Well, what kind of ‘game’ that affects average Americans do you propose they ‘play,’then?

…Republicans broke records in 2010…

Yes they did, mostly by vote theft, which was field tested much earlier, say like ’04 in the Rust Belt, which truly set the table…! 8-(

Obama never seen to disappoint me. It would help alot to reiintroduce The fairness Doctrine. This is what was reported he said In June 2008. Barack Obama’s press secretary wrote that Obama (then a Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois and candidate for President):

“ Does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters … [and] considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible. That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.” With all this hate radio and television on The Right and all the “New Stand you Ground Laws” he haven’t said a mumble word that make any since. The elephant in the room is the yelling of fire on the public air ways by the crazy of the right with guns.When people who elected him was looking for hero he out getting sandwiches for his staff. He had the audacity to show at the Newtown Memorial Services Chaneling Rodney King “why can we all get along”.