If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
There's a Youtube video of a Regan-Bush primary debate where they get asked a question on immigration and both their answers would get them chucked out of the Republican party today - or at least doom their Primary chances
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
The political centre of the US is way to the right of the UK and Europe. The starting point for much of the country outside the major cities is that government is a necessary evil, not a solution to societal problems. Self-sufficiency, even of the rural poor, libertarianism (the government does not belong here), low taxation and deregulation are almost unquestioned as self-evident policies in these areas.
With the rise of the Christian Coalition, the GOP started to move to the right, relatively, on social issues (in fact, the Dems moved more to the left than the GOP moved to the right, but society as a whole was moving with the Dems) such as abortion, gay rights, legalization of cannabis etc... The net result is that the GOP ended up further from the US centre than did the Dems.
However, simultaneously, the moderates in both parties have been massacred through the primary processes. Moderate GOPers have been hacked down by Tea Party insurgents at the nomination level, with the result that some TP candidates have been elected, and others have lost to their Dem opponents but in both cases the GOP moderates have lost (taking the Congressional GOP to the right both through the addition of TPers and the subtraction of moderates). The same has happened,mutatis mutandis, in the Democratic party. The Blue Dog Democrats were almost completely wiped out in 2014 to a mixture of losses to GOP challengers in the election, or more liberal Democrats in the nomination process.
Thanks for the response.
It's looking like in both the US and UK politics is increasingly drifting further right, and further left simultaneously....
I think the GOP's rightward drift has stopped, and that we are either now, or soon will see, a major correction back towards the centre. Issues such as gay marriage and recreational drugs will cease to be litmus tests and some accommodation on immigration will be reached. It is the Dems who are drifting more leftward at the moment that is the big political shift.
The thing that Tories took pride on in the election was their record in government, not their ideology: pragmatism not doctrine. That's quite centrist.
Yes, Mr Herdson. The Conservatives fought the last election as if they were (almost) Liberal Democrats. That is why they did so well.
Now that it is clearly seen that they are not, I sense that their support will fall away fast.
I also suspect that Miss Apocalyse is a Lib Dem at heart, although she does not yet realise this.
The cuts to benefits were flagged up well in advance of polling day (not the detail, I'd grant you, though most of the cuts weren't too hard to deduce given what was protected). But apart from that, I'm not sure what's marking the Tories out as particularly right-wing in government. The commitment to a £9/hr minimum wage, perhaps?
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
That is true, southern Democrats used to be more conservative than Yankee Republicans
The demographics are in constant flux. There are 12 million or more undocumented Latin American migrants in the US. That influx, along with differential birth rates and more engaged minority voters, are moving the electorate rapidly away from a white dominated affair. But at the same time, the percentage of each minority being won by each party, and the geographic distribution of the vote is changing.
Blue states (democratic) are losing population and hence, every ten years with the census, numbers of representatives in the House. This has no effect on the number of Senators in blue states, and a less dramatic affect on the electoral college in Presidential elections. But at some stage, this population flow can cause states to tip from Red to Blue, or at least Purple, as we have seen in Colorado and Virginia.
Meanwhile, two white voting populations have gone from solid Dem to GOP - white working class males and (to a lesser extent) the Catholic vote. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Jewish vote will fracture (over Israel policies) in the future, with a significant portion moving to the GOP from Dem.
So electoral theories based on demographic changes have to also take into account shifting political allegiances within those demographic groups. My own view is that, in the long term, the one will balance out the other and we'll still have two viable parties contesting elections and taking turns to be in power.
Your first two paragraphs are an excellent tutorial in the basics of US electoral demographics. The very basic stuff that as soon I spot a person commentating on US elections who doesn't understand it, I can immediately file them in the "noise not signal" box and ignore them. That's a big box, by the way, in everyday life. On PB it is only a small box. I think Mike Smithson deserves some kind of prize for the quality of BTL comments he attracts. Anyhow, I thought you presented the relevant facts in an excellent manner.
I agree with your last paragraph too for the reason I expounded in my rather over-long post earlier. US politicians are excellent at recalibration. When recalibration is needed, all past evidence suggests it will happen. In the most extreme case, there may even be a volta face as dramatic as the Southern strategy was, and the demographic and electoral map could end up re-aligned. More likely, I suspect, it only needs a continuous process of chipping away. The more middle-class, Anglophone, well-integrated Hispanics there are, the bigger a target the Republicans have even without big changes in image and strategy. Another important rising segments is people of Asian origin, where the GOP are not at such a disadvantage.
I wonder how many years Labour MPs will give Corbyn before attempting to remove him.
Be warned Andy and be forewarned. Corbyn has already managed to defy all political laws of gravity by propelling himself forward to the leadership of the Labour Party. Don't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband. He has reached basecamp against all the odds (BTW- I am now taking it as a GIVEN that Corbyn will win)
I could not haver predicted it. You could not have predicted it. When he announced his nomination, noone could have predicted it.
So the next stage? Who knows? The first politician in a generation to have captured the heart of a pretty untribal Labour party. What is not keeping him from capturing something from the UK public too, capturing something much wider than the Labour party?
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
Whites will be a minority by 2050 in the USA, though they will still be a plurality. Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish so he and his half-Hispanic son George P are probably the future of the party. Romney won a higher percentage of the white vote in 2012 than any Republican since 1988, he still lost, that explains the scale of their problem
Romney was god-awful. He's like the GOP Ed Miliband.
The demographics are in constant flux. There are 12 million or more undocumented Latin American migrants in the US. That influx, along with differential birth rates and more engaged minority voters, are moving the electorate rapidly away from a white dominated affair. But at the same time, the percentage of each minority being won by each party, and the geographic distribution of the vote is changing.
Blue states (democratic) are losing population and hence, every ten years with the census, numbers of representatives in the House. This has no effect on the number of Senators in blue states, and a less dramatic affect on the electoral college in Presidential elections. But at some stage, this population flow can cause states to tip from Red to Blue, or at least Purple, as we have seen in Colorado and Virginia.
Meanwhile, two white voting populations have gone from solid Dem to GOP - white working class males and (to a lesser extent) the Catholic vote. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Jewish vote will fracture (over Israel policies) in the future, with a significant portion moving to the GOP from Dem.
So electoral theories based on demographic changes have to also take into account shifting political allegiances within those demographic groups. My own view is that, in the long term, the one will balance out the other and we'll still have two viable parties contesting elections and taking turns to be in power.
Indeed. 60 years ago, "White ethnic" voters favoured the Democrats. Now, they're just white voters who vote Republican. About half of Hispanic voters are White, and could well become part of this voting bloc.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
Split-ticket voting has declined sharply. People vote more ideologically at every level than they used to.
I wonder how many years Labour MPs will give Corbyn before attempting to remove him.
Be warned Andy and be forewarned. Corbyn has already managed to defy all political laws of gravity by propelling himself forward to the leadership of the Labour Party. Don't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband. He has reached basecamp against all the odds (BTW- I am now taking it as a GIVEN that Corbyn will win)
I could not haver predicted it. You could not have predicted it. When he announced his nomination, noone could have predicted it.
So the next stage? Who knows? The first politician in a generation to have captured the heart of a pretty untribal Labour party. What is not keeping him from capturing something from the UK public too, capturing something much wider than the Labour party?
His vision of Britain not being the public's vision of Britain, probably.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
So arguably have the Tories, certainly since Thatcher. The left are culturally more radical than they used to be certainly. Australia is probably as rightwing as the USA on many issues and to the right of the UK, in fact it has yet to introduce gay marriage too and spends even less than the USA. Canada is on the whole left of the US, New Zealand about the same as the UK
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
Whites will be a minority by 2050 in the USA, though they will still be a plurality. Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish so he and his half-Hispanic son George P are probably the future of the party. Romney won a higher percentage of the white vote in 2012 than any Republican since 1988, he still lost, that explains the scale of their problem
Romney was god-awful. He's like the GOP Ed Miliband.
Romney and Ed got on quite well apparently, even though Romney called him 'Mr Leader' (probably the first and last time Ed got that compliment!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwakrJ1pXHo
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He was wrong. The Democrats remained competitive in the South till recently.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
I'm not sure it's true. they wanted to be a separate nation, but the Union side repudiated that,
It would be like the Scots claiming they were a nation, not a region.
on't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband.
That's faulty analysis. The Labour Party membership as it was in 2010 voted for Miliband. By all accounts there have been some pretty dramatic flow effects since then
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
Split-ticket voting has declined sharply. People vote more ideologically at every level than they used to.
In the old days - before computerized voting, and in the days of hanging and pregnant chads - there was always an option to vote either straight Republican or straight Democrat. Certainly in my state, with the advent of computerized voting, that option is no longer available. You have to vote for every single office.
Excellent thread leader from antifrank and a great deal of food for thought.
If the Lib Dems do indeed plan on launching full on into a 'real opposition' strategy, they might just find themselves swamped by a Corbyn-led Labour and by the SNP north of the border. Now would be a good time to be sensible. Whether Farron can do sensible remains to be seen.
I actually feel a bit sorry for the Lib Dems. I too thought that Farron would be the right man for the job: someone to make a noise and lead an opportunist charge against the government; a contrast to a Labour robot like Burnham or Cooper. But with Labour seemingly wanting to occupy the shouty spot, Norman Lamb might have been the better bet after all.
As for Labour, they quite clearly don't want to occupy the centre ground (unless the centre ground happens to be Trafalgar Square). It's true that elections tend to be won in the centre but you have to want it otherwise the public will see through the façade. I'm convinced that one reason Labour lost was that Miliband kept trying to talk centre (One Nation and all that) but constantly undermined himself with his actions and with other pronouncements.
As antifrank notes, the Tories have made a grab for the centre, perhaps noting how empty it currently looks. It's not that bold a move given the lack of an alternative there. The question is whether it will stick if an opponent takes the field, or, if UKIP manage to gain traction on the right.
(As an aside, a Corbyn-led Labour would put a big dent in UKIP's pitch to the WWC, although they could still run on social policies).
But the crucial point is the one antifrank makes when he says "winning over these [centrist] voters is not as simple as just plonking yourself as closely as possible to them". In fact, it should be elaborated further because there's a big risk if you get it wrong. In the same way that the centre must be occupied, it can only be occupied by so many. If you are seen as weak or incapable, then pitching to the centre not only fails to gain any advantage (as the stronger party will still snaffle the votes) but you also risk losing your core who disapprove of the lack of red meat.
Looking and sounding centrist is more likely to get you a hearing but ultimately the public will still pick the party that appears the most capable potential government.
Corbyn is way to the left of UKIP's working class supporters. He's the candidate that UKIP want to win the leadership.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
Yes, the USA used to belong to Britain, so what? California has never fought a civil war against the rest of the USA
The thing that Tories took pride on in the election was their record in government, not their ideology: pragmatism not doctrine. That's quite centrist.
Yes, Mr Herdson. The Conservatives fought the last election as if they were (almost) Liberal Democrats. That is why they did so well.
Now that it is clearly seen that they are not, I sense that their support will fall away fast.
I also suspect that Miss Apocalyse is a Lib Dem at heart, although she does not yet realise this.
The cuts to benefits were flagged up well in advance of polling day (not the detail, I'd grant you, though most of the cuts weren't too hard to deduce given what was protected). But apart from that, I'm not sure what's marking the Tories out as particularly right-wing in government. The commitment to a £9/hr minimum wage, perhaps?
David Herdson- are you deliberately being contrary, or taking the piss? The 40% cuts to public services, the attack on public broadcasting, fox hunting, EVEL, human rights, the failure to address the Lords, marginalising ourselves from Europe, not wanting to engage at all on the boat migrants, the needless assault on trade unions, the resurrection of the snoopers charter, the attack on the political levy on the Labour party.....
It is not just that this Govt is right wing, it is shamelessly right wing, it is deliberately pissing on anything fair, just and remotely compassionate, it is scorching the earth of centrist politics. It is veering rightwards at a head of knots that is breathtaking in its sheer audacity.
And BTW- the 9 quid minimum wage is the biggest fraud of them all.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
'Not an answer to your question as such, but are you a big follower of US politics or are you just a casual observer? Someone who only pays attention at elections, when primary candidates have to chase their party base so come up with all kinds of stuff (before tacking centre at the national polls), or when someone says something extreme and it trends in the British press or social media, is not getting a very representative picture of US politics (and it would systematically make the GOP appear more extreme than they are). If you are interested in state-by-state politics, you'd get a more nuanced view as to how they cut their cloth locally: Republicans in New York or California adjust to the local political spectrum.
In fact American politicians (or campaigns at any rate) are generally excellent at adapting to the audience they have to win over. Presidential elections are often described as landslide victories when there were really just a couple of points in it: people know how to position themselves to get as close to the 51% or 52% mark (excluding third parties) they need to win. I am oversimplifying here. But when was the last time there was a complete and utter thrashing in a two-party presidential race?
McGovern, or his team, or the Dems who chose for him to run, stuffed up. They completely misread the mood. That I think, more than the brilliance of Nixon, was why they only mustered 37.5% of the vote. For comparison, a candidate around 45% would be described as very badly beaten. That so many US elections are, relatively, razor-edged shows that the parties are actually pretty good at reading and reflecting the mood of the nation.
Which brings me to my main point: if you think the Republicans seem extreme right on the British political spectrum, and yet they have not been getting McGovern style thrashings, they must in some way reflect the American electorate. The Dems are pretty right-wing too: plenty of British Tories would feel at home with them. The centre (or center) of political gravity is just in a different place in the USA, though there are states where it is closer to Britain's. As to why that is, that's a huge question and no single definitive answer. There are sociologists and political scientist who have carved entire careers out of it.'
The UK could easily be a large North Eastern US state, the Midwest and West (outside the West coast and big cities) are probably right of the UK, the South further right still
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
Yes, the USA used to belong to Britain, so what? California has never fought a civil war against the rest of the USA
I wonder how many years Labour MPs will give Corbyn before attempting to remove him.
Be warned Andy and be forewarned. Corbyn has already managed to defy all political laws of gravity by propelling himself forward to the leadership of the Labour Party. Don't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband. He has reached basecamp against all the odds (BTW- I am now taking it as a GIVEN that Corbyn will win)
I could not haver predicted it. You could not have predicted it. When he announced his nomination, noone could have predicted it.
So the next stage? Who knows? The first politician in a generation to have captured the heart of a pretty untribal Labour party. What is not keeping him from capturing something from the UK public too, capturing something much wider than the Labour party?
His vision of Britain not being the public's vision of Britain, probably.
Considering the vast majority of the British earn less than 25 grand a year and rely on public services- possibly, just possibly the likes of Corbyn could find some traction. You never know. I never thought that the intelligentsia, and public service professional classes would flock to him. So who are you to speak on behalf of the British public comrade?
The thing that Tories took pride on in the election was their record in government, not their ideology: pragmatism not doctrine. That's quite centrist.
Yes, Mr Herdson. The Conservatives fought the last election as if they were (almost) Liberal Democrats. That is why they did so well.
Now that it is clearly seen that they are not, I sense that their support will fall away fast.
I also suspect that Miss Apocalyse is a Lib Dem at heart, although she does not yet realise this.
The cuts to benefits were flagged up well in advance of polling day (not the detail, I'd grant you, though most of the cuts weren't too hard to deduce given what was protected). But apart from that, I'm not sure what's marking the Tories out as particularly right-wing in government. The commitment to a £9/hr minimum wage, perhaps?
David Herdson- are you deliberately being contrary, or taking the piss? The 40% cuts to public services, the attack on public broadcasting, fox hunting, EVEL, human rights, the failure to address the Lords, marginalising ourselves from Europe, not wanting to engage at all on the boat migrants, the needless assault on trade unions, the resurrection of the snoopers charter, the attack on the political levy on the Labour party.....
It is not just that this Govt is right wing, it is shamelessly right wing, it is deliberately pissing on anything fair, just and remotely compassionate, it is scorching the earth of centrist politics. It is veering rightwards at a head of knots that is breathtaking in its sheer audacity.
And BTW- the 9 quid minimum wage is the biggest fraud of them all.
What's right wing about:
Granting elected representatives the right to take decisions on behalf of their constituents without outside interference (EVEL)
Leaving an in-built left wing majority in the Lords (and why is it such a priority when it has muddled through for 100 years)
Wanting to discourage more boat migrants to take their lives in their hands crossing the sea
Giving trade union members the right to decide where their political contributions go
Seems to me the definition of "right wing" is "stuff @tyson disagrees with"
'The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
Yes, the USA used to belong to Britain, so what? California has never fought a civil war against the rest of the USA
Well done - you've just proved my point again'
The point being had the Confederacy not been defeated in the Civil War, the US Republicans would be more in the mould of Abraham Lincoln still than Newt Gingrich. Though the Confederacy would make Apartheid South Africa look moderate (especially if it still had slavery)
News At Ten: when Clive Myrie was solemnly intoning that Unison had declared for Corbyn, it genuinely felt like one of those mocked-up news reports from a film...
'Not an answer to your question as such, but are you a big follower of US politics or are you just a casual observer? Someone who only pays attention at elections, when primary candidates have to chase their party base so come up with all kinds of stuff (before tacking centre at the national polls), or when someone says something extreme and it trends in the British press or social media, is not getting a very representative picture of US politics (and it would systematically make the GOP appear more extreme than they are). If you are interested in state-by-state politics, you'd get a more nuanced view as to how they cut their cloth locally: Republicans in New York or California adjust to the local political spectrum.
In fact American politicians (or campaigns at any rate) are generally excellent at adapting to the audience they have to win over. Presidential elections are often described as landslide victories when there were really just a couple of points in it: people know how to position themselves to get as close to the 51% or 52% mark (excluding third parties) they need to win. I am oversimplifying here. But when was the last time there was a complete and utter thrashing in a two-party presidential race?
McGovern, or his team, or the Dems who chose for him to run, stuffed up. They completely misread the mood. That I think, more than the brilliance of Nixon, was why they only mustered 37.5% of the vote. For comparison, a candidate around 45% would be described as very badly beaten. That so many US elections are, relatively, razor-edged shows that the parties are actually pretty good at reading and reflecting the mood of the nation.
Which brings me to my main point: if you think the Republicans seem extreme right on the British political spectrum, and yet they have not been getting McGovern style thrashings, they must in some way reflect the American electorate. The Dems are pretty right-wing too: plenty of British Tories would feel at home with them. The centre (or center) of political gravity is just in a different place in the USA, though there are states where it is closer to Britain's. As to why that is, that's a huge question and no single definitive answer. There are sociologists and political scientist who have carved entire careers out of it.'
The UK could easily be a large North Eastern US state, the Midwest and West (outside the West coast and big cities) are probably right of the UK, the South further right still
Any chance you can figure out the quote function? It's very easy: you click "quote" and then type your comment at the end.
It's very difficult to figure out what's you and what you're responding to otherwise
Off-topic: I'm going off on a short trip to Scotland. I've packed my walking gear for the first time in two years, and the familiar butterflies are fluttering merrily away.
I've just looked at the weather forecast and, annoyingly, it is for rain and even lightning over the next few days. But if I don't go now, I won't get another chance for at least a year.
I just hope my tent's still waterproof ...
Enjoy my absence!
Swatting real midges rather than cybernats? Sounds a good plan.
@MyBurningEars I'm a more casual observer, so I guess the extreme side is something I've noticed more. But I think your response links in with @MTimT point that the US centre is far more to the right than Europe, so therefore there right-wing/centre-right will be comparatively more the Right than what is 'right-wing' here. An interesting point on how US Elections are closely fought - in comparison to here, where many elections often aren't closely fought, and we've had a several landslides over the years.
@kle4 Good point about Greece - they are even becoming more polarised than the UK and USA are. I guess you could say that Politics in general is becoming a lot more polarised - although in the case of the UK, I actually don't feel there is a demand from the electorate for this, unlike other countries. Syriza look positively amazing when compared with Golden Dawn. I remember when Merkel went to Greece back in 2012/13, and there were Greeks mocking her as a Nazi, and I thought of Golden Dawn in an ironic way.
@MTimT Thanks again for another detailed response. I wasn't fully aware of the demographic picture as a whole, so I imagine as you say the Republicans probably won't go to the Right anymore (do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
@PClipp Why do you think I'm an LD at heart? I also think @JEO was referring to culture, more than skin colour literally. I can see things panning out as you say though, Hispanics seeing themselves as American, but not necessarily 'white' in the same way Italian-Americans see themselves.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
McGovern once said that it was difficult to elect a Democrat as President because so many Americans believed they could become millionaires.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
'Not an answer to your question as such, but are you a big follower of US politics or are you just a casual observer? Someone who only pays attention at elections, when primary candidates have to chase their party base so come up with all kinds of stuff (before tacking centre at the national polls), or when someone says something extreme and it trends in the British press or social media, is not getting a very representative picture of US politics (and it would systematically make the GOP appear more extreme than they are). If you are interested in state-by-state politics, you'd get a more nuanced view as to how they cut their cloth locally: Republicans in New York or California adjust to the local political spectrum.
In fact American politicians (or campaigns at any rate) are generally excellent at adapting to the audience they have to win over. Presidential elections are often described as landslide victories when there were really just a couple of points in it: people know how to position themselves to get as close to the 51% or 52% mark (excluding third parties) they need to win. I am oversimplifying here. But when was the last time there was a complete and utter thrashing in a two-party presidential race?
McGovern, or his team, or the Dems who chose for him to run, stuffed up. They completely misread the mood. That I think, more than the brilliance of Nixon, was why they only mustered 37.5% of the vote. For comparison, a candidate around 45% would be described as very badly beaten. That so many US elections are, relatively, razor-edged shows that the parties are actually pretty good at reading and reflecting the mood of the nation.
Which brings me to my main point: if you think the Republicans seem extreme right on the British political spectrum, and yet they have not been getting McGovern style thrashings, they must in some way reflect the American electorate. The Dems are pretty right-wing too: plenty of British Tories would feel at home with them. The centre (or center) of political gravity is just in a different place in the USA, though there are states where it is closer to Britain's. As to why that is, that's a huge question and no single definitive answer. There are sociologists and political scientist who have carved entire careers out of it.'
The UK could easily be a large North Eastern US state, the Midwest and West (outside the West coast and big cities) are probably right of the UK, the South further right still
England on its own however, is probably not much to the Left of the US centre ground.
Granting elected representatives the right to take decisions on behalf of their constituents without outside interference (EVEL)
Leaving an in-built left wing majority in the Lords (and why is it such a priority when it has muddled through for 100 years)
Wanting to discourage more boat migrants to take their lives in their hands crossing the sea
Giving trade union members the right to decide where their political contributions go
Seems to me the definition of "right wing" is "stuff @tyson disagrees with"
@Charles- you know. You know how grubbily right wing this Govt is. I could address your points, but it degrades both you and me to go through it line by line.
But, you must be pleased, delighted. They won. The have a majority. I'm sure they'll find a way to bring in even the most unliked parts of their ideology- whether its tearing apart animals, or stalling climate change, or fracking, or marketing the health service, or creating free schools for the wealthy, or turning us further into a little England, or drowning the Lords with crony Tory peerages, or reducing taxes for the wealthiest.., rejoice comrade because the future is blue.
News At Ten: when Clive Myrie was solemnly intoning that Unison had declared for Corbyn, it genuinely felt like one of those mocked-up news reports from a film...
Did anyone get on Corbyn when he was 200/1 at the outset?
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Fortunately for Abbott, Bill Shorten is even more unpopular. In mid-term, Labour only lead the Coalition by c. 52-48%,
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
Whites will be a minority by 2050 in the USA, though they will still be a plurality. Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish so he and his half-Hispanic son George P are probably the future of the party. Romney won a higher percentage of the white vote in 2012 than any Republican since 1988, he still lost, that explains the scale of their problem
Romney was god-awful. He's like the GOP Ed Miliband.
Romney and Ed got on quite well apparently, even though Romney called him 'Mr Leader' (probably the first and last time Ed got that compliment!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwakrJ1pXHo
'Mr Leader' LMAO....
I love Ed's vacant face throughout that whole video.
I wonder how many years Labour MPs will give Corbyn before attempting to remove him.
Be warned Andy and be forewarned. Corbyn has already managed to defy all political laws of gravity by propelling himself forward to the leadership of the Labour Party. Don't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband. He has reached basecamp against all the odds (BTW- I am now taking it as a GIVEN that Corbyn will win)
I could not haver predicted it. You could not have predicted it. When he announced his nomination, noone could have predicted it.
So the next stage? Who knows? The first politician in a generation to have captured the heart of a pretty untribal Labour party. What is not keeping him from capturing something from the UK public too, capturing something much wider than the Labour party?
His vision of Britain not being the public's vision of Britain, probably.
Considering the vast majority of the British earn less than 25 grand a year and rely on public services- possibly, just possibly the likes of Corbyn could find some traction. You never know. I never thought that the intelligentsia, and public service professional classes would flock to him. So who are you to speak on behalf of the British public comrade?
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
As against Spartacus? I'll take The Economist I am Spartacus!
One problem with the web is finding authoritative sources for quotes. But still, there are several that quote 50 years. Not that it matters: he was right either way.
@MTimT Thanks again for another detailed response. I wasn't fully aware of the demographic picture as a whole, so I imagine as you say the Republicans probably won't go to the Right anymore (do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
Depends what you mean by that.
If you mean "southerners are still so annoyed by Civil Rights passing half a century ago that they hope to bring back segregation and stop black people voting" then no, that's not what's happening.
It's more about shifts in the electoral dynamics: these can be persistent even when the original issue is transient.
The British people are not REALLY, REALLY ANGRY about the clash between Asquith and Lloyd-George. It does not ABSOLUTELY GET OUR GOAT, nearly a hundred years on, that the coupon was issued against many of Asquith's liberals, with the backing of Lloyd-George.
But at the last election, the Lib Dems got less than ten percent of the vote, and were never seriously in contention to provide this nation with its next prime minister. Just beyond living memory, the Liberals were competing in a two-party system. At some point something shifted, and though the causes be multifarious, what was done in the khaki election was not easily to be undone.
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
@David- you may well be right. But I never in a million years anticipated that the Labour rank and file would take to him and I thought that I knew them pretty well. You just never know. Corbyn has surprised me.
As (mostly) a lurker I just wanted to place a quick thank you to those who discuss betting and odds on here, and particularly those who know the Labour Party. Whatever happens in its leadership contest I stand to make some cash, and it ain't because of my own wisdom.
Romney and Ed got on quite well apparently, even though Romney called him 'Mr Leader' (probably the first and last time Ed got that compliment!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwakrJ1pXHo
'Mr Leader' LMAO....
I love Ed's vacant face throughout that whole video.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Fortunately for Abbott, Bill Shorten is even more unpopular. In mid-term, Labour only lead the Coalition by c. 52-48%,
Poor Australia, sounds like they face the same dire choice in leadership options as France do!
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
Oddly enough that's because of the Democrats. LBJ said that passing the Civil Rights Act would cost the Democrats the South for a generation. It's been much longer.
He said 50 years, though that was still an underestimate.
As against Spartacus? I'll take The Economist I am Spartacus!
One problem with the web is finding authoritative sources for quotes. But still, there are several that quote 50 years. Not that it matters: he was right either way.
On topic. If the results of this poll were true, all other factors being equal, and using the "icecream vendor on a beach" analysis, the Lib Dems should easily be the biggest party with (eyeballing it) somewhere between 40% and 50% of the vote. Clearly either the results are wrong, or the question asked is of limited relevance to electoral outcome.
* my comment relates to the graph, not Antifrank's article
The closest candidate to the centre in the 2012 US presidential election was Jon Huntsman, given the almost complete lack of impact of his campaign that shows again there is no point being in the centre if you have no base behind you
Yes but this is the GOP you're dealing with here, where they believe the centre is, god only knows!
The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
Indeed, even as late as 1989 Thatcher was right of Bush Senior. I think it really started with Newt Gingrich's 'Contract with America' and the rise of the religious right, but being the party of 'angry white men' has only won them the popular vote once in the past 6 presidential elections
Yes, I've heard they have a huge issue now that Hispanics are set to become America's biggest demographic.
Who did you listen to re US demographics? Hispanics (which are referenced in US Censuses as Hispanic and Latino Americans) only feature as a category in Census measurements of ethnicity, not as a category in measurements of racial breakdown. Those comprising the White American racial definition make up the racial majority (78%), those making up the Hispanic and Latino American ethnicity definition amount to 17% of the population, making it the largest ethnic minority. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the USA population will be Hispanic or Latino, up from 17%.
I think even the SNP would struggle to make those stats support a claim that "Hispanics are set to become America's biggest demographic".
@MTimT Thanks again for another detailed response. I wasn't fully aware of the demographic picture as a whole, so I imagine as you say the Republicans probably won't go to the Right anymore (do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
Depends what you mean by that.
If you mean "southerners are still so annoyed by Civil Rights passing half a century ago that they hope to bring back segregation and stop black people voting" then no, that's not what's happening.
It's more about shifts in the electoral dynamics: these can be persistent even when the original issue is transient.
The British people are not REALLY, REALLY ANGRY about the clash between Asquith and Lloyd-George. It does not ABSOLUTELY GET OUR GOAT, nearly a hundred years on, that the coupon was issued against many of Asquith's liberals, with the backing of Lloyd-George.
But at the last election, the Lib Dems got less than ten percent of the vote, and were never seriously in contention to provide this nation with its next prime minister. Just beyond living memory, the Liberals were competing in a two-party system. At some point something shifted, and though the causes are multifarious, what was done in the khaki election was not easily to be undone.
I don't mean option 1, just that years after it being passed the South and the Democrats look more further apart than ever.
I know that prior to the rise of Labour, the two party system was Conservatives vs Liberals, and that it seems the rise of Labour movement was the cause of the Liberals becoming Britain's third party.
Did anyone get on Corbyn when he was 200/1 at the outset?
No, I only backed him at 80
Best that I got was 13, but still going to be a tidy profit. Corbyn is peaking at the right time. Probably still some value there even this late in the day.
As (mostly) a lurker I just wanted to place a quick thank you to those who discuss betting and odds on here, and particularly those who know the Labour Party. Whatever happens in its leadership contest I stand to make some cash, and it ain't because of my own wisdom.
You do get some great tips on other things too- though yesterday's tip for a draw in the test match wasn't one of it's finest moments methinks.
Best that I got was 13, but still going to be a tidy profit. Corbyn is peaking at the right time. Probably still some value there even this late in the day.
I did lay off a little too soon, but still all green.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Canada used to have a very establishment style Tory party, focused on Ontario. There was a revolt from the Western prairie provinces, with conservative voters who resented everything being done for the East. That's what drove Harper's drive to power.
Your first two paragraphs are an excellent tutorial in the basics of US electoral demographics. The very basic stuff that as soon I spot a person commentating on US elections who doesn't understand it, I can immediately file them in the "noise not signal" box and ignore them. That's a big box, by the way, in everyday life. On PB it is only a small box. I think Mike Smithson deserves some kind of prize for the quality of BTL comments he attracts. Anyhow, I thought you presented the relevant facts in an excellent manner.
I agree with your last paragraph too for the reason I expounded in my rather over-long post earlier. US politicians are excellent at recalibration. When recalibration is needed, all past evidence suggests it will happen. In the most extreme case, there may even be a volta face as dramatic as the Southern strategy was, and the demographic and electoral map could end up re-aligned. More likely, I suspect, it only needs a continuous process of chipping away. The more middle-class, Anglophone, well-integrated Hispanics there are, the bigger a target the Republicans have even without big changes in image and strategy. Another important rising segments is people of Asian origin, where the GOP are not at such a disadvantage.
Thanks for the compliments and I agree with your additional points re integration of successful Latinos and Asians.
At some point, white and non-white will cease to have relevance unless some populist politician pops up at a dreadful time in US history to do a Milosevic on the US, using the politics of division and hatred for personal and party gain.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Fortunately for Abbott, Bill Shorten is even more unpopular. In mid-term, Labour only lead the Coalition by c. 52-48%,
Poor Australia, sounds like they face the same dire choice in leadership options as France do!
Abbott is generally unpopular, but a very effective campaigner, and Labour tends to choose leaders who are less popular than he is.
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
Whites will be a minority by 2050 in the USA, though they will still be a plurality. Jeb Bush is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish so he and his half-Hispanic son George P are probably the future of the party. Romney won a higher percentage of the white vote in 2012 than any Republican since 1988, he still lost, that explains the scale of their problem
Romney was god-awful. He's like the GOP Ed Miliband.
Romney and Ed got on quite well apparently, even though Romney called him 'Mr Leader' (probably the first and last time Ed got that compliment!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwakrJ1pXHo
'Mr Leader' LMAO....
I love Ed's vacant face throughout that whole video.
Just think, but for a few swing voters that could have been the new face of the 'Special Relationship'
I love this site most when folk get the best bets in. My best was Joe Biden- I think at 40's for VP. So you've doubled that.
The most I've won in an election was Boris's first time- I just kept on piling in without hedging.
And I've still to lose on an election- I might hedge, I might get excitable, or defensive a bit on the night, but I've still to come out losing cash on an political outcome.
'Any chance you can figure out the quote function? It's very easy: you click "quote" and then type your comment at the end.
It's very difficult to figure out what's you and what you're responding to otherwise'
Indeed, but once you reach a certain level of quotes you run out of room and have too many characters and have to slash the previous quotes, so I then use quotation marks instead
News At Ten: when Clive Myrie was solemnly intoning that Unison had declared for Corbyn, it genuinely felt like one of those mocked-up news reports from a film...
Did anyone get on Corbyn when he was 200/1 at the outset?
I got £100 on him at average of 250/1 on Betfair exchange near his decision to stand.
@MyBurningEars I'm a more casual observer, so I guess the extreme side is something I've noticed more. But I think your response links in with @MTimT point that the US centre is far more to the right than Europe, so therefore there right-wing/centre-right will be comparatively more the Right than what is 'right-wing' here. An interesting point on how US Elections are closely fought - in comparison to here, where many elections often aren't closely fought, and we've had a several landslides over the years.
@kle4 Good point about Greece - they are even becoming more polarised than the UK and USA are. I guess you could say that Politics in general is becoming a lot more polarised - although in the case of the UK, I actually don't feel there is a demand from the electorate for this, unlike other countries. Syriza look positively amazing when compared with Golden Dawn. I remember when Merkel went to Greece back in 2012/13, and there were Greeks mocking her as a Nazi, and I thought of Golden Dawn in an ironic way.
@MTimT Thanks again for another detailed response. I wasn't fully aware of the demographic picture as a whole, so I imagine as you say the Republicans probably won't go to the Right anymore (do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
@PClipp Why do you think I'm an LD at heart? I also think @JEO was referring to culture, more than skin colour literally. I can see things panning out as you say though, Hispanics seeing themselves as American, but not necessarily 'white' in the same way Italian-Americans see themselves.
Depends which parts of Europe, Eastern Europe is not that different from many southern states. The US has also had some landslides, eg 1996, 1984, 1972, 1964 etc
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Abbott will probably be dumped for the more Cameron like Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop by the next election in my view
@ReggieCide I heard it during the 2012 US GE. Though others haven't disputed what I said on that issue, more on its consequences politically.
EDIT: @williamglenn Ah yes, though Ed would have been lucky to even be a poor imitation of Frau Merkel!
This is truly SNPish. Never admit you're wrong even when you place trust in politically motivated comments during a GE which are clearly not supported by the USA Census. If it's not accurate it can only have consequences for the uninformed (another majority)
Several references have been made to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and subsequent amendments to strengthen it).
The South does not want to reimpose discrimination etc - all except the Klan have moved on from that long ago.
But the law does still annoy the South. When Georgia wanted to require a photo-id to vote, it had to be OKed by DOJ. Every redistricting, change in employment law, and on and on, has to be smiled on by the feds. It annoys the hell out of us. It's the same for the other southern states.
But those aspects are slowly being rolled back. The South has come a long long way since the 60s. In the 60s I saw for myself white and colored waiting rooms and white only drinking fountains.
Any attempt in the South today to try to gerrymander racially, or try to stop blacks voting, or any discriminatory measures, would be electoral suicide for the Republicans.
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
@David- you may well be right. But I never in a million years anticipated that the Labour rank and file would take to him and I thought that I knew them pretty well. You just never know. Corbyn has surprised me.
Is it Corbyn that's surprised you or is it the Labour rank and file?
@JEO Thanks for the background on Canada. The situation with the East, sounds a bit like the South-North divide in this country.
@Sean_F Tbh, I've always thought that the Australian Labour party was almost a mirror image of the British Labour party. There many similarities.
@HYUFD In the case of Romney, thank god for those swing voters. Romney being a mormon appeared to be quite issue in American politics from what I saw, do you think it really figured in 2012?
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Canada used to have a very establishment style Tory party, focused on Ontario. There was a revolt from the Western prairie provinces, with conservative voters who resented everything being done for the East. That's what drove Harper's drive to power.
Indeed - when I lived in Canada over 30 years ago out west drivers had a bumper sticker that said "Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark".
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Thanks for that response. Why do you think the GOP has shifted further to the Right though? It seems that they used to be more moderate - and I'd imagine that those political demographics would have been the same years ago....
I think it's mainly because the media coverage of politics has become national. Thirty years ago, you had liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in the South. That meant there was a big overlap between parties and presidential candidates had to compete for all types of voters to get the nomination. But national news media basically meant liberals could not survive in the Republican Party and likewise for conservatives in the Democrats.
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
I wasn't aware of Canada, but I was aware of the situation in Australia. I think Abbott though as Hollande levels of unpopularity in Australia, so it'll be interesting to see where the Australian Labor party get elected!
Canada used to have a very establishment style Tory party, focused on Ontario. There was a revolt from the Western prairie provinces, with conservative voters who resented everything being done for the East. That's what drove Harper's drive to power.
Harper essentially led a merger of the Canadian Alliance, basically Canada's UKIP, and the Progressive Tories, basically a 'wet' patrician Tory Party to create today's Canadian Conservative Party
Best that I got was 13, but still going to be a tidy profit. Corbyn is peaking at the right time. Probably still some value there even this late in the day.
I did lay off a little too soon, but still all green.
Makes a nice change...
I hve cashed in twice. I bought quite a bit of LK early on then sold out when she went to second place. I bought Cooper at 6-7ish, but then sold out when she neared Burnham, now I am all green with best outcome Corbyn then Kendall.
I would also do well if the contest was cancelled and either HH or Cuka stand, but that seems to have faded as a possibility over the last week.
My timing on other elections has not been so good!
I wonder if YouGov should ask about another thing on this left-right survey, namely 'the net balance of all law and public policy currently in force' (or some wording that is more pithy / clear to those surveyed). You may, as a centrist, think the government is really quite right wing, but that this is the right and proper counterweight to historical legislation and policy on immigration, education, healthcare, public spending and so on and so forth that you regard as quite left wing.
Might be interesting to see a split between England and Scotland as well.
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
@David- you may well be right. But I never in a million years anticipated that the Labour rank and file would take to him and I thought that I knew them pretty well. You just never know. Corbyn has surprised me.
Is it Corbyn that's surprised you or is it the Labour rank and file?
OK- the safe answer is both. But actually now you've made me think about it, the Labour rank and file much more so. On the one side Corbyn has authenticity unlike the others, but that really shouldn't be enough.
But- I've got friends- headteachers, directors- public and private, professional classes, their children, their parents who are going for Corbvyn. Not all. Not by any means. But, in sufficient numbers to leave me no doubt (no doubt at all) that Corbyn will win.
If I detect a mood change I will post it on this site- but at this minute, it is all one way and it is almost impossible to see it reversing.
I'm going for Corbyn too FWIW- and betting accordingly. And BTW- I often vote and bet on different outcomes. This time it is the same.
It's interesting to see how recent is the Democratic collapse in the Outer South (Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas) all States that were carried by Clinton, but which are now out of reach (along with Louisiana which has always had its own distinct political culture).
News At Ten: when Clive Myrie was solemnly intoning that Unison had declared for Corbyn, it genuinely felt like one of those mocked-up news reports from a film...
Did anyone get on Corbyn when he was 200/1 at the outset?
Yes (though I laid some of it off between then and now).
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
@David- you may well be right. But I never in a million years anticipated that the Labour rank and file would take to him and I thought that I knew them pretty well. You just never know. Corbyn has surprised me.
Is it Corbyn that's surprised you or is it the Labour rank and file?
I spoke to my father who is very old-style WWC Labour - his view is that a JC-led Labour government would swamp the country with immigrants and, for that reason alone if no other, there is no way he would vote for Labour under JC (mind you, he wouldn't vote for Ed either).
Separately, a friend told me his wife had infiltrated the JC rally and found it full of nice, middle-class mainly female individuals who were lapping up the Diane Abbott talk. One even called JC "Mr Austerity"!
In a nutshell, why Labour will probably elect JC and why it will be likely decimated at thee next election.
Ironically, I think it is the SNP who could be hurt most by a JC-led Labour party. Their whole mantra has been that they are the "true" voice of Scotland's "different" approach and that Labour has sold out. If JC gets elected, hard to argue Labour is not left-wing: and, if JC then offers the SNP an anti-Tory front, what do the SNP do? Reject it, it gets accused of not being sufficiently anti-Tory; and, if you accept it, lose the "Tartan Tories".
@JEO Thanks for the background on Canada. The situation with the East, sounds a bit like the South-North divide in this country.
@Sean_F Tbh, I've always thought that the Australian Labour party was almost a mirror image of the British Labour party. There many similarities.
@HYUFD In the case of Romney, thank god for those swing voters. Romney being a mormon appeared to be quite issue in American politics from what I saw, do you think it really figured in 2012?
No, if Romney had not had the charisma of a lamppost the fact he was a Mormon would have been irrelevant
@HYUFD Sounds like there must be some unrest within the Liberal coalition then, regarding Abbott's position.
@ReggieCide I don't support the SNP, I just thought I'd clarify that.
Next summer there is a state poll in Northern Territory where the Coalition is miles behind, if they lose that a coup is likely just before the election, probably with Bishop taking the Gillard role
I wonder if YouGov should ask about another thing on this left-right survey, namely 'the net balance of all law and public policy currently in force' (or some wording that is more pithy / clear to those surveyed). You may, as a centrist, think the government is really quite right wing, but that this is the right and proper counterweight to historical legislation and policy on immigration, education, healthcare, public spending and so on and so forth that you regard as quite left wing.
Might be interesting to see a split between England and Scotland as well.
do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
Yes, for the moment. But that leftward movement too will stop and recalibrate at some point. The Dems are in danger of becoming the party of minorities and champagne socialists, with some youth thrown in. The more they pander to identity politics, the more they stand to lose what's left of their white vote, and the more the GOP can address successful minorities on issues rather than race. The Dems will be the party with the demographic problem at that point and so will shift back towards the centre.
The South has moved on from the Civil Rights Act. You could make a case that racism is worse in the South, but personally I do not buy that. The South is very religious and socially conservative, and the shift of the GOP to values with the rise of the Christian Coalition is what won the South for them eventually. As someone upthread remarked, the Dems' deeply embedded and largely corrupt political machinery in the South continued to make them competitive until that generation died off.
It's interesting to see how recent is the Democratic collapse in the Outer South (Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas) all States that were carried by Clinton, but which are now out of reach (along with Louisiana which has always had its own distinct political culture).
West Virginia is indeed the 'outer south'. It did not exist until 1861 when it seceded from Virginia when VA seceded from the union, and West Virginia subsequently joined the union.
When the West Virginia Mountaineers win football games, it is traditional to burn sofas in the front yard.
If that's not good middle of the road mature Republican, I don't know what is.
Best that I got was 13, but still going to be a tidy profit. Corbyn is peaking at the right time. Probably still some value there even this late in the day.
I did lay off a little too soon, but still all green.
Makes a nice change...
I hve cashed in twice. I bought quite a bit of LK early on then sold out when she went to second place. I bought Cooper at 6-7ish, but then sold out when she neared Burnham, now I am all green with best outcome Corbyn then Kendall.
I would also do well if the contest was cancelled and either HH or Cuka stand, but that seems to have faded as a possibility over the last week.
My timing on other elections has not been so good!
Dr Fox- this Labour campaign has been almost unique in the fact that the betting trends have been so unpredictably predictable (not politically, or intuitively but betting wise). Every trend has been signposted before the betting markets change- Burnham favourite, Cooper coming in, Corbyn stomping through, Cooper coming out, Burnham coming out, Corbyn stomping on, Cooper coming in, Burnham drifting out- all these have been signposted with value on the markets.
There are going to be some other value trends to be sure. And they will be obvious because they have been so far.
Indeed, but once you reach a certain level of quotes you run out of room and have too many characters and have to slash the previous quotes, so I then use quotation marks instead
When that happens, you can delete text in the block quote, and provided you keep the blockquote bracket pairs straight, the quote system still works.
I live in Macclesfield, and I attended my constituency's CLP meeting today.
I voted for Corbyn, but Yvette Cooper won with nearly 60% of the vote. Burnham got just 4 votes from the 44 people who attended, JC 12 and LK 2.
Burnham also did poorly at a Liverpool CLP this evening.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this is going to develop into a 2 horse race, with Cooper taking the mantle of 'anyone but Corbyn candidate' as well as 'first woman leader'.
Burnham seems to be going backwards, perhaps he's flip-flopped one too many times and the welfare bill fiasco has fatally damaged his left credentials. He also has problems with his past voting record and association with Rachel Reeves.
Comments
I also think that mass media has made more room for opinions to get aired outside the views of the establishment. Note that the right has also got more conservative in Australia and Canada.
Found it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixi9_cciy8w
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
I agree with your last paragraph too for the reason I expounded in my rather over-long post earlier. US politicians are excellent at recalibration. When recalibration is needed, all past evidence suggests it will happen. In the most extreme case, there may even be a volta face as dramatic as the Southern strategy was, and the demographic and electoral map could end up re-aligned. More likely, I suspect, it only needs a continuous process of chipping away. The more middle-class, Anglophone, well-integrated Hispanics there are, the bigger a target the Republicans have even without big changes in image and strategy. Another important rising segments is people of Asian origin, where the GOP are not at such a disadvantage.
Be warned Andy and be forewarned. Corbyn has already managed to defy all political laws of gravity by propelling himself forward to the leadership of the Labour Party. Don't forget- this was a Labour Party membership that voted for David Miliband. He has reached basecamp against all the odds (BTW- I am now taking it as a GIVEN that Corbyn will win)
I could not haver predicted it. You could not have predicted it. When he announced his nomination, noone could have predicted it.
So the next stage? Who knows? The first politician in a generation to have captured the heart of a pretty untribal Labour party. What is not keeping him from capturing something from the UK public too, capturing something much wider than the Labour party?
The state of Georgia today does not have a single statewide Democratic elected official.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwakrJ1pXHo
It would be like the Scots claiming they were a nation, not a region.
(with that, goodnight...)
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAjohnsonLB.htm
It is not just that this Govt is right wing, it is shamelessly right wing, it is deliberately pissing on anything fair, just and remotely compassionate, it is scorching the earth of centrist politics. It is veering rightwards at a head of knots that is breathtaking in its sheer audacity.
And BTW- the 9 quid minimum wage is the biggest fraud of them all.
'Not an answer to your question as such, but are you a big follower of US politics or are you just a casual observer? Someone who only pays attention at elections, when primary candidates have to chase their party base so come up with all kinds of stuff (before tacking centre at the national polls), or when someone says something extreme and it trends in the British press or social media, is not getting a very representative picture of US politics (and it would systematically make the GOP appear more extreme than they are). If you are interested in state-by-state politics, you'd get a more nuanced view as to how they cut their cloth locally: Republicans in New York or California adjust to the local political spectrum.
In fact American politicians (or campaigns at any rate) are generally excellent at adapting to the audience they have to win over. Presidential elections are often described as landslide victories when there were really just a couple of points in it: people know how to position themselves to get as close to the 51% or 52% mark (excluding third parties) they need to win. I am oversimplifying here. But when was the last time there was a complete and utter thrashing in a two-party presidential race?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern_presidential_campaign,_1972
McGovern, or his team, or the Dems who chose for him to run, stuffed up. They completely misread the mood. That I think, more than the brilliance of Nixon, was why they only mustered 37.5% of the vote. For comparison, a candidate around 45% would be described as very badly beaten. That so many US elections are, relatively, razor-edged shows that the parties are actually pretty good at reading and reflecting the mood of the nation.
Which brings me to my main point: if you think the Republicans seem extreme right on the British political spectrum, and yet they have not been getting McGovern style thrashings, they must in some way reflect the American electorate. The Dems are pretty right-wing too: plenty of British Tories would feel at home with them. The centre (or center) of political gravity is just in a different place in the USA, though there are states where it is closer to Britain's. As to why that is, that's a huge question and no single definitive answer. There are sociologists and political scientist who have carved entire careers out of it.'
The UK could easily be a large North Eastern US state, the Midwest and West (outside the West coast and big cities) are probably right of the UK, the South further right still
Granting elected representatives the right to take decisions on behalf of their constituents without outside interference (EVEL)
Leaving an in-built left wing majority in the Lords (and why is it such a priority when it has muddled through for 100 years)
Wanting to discourage more boat migrants to take their lives in their hands crossing the sea
Giving trade union members the right to decide where their political contributions go
Seems to me the definition of "right wing" is "stuff @tyson disagrees with"
'The GOP used to produce a lot of centrist presidents, IKE, Ford, Bush Snr, now even Jeb Bush is too moderate for much of the party
I'd also be interested in your response to this question I asked @MTimT as well: why on earth are the GOP so right-wing?
EDIT: I'd also agree with @david_herdson. The Tories did not come off as right-wing during the GE - only their 12bn welfare cuts really bothered me. Now, on the other hand....
If you look at the US East-West from New York to Seattle, the US is pretty similar to Canada: centre-left on the coasts and big cities, and very right wing in the prairie West, with the centre-left outnumbering the right so being centre-right overall. The difference is that the USA has the South, which is incredibly conservative and also populous.
Exactly, without the South the Republicans would not have won a presidential election for 27 years
That's like saying without a majority they would not have won. Without NY and California, where would the Dems be?
NY and California have never tried to break away from the USA. The South has and the Confederate States of America was a separate nation from 1860-1865
You must be in sales. You have stated a fact which, although true, has no relevance whatever to the discussion. You're quite good at that, I've noticed.
California used to belong to Mexico by the way.
Yes, the USA used to belong to Britain, so what? California has never fought a civil war against the rest of the USA
Well done - you've just proved my point again'
The point being had the Confederacy not been defeated in the Civil War, the US Republicans would be more in the mould of Abraham Lincoln still than Newt Gingrich. Though the Confederacy would make Apartheid South Africa look moderate (especially if it still had slavery)
Any chance you can figure out the quote function? It's very easy: you click "quote" and then type your comment at the end.
It's very difficult to figure out what's you and what you're responding to otherwise
@kle4 Good point about Greece - they are even becoming more polarised than the UK and USA are. I guess you could say that Politics in general is becoming a lot more polarised - although in the case of the UK, I actually don't feel there is a demand from the electorate for this, unlike other countries. Syriza look positively amazing when compared with Golden Dawn. I remember when Merkel went to Greece back in 2012/13, and there were Greeks mocking her as a Nazi, and I thought of Golden Dawn in an ironic way.
@MTimT Thanks again for another detailed response. I wasn't fully aware of the demographic picture as a whole, so I imagine as you say the Republicans probably won't go to the Right anymore (do you think the Democrats will move more to the Left?) and elections will be a close fought thing. It's quite shocking though, that the South are still reeling over the Civil Rights Act.
@PClipp Why do you think I'm an LD at heart? I also think @JEO was referring to culture, more than skin colour literally. I can see things panning out as you say though, Hispanics seeing themselves as American, but not necessarily 'white' in the same way Italian-Americans see themselves.
@suttonnick: Thursday's Guardian front page:
Taliban in power struggle after Mullah Omar death
#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/rr5QWGuOQl
England on its own however, is probably not much to the Left of the US centre ground.
What's right wing about:
Granting elected representatives the right to take decisions on behalf of their constituents without outside interference (EVEL)
Leaving an in-built left wing majority in the Lords (and why is it such a priority when it has muddled through for 100 years)
Wanting to discourage more boat migrants to take their lives in their hands crossing the sea
Giving trade union members the right to decide where their political contributions go
Seems to me the definition of "right wing" is "stuff @tyson disagrees with"
@Charles- you know. You know how grubbily right wing this Govt is. I could address your points, but it degrades both you and me to go through it line by line.
But, you must be pleased, delighted. They won. The have a majority. I'm sure they'll find a way to bring in even the most unliked parts of their ideology- whether its tearing apart animals, or stalling climate change, or fracking, or marketing the health service, or creating free schools for the wealthy, or turning us further into a little England, or drowning the Lords with crony Tory peerages, or reducing taxes for the wealthiest.., rejoice comrade because the future is blue.
I love Ed's vacant face throughout that whole video.
If you mean "southerners are still so annoyed by Civil Rights passing half a century ago that they hope to bring back segregation and stop black people voting" then no, that's not what's happening.
It's more about shifts in the electoral dynamics: these can be persistent even when the original issue is transient.
The British people are not REALLY, REALLY ANGRY about the clash between Asquith and Lloyd-George. It does not ABSOLUTELY GET OUR GOAT, nearly a hundred years on, that the coupon was issued against many of Asquith's liberals, with the backing of Lloyd-George.
But at the last election, the Lib Dems got less than ten percent of the vote, and were never seriously in contention to provide this nation with its next prime minister. Just beyond living memory, the Liberals were competing in a two-party system. At some point something shifted, and though the causes be multifarious, what was done in the khaki election was not easily to be undone.
I spoke to plenty of voters during the election in places like Wakefield or (rather less frequently), Morley & Outwood: two seats which are not untypical of the country at large, I'd imagine. From what they said, I can't see them taking to Corbyn at an election to determine the government.
@David- you may well be right. But I never in a million years anticipated that the Labour rank and file would take to him and I thought that I knew them pretty well. You just never know. Corbyn has surprised me.
Who did you listen to re US demographics? Hispanics (which are referenced in US Censuses as Hispanic and Latino Americans) only feature as a category in Census measurements of ethnicity, not as a category in measurements of racial breakdown. Those comprising the White American racial definition make up the racial majority (78%), those making up the Hispanic and Latino American ethnicity definition amount to 17% of the population, making it the largest ethnic minority. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the USA population will be Hispanic or Latino, up from 17%.
I think even the SNP would struggle to make those stats support a claim that "Hispanics are set to become America's biggest demographic".
I know that prior to the rise of Labour, the two party system was Conservatives vs Liberals, and that it seems the rise of Labour movement was the cause of the Liberals becoming Britain's third party.
EDIT: @williamglenn Ah yes, though Ed would have been lucky to even be a poor imitation of Frau Merkel!
Makes a nice change...
At some point, white and non-white will cease to have relevance unless some populist politician pops up at a dreadful time in US history to do a Milosevic on the US, using the politics of division and hatred for personal and party gain.
The most I've won in an election was Boris's first time- I just kept on piling in without hedging.
And I've still to lose on an election- I might hedge, I might get excitable, or defensive a bit on the night, but I've still to come out losing cash on an political outcome.
'Any chance you can figure out the quote function? It's very easy: you click "quote" and then type your comment at the end.
It's very difficult to figure out what's you and what you're responding to otherwise'
Indeed, but once you reach a certain level of quotes you run out of room and have too many characters and have to slash the previous quotes, so I then use quotation marks instead
Still can't decide if I was a mental or genius.
The South does not want to reimpose discrimination etc - all except the Klan have moved on from that long ago.
But the law does still annoy the South. When Georgia wanted to require a photo-id to vote, it had to be OKed by DOJ. Every redistricting, change in employment law, and on and on, has to be smiled on by the feds. It annoys the hell out of us. It's the same for the other southern states.
But those aspects are slowly being rolled back. The South has come a long long way since the 60s. In the 60s I saw for myself white and colored waiting rooms and white only drinking fountains.
Any attempt in the South today to try to gerrymander racially, or try to stop blacks voting, or any discriminatory measures, would be electoral suicide for the Republicans.
Is it Corbyn that's surprised you or is it the Labour rank and file?
@Sean_F Tbh, I've always thought that the Australian Labour party was almost a mirror image of the British Labour party. There many similarities.
@HYUFD In the case of Romney, thank god for those swing voters. Romney being a mormon appeared to be quite issue in American politics from what I saw, do you think it really figured in 2012?
Abbott is generally unpopular, but a very effective campaigner, and Labour tends to choose leaders who are less popular than he is.
@sean fear- Abbott is one of those characters that gives a hardon to his political ideologues- a bit like Chavez to the lefties.
To put it more tactfully, he's a divisive character that doesn't go for conciliatory politics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/upshot/demise-of-the-southern-democrat-is-now-nearly-compete.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0
'Fortunately for Abbott, Bill Shorten is even more unpopular. In mid-term, Labour only lead the Coalition by c. 52-48%,
Poor Australia, sounds like they face the same dire choice in leadership options as France do!'
Shorten and Abbott are basically tied as preferred PM, but Labor leads on two party preferred
I would also do well if the contest was cancelled and either HH or Cuka stand, but that seems to have faded as a possibility over the last week.
My timing on other elections has not been so good!
@ReggieCide I don't support the SNP, I just thought I'd clarify that.
Might be interesting to see a split between England and Scotland as well.
@David Herdson
OK- the safe answer is both. But actually now you've made me think about it, the Labour rank and file much more so. On the one side Corbyn has authenticity unlike the others, but that really shouldn't be enough.
But- I've got friends- headteachers, directors- public and private, professional classes, their children, their parents who are going for Corbvyn. Not all. Not by any means. But, in sufficient numbers to leave me no doubt (no doubt at all) that Corbyn will win.
If I detect a mood change I will post it on this site- but at this minute, it is all one way and it is almost impossible to see it reversing.
I'm going for Corbyn too FWIW- and betting accordingly. And BTW- I often vote and bet on different outcomes. This time it is the same.
Awaiting Spartan barchart saying "Athenians can't win here"
I also posted about how his chances were being underestimated: http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/699401/#Comment_699401
I spoke to my father who is very old-style WWC Labour - his view is that a JC-led Labour government would swamp the country with immigrants and, for that reason alone if no other, there is no way he would vote for Labour under JC (mind you, he wouldn't vote for Ed either).
Separately, a friend told me his wife had infiltrated the JC rally and found it full of nice, middle-class mainly female individuals who were lapping up the Diane Abbott talk. One even called JC "Mr Austerity"!
In a nutshell, why Labour will probably elect JC and why it will be likely decimated at thee next election.
Ironically, I think it is the SNP who could be hurt most by a JC-led Labour party. Their whole mantra has been that they are the "true" voice of Scotland's "different" approach and that Labour has sold out. If JC gets elected, hard to argue Labour is not left-wing: and, if JC then offers the SNP an anti-Tory front, what do the SNP do? Reject it, it gets accused of not being sufficiently anti-Tory; and, if you accept it, lose the "Tartan Tories".
Yes, for the moment. But that leftward movement too will stop and recalibrate at some point. The Dems are in danger of becoming the party of minorities and champagne socialists, with some youth thrown in. The more they pander to identity politics, the more they stand to lose what's left of their white vote, and the more the GOP can address successful minorities on issues rather than race. The Dems will be the party with the demographic problem at that point and so will shift back towards the centre.
The South has moved on from the Civil Rights Act. You could make a case that racism is worse in the South, but personally I do not buy that. The South is very religious and socially conservative, and the shift of the GOP to values with the rise of the Christian Coalition is what won the South for them eventually. As someone upthread remarked, the Dems' deeply embedded and largely corrupt political machinery in the South continued to make them competitive until that generation died off.
When the West Virginia Mountaineers win football games, it is traditional to burn sofas in the front yard.
If that's not good middle of the road mature Republican, I don't know what is.
There are going to be some other value trends to be sure. And they will be obvious because they have been so far.
I voted for Corbyn, but Yvette Cooper won with nearly 60% of the vote. Burnham got just 4 votes from the 44 people who attended, JC 12 and LK 2.
Burnham also did poorly at a Liverpool CLP this evening.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this is going to develop into a 2 horse race, with Cooper taking the mantle of 'anyone but Corbyn candidate' as well as 'first woman leader'.
Burnham seems to be going backwards, perhaps he's flip-flopped one too many times and the welfare bill fiasco has fatally damaged his left credentials. He also has problems with his past voting record and association with Rachel Reeves.