2014 Mid-Term Elections thread

[wonderfly]

It's less than 48 hours till polls open for Election Day 2014, so I'm going to go ahead and launch this. I didn't feel we needed a whole months long thread (like the Presidential Election thread from 2 years ago) but the Mid-Term elections are important.

In Washington D.C., control of the Senate is at stake, with Republicans in position to possible take it, and possibly to add to their control of the House of Representatives. Or are the chances of Democrats better than expected?

This thread is to discuss federal and state elections that having captured your attention. Also, tell us of your voting experience! Share with us local election events of interest to you!

Standard "Political Thread" rules for the Toonzone Cafe apply here as well (see the sticky thread at the top of the Cafe forum) - a little debate is fine, but no personal attacks/picking apart line by line another person's posts/no posting a bunch links and not commenting on them/etc...

 

[stephane dumas]

Is it too early to have some little chuckes with these editorial toons from Cagle on the subject? ^^;

Spoiler

 

[wonderfly]

Per CNN, new polls indicate the Republicans are likely to take back the Senate.

Washington (CNN) -- Republicans woke up Sunday to a wave of new polls that showed their Senate candidates surging ahead in key states -- including one in Iowa that looked particularly grim for Democrats -- giving the GOP a jolt of enthusiasm going into the 2014 campaign cycle's final hours.


Two days from the midterm election, Washington's political class was buzzing around news that Iowa GOP Senate hopeful Joni Ernst was 7 percentage points up in a Des Moines Register poll, and Republican candidates and surrogates popped up on the Sunday news shows, gleeful about their prospects.


"I think the wind is at our back," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said on CNN's "State of the Union." He added that Republicans will "in all likelihood" win control of the Senate and added: "I think people are ready for new leadership."

Fueling the Republicans' optimism was a Register poll that showed Ernst leading Democrat Bruce Braley, 51% to 44% -- prompting pollster J. Ann Selzer to tell the newspaper that "this race looks like it's decided."

...

Of course, polls are no guarantee for how elections will turn out on Tuesday, as the past several elections for midterms and the presidential race were dogged by major network surveys that turned out to be very different from the actual results. And Democrats cite the 2010 example of Colorado where Republican Ken Buck was consistently polling ahead in the final weeks of that race, only to be defeated by now Sen. Michael Bennet.

 

[CartoonFridays]

If the Republicans win, we're pretty much FUBAR!

 

[Peter Paltridge]

If the Republicans win, we're pretty much FUBAR!

Well, despite what they say, they're unlikely to repeal Obamacare because they don't have a plan in place to replace it with anything, and they lack the organization to make a plan happen.

Also, while Obama is still there, he'll just veto every attempt anyway.

 

[Magmaster12]

I'm expecting even more immaturity for the next two years.

 

[Zanneck]

I'm expecting even more immaturity for the next two years.

Who isn't? It'll be much worse under Republican dominance... The allegories made to bad literature are written all over this (CRIMINAL intentioned) farce of theirs.

 

[stephane dumas]

Nick Gillepsie of Reason magazine have found a optimistic way in that article with the picture of that South Park episode of election choices.

Relax! Even if You Lose Big Today, Both Parties Are Going Extinct!
Nick Gillespie|Nov. 4, 2014 9:44 am

Chill out, America. Whether the Republicans win big or the Dems hold the line, both major parties are on the path to extinction, at least in their current forms.

Whichever side emerges victorious, both Republicans and Democrats should face up to a much bigger truth: Neither party as currently constituted has a real future. Fewer and fewer Americans identify as either Republican or Democratic according to Gallup, and both parties are at recent or all-time lows when it comes to approval ratings. Just 39 percent give Democrats a favorable rating and just 33 percent do the same for Republicans. Not coincidentally, each party has also recently had a clear shot at implementing its vision of the good society. If you want to drive down your adversary’s approval rating, just give him the reins of power for a few years.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I voted this morning. First time I've ever voted in mid-terms, but I feel this time it's especially important.

 

[GWOtaku]

Voted in 10 minutes in Arlington county early this morning. My location is still using four electronic voting machines, touchscreens and all, & that's it. This is exactly how many there were in 2012, plus a paper ballot option which loads of people declined to use. This 4 machine setup might be sufficient for this round but I hope they intend to add more the next time, because with that hardware in that room in 2016 we'll again have waits that will make the lines at the giant Comic Cons look good.

Incidentally this is Virginia's first election with new / updated voter ID law. The standards, which can be reviewed here, are secure yet very accommodating, in contrast to the narrative of partisan axe grinders that want it taken for granted that this kind of thing is somehow synonymous with "voter suppression". I'm here to tell you for the record though that in VA, voting is easy & you can get a valid ID for voting right up to election day and there are provisional ballots for oddball worst case scenarios. It's all very well thought out.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

My state has a vote-by-mail system, so I voted days ago.

Our current governor has had a few scandals exposed recently and he also oversaw the state's flop of a health care system, so I couldn't bring myself to vote for him again. Yet the alternatives were just as bad. I had to leave that part blank. Ugh.

 

[purplehairedwonder]

I voted before work this morning. There were more people voting at the polling location than I remember from the last time I voted, but it wasn't by any means packed; I was in and out in ten minutes.

 

[Zanneck]

It only took me 10 minutes to vote, mostly because I was voting "NO CONFIDENCE" for any unopposed Republicans in my state... The lack of good opponents here is disgusting and is a key factor in why this state is falling apart.

 

[GWOtaku]

I see shameless and thoroughly unprincipled opportunist Charlie Crist has lost to Rick Scott, which means he has now lost elections when running as a Republican, an Independent and finally as a Democrat. Yeeep. Adios, you won't be missed. Scott Brown looks to be done also. Brown vs Shaheen was pretty close in my original home state of New Hampshire, but I think we'll find that a lot of people didn't like that he was a transplant from MA. Some polling is already pointing toward this reaction apparently.

Eye opener of the night for me: Republican Elise Stefanik, a 30 year old woman, getting elected to the House from the NY-21 district. That's a record for youth I'm not sure will ever be broken, though some have said she's the youngest woman to be elected. Has there seriously been a male candidate elected at a younger age?!

Assuming projections aren't screwed up it's looking like a 52-48 split for the Senate in favor of the Republican Party. Governorships might take until morning to work out. Just saw a totally insane spread in Connecticut where the two candidates were separated by seven votes. Damn.

 

[Zanneck]

Man, how is Rick Scott any better? Seriously... I've heard nothing but "Suppression this, Suppression that" since 2013...

Also, I was hoping who's ever running Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio would have been voted out, today - I'm tired of hearing about how those states are being destroyed because of incompetent, corporate, overly religious grovelers. And that goes double for Christie in my old home state of New Jersey.

IMHO, America is going to become like some bad dystopian literature in only a year and the nation only has itself to blame. Like always. Where's the true hero we need when we need them to stand up to all of this??? I know I'm talking crazy, but when I come home to trash like this...

 

[macattack]

Wisconsin is actually having a bit of an economic resurgence, actually. The state government has a surplus. That's something you can't say about a lot of states or the current US government.

 

[GWOtaku]

Perhaps you should be more skeptical of what you hear SS. I for one would take even a candidate I disagree with over a guy who will do and say anything to keep a career in office going for as long as possible, which I think explicitly applies to Crist. As far as I'm concerned he has been playing a cynical game for years and likely has very little that he wouldn't change his mind about if he thought it would be to his advantage.

 

[Zanneck]

Wisconsin is actually having a bit of an economic resurgence, actually. The state government has a surplus. That's something you can't say about a lot of states or the current US government.

I'm sorry... Short - term monetary gain means nothing if the people are being oppressed in terms of innovation, education, science, and other things countless states across America desperately need to put good amounts of money towards. FACT.

@GWOtaku - he really was that worthless? Really? This is why we need statesmen/women, not politicians.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

The legal pot bill passed in Oregon (and I helped!) It also passed in DC by a larger margin. So far it's passed in every state it's been brought up in. It'll be interesting to see what Congress does at this point but even stuffed with Republicans, I don't think they, like, care anymore, man.

The real winner is Jack in the Box, which will be selling a lot more Munchie Meals.

 

[Zanneck]

The legal pot bill passed in Oregon (and I helped!) It also passed in DC by a larger margin. So far it's passed in every state it's been brought up in. It'll be interesting to see what Congress does at this point but even stuffed with Republicans, I don't think they, like, care anymore, man.

The real winner is Jack in the Box, which will be selling a lot more Munchie Meals.

If any of them are the kind of examples of people I hate being in power due to their mistreatment of just about any minority (example being the LGBTQ community) or females and their rights, they will try something quite villainous, IMHO.