WTF is wrong with people?

[Not Sure]

I don't get it. Who are these people voting for Rick Perry? What the fuck is it going to take to get rid of his ass? I never saw even one sign in a yard supporting Perry, never heard one good word about him. And the ignorant sonofabitch is going to continue to embarrass us, sell us out, and leave us high and dry in two years time, mired in a sea of debt.

Sure, call me a bad Democrat, but I didn't even care what Bill White had to offer. He could have sold heroin to schoolchildren for his day job and I would have voted for him. And I think a lot of my neighbors are in the same boat with me. I see Bill White signs - four, five, six per yard - as I drive home, many planted firmly in the holes left by BushCheney04 and McCainPalin signs years ago. Nobody I know, even diehard dittobags, has anything positive to say about Perry. I live in NE Tarrant County (not exactly a hotbed of liberal Democrats). Hell, I work in oil and gas for chrissakes and I mean nobody! How is this fucker winning?

I've been waiting an awful long time to say adios mofo, but if this projection holds true, I'll be waiting even longer...

[MrsBrady]

1. i don't know what to say

he had a freaking ground game, did all the right things, had most of the freaking newspapers...or at least a lot of them

he went into places that no one's bothered

he and his team worked their asses off.

and he's a good guy. if he can't win...i don't know wtf either.

the only thing I know to do right now is have a drink. truly.

[Texasgal]

2. Rural areas is where he tends to pick up

the votes. Why? I have no idea.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. I am new to Texas (Houston area) and I have to say it's racism.

The only "issue" Perry voters, here in Houston, seemed to have with White (their former mayor), is that he "Opened up the gates of Houston as a free for all for those darned Katrina refugees... and look where we are now. Katrina refugees are killing, raping and robbing our neighbors, and on and on and on..." (this was a direct quote from a customer of mine today, but I've heard it, and comments like it for weeks now). Katrina refugee is a "nice way" to say blacks in Houston. They all hate Perry, but call him the "lesser of the two evils". I mean really? Well then, as has become my favorite saying down here..."fuck y'all". People are stupid.

FWIW, the last "newsworthy" murder in my area was a paranoid husband who thought his 7 months pregnant wife was cheating on him. He shot her in broad daylight, in their driveway, in my neighborhood. They were white and they were from Colorado.

[kjackson227]

5. One- I think these people are low information voters...

two- they are staunch Republican ideologues, three- they absolutely HATE government and/or social programs, three- racism.

[onestepforward]

23. I have to agree with your 3 reasons.

That is what I see on my local suburban message board. There is huge social program/government resentment ie: "I work hard for my money. Why should I have to pay for someone else who isn't."

I've also been seeing an unbreakable resentment and many times, hatred, toward our President and Dems. in general. He/they can do NOTHING right. This is incredibly ingrained to the point that facts do not matter. Literally.

Some time back, a DU'er posted a great article that really helped me see that presenting facts to this group is actually counter-productive called "How Facts Backfire:"

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

These hardcore rightwing Texans will not change. Rightwing media has done its job. I think that our best bet would be GOTV for Latino and young voters. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm all ears for a solution.

[sonias]

28. Great article link

Thanks for that.

In 1996, Princeton University’s Larry M. Bartels argued, “the political ignorance of the American voter is one of the best documented data in political science.”

It's sad that we are so stupid in our country, and we can't handle facts. Our elections have become a marketing campaign for the catchiest slogan.:(

What I would like to see is a voter education effort to educate voters that every national election is important. Not just the presidential year election, but all national elections. That's the part that really has me stumped. Why voter turnout drops 20+ percentage points during the mid-term elections?

As far as the Latino vote in Texas - well since we can't bother to vote, we're going to take it on the chin the most. This election in Texas is certainly going to empower the haters to bring in Arizona ID laws, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[onestepforward]

31. Check out this chart:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x506298


From this chart, it looks like our young voters did not come out and older folks (Rs) did. Voter education about mid-terms is a good idea. All elections are important.

What is surprising is the drop in Latino and Black voters. I thought that the past two years of teabagger racial trash-talking would have gotten these groups out to vote. I guess it just disengaged them instead?

I agree, I think Perry and all the TX Rs might very well follow in Arizona's footsteps since the election is now over and we will take it in the chin hard.

Although very disappointed, I will keep fighting and I still believe that Texas will turn blue, just not as fast as I would like it to. :)


:patriot:

[sonias]

32. I heard the same thing pretty much on NPR today

The youth vote pretty much tanked and the older conservative voter came out like gang busters.

Well that's what we get when we let grandma and grandpa watch Faux News all day long and then they turn out to vote! No disrespect meant to senior citizen voters and plenty of disrespect meant to the youth voters who have absolutely no excuse for being disengaged in what happens in the country. :grr:

So from the chart I would say that older white females put is in this spot. :shrug:

2012 - either it will be our turning point or the end of the world as the Mayans predicted. :evilgrin:

[kjackson227]

35. The Black and Hispanic lack of voter turnout is absolutely shameful...

What's that old saying, "when the country catches a cold, blacks catch the flu", so you would think both blocks (blacks/Hispanics) would be the very first ones in line to vote in EVERY election. I get so d*amned sick and tired of the voter apathy from these two groups.

Although, I must say Dallas County voters come out pretty darn good.

[sonias]

37. Me too

And I'm Latina. The only thing I can say to explain it is that culturally voting as a value is not being taught to the younger generations. And there is a real disconnect with voting and how it affects your day to day life.

My Mom was very influential to me as a voter. I saw the struggles my parents went through to get the right to vote and they thought it was a duty. Everyone in my family votes. But we were taught that voting was important from a very young age.

These days schools barely cover any civic lessons at all. So if the younger generation is not getting the message at home, they certainly aren't getting it in school either.

Not a defense of our non voting populations, just trying to understand where we are failing.

:shrug:

[kjackson227]

38. I agree 110%, sonias... I'm black and to learn how our forefathers died...

during the civil rights era for this right, and for us to be so complacent is almost sinful. I too remember how my mom and dad had to pay a poll tax (remember that?)in order to vote, but they voted anyway. Everyone in my family votes, too. I remember Civics classes which I thoroughly enjoyed. For one assignment, the class would split into two groups, Dems and Rethugs, and we'd have a debate, lol. I also took African American History in junior high. But, I get what you're saying. Our young people are not learning the history of their people and our government that is so very much needed. My daughter and I are Dems, but my granddaughter CLAIMS that she's going to be an Independent (oh, brother) :eyes:

[sonias]

39. As long as your granddaugher votes that's what counts

She can be an Independent with an open mind. We need to win those votes too.:)

Lets keep education of our voters as one of our priorities.

I've always said that more people from the entertainment industry should be getting involved in pushing the youth to vote. Show them that it's cool to vote.

I remember all the cool videos from singers during 2008 for Obama. We need that every voting year. Like Will.I.Am's - Obama. I loved that. :loveya:Will.I.Am

[sonias]

6. They haven't had enough pain

If they think the past two years "were taking us down the wrong path" as they claimed in exit polls, then we haven't hit rock bottom.

If they think the party in charge of the U.S. House now, is going to give a rats ass about the middle class, then they should keep holding out for that. Let's see if Americans get any unemployment benefit extensions, or new job creation or if what they really get is a deeper recession.

The Rs are the ones who have kept fighting tooth and nail against any progressive legislation and any jump start of the economy in the direction of green jobs.

And Perry and his minions in the Texas House now will absolutely go ballistic. The Texas Rs now have the balance of power in the House to elect another Craddick type speaker. I fully expect to see a similar law to Arizona to SB1070 now be a serious possibility in Texas. All those newly elected Rs have to deliver some meat to their base and fear and hating is going to be at the top of the agenda.

From now on it's all about tax cuts and budget cuts to social services. Let's see how the American voters feel like in two years.

Fear won big last night.

[FloriTexan]

8. I can't take much more pain...

Seriously, how bad does it have to get. I am having a really hard time with the results of this election. Its not just Texas, the whole country has gone f'ing nuts.

[sonias]

9. I'm with you FloriTexan

I've had enough pain too. But we're not the ones that voted out of fear last night.

The right wing fear mongers drove us into the ditch again last night. So now it's up to them to realize it - again. That crowd of voters last night would have voted G.W. Bush back in. They were not rational, they just voted out their anger.

Really this can get much, much worse. And that's where we're headed.

Gridlock is an understatement. There will be full out class warfare, and the middle class and poor are on the losing end of that war. The Bush tax cuts for the rich will be on the top of the R agenda. You just watch.

Bob Herbert's column in the NY Times sums it up for me

NY Times 11/1/10
Fast Track to Inequality

The clearest explanation yet of the forces that converged over the past three decades or so to undermine the economic well-being of ordinary Americans is contained in the new book, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class."

The authors, political scientists Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkeley, argue persuasively that the economic struggles of the middle and working classes in the U.S. since the late-1970s were not primarily the result of globalization and technological changes but rather a long series of policy changes in government that overwhelmingly favored the very rich.

Those changes were the result of increasingly sophisticated, well-financed and well-organized efforts by the corporate and financial sectors to tilt government policies in their favor, and thus in favor of the very wealthy. From tax laws to deregulation to corporate governance to safety net issues, government action was deliberately shaped to allow those who were already very wealthy to amass an ever increasing share of the nation’s economic benefits.

:hug:

[kjackson227]

15. "There will be full out class warfare...

and the middle class and poor are on the losing end of that war."

This sentence says it all as to where our country is headed. I constantly worry about the future for my daughter and moreso, my grand-daughter. Corporate socialism and globalization will change our country, and not for the better. Not only will we lose more jobs to outsourcing, but outsourcing will also drive down wages.

All of us should make sure our finances are in order, and keep out of debt as much as possible because who knows what our economy is going to look like in the next two years and beyond. Personally, I'm glad to be getting out of this rat race because I'll be taking an early retirement in 2012.

[sonias]

18. Support your local economy

Shop locally anywhere you can. Buy from your farmer's markets and local goods from local stores rather than national chains.

We have to build our community jobs back up. It's one way to fight the outsourcing.

I agree with you - finances are going to tighten up everywhere.

Best of luck to you planning for that retirement. Keep focused on that and you'll get there.

:hug:

[kjackson227]

19. Sonias, speaking of farmers, Big Eddie just mentioned how the R's are going to strip...

the farming subsidies, and then food prices will go sky high. He said that Republican farmers are bringing this on themselves...

[kjackson227]

20. You know, sonias, people just don't understand how serious...

this is going to become. We'll all be lucky if we can manage to have a roof over our heads, and food on the table. At least this is how I feel. I just don't see how we (the American people) are going to be able to fight the corporate money machine, especially when China, Japan, India, etc. are wreaking havoc in our country.

Did you see the thread where this lady called the Ed Schultz Show yesterday and said that China, Japan, and I think India, were hoping that the R's would win, so that more jobs would be outsourced to their countries? I'm not sure what she's involved in, but she said this was fact.

Does anyone else remember who this lady was?

[sonias]

25. No but it makes sense

All of those countries are counting on us failing, so they get more manufacturing jobs in their countries.

Even before we had a chance to compete - China is taking dominance of the solar panel field.

The U.S. continues to lose in industry fields we should be dominating in. Solar and electric cars etc. We can not grow this economy on the financial sector - we all know that was fraud anyway. We need manufacturing jobs.

[kjackson227]

21. In fact, there's a small farmer stand very close to where I live...

so, I'll do just that. I think I might just try my hand at gardening, also.

[sonias]

27. Me too

The return of the victory gardens! In the defense of our local communitites!

I hadn't gone there yet - but frankly - it's time. We've got the room in our yard. I put in as much time on plants and shrubs why not food?

:fistbump:

[kjackson227]

36. My yard is small, but I can still get in a few cabbage...

yellow squash, and maybe bell peppers. I don't think these items need very much room.

[Justitia]

26. And since it's the rural areas of TX that gave us Perry again, I'll only spend in the cities.

I'm tired of the rural rubes dragging down the economic generators of our state - the cities.

All our major cities voted to get rid of this clown, and the rednecks saved his ass.

I won't spend any money outside the boundaries of our metropolitan counties.

[WolverineDG]

7. it makes me almost want to just give up

people want to be that fucking stupid deserve the shit they're going to get. fucking assholes.

dg

[sonias]

10. In a way I agree with you dg

It really is the moment of fine "let's jump off the bridge together". Honestly if the people in America who rated the Rs with the same or lower level of approval as the Ds, think the Rs are going to fix the economy, then America does belong in an insane asylum. And we're going to get what's coming to us. Americans voted for this and we're going to have to take our medicine. 8 years of the bush nightmare wasn't enough for America so we've come back for more.

But I don't want to pile on the hurt on people who are already hurting. So what to do? Well we're now in the same spot they were in two years ago when America broke up with the Rs. It's going to be a tough two years no matter how you look at it.

And we're all going to pay for it ... well except for the very rich and all the corporations who are laughing all the way to the bank. :(

[TEXASYANKEE]

11. Thanks for your calm words, Sonia.

I don't understand this election at all. People want to "take back their government" ... but from what? I don't understand. It's okay that Bush slept through 9/11 and started 2 wars, but they can't give Obama more than 18 months to even begin to fix things?? It all makes no sense to me.

Dallas County voted overwhelmingly Democratic and went big time for Bill White. But they also voted in Stephani Carter and Joe Driver??? I don't understand.

This election has just left me scratching my head. I haven't been afraid until just now, but now I fear that Obama will not be elected and there will be a Repub majority in 2012. It simply defies logic.

[sonias]

13. Central Austin area too

I think the main issue is that voters did not turn out to vote. In Travis our voter turn out percentage was the same as it was in 2006, about 40%. We can't win easily when our voters stay home. Compare that to the 66% turnout in 2008. It seems that a lot of people only care about presidential elections. And that makes no sense to me. How can your President lead and work for you when you won't come out and vote two years later.

We lost several Democratic representatives in our Central Texas area too - Valinda Bolton, Patrick Rose and Diana Maldonado. And one of ours Donna Howard is sitting on a 15 vote lead. Who knows how that will end up.

Pretty scary and pretty stupid result.

[Sailing]

29. Thanks for those numbers

I had a feeling that it was low turnout that swung it.

Never thought my vote for Donna Howard would become so crucial.

[sonias]

33. I'm hoping she can hang on

Lots of overseas ballots and provisional votes that might count, still to be counted. I heard Dana DeBeauvoir, say there were hundreds of ballots that could still count. They won't know until next week who won. And then there still may be a recount which would delay the final result even further.

[white cloud]

12. All so true

:mad: :popcorn:

Thanks for reinforcing my feelings and thoughts. Let make plans for 2012 because the country middle class is not going be helped by the freepers plans.

[sonias]

14. That may be our only silver lining

The Rs have shown time and time again, they can not govern. They are the party of "no". All they know how to do are negative things. They have no solutions to problems. Only trickery. They will try to Enron the budget and slip expenses to the next budget cycle. But that won't be enough.

How will they balance the budget in Texas? They can not make $21 billion dollars of budget cuts - unless they start closing jails and schools.

Ball is in their court and they will have to own it!

:grr:

[av8rdave]

16. The problem is...

The voters have to re-learn every few elections cycles, and a lot of damage gets done in the meantime. Plus, the low-information voter has a very short memory, which is why the crappy campaign ads we see work so well.

[sonias]

17. We have to play their game too

We need an issue we can drive too, but at 140 characters or less.

I don't know how, but the message on who owns the republicans really should resonate with voters. The banks and the financial industry bought this election. And they are not going to cut the deficit like their claim. First order of business is restoring the bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

NY Times 11/02/10
On Wall Street, the Fed Is the Main Event

(snip)
While rolling back big swaths of last year’s sweeping financial regulatory reform bill may be difficult, there may still be room for smaller tweaks that might loosen up some of the most stringent derivatives rules and other potentially requirements.

The banking industry had spent heavily in the last year, directing a much bigger portion of their spending toward Republicans in the run-up to the election. More than 70 percent of campaign donations went toward Republican candidates in September, compared to 40 percent a year earlier, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan research group.

Bankers are not in it for the working and middle class - they just aren't.

[av8rdave]

22. "Bankers are not in it for the working and middle class - they just aren't."

What you said. And you're exactly right. This is one of the messages we have to get out to the electorate.

The hard part is that most of the electorate can't be bothered with boring things like words and numbers. That makes the job doubly difficult.

[The Philosopher]

24. From what I've seen

I want to say it's the religious voters. Maybe it's just my area. But they see Democratic candidates who are too left-leaning as lacking Jesus in their life and they want a candidate who is Christian in office.

When I got home last night and learned White was down, I was really depressed. I knew we wouldn't get AG, Lt. Gov, or any other major seat. None of the candidates ran a real campaign (or, they ran a local campaign for a state-wide office). But White actually put himself out there. But, two things seemed to work against him: TEXAS IS FILLED WITH THE INSANE and he didn't get himself in the media. Every time I watched channel 8 (in Dallas), I always heard about Republicans and Perry in the specific, but Democrats were only mentioned in abstraction.

I don't think we'll be winning until the state Party gets its act together. If those douche bags can give out-of-state money to Republican candidates, we should be given out-of-state money, too, so that every major seat (AG, Lt. Gov., Railroad Commish, Comptroller) has the funding to run a real campaign that will end up doing something. And we need candidates. How many positions did we see where only a Republican was running? Or a Republican and Libertarian? Or a Rep, Lib, and Green candidate? It's embarrassing. If we're going to be a major party, we need to act like it. Find someone to run. Find them money and get them to run. It's not like we're 10% of 10% of 10% of the population. There's Democrats out there who could run, even if they needed to be persuaded.

[w8liftinglady]

30. ellis County went 22K to 6K for Perry..they would vote to pour gas on a fire

as long as it was a "Christian" gas can...not the heathen democrat water

[sonias]

34. You really need to read the Boston.com article

OneStepFoward linked to it above. It's a very worthwhile read. Read it and then Texas will make perfect sense to you. I promise. Won't make you feel better, but you will understand the Texas sized stupid. :hug:

Boston. com July 2010
How facts backfire
Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains

(snip)
Studies by other researchers have observed similar phenomena when addressing education, health care reform, immigration, affirmative action, gun control, and other issues that tend to attract strong partisan opinion. Kuklinski calls this sort of response the “I know I’m right” syndrome, and considers it a “potentially formidable problem” in a democratic system. “It implies not only that most people will resist correcting their factual beliefs,” he wrote, “but also that the very people who most need to correct them will be least likely to do so.”

(snip)
In an ideal world, citizens would be able to maintain constant vigilance, monitoring both the information they receive and the way their brains are processing it. But keeping atop the news takes time and effort. And relentless self-questioning, as centuries of philosophers have shown, can be exhausting. Our brains are designed to create cognitive shortcuts — inference, intuition, and so forth — to avoid precisely that sort of discomfort while coping with the rush of information we receive on a daily basis. Without those shortcuts, few things would ever get done. Unfortunately, with them, we’re easily suckered by political falsehoods.

(snip)
Unfortunately, this shame-based solution may be as implausible as it is sensible. Fast-talking political pundits have ascended to the realm of highly lucrative popular entertainment, while professional fact-checking operations languish in the dungeons of wonkery. Getting a politician or pundit to argue straight-faced that George W. Bush ordered 9/11, or that Barack Obama is the culmination of a five-decade plot by the government of Kenya to destroy the United States — that’s easy. Getting him to register shame? That isn’t.

A stupid, easily manipulated electorate, Fucked News driving up the fear, and national and statewide candidates lying through their teeth about everything. Recipe for winning the election.

Especially in Texas where we hardly have any media that keep the Rs in check. They've come much too late to the job of power checking Perry and his corrupt minions. All the voters saw was cop killer ads and the border is insecure.

Yes they would throw a match at their own house to keep the "socialists" from burning it down first.

[RadicalTexan]

40. My parents voted for him

And I also chalk it up to Obama backlash based in racism, general xenophobia, homophobia, ill-defined chronic fear, and a totally misplaced belief in Horatio Algerism - they think that they really have the potential to hit it big, Rick Perry style, and they don't want the government standing in the way and "stealing" their "hard earned money" via taxation, when that happens.

Also, they dig is faux cowboy, faux populism bullshit.

They haz teh dumbz.

[sonias]

41. "They haz teh dumbz"

:rofl: and :cry: at the same time.

teh dumbz it hurts!