Politics SHOULD be a sport where the opponent actually gives fair-minded thought to the opposite opinion. In my opinion, that ceased on Redscape some time ago.

Well yes, you're right of course Brad. The difficulty though is that where you have somebody who's so aggressively partisan and inflexible they tend to not only dominate proceedings but set the tone for everybody else. For all the constant complaining about aggressive liberals on this board, it's quite clear to me that throughout my time here (which is a good number of years now) there's been a preponderance of conservatives. I actually quite like that, it's one of the things that makes it interesting, but during the last year or so it seems that some of our resident conservatives (chiefly Steve, but to a lesser extent others) have developed a bizarre kind of victim complex where they genuinely believe that they're the endlessly put-upon adults in a room full of aggressive liberal trolls. To the best of my knowledge this is completely wrong, but the meme has developed and now seems to be somewhat out of control. Fact is that if you've spent the last 6-8 years disagreeing with somebody, chances are that you're not going to find a lot of common ground anytime soon, and the sheer longevity of these conversations is a pretty big clue that the other person ain't going anywhere. It's not reasonable to expect everybody to simply play nice and 'respect each others point of view' when those views are made increasingly stridently and when years of experience teach us that the views are so far apart. All that's necessary is to make a distinction between criticism of your argument and criticism of your character.

Steve is largely responsible for the atmosphere which has driven him away. There, I said it. I'd be surprised if it wasn't what everybody else is thinking.

What was it that I remembered about another man running for the presidency? Wasn't it that his church and religious beliefs do not matter? Who cares that Rev. Wright was his pastor. As long as he keeps his beliefs to himself, that is what matters.

I think the problem with Santorum is that he quite clearly doesn't keep his religious views to himself. Given half a chance he'd obviously love to legislate to force his views upon everybody else, and he makes that abundantly clear.

As long as he keeps his beliefs to himself, that is what matters

.

I think to many it appears that Santorum has no real interest in keeping his religious beliefs out of government.
For that I beleive he should he given some credit. He is a product of his beliefs and he isn't willing to equivicate or tolerate on matters that he feels betray his moral judgement. He is quite willing to stand behind his religiously framed rhetoric and be judged as a profoundly committed, fundamental Catholic.
And that stands well outside the mainstream of American society. He's taken positions on matters like contraception, and tolerance of homosexuals that are shared by few Americans. And he's frequently used religious language to frame debate.

Its pretty obvious that also mean he'd import his theological believes into government in the same way.
Its also pretty obvious that Obama's religion, although its obviously formed the man, hasn't been a centre point of his communication, let alone his administration.... He doesn't preach morality.
Santorum, does.
And he's pretty sure he's right and everyone who disagrees is wrong.
Will be an interesting debate tonight?

bbauska wrote:What was it that I remembered about another man running for the presidency? Wasn't it that his church and religious beliefs do not matter? Who cares that Rev. Wright was his pastor. As long as he keeps his beliefs to himself, that is what matters.

The problem is that Santorum will not keep them to himself. They will be the basis of his administration's policies. As much as I may think Obama is an ideologue, I don't think his religious believes are the basis of his policies.

Huntsman was my man. I can accept Romney as an alterative and can grit my teeth and vote for Gingrinch if it is between him and Obama. However, if Santorum gets the Republican nomination, this is one vote the Libertarian candidate can count on.

[edit] after Geo's comment to include part about accepting Romney.

Archduke Russell John wrote:However, if Santorum gets the Republican nomination, this is one vote the Libertarian candidate can count on.

He's a terrible candidate, right? Except for blue collar Catholics, he has no appeal to swing voters, and his extreme social views offend many of the free will republicans. And he looks like that dork that used to sit across from you in homeroom.

He's got no chance if he gets nominated. Or am I missing some hidden appeal?

geojanes wrote:He's got no chance if he gets nominated. Or am I missing some hidden appeal?

I won't say he has no chance. But his chance is probably around no higher then 30%. I think it would boil down to whether he allows the media to define his candidacy. If he can turn the focus of his social conservatism as a return to the nuclear American family, he might have a slim chance because that will play well. Especially in a time when people are beginning to thing young people have an enlarged sense of entitlement. This seems to be a cause de jure because I have been seeing an increase in article complaining about how people born after 1982 are unprepared for the real world. Anybody else notice this as well?

Having said that, I don't think Santorum can control the narrative that well. In addition, I don't think Santorum is going to get the nomination.

archduke

Especially in a time when people are beginning to thing young people have an enlarged sense of entitlement. This seems to be a cause de jure because I have been seeing an increase in article complaining about how people born after 1982 are unprepared for the real world. Anybody else notice this as well?

When you begin to notice that the young uns are generally lazy slobs with bad attitudes is the sure sign you've slipped into bitter old man territory. Happens to lots of us.

I don't think Santorum is going to get the nomination

.

Recent state wide primary polls have him winning Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Gingrich Georgia... If he does this welI think its still not conclusive and that he might yet prevail. ....The scary thing for GOP is that the head to head polls v obama are starting to show Obama with double digit leads... over Romney or Santorum

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

rickyp wrote:When you begin to notice that the young uns are generally lazy slobs with bad attitudes is the sure sign you've slipped into bitter old man territory. Happens to lots of us.

I am not saying I feel that way. I am saying that in the last month I have seen at least 3 articles making that complaint. Using comments like they are unprepared to handle criticism or telling an interviewer that she will have his job in 18 months and being serious about it.

rickyp wrote:Recent state wide primary polls have him winning Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Gingrich Georgia... If he does this welI think its still not conclusive and that he might yet prevail.

Well that is a little misleading.
Michigan has 5 polls done in the last 4 day (2/19-2/23) 2 show Romney in the lead, 2 show Santorum in the lead and one has them in a tie.

The Ohio poll is almost 10 days old for a race that is still two and half weeks away.

Gingrinch is trending down in Georgia (his home state)

Pennsylvania isn't paying attention to the race yet because the primary is 2 months away and we assume we aren't going to have a choice by then.

Archduke Russell John wrote:Gingrinch is trending down in Georgia (his home state)

I'm with you on the other States, but one thing to note about Georgia is that it's not Romney who's catching Newt up, it's Santorum, who was nowhere in the State last month and is now second in most recent polls.

Santorum does appear to be slipping generally though, and most of the next few states are not great for him. Still, Romney didn't get in much of a killer blow in the last debate and seems to have been wrongfooted over the past few weeks. If he doesn't want Santorum to break out of being just the latest 'rightwing flavour of the month' and become a contender with staying power, he needs to win at least one of next week's races, and have a good Super Tuesday.

danivon wrote: If he doesn't want Santorum to break out of being just the latest 'rightwing flavour of the month' and become a contender with staying power, he needs to win at least one of next week's races, and have a good Super Tuesday.

Well he is going to win Arizona. It's has a very large Mormon population. I also think he is winning at least 5 of the 10 states on March 6th.

Finally, he's got a crap load more money then Santorum. It was a big thing last week when it was released that Romney raised only $6.4M in January. That looks bad until you see Santorum only raised $4M. Add that to the fact that I think he only had $1.5M in the bank, Romney still raised more in January then Santorum has in the bank.

True enough, but every dollar spent now is a dollar not spent in the Autumn, so while Romney has a bigger war chest and more coming in, he has to be careful not to splurge too much to secure nomination. Of course, the others are in an even worse position as they have to spend most of their incoming money if they want to be even halfway close to Romney's spending during primary season. Florida showed what financial dominance can do through ad bombardment.

Santorum has a few states he can do well in on 6 March, especially if he keeps taking support from Gingrich. However, it looks like more of them are proportional while some of Romney's better areas are WTA. I think it's going to be tough for Rick and his nice hair to keep up, but on the other hand he may be able to tap into a 'plucky underdog' thing. You guys like top root for them as much as we do, right?

ARCHDUKE

Well that is a little misleading.
Michigan has 5 polls done in the last 4 day (2/19-2/23) 2 show Romney in the lead, 2 show Santorum in the lead and one has them in a tie.

The polls being reported in state primaries have miserably smal sample sizes (400 is normal). So the margins of error are rather wide. Essentially Michigan is still a toss up. So are most of the others.
It is possible, though not probable, that Mitt will win Arizona and nothing else. That would be a disaster.
And when you consider that the earliest polls in Michigan had Mitt by 32 points I think it clearly indicates that all the exposure in the primary campaigning is working against him. And if its hurting him in the Republican race, its also hurting him in the eventual head to head match...
I still think Romney will come out as the eventual banner holder. But damaged and weakened. Standing on uncertain ground. He'll be defending rather extreme positions that he's taken, in very public fashion, during the primary process to pander to the hard right and won't have the option of sliding to more moderate positions. Not with that public record.
If the economy keeps improving little by little, Obama will cruise. The only question then will be what kind of coat tails he has...
Of course there's a long way to go.... But I keep thinking Obama's incredibly lucky to have the republicans primaries to be so combative and competitive. With s little real talent on display.

Sas:

Steve is largely responsible for the atmosphere which has driven him away. There, I said it. I'd be surprised if it wasn't what everybody else is thinking.

It's not what I was thinking. I really miss Steve's posts. I agree that he did get carried away, but I'd say his positives far out weighed his negatives. He wrote very well which shows enormous respect for the reader. His positions were extremely clear and coherent.

I miss him too, but I still think the aggressive atmosphere was largely a creature of his own making.

I miss most of the people who have left us actually, especially MinX.

Mitt will win Virginia, Arizona and Michigan. (at least the popular vote in Michigan but maybe not the delegate count since thats done county by county...)
Gingrich will win Georgia
Santorum win Oklahoma and Ohio.

And the band will play on....

A friend of mine works for a local TV station in Detroit. He's absolutely delighted with the way the Republican race has panned out because it's meant millions of dollars in advertising revenue have suddenly been dumped on his company, safeguarding jobs for another year. Whether his gratittude to Mitt Romney's wallet will extend to actually voting for him remains to be seen however...