She wouldn't be the oldest. As for women having a tougher time, I suppose it depends upon the woman.

Doctor Fate wrote:

SLOTerp wrote:If we're putting in our bets on the next POTUS... Hillary in 2016.

You heard it here first...

Sorry, she'll be coming up on 70. I think that's a pretty tall obstacle for anyone, but especially a woman. That's just the way the world is.

And, I don't think her mush-mouthed pronouncements about "violence" in Libya have distinguished her much. I'm still waiting for a condemnation of Gaddafi (your spelling may vary).

Agreed on the sense her window has all but closed. Unless Obama abdicates leaving '12 in play for dems to compete she is not likely to have another realistic shot of garnering support similar to what she did in '08.

Minister X wrote: But insofar as your comments suggested that the Dems are less inclusive and tolerant than the GOP (which may not have been your intent, but the implication seems clear enough) I wished to offer these contrary or at least neutralizing observations.

SEIU harrasses black gay Tea Partier.

Progressives call for lynching of Clarence Thomas.

Sorry, MinX. You were saying?

No fan of Hillary, not a Democrat, and I think Hillary should have come out strong against Gaddafi.
All that said, I have less problem with what she has not said than what Obama has not said. Seeing how quiet Obama is on this makes me think she's simply following orders. Saying incredibly little.

It's not like the US is very tight with Libya and if we actually showed some damned support, maybe the people of the region would gain a tiny bit more respect for America? But no, hardly a peep, a few mild condemnations of little substance. I think Obama blew it here and just have trouble blaming Clinton. But I agree, her window of Presidential opportunity has been shut for good.

I would neither assume too much on how the Obama administration is playiing this nor on Hillary's 2016 chances. The US doesn't want to be too strident on Libya less it has to adopt the same tone if/when Saudi Arabia erupts. I'm sure we are playing an important role behind the scenes.

Re Hillary, she has shown herself to be very competent, even if a little too cautious. I think most people respect her and her work ethic. Now that she has been Senator and Secretary of State, and in the white house for 8 years, she can claim more experience than any other presidential candidate. Politics is unpredictable and 70 is the new 50.

If 70 is the new 50...
I happen to turn 50 later this year, does that equal 70? (cause I'm starting to feel it)

Yeah ... I am 50 and starting to experience the decline ... as an 81 year old friend of mine says, it doesn't get better.

Machiavelli wrote:

Minister X wrote: But insofar as your comments suggested that the Dems are less inclusive and tolerant than the GOP (which may not have been your intent, but the implication seems clear enough) I wished to offer these contrary or at least neutralizing observations.

SEIU harrasses black gay Tea Partier.

Progressives call for lynching of Clarence Thomas.

Sorry, MinX. You were saying?

I was saying that the Dems are less apt to strictly enforce an accepted, narrow party ideology than Republicans. Last time I checked Clarence Thomas wasn't a Dem. You had written, "...the Dems have nothing but contempt for... ...unless they toe the party line." Is Clarence Thomas expected to toe the Dem line?

I'm surprised by how much resistance my small comment has engendered. It's been my experience that the Dems are the less disciplined, more raucous, more rainbow-like party. No doubt there are Dems who wish to set strict ideological tests for membership; I'm not saying there are not. It's simply that Mach's comment seemed to me to suggest that demanding ideological purity was strictly a left/liberal thing. Ain't so. I think the GOP is worse in that respect (though this has become true only quite recently), but I'll certainly concede to a general similarity/equality.

As for expressions of contempt, as I said earlier, my comments don't mean that Dems, to whatever extent they do have internal disputes, don't use the language of vilification. Indeed, in this respect I'll offer a general observation that Dems get more vicious and nasty than GOPers in similar circumstances. One might think about this in the following way: Dem political style evolved out of big-city machine politics, union politics, and the type of protest politics that had people chanting, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" whereas Republican political style evolved out of country clubs and corporate board rooms, and is naturally more genteel.

Another way to look at this is to compare the average Dem national convention to the average GOP one. The GOP keeps to schedule so major speeches are delivered at prime time and all seems quite scripted and rehearsed, whereas the Dem's national conventions are notorious for poor discipline, keynote speeches at two in the morning, and floor fights. These are all generalizations and plenty of exceptions can be found. Also, these are observations made over a lifetime, not just in the last two cycles. The Dems have gotten a lot better at running scripted on-time conventions and if I'm not mistaken the GOP actually had a real floor fight recently.

I'll also admit that the Dems have gotten less tolerant of ideological impurity over time. It's hard to imagine a Scoop Jackson the the Democratic Party today. But look at this polling report:

Reuters/Ipsos Poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs. Oct. 28-31, 2010. N=1,075 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.

"Regardless of which party wins the majority in November or what issues you think are the most important, do you think it is more important for politicians in Congress to stick to their principles and hold to the issues they campaigned on, or for politicians in Congress to work with members of the other party and make consensus policy?" Options rotated

Stick to principles ||| Make consensus ||| Both equally (vol.) ||| Neither (vol.) Unsure/Refused

ALL: 38, 56, 2, 2, 2,
Democrats: 29, 66, 2, 1, 1
Republicans: 47, 47, 2, 1, 2
Independents: 39, 52, 0, 5, 4

See. I'm just saying that the Dems are the less principled party!

Minister X wrote:It's been my experience that the Dems are the less disciplined, more raucous, more rainbow-like party.

Yet, Pelosi ruled the House with an iron fist and rarely suffered any defections that were not authorized for political purposes. Meanwhile, Snowe, Dukakis, and other RINO's in the Senate defected with regularity.

See. I'm just saying that the Dems are the less principled party!

No argument here!!!

I think on your bigger point, the "big tent" of the DNC has shrunk considerably while the GOP has become "bigger." That someone like Tom Ridge could have been considered as a VP candidate or (shudder) Joe Lieberman says something about how mushy the GOP has been recently. Maybe, just maybe, the Tea Party represents a hard lurch to the right. Time will tell.

However, it is clear to me that the Democrats have moved significantly to the left over the past 6 years or so. The death of the DLC is certainly indicative of that.

Doctor Fate wrote:Meanwhile... Dukakis, and other RINO's in the Senate...

Huh? Who are you talking about?

Minister X wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:Meanwhile... Dukakis, and other RINO's in the Senate...

Huh? Who are you talking about?

Erm, sorry, was thinking Olympia Snowe and just merged a few names. Should read:

Meanwhile, Snowe, Collins, and other RINO's in the Senate defected with regularity.

Doctor Fate wrote:

Minister X wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:Meanwhile... Dukakis, and other RINO's in the Senate...

Huh? Who are you talking about?

Erm, sorry, was thinking Olympia Snowe and just merged a few names. Should read:

Meanwhile, Snowe, Collins, and other RINO's in the Senate defected with regularity.

I completely get what X is saying, and Steve's post is indicative of the problem. Snowe, Collins, Chafee (in the past) aren't defecting, they're voting in their interests and the interests of their states, just as they should! They represent the United States and the people off their states first, not the broader Republican party! Really Steve, if you're talking about big tent, you shouldn't be using a word like "defection." Perhaps the party should employ Republican commissars to ensure that members vote "right." Hmmm?

There used to be a real Republican presence in the Northeast. Even in NYC we had Silk Stocking Republicans; my state rep used to be a Republican, in Manhattan! But they're extinct here now. The Northeast Republican survives in isolated pockets, and that's a bad thing for everybody. There are important regional differences in this diverse country and what it means to be a Republican should be different in Maine than it is in Texas.

Next president of the United States certainly won’t be a Republican if they continue as described in this thread. Typically, the way you win elections is to get people in the middle to vote for you, and apparently there is no such room at the inn for those “defectors.”

Defection is just a term to describe voting against the party line. I've seen it used in all kinds of contexts, it doesn't have to have treasonous overtones.

Sassenach wrote:Defection is just a term to describe voting against the party line. I've seen it used in all kinds of contexts, it doesn't have to have treasonous overtones.

Bingo.

Doctor Fate wrote:Yet, Pelosi ruled the House with an iron fist and rarely suffered any defections that were not authorized for political purposes. Meanwhile, Snowe, Collins, and other RINO's in the Senate defected with regularity.

Wanna' bet?

The WAPO publishes voting records... easy to copy/paste/parse/analyze in a spreadsheet. I did it for the most recent Congress. If Steve asks nicely I'll do it for any other one he wants - the data goes back 20 years.

US Senate
Median value: percent of the time a member votes with his/her party...
Dems: 92%
GOP: 96%

US House: Dems 90%, GOP 91%.

I chose to use median so a few outliers wouldn't yield a false sense of variation. But perhaps even more instructive than the above is to look at the list of congressmembers sorted in ascending value by frequency with which they vote the party line. In the US House the 8 least line-voting members are Democrats, then there's one Republican then five more Dems. After that it gets nicely mixed. In the US Senate six of the first nine are Dems.

CONCLUSION: In Congress, Democrats vote as a bloc less than the GOP, and have more members who are "mavericks" within the party.

BTW, spot #10 on the Senate list is a six-way tie including Collins and Snowe. Steve thinks they are the defectors but in fact it's some far-right Republicans who are the less disciplined. (And then there's Rand Paul with whom I won't burden any group or wing.)