From Wisconsin to Florida, Strong Winds of Political Remorse
Walker, Johnson and Ryan are hugely unpopular
Yet there are signals not only from upstate New York but around the nation that the Republicans face surging discontent, as voters learn what they intend when they attain power. With a majority in the House of Representatives, they have devised a budget plan that would help nobody except the wealthiest taxpayers, while devastating the nation's health insurance programs, physical infrastructure and environment.
With most of the nation's statehouses under Republican control, they have inflicted harsh cutbacks in education, health care and public safety, while assailing every public employee, including teachers, firefighters and cops.
Evidently, the people do not approve of these assaults on the standard of living of the American middle class.
According to recent public opinion polls, in fact, the people feel a keen sense of "buyer's remorse" for supporting the Republicans last November. From the Canadian border down to the Florida coast, swing-state voters are expressing deep regret over the results of the midterm elections.
In Wisconsin, the latest surveys show that substantial majorities now regret electing Gov. Scott Walker, who has earned national fame (or infamy) for rescinding the collective bargaining rights of his state's public workers. Three months after the end of the mass protests against Walker's actions, the nonpartisan Public Policy Polling (PPP) firm found that 54% of his Wisconsin constituents disapprove of his performance, while only 43% approve. Asked whether they would support his removal from office in a recall election, 50% said yes and only 47% said no.
The same poll found that Wisconsin voters are also apparently sorry that they replaced progressive Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold last fall with a tea party extremist named Ron Johnson. Today, they would re-elect Feingold with a comfortable margin over any Republican, and would bounce the Republican majority in the state Legislature, too.
As for Medicare, the publicity afforded Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin author of the Republican plan to transform the single-payer national health insurance plan into a stingy voucher program, is rapidly losing popularity in his home state. A new PPP polls shows that Ryan's approval rating has dropped precipitously over the past six months, with 46% now viewing him unfavorably and 41% viewing him favorably. Perhaps that is why he has decided not to run for the state's open Senate seat.
Voters Oppose New Far-Right Governors
Recent polls show the same kind of repentance over the midterm Republican sweep among voters in Florida and Ohio—except that the anger in those states seems even deeper.
A nonpartisan Quinnipiac College poll released May 25 found that Florida voters now disapprove of Republican Gov. Rick Scott, a far-right ideologue narrowly elected last fall, by a margin of 57% to 29%. Never popular, Scott began to plummet in polls as early as last March, when he commenced a series of attacks on the state's teachers, and his proposals for deep cuts in education and health care (and in taxes on millionaires like himself) have sent the insurance magnate into a free fall.
Meanwhile, Ohio voters likewise wish they could be rid of Gov. John Kasich, who has imitated Scott Walker's assault on the public sector. Asked how they would vote if last November's election were held today, the clear answer—by a remarkable margin of 25%—is that they would keep Ted Strickland, the defeated Democratic incumbent, instead of replacing him with Kasich.
Such powerful signs of voter disillusionment portend serious trouble for the Republicans. And unlike the special election result in New York, those frightening numbers can indeed be blamed on the tea party, which has imposed an extremist ideology that most Americans reject.
If Democrats can at long last learn to explain how they differ from their right-wing adversaries—and if they stand fast in protecting the middle class—then the election of 2012 will be theirs to win.
© 2011 Creators.com
Interesting... How much do you want to bet that the Republican wave was nothing more than a backlash over a failure of Democracy! By that I mean that the democratically elected winner, whether you go by pure popular vote count or by electoral college, the winner was a man that for all first impressions is a Black Muslim.
These backlash voters are convinced that Obama's half-white blood is as good as pure black by virtue of the one drop theory. That because he carries a Muslim name, not a Christian name, that he must be an AK-47 toting Muslim through and through. That his mother's US citizenship means nothing since she did not lay down with another US citizen whose mom, dad, and all 4 grandparents were not themselves US born and US raised citizens.
A racist will always deny that racism exists, and we all know that the election was attempted to be rigged. I know for a fact that MANY Wisconsin voters voted for Obama in the primary, because they feared that if it came down to Hillary vs whoever, Hillary would win. But a died-in-the-wool Republican knows that their racist ways are a clear majority, so they knew that Obama would lose the general to any white man you put up against him. Pure rasict strategy... Backfired!
Remember that both red and blue voters are not wealthy, not upper middle class. They watched for years how supply side economics, negatively known as trickle-down economics, was turning out to be trickle-up poverty. They saw the widening gap between the average wage and the CEO's wage. They needed a change, they needed hope that things will turn back to redistribution back down. They did not mean redistribution as a handout, they meant jobs with a good paycheck for the working man.
They saw how all these stimulus programs were nothing more than mere downpayments that would get them on the hook to make installment payments, without guaranteeing a big enough paycheck to make those payments.
They saw that all the tax breaks in the world, you could even drop down to zero taxes on business and wealthy people, this is still small change compared to the big profits realized by outsourcing to a country that has a working class lower than our poverty. Business will still outsource when taxes are gone, when EPA and OSHA regulations are gone. Take away the tax and they will just outsource faster.
Unfortunately, it is expensive running a campaign, it takes sizable money to ever hope to win. When you have 453 congressmen and 100 senators, probably 90% majority of which owes there elected win to their own wealth or their wealthy benefactors, who do you think they are working for?
This is why there is no Obama plan, no Democratic plan. They know that there is absolutely no way to make money flow down to the working class if the non-negotiable rule is that the wealthy gets to keep their current and structured future wealth. New money at the bottom while old money stays at the top can only happen when some outside money comes into the system... We need to find a sucker to invest in us, except we say we need foreigners who "believe" in America.
Paul Ryan amd all these others can't fix the system long term, they can only make a short-term stab at it that helps the wealthy pack up and go.
Doesn't matter who is in power, the Democrats will have to deal with the deficit if the Republicans are out. They can't tax the billionaires so they will have to go after the middle class. As much as they want to continue keeping people on the dole of dependency, they are going to have to make cuts. Eventually even the Democrats are going to start asking their followers perhaps they should opt into the work force and become taxpayers rather than being tax receivers.