Kat, a regular reader (and practically the official Newshog researcher) has sent me the link to Greg Palast’s latest over at Democracy Now. It concerns “Vulture fundâ€? companies who buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. The biggest “vulture” in the US, according to Palast, is:

Paul Singer…[who] is the number one donor to George Bush at the moment, has given over a million-and-a-half dollars in the last campaign. He’s Rudy Giuliani’s chief fundraiser, raising $15 million now for his presidential campaign. He’s a billionaire. He controls a $7 billion fund, and he’s obviously very close with the Bush administration, which is crucial, absolutely crucial to his making these profits.

Why is it crucial?

Under US law, the President of the United States has the absolute power to stop any vulture fund from collecting money from a poor nation, under the US Constitution.

This is just as blatant as the Conservative govenor of Texas issuing an executive order for the pr-sex/anti-cancer vaccine to benefit his friends in the pharmy crowd.

They have failed to win new voters and are losing moderate ones, because overall they have governed narrowly in a way that benefits the hard-core party base. The appeals to broaden that base haven’t worked because voters are savvy enough to look beyond surface-level appeals to the actual policy that has been enacted by Bush and the GOP in Congress.

You’re raising an important point here, how demographics impact the parties, but imho this is a very complex topic we shouldn’t disucss in this thread. Would be nice to see a story at TMV about this!
Hello, Joe, Mike, Jason, Shaun etc.?

Look at the 1992 presidential elections. A sitting Republican only received 37% of the vote. Clinton received 43% of the vote. 18% of the vote was in play and all went to Perot. I have always interrepted that about 18% of the voters were, in 1992, willing to decide among different candidates. I have always interrepted that, in 1992, 43% of voters would vote Democratic no matter what and 47% would vote Republican no matter what.

However, since 1992 the percentage of the population that is black, hispanic, or Asian (three groups that vote over 60%) have grown as a percentage of the population while middle class white private sector employed individuals have decreased as a percentage of the population.

Sometime between 2020 and 2030, the number of people who will automatically vote Democratic will probably go above 50% and the Republican party will be totally irrelevent just like it is irrelevent in DC and in every state north of DC.

In the near future, the Republcans will probably be able to win an occasional race for govenor like in California but will be totally irrelevent to affectign law making or political policy in the United State just like in California.

Hmm. This is one of the polls at the link you provided:

The Harris Poll. Based on nationwide surveys of adults, conducted over the course of each calendar year.
“Regardless of how you may vote, what do you usually consider yourself: a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or some other party?”

Republican/Democrat/Independent
% % %
2006 27 36 24

More here.
You think, the 2008 campaign resulted in 9% of the voters joining the Dems? check the full timetable of the Harris Poll, this would have been the biggest surge for the Dems ever. Not very likely.
:-/

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. May 16-18, 2006. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.
“Regardless of how you plan to vote, if the Democrats win this year’s congressional elections do you think it would be right for them to try to impeach President Bush over the Iraq war and weapons of mass destruction, or not?”
Would Be Right/Would Not Be Right/Unsure
% % %
ALL registered voters 30 62 7
Democrats 48 43 9
Republicans 9 88 3
Independents 31 60 9

Well, what did I say? “I don’t see why it should be impossible that moderates are for impeachment?” This FOX poll says that’s true. 31% of independents are for impeachment.

And actually the Democratic base in about 45% of the voters and is growing due to demographic changes in the United States.

Well, war crime trials may go to far. but I don’t see why it should be impossible that moderates are for impeachment? Check the polls. Almost every second citizen supports this. The Dems don’t have that big a party base, there must be many independents among this group.

Intuitively, I’d say, main topics for independents are now the Iraq war and healthcare. On Iraq war, moderates have become weary of Bush simply staying the course endlessly, without any end of misery in sight. A strategy that would put a clear timeline heading towards the end of US engagement in about a year would find many followers. Even moderate republicans fear today that Bush would simply carry on with another doomed plan after another, trying to avoid withdrawal at all costs. They noticed that there isn’t any trustworthy promise that the ‘surge’ plan is really the last try. A candidate who makes a real difference by commiting to a binding plan to end this debacle will be attractive to many voters.

Healthcare is another topics that finds lots of support, cross party lines, as polls show. The idea of making health care obligatory, getting rid of freeloaders, and relieving the business from increasing health care costs makes sense to many conservatives, too. It all depends on the kind of system that’s proposed. ‘Socialist’ healthcare, like in the UK, sure won’t find many followers. But a system that’s backed by the government (through standardisation and anti-discrimination laws like in Massachusetts or the Californai proposal), but actually handled by insurance companies, allowing market forces to work, will be interesting for many voters. Any candidate offering a serious program will have a clear advantage over others who are for ‘staying the course’.

Independent voters are always in the position of having to chose between the lesser of two evils. But one thing is certain: A candidate who doesn’t trustworthily present plans on these two main topics will not be taken into consideration at all and should better drop out of the race before becoming a public nuissance.

If you looked at the comments on the single post, virtually everyone one was called for either impeachment of President Bush, war crime trials for President Bush, or were giddy with the prospects of single party rule in the United States.

I somehow doubt that demanding war crime trials for President Bush is somehow moderate.

Indeed, indeed, Joe. SuperDD is just one of those angry folks.

Also, pls note that John Aravosis worked as an advisor for a republican Senator (I guess it was Stevens) and still holds right wing views on foreign policy, for instance about Lebanon (he was for striking Hezbollah). His main interest are gay and lesbian issues, for instance gay marriage and discrimination of gays in the military and elsewhere. His views aren’t so far from Rudi Giuliani’s, just for a comparison. It’s certainly not his fault that fundamentalist ‘christians’ hijacked the GOP and succeeded in their anti-gay drive, pushing many moderate republicans out of the party.

So, AMERICAblog isn’t simply a ‘leftist’ blog, and many of its readers are moderate and even republican. There are some lively discussions there, and I’m not suprised that many of the regular readers are very interested on the state of moderate voices in the GOP. Imho there would be a great potential for a moderate republican candidate like Hagel. Gladly, the religious extremists won’t let this happen, effectively enhancing the Democratic chances for 2008.

The real problem for Republicans is that there are few real moderates in the United States and there are actually few votes that are ever in play in the United States. Every presidental election is over about 10% of the voters because 90% of the voters automatically vote for one party or the other.

The real problem for the Republicans is that soon, less than 50% of the voters will even considering voting for any Republican candidate. The Republicans know this and thus they is why President Bush has made stupid proposals about immigration or entitlements in a futile attempt to appeal to growing demographic groups that do not morally vote Republicans.

Every attempt by the Republicans to develop new voters has been a dismal failure and have hurt their prospects for the future. The Republicans do not have credibility on any issue and thus have no prospects for winning new voters.

Thus, the future of the U.S., is to become a single party state where the agenda it set by the left side of the Democratic Party. In the future, the only important election will be the Democratic Primary. And given campaign finance reform, all election could become meaningless in the future because only block votes by certain demographic groups.