I don't think anyone really takes Paul Ryan or his budget seriously any longer. Lazy reporting gave him a reputation of being a policy wonk but that's just laughable at this point and the only thing his budget could pass for is cheap toilet paper. If the GOP were to ever get serious about putting together a budget that'll help this country and that can actually pass through Congress and get signed by a president they'll can Ryan and have Dave Camp and Tom Cole and a few other people in their caucus do the job. Those representatives are serious and competent, and Ryan is neither of those things.



Most of the schloars that look at campaigns and elections in modern political history agree that north of 300 electoral votes in our divided landscape represents a decisive victory, and anything nearing 60% of the total EVs constitutes an electoral landslide because it would represent sweeping or nearly sweeping the field. Obama's 2012 map does that regardless if they'll begin to consider North Carolina as a swing state (it's time is coming but not yet). But it's not so much the electoral math that gives him the "mandate to do what he wishes," it's that the public actually supports his positions on the issues. There's consistent majority support for his positions on gun policy, immigration, the minimum wage increase, all the way down the list including how he advocates we should come to an agreement on a budget. As I've said several times, what you personally happen to think about the Ryan plan is irrelevant. The GOP continues to go with it despite it being rejected thoroughly. They had its champion on the presidential ticket in 2012 and it was no secret what they were offering: "vote for us, and we'll save these programs and then use the 'savings' to finance a massive tax cut for everybody!" They got completely destroyed because nobody is buying that bullshit, because at best it's completely fiscally unsound and at worst it's fiscally impossible. Yet we're in the midst of a budget showdown and they're once again offering the exact thing that they lost on, while the Democrats are offering the exact same thing that all their candidates ran and won on.

Your theory for what people want from their government doesn't coincide with what they actually want from their government, sorry about it. And yes, unemployment clearly looked good to voters or else they would have ejected Obama like so many speculated they would because of where the national average was hovering. Election analysis has shown us that people care much more about the trend than just the number. The only president who campaigned for reelection in a year where unemployment dropped more than it did in 2012 was Reagan, and both he and Obama sailed towards comfortable reelections because of it. Meanwhile an incumbent like George Bush was removed because the overall trend of the economy in 1992 was not encouraging to voters. Context matters, and a lot of people filled out ballots in 2012 thinking that the economy was in much better shape then than it was in 2008 and 2010, because it was.

2014 FL GOV
Rick Scott is still in deep trouble. His numbers have not improved over the first three months of this year despite his flip-flop on the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. His job approval rating is a lowly 33%-57%, one of the lowest approval ratings for a governor in the country (in Corbett and Chafee territory), and his standing in hypothetical 2014 gubernatorial matchups is very poor. He trails popular former Governor and failed 2010 Senatorial candidate Charlie Crist by a margin of 40%-52%. Crist is no longer as popular as he once was but his personal favorability sits at 46%-43%, giving him a comfortable lead over Scott. Crist has not declared his interest in the race but he, now a Democrat, receives 50% support from Democrats that say they'd like him to be their nominee. His favorability with Democratic primary voters sits at 66%-24%. 50% of all Florida voters approve his party change from Republican to Independent to Democrat, while 40% disapprove. 42% of Republican primary voters want Scott to be their candidate, 43% prefer someone else. Scott trails Alex Sink (40%-45%), who he defeated in 2010, and also trails former Tampa Bay mayor Pam Iorio (37%-44%). Scott does lead former state Senator Nan Rich (42%-36%) however. Scott does remain in first position in a hypothetical Republican primary, leading Florida AG Pam Bondi (46%-27%), Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam (48%-24%), and U.S. Representative Ted Yoho (54%-13%). There hasn't been a rush for other Republicans to jump in the race up to this point, they know that Scott will just dump tens of millions of his own money into the race again in order to finance a barrage of negative advertising.

2014 WI GOV
Marquette Law recently released a poll that found Governor Scott Walker's job approval rating remains at 50%-44%, virtually unchanged from last September. Marquette didn't ask any hypothetical matchup questions, but their issue-based questions revealed 81% support for universal background checks, 54% support for an assault-weapons ban, and 53% support for funding state highway projects through pay tolls. PPP's recent Wisconsin poll had Walker's job approval at 48%-49%, but he was generally in decent position in hypothetical reelection matchups against every potential Democratic opponent outside of former Senator Russ Feingold, whom he trailed 47%-49%.

2014 AR Senate
Firebrand Tea Partier Representative Tom Cotton said he wouldn't even consider jumping into the race to challenge Democratic Senator Mark Pryor for many months. He cited the 2010 example of now-Senator John Boozman waiting a long time to get into the race to challenge former Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, who was facing a tough primary challenge at the time, as evidence that there's no rush. That was an entirely different situation though, but he seems content on waiting it out. A recent Club for Growth-sponsored poll found Cotton leading in a hypothetical matchup against Pryor, with Pryor's job approval rating cited considerably lower than his actual numbers, so until a real polling firm produces numbers for this race it remains a real mystery.

No one gives a shit if you're interested in this thread or not. No one gave a shit the last time you made a moronic post like this, and no one gives a shit now. If you aren't interested in this topic then I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself by posting about how allegedly uninterested you are, and simply stop posting in the thread altogether.

I'd rather not have to get a forum Moderator to slap you on the hand due to your lack of self-control. Thanks.

Are there any polls about Sen. Audrey Gibson from Jacksonville? (my hometown) She recently was trying to push for people to take anger management courses in order to buy bullets. Wondering how that is blowing over down there.

I'll ask some people to dig around. I'm not very knowledgeable about Florida's state Senate.

Perhaps we should commission a POLL to gauge the butthurt in this post?

Scale of 1 to 10 maybe?

10/10 imo

9/10


inb4 he votes and claims the Country has sided with him that he isn't 10/10 butthurt

No one that's serious about polling would put it above a 3/10.