Are Republicans still a National Party?

[Draegan]

Reagan's popularity is completely based on half truths in my opinion. At least from the people I hear it from.

[Heylel Teomim]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Reagan's popularity is completely based on half truths in my opinion. At least from the people I hear it from.

My point exactly. He's given far more credit than he deserves, mostly as a result of being the likable Republican after a string of Democrats and unpopular conservatives. In many ways, he was very much like Bush in his approach to politics, it just fit better in his day and time.

[Arative]

Originally Posted by Heylel Teomim

My point exactly. He's given far more credit than he deserves, mostly as a result of being the likable Republican after a string of Democrats and unpopular conservatives. In many ways, he was very much like Bush in his approach to politics, it just fit better in his day and time.

Reagan's beat the commies! That's why he's looked on so fondly.

[Haus]

Originally Posted by Heylel Teomim

God I'm sick of hearing how awesome Reagan was. He was a decent, middle of the pack President, nothing more. He just got lucky and presided over the era when the Cold War came to an end. Nixon had already done all the heavy lifting.

It's like patting Clinton the back for the dawn of the Internet era.

Which a lot of people do. Also Reagan presided over a time when a near record number of jobs were created and the economy pulled out of the recessionary/inflationary it was in during the Carter years. The point being how much of the behavior of the economy (for better or worse) you attribute to any president. It's a double edge sword several people use.

If anything there's more precedent to say that what happens in a presidents first term is actually because of the policies of his predecessor, but that requires a level of analysis far above most people. Or it required understanding that the President isn't the person responsible for the entire economy.

Many of the claims of over-hype on Reagan can be equally applied to Kennedy. As my wife says "If he hadn't been killed he would have went down in history as the first president caught cheating instead of Clinton"

For my personal reasoning I have a high regard for Reagan because he was able to make several concepts in government make sense to non politicians. He was a great speech giver, and unlike Obama he wrote his own material. He took considerable pride in it. Even once he had "speech writers" during the later part of his presidency he still edited and often re-wrote what was given to him.

OTOH, Obama's Teleprompter has it's own blog....(Barack Obama's Teleprompter's Blog)

[Arbiter]

Originally Posted by Heylel Teomim

My point exactly. He's given far more credit than he deserves, mostly as a result of being the likable Republican after a string of Democrats and unpopular conservatives. In many ways, he was very much like Bush in his approach to politics, it just fit better in his day and time.

Reagan had a similar situation happen like Obama did with American folks disagreeing with one party and it's leader.

[Heylel Teomim]

Originally Posted by Arative

Reagan's beat the commies! That's why he's looked on so fondly.

Reagan got tagged into the fortieth round against a punch drunk, half dead opponent. Our earlier Presidents deserve much more credit for winning the Cold War, and Russia deserves the lion's share of blame for their own loss. Nixon dealt the first and largest death blow to communism when he managed to secure the rift between China and the USSR. After that, it was mostly a matter of time.

As for Kennedy, you're right he's overhyped because of his death. JFK himself was a great speaker and an excellent face man, but it took the combined talents of his cabinet to make a great administration (and even then it had its shortcomings, such as the Bay of Pigs debacle). He would not, however, have been the first cheating President. Hell, FDR had a mistress who if I remember correctly even lived with him at times. Kennedy's affairs were an open secret then as now, just as the affairs of great men have always been. The only reason Clinton was crucified was due to the moral shift to the right that began under... guess who, Reagan. Thanks to the Moral Majority and asshats like Jerry Falwell who found legs under the Republicans in those days, we began putting our leaders under a microscope for their personal lives rather than their political talents.

An awful lot of the crows coming home to roost now were hatched under Reagan.

[Simas]

Isnt Obama trying to raise taxes on the rich back to what they were under Reagan? Socialist ass Reagan.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by Heylel Teomim

God I'm sick of hearing how awesome Reagan was. He was a decent, middle of the pack President, nothing more. He just got lucky and presided over the era when the Cold War came to an end. Nixon had already done all the heavy lifting.

It's like patting Clinton the back for the dawn of the Internet era.

True, but Reagan was very likable, talked a great game to make people feel patriotic, and had a great personality. Since the TV era that is very important. JFK manipulated the media and public perception out of necessity. Reagan wrote the book on how to manipulate the media and public perception. Clinton refined manipulation of the media and public perception. Now, Obama has mastered it.

Charisma is a very big asset for a President. JFK, Reagan, Clinton, and now Obama have it. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush41 and Bush 43 did not. It is the difference between history judging the Presidential administration as positive or negative.

Another thing about Reagan, he had the youth vote even though he was old. Obama and the Democrats now have the youth vote. The Republican Party will never get the youth vote again as long as they remain the party of hatred and Fox News. Hatred does not work politically anymore. The Republican Party represents the ugly face of hatred.

[Heylel Teomim]

History, no. Public perception of the past, maybe. You just have to dig through the myth to find reality.

[Haus]

Originally Posted by Simas

Isnt Obama trying to raise taxes on the rich back to what they were under Reagan? Socialist ass Reagan.

Oh lordie pie it's tax talk time.... first off here's some suggested reading:
Next Big Future: Obama's plan to tax the rich won't work

To cut to the chase here's the money shot graph from the article which explains how raising or lowering the tax rate on the highest incomes doesn't directly correlate to increasing federal income from taxation, which is instead seemingly tied to the GDP.



Wanna know what has historically raised the GDP and ergo would raise the tax revenue for the government? Tax cuts! Don't point that finger at me, go ask the economists behind this stuff....

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Republicans are so dysfunctional that on the conservatives blogs and talk radio they are saying "Good riddance" to Specter". They are saying all Moderate Republicans should go with him. They are saying most of the Republicans are RINOS and they don't need them. Rush said he should take both McCains with him as well as Colin Powell and the others.

I am not sure if they realize that smaller is not better when it comes to politics. Sure it makes for a solid base for ratings but damn don't you guys realize what is happening here? They are all saying that Republicans need to get more Conservative. They are saying voting for a Loser will give you "dignity" as long as the loser is extremely conservative and against Obama.

My prediction is coming true that there is a inverse relationship between Fox News ratings and the success of the Republican party.

lol. Game over man.

[Soriak]

The highest marginal tax doesn't say much when you don't add how many people are covered by it. If you lower the rate but cover more people, that easily explains why revenue as a percentage of GDP remains about the same. Doesn't make it good policy.

Originally Posted by Haus

Wanna know what has historically raised the GDP and ergo would raise the tax revenue for the government? Tax cuts! Don't point that finger at me, go ask the economists behind this stuff....

Yes, if only the government would cut taxes then the economy would grow so much faster and tax revenue would go up. But the evil Democrats oppose it because they like oppressive taxes on the rich. That's why GDP grows more when Republicans are in charge and why real incomes grew so much during Bush's two terms. Also why Clinton had such a huge deficit whereas Reagan and Bush got surpluses from their great management of the economy. Wait, that didn't happen.

The "lower taxes = higher revenue" was a shitty argument when it was first made and it's no more convincing today. Sad to see it's still making the rounds.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Obama's popularity is completely based on the New York Times and the rest of the leftist media shilling for him in my opinion.

Fixed for you.

[Haus]

Originally Posted by Soriak

The highest marginal tax doesn't say much when you don't add how many people are covered by it. If you lower the rate but cover more people, that easily explains why revenue as a percentage of GDP remains about the same. Doesn't make it good policy.



Yes, if only the government would cut taxes then the economy would grow so much faster and tax revenue would go up. But the evil Democrats oppose it because they like oppressive taxes on the rich. That's why GDP grows more when Republicans are in charge and why real incomes grew so much during Bush's two terms. Also why Clinton had such a huge deficit whereas Reagan and Bush got surpluses from their great management of the economy. Wait, that didn't happen.

The "lower taxes = higher revenue" was a shitty argument when it was first made and it's no more convincing today. Sad to see it's still making the rounds.

The problem is Obama isn't increasing the number of people covered by these highest tier tax brackets. In fact his plan is going to reduce the number of people who actually pay taxes. Meaning that the remainder will have a higher tax burden to spread between them or else.. oh yeah massive spending deficits. My argument stands as the reason that "tax the rich to pay for it" doesn't work. Tax EVERYBODY to pay for it would. But he isn't going to do that and risk his voting base. Also it would require a level of taxation increase that would guarantee him as a "one and done" president and not because of hitting the top tier.

And I'd almost buy spending deficit arguments if Obama's budget plan wasn't going to set a RECORD for new deficits. As for the "Clinton Surplus" it's been debunked with those pesky things called numbers and math. The way he showed "paying down" the national debt was by borrowing more and more from social security. What this did was reduce publicly held debt but skyrocket intra-governmental debt. In essence he was raiding grandpas retirement money in order to pay down the country's credit cards. TO his credit this isn't just a Clinton era thing. Other presidents were just smart enough not to tout it.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Arguing with Soriak about economics isn't a task I'd recommend if you're not going to use your noggin'.