Tag Archives: voting

Can The Farm Bill Come Back?

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

One of the reasons Denny Hastert followed the “majority of the majority” rule was pretty simple: He couldn’t trust the Democrats.

The nature of the House of Representatives is to allow the Majority to eventually get its ways. Rules are put in place to protect the minority’s rights, but in the House, unlike in the Senate, the Majority rules.

Sometimes finding out what the majority really stands for is difficult, and through much of the 20th century, constructing a majority coalition transcended party membership. Continue reading →

Big Momentum on Immigration Reform

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Comprehensive immigration reform will get 75 votes in the Senate, making it harder for conservatives to kill it in the House.

The Senate Judiciary Committee easily brushed aside efforts from Republicans and Democrats to amend the base bill with potential poison pills, a sure sign that it has real momentum. While the markup is scheduled to go on for three more weeks, the Committee should agree to just bring the whole bill, un-amended, to the Senate floor and dispense with the needless drama.

The meltdown at the Heritage Foundation has made it easier for main-stream conservatives to vote for the bill in the Upper Body. A report by the conservative think-tank that put the cost of the Gang of Eight bill at 6.3 trillion dollars was condemned Continue reading →

Immigration Is Just a Start

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

On Dec. 5, 1933, right after dinner bells rang across the country, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that ended Prohibition and solidified the vast majority of Catholic votes for the Democratic Party for 40 years.

The first time Catholics voted overwhelmingly Democratic was in 1884, when a spokesman for a group of New York preachers, a guy named Samuel Burchard, condemned Grover Cleveland for being from a party that represented “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” That little statement energized German and Irish Catholics to swing the vote against James Blaine, giving a close election to Cleveland. Continue reading →

Time to Purge

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheHill.com

If the vote for Speaker on opening day confirmed anything, it confirmed that simple fact. By having a dozen of his Republican colleagues either vote against him or not vote at all, John Boehner just barely squeaked by in his bid for a second term for Speaker.

The vote against Boehner wasn’t a vote against the Speaker’s actual performance. By all accounts, Boehner has done yeoman’s work leading the House under what can only be called difficult circumstances.

The vote against Boehner was really a vote against the Republican Party. It was a protest against Republican policies and against the Republican establishment. Continue reading →

Gaming Poll Data: Biden a Bust

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

USA Today invested good money surveying people who are not going to vote in this year’s elections. Why? So they could find out how Barack Obama would do in November if everyone did vote.

According to this survey among the people who will not be voting, Obama beats Mitt Romney 43% to 14%. Yes, I know. There is a certain Alice-in-Wonderland aspect to all this, but let’s keep going.

The 800 person sample was not exactly an exact cross section of America.

For instance the sample contained 351 people who were registered to vote, and registered with one of the two major parties, but said there was no more than a 50/50 chance that they would participate. Of those 351 people, 242 (30%) said they were registered Democrats. 109 (14%) said they were Republicans. Continue reading →

Caucuses & Primaries: Let Them Begin!

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

We know the Iowa Caucuses will be held next Tuesday. A week after that, New Hampshire will hold its primary. What’s the difference?

One week. Very funny. Not counting that.

A caucus…

SIDEBAR
The plural of “Caucus” is not “Caucii,” as someone – probably someone who OD’d on cable news programs over the New Year weekend – will likely say at the Keurig machine with great authority on Tuesday.

Caucus is not a Latin word. According to the Merriam-Webster 3rd Unabridged, the etymology of “caucus” is: probably of Algonquian origin; akin to caucauasu elder, counselor; and was first used in 1760.

END SIDEBAR

… is a meeting of people from the same precinct held at a specific time in a specific place.

Under the GOP rules in Iowa people will go to a site representing one of 1,774 precincts; will check in to ensure they are really registered Republicans in that precinct and not members of the “Occupy the Caucuses” thugs, will listen to people speak on behalf of one candidate or another, and will write the name of the candidate they are supporting on a piece of paper which will be collected in some approved manner. Continue reading →