2016 election

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Guy Who Wants to be President Doesn’t Understand the Constitution

“Dred Scot is still the law of the land,” said Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee today, demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of the Constitution he wants to uphold.

Seriously, I had to check to make sure this wasn’t from the Onion when I read it.huck

The Dred Scott case, for those unaware, was the 1857 case which held that blacks, free or slave, could never be American citizens. One of the top five worst Supreme Court decisions ever (probably even the worst), it helped send us off to the Civil War.

Huckabee’s point was that no one follows that decision any more, so therefore we don’t have to follow the gay marriage decision.

Anyone who has taken a basic government class (or even just basic history) in High School can tell you that the 14th Amendment nullified the Dred Scott decision. The reason no one follows that decision is because it hasn’t been the law for 150 years or so.

Let me remind you once again: This guy wants to be President. He wants to take an oath to follow a Constitution that he clearly does not understand.

Then again, this is the same way these guys treat the Bible — they apparently have never read that either, but they strongly believe it says only what they want it to say and no more.

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Four Reasons why the GOP will lose in 2016

Democrats may lose Congress thanks to apathetic voters, gerrymandering, and acting too much like Republicans, but we’ve pretty much got the White House secure for the foreseeable future.  Here’s why:

1.  The Electoral College.  As much as I want to get rid of it, it certainly works to the Democrats’ favor.  You need 270 electoral votes to win, and Democrats start with 252 that are pretty much guaranteed, in states that haven’t voted Republican since Bill Clinton was elected.

If you add to that group Virginia and New Mexico (states that have been reliably blue the past few elections) then bang, you’re at 270, and that doesn’t even count the possibilities of winning Nevada, Ohio, Florida, and Colorado, all of which have gone Democratic in the past two elections (even North Carolina and Indiana went Democratic in 2008, so don’t necessarily count them out either).

Republicans, meanwhile, start with maybe 167 guaranteed electoral votes.  That’s a huge burden to overcome. emap

Look at that map again. See how the Democrats only need to get Florida to win? If not Florida, then only two states (for example, Virginia and Nevada).  For the Republicans to win, they will need pretty much every single gray state on this map. And even if they took every single gray state, that would only be 280. If as few as one state goes the other way (Florida or Virginia, for instance), they lose.

2.  Numbers.  There are more of us than there are of them.  If we’d vote in equal percentages, we’d always hold Congress, too, but we don’t — except in Presidential years.  More people voted for Democrats in 5 of the last 6 Presidential elections (and in that last one — GWB’s re-election — there are those who question that).  There’s no reason to assume that will change, especially because of…

3. Demographics.  Republicans are predominately older white men.  It’s true.  Young people, women, minorities — all securely Democrats.  And as the country becomes less and less white, and as women become more and more independent, those numbers keep changing to the Democrat’s favor.  Further, fewer people identify themselves as conservative these days.   It’s a trend that has reasonable Republicans rightly worried.

4.  Candidates.  Let’s face it, the Republicans do not have a shining star on the horizon — there is no one with the personality of Ronald Reagan who can charm America into voting for him.  Instead, we get Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Mitt Romney (again),  and a bunch of others who, in the last poll, could not get past 10%.

The Republicans know this.  And that is why they so desperately are trying to suppress the vote and get rid of campaign finance laws.  “If you can’t win by getting the most votes, then cheat and buy the election” is their motto.

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Republicans win Senate, vote to abolish medicare, reverse recent gains

You’ll see lots of headlines like that in November. The Republicans will be taking over the Senate and if you thought this was a do-nothing Congress before, just wait until they’re in charge. They’ll pass bills outlawing abortion, abolishing medicare and Obamacare, allowing for discrimination against gays and women, and otherwise work to reverse many gains we have made in the past ten years.

No, I’m not exaggerating. These are all things they’ve either said they’d do or they’ve tried to do over the past six years but have been unable to because they weren’t in the majority. vote-button

They can be stopped, you know. We Democrats outnumber them. Many of these races are very very close and winnable.

But we have to vote. We have to actually do the absolute minimum a democracy requests of you. And Democrats are terrible at that.

We vote in big numbers in presidential years and we win lots of House and Senate seats. Then in the off years we sit on our butts and watch while every gain we made is rolled back. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Whining and bitching about how things are when you have the ability to change them does not convince anyone. You want change? Do something about it.

Today is Register to Vote Day. So use the right. Register. Then vote.

Seriously, what do you have to do today that is more important?