Motley Moose – Archive

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Before Barack Obama was president of the United States, he famously lost a congressional primary against Congressman Bobby Rush. In this race, as in many other races, there was a televised debate between the primary candidates (Obama, Rush, and another State Senator Donne Trotter). Very few people probably watched it.

Nevertheless, the debate is still on Youtube. It provides some interesting insight into the president during the beginning of his political career.

Here is part one.

Here is part two.

More below.

Back when he was a student at Harvard, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) wrote a piece detailing what he described as women’s greatest fear and the solution to help ease that fear (h/t The Huffington Post).  This conclusion and its basis?

Cotton, who is unmarried, wrote that he surveyed several women — whom he referred to as “Cliffies,” or female students at Radcliffe — and they all told him the same thing: that their “greatest fear” in life was to be left by their husbands, and their “deepest hope” was to be “a good wife and mother.”

And Cotton’s proposed solution?

Make divorce harder through the elimination of no-fault divorce and the promotion of covenant marriage.

His reasoning?

This will help ease women’s greatest fears, stop the ‘problems’ caused by no-fault divorce and keep men in line.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Mexico has recently elected as president Governor Enrique Peña Nieto. The handsome new president won 38.2% of the vote, 6.6% over Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Peña Nieto’s vote was also 12.8% over Josefina Vázquez Mota, from the right-wing National Action Party (PAN).

Here’s what happened:

Mexico’s North-South Divide

Green – Enrique Peña Nieto, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)

Yellow – Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)

Blue – Josefina Vázquez Mota, National Action Party (PAN)

More below.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The story of the 2012 French presidential election is quite  interesting. Right-wing incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy entered the election  deeply unpopular. Opinion polls consistently showed him losing by around  20%.

France’s presidential system has two rounds. In the first round,  everybody can be a candidate. The top two winners of the first round  move to a second round run-off.

As election day approached, Sarkozy’s deficit continually shrunk.   Opinion polls just before the first round showed Sarkozy losing by low  double-digits. As the campaign for the second round began, they showed  him behind by high single-digits.

Sarkozy ended up losing by 3.2%. That’s a pretty steep drop-off from the polls that showed him behind by 20%.

More below.

When I saw that Oregon became the latest state to call on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United it caused me to begin thinking.  I know that in most civics classes we are taught how the Constitution is amended:  A proposed amendment must be passed by a two-thirds majority in each house and then ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures.  It seems straightforward and simple enough.  The truth, however, is that it is not.

There are two ways to amend the United States Constitution.  One is through the process mentioned above.  In fact, all 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed and ratified in this manor.  That said, there is another method, one which would allow proponents of a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United to bypass a congress highly unlikely to pass such an amendment.  Follow below the fold.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In an important world event that far too few Americans knew or probably cared about, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was recently re-elected with 51.6% of the vote.

The election itself was quite interesting; there are several fascinating patterns that occur in Taiwanese politics. But this post will focus mainly on the travails of third-party candidate James Soong Chu-yu.

More below.

This is the second part of two posts describing a fascinating election in Georgia: the 1980 Senate election, in which Republican Mack Mattingly beat scandal-ridden Democrat Herman Talmadge. This was the first time that a Republican Senator was elected in Georgia for more than a century. Even more interestingly, the areas that the Democratic candidate won tend to vote strongly Republican today, and vice versa.

The Black Vote in 1980

The previous post ended by bringing up the role of the black vote:

In 1980 Republican candidate Mack Mattingly won areas with substantial black populations, most notably the heavily-black city of Atlanta itself. Surely Democratic Senator Herman Talmadge’s dedicated support to segregation wouldn’t have appealed to the black vote.

So did Republicans win the black vote in this 1980 election?

More below.

This is the first part of two posts describing a fascinating election in Georgia. The second part can be found here.

Georgia is a red state. It votes reliably Republican; the Republican Party controls every level of Georgia’s state government. It would be miraculous for Barack Obama to win the state in 2012.

However, Georgia used to be a very blue state. It belonged to the Solid South, a Democratic stronghold for generations. As early as 1948, however, the first signs of change came. Backlash against the Civil Rights movement and the growth of Republican suburbia eventually destroyed the Democratic Party in Georgia.

The 1980 Georgia Senate Election

I have come across a very interesting election which illustrates this shift. To the best of my knowledge there is not any election similar to what happened in the 1980 Georgia Senate election:

More below.

(crossposted from Kos)

In this diary  I outlined a method for finding vulnerable Republican representatives. (I could not figure out how to get the image in that one to post here…..)

Now, it’s time for more research. Twitter handles. Positions. Dumbass statements. A start on this is below the fold; since this involves a lot of work and a lot of text, I’m dividing it up by state.  Today, California and Colorado.

Oh, and if YOU have information on these people, PLEASE share it.  

This is a part of a series of posts analyzing the 2010 midterm elections. This post will analyze some interesting tidbits of the 2010 Utah Senate and Gubernatorial elections. Specifically it will look at some hints of increasing Democratic strength in this blood-red state.

(Note: Edited pictures are derived from the NYT).

Salt Lake County, 2004

Utah is commonly considered as one of the most conservative states in America, and for good reason; Democrats are essentially nonexistent in the state. Some Southern states will occasionally vote (or used to occasionally vote) for a conservative Democrat. Not Utah; its Republicans are rock-hard Republicans.

Here is how Utah looked like in the 2004 presidential election:

More below.