Obama Memos

[ungenteel]

Two well-known Washington political analysts, Thomas Mann, of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agree. In a forthcoming book about Washington dysfunction, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” they write, “One of our two major parties, the Republicans, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

more evidence of rightie nuttiness

[Deleted]

Interesting read - both the zingers against the conservatives and the analysis of Obama's missteps. Thanks for sharing.

[billisonboard]

Polarization also has affected the two parties differently. The Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. Jacob Hacker, a professor at Yale, whose 2006 book, “Off Center,” documented this trend, told me, citing Poole and Rosenthal’s data on congressional voting records, that, since 1975, “Senate Republicans moved roughly twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left” and “House Republicans moved roughly six times as far to the right as House Democrats moved to the left.” In other words, the story of the past few decades is asymmetric polarization.

Read more www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1mKKX6hpv

In effect, shifting the "center" to the right.

[djAdvocate]

Feb 13, 2012 23:25:41 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Polarization also has affected the two parties differently. The Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. Jacob Hacker, a professor at Yale, whose 2006 book, “Off Center,” documented this trend, told me, citing Poole and Rosenthal’s data on congressional voting records, that, since 1975, “Senate Republicans moved roughly twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left” and “House Republicans moved roughly six times as far to the right as House Democrats moved to the left.” In other words, the story of the past few decades is asymmetric polarization.

Read more www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1mKKX6hpv

In effect, shifting the "center" to the right.

the end result is that most of those that are described as political liberals in the US are either centrists or conservatives, elsewhere. having this discussion in the US is completely impossible of course.

[jkapp]

Feb 13, 2012 23:25:41 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Polarization also has affected the two parties differently. The Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. Jacob Hacker, a professor at Yale, whose 2006 book, “Off Center,” documented this trend, told me, citing Poole and Rosenthal’s data on congressional voting records, that, since 1975, “Senate Republicans moved roughly twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left” and “House Republicans moved roughly six times as far to the right as House Democrats moved to the left.” In other words, the story of the past few decades is asymmetric polarization.

Read more www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1mKKX6hpv

In effect, shifting the "center" to the right.

And how exactly is this "measure" taken? What variables are used to factor the points on such a graph? And how is something measured as "right" vs "left" and how is the intensity of each of those things calculated?

Seems a rather arbitrary measurement device formed more by opinion than by science

[Deleted]

So we're judging the methodology based on your opinion now? Perhaps we should look at its actual merits. what do you think?







_{(Sorry - but the winky smiley face was asking for it)}

[billisonboard]

Feb 14, 2012 9:23:54 GMT -5 jkapp said:

...

And how exactly is this "measure" taken? What variables are used to factor the points on such a graph? And how is something measured as "right" vs "left" and how is the intensity of each of those things calculated?

Seems a rather arbitrary measurement device formed more by opinion than by science

Great questions, but why bother to get answers if before you have the those answers you have already determined how you feel about them.