caulfield12

Stanton for Sale, Viciedo, Reed/Jones and Thompson would probably be the asking price. The thing is, Sale has the same amount of service time, so both of those guys get much more expensive in 2014...which is something the Marlins would be avoiding by trading him this season when he'll cost under $1 million, versus the following season, when he's expected to be at $7+ million.

It's a good thing they got Escobar out of there before Gibbons arrived... And yeah, as far as the Passan article argues, the difference between $500,000 minimum for this year (Stanton's) and $7 million next year (expected to total $30 million for years 4-5-6) is HUGE for an acquiring team. Four years, vs. three years. 3 major league ready players and two more Top 10 prospects, probably 3-7 in a system.

Flight was one of Denzel Washington's best performances but it's getting buried by Twihards and Skyfall. Argo, definitely a Top 5-10 movie this year and a surefire Academy nomination for Affleck, who's now directed 3 pretty nifty little flicks after almost being buried in the Bennifer days. There was that movie with Liv Tyler (Jersey Girl), and the emminently forgettable GIGLI. Arkin deserves a supporting actor nod for Argo as well, and John Goodman's in both Flight and Argo, excellent in each. Everyone's already gone and given DDL the Best Actor award for Lincoln, we'll see if anyone can come close to knocking him off his perch. In the viewing line-up... Silver Linings Playbook Life of Pi (Ang Lee) The Sessions (Helen Hunt and John Hawkes, also in Lincoln) Lincoln (of course) Anna Karenina (is it just me, or is Keira Knightley not attractive as she used to be in her Bend it Like Beckham days?) Hello, I Must Be Going You've Been Trumped (about the Donald's golf course debacle/adventure in Scotland) Smashed

Nobody accounted for the Nationals being ready to compete in 2012. That was probably another consideration...but the White Sox would have had even more justification to tear their team apart coming into 2013 (in the face of what looks to be an even better Tigers team). If nothing else, they proved you can't build a team of superstars (Josh Johnson, Reyes, Stanton, Hanley Ramirez) without the complementary pieces around it, like we had in 2005.

One of those facts are stranger than fiction stories. Paranoia, mixed with hubris and extreme narcissism. A bit of Oliver Stone mixed with Richard Branson, and then cross it with a dose of "it could only happen in some random Central American country."

http://espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove12/story/_/...season-2013-mlb

Another irony is that Anthopolous is a Montreal native and started his MLB career working in the Expos' mailroom, when Loria was the owner there. So it's an incredible turn of events that he's now in another Canadian city less than a decade later on the OTHER side of another combination genius/horrible PR Loria move. You know what's going to happen. The same thing that happened to the Dodgers. The Blue Jays will underacheive/disappoint and the Marlins will end up winning the World Series for the 3rd time in 2006 years in 2016, in front of an average of 17,107 fans per game. Then that team will be sold off again and Loria will finally cash out at age 76. He and Frank McCourt have made (or will have made) billions in profits off MLB on an initial investment between the two of about $12 million.

Schilling complaining about anyone being defrauded is just so rich. Maybe he should think about all that public money poured into his video game company that will never be reimbursed. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/14/3095...frey-loria.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/14/3096...to-another.html “We talk about getting back to our ways, we’ve got get back to what we used to do like when we got Cody Ross for a dollar,” Beinfest said. “We got Dan Uggla for $50,000. Miguel Olivo. Wes Helms. We found ways to get it done. I’ll take some of the blame on that. “We need to find value. We need to rely on our scouts and our people to help us overcome some of these challenges.” Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/14/3096...l#storylink=cpy

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 12:29 AM) Is thinking Carlos Sanchez has a ceiling of Luis Castillo giving him too much praise? Nobody has ever projected him to have that type of impact on the basepaths.

If John Danks comes anywhere close to duplicating Jake Peavy's 2012 performance, he'll be Comeback Player of the Year. Right now, Danks is a 4 until proven otherwise.

Someone will argue that we should trade Viciedo, Ramirez or Beckham but none of these 3 things will actually transpire. Let's see. Addison Reed is traded to the Blue Jays for Sergio Santos.

Why in God's name would we want to lock ourselves into a long-term deal with DeAza when it's not even necessary? It's like the Teahen contract that KW meted out. You go year to year with him, 100%. Same with Beckham, Viciedo, etc. Especially considering that Alejandro's coming off an injury-plagued 2nd half where he got pushed off the position (CF) where he has the most value...?

Thornton's just not consistently reliable enough for his money. When you thought who's reliable in the 2nd half, it was pretty limited to Jones and Veal. Veal was perfect for almost the entire season (I think Fielder finally dinged him) at the lowest possible salary. Of course, we all know what happened with Cotts/Politte. Or Dotel and Linebrink (overpaying), on the other side. You have to worry about Reed coming in as the closer, there's no doubt. Jones was erratic but showed potential and has the stuff. Reed's stuff was a bit lacking, for whatever reason. Fathom pointed this out pretty consistently throughout the 2nd half of the season, although there seemed to be more of a sense that Ventura was mismanaging the pen as much as they were failing...a little bit of both probably. I know that I highlighted the blown saves statistic quite frequently. If there's any team in the majors that we should be trying to emulate, it's the TB Rays, not the Orioles. They (the Orioles) were the "comeback kids," but those bullpen numbers and runs scored/runs against numbers won't hold up year to year. They had incredible numbers in one run games, extra innings, etc. Or just look at the Tigers' bullpen from 2012 vs. Valverde's dominance the prior year. He's gone from 49/49 to the least popular pitcher on the entire roster, maybe the least popular player overall. Not easy to do in just one season.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 12:25 PM) First, if Bush the Democrats and Republicans had not passed TARP, or bailed out the banks, Obama the same Democrats and Republicans still would have. It didn't matter who was in office at that point. While it's obviously convenient for your arguments to ignore this reality, it just isn't so. And having said that, people pin things like this on Bush or Obama and exonerate the Senate/Congress every time they repeat these lousy fallacies. Bush and Bush alone, nor the republicans and the republicans alone created the perfect storm of events that plunged us into the recession we were in, the housing collapse, which was the single biggest factor involved, was created over decades by BOTH parties. The sooner people accept AND understand that the better. Inflation IS at historical lows, but if anything is a fantasy/boogeyman, it's that. Inflation SHOULD BE skyrocketing, and the only reason it isn't is because most of the rest of the world is worse off then we are, fiscally. But if that debt keeps building, we will reach a tipping point where it simply cannot be paid back. One thing modern Republicans and Democrats need to learn, which they once understood, is that "meeting in the middle" does not mean one side coming all the way over to the other side. No one side is right on every topic, and both -- if anyone was to bother listening -- can sometimes make very valid points. The problem is, politics has become a near all or nothing zero-sum game...and the people caught in-between are what's at stake. Both parties blame each other for this, of course, and so do the people that follow these parties. It's hard for them to truly care when they're all rich, out of touch, and forget that people barely making it by right now CANNOT afford more fees or taxes to bail them out of the problem their carelessness helped cause, be it on a federal or local level. I actually meant to say interest rates, but essentially the same line of thing with inflation, which is much higher here in China than the US. The price of a combo meal at KFC has gone from 20-21 RMB in 2007 to 27-28 RMB five years later, roughly. And yes, the likes of Mike Castle and Richard Lugar and other moderates have been wiped out by the Tea Party, the ones who might actually have been willing to compromise. They'll talk Lindsey Grahan in SC as well if he shows any willingness to cave again. The problem is the GOP only is open to an increase in tax revenue (overall) and not any act tax rate increases. So they expect to once again GROW the economy and balance the budget by doing WHAT exactly? Miracles? I get it, they're afraid to cave on raising the rates from 35 to 39.6 again for the highest tax bracket. Maybe they'll compromised at 37, maybe they'll compromise at defining "rich" as $500,000 or more per year, who knows. The point is, that the US economy did just fine under Clinton with higher tax rates AND capital gains taxes...and small business owners weren't complaining back then, so why would it be "patently" unfair now when our country's on the verge of going over a financial cliff and EVERYONE needs to sacrifice in some way, shape or form? Logic alone dictates cutting in some places (defense, tax breaks to oil companies that are bringing in billions in profits), but you have to increase revenues SOMEHOW/SOMEWHERE. Theoretically, you can save by pooling health care costs as well.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 11:33 AM) To say that "nobody" in the country believes that stuff is moronic. 49% of the country did. You guys are making it seem like this was an ass whooping revolution. It was nothing of the sort. Yes, a couple of states picked up gay marriage and legalized drugs. Those have been losing battles for the last decade. That doesn't mean conservatism is dead or dying, especially the fiscal side. And the bolded is laughable. You watch too much Maddow. That's pure Dem-speak. So you can just conveniently ignore the unfunded Medicare prescription drug giveaway and 2 largely unnecessary wars (one caused by the fact that Bush Jr. blamed wanted to exact revenge for the assassination attempt on his father)....? If you'll pay attention to the exit polls, MORE people still blame Bush for the economic problems of today than Obama, despite the last four years. Who passed TARP??? Who bailed out all the banks? It's ironic that most GOPers would have preferred that Chrysler and GM go bankrupt (including Romney), yet that's the single biggest issue which killed their chances in Ohio. The unemployment rate in Ohio is much better largely because Detroit survived largely intact. Even the gambit of trying to convince people Chrysler was sending jobs to China was not only countered, the CEO let every Chrysler worker in Michigan and Ohio have time off to vote. If Portman would have been the VP choice, they probably could have won. The GOP had no chance to flip WI in the presidential. If only Obama had suspended ALL taxes on the rich from 2009-2012, the country would probably be growing at a rate of 10% a year, unemployment would be 4% and inflation 0.5%. But wait, inflation is still at historical lows. So maybe this financial cliff thing isn't quite the boogeyman it's being made out to be.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) Well I disagree with the church-based morality comment. Romney never made that a part of his campaign. That's how the left has painted the GOP generally, even when that's a small, but vocal, part of the party. And i've agreed the social message, as given, didn't work. There are ways to make the GOP position on gay marriage, abortion and immigration much better, while not totally conceding the issues. The messages (or lack thereof) were made worse by the awful candidates like Murdoch saying insanely stupid things. That's such an easy PR topic for liberals, just like the 47% thing. Again, stupid candidate, but the fiscal platform is not the problem. SS I seriously don't understand how you can say liberalism won when pretty much everyone that supported Obama acknowledged he hasn't done a good job and it's more of a lesser of two evils situation. That's not advocating for more liberalism. Vis a vis what? Expectations after the 2008 elections? Everyone admits that they set the bar way too high, no getting around that. But how can you compare recovering from a financial tsunami to any other situation (always cyclical, not endemic system-wide failure) that has happened since the Great Depression? You can't. He hasn't lived up to expectations, the Dems sold the Affordable Care Act poorly (not unlike the Clintons, and every lobby in the world entrenched with keeping the system profitable for insurance and drug companies, hospitals, doctors, etc., threw millions into convincing people to be afraid of change or "death panels" which already exist in the sense that poor people who can't afford treatment or whose health insurance doesn't cover many experimental procedures often die)... But the fact is that NOBODY really was convinced that the GOP solution of trickle down economics had any chance of being successful. Nobody in the country really believes that the rapidly escalating inequality between the rich and "normal" middle class in America is a good thing, either. Most GOP voters had no complaints about Obama on foreign policy, either. For that matter, he's getting more flack from the left than the right. In the end, the unemployment rate was a bigger issue than health care, but you've got all these corporations (especially the oil companies) getting tax breaks and subsidies from the government when they're making profits hand over fist. And yet who wrote those tax breaks into place? Hmmmmm....not Obama. People just want a "fair opportunity," not guaranteed results or a hand out. They want to believe in the American Dream again. It was alive and well under the Clintons, until Bush destroyed it almost single-handedly in 2 terms. Obama and the Congress have no choice but to compromise. The stock marketing is going to force it, just like in 2008. And the thing which will drive the GOP nuts is that the president in those situations always gets more credit than individual Senators or Representatives. Even if the Congress passes immigration reform, avoids the financial cliff, deals with the energy crisis/environment...Obama and the Senate will get more credit from the voters. If Boehner continues to draw $1 million as the line in the sand instead of $250,000 or even $500,000 (Tim Kaine compromise solution), the GOP will also lose, just like Gingrich did when he shut down the government.

The Dems already start out with NY, California and many populous states in the bag these days. Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and Colorado are all trending in the wrong direction, unless the GOP can convince Hispanic voters to come back into their once big tent. Even Texas and Arizona will be back in play soon ... if they continue to ignore this exponentially-increasing constituency and have "voluntary deportations," Lou Dobbs and border fences as their best ideas on the GOP cutting edge of policy-making. The GOP didn't sweep the country two years ago. Obama and Emmanuel made a huge tactical mistake with health care and how it was sold/packaged, just as Clinton/Panetta/Magaziner did 15 years prior. The 1994 Gingrich revolution was 10X the phenomenon the 2010 elections were...and look how long that lasted? 2 years? By then, Clinton and Morris had tacked back to the middle, done the "bite" size triangulation strategy with centrist policies, the symbolic turning back on the expansion of the welfare state, etc.

Why we're not also shopping Thornton, Crain or both is beyond me. With the emergence of Veal...you just can't have Matt being paid like a quasi-closer and still afford guys like Youkilis, Peavy and AJ at the same time on the roster.

QUOTE (fathom @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 08:25 AM) Only reason they trade ADA is if they feel he can't last defensively in CF. There were rumblings about this at the end of this past season. If they can sell high on ADA, I have no problem with that. Viciedo's also a definite possibility to replace Konerko...and you'd have to think with Thompson on the horizon, and the upside of having so much pop in a "defense" first position, they'd be willing to go with a one year band aid solution (or DeAza again) in CF (someone like Victorino, although nobody is 100% convinced he'd be any more productive than Alejandro, and definitely more expensive)...

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 08:17 AM) Dump Dunn's deal if you can, free up cash Sign Victorino to replace DeAza with Floyd's salary Use Floyd & DeAza in deals for other pieces Sign Hafner & set up a platoon DH with Hafner vs. RHP & rotate PK/Viciedo/Rios/FA OF vs. LHP, to give the starters a rest while keeping their bats in the lineup What makes you believe you can rely on Victorino and Hafner after their up and down performances the last 2/3 seasons? Why would you want to get older instead of younger? There's definitely going to be some players out there worth taking a risk on, and there's obviously going to be this "catch lightning in the bottle/roll the dice" as it worked in 2005, it can work again, philosophy, but it's not going to be a sustainable model for success at all. It puts us right back in the "must win in 2014/2015" time frame...we better cross our fingers that one of those guys like Thompson or Sanchez emerges at nearly Gordon Beckham 2009 impact mode to inject some youth, OBP and athleticism into the future offensive line-ups.

Viciedo doesn't give you the automatic stud back simply because of his low OBP and his position on the field. For example, you're very unlikely to get the equivalent of another Viciedo in the making at starting pitcher, catcher, SS or CF in exchange for him. Beckham gets you very little to nothing back in return. DeAza can't be traded unless you can find a better replacement defensively in CF. But if you can package Floyd and any of those 3 together (or maybe 2 of those 3), for a 3 player for one trade, and get a young superstar, go for it. The problem is the last time we made this type of trade was for Nick Swisher, which was a huge "swing and a miss" and is still having an adverse effect on the franchise, played out with the ups and downs of the Adam Dunn soap opera. Hamilton's exactly the type of player the White Sox don't need because of the salary and downside risk (drug problem relapse and age/body wearing down). An example would be, for instance, Adam Jones. However, Jones to me hasn't consistently proven he can put up superstar numbers quite yet, and he is getting expensive to the point where you would just hope for him to play up to his contract (similar to what we've seen with Dunn and Rios). However, you trade for Adam Jones, you get younger and more athletic. The problem is that DeAza, Viciedo and Beckham are all 28 and younger too...so with that kind of move, you're 100% back in "win now" mode. Then you're really gambling on players like Rios, Dunn, Konerko and let's say Adam Jones not going off the "statistical cliff" again with so much pressure for them to perform as the replacements at 3B/LF/2B, etc., likely couldn't be "sure thing" type players, but our more typical "roll the dice and hope for the best" ones.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 11:19 PM) Let's see, which of those groups do Democrats give lots of free stuff to....... With the unemployment rate being so high in the 18-29 age group that ---ch-slapped both McCain and Romney in two consecutive elections, how can you explain Obama's appeal to those aforementioned young people? Just slick marketing? Palin and Ryan were roughly the same age as Obama or younger, why weren't they attractive enough to sway votes?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 07:12 PM) get outta here Peggy Noonan, wsjonline.com Mr. Genius, I doubt you will read it, but I would like to see your reaction to this op-ed piece. President Obama did not lose, he won. It was not all that close. There was enthusiasm on his side. Mitt Romney's assumed base did not fully emerge, or rather emerged as smaller than it used to be. He appears to have received fewer votes than John McCain. The last rallies of his campaign neither signaled nor reflected a Republican resurgence. Mr Romney's air of peaceful dynamism was the product of a false optimism that, in the closing days, buoyed some conservatives and swept some Republicans. While GOP voters were proud to assert their support with lawn signs, Democratic professionals were quietly organizing, data mining and turning out the vote. Their effort was a bit of a masterpiece; it will likely change national politics forever. Mr. Obama was perhaps not joyless but dogged, determined, and tired. Apart from those points, everything in my blog post of Nov. 5 stands. So what does it all mean? It's hard to improve on the day-after summation of the longtime conservative activist Heather Higgins, of Independent Women's Voice: "A majority of the American people believe that the one good point about Republicans is they won't raise taxes. However they also believe Republicans caused the economic mess in the first place and might do it again, cannot be trusted to care about cutting spending in a way that is remotely concerned about who it hurts, and are retrograde to the point of caricature on everything else." She notes that in exit polls Republicans won the "Who shares your values?" question but lost on the more immediately important "Who cares about people like you?" "So it makes sense that many . . . are comfortable with the Republicans providing a fiscal brake in the House, while having the Democrats 'who care' own the Senate and the Presidency. And that is what we got." Ms. Higgins wasn't happy with it but accurately reported it. It is and has been a proud Republican assumption—a given, a faith—that we are a center-right country and, barring extraordinary circumstances, will tend to return to our natural equilibrium. That didn't happen this time, for reasons technical, demographic and I think attitudinal: The Democrats stayed hungry and keenly alive to the facts on the ground. The Republicans worked hard but were less clear-eyed in their survey of the field. America has changed and is changing, culturally, ethnically—we all know this. Republican candidates and professionals will have to put aside their pride, lose their assumptions, and in the future work harder, better, go broader and deeper. We are a center-right country, but the Republican Party over the next few years will have to ponder again what center-right means. It has been noted elsewhere that the Romney campaign's economic policies more or less reflected the concerns of its donor base. Are those the immediate concerns of the middle and working classes? Apparently the middle class didn't think so. The working class? In a day-after piece, Washington Post reporters Scott Wilson and Philip Rucker wrote: "As part of his role, [Paul] Ryan had wanted to talk about poverty, traveling to inner cities and giving speeches that laid out the Republican vision for individual empowerment. But Romney advisers refused his request to do so, until mid-October, when he gave a speech on civil society in Cleveland. As one adviser put it, 'The issues that we really test well on and win on are not the war on poverty.'" That is the authentic sound of the Republican political operative class at work: in charge, supremely confident, essentially clueless. It matters when you show people you care. It matters when you're there. It matters when you ask. The outcome was not only a re-election but on some level and to some degree a rejection. Some voted for Mr. Obama because he's a Democrat and they're Democrats, some because he is of the left and they are of the left. But some voters were saying: "See the guy we don't like that much, the one presiding over an economy we know is bad and spending policies we know are damaging? The one who pushed through the health-care law we don't like, and who can't handle Washington that well? Well, we like that guy better than you." That's why this election is a worse psychic blow for Republicans than 2008, when a confluence of forces—the crash, dragged-out wars, his uniqueness as a political figure—came together to make Barack Obama inevitable. But he was not inevitable after the past four years. This election was in part a rejection of Republicanism as it is perceived by a sizeable swath of the voting public. Yes, Mitt Romney was a limited candidate from a limited field. Yes, his campaign was poor. It's also true that the president was the first in modern history to win a second term while not improving on his first outing. He won in 2008 by 9.5 million votes. He won Tuesday night, at last count, by less than three million. Still. Many things would have propelled Mr. Obama to victory, but one would be a simple bias toward stability, toward what already is. People are anxious, not as hopeful as they were. Two memories. One was a late-summer focus group of mothers who shop at Wal-Mart. One asked, paraphrasing, "If we pick Romney, does that mean we have to start over again?" Meaning, we've had all this drama since 2008, will that mean we're back at the beginning of the crash and have to dig out all over again? The other is a young working mother in Brooklyn, a member of an evangelical church, who told me 10 days ago her friends had just started going for Mr. Obama. Why? "People are afraid of change right now." When America is in a terrible economic moment and the political opposition can't convince people that change might be improvement, then something's not working. *** A big rethink is in order. The Republican Party has just been given four years to do it. They should get going. Now. For clarity they could start with essential, even existential, questions. Why does the party exist? What is its purpose? What is possible for it in the new America? How can it prosper politically while leading responsibly? From there, the practical challenges. Some of these are referred to as "the woman problem" or "the Hispanic problem"—they presumably don't like the GOP. But maybe they think the GOP doesn't like them. What might be the reasons? Those who say no change is needed, who suggest the American people just have to get with the program, are kidding themselves and talking in an echo chamber. What will they do if the same party comes forward in 2016 to the same result? The great challenge for the Republican Party now is how to change its ways without changing its principles. Its principles are right and have long endured because they're right. But do all the party's problems come down to inadequate marketing, faulty messaging, poor candidates? Might some of it be policies, stands, attitudes? That will be a subject here in the future. For now, in politics as in life, you have to play the hand you're dealt. You have to respect reality. Which is where conservatism actually starts, seeing what is real.

from politico.com/arena Charles Sanders Pierce, the greatest of American philosophers, wrote a brief essay, "The Fixation of Belief," that holds some lessons as to what is wrong with the GOP and how, most likely, it will not solve its problem in the immediate future. Pierce showed that humans are not fundamentally seekers of truth; we mainly want to avoid doubt. And when events occur, like the 2012 presidential election landslide by Barack Obama when most Republican analysts predicted a Republican victory, doubt emerges. But as Pierce shows, people hold to their beliefs tenaciously long after it has become plain they no longer accord with reality. Notice how Karl Rowe refused to believe the conclusions of Fox News's own statisticians that Ohio had been won by the president. Or Donald Trump's rant that "We can't let this happen. We need to march on Washington and stop this travesty." These comical reactions are merely extreme versions of the looks on the faces of those assembled at Romney headquarters in Boston who could not believe that their beliefs were so out of step with most of America's voters; and the paid Republican prognosticators - George Will, Dick Morris, etc., etc. all failed to anticipate the 100 electoral vote thumping that Barack laid on Mitt Romney. Pierce states that what happens when we change our opinions is that once faced with overwhelming evidence that they no longer accord with reality, we scurry around testing new hypotheses until we find one - this he calls inquiry - that seems to explain the facts and - most importantly - is a belief we are comfortable with. In the coming weeks, we will see this scurrying around among Republicans, with the desire not to seek the truth but to remove the feeling of doubt, and to find an explanation for what happened that will protect the core beliefs that Republicans remain fixated on. Explanations like it was Mitt's fault, that he wasn't a good candidate, that we need a real conservative to run, etc, etc., all beliefs that will ignore the fundamental fact that a Copernican revolution has occurred in the American electorate, that the Republican Party cannot face. A majority of the historically oppressed in this country have reached the stage in their political development where they are able to vote their self- and collective - self interest. The people have spoken, and are no longer subaltern. We now realize why the disfranchisement of blacks after the Civil War and the refusal to allow women to vote for much of American history were such crucial ingredients to American political culture. It allowed white male elites to craft policies that served their self-interest and crushed those of other American citizens. But the revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s have changed all that. The Reagan counter-revolution merely slowed what was inevitable - that white male voting can no longer trump, to use a rich term, the interests of all the rest. And this election also shows that the working and middle class white male voter in many cases no longer wants that old racially charged baggage anymore. The American people have woken up - at least more than half of them. And when they listen to policies that are inimical to their self-interest, they reject them at the polls. The attacks on women's bodies by Republican candidates were heard. And also heard was Romney's refusal to repudiate or reject those who made outrageous comments about rape. That refusal to reject outlandish comments about rape is the party's representation, and it was heard, and absorbed, and rejected. Constant attacks on immigrants as if they were inhuman were heard. Insane inquiries about Obama's birth certificate were heard. And well heard was the argument that the only way to advance America economically is to give more tax cuts to the rich, thereby shifting the inevitable tax burden to come to the middle class. Large swaths of middle and working class Americans voted against those whose policies served the elite, and not themselves. The Republican Party has become the party of the elite, hence the precipitous drop on Wall Street the day after the election. The people spoke, and they said, "we didn't like what we heard from you." Notice that every one of the battleground states Barack won - Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa, - were states where repeatedly Romney and the Koch brothers concentrated the Republicans message. And they lost all of them. Why? Because enough of the people realized the policies articulated were not in their long term interest. It is the policies, stupid, that were reject on November 6. Republicans are caught in a Ronald Reagan mindset. When Barack chided Romney in the last debate that the 1980s wanted its foreign policy back, he could have said the 1980s also wanted its domestic immigration policy, its economic recovery policy, its climate policy, its energy policy, its regulatory policy, its gender and sexuality policies--back. The world that Reagan dominated does not exist any more. Prejudice and institutional racism remain, but many whites saw Barack, the black candidate, as the more rational subject, and viewed Republican candidates, including "blowing in the wind" Mitt Romney, as irrational, unreliable,and untrustworthy. Jefferson must be turning over in his grave. The Republican Party failed to beat a black candidate many in the electorate did not like, in a stalled economy. Wow! But unlike the Republicans, Barack listened - and adjusted to reality - and refined his beliefs in reaction to his negative experiences in the White House, especially the failure of his attempts at bipartisanship, and changed. Who is the most rational, the most nimble Republican thinker today, who has seen the rise of the New Populism and adjusted his thinking in accord to it? Start with Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts. His decision to vote to uphold the Health Care Reform Act flowed from a realization that the people wanted it, despite the Republican brainwashing machine that convinced so many they didn't. Roberts was not so fixated in his beliefs that he couldn't change them - or act in such a way that he did not make the Supreme Court irrelevant because of them. There is something for the national Republican Party to learn from this. But they probably won't anytime soon. They will persist in their fixation on their beliefs for a while longer, to the delight of Democrats looking forward to 2016. Jeffrey C. Stewart UC Santa Barbara Former State Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Mo.) New School professor : 1) Remove all platform planks involving gay people. Quit worrying about people's sex lives in general. 2) While we're talking about sex, strike the words "contraception" or "rape" from your political lexicon. I understand that many of you equate abortion with murder. But the political facts of life are these: just 20 percent of the country opposes abortion in all cases. That number hasn't really moved in four decades and it isn't going to. So continue calling yourselves pro-life and appoint judges who are pro-life, but understand that if you don't allow reasonable exceptions for incest, life of the mother, etc., you're always going to struggle with women in their child-bearing years. Sure, some of them are pro-life. But more are pro-life in their OWN life w/o wanting to see the option eliminated from others - which for many (like me) is the essence of the pro-choice position. Your policies and rhetoric don't make that distinction. Most people in this country just don't want to criminalize women who make that choice and as long as the candidates who get the most attention are people like Akin and Mourdock, your party's screwed. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) 3) Stop opposing the DREAM act. Obviously the writing is on the wall. These approximately 15 million folks aren't going anywhere; they're not self-deporting and government lacks the will and the money to deport them, other than criminals who are apprehended. These 15 million mostly consider themselves Americans. Almost all work hard and play by the rules. Quit appeasing your eroding base of old white people and get with the program. 4) Return to your fiscal conservative roots. Adhere to your rhetoric about not crippling the next generation with debt by supporting policies that would actually balance budgets, as opposed to Ryan-esque chimera and other supply-side garbage. Look, every Republican legislator voted against Clinton's tax hike in '93 and you asserted it would kill the economy. We all know what happened next. Did a Republican Congress that limited spending help balance budgets and satisfy bond traders, keeping interest rates low and powering growth? Sure. But the public associates that growth with Clinton. Your doomsday rhetoric about his bill eroded your credibility. And a decade of feeble growth following the Bush tax cuts didn't restore it. So, stop it. A return to your roots as the true budget hawk party would be good for your party and even better for the country. And like most Democrats, I'd be happy if your party were more successful if you were ALSO more responsible and helped govern sensibly. 5) As part of your fiscal conservatism, take the lead in two areas where the nation could save billions: military spending (we spend more than the next 10 highest spending nations combined) and prison reform. Want to win the votes of young people and minorities? Bingo. As a conservative Republican friend in the Missouri state senate told me last night, "We're a Mad Men party in a Modern Family world." That pretty much sums it up .Steve Murphy Democratic consultant; Managing Partner at Murphy Vogel Askew Reilly : Sixty percent of Republican voters believe the government should offer no assistance to the poor. The Republican Party is actively working to make it more difficult for poor people to vote, with blacks as the obvious target. Rank and file Republicans are totally opposed to legalization of illegal immigrants who have been in the country for an extensive period. Republicans favor elimination of the income tax in favor of consumption taxes which would shift the burden overwhelmingly to the 50 percent of Americans who live from paycheck to paycheck, (or relief check to relief check). Neo-conservative Republicans promote aggressive American military intervention whenever it is in our strategic interest. Republicans are seeking to privatize both Social Security and Medicare, as well as eviscerating federal discretionary spending, aside from Defense funding. They are opposed to gay marriage - their base firmly believes gays are innate sinners, and Republicans want to ban gays from serving in the military. Republicans deny the obvious fact that our climate is warming at a calamitous rate. They are anti-science in other ways, too, with a majority believing the universe was created as it exists today 6,000 years ago. Many Republicans want a "personhood" constitutional amendment which not only would prohibit abortion in all cases but also ban many common forms of birth control. A majority of Republicans support overturning Roe v. Wade. How can they change all that?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 09:54 AM) Exactly. These types of things change so rapidly there is no point in even discussing it. One wrong move or scandal, and the entire landscape changes within minutes. True enough. Look at the GOP primary. Bachmann, Cain, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum all were up at different times in that cycle.