Elections 2015

Discussion relating to current events, politics, religion, etc
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Elections 2015

#1 Post by mockbee » Tue Nov 03, 2015 10:41 pm

Image
Okay who voted????????

I did, mainly to do a 1% protest vote for mayor, and to vote yes on Measure F - A big HEY, follow the rules to AirBnB (they don't currently). I am tired of my front gate being propped open and having strangers with suitcases waltz in and out. I didn't sign up for an SRO when I signed the lease.
More info for those interested. http://insideairbnb.com/san-francisco/



Any important or wacky measures/politicians in your neck of the woods?



Image

User avatar
kv
Posts: 8743
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:08 pm
Location: South Bay, SoCal

Re: Elections 2015

#2 Post by kv » Wed Nov 04, 2015 8:09 am

Never got my ballot in the mail so I didnt vote this election...i know I could have still but I didnt bother

creep
Site Admin
Posts: 10341
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:51 am

Re: Elections 2015

#3 Post by creep » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:47 pm

there was an election?

creep
Site Admin
Posts: 10341
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:51 am

Re: Elections 2015

#4 Post by creep » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:52 pm

i don't think many places had elections. :noclue:

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#5 Post by mockbee » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:58 pm

Yeah, I suppose not, it was huge here, or at least seemed that way.
A million calls in the evening, mailbox bursting for two weeks straight and people canvasing.

Oh, and airbnb ("sharing" economy) is safe. Measure to limit short term rentals to 75 nights a year didn't pass, though only lost 45% to 55%. Not too shabby when $8 Million was spent to defeat it. :noclue:

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#6 Post by mockbee » Wed Nov 04, 2015 7:13 pm

Davey Alba Business Date of Publication: 11.04.15.


After Victory, Airbnb Compares Its Influence to the NRA’s

With Proposition F—the San Francisco ballot measure to restrict Airbnb and other short-term rentals—failing after votes were tallied last night, the home-sharing company at the center of the controversy invited members of the press to a debriefing at its San Francisco headquarters this morning. Chris Lehane, Airbnb’s head of global public policy and a former aide to Bill Clinton, detailed what the company felt it learned from its successful campaign against Prop F. In particular, he said, the company realized it could organize and mobilize its enormous base of Airbnb users, both hosts and guests.

“We began to think about this election in a little bit of a different way,” Lehane said. “Was there something we could do? We had this big base of support, the light bulb went off in our heads. Could we actually organize and activize (sic) this community and change what the voter pool in San Francisco was going to look like?”

At one point, presenting the company’s prepared slides, Lehane compared the influence of the Airbnb community to the National Rifle Association. Airbnb now has over 4 million members, both hosts and guests, compared to the NRA’s 5.1 million members. “The [Airbnb] voting bloc that is growing is a formidable constituency,” Lehane said, comparing Airbnb’s numbers to the NRA, the Sierra Club, teachers in the National Education Association and pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign members.


Airbnb said during the presentation that it ultimately spent more than $8.5 million in its campaign against the ballot measure.

Airbnb Launches ‘100 Clubs’

Airbnb seems to be seeking to ride its Prop F win to aggressively promote its mission to help people “belong anywhere”—and push back against what it sees as overregulation—around the world. As part of that, Lehane said Airbnb was forming “100 Clubs,” a network of home-sharing “guilds” in cities across the US—though the effort could conceivably expand even further. “We’re going to use the momentum of what took place here to do what we did in San Francisco around the world,” Lehane said.

Airbnb says it will provide resources and some infrastructure to these local groups but expects hosts and guests to ultimately run them as the clubs proliferate in the same “grassroots” manner that Airbnb itself has grown. The clubs are meant to organize and advocate for home-sharing with their local city councils and elsewhere in the community. When pressed, Lehane declined to specify how much, exactly, Airbnb would spend on the clubs.

“I think we have made clear that we are willing to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to supporting our hosts and our guests,” Lehane said during the news conference. “There is very much a seriousness of purpose and approach when we look at what we’re going to be doing with these clubs going forward.”

User avatar
Romeo
Posts: 2964
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:42 pm
Location: St. andrews

Re: Elections 2015

#7 Post by Romeo » Fri Nov 06, 2015 8:17 am

I voted. We had the county district attorney up. Your choices were the acting DA (Kathleen Rice who was the DA ran for Congress) OR a career Politician who is a Lawyer but never ever tried a criminal case :confused: She previously was the Town Supervisor. Yea, you're qualified. :no:

Well the acting DA won.


Also I noticed as we have to vote for our Receiver of Taxes, the incumbent Donald Clavin ran on the Republican, Conservative and the TR party (Tax Revolt). :confused: you're the Receiver of Taxes for the county. How can you REVOLT the taxes you collect????
This county is so fucked

User avatar
farrellgirl99
Posts: 1678
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:20 pm
Location: Queens

Re: Elections 2015

#8 Post by farrellgirl99 » Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:03 pm

I voted although there was nothing interesting at stake, just a DA running unopposed and some judges. Everyone I voted for got elected though so that was exciting. Fuck you, old republicans! :hehe:

User avatar
Romeo
Posts: 2964
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:42 pm
Location: St. andrews

Re: Elections 2015

#9 Post by Romeo » Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:06 am

here was the front cover of my sunday paper

Image

More people were throwing a hissy fit over a SANTA DISPLAY at Roosevelt Field, starting petitions, claiming to boycott Simon Malls than VOTED in the recent election

That's freaking sad!

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#10 Post by mockbee » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:49 pm

You would think people are generally satisfied with the political state of affairs judging by their voting records and issues they are focusing on (ie males in the women's restroom, a real problem that needs to be dealt with ASAP :eyes: ).

I think what is more likely the case, civic engagement has been divested of duty, policy and accomplishments (ie boring things) and has been hijacked by sensationalism, hyperbole and just plain drama that can't be about anything serious, making democracy a sham. I guess we will see if things get bad enough to snap out of it, or just get so bad we turn into your typical third world fascist oligarchy, pitting the educated against the poor to maintain the status quo.
:noclue:

User avatar
Angry Canine
Posts: 143
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:08 pm
Location: Digging for fire in No. KY/Cincy

Re: Elections 2015

#11 Post by Angry Canine » Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:34 pm

Kentucky really fucked up, and elected a Republican Governor. It has never been as Red in state govt. as national office voting. In fact, it will only be our second Republican Governor in my life.

Kentucky had been pretty much the example of a success as far as Obamacare is concerned. Our website, and more importantly the number of uninsured becoming insured. This clown ran on a platform of dismantling it, and kicking people off of Medicaid (I would be long dead now had Obamacare not come along when it did) as well as driving Planned Parenthood out of the state. The poorest parts of the state voted for him the most overwhelmingly. Outside of Covington (Cincy), and Louisville areas, KY is pretty racist, all of the Republican ads equated the Democrat to actually being Obama.

It is amazing how easily such a large portion of the population can be manipulated into voting directly against their own best interest. :hs: :banghead:

User avatar
Hype
Posts: 7028
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:44 pm

Re: Elections 2015

#12 Post by Hype » Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:59 am

Kentucky is pretty much the posterchild for rich people convincing poor working-class people to believe things that are directly counter to their interests. It's one of the poorest (if not *the* poorest) and least educated states... and the one that would benefit most from federal help... and yet seems to be one of the most resistant to "Obama" help.

creep
Site Admin
Posts: 10341
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:51 am

Re: Elections 2015

#13 Post by creep » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:19 pm

i've watched all the debates. last nights was boring.

i think rubio will win the republican nomination for sure. i actually think he might be the most sane of them all but he seems to be the most polished politician too.

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#14 Post by mockbee » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:33 pm

creep wrote:i've watched all the debates. last nights was boring.

i think rubio will win the republican nomination for sure. i actually think he might be the most sane of them all but he seems to be the most polished politician too.
Did you watch it for entertainment, or were you hoping to learn something?

I didn't watch it, but reading about it, it seemed like the same old schoolyard antics were covered.

creep
Site Admin
Posts: 10341
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:51 am

Re: Elections 2015

#15 Post by creep » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:41 pm

mockbee wrote:
creep wrote:i've watched all the debates. last nights was boring.

i think rubio will win the republican nomination for sure. i actually think he might be the most sane of them all but he seems to be the most polished politician too.
Did you watch it for entertainment, or were you hoping to learn something?

I didn't watch it, but reading about it, it seemed like the same old schoolyard antics were covered.
they interest me. i try to have an open mind. i don't think any of the candidates from either side will make a great president.

if i had to vote for one of the republican candidates it would probably be rand paul. he doesn't seem to want to blow other countries up and isn't too nutty about religion. :noclue:

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#16 Post by mockbee » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:51 pm

Yes, blowing other countries up, xenophobic proposals and imposing religious doctrines seem to be the bar that can't be crossed for me as well. Unfortunately most of the republican candidates can't seem to abide by those.

Rubio wants to start another world war.

User avatar
Angry Canine
Posts: 143
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:08 pm
Location: Digging for fire in No. KY/Cincy

Re: Elections 2015

#17 Post by Angry Canine » Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:07 pm

Hype wrote: It's one of the poorest (if not *the* poorest) and least educated states... and the one that would benefit most from federal help.
It's hardly good, but not bottom 5 in per capita income. Cost of living is also low though. And while poverty is poverty, and parts have plenty of that (3rd World type poverty), a $30 or $35K annual income is a much more substantial amount of money than it is in New York, LA, or Chicago, or even someplace like Portland, or MSP.

And while it may be poor as far as post High School educated people, its public school system ranks no lower than 23rd (top half mind you) and as high as 5th in the 5 or 6 different lists I found with a vey quick Google search. It actually has very good public schools, but (especially in eastern and southern) a high amount of impoverished, religious zealots keeping their kids out of them.

I have no more formal education than a HS diploma from KY public schools. Was accepted to 6 year Mechanical Engineering program at UC, but paying for it was far beyond feasible. My grade school and High School were not at all backwards as far as science and history goes. The only mention of Jesus, and Christianity was in World Civilization class, where it was given no more time or weight than Islam, Buddhism, or ancient Greek, or Egyptian religions. Evolution was taught as reality, not as a wacky alternative to God created everything in 7 days.

User avatar
Hype
Posts: 7028
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:44 pm

Re: Elections 2015

#18 Post by Hype » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:29 am

Angry Canine wrote:
Hype wrote: It's one of the poorest (if not *the* poorest) and least educated states... and the one that would benefit most from federal help.
It's hardly good, but not bottom 5 in per capita income. Cost of living is also low though. And while poverty is poverty, and parts have plenty of that (3rd World type poverty), a $30 or $35K annual income is a much more substantial amount of money than it is in New York, LA, or Chicago, or even someplace like Portland, or MSP.

And while it may be poor as far as post High School educated people, its public school system ranks no lower than 23rd (top half mind you) and as high as 5th in the 5 or 6 different lists I found with a vey quick Google search. It actually has very good public schools, but (especially in eastern and southern) a high amount of impoverished, religious zealots keeping their kids out of them.

I have no more formal education than a HS diploma from KY public schools. Was accepted to 6 year Mechanical Engineering program at UC, but paying for it was far beyond feasible. My grade school and High School were not at all backwards as far as science and history goes. The only mention of Jesus, and Christianity was in World Civilization class, where it was given no more time or weight than Islam, Buddhism, or ancient Greek, or Egyptian religions. Evolution was taught as reality, not as a wacky alternative to God created everything in 7 days.
Where did you get your data? Things seem to have gotten better recently, but, e.g., this September 2015 article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-r ... 18647.html lists Kentucky as the 5th poorest state by median household income (but I'm not sure which year of data this is...):
. Kentucky
> Median household income: $42,958
> Population: 4,413,457 (25th lowest)
> Unemployment rate: 6.5% (17th highest)
> Poverty rate: 19.1% (5th highest)
The standard of living issue is potentially relevant, but you'd have to do some really complex calculations to account for it, because there may be hidden costs associated with living there, like less access to education, healthcare, etc., than places where the standard of living is much higher (and so more tax revenue is generated and put toward social services).

Forbes lists Kentucky as the 6th poorest state in 2014: http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fjle45im ... -kentucky/

According to this list (data drawn from the 2011 census, so perhaps we'll see improvement on the next one): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... attainment Kentucky ranks 4th worst in terms of high school diploma attainment at 81.7%; 4th worst in bachelors degree attainment at 21%; but, somewhat surprisingly, tied for 33rd in advanced degree attainment at 8.5%. But it's those first two stats that are important -- what the third stat shows is only that if you're part of the 21% who got a bachelors degree, you're about 40% likely to go on to an advanced degree. This makes sense, since if you're lucky enough to beat the odds and go that far in your education, you might be driven to get as far as you can.

Anyway, point is, I don't mean to disparage Kentucky or play on stereotypes or anything, but the data seems to suggest that Kentucky's a state that would benefit most from social welfare policies and federal spending.

User avatar
Angry Canine
Posts: 143
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:08 pm
Location: Digging for fire in No. KY/Cincy

Re: Elections 2015

#19 Post by Angry Canine » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:10 pm

The figures I cited, were all on first or second page of Google searches. The income figure I used was based on average annual salary and it put us in 6th or 7th ("not in bottom 5") . It was for 2014, I remember that. Both of our figures are skewed by the upper outliers. People like all of the Reds, and Bengals that live on this side of the river, UK, and Louisville basketball coaches (all 50 states have a college basketball or football coach as their highest paid state employee...disgusting) upper management at places like the UPS, and DHL hubs, Lexmark, Toyota, and GM factories, etc. There's no boiling things down to a single statistical figure that really paints a valid picture of how things really are. There are definitely too many large populations living in shacks that look very much like Rio slums, but not as tightly crammed together.

My point on education, was that the schools are actually far better than average, among the best even, but there are too many people that keep their kids out of them. The lack of education is not a matter of availability.

In my case, UK would have been very much achievable financially, but I was not socially equipped to up and move 80 miles from everyone I know. UC was literally somewhere I sometimes rode my bicycle to...but it was out of state tuition cost.

I just hate when people lump us into a group with WV, AR, MS, and AL as far as poverty. and those along with KS, OK, TX, TN as far as schools.

I guess it's more than a little oxymoronic that we have so many uneducated people, but good schools. It just seems like the worst of the worst of Kentuckians is all that ever gets any National, or International media attention. Your Ken Hams, and Kim Davises.





And another thing about elections that I've said many times over the years. Registered voters not voting, should mean something. It should mean something that voters don't want to vote for any candidate. We should be able to vote down all candidates. Personally, with the exception of '08, I've never really voted FOR anyone (and I usually vote in every election, not just Presidential years). In '08 I actually voted for Obama with a little bit of hope, but in '12 it was just voting AGAINST Romney again. If I somehow am still alive next November I certainly won't be voting for Hillary, but against the Republican.

User avatar
Hype
Posts: 7028
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:44 pm

Re: Elections 2015

#20 Post by Hype » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:40 pm

It might be true that some parents are keeping their kids out of public schools in KY (I'll look for numbers on that)... but it's still also true that KY has an education funding problem. It's easy to find sources to support this.

Start with the general facts (via wikipedia because it's easy):
Education in Kentucky suffers from the same negative stigma as many other Southern states. Some statistics, such as ranking 47th in the nation in percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree[1] and an adult illiteracy rate of about 40%,[2] seem to justify the stereotype. Other reports, such as ranking 14th in educational affordability,[1] 25th in K-12 attrition,[3] and being named the 31st smartest state using a formula by Morgan Quitno Press[4] (ahead of western states like California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico) suggest that the stereotype may be overblown. In fact, Lexington, Kentucky ranks 10th among US cities in percent of population with college degree or higher.[5] Whatever the case, due to a number of reforms beginning in 1990, most studies agree that Kentucky is making progress in the area of education.
That suggests that things WERE very bad (adult literacy is at 60% ?! Holy shit... that's frightening...) but have been getting better, but are still pretty bad.

But for progress to be made, you absolutely 100% need public funding, and since Kentucky is still a very poor state, you absolutely need federal funding. And it appears that this is still definitely the case:

http://www.wdrb.com/story/24712280/book ... -old-books
If Kerrick wants to buy new Language Arts books for students third through fifth grade, it costs $87 per student. The district gives them only $20 per student. That's a $67 gap, and it's only one subject area and ignores entirely kindergarten through second grade.
http://kypolicy.org/kentuckys-school-fu ... s-deepest/
Kentucky ranks 11th worst among 47 states in the depth of cuts to school funding since the start of the recession, according to a new report released today by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan policy research organization based in Washington, D.C. Kentucky has cut per-student investment in K-12 schools by 11.4 percent between 2008 and 2015 once inflation is taken into account.

Although the state budget that passed earlier this year included some more money into the SEEK funding formula for K-12 schools, the additional resources translate to just a $37 increase per student in 2015. That allows school systems to tread water but not make up ground lost in the recession, and puts Kentucky far behind most other states when it comes to reinvesting in education.

[,,,]

Budget cuts are being felt especially hard in the state’s poorer school districts, which find it more difficult to make up for funding losses with local sources. That’s leading to growing inequality between rich and poor districts in Kentucky. As the report shows, the lack of state funding is made worse by the cuts in federal funding; since 2010, federal spending for Title 1 (the main assistance program for high-poverty schools) is down 10 percent after adjusting for inflation and funding for special education is down eight percent.
That doesn't look good.

As for public vs. private/home-schooling, it's hard to find raw data, but here's some: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/03/3225 ... .html?rh=1

It seems that they're busing just under 9,000 students to private schools. I don't know how to figure out how many more students are going to these schools that aren't bused, and what percentage of the school-age population this ends up being, but based on this number, I'd guess it's not that large a proportion. And anyway it's not clear that it would matter, since schools are required to meet standards in the first place. If they're not meeting these standards, that's a problem, but it's one that there's already a mechanism in place to fix it with.

It still looks pretty fucked up by comparison to most other states.

User avatar
Angry Canine
Posts: 143
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:08 pm
Location: Digging for fire in No. KY/Cincy

Re: Elections 2015

#21 Post by Angry Canine » Fri Nov 13, 2015 9:51 pm

I can agree that things are fucked up here, but not in comparison to most other states.

Keep in mind that you are using statistics to form an opinion, while I am merely using them to try to back up what I have observed in 44 years of living here, and having been all over it.

User avatar
Hype
Posts: 7028
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:44 pm

Re: Elections 2015

#22 Post by Hype » Sun Nov 15, 2015 7:33 am

I'm not trying to form some kind of overall opinion about how bad Kentucky is compared to other states. The original statement, and the stats I've brought up, were only meant to reinforce the interesting, but stark, contrast between Kentucky's predilection for libertarian anti-social-policy freaks (Rand Paul, e.g., and Mitch McConnell) in government, and their status as a poor, poorly educated, unhealthy, state that could use a lot of help. I'm sure living there gives you an experience that you can make sense of differently from the data, but that's because data isn't about your experience, it's a way to look at how everyone is doing at once.

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#23 Post by mockbee » Fri Nov 20, 2015 7:13 pm

I found this article quite illuminating and poignant.


Who Turned My
Blue State Red?


Why poor areas vote for politicians
who want to slash the safety net.


By ALEC MacGILLISNOV. 20, 2015


IT is one of the central political puzzles of our time: Parts of the country that depend on the safety-net programs supported by Democrats are increasingly voting for Republicans who favor shredding that net.

In his successful bid for the Senate in 2010, the libertarian Rand Paul railed against “intergenerational welfare” and said that “the culture of dependency on government destroys people’s spirits,” yet racked up winning margins in eastern Kentucky, a former Democratic stronghold that is heavily dependent on public benefits. Last year, Paul R. LePage, the fiercely anti-welfare Republican governor of Maine, was re-elected despite a highly erratic first term — with strong support in struggling towns where many rely on public assistance. And earlier this month, Kentucky elected as governor a conservative Republican who had vowed to largely undo the Medicaid expansion that had given the state the country’s largest decrease in the uninsured under Obamacare, with roughly one in 10 residents gaining coverage.

It’s enough to give Democrats the willies as they contemplate a map where the red keeps seeping outward, confining them to ever narrower redoubts of blue. The temptation for coastal liberals is to shake their heads over those godforsaken white-working-class provincials who are voting against their own interests.

But this reaction misses the complexity of the political dynamic that’s taken hold in these parts of the country. It misdiagnoses the Democratic Party’s growing conundrum with working-class white voters. And it also keeps us from fully grasping what’s going on in communities where conditions have deteriorated to the point where researchers have detected alarming trends in their mortality rates.

In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff’s deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.

These are voters like Pamela Dougherty, a 43-year-old nurse I encountered at a restaurant across from a Walmart in Marshalltown, Iowa, where she’d come to hear Rick Santorum, the conservative former Pennsylvania senator with a working-class pitch, just before the 2012 Iowa caucuses. In a lengthy conversation, Ms. Dougherty talked candidly about how she had benefited from government support. After having her first child as a teenager, marrying young and divorcing, Ms. Dougherty had faced bleak prospects. But she had gotten safety-net support — most crucially, taxpayer-funded tuition breaks to attend community college, where she’d earned her nursing degree.

She landed a steady job at a nearby dialysis center and remarried. But this didn’t make her a lasting supporter of safety-net programs like those that helped her. Instead, Ms. Dougherty had become a staunch opponent of them. She was reacting, she said, against the sense of entitlement she saw on display at the dialysis center. The federal government has for years covered kidney dialysis treatment in outpatient centers through Medicare, regardless of patients’ age, partly on the logic that treatment allows people with kidney disease to remain productive. But, Ms. Dougherty said, only a small fraction of the 54 people getting dialysis at her center had regular jobs.

“People waltz in when they want to,” she said, explaining that, in her opinion, there was too little asked of patients. There was nothing that said “‘You’re getting a great benefit here, why not put in a little bit yourself.’ ” At least when she got her tuition help, she said, she had to keep up her grades. “When you’re getting assistance, there should be hoops to jump through so that you’re paying a price for your behavior,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”

Yes, citizens like Ms. Dougherty are at one level voting against their own economic self-interest, to the extent that the Republican approach on taxes is slanted more to the wealthy than that of the Democrats. This was the thesis of Thomas Frank’s 2004 best seller, “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” which argued that these voters had been distracted by social issues like guns and abortion. But on another level, these voters are consciously opting against a Democratic economic agenda that they see as bad for them and good for other people — specifically, those undeserving benefit-recipients who live nearby.

I’ve heard variations on this theme all over the country: people railing against the guy across the street who is collecting disability payments but is well enough to go fishing, the families using their food assistance to indulge in steaks. In Pineville, W.Va., in the state’s deeply depressed southern end, I watched in 2013 as a discussion with Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, quickly turned from gun control to the area’s reliance on government benefits, its high rate of opiate addiction, and whether people on assistance should be tested for drugs. Playing to the room, Senator Manchin declared, “If you’re on a public check, you should be subjected to a random check.”

IT’S much the same across the border in eastern Kentucky, which, like southern West Virginia, has been devastated by the collapse of the area’s coal industry. Eastern Kentucky now shows up on maps as the most benefit-dependent region in the country. The welfare reforms of the 1990s have made cash assistance hard to come by, but food-stamp use in the state rose to more than 18 percent of households in 2012 from under 10 percent in 2001.

With reliance on government benefits so prevalent, it creates constant moments of friction, on very intimate terms, said Jim Cauley, a Democratic political consultant from Pike County, a former Democratic bastion in eastern Kentucky that has flipped Republican in the past decade. “There are a lot of people on the draw,” he said. Where opposition to the social safety net has long been fed by the specter of undeserving inner-city African-Americans — think of Ronald Reagan’s notorious “welfare queen” — in places like Pike County it’s fueled, more and more, by people’s resentment over rising dependency they see among their own neighbors, even their own families. “It’s Cousin Bobby — ‘he’s on Oxy and he’s on the draw and we’re paying for him,’ ” Mr. Cauley said. “If you need help, no one begrudges you taking the program — they’re good-hearted people. It’s when you’re able-bodied and making choices not to be able-bodied.” The political upshot is plain, Mr. Cauley added. “It’s not the people on the draw that’s voting against” the Democrats, he said. “It’s everyone else.”

This month, Pike County went 55 percent for the Republican candidate for governor, Matt Bevin. That’s the opposite of how the county voted a dozen years ago. In that election, Kentucky still sent a Republican to the governor’s mansion — but Pike County went for the Democratic candidate. And 30 percent fewer people voted in the county this month than did in 2003 — 11,223 voters in a county of 63,000, far below the county’s tally of food-stamp recipients, which was more than 17,000 in 2012.

In Maine, Mr. LePage was elected governor in 2010 by running on an anti-welfare platform in a state that has also grown more reliant on public programs — in 2013, the state ranked third in the nation for food-stamp use, just ahead of Kentucky. Mr. LePage, who grew up poor in a large family, has gone at safety-net programs with a vengeance. He slashed welfare rolls by more than half after imposing a five-year limit, reinstituted a work requirement for food-stamp recipients and refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare to cover 60,000 people. He is now seeking to bar anyone with more than $5,000 in certain assets from receiving food stamps. “I’m not going to help anybody just for the sake of helping,” the governor said in September. “I am not that compassionate.”

His crusade has resonated with many in the state, who re-elected him last year.

THAT pattern is right in line with surveys, which show a decades-long decline in support for redistributive policies and an increase in conservatism in the electorate even as inequality worsens. There has been a particularly sharp drop in support for redistribution among older Americans, who perhaps see it as a threat to their own Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, researchers such as Kathryn Edin, of Johns Hopkins University, found a tendency by many Americans in the second lowest quintile of the income ladder — the working or lower-middle class — to dissociate themselves from those at the bottom, where many once resided. “There’s this virulent social distancing — suddenly, you’re a worker and anyone who is not a worker is a bad person,” said Professor Edin. “They’re playing to the middle fifth and saying, ‘I’m not those people.’ ”

Meanwhile, many people who in fact most use and need social benefits are simply not voting at all. Voter participation is low among the poorest Americans, and in many parts of the country that have moved red, the rates have fallen off the charts. West Virginia ranked 50th for turnout in 2012; also in the bottom 10 were other states that have shifted sharply red in recent years, including Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee.

In the spring of 2012, I visited a free weekend medical and dental clinic run by the organization Remote Area Medical in the foothills of southern Tennessee. I wanted to ask the hundreds of uninsured people flocking to the clinic what they thought of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, whose fate was about to be decided by the Supreme Court. I was expecting a “What’s the Matter With Kansas” reaction — anger at the president who had signed the law geared to help them. Instead, I found sympathy for Mr. Obama. But had they voted for him? Of course not — almost no one I spoke with voted, in local, state or national elections. Not only that, but they had barely heard of the health care law.

This political disconnect among lower-income Americans has huge ramifications — polls find nonvoters are far more likely to favor spending on the poor and on government services than are voters, and the gap grows even larger among poor nonvoters. In the early 1990s, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky freely cited the desirability of having a more select electorate when he opposed an effort to expand voter registration. And this fall, Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell adviser, reportedly said low turnout by poor Kentuckians explained why the state’s Obamacare gains wouldn’t help Democrats. “I remember being in the room when Jennings was asked whether or not Republicans were afraid of the electoral consequences of displacing 400,000-500,000 people who have insurance,” State Auditor Adam Edelen, a Democrat who lost his re-election bid this year, told Joe Sonka, a Louisville journalist. “And he simply said, ‘People on Medicaid don’t vote.’ ”

Republicans, of course, would argue that the shift in their direction among voters slightly higher up the ladder is the natural progression of things — people recognize that government programs are prolonging the economic doldrums and that Republicans have a better economic program.

So where does this leave Democrats and anyone seeking to expand and build lasting support for safety-net programs such as Obamacare?

For starters, it means redoubling efforts to mobilize the people who benefit from the programs. This is no easy task with the rural poor, who are much more geographically scattered than their urban counterparts. Not helping matters in this regard is the decline of local institutions like labor unions — while the United Mine Workers of America once drove turnout in coal country, today there is not a single unionized mine still operating in Kentucky.

But it also means reckoning with the other half of the dynamic — finding ways to reduce the resentment that those slightly higher on the income ladder feel toward dependency in their midst. One way to do this is to make sure the programs are as tightly administered as possible. Instances of fraud and abuse are far rarer than welfare opponents would have one believe, but it only takes a few glaring instances to create a lasting impression. Ms. Edin, the Hopkins researcher, suggests going further and making it easier for those collecting disability to do part-time work over the table, not just to make them seem less shiftless in the eyes of their neighbors, but to reduce the recipients’ own sense of social isolation.

The best way to reduce resentment, though, would be to bring about true economic growth in the areas where the use of government benefits is on the rise, the sort of improvement that is now belatedly being discussed for coal country, including on the presidential campaign trail. If fewer people need the safety net to get by, the stigma will fade, and low-income citizens will be more likely to re-engage in their communities — not least by turning out to vote.



Alec MacGillis, who covers politics and government for ProPublica, previously was a staff writer for The Washington Post and The New Republic. He is the author of “The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell.”

User avatar
Hype
Posts: 7028
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:44 pm

Re: Elections 2015

#24 Post by Hype » Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:28 pm

In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff’s deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.
That is illuminating, and a subtle distinction. But I think this is better than the alternative. These disenfranchised Democrats just need to be motivated to vote, rather than deprogrammed.

User avatar
mockbee
Posts: 3468
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:05 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Elections 2015

#25 Post by mockbee » Mon Nov 23, 2015 10:24 am

Hype wrote:
In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff’s deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.
That is illuminating, and a subtle distinction. But I think this is better than the alternative. These disenfranchised Democrats just need to be motivated to vote, rather than deprogrammed.
I think what this data shows is an overwhelming sense of self-loathing, from both the blue collar republicans and unemployed relying on govt. assistance. From a democrat perspective I don't know that promoting the necessity of govt. assistance will turn the tide, I think that is actually part of the problem.

What is missing is Pride. Somehow it needs to be conveyed, and most importantly demonstrated, that a safety net is critical in the transition to worthy employment and stable self sufficiency. Of course jobs, and not just lousy unstable service jobs, are key to that equation. It's a tricky balance to promote the opportunity of self sufficiency and pride, while maintaining and expanding the safety net.

Post Reply