http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT7O2RjTNPA&feature=player_embedded#at=678
Representative Weiner being a boss as usual. God I hope he doesn't run again John Liu for NYC mayor in 2013... Both extremely qualified candidates...
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
On the Need for Political Awareness
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/04/01/few_americans_know_boehner.html
The first statistic, which states that only 43% of Americans know that John Boehner is the Speaker of the House, is not surprising, since it confirms that many Americans tend to not to keep up with politics in much detail.
The second statistic, which states that only 38% of Americans are aware that Republicans have a majority in the House, worries me immensely. In fact, it is so ludicrous that I first believed (and still believe to a lesser degree) that the survey must have been flawed. The overwhelming Republican majority in the House saturated the airwaves after the November elections, and I believe that even a 10-year old who accidentally ended up on ABC or Fox while trying to get to Nickelodeon should know this fact.
But if the data is true, it is disturbing for two reasons.
It means that a significant number of Republicans still believe that Democrats are in complete charge of the government. It means that Republican attempts to paint future government failures as Democratic even with their 241-193 majority in the House has been at least successful in part. It means that even after a Red Wave election, they can continue to blame inefficiency in government solely on the Democrats, when in fact they themselves have been its main cause in the last two years.
But it also highlights a problem with the Democrats. It means that many Democratic voters don't feel an appropriately strong need to show up to vote and care about the political proces. A big factor in the "shellacking" of last November was the fact that Republicans/Tea Partiers simply cared a hell of a lot more about voting than Democrats.
The same Democrats who blame Obama for slow progress, do not yet realize that by not caring enough, they themselves contribute greatly to the slow progress under the Obama administration by helping to fill Congress with politicians who were elected on the premise that they oppose Obama in nearly every one of his goals.
The first statistic, which states that only 43% of Americans know that John Boehner is the Speaker of the House, is not surprising, since it confirms that many Americans tend to not to keep up with politics in much detail.
The second statistic, which states that only 38% of Americans are aware that Republicans have a majority in the House, worries me immensely. In fact, it is so ludicrous that I first believed (and still believe to a lesser degree) that the survey must have been flawed. The overwhelming Republican majority in the House saturated the airwaves after the November elections, and I believe that even a 10-year old who accidentally ended up on ABC or Fox while trying to get to Nickelodeon should know this fact.
But if the data is true, it is disturbing for two reasons.
It means that a significant number of Republicans still believe that Democrats are in complete charge of the government. It means that Republican attempts to paint future government failures as Democratic even with their 241-193 majority in the House has been at least successful in part. It means that even after a Red Wave election, they can continue to blame inefficiency in government solely on the Democrats, when in fact they themselves have been its main cause in the last two years.
But it also highlights a problem with the Democrats. It means that many Democratic voters don't feel an appropriately strong need to show up to vote and care about the political proces. A big factor in the "shellacking" of last November was the fact that Republicans/Tea Partiers simply cared a hell of a lot more about voting than Democrats.
The same Democrats who blame Obama for slow progress, do not yet realize that by not caring enough, they themselves contribute greatly to the slow progress under the Obama administration by helping to fill Congress with politicians who were elected on the premise that they oppose Obama in nearly every one of his goals.
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