You just put a bunch of words in my mouth. Spitting them out, I’ll say this: Republicans play the masses a lot more masterfully than Democrats do. In that sense, they are downright brilliant.
I wasn’t attempting to put words in your mouth. I misunderstood you when you said:
… “C’mahn. Republicans don’t need a Democratic defeat of 20 points vs. 2 points to ragefest. They are crazy rageful to begin with and it doesn’t matter what the margin is.” …
Please read that second sentence back to yourself and try to read it as an outsider attempting to interpret it without already implicitly knowing your own ideas inside your head. I, as someone trying to interpret your ideas, misunderstood that to say:
1) Republicans are crazy rageful. Why? Because you said it.
2) Republicans don’t take margins into account, therefore margins don’t “matter” to them. Why? Because you’ve implied it in that sentence and elsewhere in your posts as well.
“Crazed rage” didn’t imply rationality nor intelligence to me and certainly didn’t imply “downright brilliance” in any context.
I, instead, misunderstood your words to imply that Republicans are crazy, rageful simpletons.
Why?
Because in my opinion, a politician that bases their decisions upon “crazed rage” and doesn’t think margins matter (as I thought you implied) is a political simpleton.
Why?
Because I’ve already repeatedly expressed that I think margins do matter, are important and should be considered. Hence, that’s why I misunderstood your view on Republican politicians because I think most of them do consider margins when they decide future strategies.
Please note that I did not insult you personally or assume bad faith in the process. I honestly misunderstood your view of Republicans in good faith based upon a misunderstanding and the information I had from you at the time.
Shit happens, man, please don’t be rude because of a misunderstanding.
The point was, which you ignored, that they don’t need incitement to variable amounts of rage by margins of victory.
Speaking for myself and my own intentions, I honestly wasn’t purposefully ignoring your point in bad faith or otherwise.
I misunderstood your point and responded to what I thought your point was.
In the future, please try to assume good faith that I’m not being passive-aggressive towards you if I miss your point and that I’m simply ignoring it. In other words, spare me the needless, useless hostility.
If I miss one of your points, it’s by accident and in good faith, ok? I just may need it re-explained to me in a manner I can better understand.
You just put a bunch of words in my mouth. Spitting them out
The point was, which you ignored
You like to do this to me/people/a lot.
You took it a step further… as you are wont to do…
OK, back to Earth.
Wow… Ok, this really sucks. I’m stopping here.
I tried to take the high road and actually ignored some of your previous, insulting drivel such as telling me “You’ll fuck up”, etc.
But, now you’re getting very personal with this new drivel.
If you continue with the personal attacks and insulting, pompous rhetoric along with repeated assumptions of bad faith, I’m going to be diverted into defending my character instead of my ideas.
I disagreed with some of your ideas, but I did not attack you as a person nor express any perceived, stunted character flaws you may or may not have. I now ask that you return the favor and knock off the personal attacks.
So, in the future, please cut me some damn slack if I misunderstand your ideas. I may need ideas to be explained to me in more detail before we find mutual understanding. If you don’t have the patience for that… hence (insulting):
… then I may not be up to your speed and we should discontinue our conversations, because I frankly don’t feel that I deserve being treated like shit over what I consider to be a simple misunderstanding that can be resolved in a polite, friendly manner.
If you think I have a character flaw that can’t be overcome and it frustrates you, then move along. You’re not my life coach.
The misunderstanding may very well be my fault or I may feel that it’s your fault, but that’s beside the point of this conversation and a trite distraction from what really matters. Shit happens and people misunderstand each other. We can get to a point of mutual understanding eventually, but it’s not going to happen via hurting my feelings and attacking my character instead of my ideas.
I don’t agree with your public, insulting, trite, bullshit attacks on my character and suppositions of bad faith, but I’m not going to waste further time defending my character instead of focusing on our mutual IDEAS.
Even though I am now highly annoyed and disappointed in you, what I’m going to do is respectfully try to figure out our mutual misunderstandings minus personal insults and try to raise the bar.
That said, I’m going to respectfully respond to your post below in hopes we can find a mutual understanding even if we disagree upon ideas. If that’s something you can’t handle without being insulting, then we’re not compatible and we’re done here.
Let’s begin?
Republicans play the masses a lot more masterfully than Democrats do. In that sense, they are downright brilliant. We could learn a thing or two. Doesn’t mean we have to emulate them, but we could use it against them more effectively.
Agreed, if we were to emulate the Republicans in totality, we’d have to throw a lot of ethics out of the window. Then again, emulating the Democrats in totality would require lowered ethics as well in some areas.
Republicans certainly appear to play the masses a lot more masterfully than Democrats do, but I think the corporatist right I’ve previously mentioned is pulling the main strings and many top Democrats are craftier and far more complicit than many Americans may suspect.
The Republicans and top Democrats are complicit with the corporatist right almost equally in certain aspects. For reasons I’ve explained in my previous posts, the corporatist right loves it when the American public blames Republican obstructionism for the failures of the Democratic party and vice versa. It keeps us in a perpetual blame game and ping-ponging between the two parties instead of making steadier, faster progressive change over time that harms the corporatist right profits. The corporatist Democrats at the top are playing right into this game. That includes Obama.
The corporatist right loves the fact that average Americans are more productive over the decades, yet haven’t seen a commensurate increase in their wages. That’s simply more money in the corporatist right pockets and, by proxy, some of it ends up in the pockets of top Democrats and Republicans that “play ball”. If you look at who supports the top Democrats and nearly all Republicans, it’s basically the same corporatist right group of wealthy billionaires and multibillionaires.
There are, of course, a lot of lower-rung Democrats that don’t play ball, but they are typically marginalized by the status quo corporatist right by insidious means. For example, they get ignored by the mass media the status quo owns or, worse, trivialized as irrelevant, etc. and bashed with disingenuous half-truths and lies until they are politically marginalized and destroyed.
Do Republicans appear to play the masses a lot more masterfully than Democrats do? Yes. But, I suggest some of that is secretly approved of by the top Democrats who need scapegoats for their own actions and inactions that serve the corporatist right instead of average Americans.
This explains a lot of the extremely frustrating things you’ll see top Democrats do when they repeatedly in the past have had the opportunity to take down Republicans and/or enact truly progressive changes, but they don’t. Obama is a great example of this as well.
More:
An Administration on Its Heels: Inviting Torture to Appease the Right Wing:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/08-3
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/04/29/in-corporate-media-democratic-populism-always-a-danger/
Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare - Proponents of popular policy shut out of debate:
http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/fair-study-media-blackout-on-single-payer-healthcare/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/05/27/crediting-obama-for-bringing-troops-home-without-noting-he-sent-them-abroad/
NY Times Covers for Obama’s Move to the Right - Paper misrepresents inequality poll:
http://fair.org/take-action/ny-times-covers-for-obamas-move-to-the-right/
DISCLAIMER: This is not to say that I think all Democrats and Republicans are the same and have the same negative effects on society overall. I still vastly prefer Democrats over Republicans for a host of reasons I’ve made clear in previous posts and threads throughout this BBS.
The point was, which you ignored, that they don’t need incitement to variable amounts of rage by margins of victory. They are already enraged, and do so of their own accord.
Your point is that Republican politicians do not need incitement to variable amounts of rage by margins of victory and they are already in a constant state of rage. I disagree with that assessment of Republicans. Certainly some of the Republicans seem to be in some sort of state of persistent anger, but I just don’t see most of them in a constant state of rage that blinds them to the consequences of their margins of victory nor their margin of defeat they incur in elections.
And, I apologize, but I don’t understand how that discounts the points I made which, in my opinion, had nothing to do with demeanors like “rage” and was about Republican strategies. What I said was that Republicans have a solid, past history of adjusting and radicalizing their agendas when they’re given a perceived (or otherwise) carte blanche to enact them. In my opinion, Republican rage had little to do with my point and I will try to make myself clearer so we can perhaps at least reach a mutual understanding even if we don’t agree.
My point was when most Republicans perceive that they can get away with far right agendas without being unseated nor ruining chances for future Republican compatriots, they do them.
When most Republicans see that there’s potential for a backlash, they will pragmatically hold back on some of their more extreme agendas. There is, of course, plenty of anomalies where Republicans will run off the rails, build a resistance and lose their seats in the process – but that isn’t the status quo for most of them because they’re not idiots. They’d frankly rather push more softly to the right and remain in office than go nuts and inspire the left within their districts (along with outside forces) to get motivated to unseat them.
Once again, there are undeniable anomalies like Scott Walker, for instance, but even a rageful scumbag like him was forced to pull back to some degree here and there once he stirred up a hornet’s nest of resistance from the left.
I do not think most Republicans are in a state of rage that blinds them to a fear of provoking leftists to organize within their district (and/or prompt outsiders to jump in and organize them). If most Republicans don’t see much of a turnout from the left (in other words, they don’t see much of a leftist base to start with), they are going to assume it’s safe to apply more rigorous right wing agendas (as it often is until they go too far).
If Republicans see a solid turnout from the left in their districts, they tend to tread more lightly as to not aggravate that base to further organize and put their seat or compatriots at risk. It’s basic pragmatism, not rocket science (nor climate science ;)).
If that’s not what you agree with, then we’ll just have to disagree here and that’s OK.
You like to do this to me/people/a lot. I never suggested it was an either/or situation: “Don’t do a get-out-the-vote campaign.” Pshaw. I never said that. I did prioritize the two: targeted vote drives over general vote drives. You took it a step further… as you are wont to do…
If that’s the case, I think you mistakenly suggested an either/or situation with your own words and perhaps still don’t realize it. In the post I was responding to, you previous said:
…“As I see it, those smaller battles are not where the effort needs to go.”…
Please read that sentence back to yourself and try to read it as an outsider attempting to interpret it without already implicitly knowing your own ideas inside your head.
If you didn’t mean to suggest an either/or situation, it should have read:
…“As I see it, those smaller battles are not where most of the effort needs to go.” …
If you had used that terminology or something like it, I would have actually agreed with you. It was just a misunderstanding, 'tis all. 
You then said:
" … I see these lesser races as lost long before election day …
Once again, read that back to yourself from an outsider’s point of view. Now combine that with what you errantly said above that no effort should go towards my ideas in regards to voting (or in your assumptions, campaigning) in red states.
I hope you can now understand why your combined statements easily appeared as an either/or situation when you also appeared to double-down on it by saying that “lesser races” are already lost anyway and then triple-down on it by saying:
"…I think a better strategy than across-the-board get-out-the-vote is a highly tactical get-out-the-vote … "
Once again, if you weren’t trying to imply an either/or situation, you could have worded it something like this:
…I think a better strategy than only an across-the-board get-out-the-vote is also a highly tactical get-out-the-vote …"
Do you see the your accidental “either/or” pattern I’m referring to now?
Most people including myself are going to take all of those combined statements as clearly saying no effort should go towards their idea at all, it’s a lost cause anyway and here’s a better strategy that they haven’t thought of. You’ve now explained that wasn’t your intention, but I had no way of knowing that before based upon your own words.
Aside from that, you sidestepped the point I was making. My point wasn’t that I think people should vote predominately in red states to win the races. My point that you missed was that people should vote in every state (red or not) to show the Republicans that there is a leftist base in their districts.
Now, again, we apparently disagree on the importance of this leftist base influence in Republicans because you say they are too blinded by rage, but again, my point wasn’t about winning in those “lesser races”. My point is that it’s better to give most Republicans some restraint than very little. You apparently disagree with that and that’s OK.
OK, back to Earth.
If “back to Earth” means you’ll stop being insulting and get back to discussing ideas instead, then welcome back, indeed.
I think you may be giving more credit to general campaigning than is due.
If you go back and read my initial posts, I really wasn’t initially directly referring to general campaigning. It was you that jumped to that topic first. I initially posited that it was important for everyone to vote even in red states and I explained why.
But, I can see how you misunderstood that as to be supportive of national campaigning, but I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that I think it’s more vital than local campaigning, for example. I did, however, later feel the need to express that national campaigning does have some importance because you errantly used the either/or language as I just carefully quoted you above.
National “get out the vote” may or may not work, depending on how it’s done.
I think you can pretty much say that about anything, can’t you? 
Plus how are you, here on an Internet forum years later, going to attribute Obama’s unexpected swing state wins to the national campaign vs a specific state’s efforts? Where’s your source?
Except I didn’t say that. Here’s what I did say (now adding emphasis):
… Get Out The Vote’ campaigns nationwide along with concerted ‘Get Out The Vote’ campaigns in battleground states resulted in two landslide wins in the last two presidential elections."
As you should now be able to see, I didn’t offer a “national campaign vs a specific state’s efforts” scenario in the first place. I said both state and nationwide campaigns combined is what worked.
Hopefully, this clears up that misunderstanding and I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough before.
Now, as long as you’re asking for sources (while, strangely not offering any of your own). This is partially where I’ve gotten my information from in the past:
How President Obama’s campaign used big data to rally individual voters:
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/508836/how-obama-used-big-data-to-rally-voters-part-1/ (also see part 2)
I think this supports both of our positions (now that hopefully the misunderstandings are cleared up) that both types of campaigns (state and nationwide) contributed to the last two presidential elections that resulted in landslide wins for a Democrat. In our current reality, back here on Earth.
More sources available upon request.
Please forgive me that I don’t address the rest of your points in this regard, because they are based upon a false argument that mistakenly misrepresents a position I don’t have on national versus state campaigns.
That’s why books like Machiavelli’s The Prince and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War aren’t one page long. There’s nuance.
Indeed. Indeed.
I feel this is a misappropriation of facts, as well. Our country is extremely right wing.
Extremely right wing? By what realistic metric?
If that was the case, then how do you explain that Obama won his first election in a landslide while campaigning initially on a leftist platform and then later after Obamacare was pushed forward in the next election? One of Romney’s campaign promises was to abolish Obamacare as soon as he took office.
If this country was extremely right wing, the “anybody but Obama” campaign would have worked in spades. But, it didn’t and Obama won in two landslides.
Look at how groups voted in 2000 to 2012 … [Source is exit polls from Washpo, CNN, compiled by someone at UConn.] … Cast your eyes towards the middle row of graphs
Remember that nuance you espoused earlier? Cast your eyes above if you forgot about that. 
There’s a lot of factors that raw exit polls numbers from the Washington Post, CNN, etc. are going to miss and are subject to interpretation. As a matter of fact, CNN’s analysis of their own exit polls you reference differs from your interpretation:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/exit-polls-analysis/
As far as exit polls go…
Exit polls projected John Kerry to win the 2004 election. You may have heard he lost. The bias in his direction was about 2.5 percentage points. Thus, a 51%-48% Kerry victory became a 50.7%-48.3% Bush triumph. Anyone remember 2000 and Al Gore in Florida? The same 2.5-point Democratic bias occurred in 1992, but Bill Clinton easily took the election, so no one actually cared. The list goes on and on. - source
We should perhaps note those exit poll numbers with a grain of salt and look at actual results.
Obama’s 3 Million Vote, Electoral College Landslide, Majority of States Mandate:
Actual results (not exit polls):
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/
In short, I don’t think you’re wrong. Don’t take that away from here. But I do think that your emphasis on national messaging is too much.
Well, it’s a good thing that we only had a misunderstanding on national messaging then. 
In short, I do think you’re wrong on some things, but I agree with you on other things and hopefully you now know I agreed with you on more things than what you errantly thought before.
I think there’s more gold closer to home …always have, and it’s the same reason why I spoke up on that other thread way back a few weeks ago.
Agreed, local voting is vital.
