Control a person's emotions, and you have their vote. Convince a person their candidate is doomed anyway, they won't vote. It's pretty simple psychology.

K, but going into this on a bunch of these races, polling showed extremely close races. A few in states where these people lived. Voter turnout was absolutely abysmal compared to 2012.

I almost wonder if it's a self fulfilling prophesy. All i've been hearing for the last month is that the dems would get destroyed because it's the 2nd term of a dem administration and democrats don't vote in midterms. Sure enough, all of it came true. We didn't vote, and we got destroyed.

*shrugs* Dunno. My candidates lost, but I voted. I've voted every year divisible by two, so I can't do much more.

Well the silver lining is that on ballot initiatives, i don't think we could have done much better. We did VERY well.

What I don't get is why anyone would vote Republican when they shut the country down like a year ago cause they didn't get their way... did everyone just forget about that debacle?

Perhaps it is just that people are really really stupid, this would explain both my conundrum and yours?

Gosh, but it would be mean for the democrats to ya know, FUCKING REMIND PEOPLE that the GOP pissed away billions of dollars to shut down the government because they didn't like their own law that somehow the democrats finally passed for them. Nope, don't remind them, don't bring up any of the awful obstruction insanity they've been doing. just wave a bible and a gun in front of the camera and pretend you're a republican. I almost puked when i saw democrats doing this in these ads, and I'm a gun nut.

If you told me to vote for you and the only thing you said to try and persuade me is say "Watch me shoot this gun." i would assume you're either an idiot or you assume I'm an idiot.

Also I know two conservatives that think Obama is the one that shut down the government...seriously. They actually think that.

Yup, and he did.

When a single person says Do what I want, AKA obama....

if having alternate views of king obama neans your the obstruction, then I have no pity on the shit that your facing.Work with me was his cry, but that meant not having a differing idea and going from there, it was a point of having to just agree with him.

I will work with you if you do as i bid is how it reads.

There is an alternative, and guess what ones have long past their due date to what is left...

Theres four boxes of complaint.

The Soap Box

The Ballot Box

The Jury box

and the Cartridge (bullet) box

For disclosure im a gay male who thinks upholding the ideals of the Constitutional Republic is still better than force feeding ideals down everyones throat. You get blowback. And set the effort back in spades..
Have fun with it, because its apparently not the cause you seek, but the drama.

If it wasnt forced, natural flow wouldve got what you wanted.

"I want to keep the government open while we negotiate"
"No, you must give us something first."

Annnd shutdown.

Who's at fault here?

Especially considering thata clean CR -would- have gotten past the House AND Senate, but various rules were used to prevent it (Boehner not letting a bill come to a vote unless it had a majority -from his party- for example)

boehner is a moron that self destructs the party. I will concede that.

Mitch isn't any better, same with McCain. All three are big government progressive types.

I think the key this time around, though, is that people aren't voting for the political right as much as they're voting against the current administration. There's several key issues here, you all know them, the public simply isn't happy and that includes people who are associated with the Democrat party and other strongly progressive / socialist groups. A lot of people would rather stay home and not vote at all if they're not happy with their own guys and if they don't think the alternative is any better.

Here in Ohio the Republican ticket did really well, and you can see the political left jumping over and voting for someone in the opposing party. Governor Kasich, for example, won in a landslide. It's easy to see why: Ohio has lowered taxes, decreased spending, and we're running a surplus now. On top of that, job growth has been very aggressive and red tape has been cut for starting new businesses.

Our Treasurer, Josh Mandel, won with a 13% margin. Not because of his party, but because of his performance. He's pushing hard for transparency and has been receiving some great awards to that effect. His major initiative right now is to have all state spending available online so that everyone can see where the money goes. Who doesn't want a transparent government?

This is in a really fickle state politically where we're pretty much split 50/50 on a lot of issues. The secret is these guys are doing things that everyone can support: Who doesn't want lower taxes and more transparency? Who doesn't want their government to save money? They're doing it well enough that people will temporarily throw off the chains of slavery of their favored political party and vote for the other guy, because the other guy really and truly is doing a good job.

I wish more people would do that. Too many people are completely blinded by the ® or the (D) after someone's name; they won't even look at the guy from the other party, they automatically believe all the propaganda, they won't even consider a different point of view.

If we want to fix the disaster that is happening in DC we need to start with ourselves. Stop buying into the "us vs. them" mentality. If you find someone who sees things differently, try to find what you can agree on and move from there. If you hear something nasty about a candidate, spend five minutes to see if it's really true. Quotes are notorious for being taken completely out of context. Even if you don't think you're going to vote for someone, give them the benefit of the doubt.

Think about what is really important. Too many times I see people discard a candidate because of their stance on some small, relatively insignificant issue. No candidate is perfect. We want our legislators to compromise, right? Well, if we ask them to do so, and we refuse to do so ourselves, then we're just being hypocrites. Try to understand why someone believes what they do; sometimes the reasoning will surprise you.

It's okay to change your mind on things. We're all learning, society changes, we have new experiences. And most of all, don't take it personally when someone disagrees with you. I assure you that someone's stance on taxes or foreign policy or the 4th amendment doesn't have anything to do with you.

The Dems threatened to shut down the Gov to Bush the first... instead of standing up to them he gave them what they wanted... a Massive tax increase... and that killed my small business So the Dems have NO room to talk

Just out of honest curiosity, would you consider a public healthcare - which exists in almost every sophisticated western country since the late 19th century and everywhere is seen as a great relief and symbol of social unity - as a mere "ideal" which is forced upon the US-american people?

The ACA isn't even public healthcare; it's very close to the GOP plan from the 90s.

Haha, wikipedia says you folks were like easy mislead sheeps once again:

Opposition to the plan was heavy from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry. The industry produced a highly effective television ad, "Harry and Louise", in an effort to rally public support against the plan. Instead of uniting behind the President's original proposal, Democrats offered a number of competing plans of their own. Hillary Clinton was drafted by the Clinton Administration to head a new Task Force and sell the plan to the American people, a plan which ultimately backfired amid the barrage of fire from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries and considerably diminished her own popularity. By September 1994, the final compromise Democratic bill was declared dead by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell

X-D Wikipedia is always right!

So far as I read, the general populace blamed Obama because he's the leader, and he's supposed to schmooze congress into doing its job, nevermind that one party was dead set against preventing everything he wanted.

Well I'll be the first to say that Obama is a weak president but christ, i don't think henry clay could have gotten past that level of obstruction.

Literally, the GOP created gridlock then ran on gridlock and won. It just boggles the mind how people fall for it.

I wouldn't necessarily call him a 'weak' president. He got shit done. But everything he tried to get done through the legislature was like pulling fucking teeth.

Must have been some reason. Look at Wendy Davis, she single-handedly filibustered against several Anti-abortion bills in the Texas Senate that had women up in arms. Yet she lost the majority of the women vote, around 67% went to the male Republican instead. Go figure.

That's because there is a major difference between single women and married women. Married women vote majority Republican and tend to be more pro-life than not. Single women, on the other hand, are the opposite. Liberals rely on the vote of single women and minority women specifically, but white married women usually vote Republican. However, in this election cycle Republicans got more of the women and minority vote.

OR how about THEM causing the recession in the first place!? Obama and the Democrats inherited an avalanche and the Republicans expected him to stop it in mid fall and clean up the mess in 8 months. I am amazed how well the Dems have done with all the obstruction. Still a shit ton of work to do but the US is well on its way to a full recovery though it may take some time. If the Tea-Party controlled Republicans take the White House in 2016... Well, lets just say I am SO HAPPY to be a Canadian.

A grade school history teacher said something that has stuck with me for all these years..

You won't see how good/bad a President is till well into the next one's term. It takes a while for the current president's policies and initiatives to take hold and actually change things noticeably. Obama is dealing with Bush's crap, the next president will be dealing with all of Obama's shortcomings. and so on...

And Canadians who are totally ignorant about American politics should keep their mouth shut. The recession that Obama inherited was handed to him by his own party. Apparently you are not aware of the fact that the Democrats took control of both houses of congress in 2006 which is why the last two years of Bush's presidency were an economic mess and federal spending skyrocketed. And as Arjuna himself stated, who controls congress is more important than who controls the White House.

Also, this whole nonsense about obstructionism is the most hypocritical nonsense. Liberals only complain about obstructionism if it's the opposing party, the Republicans standing up against liberal policies. If it's the other way around, then that's okay. Do liberals actually expect Republicans and conservative candidates to just roll over and say "yes, let's go ahead and let the Dems pass bills that we disagree with and think are bad for the country." The Founders set up a system like this precisely because it includes obstructionism. They wanted to make it as difficult as possible for a single, centralized power to dominate everything. That's why they call it checks and balances.

You need to stop watching Faux News and get the facts. Bush destroyed the US economy LONG before the Dems took control of both the House and Senate. His first priority when entering the White House was to finish his daddy's war and he used 911 to do just that with lies and deceit. Then there were the bailouts with no oversite and huge tax cuts that favored the wealthy.

As for obstructionism, I am all for parties using their powers to keep eachother in check but when Mich openly states that the Republicans main priority is to make Obama a one term president instead of focusing on creating a comprehensive jobs bill or any bill that would help the economy, then the party has gone too far. The Republican shut down cost Americans 24 BILLION in lost revenues. Tea Party Republicans are the definition of government responsibility.

Actually, the executive branch holds sole capacity for the scope and severity of shutting down executive branch functions. Blame it on the GOP taking dictation from 0bama all you want, but in the end there's really just one person who was at the helm of spending more money to shut the government down.

I work closely with 6 other people. None of them voted. They explained to me that they A) Don't care because it doesn't affect them, B) Don't want to take the time to do it, they have lives to live, and C) Don't want to risk voting for something they don't understand or support.

Progressive are extremely popular among populations that don't vote.

Yeah, politics doesn't affect them. I assume they're all moving to Zimbabwe within the week or perhaps under a large dome in the middle of the ocean with it's own artificially controlled climate system.

LOL! THIS!

Straight apathy. I guess some people only want to vote in the important elections, like the one for President. Even though selecting the leader doesn't necessarily mean that's going to take care of everything for the duration of the presidential term.

Some people just do not care. But then, if you make it so that a lot of people won't see the point, then they won't do anything.

One vote on its own is meaningless, but no vote exists in a vacuum.

Well right there. Why on earth do you think protecting a congressional majority isn't an important election? Midterms are insanely important.

"But they're not presidentiaaaaaaaaal. That doesn't affect meeee. Doesn't matter who my governor is, or who runs my state legistature, it just matters who the president iiiiiiis!"

I don't get why people don't do it either. We had a fairly close election for Congress in my district, but only one of my coworkers voted. The boss didn't even mind if we left early to vote, and it only took like 20 minutes. If nothing else, voting gives you the right to bitch when you don't get your way.

I for the 3rd election in a row had them screw up my information and i had to do a provisional ballot and spend an extra 30 minutes sorting it out. The guy i went with was in and out in fricking 5 minutes.

There seriously is no excuse for not voting.

I think I had a good excuse for skipping the one vote I've missed:

It was a municipal election and I was at university in another city at the time and the three races boiled down to:

How big of a win the new mayor was going to have, (there was little question that he was going to get the majority of the vote).
An acclaimed city council race.
An acclaimed school board race, (unless I wanted to switch from public-English to one of the other boards).

Apathy in the midterms is something I've never been able to understand. I missed voting in the 2000 election because my 18th birthday was six days after it, but I've voted in every single election since then, regardless of whether I felt my candidates had any chance. And heck, the first time I ever voted was by mailing in one of those old "chad" punchcards from Germany.

I can see a lot of silver lining, putting all that aside: every candidate and almost every ballot measure I voted for passed, several states voted to raise the minimum wage (even deep red ones), one deep blue and one deep red state voted to legalize marijuana (don't use it, but I'm anti-prohibition), and 2016 is when the tea partiers from 2010 are up for reelection. I dealt with 8 years of Dubya, so I can deal with two years of dueling banjos ("dueling banjos" is my nickname for McConnell and Cruz).

So, one thing that i can't stand about the democrats is that when you poll the american public on the individual issues from the war on drugs, minimum wage, gay marriage, gun background checks, the stupid fucking wars, immigration, abortion. They're overwhelmingly on the side of the progressives on just about every issue. Even people who consider themselves conservatives and in the most conservative areas, if you poll them they will say they're republican, yet side with the democrats on individual issues.

Why have the democrats NEVER exploited this fact ever to my knowledge? The progressives wiped the floor with the conservatives on ballot initiatives, this is just more evidence of what i'm talking about.

Why would hte democrats say "Hey guys, we have guns and bibles too! See? We're like you!" instead of "Hey guys, these are the issues we think are important and we know you agree with us."

The democrat turnout was pathetic, the democrat campaigns were pathetic. We deserved this loss.

Oh, I don't disagree. I really do get frustrated in this way. It was an amazing breath of fresh air when Obama finally announced support for gay marriage in 2012. I really would like them the be more aggressive on the whole, but instead they distance themselves from Obama because he has a low approval rating. Pathetic to say the least.

I'm really glad to see this nuanced understanding! A majority of Americans would make the right choice... all the noise from the media would just stop and actually report real news and facts instead of fear and insinuation.

I've thought for a while that the obvious ad would be along the lines of:

"We polled the people in $District and found that:
78% want A, Mr. R opposes it.
82% want B, Mr. R voted against it.
71% want C, Mr. R filibustered it.
etc.
If he doesn't agree with you, why vote for him?"

war on drugs,

There are Reaganaut War on Drug pedallers on both sides the aisle. Look at the Senior Democrat Senator of California for instance, Diane 'Her Majesty' Feinstein. I don't think there's anyone more for drug prohibition in the Senate.

Also, you have the issue that if someone is serious about ending the war on drugs, they vote fucking libertarian.

minimum wage,

Didn't like two states pass a higher minimum wage on ballot initiative while also going significantly more red?

gay marriage,

Top Democrats were late to this party too. Hillary only had an opinion on this issue after it was crystal clear what the people wanted. Obama as a Senator was at best cold on it. Gore used to be severely anti-gay, even buddy-buddy with the WBC.

Do remember, the same people who went to the polls to vote in Obama in 2008 in California also ticked 'yes' on Prop 8.

gun background checks,

Passed in Washington, although the way the law is written you can become a felon if you let your buddy shoot your gun at a range. That had the full monetary backing of Bloomberg and Gates though.

Really, the 'polls' on UBCs were kind of fluffed, they asked known Democrats in like three Northeastern states, and used the '90%' statistic off that. Americans overwhelming are pro-gun.

Ask Illinois's Republican Governor-Elect that, the Dems in that state almost exclusively ran on a gun control platform and were roundly defeated.

You also have the issue of tenacity here. Your average person who responds to a poll saying 'yes more gun control' really doesn't care. Where as not only do pro-gun people care, they vote. A lot. This is why NRA rallies get so many people to come, and why the anti groups are lucky to get 25.

This is seriously the single most poisonous issue to the DNC, and if they honestly dropped it, they would kill at the vote. As is it really hurts more moderate Democrats in contentious areas worse.

the stupid fucking wars,

Excuse me, did you live in a fucking cave when the entire Administration was beating the wardrum in Syria only for Kerry to accidentally cause a peace process?

They all looked like kids told Christmas was cancelled when they weren't allowed to embroil us in another pointless Mid-East war. All politicians are war-mongering dickheads. Obama just didn't get his way unlike Bush.

Sadly I can't comment- I live in Oregon with our Vote By Mail system, I voted... But my vote doesn't affect the races that needed a liberal voting. Problem with living in a blue state...

I went out and did my part. I voted.. It just would be nice if it felt like it actually mattered. Living in the state of Texas, being a democrat is kind of considered a joke. Either way, I want out and did my part. I was informed with my choices. I admit I was rather cynical thanks to the demands on voter id.. the first time I've ever gone out to vote and had to produce my driver's license to do so and I had to wait 14 minutes thanks to a convenient. "problem" with tracking my voter registration in the system. I was about to raise hell since I double, triple and quadruple checked to make sure I was registered beforehand.

Either way, the next few years will NOT be any better.

But you DID vote, and it DOES matter, even if it didn't immediately seem to. A lot of policy is based on percentages.

Thanks!

Being in Texas makes you important, remember that the only reason Texas isn't solidly purple, (if not blue), is the massive gerrymandering. Texas Republicans have even admitted in court that the districting is drawn up in order to win them elections[1]. It might not take that much of a shift to put Texas back into Democratic hands.

Congress may be important, the states are even more important because US elections are run by party hacks selected at the state level. Seriously guys, how about catching up with the civilized world and isolating the running of elections from politics[2].


[1] They kind of had to, the alternative hands them a trivial loss even under the gutted Voter Rights Act.

[2] And fix your voter registration system while you're at it: You shouldn't be relying on third parties who get to see the way people are probably going to vote before they actually do the registration. It would probably even save you money to copy how Canada does things, (most people update their registration every year when the fill out their income tax return, you just have to tick a single box saying 'CRA can forward my info to Elections Canada').

Anyway, what's done is done, I did my part, even if it still feels hollow. No matter how they'll try to spin it,I can't help but see these voter id laws cynically as targetting people with my skin tone.

I actually believe them: The Republican voter suppression efforts are aimed at demographics that tend to vote against them. It just happens that being racist is a good way to do that right now.

I don't vote personally, because I know absolutely nothing about politics. And in my opinion you shouldn't vote if you aren't politically aware. But that's just me!

It's not that hard to find out enough to get you to the point of being able to cast a decently informed vote.

Even a first-order pass, (decide what you consider important, read the platforms, pick the one that you most agree with on the important stuff), will often have you making the 'right' vote for you. Also remember that with multi-vote ballots it's OK to say something like "I don't know enough about $Office to decide who is best" and skipping that one vote.

Election day needs to be a national holiday. People might be more apt to vote if they didn't need to work.

^this.

I will never understand how American can label itself as a democracy with a straight face, and yet not have compulsory voting. Madness.

You have the right to vote, just like the right to have a gun or the right to free press. Not everyone owns a gun, not everyone prints a newspaper, but they could if the wanted to. If it was compulsory, it wouldn't be a right.

Does any Democracy has mandatory voting?

Brazil's does. And a few others, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

-Spiritwolf.

Counterpoint: Brazil sucks.

Also the same article highlights very easy 1st Amendment challenges on such a concept in the US. Of the nations that actually enforce those laws, which are only half of those with them, you've got the typical weirdos. Luxembourg does it only for those above 70?! Singapore makes sense. Everything else is mandatory there...

Still when one thinks 'modern democracies', the typical Western European nations like the UK, France, Germany come to mind, not Argentina or Uruguay. So how can America call itself a Democracy and not have compulsory voting? The same way most Democracies do who don't have it or didn't have it, including Athens.

A lot more people need to care about voting. And not just when it's for the president. I, at least, did my part. Didn't count for much, but it was still WELL worth my time to go and do it.

I dunno. never understood people not voting, tend to chide people for not doing it. I vote unless I'm literally unable. Even if I don't have a candidate to support, I write in none of the above. It still saddens me that we have such a shit record in off years. It's what really kills us every damn time.

Sometimes it's about losing the battle so you can win the war.

This is actually something to be optimistic on if the democrats can stop being cowards;

-The party just lost a group of legislators that were a liability in that they put pressure on Obama to delay the executive action on immigration... for their own offices sake. Since their influence has been reduced, I'd imagine this means the democrats have a less awkward position to work from.

Again, this all depends on the democrats actually being bold and hard. The age reaching across the aisle is over, for now at least.

That kind of thing just absolutely floors me, regardless of what party you ascribe to. Then again, I always vote. If it's a race for fucking water utility commissioner, I vote.

Very few political adds in general have any substance. Most are cherry picked quotes and video clips no matter who the candidate is. Both red and blue sling the same mud.

I'm 29 and I went to vote. And I have done so in past years too.

Presidental votes get a lot more participation because the entire nation is talking about it for so long, that people eventually either pick a candidate to identify with or decide not to vote at all. A senate race only happens in the state though, so there are a lot fewer people discussing them. Plus, it's not a vote for the entire white house and cabinets, but 1/100th of a decision by the senate. And even then, most candidates "vote with the party", so each individual vote at the polls seems so insignificant, even though people as a whole could certainly sway things by affecting the majority.

I live in NC. I voted for incumbent democrat Kay Hagan. She was seemingly ahead for most of the campaign, rallying behind her continued support for important things like education and environmental safety (there's been this coal ash dump thing...). Then Thom Tillis and the rest of the republicans basically campaigned on "Hagan votes with Obama. Vote for me and I won't do that." And he barely won by less than 2% on Tuesday, basically on anti-Obama sentiments that partially come from all the trouble ISIS has caused overseas (beheading american journalists) and Obama being "unable" to deal with it enough.

And that's why I don't like the right wing now taking over as senate majority. I don't know what other senators in other states campaigned on, but odds are, most of them are the same as Tillis and a bunch of other past candidates- "I won't vote with Obama." And that's not a proactive stance on anything. What do you do other than say no to Obama, who's putting down decent ideas and leadership? Even if you disagree with what Obama's up to, simply rejecting every bill that Mitch McConnell or Ted Cruz isn't supporting because it's not ultra conservative leads to these worthless years that Congress have been wasting doing very little other than shutting down the government temporarily. And that isn't just me flapping my gums...they've statistically passed way fewer bills in recent years than in previous ones.

2 more years of Obama + Republican majority in both the house AND senate basically means deadlock Washington doing nothing worthwhile. And it's not Obama's fault. He sincerely does reach across the aisle quite a bit. But over the past 3-4 years it's been "Appeal Obamacare or we agree to nothing." And that doesn't work.

Its a tragic situation. For all his many faults, I can't believe that Obama has been anything but good intentioned. Its actually saddening to see how many times there were chances for compromise (how much could the ACA been fixed up if GOP members hadn't been so ruthlessly pushing for its dismemberment) yet the GOP slapped them aside; the ideological divide between the two parties is now so extreme that its not really possible to ask for compromise without one side having to allow its guts get strewn across the street. Just seeing how furious many liberals (TYT being a great multimedia example) have been with Obama on his attempts at compromise shows the liberal side of this polarization.

Regardless, we get the government we deserve. That said, this is a maddening situation (im a registered republican btw... but one who tends to go for democrats), and its just another sign of just how inept the American public is knowing the collective head from its arse.

-The propaganda spewing around out there can be discredited with a 5 second search on google in some cases, and about 20 minutes of research in most others. Democracy cannot function if the citizenry will not do its own homework, period. If people won't do that, then the people are the problem.

-A lot of pundits were talking about how the 'latino vote' wanted to punish Obama for not taking executive action on immigration (which if true, represents extreme stupidity in that such a short sighted pettiness doesnt work too well when inaction leads to a wildly anti immigration party gains power). Children's games are not good models for political strategy.

-Don't get me started on how the right wing radicals have brainwashed our aging (and increasingly, medically senile) voting population of baby boomers who I cannot describe how furious I am with. I can literally see this brainwashing IN MY OWN PARENTS. Its a pathetic sight to see my dad parotting the nonsense from creepers like Mark Levin like its gospel truth, then frightening to realize perhaps a quarter of the country believes it.

-Democrats have done little to make themselves palatable to voters outside of issues such as women, labor rights and environmental issues. On economics, I think they're just as clueless as republicans. Sure its great to bash corporations (I dislike them as well), but to offer equally dysfunctional setups is not a way to go. Democrats such as Clinton and Obama pushed for massive neoliberal agendas such as NAFTA and TPP (respectively), which are foolish and silly political moves designed to advance American hegemony dressed up as hippy peacenik programs to 'bring humanity together.' Since Americans can't compete with child laborers making 16 cents an hour, this hasn't exactly been a great thing for our economy.

-The perceived influence of radical feminism has reached (I think) a critical mass where young liberal men are starting to get scared off from the a party that seems to be pushing for loony toons laws written by people who either are clueless about how human sexuality works or are too cowardly to say no to mentally unstable banshees. This is an issue that WILL drive people to the Republican party; don't kid yourself, when people start to feel threatened (also note this is why more people are homeschooling) in the public sphere they will go to the side that claims to protect them.

Apathy

Most people are stupid. What do you want?

Here is some GOOD insight: www.theblogofgenius.com

"Why on earth would you vote for a politician that can't even touch on a single issue of policy?"

This is why I don't vote for politicians that don't touch on a single issue of policy. More often than not (every single time actually) this means I either vote for myself or leave the Senator space blank.

This is also probably why those people didn't vote. But vote or not, someone red or blue is getting elected, so even if you vote for a different party it's still like you didn't vote at all. But hey, taking a voter out of the pool is nice.

Here is a reason to vote third party if you don't like either of the big two:

He might not win, but if both big two candidates know that the guy from the Whatsit Party is going to draw even 5% of the vote it becomes worth their time to make a deal with him and trade support for some of his issues in exchange for him staying out of the race and endorsing someone.

Let's see if my opinion winds up helping at all.

A lot of conservatives are just that; conservative. They do want the benefits of liberal policy, but they're jumpy about the possibility of their taxes being raised, their values being sold out, more regulation of what they perceive as their limited rights, or programs which promise the moon and deliver a lot of red tape. If you scare these guys, they'll get scared. I suspect a lot of the rank and file don't expect to get that much out of Republican leadership, so much as they fear losing with Democrat leadership.

A fair number of these people are hugely indoctrinated. If you have your job, and let's say you have a family or some community issues, you're not swimming in energy to research things, so if you're researching things, it's probably turning on the mainstream news, or you're talking to people in your community, church especially, and these aren't unbiased sources. What's more you've been indoctrinated from grade school with the way liberals will want to spend crap-tons of tax dollars to little effect on seemingly every demographic other than yours. You've been indoctrinated that, Black or northerner or stereotypical college graduate, anything to the left of Dubya is almost a completely alien demographic to you; a clueless ivory tower college grad at best, and an actively selfish danger at worst, so you're bringing your own unconscious bias into your take on the biased news and biased churchy talk. A lot of what you're seeing in ads is basically the candidate saying "I am not alien to you; I am actually part of your demographic" and while this isn't always true, sometimes it is -- so no, it's not about actual issues here.

What King said about most apparent evil being actually ignorance is very very literal here. This is how you get a lot of ordinary southerners who aren't necessarily terrible people, voting to basically screw all of us, themselves included.

i live in Florida... where the butterfly ballot and the notorious Bush vs Gore election mess made the Supreme Court stop the recount and we wound up the Bush. Thanks to young folks not voting, re-elected Rick "Skeletor" or "Lord Valdemort" Scott as governor. Yeah... Charlie Crist was not a gem either, but I voted for him because he was the lesser worst of both. I have voted for every election since I became a citizen back in 1992. Now this country is going to see whether the Republicans are really going to work... or are just going to dismantle and obstruct anything President Obama does for the next two years. already the chairman of the RNC said he doesn't believe anything the President says, (Remember the congressman who shouted "LIAR!" during one of his early speeches?) also the fact that the Republicans since day one vowed to make it difficult for anything the President does? Funny, how they forget the mess G.W. Bush made of this country and that our economy was collapsing just as Bush left office and left it all for Obama to clean up.

"Waaah, it's everyone else's fault that nobody likes Obama anymore!"

Dude, you don't get less than 50% approval ratings because of Republican obstruction.

I'd love to hear the Republicans if all Democrats said they would make sure that they would make sure a Republican President was only a one term President and that they would all make sure none of his policies or legislation get approved.

So it's the Republican's fault the Democrats lacked the testicular fortitude to stand up to Bush?

Don't forget how important winning states is: The party that holds a state is also the party that runs the election in that state. It's why you have states where if you live in a white area you get to voting within 10 minutes of arriving but if you live in a black area you can expect to stand in line for hours.

Slacktivism. People like the ones you mention here care about politics, but not enough to really, actually put in an effort.

Oh, they may be wearied by the relentless election-mongering, or faced difficulties because of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrat-leaning voters, or sick of Obama's poor record on NSA or drone attacks, or sick of the Congress and its dysfunction... there are lots of reasons and excuses. But in the end, it comes down to them not caring enough, or believing they matter.

It's an old problem. When the Republicans are unhappy with their representatives, they vote harder to get people they like in. When the Democrats are unhappy, they stay home.

Although the election didn't turn out the way I'd have preferred (I did vote but I'm over 35 so eh), I think that nonetheless an important victory was won.

Sure the republicans took the senate. But to do it, they had to move a lot more to the center, and away from the extremes of ideologies that have made for such terrible sound bites over the last few years. It's a subtle change, but an important one.

My bf and I are both under 35 (29 and 33), voted, and are really disappointed with the overall results, even though important measures passed in our state. That so many people would vote against their own interests is baffling (not really). And that so many would simply not vote at all (which isn't any sort of "statement" against anything. grr.) is indeed frustrating.*

Dems dropped the ball and didn't step up. The Repub did with their money and candidate strategies.

I wish we could try and see the good (as BoingGoat mentions about shifting away from more extreme ideologies) but I have absolutely no doubt that the shift away from those ideologies will be short-lived. The shift occurred to win the spot---now they have the spot. They've flip-flopped before and there's no reason to think they won't again. So yeah, at this point...sigh.

* To be fair, voter laws do make it more difficult for certain people to vote, have been shown to benefit a particular party and are increasingly being pushed by said party.

I'm a liberal, I'm somewhat pissed off, and I voted in Texas. I didn't vote straight-party, either (some of the Democrat candidates were incompetent for the offices they were looking to occupy). The propaganda machine is highly effective down here. People, especially in rural areas, are fed a constant IV drip of right-wing hate mongering, full of lies and distortions. It's not surprising that they think the (D) after someone name stands for "Demonic." More people could have taken advantage of early voting (which included at least one full weekend). I can't account for the perception that voting doesn't work. "Have you even, y'know, actually TRIED it?" Hi ho.

As for what happened... The Dems ran from their base and tossed Obama under the bus instead of running on the accomplishments of their party's (and president's) sucesses. They began sounding like Republicans. Every 2 term president has faced this same situation where the second half of the second term, the opposing party won the majority of both Senate and House. Now lets see if the minority party can filibuster the way the Republicans did. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

There was also the "lost registration forms", machines that selected Republican regardless who you voted for and polling stations that opened late but closed on time. Yes, voter suppression is alive and well and now that even more states are turned red, the 2016 election should be a circus to watch.

‘If the election does not get me something‘, these people reason, ‘then why should I go through all the trouble of interfering with my life to go and vote -- especially when my vote is only one in maybe a hundred thousand?’

If their vote was worth a hundred of everyone else’s votes, then maybe they would go. But voting just like everyone else, having their single vote count for no more than everyone else’s means that they are not special. So they do not waste their precious time -- and would rather just sit at home playing their my video games where they can make believe that they are special.

People today are much more self-centered and ‘it’s all about ME’ then they were half-a-century ago.

The up-side of this “if it is not about me personally then I am not interested” social phenomena is that the votes of those who DO vote count for much more in deciding whose ideas will run the country than those who turn their backs on the whole process and pout.

I totally second your wise statement.

Apathy. A belief that their vote doesn't count. A belief that they don't have a choice whomever they vote for.

People need to think voting will change the status quo if they are to bother to vote at all. In Scotland we had a referendum over independence - over 84% of the electorate voted. That's pretty incredible, but that figure is so high because so many people were certain that their vote was going to make a difference. If people think it's "same shit, different arsehole", they'll be less likely to vote. So it's mostly apathy.

Easy answer: That is the huge, primal disadvantage of democracy. The vast majority of people, anyways of what upbringing or education, is lethargic, uninterested, lazy and unable to conceive the larger connections.

Democracy therefore is dangerous, as the most activated and loudest people will win, in a long term. In every European country the extreme parties are gaining for almost a decade, as their small amount of voters become more important thanks to the deceasing number of voters.

As the majority of people has been, was, is and will be unable to see beyond their own small horizon and to get their ass up if no direct, personal motivatons force them to, democracy is indeed the worst form of government except North Korea.

From what I have seen, it comes down to "national pride" and many far-left leaning Democrats do not seem to have the "I'm proud to be a citizen of this country" mindset and believe it is the governments job to do everything, so they usually distance themselves from politics all together. The nutty conservatives eat American flags for breakfast and shit stars and stripes all day long, so they are some 80% more likely to vote even if it will hurt them... I've seen Republican attack ads that call democrats socialists and communists, while democrat attack ads call republicans "anti-whatever single issue word they want to use" and it just shows both sides are dirty and cut of the same cloth.

It also comes down to how much money massive corporations use to influence one side over another and how many ads the media runs promoting one side over another, remember we live in a "Crony Capitalism" country not a democracy or free market. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/201.....-game-changed/ One has to realize most people are easily led and influenced by things as stupid as the amount of and the font and colors of a "vote for me" sign in someones front yard, or the lies and pandering and fear mongering politicians do on both sides of the divide to get or keep their cushy government job. There are hundreds of millions of dollars poured into psychological studies every year to see what can be done to influence the general public at large. A lot of times it is that old trick of putting a normal guy in a lab coat and telling people he is a doctor, and they will believe he is a doctor. Most don't look beyond the big D or R on the ticket and vote for what they always vote for, even supposedly educated people will do this.

I really miss the moderates that used to be able to agree and shake hands in the middle. Maybe one day we can have a third party that is in the middle to balance out the extremes from both sides.

Actually, Republicans gained percentages among nearly all demographics, including "young" voters under 30 and ethnic minorities. The overall turnout was slightly lower than in the previous elections but not dramatically so.

I voted and voted Republican! WOOT! :D

I voooteeeed

Some people I know didn't... because they literally had nothing to vote for. So many local/state gov't positions, and in their case [i]all three house reps[i], ran uncontested.

I voted. I voted for a libertarian if the office had one (save state Attorney General, where I went with the Republican). If not, I voted for the Republican. If an office had only one choice, which a lot of city positions did (Democrat only), I didn't vote in that field, because that's not fucking how democracy works.

The kicker? It didn't matter anyway, because I'm from the district of the shit-state where all the Democrats easily won.

Oh, and the other kicker?!

I. Am. A. Registered. Democrat.

Not from USA, but for me the principle stands this way: A person complain about something, that person better can say yes to "you voted then, and then and then?" Because that' s is, that' s your participation to democracy, you don´t vote, you don´t get to complain. If ypou think voting is someone else ' s task you are a freeloader on the pollitical spectre of the thing.