USA Politics

Speaking of extramarital affairs, funny story from Wisconsin, one of the Republican State Senators currently under recall's own wife signed to have him recalled, also saying he is living out of district with his 25 year old mistress.

I lol'd.

Hardcore buyer's remorse in Ohio as well, according to PPP, Gov. John Kasich (R) has an approval rating of 35% vs 54% who disapprove, a net -19%.
 
The Wisconsin guy, even though I agree with him on the issue, picked a bad time to hook up with a young (and I hope for his sake) hottie.

Re: Kasich or any other new governor, the polls at this point really do not matter.  Every state is in varying degrees of budget crisis and ones like Kasich that are cutting things popular with some people and making decisions that in many cases had been put off for years will have their ratings slide.  If in 3 years the economy is better and the budget is in good shape, he'll be re-elected ... if not, he will not (same with any other governor) ... on the more national scale, I am sure the GOP hopes this turns around by 2012 as they have a shot at Brown's Senate seat and if they have any hope of beating Obama, they need to win Ohio.
 
Kasich is lucky - there's no recall rules for state-wide officials in Ohio. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure he'd be on the chopping block soon.

The polls may not matter for Kasich, but his policies are important. Ohio isn't in the news as much, but I'm pretty tapped in to a few people there. They tell me that there's hardcore grassroots movements going on in Ohio right now, similar to Wisconsin. If that momentum sustains, it will be a very, very bad year for the GOP in 2012 in the midwest.

Have you been paying attention to Maine, where it looks like one of their senators (I can't remember if it is Snowe or Collins, whichever one is up I expect) is going to get primaried out by a teabagger.
 
I think a Tea Party challenge has been exprected in Maine for some time.  Re: Ohio (and really the rust belt in general), I am not really sure the anger is anti-GOP, recall they kicked out the Dems in large numbers just last Novermber and Brown is in trouble for the Senate seat.  I think there is a general anti-incumbant feeling.  I googled the polls in Ohio and amongst independants his negatives are 52%, 70% with Dems, 20% with the GOP.  I tend to think those numbers will improve over time with the GOP/Indies ...
 
I think it was that way - I think the union-busting efforts of the GOP governments are going to hurt hard in the long run. Brown's poll numbers haven't been updated recently, I think PPP is doing another poll there soon. I'll have to find it.

Brown is a nobody, and that always hurts when you're a senator.
http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/03/brown-looking-better-for-reelection.html

Here's that poll I was talking about. Looks like Brown's heads and tails above all likely challengers and beats Drew Carey (yes, the Drew Carey) as well. Carey is the best polling challenger to Brown but appears highly unlikely to pass a GOP primary.
 
I think Brown can easily be tagged as a leftist in a general election, I would suspect his negatives will go way up once a campaign actually starts.

I'm not sure going against the public unions really hurt much, they were already going to spend a ton of money against the GOP and organize for dems as they always have.  I think people like Walker/Kasich/Christie are on the right side of this issue.  By the time their elections come around and they can point to a balanced budget versus states like Illinois/CA where governors have failed to act as they should and those states are a mess, they will swing voters their way. 
 
I dunno. The numbers have swung something fierce. I think the GOP organizers who (rightly) targeted the unions as a major cause of GOP defeat in the Wisconsin through Pennsylvania area have misread the public's attitude towards the same unions. It all comes down to whether or not the organizers can keep this level of anger and outrage, as well as the willingness of Dems to vote.

Basically, the reason the GOP won so big had nothing to do with them getting additional voters - it was because of the enthusiasm gap. That's gone now.
 
I guess the answer is "we'll see" the elections are a ways off and beyond the incumbants, the candidates are not defined.  My thought on this is if the policy works, the majority of the public will end up agreeing with it.  If it does not work, then the opposite is true.  In any case, a poor economy will still be a drag on any incumbant when they come up for re-election.
 
Indeed on the economy bit.

I guess the way I see it is that the union-busting provisions were pretty much admitted by the Wisconsin GOP to be not budget related when they decoupled it from the budget and passed it in the middle of the night. I thought the unions agreed to fair compromise (IE: everything financial that the government wanted).
 
LooseCannon said:
Indeed on the economy bit.

I guess the way I see it is that the union-busting provisions were pretty much admitted by the Wisconsin GOP to be not budget related when they decoupled it from the budget and passed it in the middle of the night. I thought the unions agreed to fair compromise (IE: everything financial that the government wanted).
Click to expand...

I think the role of the public union will and should be debated, In general terms I  think they have been harmful to the general public, others may disagree.  This is a debate currently going on in Texas as well as many other states.  From a pure political standpoint, the GOP can point to the CA Prison unions, several teachers unions, etc as being harmful to the public interest.  I am sure the Dems have counter arguments.  How the government delivers it's contracts is, IMO, huge in budgets.  I have seen a few articles that while this bill was waiting to be passed several WI municiplaities gave out some generous union contracts/kickbacks.  I think Christie was much better politically on this issue than Walker, but from a policy perspective, it was a good move.  You even had Obama speaking out a bit about Teachers unions before the WI issue flared up


http://www.abc4.com/content/news/nation ... nBClw.cspx
 
I'm not sure breaking the unions is the way to go. Fact of the matter is that US teachers are some of the worst paid in the modern world. Something is clearly wrong with what happens with them, and they do need someone to speak out. The WI union was particularly co-operative.

My thought is some unions are worse than others, and some are more than willing to work with the public. Case by case basis I suppose.
 
I am mixed on Public Unions. They can provide workers with wages and benefits that they may not have without a union and they can be effective when having a grevience with management. But, legacy costs for retirees and management not being able to terminate truly bad employees are the other side of the coin. The PBA is an example of a good Public union. The NEA is an examplr of one not as good. I was in the AFL CIO for a while and they did'nt shellack me too bad on dues. I got mandatory pay increases, time off and if my boss was giving me a hassle, I'd go to my shop stewart. But that was a job in the private sector, not providing an essential vital service.
 
Oh, I agree that they should be unable to protect people who are terrible at the jobs. Or protect unnecessary jobs.
 
We had employees who were completely hammered at work and had to be sent home. They would be terminated. Two weeks later, they are back at work and the company also owed them the time they missed. Plus we had guys high up in seniority who did dick at work, while the probational employees had to bust their asses.
 
My problem is less with the cost but how they direct policy and harm the public IMO.   All the time you see politicians (of both parties) runnign after the police endorsement as to look tough on crime to the public, in reality most of the time that endorsement is "bought" with promises to the union for better pensions, adding in tons of overtime, etc.   Look at the CA Prison union for one of the worst offenders of this when you have prison guards making over 100K per year.  Nothing against police and guards, for the most part they do a fine job, but associating that endorsement as an example of the candidate best on crime issues is BS.  

Beyond that, the rules to remove ineffective teachers, cops, guards, firemen and raises based on senority versus performance is a real problem for me.  the public unions goal is to protect it's memeber while at the same time saying they are the "guardians of the children" is BS when they actively lobby against reforms that would help kids really ticks me off.  I think it is way past time to take them on.  
 
Oh, I get it. Maybe it would make more sense to enact rules prohibiting politicians from bribing unions rather than breaking the unions themselves. I agree that it is wrong of politicians to curry favour in such ways.
 
The guy running for Sherrif of my county had the backing of the union and still lost. They do influence elections, but I don't think they can game the system. My biggest gripe is legacy costs for retirees. The problem for GM was that UAW employees were 100% vested with 30 years of service, which is a longtime of service, but alot of UAW employees were retiring at 50-55 years old, and GM is facing 30 years of pension payments for each retiree. That is what is gonna kill Social Secuirity. We are starting to have the Baby Boomers collecting at 65, and they aree gonna live another 15-20 years. When it was instituted, Social security was only supposed to last 5-7 per beneficiary. That is someone collecting $800 aq month per beneficiary, not $1200 a month with a beneficiary with a pension.
 
The keeping poor workers on the job is the biggest problem I have, take teachers for example, the state should be able to take good teachers no matter how long they have been on the job and pay them more, poor teachers should be let go.  When there are budget cuts like many states are having now it is the last in first out method, it should be those who perform the worst going first.  For a union that says they are there for the children, this really shows how BS this claim is.

My real problem with public unions are the government should be trying to get the best value for the money they spend and they money they spend should not include things like so much OT where bus drivers in Madison, WI make over 100K/year.  Government is supposed to have the broader public interest at heart given the only way they have money is that they take money that people earn, a public union has completely different interests that harms the public as a whole both in financial terms, but also by protecting poor workers in key areas of education and public safety.  Honestly, I think these unions should not exist at all or exist with much more limited powers and it should be easy for workers who disagree with the unions political lobbying to opt out of the union. 

I think what is now law in WI is a step towards ending this.  You can hear the Dems complain about taking away union right in WI, but I have not seen them looking to gove federal workers those same rights when they had the chance, because I think they know it is bad public policy.  Even liberal icon FDR was against them.
 
I think unions should have a right to exist. And I agree with legacy costs, they are hazardous, sure. But the Union in Wisconsin was more than willing to pay their fair share (a jump from 1% to 6.5%). Each state and union is different. Some are better than others in terms of what percentage of these costs they bare, along with the state.

Again, I think teachers are severely underpaid. They should be making upwards of 100k/year, to ensure the best people are teaching the youth. That is a pipe dream, but when your average starting salary for a teacher is a full third lower than other starting positions with equivalent levels of required education, you create a situation which cannot be sustained. Unions have helped that imbalance.

There's thousands of public sector unions, and I don't think that regulating them is a bad idea - just like I don't think regulating any part of the economy is a bad idea, and I believe that firing bad teachers/bus drivers/nurses is a good idea. But most importantly, we should make sure these jobs pay competitively and have good benefits compared to other similar areas, so that we get good people in the slots to begin with.
 
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