Today’s irritating Drudge headline was this:
USA DOWNGRADED: FIRST CREDIT RATING CUT IN NATION'S HISTORY...
DETAILS [.PDF FILE]...
And here’s Megan McArdle’s reaction to the downgrade:
Americans are not going to be happy about this downgrade. They will blame the GOP. And the GOP is not going to find it easy to defend themselves.
If we assume she’s right about Americans blaming the GOP, does that mean Obama would win again? If the election were held today, the polls show that Obama would lose to a generic Republican.
But… can anyone tell me who is a generic Republican? The reason I’m asking is that even though a Mr. or Ms. Generic Republican beats Obama, when the polls are broken down into the individual candidates in the race, all of them lose to Obama. So far, if we rank them from highest to lowest, the losers against Obama are: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich.
In theory, America wants to vote for a Republican over Barack Obama, but in practice, theory loses out to reality.
MORE: Not that it matters much to the world, but not only don’t I think the United States deserves a triple A credit rating, but I don’t think it is the fault of the Republicans.
Comments
9 responses to “Where is the GOP’s great generic hope?”
wth has happened to McArdle? We “have to” accept higher taxes? Why? At what “balanced point” do taxes become confiscatory and are no longer part of the solution but an important part of the problem?
GEEZ, when 50% of the citizens pay no fed income tax, I don’t think she’s asking for them to kick in…so how much more do we bleed from the people who actually DO pay taxes?
There are some who believe that if Obama is likely to be reelected anyway, it would be better if he gets there in a three way race with less than a majority vote.
so demonrats who have not produced a budget in 2 years are blameless? hey meggie you might want to reconsider.
While Obama wins against a generic Republican in the polls, that should not comfort Democrats. The name ‘generic Republican’ will not be on the ballot. It is easier to beat a ‘generic’ opponent than a real person.
Lately Megan seems to think the GOP is going to be blamed by voters for anything bad.
Nobody who is willing to blame the GOP for this mess is fact-based anyway. You might as well explain the food pyramid to an anorexic. It makes sense to you, but you don’t have an eating disorder and the mental short-circuit that caused the eating disorder.
Obama said there would be unicorns, there are no unicorns, ipso facto the GOP is hiding the unicorns.
We have moved past the time when people’s ignorance is the problem. I see evidence that we’ve lost the ability to learn and understand the ways in which we can find answers.
It’s not that we can’t balance our checkbook because our calculator broke or we’ve got too many unopened bank statements. It’s that we don’t really understand there are numbers or why people would use them.
“Why can’t we get 80% of our students scored as above average?” “Maybe the class size is too big or they don’t have enough computers.”
“Why can’t we tax away the results of hard work and make the workers work overtime?”
If you like Detroit, you’ll love the future.
An author, I’ve forgotten who, describing the public said: “3/4 of the public don’t understand fractions and the other 60% don’t understand percentages.”
Name something that most people do very well very often. I see you people drive all day, every day. It’s a miracle we don’t have 40 million killed on the roads each year. Parents think it’s the school’s fault their kid doesn’t learn. It’s the restaurant’s fault they are fat. It’s Detroit’s fault their SUV doesn’t get 40 MPG, and its the GOP’s fault we can’t spend our way out of a spending crisis.
When the election rolls around the takers will vote for more taking and the makers will accept results. No matter what Obama does 40% will support him and
I’m of the opinion that schools should return to the days of teaching things like logic and rhetoric. (I know there isn’t anyone who can teach those courses anymore, but this is purely wishful thinking on my part). Many of our current political pitfalls could have been avoided if people were able to recognize and dissect an illogical argument.
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