Friday, July 30, 2010

Tale Of Two Parties - Which One Is In Disarray?


Although I am fed up with the politicians robo-calls, laugh at most of the commercials on the tv, and am mainly looking for the main event in November, I still enjoy watching all the games being played out in Georgia in regards to the governors race. What I find especially amusing is stories which has statements like this.
What follows is a story about the state of state politics in Georgia. It's a saga about the difficulty of being a Democrat running for statewide office in Georgia, a state where Republicans rule.

Really? Is that why the most recent governor is the first Republican to hold the office since Reconstruction?

What is making all the buzz around here is the buzz surrounding former governor, Democrat Roy Barnes who lost to said Republican in his reelection bid 8 years ago, trying to stay as far away from Obama as he can, going almost so far as leaving the state, when the PrezBo is here for a DNC fundraiser. Of course it is for the little people, if by little you mean someone who can afford $1,000 to get in the door and for $10,000 you can get a picture.

On the other hand you have Republican candidate for governor Karen Handel who is locked in a runoff race with former US Representative Nathan Deal. Sarah Palin has endorsed Karen and will be coming to Georgia to campaign with, and hold an event with Karen on the eve of the runoff election.

So while at least one of the Republican candidates is running towards someone who is supposed the most toxic substance in existence next to oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, the Democrat is fleeing to parts unknown and denying any knowledge of who this guy Barack Obama is.

Besides the governors race there is also a campaign for one the US Representatives, held by a Democrat, Sanford Bishop, in a solid Democrat area of the state, but one in which even the incumbent Democrat is trying to disassociate himself from Democrat leaders, in particular Nancy Pelosi.

Mr Bishop's Republican challenger,Mike Keown, leveled the charge that Mr Bishop voted with Nancy Pelosi most of the time and the Bishop campaign was quick to deny the allegation. Well Politifact did some digging and welll...
The Washington Post keeps track of votes by each member of Congress. Bishop voted on more items than Pelosi, so we checked every time they voted on the same issue. PolitiFact Georgia reviewed their records and found that Bishop and Pelosi have voted on the same items 97 times since June 2008. The two voted the same way 92 of those 97 times, according to the Post database. The Post database found Pelosi voted with the majority of Democrats every time during this current Congress. Bishop voted with his colleagues in the Democratic Party 97.7 percent of the time during this Congress, the Post found.

When the Bishop campaign disputed the source of the data and provided an alternate Poltifact obliged them and found this.
PolitiFact Georgia also checked the Web site of OpenCongress, which detailed information of each bill. We found 61 pieces of legislation (we excluded a comparison of how they voted on congratulating the New Orleans Saints for winning the Super Bowl) that both Bishop and Pelosi voted on. The two representatives voted the same way for 58 of those 61 bills.

The last fall back statement from the Bishop campaign was of that it was the Republicans fault he voted the way he did.
"It only makes sense that Congressman Bishop would vote with his party to end Republican obstruction," he said.

What is it the Democrats don't understand about them being the party in power with the majority of votes and in truth there is little the Republicans can do to block them?

Sanford Bishop is no different from my Democrat representative, David Scott, who professes to be a Blue Dog but danged if I can find a single spending bill he has voted against.

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