15 Political Questions for 2015

The beginning of 2015 will bring the first candidates for the 2016 elections to the forefront. Even though the elections are still nearly two years away, the game is on! These are Politico's questions for this year in preparation for 2016. I only listed the first 5 with my own commentary, but the rest are also interesting and deserve a read!

1. Can Hillary change?
An important question, since she will clearly need to appeal to more people to win this time around. (Having lost once before.)
2. Who emerges as the left's Hillary alternative?
It's an interesting point-there are many options, and the Democratic party needs to decide where their allegiances lie.
3. How far will Hillary distance himself from Obama?
I think it depends on what Obama does between now and election time.
4. Does Jeb scare anyone off from running?
More importantly, does Jeb have a chance himself?
5. What is Rand's ceiling?
I think that depends on whether the Republicans can find anyone who's more sane and likable.

Steve Scalise Says he is NOT a Supremacist

The new Republican whip, Steve Scalise, was accused by certain Democrats earlier this week of having supremacist tendencies. We're used to politicians accusing each other of things, but I think it's an important aspect of being a public figure to research your claims before you publish them. In this case, we have a badly supported claim. The evidence? A speech he gave to a group in Louisiana as a state legislator. The group was founded by a member of the Ku-Klux-Klan and has been classified as a hate group. But the largest hole in the accusation? The speech was 12 years ago and was only one in a series of many speeches he gave to inform the public of a new tax bill.
Now, I don't agree with many Republicans in many ways, but accusing a probably innocent man of being a supremacist? That's a little too far. Isn't it?

original story:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-leader-i-regret-speech-to-white-supremacists/ar-BBhlRe5

Well, folks, it is 11:00 at night and I'm sitting here staring at the screen waiting for election results! Tomorrow when the official results are released I will edit this post and add the real numbers, but thus far almost nothing  is happening the way I would have chosen...congrats to all of you who voted for the first time today, I was excited and I hope that you were too!
 UPDATE: Love V.  Owens is currently 47, 49, respectively!!

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/is-the-ebola-crisis-affecting-the-midterm-elections/

Will the threat of Ebola affect midterm election results??

This one is very interesting. Brought to you by Harry Enten of 538, this article is an argument against Politico's allegation earlier in the week that the threat of Ebola would cause more people to vote Republican in the coming weeks. It argues that just because people have less confidence in the government, it doesn't mean they will desert their party. (This reminds me of our Unit Two test.) Enten writes that whichever party isn't in "control" at the moment will automatically have distrust for the federal government-for example, when the presidency switched from Bush to Obama, the confidence switched from Republican to Democrat. 

Also interestingly, he claims that people are concerned about Ebola about as much as people were concerned about the swine flu in 2009. And there have only been 3 cases in our country, think what the panic could be like in another few months!  

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/10/19/24-7-wall-st-worst-states-women/17344861/

Utah Ranked Worst State for Women???

Based on recent Census Bureau, USA Today published a listing of the ten worst states for women, and our very own state ended up in the first spot. This is why-

 

> Gender wage gap: 70 cents per dollar (4th worst)
> Poverty rate, women: 13.6% (13th lowest)
> Pct. in state legislature: 16.3% (6th lowest)
> Infant mortality rate: 5.0 per 1,000 births (2nd lowest)

Perhaps we don't notice these discrepancies because we live here and this is just life to us. 

I would be curious though, (forgive me for being defensive of our wonderful state) if the results would be the same if other factors were considered? For instance, I don't see any suicide or depression rates, and while I'm not saying women here can't be depressed, I am saying that there are important other factors in the "worst state for women" that should probably be included. Perhaps domestic abuse or rape percentages, education levels, etc. 

That being said-to the girls in the class-let's make the "% in state legislature" statistic a little higher, sometimes I definitely feel a bit under-represented! 

Original story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/18/politics/texas-voter-id-law/index.html

Supreme Court Approves New Texas Voter Law

Two days before early voting starts in Texas, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could keep the new voter law they've decided to enforce. According to this law, citizens must show state-issued identification in order to vote at the polls. At first glance, this seems pretty simple. The only problem? As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her (7 page!) dissent to the decision, about 600,000 citizens of Texas don't have state-issued identification. Further, a large majority of these citizens are African-American or Hispanic, which, at least in my mind and the minds of the three dissenting judges, sets off an alarm pointing back to the old Jim Crow laws that the Civil Rights movement abolished in the 60's. For this election, at least, the voters of Texas will have to show ID to get into the polls, but with further argument and review, the Republican government of Texas may change their plans. 

In my opinion, this kind of thing is the reason Texas may soon become a state of Democrats, if they aren't more careful to listen to the overwhelming presence of minorities. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scott-brown-elect-republicans-to-make-america-safer/

Scott Brown: Elect Republicans to make America "safer"......?

Here's an interesting interview to look at! Scott Brown is a Republican running for the Senate in New Hampshire (he's already been a Senator for Massachusetts) and his claim is that Obama's leadership is the reason the United States is so vulnerable to the problems in other countries. He discusses several problems in the Middle East and blames the lack of American leadership in the world for the problems in governments half a world away from here. So far, this just seems like a matter of opinion, right? A typical situation-one candidate is throwing the other one's party under the bus just to get ahead. But Wait! It gets better! Scott then claims that if Republicans were in charge, they would fix it. They would set America on a safer path through this confusion. 

This is the problem I see, folks-plenty of states have elected Republicans as leaders and yet...the leadership seems no better or worse from the representatives of either party. Obama is not the only person who can do anything about it. Ultimately, if they are in unison and willing to work together, I believe that Congress can be even stronger than the President. 

So, I will believe Mr. Brown when he proves that the Republicans can be cooperative, true leaders as he claims they can be. Until then-I would suggest that supporting the President (even when you don't fully agree with him) is probably a better way to keep us safe than blocking him as every turn.