17-10-2013, 04:09
Alright, so when I read through the prez debates topic, there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to talk about. But, now I find I'm too lazy and tired to get into it all. So, I'll just focus on one post from SteveO and try to explain the situation to our friendly neighbor to the North.
Technically speaking, Cruz and the Tea Party aren't/weren't preventing anything. They don't have enough tangible power in Congress to block the vote. However, they do have a lot of power that is not tangible.
I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with the basics of American politics and elections, but just so we're on the same page I'm going to try and explain everything like no one reading this knows any of it. This just helps the whole post flow better and make the explanation easier to understand. I don't intend to come off as a condescending jerk, so please forgive me if you feel like I do.
Anyways, the way politicians get into power is through elections. Typically elections come down to the Democrat candidate and the Republican candidate, although there are various 3rd party candidates (called "Independents"), but their power has been waning significantly throughout the years. Nowdays most people just vote the party line, which means if you're a Democrat, you vote for every Democrat candidate, and if you're Republican, you vote for every Republican candidate. The lack of 3rd party influence is best exemplified in the Presidential Debates where you only see the Democrat candidate and the Republican candidate.
Mini-tangent about 3rd parties aside, to become your party's respective candidate you need to win your party's nomination. Nomination's are decided by what are called "primaries." Primaries are basically just intraparty elections, as opposed to the general elections which are interparty. So, all the Democrats who want to run for President will face off in their own election against each other to figure out who will be the party's official candidate. That's the primary.
Now, primaries tend to draw out the most passionate voters. As mentioned above, with such large quantities of people voting the party line, it doesn't really matter to them who it is that's running, so long as they're a part of the voter's party of choice. So, what you get during primary season, is the party base coming out to vote. To deal with this, candidates typically move further away from the center during the primaries to appeal to the extreme-base of their party. So, during Democrat primaries the candidates move further left, and during the Republican primaries the candidates move further right. Then when the general election comes and more people are interested the candidates will try to appeal to a broader group of people than just their party's base (mainly the voters who do not belong to a party, hoping they'll forgo wasting their vote on a 3rd party candidate). During this you'll see candidates move closer to the center to look more moderate and thus more favorable to a larger number of people. That's why so many Mitt Romney supporters were angry that Santorum wasn't dropping out during the 2012 Presidential Primaries; the longer Santorum stayed in and accumulated votes from the Republican party's base (the "Tea Party"), the further away from the center Romney had to move to beat Santorum in the primaries and get the party nomination. This made his move back to the center against Obama a lot more complicated than it needed to be.
So, now that we've established what happens during primaries, we get to the Ted Cruz and Tea Party situation. The Tea Party started as super extreme Republicans, and voted in a bunch of their guys in 2010 during the primaries and general elections. However, they take a super hardnose approach to politics. Ted Cruz has kind of assumed the role as de facto leader of the party as he sets himself up for a Presidential run in 2016. So, with Cruz as the Tea Party's leader saying he refuses to open the Government until Obamacare is defunded, the Tea Party members across the country think the country needs more Ted Cruz' in Congress. So, the more moderate Republicans are afraid to go against Cruz and the Tea Party because they can be challenged during the primaries by a candidate who is further right than the incumbents are, and because the primaries draw more off-center voters, the candidates further away from the center will typically win. So, the Republicans in office now are afraid to go against Cruz and the Tea Party because they'll look like they're moderate and lose their party's nomination during the next primary season. So basically what you have is Ted Cruz and the other members of the Tea Party holding the moderate Republicans in Congress up, saying that if you vote against us, our base will come out and vote you out next election, so no one wants to cross the line and lose their job.
Its like when a small business' workers go on strike. They don't have the numbers to beat the management, so some members will want to negotiate a less good deal for themselves just so that they can get "something." However, they know that if they "cross the line" and negotiate with the owner(s), the other workers will look at them as sell-outs and try and get rid of them. That's basically what you have with Ted Cruz and the Tea Party. No actual tangible power to impact anything, but the threat of a swift knockout punch at a later point in time.
Does this help clear things up SteveO?
Quote:One last breath from the guy up north...is it true that Cruz and The Tea Party are keeping the rest of the Republicans from voting for "ObamaCare" ? Why? Surely they don't out number the other Republicans ? Please enlighten me my American friends!
Technically speaking, Cruz and the Tea Party aren't/weren't preventing anything. They don't have enough tangible power in Congress to block the vote. However, they do have a lot of power that is not tangible.
I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with the basics of American politics and elections, but just so we're on the same page I'm going to try and explain everything like no one reading this knows any of it. This just helps the whole post flow better and make the explanation easier to understand. I don't intend to come off as a condescending jerk, so please forgive me if you feel like I do.
Anyways, the way politicians get into power is through elections. Typically elections come down to the Democrat candidate and the Republican candidate, although there are various 3rd party candidates (called "Independents"), but their power has been waning significantly throughout the years. Nowdays most people just vote the party line, which means if you're a Democrat, you vote for every Democrat candidate, and if you're Republican, you vote for every Republican candidate. The lack of 3rd party influence is best exemplified in the Presidential Debates where you only see the Democrat candidate and the Republican candidate.
Mini-tangent about 3rd parties aside, to become your party's respective candidate you need to win your party's nomination. Nomination's are decided by what are called "primaries." Primaries are basically just intraparty elections, as opposed to the general elections which are interparty. So, all the Democrats who want to run for President will face off in their own election against each other to figure out who will be the party's official candidate. That's the primary.
Now, primaries tend to draw out the most passionate voters. As mentioned above, with such large quantities of people voting the party line, it doesn't really matter to them who it is that's running, so long as they're a part of the voter's party of choice. So, what you get during primary season, is the party base coming out to vote. To deal with this, candidates typically move further away from the center during the primaries to appeal to the extreme-base of their party. So, during Democrat primaries the candidates move further left, and during the Republican primaries the candidates move further right. Then when the general election comes and more people are interested the candidates will try to appeal to a broader group of people than just their party's base (mainly the voters who do not belong to a party, hoping they'll forgo wasting their vote on a 3rd party candidate). During this you'll see candidates move closer to the center to look more moderate and thus more favorable to a larger number of people. That's why so many Mitt Romney supporters were angry that Santorum wasn't dropping out during the 2012 Presidential Primaries; the longer Santorum stayed in and accumulated votes from the Republican party's base (the "Tea Party"), the further away from the center Romney had to move to beat Santorum in the primaries and get the party nomination. This made his move back to the center against Obama a lot more complicated than it needed to be.
So, now that we've established what happens during primaries, we get to the Ted Cruz and Tea Party situation. The Tea Party started as super extreme Republicans, and voted in a bunch of their guys in 2010 during the primaries and general elections. However, they take a super hardnose approach to politics. Ted Cruz has kind of assumed the role as de facto leader of the party as he sets himself up for a Presidential run in 2016. So, with Cruz as the Tea Party's leader saying he refuses to open the Government until Obamacare is defunded, the Tea Party members across the country think the country needs more Ted Cruz' in Congress. So, the more moderate Republicans are afraid to go against Cruz and the Tea Party because they can be challenged during the primaries by a candidate who is further right than the incumbents are, and because the primaries draw more off-center voters, the candidates further away from the center will typically win. So, the Republicans in office now are afraid to go against Cruz and the Tea Party because they'll look like they're moderate and lose their party's nomination during the next primary season. So basically what you have is Ted Cruz and the other members of the Tea Party holding the moderate Republicans in Congress up, saying that if you vote against us, our base will come out and vote you out next election, so no one wants to cross the line and lose their job.
Its like when a small business' workers go on strike. They don't have the numbers to beat the management, so some members will want to negotiate a less good deal for themselves just so that they can get "something." However, they know that if they "cross the line" and negotiate with the owner(s), the other workers will look at them as sell-outs and try and get rid of them. That's basically what you have with Ted Cruz and the Tea Party. No actual tangible power to impact anything, but the threat of a swift knockout punch at a later point in time.
Does this help clear things up SteveO?
