Month: January 2013
Online Voter Registration Pushes Total of California Voters to 18.2 Million – GOP Share Drops Below 30%
Although California’s new online voter registration system did not open until September last year and was only available for 45 days, it accounted for more than half of the 1.4 million new voters who registered in advance of the November elections.
The number of registered Republicans in California dropped below 30 percent for the first time in over a century.
Not surprisingly, since this was its intent, of the 590,788 voters who registered online, 46 percent were 18 to 29 years old. Thirty percent were between 18 and 24.
The new registrations put the number of registered voters in Californian at 18,245,970, or 76.7 percent of those who are eligible [PDF].
This good news for democracy represented yet more bad news for the California Republican Party, which saw its percentage of registered voters drop below 30 percent for the first time since the 19th century. The party now represents 29.3 percent of the state’s electorate. That’s down from 31.4 percent four years ago.
Democrats represent 43.66 percent of registered voters in the state, while 21 percent are independents.
Shazam! Jim Nabors and Longtime Male Partner Marry in Washington State
For those of you saying, “Well golllleee, I didn’t know Jim Nabors was still around,” yeah, I know. But the 82-year-old Hawaii resident and his 60-something partner Stan Cadwallader flew to Seattle recently to tie the knot, now that such things are legal in Washington State.
Nabors says you’ve got to solidify something when you’ve been together as long as they have.
They couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter.
Nabors says he’s been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.
Maybe times have changed enough to do a new version of Gomer Pyle, USMC featuring a Marine who can be openly gay.
Best wishes to Nabors and Cadwallader.
Who Can Build a Second GOP?
It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton … Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who’s going to build a second G.O.P.?
— David Brooks, writing in the New York Times.
Her Golden Tongue
As the first momma grizzly VP candidate we ever heard,
Sarah Palin will always and forever be remembered.
So her words are like gold,
Or so we’ve been told —
Fox News paid her three million bucks, or $16 per word.
Treasury Department Approved ‘Excessive’ Raises at Bailed-Out Companies
$1 million
The largest raise approved by the U.S. Treasury Department, according to an inspector general’s report that found approved “excessive” salaries and raises at firms that received taxpayer-funded bailouts during the financial crisis. The report said Treasury approved all 18 requests — 14 for $100,000 or more — it received last year to raise pay for executives at American International Group Inc., General Motors Corp. and Ally Financial Inc.
There Is Broad Support for Women in Combat
66%
Of Americans support allowing women in the military to serve in ground units that engage in close combat, while just 26% are opposed, a new Pew Research survey finds.
Same GOP Chair and Members Reach Same GOP Conclusions
We’ve heard it before. “Compassionate conservatism” springs to mind. But the GOP’s search for reasons behind the trouncing it took in the 2012 elections will continue to prove fruitless as long as the party keeps coming up with the reassuring but false answer that they just need to improve their talking points.
Steve Benen, on the Maddow Blog:
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus declared, “It’s not the platform of the party that’s the issue. In many cases, it’s how we communicate about it. It is a couple dumb things that people have said.”
Benen: GOP officials took a long look in the mirror and decided… they’re awesome just the way they are!An RNC member from West Virginia added, “We don’t need a new pair of shoes; we just need to shine our shoes.”
I see. So a few months after a national election in which President Obama won re-election fairly easily, Senate Democrats unexpectedly expanded their majority, and House Democrats received well over 1 million more votes than House Republicans, GOP officials took a long look in the mirror and decided … they’re awesome just the way they are.
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