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Old 11-06-2008   #1
Order2Chaos
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Blink Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?

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Old 11-06-2008   #2
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
You just made a good case that we're going to do absolutely nothing.
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Old 11-06-2008   #3
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
It is shocking, isn't it? That said, people do identify with "their" politicians. Many think that there is a problem, but it can't be with "me" or "my" politician.
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Old 11-06-2008   #4
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
Quote:
Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
Nothing you can do about it. The people elect the politicians they want. Not the ones YOU want.
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Old 11-06-2008   #5
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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What the hell are we going to do about this?



Okay, I'll need 4 ragheads, some box cutters and a flight path to the Capital.






















(WOW! Damn, so that was pretty fucking tasteless.... )
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Old 11-06-2008   #6
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
Polls have said this for years. Huge majorities disapprove of Congress and want to "throw the bums out" but solid majorities also think their own congressman deserves reelection. A moment's thought points out the conflict there.
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Old 11-06-2008   #7
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
Nothing you can do about it. The people elect the politicians they want. Not the ones YOU want.

But an 11 percent approval rating would suggest that these are the politicians they don't want.
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Old 11-06-2008   #8
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
Nothing you can do about it. The people elect the politicians they want. Not the ones YOU want.


But an 11 percent approval rating would suggest that these are the politicians they don't want.
It's the other guy they disapprove of. Not their guy.
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Old 11-06-2008   #9
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.
A lot of Congressmen choose to retire specifically because they don't think they can win reelection. Incumbents did a bit better this year than expected, but if you want to examine turnover in Congress you really can't just exclude retirements wholesale.
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Old 11-06-2008   #10
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
I know in the case of my district, the Republican challenger was outspent more than four to one. One of the PR people told me on Tuesday night that the incumbent got $4 million from the national Democratic party.

"We just couldn't compete with that" he said.

The incumbent flooded the teevee (and my gawdamned mailbox ) with attack ads. Nearly all of them were outright lies, but the challenger couldn't do much about it because he didn't have the funds.


Due to the shitty presidential candidates this was the only race in the entire election that I "took personally". I've known both candidates for a number of years and I can't stand the guy who's got reelected.
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Old 11-06-2008   #11
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.
A lot of Congressmen choose to retire specifically because they don't think they can win reelection. Incumbents did a bit better this year than expected, but if you want to examine turnover in Congress you really can't just exclude retirements wholesale.
How many did that though? Wikipedia shows 11 Reps with no reason listed for retirement. Are all of those because they thought they'd lose? Are some of the reasons listed just cover? It's rather difficult to tell which and come up with a firm number. And at any rate, they didn't run.
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Old 11-06-2008   #12
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
Hope and Change!

Looks like the voters didn't want to change Congress, that had a lower approval rating than Bush. It was as low as 9% at one point.

Yeah, hope and "change" all right. The voters keep sending the same gang of criminals to Washington year after year and then fall for that about "change".

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Old 11-06-2008   #13
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
Quote:
Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
Hope and change!

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Old 11-06-2008   #14
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
Term Limits.

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Old 11-06-2008   #15
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
TERM
LIMITS

If it's good enough for the President . . .
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Old 11-06-2008   #16
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Hope and Change!

Looks like the voters didn't want to change Congress, that had a lower approval rating than Bush. It was as low as 9% at one point.

Yeah, hope and "change" all right. The voters keep sending the same gang of criminals to Washington year after year and then fall for that about "change".
http://www.wordforge.net/showthread....ge#post1685864
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Old 11-06-2008   #17
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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TERM
LIMITS

If it's good enough for the President . . .
The best term limits are the ones imposed by the voters. But the majority of them are too stupid to apply it.
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Old 11-06-2008   #18
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.

Then the Senate is added in. 30 Senators sought reelection. Assuming Stevens, Chambliss, and Coleman win, only 2 failed to be reelected, giving 93% in the Senate, and a 95.57% reelection rate overall.

Seriously, this is pathetic. An 11% approval rating, and a 95.57% reelection rate. What the hell are we going to do about this?
I think that pathetic is the only term that can accurately describe the above.
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Old 11-06-2008   #19
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
I did everything I could do.
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Old 11-06-2008   #20
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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I did too.
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Old 11-07-2008   #21
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Term Limits.
Put Jesse Jackson in a reliably Democratic district. Term limits will get passed so fast your head will spin. That's basically what happened in Nebraska (the legislation was even nicknamed the "Ernie Chambers bill" after the crazy black man they wanted to get rid of).
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Old 11-07-2008   #22
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Term Limits.
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TERM
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If it's good enough for the President . . .
Why do y'all hate democracy?
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Old 11-07-2008   #23
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Re: Congressional reelection rates, 2008 edition
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pardot View Post
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Originally Posted by Order2Chaos View Post
399 House members sought reelection. How many won? 382. This gives us a 95.73% reelection rate.
A lot of Congressmen choose to retire specifically because they don't think they can win reelection. Incumbents did a bit better this year than expected, but if you want to examine turnover in Congress you really can't just exclude retirements wholesale.
How many did that though? Wikipedia shows 11 Reps with no reason listed for retirement. Are all of those because they thought they'd lose? Are some of the reasons listed just cover? It's rather difficult to tell which and come up with a firm number. And at any rate, they didn't run.
At least if they're under 70 and their party didn't retain the seat, I'd consider that not much different than if they ran as the incumbent and lost. I wouldn't pay too much attention to stated reasons for leaving Congress because no one's going to say that they retired because they didn't think they could win.

I'm not disputing that incumbency is way too big an advantage for Congressmen. I just think that the way you look at it somewhat overstates the problem. Anyway, since we're more-or-less stuck with a two party system in which most people vote the party for Congress, I don't think there's really that much we can do about it beyond getting rid of gerrymandering.
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