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if republicans are supposedly the party of rich elites...

rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
Why are they the party that elects people who have had jobs other than being a politician?

Obama, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, all were career politicians. You have to go back to 1976 and Carter to find someone who had a job that wasn't in law or politics.

I guess I don't understand how a party who only nominates the ruling class are supposed to be the ones looking out for the workers.
 
Probably because you don't know what you're talking about. Carter, Mondale, Clinton, and to a lesser degree Obama came from very modest means. Where did you get such a dumb idea?

Maybe you're just a shill. 😛
 
eskimospy said:
Probably because you don't know what you're talking about. Carter, Mondale, Clinton, and to a lesser degree Obama came from very modest means. Where did you get such a dumb idea?

Maybe you're just a shill. 😛
Click to expand...

The thread has a flimsy premise, but he said nothing of how much money their families had. He's talking about people who were politicians from day 1, never having worked in the private sector.
 
Private sector experience is not necessary to serve in the public sector, including politics.

Those with private sector experience have just as many bad ideas as those who don't.
 
Mondale practiced law. Kerry was appointed as a district attorney. Gore worked as an investigative journalist. Obama worked as a community organizer & as a lawyer. Dukakis clearly did something between his first & second governorships, quite what is unclear.
Clinton worked as a law professor.
 
OP's premise doesn't make sense

Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz.

3 easy examples of modern, Republican, career politicians.

It's something that happens in political parties all over the world. Some people choose it as a career. It's the 'nature of the game'.
 
rudeguy said:
Why are they the party that elects people who have had jobs other than being a politician?

Obama, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, all were career politicians. You have to go back to 1976 and Carter to find someone who had a job that wasn't in law or politics.

I guess I don't understand how a party who only nominates the ruling class are supposed to be the ones looking out for the workers.
Click to expand...

Ever heard of Tammy Duckworth?
 
senseamp said:
Republicans are a party of useful idiots serving the rich elites.
Click to expand...

And sometimes they're useless idiots.

B-zILeeVEAAQoWa.jpg
 
Jhhnn said:
Mondale practiced law. Kerry was appointed as a district attorney. Gore worked as an investigative journalist. Obama worked as a community organizer & as a lawyer. Dukakis clearly did something between his first & second governorships, quite what is unclear.
Clinton worked as a law professor.
Click to expand...

Listen, libruul.

You're ruining the "Republicans are the party of the people" trope OP vomited out of his ass all over the internet.

Stop it!
 
Rudeguy, when you need to get a plumber do you go to your local Mcdonalds and get one of the servers to do it because you don't want someone who was a plumber from day one? 😉
 
WelshBloke said:
Rudeguy, when you need to get a plumber do you go to your local Mcdonalds and get one of the servers to do it because you don't want someone who was a plumber from day one? 😉
Click to expand...
That would be a good point if politicians only made laws affecting politicians. It's certainly a valid point that our modern politicians are extremely divorced from most people's reality as well as from their own nominal constituencies. How many D.C. politicians have actually made a payroll, competed in the marketplace, struggled against foreign competition? How many D.C. politicians actually even live in their districts? How many, when defeated, actually move back to those districts? Mostly they despise the districts they represent. We've seen even millionaire Senators whose "homes" in their districts represent nothing more than a friend's Barcalounger. I'm not sure it's noticeably worse among the Dems though, it's pretty widespread from what I see. The only big advantage I see for the Pubbies is a willingness to live under the same rules as the rest of us - for decades the Democrats happily exempted themselves from the laws they pass for the rest of us, not only living the D.C. economy rather than the larger American economy but actually crafting for themselves a privileged legal environment as well.
 
Not really anything wrong with either being a career politician or entering politics from a profession. It's democracy.
 
eskimospy said:
Probably because you don't know what you're talking about. Carter, Mondale, Clinton, and to a lesser degree Obama came from very modest means. Where did you get such a dumb idea?

Maybe you're just a shill. 😛
Click to expand...

Knee-jerk response. Re-read the OP. Bober is correct.
 
eskimospy said:
I mean the OP is correct except for Carter, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, and Obama, I guess.

This stuff is really easy to look up?
Click to expand...

It must be since you didn't bother to look it up.

Please post where Mondale, Gore, Kerry or Obama had jobs outside of politics or law.

Please note that a brief stint in the military does not qualify as a job.
 
eskimospy said:
I mean the OP is correct except for Carter, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, and Obama, I guess.

This stuff is really easy to look up?
Click to expand...
His point was that you constructed a straw man and flailed away at that rather than address the OP's actual point. You were pwned by Jhhnn, who actually did address the OP's point. How embarrassing is that?

You also use Carter as an example, when the OP specifically pointed out Carter as the exception. The others held comparatively brief non-political careers, returning to the private sector only when forced to do so by the voters. That was the OP's point, not whether they started life with money.

I'm not at all sure this is noticeably better for the Pubbies. We have Corker here in Tennessee, who is an honest-to-G-d businessman. But in general, seems to me that politicians at the federal level are career politicians. Unless one is wealthy, it's probably difficult to move to the federal level without putting in years at the state level. And certainly virtually none of them voluntarily return to the private sector afterward, except as lobbyists or maybe university professors or administrators.
 
rudeguy said:
It must be since you didn't bother to look it up.

Please post where Mondale, Gore, Kerry or Obama had jobs outside of politics or law.

Please note that a brief stint in the military does not qualify as a job.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that serving in the military didn't count as a job. When did this start?

In addition to your bullshit claim that the military doesn't count, Mondale practiced law for a number of years, Obama was a lawyer and a law professor for a number of years before entering politics, etc.

Again, this stuff is really easy to look up.

If you meant to ask "why do people who run for president often have long careers in politics first?" I would think the answer would be self evident.
 
werepossum said:
That would be a good point if politicians only made laws affecting politicians. It's certainly a valid point that our modern politicians are extremely divorced from most people's reality as well as from their own nominal constituencies. How many D.C. politicians have actually made a payroll, competed in the marketplace, struggled against foreign competition? How many D.C. politicians actually even live in their districts? How many, when defeated, actually move back to those districts? Mostly they despise the districts they represent. We've seen even millionaire Senators whose "homes" in their districts represent nothing more than a friend's Barcalounger. I'm not sure it's noticeably worse among the Dems though, it's pretty widespread from what I see. The only big advantage I see for the Pubbies is a willingness to live under the same rules as the rest of us - for decades the Democrats happily exempted themselves from the laws they pass for the rest of us, not only living the D.C. economy rather than the larger American economy but actually crafting for themselves a privileged legal environment as well.
Click to expand...

I was just dicking around with rudeguy TBH.

Saying that...

A lot of the complaints people make about politics today is that it's too beholden to vested interests. I'm not sure that that would be helped any by getting more people involved from the private sector.
And I'm not sure that the people who would have the funds to enter politics from industry would be particularly more in touch with the guy on the street anyway. It would more likely be someone from the Boardroom.

Personally I'd like to see a bit more direct democracy. The days of needing a representative to go and listen to the debates and vote on your behalf are long gone. Everyone nowadays can listen to, and vote on a debate online. I'd be great if a lot more issues were put out to the electorate to decide and politicians were just there to make those decisions happen.
 
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