Party of business?
By tradition and slogan the Repooflicans are the 'party that helps business', and the 'party that can run America like a business.'

Wrong on both counts.

Helping business? Wrong, and easy to see why. What changes have done most to hurt American business? (1) The marauding enemy army EPA (and later envirowack laws), which was a Repoof invention and grew most strongly under Repoofs. (2) Free trade, again pushed mainly by Repoofs (though with considerable help from Clintonian Dems.) (3) Repealing the 1930's banking laws, again mainly by R's with help from Clinton. [Note for clarity: all three changes helped the plutocrats and financiers but utterly destroyed ACTUAL PRODUCTIVE BUSINESS.]

Running gov't like a business? Also wrong, but takes more explanation.

A good business in a competitive economy does one thing above all: it provides stuff or services good enough to keep the customers coming back for more; good enough to charge higher prices than its less satisfying competitors.

At the city level there's not much difference between parties. Services like police, trash, paving and snowplowing can be judged immediately and accurately by the customers. A mayor who lets the trash or snow or crime pile up will be out by the next election, even before the next election in some cases. Slogans and party loyalty don't mean much when you can't leave your house. Competition works here, and government really does function like a business.

It's the fed level where the Repoofs fuck up. They actually advertise that they intend to provide shitty service. Vote for us so your SS payment will go away! Vote for us so your sons will die in pointless wars to serve Israel's interests! Vote for us so the New York bankers will steal all your hard-earned savings!

Admittedly the Repoofs also advertise a low price to compensate for the suicidal service, but the low price never actually happens. Taxes are cut for the super-rich bankers, but the normal American doesn't see any change.

How do they win even half the time? Pure blind loyalty; good redistricting; good electoral engineering (i.e. operating the machine of the Electoral College expertly); a huge cheerleading section on radio and TV; and the remembered vapors of Reagan. They do not win by applying business principles; they win by monopolistic manipulation. Just like Apple or Microsoft or Goldman.

A little incident in tonight's news illustrates the point. In the few states that actually vote, Repoof electoral engineers have been implementing Voter ID laws, which might change the numbers just enough to win those tightly balanced states. The advertising for the Voter ID product claimed that fraud was a real problem. Dem counteradvertising claimed that Voter ID was specifically meant to remove Dem voters. Now it turns out that Repoofs in those same states have been paying contractors to run registration and get-out-the-vote drives, which generated large numbers of fraudulent registrations. Hmm. Sorta proves the Dem claim, doesn't it? The ID laws were specifically crafted to filter out only one brand of voter, in order to make more room for real fraud by the other brand. Just like Microsoft or Apple or Goldman.
  ¶ 5:25 PM