Exilian
Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter => Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza => Topic started by: Jubal on January 16, 2012, 06:30:19 PM
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...in which only Americans get a vote. :P
Okay, this is the election to decide who gets to decide who's going to be the most powerful person in the world. And the elections before that to decide who they can decide between. Or at least to decide who gets to decide who gets to decide who they can decide between. Or in some cases to decide who gets to decide who gets to decide who gets to decide who they can decide between. Don't you LOVE representative democracy?
For the Democrats, we have the incumbent Barack Obama. With some successes - Libya's intervention seems to have been successful, finally finishing the War in Iraq, the killing of Bin Laden - but many more failures, most notably a healthcare bill that went far too far for Republicans whilst not going far enough for many Democrats, and the fact that the economy is still very fragile - he's potentially liable to fall to a strong challenger.
The race to challenge him from the Republican side is between five men now: Rick Perry, Texas governor, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of Congress, Ron Paul, Texan congressman, Mitt Romney, Massachusetts Governor, and Rick Santorum, a former Senator from Pensylvania. Romney is essentially the front-runner, far and away likely nominee, and the most moderate of the bunch.
So that's a quick overview. News coming in today that the other moderate in the race, intellectual but not terribly conservative former governor Jon Huntsman, has pulled out - as the only candidate accepting the science behind both climate change and evolution publically, this has dismayed some independents but will be a boost to Romney (the only person he pulled votes from) and possibly also to the right-wingers who see themselves as having successfully ousted one moderate from the race. So... who knows what will happen next?
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Might as well scratch the Newt off the list.
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Romney's looking very, very dominant now. Which is a pity - he's a bit lame as a speaker, not terribly inspirational, and it'll greatly restrict any debate coming up to the election. But it looks like he's gotten South Carolina sewn up, which was Newt's last hope of catching him really.
EDIT: Gallup's poll for today looks pretty interesting, though. Those Huntsman voters don't seem to have broken towards Romney after all, or if they have he's taken heavier losses from his own base. A three point drop isn't much, but if it becomes indicative of a trend then the race might get rather tighter. That said, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum are vote-splitting too much. If one dropped out (say, Perry) then Gingrich might get a shot at seriously narrowing or closing the cap in SC. Seems unlikely though, the GOP's right wing are apparently their own worst enemy.
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Honestly, I'd prefer voting for the whole SOPA BS rather than the presidential elections... call me heretic, an idiot, an ignorant, but honestly seem to like politics that are old, not the current ones. I find even the whole soviet elections in 1917 (was that the date?) facisnating in comparison to this, but it might be also by the fact that I have no idea of what's going on on the US
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This election is rather a Hobson's choice - it's a question of the lesser of two evils as far as most Americans are concerned. The left don't like Obama and the right don't like Romney, but each side is too scared of the other reversing or consolidating the tiny movements made in this administration to consider breaking ranks. You know, unless Ron Paul turns out to have an additional nomination and a full pack of aces up his sleeve, which (if he does really, really well) could be fatal for Romney.
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And another one bits the dust... Perry is endorsing Gingrich, who has quite a bit of momentum, so the conservative vote is finally starting to coalesce on one person. Things might get interesting again. Might.
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Leave it to Jubal to take more interest in an election that less than half of the entire population of the country that might bother to go out and vote in it. :P
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Rick Santorum bit the dust. I would also like to point out in my opinion that if anyone of the candidates offers to repeal the SOPA bill, then they will win by a land-slide. I don't keep up with politics, but this SOPA thing is really out-of-line!
Special News Bulletin!
After much thought-out thinking, polls, and questionnares, I have come up with this:
People who care about the Presidential Election: 1/4 of the people in America
People who care about SOPA: THE WHOLE WORLD!!
Question: Do the politicians get this yet?
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All the GOP candidates have now spoken out against SOPA - Ron Paul, who actively campaigned against it from day one, is probably feeling rather smug. That said, I suspect many of them might bend to corporate pressure later, the anti-SOPA movement is just currently politically expedient.
I know I take too much interest in it, but it is important as far as the rest of the world - including me - is concerned. Particularly given the impact the US has in terms of the internet and international affairs.
And on the campaign trail, it's narrowing nationally and Gingrich seems to still be surging forth in SC. We've gone from a 23 point lead for Romney down to ten in a week, so things are still really volatile.
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I think you're placing the presidential position too high on the pedestal.
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I dunno; I think that in terms of foreign policy, which is my main concern on account of being foreign, the Presidency drives that side of things. Or appears to from this side of the Atlantic at least. Besides, I'm a polling/elections geek, I sometimes follow electoral races in totally irrelevant places and countries just for the hell of it. :P
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Or appears to from this side
Now you're gettin' it. ;)
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Ah, but appearances are important, not least in dictating how the rest of the world reacts. This is - after all - politics. :P
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I guess so, in which case think of our prez as the cover to our book. ;)
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http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/31/10282766-romney-rebounds-with-victory-in-florida-gop-primary
So goes the completely ridiculous piece of crap called the state primaries. My state doesn't get to vote until March 6th
You seeing the idiocy here? :P
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If Gingrich sticks to his word he'll still be around by then, though as you say it looks pretty conclusive here. I still think that it would make sense to simply have more parties rather than having huge multi-faction behemoths where you have to do long drawn-out nomination races that are decided by the first few states anyway.
Also, you get to vote the day after my birthday. ;D
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It would be a hell of a lot easier if they'd just hold all the primary elections on the same damn day. :P
Also, hooray. ;)
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Annnd off we all go to Romneyland, Maine and Nevada should be walkovers... but WILL THEY BE? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN...
(Like the rest of the news media, I'm struggling a bit with making this sound interesting). :P
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As an American citizen, taxpayer, and voter I feel I should say this: yawn.
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Strangely, it's looking like this could be increasingly drawn out: Romney seems to have the campaigning ability of a dead fish.
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I'm voting Libertarian.
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Seems to make sense given the state of things at the moment. Might you vote Paul in the GOP primary, or will you just ignore it and vote straight for the Libertarian candidate in the presidential?
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Probably ignore. I miss elections half the time anyway. (http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/images/smilies/smilies2/dunce.gif)
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And yet another time, the poll lead in the GOP race switches... to someone even more mad than the current leader.
Where do they FIND these people?
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Canada...
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Indecisive GOP is indecisive.
Also, yo GOP, we heard you like elections, so we put an election in your election in your election and OH MY GOD VOTECEPTION.
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Tell me about it...
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Right, the campaigns being now over, let's do a straw poll! Who would Exilian like to win? :P
Obama has the advantages of being more likeable and charismatic, according to polling, as well as being seen as a better leader; Romney is still, however, competitive because he has a key advantage in appearing to have stronger economic credentials. Then there's third party candidates from the Libertarians and Greens; could they be a factor, particularly in Libertarian cases if it the GOP mishandle their internal libertarian faction in the persona of the slightly quixotic Paul campaign?
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Libertarian FTW!
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I'm just happy you're not voting Romney, doubly so given you live in a key swing state. :P
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The rural areas, like where I live, always lean to the GOP. It's the large cities that will be the "swing" point. We're just hicks out here. Hyuck hyuck hyuck.
Also you should add better choices to your poll. ;)
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Obama I think they're both in company's pockets from what I understand and Obama’s such a smooth talk'n guy.
Besides all the changes a different government would bring would just be painful and cost a lot of money.
Of course this is just speculation on my part I don't know a lot about American politics beyond the fact Sanctorum was a psychopath, but he's gone now.
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Yeah, I decided to go between the two candidates who might get the job. I'd love to see a strong Libertarian bid, but I don't see it happening this time.
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Must say I'm sad to be the only 3rd-option-chooser. :(
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I might well vote for a third party if I was American, but by the wording of the question I'd prefer Obama over Romney. I just think the latter would be a disaster.
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How so?
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Winning the Republican candidacy ths year doesn't exactly count for much in the realm of sanity.
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That much is clear.
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Interesting little test I've found http://www.isidewith.com/
Apparently me and Kent Mesplay are total bros at 86% agreement, in that case it's a shame he's green and well therefore never be in office.
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I was with Obama and Mesplay the most, though I was in agreement with Johnson on domestic & foreign policy. I think putting science issues as high priority probably pushed Obama up (evolution and climate change in particular).
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http://www.isidewith.com/results/10237381
It's very close, but I'm still going with Libertarian.
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I noticed that Omegle is running Gary Johnson adverts, interestingly.
But the big news:
(http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/480027_437320609653991_1059489756_n.jpg)
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You sir, have won your good share of internets. It took me as while to find Mew in the bottom and understand the point of the weird placed text.
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mpd1ozuoa64/TUchjWt_ivI/AAAAAAAAC_M/xAJGygIDUeM/s400/Obama+-+Cream+of+Nothing.jpg)
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It's still neck and neck; Romney has the economy as his only real strength, as Obama seems to be more trusted as commander in chief and on social issues. That said, the economy is still by far the biggest electoral issue.
Johnson doesn't seem to be making enough news to get noticed at the moment, and seems to be losing rather than gaining ground in his home state of New Mexico.
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Romney's speech seems to have made a sum total of no difference to voting intention whatsoever so far, just 2% more people said it made them more likely to vote for him than said it made them less likely and the main polling companies haven't recorded a voting intention change. Given that on average a convention gives at least a 5% boost to a candidate in voting intention this looks a bad sign for the GOP.
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Obama's approval rating today hit over 50% and his lead started opening up - to three points after a long neck and neck period. If this is the start of a so-called "convention bounce", it could make Obama the definite leader.
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A lot, and I mean A LOT, can change in two months.
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True, but based on prior statistics if one candidate doesn't get a bounce and the other does, the bounce-ee usually wins. A lot can change, but looking at past polling data indicates that it rarely does barring truly exceptional circumstances. I also would factor in the fact that I'd expect Obama to dominate the TV debates, since regardless of policy he comes over far better on camera and as a speaker than Romney (and sadly the Libertarian and Green candidates aren't allowed into the debate; I'm not just basing that assessment of Obama's skills on my own view either, from polls his likeability is constantly well above Mitt's).
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Yeah I know he is already gonna win, and I think it's stupid that they don't include more parties in the debates.
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I think Rom picking Ryan was his last failed attempt to turn things around. He really needed someone more centrist and far, far more charismatic.
Agreed though, I'd like to see every party with enough ballot access to win (aka on the ballot papers in states controlling 270 or more electoral votes) being in the debates. Which would be Obama, Romney, Johnson and Stein this time around.
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Though I think the Dubya had a higher rating over Kerry in '04 than Berry has over Romney right now, and that was a very close election.
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And the polls are bouncing down to equilibrium again apparently, from a 7 point gap down to 4.
I have to say, our system of only having a few weeks of campaigning does seem a lot simpler than taking a whole year over it.
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Not to mention the lesser level of annoyance that must come with that.
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Polling watch, Gallup now has the two candidates gap narrowing to 1 point (their poll is a 7 day rolling average, I should add). These two sentences at the start of this post are also the only good news for the GOP today.
So, anyone in the 47% who don't pay federal income tax believes they're entitled to everything under the sun and all vote Obama (despite that of this 47%, 60% of them are in low-paid jobs and not getting many entitlements and a further 20% are pensioners, a key right-wing voting group). Also, the Palestinian people have no interest in middle eastern peace and Iran is likely to be trying to attack the US with dirty bombs in Chicago.
This groundbreaking news came from Romney at a fundraiser. I mean, even if he believes that sort of thing the idiocy of saying it is incredible. I don't know if it will change the game much in terms of votes, but certainly the Middle East stuff makes the man more of a laughing stock abroad than insulting our Olympics etc already made him. It does seem stupid to be implying that a group that includes war veterans, many of the lowest paid and most struggling workers, and previously hardworking pensioners are all layabouts who want to rely on the state.
Also read an interesting article pointing out that Fox News is employing several people who directly advise the Romney campaign to comment on the election - and not in their capacity as election advisers, as independent analysts. John Bolton (advises Romney on foreign policy, paid by Fox to analyse foreign policy), Jay Sekulow (legal analysis for Fox, conservative liason in the Romney campaign), Walid Phares (foreign policy and security advice for Romney, analyses Middle Eastern affairs for Fox), Karl Rove (runs a large Super PAC that spends money for Romney, analyses politics for Fox) and Elaine Chao (who has now left Fox, but her patch there overlapped with her position as a National Chair of Romney's campaign). None of this is, of course, illegal, and most of these guys aren't being paid by Romney strictly speaking, but it calls into question Fox's reputation for independence and it would seem a damn sight wiser to draw a clear distinction - if you're an advisor to a political campaign or a leader of a super PAC it seems reasonable that news organisations should be required to state that. It's not like there aren't other conservative pundits in the world, and even if I want to watch Fox I think there may be better people to independently analyse the impact of Karl Rove's advert campaigns than Karl Rove (yes, this actually happened).
Still not hearing much from Johnson or Stein on the news sites, sadly.
And as my final update, as well as the Presidential debates we are apparently going to get Jon Stewart VS Bill O'Reilly in October, which should be a laugh.
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A good debate performance in Denver and he's back - Mitt Romney style!
It's now roughly tied, but Mitt seems to have the momentum. Biden and Ryan's debate looks like more or less a tie, so it's looking grim for the president nationally. The on the ground polling in swing states seems to still narrowly be in his favour though; Romney still hasn't pulled ahead in Ohio.
Ohio is important, for one key reason. Basically, there are not that many swing states - There's Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and possibly Wisconsin as the biggies, with Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire as smaller ones (We're here assuming Obama can carry Michigan and Pensylvania, and Romney North Carolina and Indiana, which seems a fairly safe bet at the moment barring more major cockups).
So with those eight states as "in play", Obama has more to start with - Obama would have 237 electoral college votes leaning his way, Romney just 206. That means that if Obama carries Wisconsin and Ohio, he just needs one of the other six (any of them other then New Hampshire will do - NH would tie the election at 269 votes apiece) and the election is his. Conversely if Romney can't carry Ohio or Wisconsin, he literally has only one path to victory - he has to capture every single other state, and taking Iowa and Nevada is not looking an easy task.
Current Jubal Forecast: Obama narrowly wins, taking Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa, but with Virginia, Florida, and Colorado falling to Romney. 281 to 257 in the electoral college.
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No, Ohio is important because I live there! ;D
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I really hope Romney doesn't get elected... Obamacare isn't a bad idea, it just wasn't executed at the right time... but I don't want to have a Bush v.2 as the leader of the most influential country of the western world right now.
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You'd be thinking quite different if you lived here, deebz. ;)
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Yeah.. I got that from my future brother-in-law too. Maybe I also got too much into the "first black president" fever :P
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Yes.
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I think the best reason to vote Obama is to avoid a Romney victory though.
Simply speaking in foreign policy terms, I don't think the US understands quite how much ill-will the world actually has towards the Republican party. The US is tough, but not so tough it can literally go it alone, and bar Israel there isn't a single one of its key allies that would like to see Romney in charge. I think that will also strongly hamper any efforts he makes towards deficit reduction - even in key trade partners such as Canada or the UK the GOP swings between bogeyman and laughing stock in the media. Dealing with Chinese currency manipulation is all well and good, but not realistically possible without European, Asian and South American allies backing international negotiations. And pretty much all of those are about as eager to support Romney as cut their own noses off.
The memory of the Bush years is fading a little, but it takes a long time to undo the memories of two costly US-led wars (one still continuing) both of which were unbelievably poorly planned, a lot of somewhat insulting foreign policy decisions (what do you mean, we need to ask before striking your country with missiles), severe human rights abuses such as at Guantanamo, etc etc. Whether these critiques are fair or unfair, they're the popular perception and I think they're going to make it impossible for a Romney administration to operate an effective foreign policy (particularly militarily). Romney has hardly broken from that bad legacy either - insulting Britain when they're your closest ally bodes decidedly ill for negotiating with much less friendly nations worldwide.
Any of Johnson, Obama, or probably even Stein could carry a certain amount of gravitas and goodwill on the world stage. Romney will find himself extremely lacking in it just when he - and the US economy - need it most.
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Difficult to know how things are going.
The media story tends to still be one of "Romentum" - but the polls are showing at best a stalling of it. The national tracking polls are still showing a Romney win, particularly Rasmussen and Gallup, but the crucial swing states are still favouring Obama.
Bottom line: three states matter. Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada. Romney has had pretty much no polling showing him ahead in any of these three, and he needs at least one of them to win (he could substitute Minnesota, Michigan, or Pensylvania, but these three are more solidly in the Obama camp for the moment by another couple of percentage points).
My expectation is still a Romney defeat for this reason. I'm expecting a strong popular vote showing - but I'm increasingly feeling a popular/electoral vote split is likely. Why? Enthusiasm versus campaigns. Obama has the better ground game and he's holding on to poll leads in the swing states. Elsewhere, Democrats aren't feeling nearly so good about things and won't turn out so well, but in states like Minnesota or Oregon - or even California or Massachusetts - this won't lose the Democrats the state, just cut into their margins. The deep south and redder midwest on the other hand is going to be fired up by the prospect of Romney/Ryan, turn out in droves... but make no difference since Romney was going to win those places anyway.
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Voting for Romney.
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Interesting. Main reasons for switching?
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My brother wants me to. It's more important that I make a vote against Obama that would make a difference.
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It'd be really interesting to do cultural analyses of voting behaviour. People often vote in similar blocks - for example, here, you voting with your family - but to what extent is this because similar people vote similarly or to what extent is there a cultural effect? If we isolated all the people and just gave them the election literature in a locked room, would we get much more diversity in voting patterns?
Hmm.
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I guess... we had to vote for mayors and their counselors last weekend, on a national scale (BTW, first time I ever voted! Even though it's only one vote, and that the counselor I voted for had less than 1% of the total votes, I still had a stupid, big smile on my face from how important I felt after voting :P ). The day before, many of my family members were saying stuff like "I have no idea of the people that are trying to be elected, but I know what party I have to vote for"... it was rather infuriating. I'd guess that such bold and thoughtless remarks would just elevate the confidence of those were still unsecure or undecided and decided to go with the masses.
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Seems it's gonna be a super close one. There was a Romney rally down around Cincinnati that gathered around 30,000 people, when in comparison when they had the same thing for McCain 4 years ago barely 300 people showed up. My brother was there, he shook hands with Romney.
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I watched Romney's speech, it was impressively delivered.
On the other hand, he's facing a historic battle against the polling consensus to win. Here are some very simply done poll averages from RealClearPolitics:
WISCONSIN 5.4%
MINNESOTA 5.0%
PENNSYLVANIA 4.6%
MICHIGAN 3.5%
OHIO 2.9%
NEVADA 2.7%
The above is enough states for Obama to win another term in office. To put this into perspective, no candidate has ever been elected in a state with a worse margin in polls than 3.5%. That's happened exactly once, and that was Texas in 1992 where there was limited polling and a third candidate to mess things around. If we consider that an outlier, the next state down on the list is Indiana '08 where Obama overcame a 1.3% deficit. A Romney win pretty much needs Ohio; and he can take it, but the polls have to be wrong by the second largest margin in history and the largest in a two-horse race with this amount of polling. If this is the case it shows a very interesting set of methodological flaws must be existent in the polling community which will be important to analyse afterwards.
New Hampshire at Ob +1.8, Iowa at Ob +2.0, Florida (just) at Rom +1.4 and North Carolina at Rom +3.8 are the other swing states outside the 1.3% zone. The genuine toss-ups from the polling would be Virginia (Rom +0.5) and Colorado (Ob +1.0).
All in all a fascinating final stretch; the implication from the numbers appears to be that Romney still has ground to make up, but if any campaign has ever had the financial resources to do it it's this year's GOP.
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It'd be really interesting to do cultural analyses of voting behaviour. People often vote in similar blocks - for example, here, you voting with your family - but to what extent is this because similar people vote similarly or to what extent is there a cultural effect? If we isolated all the people and just gave them the election literature in a locked room, would we get much more diversity in voting patterns?
Hmm.
If you replaced the names and anywhere that says republican or democrat also.
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I just wish they wouldn't spend so much on money on advertisement and stuff, that money could be spent a lot better. Like on us 3rd world countries :P
I'd really abstain from voting, if I could... just to say how ridiculous I find it that they are allocating their money, considering that the crisis in the US is still there (according to BBC estimates, each vote equals $20 spent on publicity)
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A picture my brother took, just before he shook hands with Romney.
(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/222565_553887074636771_1024770678_n.jpg)
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Yup, that's Willard. :P
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To be honest, what is the point of shaking hands with an important person? I hope I'm not offending anyone because of my lack of humanity (or my lack of understanding of human behaviour), but I sincerely don't see the point of supporting someone so much to the point you almost idolatrise them. I mean, sure, it must be quite something to be able to shake hands with someone that could become the president of one of the most powerful and influential countries of the world, but to him, you're just another person of the crowd. I'd much rather at least strike a casual, "small-talk" conversation to him.
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I'm not all ecstatic about it just because it is Romney, but still, getting to shake hands with one of the two most popular people in the entire country is kind of neat. The odds are not very high.
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lincoln won, hands down...
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I went Libertarian.
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And the nation went Democrat; it's a grim night for the GOP. Democrat senate hold is looking pretty comfortable, Obama with over three hundred electoral college votes. He's beaten my own call of 281 by miles, so I'm glad I didn't put any money on it! I've all-nighted watching the results come in at the Cambridge Union Society, which was an excellent atmosphere (fairly heavily Obama, but there were a fair few Republicans as well, had an interesting chat with a guy who'd worked for Rand Paul a couple of years back).
The Democrats have a lot of relief tonight, but a lot of challenges. Primarily on debt and keeping the country solvent in the short term, brokering a deal with congress quickly to keep spending going is going to be hugely important. The question really is whether the GOP, with a weaker hand, will solidify their opposition to the President & Senate or prove more amenable to compromise - and whether the Democrats, equally, manage to not overplay their hand given they have to compromise rather than go to loggerheads with the House of Representatives. Then of course there are foreign policy challenges in Syria and so on, but really... it's the debt that counts. If the economy improves, it could seal Obama's legacy as a major reforming president who (regardless of which of these he should or should not be credited for) oversaw killing Bin Laden, presided over an economy returning to health via his own path of stimulus and auto bailouts, made major reforms of healthcare, and rewrote the book on American interventionism. The biggest block is the ability of the Democrats to deal with Republicans in the House, who still simply work on different economic paradigms to the President and don't trust him. I don't envy them the task.
The Republicans have a bigger problem though - direction. They've run very heavily - increasingly so - on a platform based on religion, extreme fiscal conservatism, and immigration restrictions. This has effectively led to a platform based on older, white, religious, male voters, and the most serious take-away from Romney's loss is that this platform is now pretty untenable. The risks are twofold - libertarians and social conservatives are increasingly difficult to corral into a collective electoral block, and so rebuilding the broad church of the party must be one point. On the other hand, a move to the centre risks alienating major donors and the most enthusiastic voting and volunteering blocks the GOP currently has. Demographic crisis can be resolved, but no path to doing so is easy.
The third parties are looking more positive (though from a poor start point, of course), for two key reasons. Firstly, there's been an increased attempt to use unconventional media and join together for publicity purposes if not on the ballot paper. The Third Party Debate was a good example of this. Secondly, the Libertarians have finally found someone who can be bothered to stick out the course. It's a fairly common thing for a disaffected republican to head for the Libs and get a nomination. What hasn't happened is someone with the experience and intelligence of Former Governor Johnson taking on the cause between elections, which - if the libertarians can adopt a cleverer approach to electoral politics - could really improve their ability to take votes & seats. I may be over-stepping this, but frankly a lot of Americans are libertarian, and whilst I may perhaps be a horribly machiavellian political animal at times I think that at the same time giving people the chance to vote with their convictions is something which no society - and certainly no democracy - should underestimate.
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What a total shocker... not.
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What a total shocker... not.
I maintain that the GOP could have done it with a better candidate (and would easily have taken the senate if not for their religious radical corps), but on the night there were no real surprises. And Nate Silver had it pretty darn accurate again.
Well, now you know what you've got for the next bit at least. Just got to hope they all manage to do their jobs well etc.
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do their jobs well etc.
You realize we're talking about politicians here? ;D
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Point well made.