On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Example:
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
Oi. The more moderate Republicans should just leave and join the Democrats. It's not as if the Democrats are really Democrats anyways. Obama's practically a moderate Republican.
The GOP basically needs to re-brand so they no longer get characterized as the "old white men party." Otherwise they'll keep alienating the communities whose support they need to win.
Obama is not moderate at all, Obama is pretty far to the left (at least in terms of American politics). But I agree that the Republican party is going to have to re-brand themselves.
The reason it looks archaic today is because of generally polarized nature of elections. California will never vote Republican. Texas will never vote Democrat. Therefore a bunch of random states that are politically close calls are the only ones that matter. If the number of Democratic and Republican voters was evenly distributed then no one would care how the actual votes are counted.
Quite frankly the much more important issues in American elections are: (a) gerrymendering of districts (b) low information voters (c) relatively low turnouts. And none of these need a constitutional amendment to be fixed.
This may sound unlikely, but Texas may go Democrat in a decade. All of their huge population centers such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, and even El Paso are quite blue. In addition, growth of minorities will fuel to that vote. The Republican party doesn't stand a chance if they keep going down the social conservative cliff.
On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
I'm pretty sure that would just be suicide for their own party. If they want any hope of winning in this lifetime they need to move left of where they are. They need to address the batshit parts of the party and show them the door or they're done for 20 years. Drop the religious zealotry shit, drop the all out looneys and try again.
I'm not a fan of Obama but there is zero chance in hell I'd vote for some random puppet mouthpiece like Romney. "Well, he's so flip floppy maybe he'll be a lefty!" Yeah, or maybe and more likely he'll have the crazy asses of his party breathing down his neck and bend to their will, he's certainly got zero spine. As long as those sorts of screaming children are part of the other party I'll never vote for them regardless of anything and I don't think every idea they have is bad. I know many liberals I know feel the same way.
They need to root out all the garbage or they're done for.
On November 08 2012 14:42 The Final Boss wrote: I would say that overwhelmingly, the reason why Romney lost this race was simply because a lot of women voters would not vote for him. A lot of that is because he is pro-life; however, I feel like that is a bad reason to vote against him. Regardless of who won, four years from now abortion would be legal. This election really should have been about the economy, but instead Obama's campaign managed to successfully frame it around progressive social issues--one of the few things his campaign has managed to do in the past four years. This election should not have been about abortion, but at the end of the day, that's what it was for a lot of voters.
But anyways, the saddest thing about November 6th was Scott Brown not getting re-elected. I thought after he took Ted Kennedy's seat that it might just be a sign of the start of the end of our nation's rooted political polarization, but apparently Massachusetts voters decided otherwise. Elizabeth Warren is just another person who is going to vote 90% or more along party lines, that's not what we need; we need people who are going to be more moderate and actually make decisions on their own. What really saddens me is just how polarized America has become, and it can be really highlighted in the Massachusetts Senate race. The two biggest problems I have are the following:
In any state that isn't as polarized as Massachusetts, Scott Brown would have won that election.
In any other state that isn't that polarized, Scott Brown would have never been nominated because he strays too far from the GOP.
I'm also really disappointed in my own state of Rhode Island. We still elected David Cicilline, who makes Chinese politicians look not incorruptible. Also the Republican party in this state cannot put up a decent candidate.
I'm a Republican, I voted for Mitt Romney, I voted for Doherty (the guy in Rhode Island who ran against Cicilline for the 1st Congressional District), and I am thoroughly disappointed. I think that this is going to lead to massive reforms and changes within the Republican party as they have to shift with the demographic. I have very low hopes for the next four years because Washington is effectively unchanged except that Scott Brown is no longer there. But yeah, I would be interested in hearing other people's views on what I'm talking about.
Maybe female voters (a) value their reproductive rights higher than the economy (b) maybe they were suspicious of a candidate who embraced people who say stuff like "you cant get pregnant from legitimate rape" or "rape is gods will" (c) maybe women voters didnt believe Romney's economic plan of "I will create 14 million new jobs by getting elected" was plausible.
As for Scott Brown. Is that how it works? If a liberal states elects a Republican, no matter what his voting record its "good" but if a liberal states elects a respect jurist who has taken a strong stance on middle class issues its bad because "that is partisan" ? I assume you are also incredibly angry at all the Republican states that have Republican senators then?
First off--and most importantly, I might add--do not attribute Tod Akin's idiotic statement as being Mitt Romney's or even having anything to do with Mitt Romney, that is incredibly ignorant and idiotic of you to say or even insinuate.
Romney did disavow Akin's remarks, but he was supportive of the "rape is God's will" stuff. Or at least, not denouncing of it.
On November 08 2012 15:05 The Final Boss wrote: Secondly, what I am saying is that a woman's reproductive right was not threatened, because it's going to be legal to get an abortion four years from now even if Mitt Romney had been elected. It is not as important of an issue because it's not going to change as much regardless of who wins.
Nonsense; abortion is almost always threatened. If 2-3 Supreme Court justices retire in the next 4 years, and Romney were able to appoint conservative replacement, Row vs. Wade could be undone. Without that protection, states can outlaw abortion however much they want.
On November 08 2012 14:21 TyrantPotato wrote: Now that all this is over (almost) and obama is da winrar.
WTF is up with your guys election process?
you live in a democracy.....BUT from what i know of your system its nothing like that at all.
correct me if im wrong, but if 1 person can get 270 electoral points(state vote thingy pont shit) by winning each state by only 100-1000 votes. then not get a single vote in every other state he can still be president?
please tell me that isnt the case and im horrible mistaken.
The Electoral college's votes are given to states by how many senators (two per) and how many representatives they have in the house (an amount proportional to their population, at least one).
Now while the problem of having the general population elect the absolute wrong president and the EC saving them is probably behind us, the EC's ability to make small states relevant is still important. Otherwise no one would ever go near those states and instead would spend all their time in the major cities. I'm not really sure how that is any better than what we have currently only now the issues of the largest population states -and consequently the urban lifestyle instead of the rural or suburban one- would gain precedence.
Also just because a president doesn't win the popular vote does not mean the system has failed, imagine its a game of American Football, the teams aren't trying to get the most yards, they're trying to get the most points because thats how a winner is announced. Most of the time the team that wins has more yards than the loser but not always, because its simply not the way the game is won. The presidential election in America is about getting the most electoral votes, so just because someone loses the popular vote does not invalidate the election.
On November 08 2012 14:42 The Final Boss wrote: I would say that overwhelmingly, the reason why Romney lost this race was simply because a lot of women voters would not vote for him. A lot of that is because he is pro-life; however, I feel like that is a bad reason to vote against him. Regardless of who won, four years from now abortion would be legal. This election really should have been about the economy, but instead Obama's campaign managed to successfully frame it around progressive social issues--one of the few things his campaign has managed to do in the past four years. This election should not have been about abortion, but at the end of the day, that's what it was for a lot of voters.
But anyways, the saddest thing about November 6th was Scott Brown not getting re-elected. I thought after he took Ted Kennedy's seat that it might just be a sign of the start of the end of our nation's rooted political polarization, but apparently Massachusetts voters decided otherwise. Elizabeth Warren is just another person who is going to vote 90% or more along party lines, that's not what we need; we need people who are going to be more moderate and actually make decisions on their own. What really saddens me is just how polarized America has become, and it can be really highlighted in the Massachusetts Senate race. The two biggest problems I have are the following:
In any state that isn't as polarized as Massachusetts, Scott Brown would have won that election.
In any other state that isn't that polarized, Scott Brown would have never been nominated because he strays too far from the GOP.
I'm also really disappointed in my own state of Rhode Island. We still elected David Cicilline, who makes Chinese politicians look not incorruptible. Also the Republican party in this state cannot put up a decent candidate.
I'm a Republican, I voted for Mitt Romney, I voted for Doherty (the guy in Rhode Island who ran against Cicilline for the 1st Congressional District), and I am thoroughly disappointed. I think that this is going to lead to massive reforms and changes within the Republican party as they have to shift with the demographic. I have very low hopes for the next four years because Washington is effectively unchanged except that Scott Brown is no longer there. But yeah, I would be interested in hearing other people's views on what I'm talking about.
Maybe female voters (a) value their reproductive rights higher than the economy (b) maybe they were suspicious of a candidate who embraced people who say stuff like "you cant get pregnant from legitimate rape" or "rape is gods will" (c) maybe women voters didnt believe Romney's economic plan of "I will create 14 million new jobs by getting elected" was plausible.
As for Scott Brown. Is that how it works? If a liberal states elects a Republican, no matter what his voting record its "good" but if a liberal states elects a respect jurist who has taken a strong stance on middle class issues its bad because "that is partisan" ? I assume you are also incredibly angry at all the Republican states that have Republican senators then?
First off--and most importantly, I might add--do not attribute Tod Akin's idiotic statement as being Mitt Romney's or even having anything to do with Mitt Romney, that is incredibly ignorant and idiotic of you to say or even insinuate.
Romney's running mate cosponsored a bill with Akin to redefine rape. But you are right, Mitt Romney didnt outright go out and hug Tod Akin and stand by him. Neither did he publiclly condemn him for holding medieval views. Instead he privately told him to quit. Of course he didnt even do that with Richard "Rape is God's Will" Mourdock http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-mourdocks-rape-comment-20121025,0,1696827.story
So yes, women identified Romney with two men who have views on rape that are out of the 19th century.
Secondly, what I am saying is that a woman's reproductive right was not threatened, because it's going to be legal to get an abortion four years from now even if Mitt Romney had been elected.
It is not as important of an issue because it's not going to change as much regardless of who wins.
Even if I agree with you that mysteriously Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney would not push the issue because why not, the ability to appoint conservative jurists onto the Supreme Court would automatically threaten abortion rights.
Obviously it is an important issue because Romney was blown out of water with women. Something that *never* happened to George W Bush.
Now when you talk about something like Obamacare and entitlement programs, that IS something that is drastically different. I still haven't heard any idea of how Obama plans to deal with the failing entitlement programs while he's implementing his own little invention, but I would love to hear about it from any of you who can enlighten me.
Romneycare would have been implemented the way it was in Mass. Successfully. The 'failing' entitlement programs are failing because America is the only major economy that doesnt negotiate with pharmaceutical providers, allows doctors to prescribe significant number of unnecessary procedures and is an aging society. If Americans just adopted the Canadian style single payer system their costs, per capita, would drop from 6k to 3k without any significant decline in the quality of care.
But if you really still believe that women voters just didn't fall for Romney's economic plan, would you care to explain the gender gap? I believe I saw a poll on NYT that said that among men, Romney was up by about 9 points and among women Obama was up by about 9 or 10 points. Do you really believe that that 18 point difference was because all those women saw something that those men didn't see?
Correction, white, suburban and rural men, who primarily live in the South, broke heavily for Romney. In the Midwest, the costs and the NorthEast Obama was within 2-4 points of Romney. In the Confederacy however he was crushed by 10-20 points. But as a general comment, yes. Maybe women are better suited to the modern economy. Here is an article expressing that view: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/308135/
And actually, if you read what I wrote about Scott Brown, I am disappointed with the candidates that the GOP has been putting up. We need less Tod Akins and more Scott Browns.
Okay I apologize and agree. America would be much better off if the Republicans were Eisenhower Republicans.
Elizabeth Warren's campaign can be summed up in the slogan "Scott Brown hates women." Frankly, one of those slogans is what our country needs more of, and one of those slogans is wildly inaccurate. I'll let you decide which one is which.
Then he should switch to the Democratic party until the Republicans purge the ultra conservatives who dominate the primaries.
On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Example:
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
Oi. The more moderate Republicans should just leave and join the Democrats. It's not as if the Democrats are really Democrats anyways. Obama's practically a moderate Republican.
The GOP basically needs to re-brand so they no longer get characterized as the "old white men party." Otherwise they'll keep alienating the communities whose support they need to win.
Obama is not moderate at all, Obama is pretty far to the left (at least in terms of American politics). But I agree that the Republican party is going to have to re-brand themselves.
Far left American politics would be Bernie Sanders. Obama is quite moderate, slightly left of Clinton.
On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Example:
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
Oi. The more moderate Republicans should just leave and join the Democrats. It's not as if the Democrats are really Democrats anyways. Obama's practically a moderate Republican.
The GOP basically needs to re-brand so they no longer get characterized as the "old white men party." Otherwise they'll keep alienating the communities whose support they need to win.
Obama is not moderate at all, Obama is pretty far to the left (at least in terms of American politics). But I agree that the Republican party is going to have to re-brand themselves.
You cant be serious when you say this. Obama's healthcare plan is the Republican's Heritage Foundations' plan from the 90s. His tax plan for the last 4 years has been George W. Bush' He supports free trade He supports drones killing people He supports removing judicial due process from American citizens He has deported more illegal immigrants than Bush He has aggressively pursued marijuana consumers His defense budget is 2.5x higher than Clinton's was He appointed Geithner as Secretary of Treasury and supported the Republican designed bailout of Wall Street banks
On November 08 2012 14:21 TyrantPotato wrote: Now that all this is over (almost) and obama is da winrar.
WTF is up with your guys election process?
you live in a democracy.....BUT from what i know of your system its nothing like that at all.
correct me if im wrong, but if 1 person can get 270 electoral points(state vote thingy pont shit) by winning each state by only 100-1000 votes. then not get a single vote in every other state he can still be president?
please tell me that isnt the case and im horrible mistaken.
The Electoral college's votes are given to states by how many senators (two per) and how many representatives they have in the house (an amount proportional to their population, at least one).
Now while the problem of having the general population elect the absolute wrong president and the EC saving them is probably behind us, the EC's ability to make small states relevant is still important. Otherwise no one would ever go near those states and instead would spend all their time in the major cities. I'm not really sure how that is any better than what we have currently only now the issues of the largest population states -and consequently the urban lifestyle instead of the rural or suburban one- would gain precedence.
Also just because a president doesn't win the popular vote does not mean the system has failed, imagine its a game of American Football, the teams aren't trying to get the most yards, they're trying to get the most points because thats how a winner is announced. Most of the time the team that wins has more yards than the loser but not always, because its simply not the way the game is won. The presidential election in America is about getting the most electoral votes, so just because someone loses the popular vote does not invalidate the election.
You had a good point, until the last paragraph. This entire thread of conversation is about questioning whether it is valid to have those rules determine the winner. What he's saying is that the rules are wrong; saying that "well, that's the rules" isn't addressing the actual problem.
The system fails if the system does not achieve what it sets out to achieve. Maybe football would be a more entertaining game if it were scored on yards gained rather than touchdowns. Maybe the presidential election system would be more representative of the populace if it were scored on popular vote instead of this electoral college system.
To me, the stupidest thing about the EC is that it's still 538 people who all get together to select the president. If half of them were bought off or whatever, they could select some random guy and make him president. If even two of GWBush's electors had decided to vote Gore for whatever reason, we would have had a real mess.
At the very least, the formality of selecting electors and having them vote needs to go away. It needs to be formalized into "you won state X, you get X votes." instead of "you get to select X people you hope you can trust to vote for you."
The reason it looks archaic today is because of generally polarized nature of elections. California will never vote Republican. Texas will never vote Democrat. Therefore a bunch of random states that are politically close calls are the only ones that matter. If the number of Democratic and Republican voters was evenly distributed then no one would care how the actual votes are counted.
Quite frankly the much more important issues in American elections are: (a) gerrymendering of districts (b) low information voters (c) relatively low turnouts. And none of these need a constitutional amendment to be fixed.
This may sound unlikely, but Texas may go Democrat in a decade. All of their huge population centers such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, and even El Paso are quite blue. In addition, growth of minorities will fuel to that vote. The Republican party doesn't stand a chance if they keep going down the social conservative cliff.
Well sure. Lots of states could become battleground states in R's heartland *if* they cant peel away the Latinos. But even Karl Rove can figure it out that both African Americans and Hispanics are *significantly* more socially conservative and *significantly* more religious than the urban dwelling liberals who support Obama. So if instead of running another team deep beige they go with Rubio or some other Latino-Republican and stop treating Latin Americans as a 'swarming army of invaders' they will have a chance to split that vote. But yes, if they keep retreating further and further into the Confederacy then they are going to be akin to George Wallace. Roll the deep south and nothing else.
On November 08 2012 15:27 thezanursic wrote: What does the increased Senate and House democrat numbers actually mean for the legislation that Obama will try to propose in his second term?
stalemate until 2014. Then it depends whether Americans blame the House of Representatives for the stalemate or Obama.
On November 08 2012 14:21 TyrantPotato wrote: Now that all this is over (almost) and obama is da winrar.
WTF is up with your guys election process?
you live in a democracy.....BUT from what i know of your system its nothing like that at all.
correct me if im wrong, but if 1 person can get 270 electoral points(state vote thingy pont shit) by winning each state by only 100-1000 votes. then not get a single vote in every other state he can still be president?
please tell me that isnt the case and im horrible mistaken.
The Electoral college's votes are given to states by how many senators (two per) and how many representatives they have in the house (an amount proportional to their population, at least one).
Now while the problem of having the general population elect the absolute wrong president and the EC saving them is probably behind us, the EC's ability to make small states relevant is still important. Otherwise no one would ever go near those states and instead would spend all their time in the major cities. I'm not really sure how that is any better than what we have currently only now the issues of the largest population states -and consequently the urban lifestyle instead of the rural or suburban one- would gain precedence.
Also just because a president doesn't win the popular vote does not mean the system has failed, imagine its a game of American Football, the teams aren't trying to get the most yards, they're trying to get the most points because thats how a winner is announced. Most of the time the team that wins has more yards than the loser but not always, because its simply not the way the game is won. The presidential election in America is about getting the most electoral votes, so just because someone loses the popular vote does not invalidate the election.
I actually am curious if the whole country went the way of Nebraska and Maine where each (or some) district distributes electoral votes independently and the two senator-electoral votes go with the popular vote in the state. I wonder what the electoral votes would look like then cause texas, california, NY, etc are broken up.
Though we still have the redistricting problem every ten years.
On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Example:
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
Oi. The more moderate Republicans should just leave and join the Democrats. It's not as if the Democrats are really Democrats anyways. Obama's practically a moderate Republican.
The GOP basically needs to re-brand so they no longer get characterized as the "old white men party." Otherwise they'll keep alienating the communities whose support they need to win.
Obama is not moderate at all, Obama is pretty far to the left (at least in terms of American politics). But I agree that the Republican party is going to have to re-brand themselves.
I won't address "Obama is a moderate Republican" here, since I think a ton of websites do hash over it quite a bit. It didn't really click with me until I heard one of my profs talking about the election recently in his office, bemoaning the fact that the Democrats aren't Democrats anymore and that everyone's really a Republican. (He hopes that one day the Democratic party will rediscover its backbone, lol.)
Re: abortion (sorry, don't want to quote your other post) -- You do not seriously expect people to sit there and not react when the GOP blatantly threatens their rights?
It's a similar problem with opposing gay marriage; yeah, sure, it'll get legalized some day in the future, but let's just be honest here, it's pretty damn douchebaggy to say, "Yeah, you can wait for your rights, they're gonna come anyways, BUT FIRST, ECONOMY (wait, wtf is romney's plan anyways, will it really affect me like these social issues*)?" People shouldn't have to wait for their rights, and they shouldn't have their rights threatened in the first place, especially those rights that will have a very tangible effect on their lives.
*I assure you there are lots of people thinking this way. I don't think it's a surprise to know that it is a lot easier to relate to social issues than it is to relate to a bunch of numbers floating in the air. The GOP shot itself in the foot here.
EDIT: Okay, so I'm just going to throw in my two more cents here and say that the best course of action for the GOP about social issues is to not bring them up even if they disagree with the Dems.
On November 08 2012 14:42 The Final Boss wrote: I would say that overwhelmingly, the reason why Romney lost this race was simply because a lot of women voters would not vote for him. A lot of that is because he is pro-life; however, I feel like that is a bad reason to vote against him. Regardless of who won, four years from now abortion would be legal. This election really should have been about the economy, but instead Obama's campaign managed to successfully frame it around progressive social issues--one of the few things his campaign has managed to do in the past four years. This election should not have been about abortion, but at the end of the day, that's what it was for a lot of voters.
But anyways, the saddest thing about November 6th was Scott Brown not getting re-elected. I thought after he took Ted Kennedy's seat that it might just be a sign of the start of the end of our nation's rooted political polarization, but apparently Massachusetts voters decided otherwise. Elizabeth Warren is just another person who is going to vote 90% or more along party lines, that's not what we need; we need people who are going to be more moderate and actually make decisions on their own. What really saddens me is just how polarized America has become, and it can be really highlighted in the Massachusetts Senate race. The two biggest problems I have are the following:
In any state that isn't as polarized as Massachusetts, Scott Brown would have won that election.
In any other state that isn't that polarized, Scott Brown would have never been nominated because he strays too far from the GOP.
I'm also really disappointed in my own state of Rhode Island. We still elected David Cicilline, who makes Chinese politicians look not incorruptible. Also the Republican party in this state cannot put up a decent candidate.
I'm a Republican, I voted for Mitt Romney, I voted for Doherty (the guy in Rhode Island who ran against Cicilline for the 1st Congressional District), and I am thoroughly disappointed. I think that this is going to lead to massive reforms and changes within the Republican party as they have to shift with the demographic. I have very low hopes for the next four years because Washington is effectively unchanged except that Scott Brown is no longer there. But yeah, I would be interested in hearing other people's views on what I'm talking about.
Bit of a shame really, every time a Republican like Brown loses, I just pray that another right-wing nutjob isn't the next candidate for his place. What was his record like over there? I know when I've heard him speak he seems a sensible enough guy, but not too sure about his record.
I'm not so sure about your assessment of Warren, in fact I think she's a good bit more to the left of a lot of her party, so while she's not going to be diving in with the Republicans, I don't see her as necessarily toeing the party line on everything.
On November 08 2012 15:29 NicolBolas wrote: To me, the stupidest thing about the EC is that it's still 538 people who all get together to select the president. If half of them were bought off or whatever, they could select some random guy and make him president. If even two of GWBush's electors had decided to vote Gore for whatever reason, we would have had a real mess.
At the very least, the formality of selecting electors and having them vote needs to go away. It needs to be formalized into "you won state X, you get X votes." instead of "you get to select X people you hope you can trust to vote for you."
Well, the whole point of being a constitutional republic is electing people to represent you (or your state, since we are a 'federal' constitutional republic). Holding electors to their pledges is the responsibility of individual states, and state legislatures have the power to punish, remove, or void the votes of electors that don't vote for the candidates to which they are pledged.
On November 08 2012 14:52 tomatriedes wrote: Based on a lot of the post-election comments on various news sites I've been reading, I really don't think the republicans are going to make any of the changes they need to. The tea party faction is going to 'double down' and become even more aggressive and reactionary.
Example:
Romney lost because he did not act like he wanted the job. There were hundreds of things he could have brought up about Odumbo that would have exposed this phoney, but he didn’t do that. He ran a “nice” campaign, and lost. Nuts to being “nice.” I want a vicious attack dog who will eat the other side alive. I guess the Republicans will never learn….Bob Dole, John McCain and now Romney. What a bunch of losers!
In their next primary they're going to force whatever candidates they have into more and more extreme positions on social issues and demographics are going to punish them even more. Any republican leader who tries to advocate moderation will be destroyed by Fox News, Rush et al. Eventually true libertarians will have to leave out of frustration.
Oi. The more moderate Republicans should just leave and join the Democrats. It's not as if the Democrats are really Democrats anyways. Obama's practically a moderate Republican.
The GOP basically needs to re-brand so they no longer get characterized as the "old white men party." Otherwise they'll keep alienating the communities whose support they need to win.
Obama is not moderate at all, Obama is pretty far to the left (at least in terms of American politics). But I agree that the Republican party is going to have to re-brand themselves.
I won't address "Obama is a moderate Republican" here, since I think a ton of websites do hash over it quite a bit. It didn't really click with me until I heard one of my profs talking about the election recently in his office, bemoaning the fact that the Democrats aren't Democrats anymore and that everyone's really a Republican. (He hopes that one day the Democratic party will rediscover its backbone, lol.)
Re: abortion (sorry, don't want to quote your other post) -- You do not seriously expect people to sit there and not react when the GOP blatantly threatens their rights?
It's a similar problem with opposing gay marriage; yeah, sure, it'll get legalized some day in the future, but let's just be honest here, it's pretty damn douchebaggy to say, "Yeah, you can wait for your rights, they're gonna come anyways, BUT FIRST, ECONOMY (wait, wtf is romney's plan anyways, will it really affect me like these social issues*)?" People shouldn't have to wait for their rights, and they shouldn't have their rights threatened in the first place, especially those rights that will have a very tangible effect on their lives.
*I assure you there are lots of people thinking this way. I don't think it's a surprise to know that it is a lot easier to relate to social issues than it is to relate to a bunch of numbers floating in the air. The GOP shot itself in the foot here.
EDIT: Okay, so I'm just going to throw in my two more cents here and say that the best course of action for the GOP about social issues is to not bring them up even if they disagree with the Dems.
When will people realize they are just further left than most moderates and Democrats? People who are far left are looking at everyone else and seeing right wing because they are so left. They need to just realize they are far left and that is why everything looks right. This is all based on the American Scale of Political Reasonableness, of course. Not many communists around.
The fact Republicans still pull ~half of the vote should be a hint they aren't uber right wing by the American Scale of Political Reasonableness.
Americans deciding on who to vote for to me looks more like: "My ancestors voted republican/deomcrat." ---> So do I.
Your in dire need of more political parties, not because a 2 party system does not work, but because the reps/dems parties have to span over too many points and in the end you have no clue what your really getting anymore. How is one to judge if someone that voted Party X not only did so because of some issues he has with a few fringe points of Party Y he really can't stomach?
EPT
