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On June 26 2012 13:29 darthfoley wrote:
really hope romney loses, he's the definition of a douchebag, and wouldn't be liked if he wasn't a billionaire.
i was never a huge fan of Obama, my family (and therefore i) was pulling for Clinton in 08, but he's better than Romney.
the guy can't take a firm stance on anything, thus failing the most basic qualities of being a leader. Being right or wrong, left or right, fucking man up take a stance on the important issues at hand. All I have seen so far is complete evasion from everything except the economy and even there he just rides Paul Ryans d.
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lol i knew he wouldn't respond to this. xdaunt is so delusional, i doubt he's anything starcraft affiliated...
Wrote a very fun Protoss guide back in the day that was effective at the top level. Rest of his post count should speak for itself ... try impugning the credibility of an easier target, darthfoley
On June 26 2012 08:26 mlspmatt wrote: If Republicans had a good candidate, I think they'd win a close race. But nobody like Romney, not even his own party. And Likability is very important. Show nested quote +
The problem is that the hard right drives Republican discussion. A moderate Republican almost always wins a general election. However because of the hard right, nobody who is a moderate republican can win a primary.
You'll get a lot of people agreeing with you saying this. But not me. The political divide & media push has put the dividing line from Conservative - Moderate Republican - Moderate Democrat/Fiscally Conservative Democrat further and further to the left. The debate is less focused on reforming programs that are impoverishing America, and which one should be cut, and more towards the merits of government-run "free" healthcare, open borders, stimulus packages, money printing, etc.
So if you're waiting around to find out when your personal top-issues are going to be put to serious debate and have a chance of passing, you're stuck finding candidates that do more than just lip service to them. McCain inspired nobody, Bush was a big government type, Bush Sr. same story. I'm speaking from the vantage point of conservative blogosphere, and California young Conservative Republicans. When compromise means a choice between 75% of what the other side wants, and 100% of what the other side wants, you get sick of it. Piss off the base and the establishment moderates lose their primaries (See 2010) because the base wants action pushing the midway point back the other way.
So, no, a moderate Republican is not an attractive prospect for electability, and the hard right, now grown in strength from when Bush was in office, is feeling the need to push long-lost agendas back to the forefront. Romney still feels too moderate (defends mandate when he was governor, has taken different stances speaking to different electoral groups), but he's better than McCain and shows some hope for pro-business legislation.
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There's no question Romney is better than McCain (what a creep...) not to mention there won't be Sarah Palin to insult the intelligence of everyone in America. I knew a handful of people who voted who never would have except for the fact that Palin was chosen as VP.
I think the VP debate between Biden and Palin was the lowest point in American political history. How did we drop so low...
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On June 26 2012 13:50 DannyJ wrote:
There's no question Romney is better than McCain (what a creep...) not to mention there won't be Sarah Palin to insult the intelligence of everyone in America. I knew a handful of people who voted who never would have except for the fact that Palin was chosen as VP.
I think the VP debate between Biden and Palin was the lowest point in American political history. How did we drop so low...
Nah, McCain was actually a honorable man, and he had firm ideals. Romney = hollow shell waiting to be possesed by the GOP.
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On June 26 2012 13:50 DannyJ wrote:
There's no question Romney is better than McCain (what a creep...) not to mention there won't be Sarah Palin to insult the intelligence of everyone in America. I knew a handful of people who voted who never would have except for the fact that Palin was chosen as VP.
I think the VP debate between Biden and Palin was the lowest point in American political history. How did we drop so low...
McCain was actually a pretty awesome candidate. Don't judge his record simply on the 2008 election, when he's become considerably old and pandering to the awful GOP base, sometimes going against his previous stances starkly. McCain has been a longtime player in politics. But yea, don't judge the man by 2008.
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He was a bad candidate to the masses, not a bad man.
He didn't definitely totally sell out though, personally.
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On June 26 2012 14:08 DannyJ wrote:
He was a bad candidate to the masses, not a bad man.
He didn't definitely totally sell out though, personally.
Yes he did, and so did Romney. And that's why both will lose. When will a moderate realize they don't have to sell out to win?
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On June 26 2012 14:04 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 13:50 DannyJ wrote:
There's no question Romney is better than McCain (what a creep...) not to mention there won't be Sarah Palin to insult the intelligence of everyone in America. I knew a handful of people who voted who never would have except for the fact that Palin was chosen as VP.
I think the VP debate between Biden and Palin was the lowest point in American political history. How did we drop so low... McCain was actually a pretty awesome candidate. Don't judge his record simply on the 2008 election, when he's become considerably old and pandering to the awful GOP base, sometimes going against his previous stances starkly. McCain has been a longtime player in politics. But yea, don't judge the man by 2008.
Both Romney and McCain were considered moderate, successful Republican politicans until they ran for president.
McCain was very progressive on immigration and has been trying to get campaign financing reformed.
Romney's greatest accomplishment, sadly, was coming up with a bipartisan solution to provide universal healthcare in Massachusetts. The approval rating for healthcare by the state's residents is well over 60% (can't remember exactly), and represents a tremendous legacy that Romney should be proud of.
I've said it a million times, it's not McCain or Romney that are the problem, its the GOP/Conservative brand that has been forced upon them, which has been mutilated by special interests groups as divergent as evangelicals, homophobes, gun-nuts, racists, neocons, the Tea Party and Wall Street.
There is a suspicion as to why 'the stars' of the Republican Party such as Chris Christie or Jeb Bush aren't exactly clamouring to run for president right now -- they don't want to deal with or pander to the Tea Party congressmen any more than the Democrats.
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On June 26 2012 14:57 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 14:08 DannyJ wrote:
He was a bad candidate to the masses, not a bad man.
He didn't definitely totally sell out though, personally. Yes he did, and so did Romney. And that's why both will lose. When will a moderate realize they don't have to sell out to win?
God, does anyone else remember when John McCain would regularly appear on The Daily Show as the token 'cool Republican'?
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On June 26 2012 19:06 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 14:57 BluePanther wrote:On June 26 2012 14:08 DannyJ wrote:
He was a bad candidate to the masses, not a bad man.
He didn't definitely totally sell out though, personally. Yes he did, and so did Romney. And that's why both will lose. When will a moderate realize they don't have to sell out to win? God, does anyone else remember when John McCain would regularly appear on The Daily Show as the token 'cool Republican'?
Can you imagine spending your whole life developing a career as a war hero politician and then leaving a legacy by the name of Sarah Palin. I don't agree with his politics but he has made no greater mark than that train wreck of a woman. I just hope he can clean the slate a little for his own sake.
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As an independent voter, I was actually thrilled to have McCain vs Obama. They both seemed like reasonably good candidates after the Bush disaster. It wasn't until he chose Sarah Palin (and went a bit crazy and sell-out-ish towards the end) that it was clear Obama would get my vote. Four years later, and the republican party has gone entirely batshit insane. Despite calling myself an independent, I really can't see myself voting anything other than democrat for a very long time to come.
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On June 26 2012 04:05 Velocirapture wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 01:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On June 25 2012 21:55 BluePanther wrote:On June 25 2012 21:41 paralleluniverse wrote:On June 25 2012 21:10 BluePanther wrote:
Both sides are partially correct, and I fail to understand why this observation isn't universal...
Simply put, the goal is to amass weath (this = higher SoL). A temporary surge in production can be beneficial in the short term as it tips the equilibrium of demand to the high side. The problem is that you cannot maintain this surge indefinitely as it is not genuine. Creating more by breaking stuff does not lead to long term growth because you are just working twice as hard to maintain the same standard of living. Sure, you'll have work, but it's not productive work.
The poor man working a factory job to make ends meet will love this short term work. However it's not healthy for long periods of time. It is beneficial for short-term emergencies, but you need to be able to transition out of it or you are left sitting in a position where you have manipulated the equilibrium to a position where it cannot seamlessly transition back into its rightful position. Obviously... Keynesian stimulus is meant to be temporary... This is basic, first-year, macroeconomics. Then what's the debate over? Over whether stimulus works. I think most people accept that stimulus works. Almost all dissenting opinions I have heard question how much it helps (are we getting good value) or they are ideologically opposed to federal intervention (a position which has nothing to do with stimulus specifically).
I see that you've never argued with an Austrian or a Ron Paul fan. If there's no debate on whether stimulus works (and academically there isn't really any, the mountains of evidence is overwhelming), then why is there a debate? Why hasn't the government implemented more stimulus, more infrastructure spending, more aid to local government to stop the mass firing of teachers, police officers and firefighters?
As for the overwhelming amounts of evidence, see for example:
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/ES/BPEA/2012_spring_bpea_papers/2012_spring_BPEA_delongsummers.pdf
https://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2011/res/pdf/DR3presentation.pdf
The second link contains this footnote:
3 For within-country evidence, see Chodorow-Reich, Feiveson, Liscow, and Woolston (2010); Suárez Serrato and Wingender (2010); Shoag (2010); Fishback and Kachanovskaya (2010); and Nakamura and Steinsson (2011). For cross-country evidence, see International Monetary Fund (2010); Council of Economic Advisers (2009); and Kraay (2010). For time-series evidence (as well as simulation-based evidence), see Hall (2009); Barro and Redlick (2010); Fisher and Peters (2009); Coenen et al. (2010); and Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Rebelo (2010). On this list, all but Kraay, Barro and Redlick, and Fisher and Peters implicitly or explicitly try to provide evidence about the case where monetary policy does not act to offset the effects of fiscal policy. With the exception of two of these three (Kraay and Barro and Redlick), the papers all suggest substantial effects of fiscal policy. As I describe below, this brief tour omits all work that predates the crisis.
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On June 26 2012 14:57 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 14:08 DannyJ wrote:
He was a bad candidate to the masses, not a bad man.
He didn't definitely totally sell out though, personally. Yes he did, and so did Romney. And that's why both will lose. When will a moderate realize they don't have to sell out to win?
if you are going to go through the Republican Primaries, you pretty much have to, sadly.
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On June 26 2012 23:10 Kitai wrote:
As an independent voter, I was actually thrilled to have McCain vs Obama. They both seemed like reasonably good candidates after the Bush disaster. It wasn't until he chose Sarah Palin (and went a bit crazy and sell-out-ish towards the end) that it was clear Obama would get my vote. Four years later, and the republican party has gone entirely batshit insane. Despite calling myself an independent, I really can't see myself voting anything other than democrat for a very long time to come.
This is the long term crisis Republicans face. I don't personally know a single person under 30 who actually knows something about politics and would consider voting for any Republican candidate for a serious office (and I live in a Red Red state). They've been slowly pulling further right since Reagan, and now they're completely off the deep end. Even long-serving, well-respected moderates like Olympia Snowe and Dick Lugar find themselves either compelled to retire or be primaried by a crazy person. Republicans are doing serious damage to their brand, to say nothing of the effect their agenda would have if were actually enacted.
They've succeeded on one front, though. The entire political spectrum has shifted to the right. Go back and look at speeches from Reagan and Nixon. They look like hardcore liberals by today's standards (esp Nixon). If you really only care about conservative policies, and not actually holding office, shifting political spectrum is way more effective then winning elections.
This hard line strategy is either mind-numbingly stupid or oddly brilliant. I'm still unsure.
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On June 26 2012 13:46 Danglars wrote:
You'll get a lot of people agreeing with you saying this. But not me. The political divide & media push has put the dividing line from Conservative - Moderate Republican - Moderate Democrat/Fiscally Conservative Democrat further and further to the left.
Actually, the exact opposite of what you just said has happened - the entire political spectrum has clearly moved to the right over the last decades, especially since the retaking of the House by Gingrich and his fellow Republicans in 1994.
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Republicans have to be conservative.
If republican stop beeing conservative there realy is no fundamental difference annymore between democrats and republicans and the only difference will be in the tiny details while basicly employing the same policys.
For people in europe the usa politics already look extremely biased, both republicans and democrats would be considered (far) right wing here and the difference between them is in minor details.
There is nothing to represent the middle, let alone the left.
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On June 26 2012 23:59 Rassy wrote:
Republicans have to be conservative.
If republican stop beeing conservative there realy is no fundamental difference annymore between democrats and republicans and the only difference will be in the tiny details while basicly employing the same policys.
For people in europe the usa politics already look extremely biased, both republicans and democrats would be considered (far) right wing here and the difference between them is in minor details.
There is nothing to represent the middle, let alone the left.
The republicans could be more Libertarian instead of this theocratic, fiscally dishonest party they are now. To say that their social policies or foreign policy or even fiscal responsibility are conservative is a drastic misuse of the word to me. If I got the impression the republicans took the more libertarian ideas (like a lot of younger republicans) then I would be a lot more interested in such debates.
Right now the libertarians are practically fringe in the party if you ask me. Just look at the lack of seriousness they gave Ron Paul in the debates.
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As further evidence that Obama has real problems this year with his reelection bid, has anyone else been paying attention to the growing list of democrat politicians from swing states who are refusing to go to the DNC convention this summer?
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United States18840 Posts
On June 27 2012 02:00 xDaunt wrote:
As further evidence that Obama has real problems this year with his reelection bid, has anyone else been paying attention to the growing list of democrat politicians from swing states who are refusing to go to the DNC convention this summer?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/kathy-hochul-bill-owens-democratic-national-convention_n_1615155.html
The two New York Democrats are claiming that in-state obligations are the only reason. So other than Reps from Wisconsin, West Virginia, and one dude from Pennsylvania, wheres the list? (Only Wisconsin is a swing state btw.)
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EPT
