|
|
On August 14 2012 01:45 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 19:20 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On August 13 2012 12:54 xDaunt wrote:On August 13 2012 12:13 Signet wrote:On August 13 2012 11:44 ContrailNZ wrote:
As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
I think in choosing Ryan, Romney has chosen to lose some swing voters (which are rare in today's polarized environment) in hopes that conservatives will simply turn out in higher numbers than liberals/Democrats. Putting Ryan on the ticket gives them something to vote for, in addition to voting against Obama. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. But it's worth noting that, for at least the past month, Obama has been getting well over 300 electoral votes on poll tracker/forecast sites like Five Thirty Eight or Election Projection. In fact his re-election odds have grown to over 70% according to the former site. The Romney campaign probably senses that they have become the clear underdogs, and decided to go with a high risk / high reward strategy, which is arguably the correct thing to do if you're expected to lose anyway. Ha... funny enough Nate Silver wrote a piece about this very idea. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/ I don't buy the argument that Ryan will alienate moderates. He is representative for a fairly pro-democrat district and carried it fairly easily even in 2008. Just watch. The man's budget is going to completely alienate every moderate and democrat, and even some left-leaning Republicans. I really don't think this guy was a very good choice. Probably if they knew what was in it. But the Republicans have successfully campaigned on debt fetishism, and that Obama, not Bush is the cause. I wouldn't be so sure that this election is won because of policy. It may very well be about policy, but that doesn't mean people actually understand policy. Show nested quote +YouGov asked 1000 prospective voters “how the outcome of this fall’s presidential election will affect America over the next four years. Regardless of which candidate you personally support, what effect do you think the election outcome will have on the federal budget deficit?” The response options were “much higher if Obama is reelected” (selected by 35% of the sample), “somewhat higher if Obama is reelected” (11%), “no difference” (36%), “somewhat higher if Romney is elected” (5%), and “much higher if Romney is elected” (12%).
The distribution of responses to this question is a testament to the political effectiveness of Republicans like Ryan and Tea Party activists, who have been loudly bewailing the escalation of the federal debt since Barack Obama became president. Democrats’ counterargument that recent outsized budget deficits reflect fallout from the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq War seems to have been much less persuasive. Nor have they made much headway, at least so far, in convincing the public that the Republican budget plan authored by Ryan and endorsed by Romney would actually exacerbate the deficit by slashing the taxes of top income earners.
...
The strongest relationship, by far, was between people’s expectations about the budget deficit and their expectations about their own taxes. However, the direction of this relationship was precisely the opposite of what straightforward fiscal logic would suggest: people who expected higher taxes under Obama also expected a bigger budget deficit under Obama, other things being equal, while those who expected higher taxes under Romney also expected a bigger budget deficit under Romney. This peculiar association was strongest among people who were relatively uninformed about politics; but it was easily the most important single determinant of deficit expectations even among people with above-average levels of political information.
Expectations about the federal deficit were somewhat less strongly related to expectations about overall economic growth. People who thought the economy would grow more robustly under Obama thought the deficit would be larger under Romney, and vice versa. (Not surprisingly, expectations about relative economic growth were themselves strongly skewed by partisan loyalties; 47% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans expected higher growth under their party’s candidate, while only 11% of each group expected higher growth under the other party’s candidate.) People’s partisan attachments also had a substantial direct effect on their expectations about the deficit, even after taking statistical account of all these other factors. SourceThere's a lot more there, but the gist is most people don't actually understand policy. They get a snippet from their coworker who walked in on his wife watching Fox News/MSNBC/CNN while they were talking about it.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330491¤tpage=279#5577
Interestingly, I linked that article in an earlier post. The point is, it's very premature to be popping champagne corks already.
|
On August 14 2012 02:04 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 01:45 aksfjh wrote:On August 13 2012 19:20 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:52 Stratos_speAr wrote:On August 13 2012 12:54 xDaunt wrote:On August 13 2012 12:13 Signet wrote:On August 13 2012 11:44 ContrailNZ wrote:
As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
I think in choosing Ryan, Romney has chosen to lose some swing voters (which are rare in today's polarized environment) in hopes that conservatives will simply turn out in higher numbers than liberals/Democrats. Putting Ryan on the ticket gives them something to vote for, in addition to voting against Obama. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. But it's worth noting that, for at least the past month, Obama has been getting well over 300 electoral votes on poll tracker/forecast sites like Five Thirty Eight or Election Projection. In fact his re-election odds have grown to over 70% according to the former site. The Romney campaign probably senses that they have become the clear underdogs, and decided to go with a high risk / high reward strategy, which is arguably the correct thing to do if you're expected to lose anyway. Ha... funny enough Nate Silver wrote a piece about this very idea. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/ I don't buy the argument that Ryan will alienate moderates. He is representative for a fairly pro-democrat district and carried it fairly easily even in 2008. Just watch. The man's budget is going to completely alienate every moderate and democrat, and even some left-leaning Republicans. I really don't think this guy was a very good choice. Probably if they knew what was in it. But the Republicans have successfully campaigned on debt fetishism, and that Obama, not Bush is the cause. I wouldn't be so sure that this election is won because of policy. It may very well be about policy, but that doesn't mean people actually understand policy. YouGov asked 1000 prospective voters “how the outcome of this fall’s presidential election will affect America over the next four years. Regardless of which candidate you personally support, what effect do you think the election outcome will have on the federal budget deficit?” The response options were “much higher if Obama is reelected” (selected by 35% of the sample), “somewhat higher if Obama is reelected” (11%), “no difference” (36%), “somewhat higher if Romney is elected” (5%), and “much higher if Romney is elected” (12%).
The distribution of responses to this question is a testament to the political effectiveness of Republicans like Ryan and Tea Party activists, who have been loudly bewailing the escalation of the federal debt since Barack Obama became president. Democrats’ counterargument that recent outsized budget deficits reflect fallout from the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq War seems to have been much less persuasive. Nor have they made much headway, at least so far, in convincing the public that the Republican budget plan authored by Ryan and endorsed by Romney would actually exacerbate the deficit by slashing the taxes of top income earners.
...
The strongest relationship, by far, was between people’s expectations about the budget deficit and their expectations about their own taxes. However, the direction of this relationship was precisely the opposite of what straightforward fiscal logic would suggest: people who expected higher taxes under Obama also expected a bigger budget deficit under Obama, other things being equal, while those who expected higher taxes under Romney also expected a bigger budget deficit under Romney. This peculiar association was strongest among people who were relatively uninformed about politics; but it was easily the most important single determinant of deficit expectations even among people with above-average levels of political information.
Expectations about the federal deficit were somewhat less strongly related to expectations about overall economic growth. People who thought the economy would grow more robustly under Obama thought the deficit would be larger under Romney, and vice versa. (Not surprisingly, expectations about relative economic growth were themselves strongly skewed by partisan loyalties; 47% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans expected higher growth under their party’s candidate, while only 11% of each group expected higher growth under the other party’s candidate.) People’s partisan attachments also had a substantial direct effect on their expectations about the deficit, even after taking statistical account of all these other factors. SourceThere's a lot more there, but the gist is most people don't actually understand policy. They get a snippet from their coworker who walked in on his wife watching Fox News/MSNBC/CNN while they were talking about it. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330491¤tpage=279#5577Interestingly, I linked that article in an earlier post. The point is, it's very premature to be popping champagne corks already.
I knew I saw it earlier somewhere! I just didn't remember if it was in this thread or somewhere else on the internet...
|
On August 13 2012 19:19 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 15:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 13 2012 13:27 RenSC2 wrote:
tl;dr:
For the economy: successful investment > unsuccessful investment > no investment.
For you: successful investment > no investment > unsuccessful investment.
The government needs to worry about the economy more than you and should make policies to encourage (or even force) investment and redistribution of wealth. Weeeeeeel, in the sort run, sure, bad investment is better than none, but in the long run I'd rather see money spent on useful things (or not spent at all) rather than chucked away. There are always plenty of useful things to spend money on - the 'something is better than nothing' excuse is just that - an excuse to be lazy and chuck money away rather than take the time and effort to spend it on something worthwhile. How is a failed investment "chucking money away"? The money still goes into the economy, just as it would if the investment was successful.
Because you're using up society's resources for no good.
It makes things move around faster, which is "good" for the economy, but that is not the big picture.
Remember that capitalism is not about having wealth, it is about moving wealth around. (It's like electricity is not about having electrons, it's about moving them around.) This makes it seem like you are getting richer when actually you are just wasting things.
Trivially, you can imagine the limit case. Suppose every investment were bad. The money would "still go into the economy," but that couldn't possibly be good for human beings...
You have to look at it from the point of view of society as a whole. It had some resources, it tried to invest them, it failed, and it lost the resources with no gain. Some of those resources get transferred to other people who can try again, but some of it is lost to entropy. It only seems like it is good for the economy because you are not accounting for externalities. For the system it cannot possibly be a gain.
|
On August 14 2012 02:29 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 19:19 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 13 2012 13:27 RenSC2 wrote:
tl;dr:
For the economy: successful investment > unsuccessful investment > no investment.
For you: successful investment > no investment > unsuccessful investment.
The government needs to worry about the economy more than you and should make policies to encourage (or even force) investment and redistribution of wealth. Weeeeeeel, in the sort run, sure, bad investment is better than none, but in the long run I'd rather see money spent on useful things (or not spent at all) rather than chucked away. There are always plenty of useful things to spend money on - the 'something is better than nothing' excuse is just that - an excuse to be lazy and chuck money away rather than take the time and effort to spend it on something worthwhile. How is a failed investment "chucking money away"? The money still goes into the economy, just as it would if the investment was successful. Because you're using up society's resources for no good. It makes things move around faster, which is "good" for the economy, but that is not the big picture. Remember that capitalism is not about having wealth, it is about moving wealth around. (It's like electricity is not about having electrons, it's about moving them around.) This makes it seem like you are getting richer when actually you are just wasting things. Trivially, you can imagine the limit case. Suppose every investment were bad. The money would "still go into the economy," but that couldn't possibly be good for human beings... You have to look at it from the point of view of society as a whole. It had some resources, it tried to invest them, it failed, and it lost the resources with no gain. Some of those resources get transferred to other people who can try again, but some of it is lost to entropy. It only seems like it is good for the economy because you are not accounting for externalities. For the system it cannot possibly be a gain.
Investment is meant to increase production in the long term. Bad investment doesn't do this, but neutral and good investment do. You can still lose money and ultimately have a failed business or venture, but if you increased the capacity for production, then your investment was a net positive to society. That's not to say it was the best investment or that it couldn't have been invested better somewhere else (otherwise it wouldn't fail), but personal gains on investment is a poor judgement on whether investment was good or bad.
|
You are still assuming natural resources fall from the sky
there is not an identity between capacity for production and benefit to society
(and you spend all that effort doing something useless, when you could have been enjoying your life or becoming more educated. That would be good for society)
|
On August 14 2012 02:43 sam!zdat wrote:
You are still assuming natural resources fall from the sky
there is not an identity between capacity for production and benefit to society
(and you spend all that effort doing something useless, when you could have been enjoying your life or becoming more educated. That would be good for society)
The problem with your argument is that we're not near the point where the natural resources of our planet will seriously constrain our growth to the point where capitalism is the zero-sum game that you're talking about.
|
On August 14 2012 02:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:43 sam!zdat wrote:
You are still assuming natural resources fall from the sky
there is not an identity between capacity for production and benefit to society
(and you spend all that effort doing something useless, when you could have been enjoying your life or becoming more educated. That would be good for society) The problem with your argument is that we're not near the point where the natural resources of our planet will seriously constrain our growth to the point where capitalism is the zero-sum game that you're talking about.
How's the sand down there?
User was warned for this post
|
Natural resources virtually DO fall from the sky. Prices reflect the rate at which they fall. Prices also reflect the capacity of production. Being able to produce more from less, whether it's less time, raw materials, or investment, increases the availability of that product to society.
You enjoying your life or getting an education doesn't necessarily equate a good investment either (in the name of capitalism). You'd have to put that life experience or education to work.
This is why putting forth capital for investments is almost always a good idea. It's very hard to invest in materials and personnel without somehow increasing the production capacity of society. The debate should be centered around what investment does the most, and if it could be better invested when in the hands of other individuals/groups.
|
On August 14 2012 02:29 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 19:19 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 13 2012 13:27 RenSC2 wrote:
tl;dr:
For the economy: successful investment > unsuccessful investment > no investment.
For you: successful investment > no investment > unsuccessful investment.
The government needs to worry about the economy more than you and should make policies to encourage (or even force) investment and redistribution of wealth. Weeeeeeel, in the sort run, sure, bad investment is better than none, but in the long run I'd rather see money spent on useful things (or not spent at all) rather than chucked away. There are always plenty of useful things to spend money on - the 'something is better than nothing' excuse is just that - an excuse to be lazy and chuck money away rather than take the time and effort to spend it on something worthwhile. How is a failed investment "chucking money away"? The money still goes into the economy, just as it would if the investment was successful. Because you're using up society's resources for no good. It makes things move around faster, which is "good" for the economy, but that is not the big picture. Remember that capitalism is not about having wealth, it is about moving wealth around. (It's like electricity is not about having electrons, it's about moving them around.) This makes it seem like you are getting richer when actually you are just wasting things. Trivially, you can imagine the limit case. Suppose every investment were bad. The money would "still go into the economy," but that couldn't possibly be good for human beings... You have to look at it from the point of view of society as a whole. It had some resources, it tried to invest them, it failed, and it lost the resources with no gain. Some of those resources get transferred to other people who can try again, but some of it is lost to entropy. It only seems like it is good for the economy because you are not accounting for externalities. For the system it cannot possibly be a gain.
You're failing to distinguish profit making and improving society.
Making a good investment in the sense of making profit is not necessarily good for society, e.g. trading of mortgage backed securities were very profitable, but blew up the financial system.
Making a money-losing investment is not necessarily bad for society, e.g. charity.
There is not a strong connection between making profit and improving society.
|
On August 14 2012 02:52 aksfjh wrote:
Natural resources virtually DO fall from the sky. Prices reflect the rate at which they fall. Prices also reflect the capacity of production. Being able to produce more from less, whether it's less time, raw materials, or investment, increases the availability of that product to society.
Capitalism is obviously not promoting efficient use of resources.
Keep in mind one of our most important resources is wiggle room in the carbon cycle, which we a) don't price and b) are basically out of.
You enjoying your life or getting an education doesn't necessarily equate a good investment either (in the name of capitalism). You'd have to put that life experience or education to work.
This is the problem with capitalism. Its priorities are upside down.
You should work in order to have life experiences and education. Not the other way around.
This is why putting forth capital for investments is almost always a good idea. It's very hard to invest in materials and personnel without somehow increasing the production capacity of society. The debate should be centered around what investment does the most, and if it could be better invested when in the hands of other individuals/groups.
But what if you are increasing production capacity for something useless, or outright detrimental?
|
On August 14 2012 02:57 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:29 sam!zdat wrote:On August 13 2012 19:19 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 13 2012 13:27 RenSC2 wrote:
tl;dr:
For the economy: successful investment > unsuccessful investment > no investment.
For you: successful investment > no investment > unsuccessful investment.
The government needs to worry about the economy more than you and should make policies to encourage (or even force) investment and redistribution of wealth. Weeeeeeel, in the sort run, sure, bad investment is better than none, but in the long run I'd rather see money spent on useful things (or not spent at all) rather than chucked away. There are always plenty of useful things to spend money on - the 'something is better than nothing' excuse is just that - an excuse to be lazy and chuck money away rather than take the time and effort to spend it on something worthwhile. How is a failed investment "chucking money away"? The money still goes into the economy, just as it would if the investment was successful. Because you're using up society's resources for no good. It makes things move around faster, which is "good" for the economy, but that is not the big picture. Remember that capitalism is not about having wealth, it is about moving wealth around. (It's like electricity is not about having electrons, it's about moving them around.) This makes it seem like you are getting richer when actually you are just wasting things. Trivially, you can imagine the limit case. Suppose every investment were bad. The money would "still go into the economy," but that couldn't possibly be good for human beings... You have to look at it from the point of view of society as a whole. It had some resources, it tried to invest them, it failed, and it lost the resources with no gain. Some of those resources get transferred to other people who can try again, but some of it is lost to entropy. It only seems like it is good for the economy because you are not accounting for externalities. For the system it cannot possibly be a gain. You're failing to distinguish profit making and improving society. Making a good investment in the sense of making profit is not necessarily good for society, e.g. trading of mortgage backed securities were very profitable, but blew up the financial system. Making a money-losing investment is not necessarily bad for society, e.g. charity. There is not a strong connection between making profit and improving society.
I'm not sure what you mean. Of course I would wholeheartedly endorse this proposition.
(edit: but there should be. That seems to me like the point of political economy. You want to make it so. That is the rectification of names. To me what you say here is an indictment of the way things are...)
|
On August 14 2012 03:00 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:52 aksfjh wrote:
Natural resources virtually DO fall from the sky. Prices reflect the rate at which they fall. Prices also reflect the capacity of production. Being able to produce more from less, whether it's less time, raw materials, or investment, increases the availability of that product to society.
Capitalism is obviously not promoting efficient use of resources. Keep in mind one of our most important resources is wiggle room in the carbon cycle, which we a) don't price and b) are basically out of. Show nested quote +
You enjoying your life or getting an education doesn't necessarily equate a good investment either (in the name of capitalism). You'd have to put that life experience or education to work.
This is the problem with capitalism. Its priorities are upside down. You should work in order to have life experiences and education. Not the other way around. Show nested quote +
This is why putting forth capital for investments is almost always a good idea. It's very hard to invest in materials and personnel without somehow increasing the production capacity of society. The debate should be centered around what investment does the most, and if it could be better invested when in the hands of other individuals/groups.
But what if you are increasing production capacity for something useless, or outright detrimental?
It only becomes useless when nobody is willing to pay anything for it. Otherwise, it has value and increasing the production of it in relation to resources is beneficial. Art is a good example of this, as are mortgage securities (apparently).
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the priorities of capitalism, and I really do wish we could all work to our own volition. However, society isn't ready for that yet.
|
On August 13 2012 12:27 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 12:13 Signet wrote:On August 13 2012 11:44 ContrailNZ wrote:
As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
I think in choosing Ryan, Romney has chosen to lose some swing voters (which are rare in today's polarized environment) in hopes that conservatives will simply turn out in higher numbers than liberals/Democrats. Putting Ryan on the ticket gives them something to vote for, in addition to voting against Obama. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. But it's worth noting that, for at least the past month, Obama has been getting well over 300 electoral votes on poll tracker/forecast sites like Five Thirty Eight or Election Projection. In fact his re-election odds have grown to over 70% according to the former site. The Romney campaign probably senses that they have become the clear underdogs, and decided to go with a high risk / high reward strategy, which is arguably the correct thing to do if you're expected to lose anyway. Ha... funny enough Nate Silver wrote a piece about this very idea. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/ romney: incredibly wealthy fool, has never had to work a legitimate day in his life and his political stances are as consistent as the lifespan of schrodinger's cat You heard it here first! If you work an office job or are an executive you're not actually working even if you are putting in 50-60 hours a week! Go get a manual labor job and stop being a FREELOADER, GAWD!!!
|
On August 14 2012 02:57 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:29 sam!zdat wrote:On August 13 2012 19:19 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 13 2012 15:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 13 2012 13:27 RenSC2 wrote:
tl;dr:
For the economy: successful investment > unsuccessful investment > no investment.
For you: successful investment > no investment > unsuccessful investment.
The government needs to worry about the economy more than you and should make policies to encourage (or even force) investment and redistribution of wealth. Weeeeeeel, in the sort run, sure, bad investment is better than none, but in the long run I'd rather see money spent on useful things (or not spent at all) rather than chucked away. There are always plenty of useful things to spend money on - the 'something is better than nothing' excuse is just that - an excuse to be lazy and chuck money away rather than take the time and effort to spend it on something worthwhile. How is a failed investment "chucking money away"? The money still goes into the economy, just as it would if the investment was successful. Because you're using up society's resources for no good. It makes things move around faster, which is "good" for the economy, but that is not the big picture. Remember that capitalism is not about having wealth, it is about moving wealth around. (It's like electricity is not about having electrons, it's about moving them around.) This makes it seem like you are getting richer when actually you are just wasting things. Trivially, you can imagine the limit case. Suppose every investment were bad. The money would "still go into the economy," but that couldn't possibly be good for human beings... You have to look at it from the point of view of society as a whole. It had some resources, it tried to invest them, it failed, and it lost the resources with no gain. Some of those resources get transferred to other people who can try again, but some of it is lost to entropy. It only seems like it is good for the economy because you are not accounting for externalities. For the system it cannot possibly be a gain. You're failing to distinguish profit making and improving society. Making a good investment in the sense of making profit is not necessarily good for society, e.g. trading of mortgage backed securities were very profitable, but blew up the financial system. Making a money-losing investment is not necessarily bad for society, e.g. charity. There is not a strong connection between making profit and improving society.
Mmm, no. All organizations exist to benefit society in some way, by providing a certain service. Profit is important because it is a feedback tool, a measuring stick by which you can determine whether people want that service or not. Profit isn't the only possible measuring stick for success, but non-profits do need resources to survive and will have to justify their existence sooner or later.
Now, I think what you're getting at is that society needs the government as an outside force to shepherd society's resources and ensure that people aren't making decisions whose utility hurts society more than it benefits them as individuals. And certainly that's true in many instances.
As a general point, it is a stretch to necessarily label a failed company as a waste. Failed companies leave behind equipment, inventory, and personnel that might not have been a complete waste.
|
On August 13 2012 13:05 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 12:54 xDaunt wrote:On August 13 2012 12:13 Signet wrote:On August 13 2012 11:44 ContrailNZ wrote:
As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
I think in choosing Ryan, Romney has chosen to lose some swing voters (which are rare in today's polarized environment) in hopes that conservatives will simply turn out in higher numbers than liberals/Democrats. Putting Ryan on the ticket gives them something to vote for, in addition to voting against Obama. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. But it's worth noting that, for at least the past month, Obama has been getting well over 300 electoral votes on poll tracker/forecast sites like Five Thirty Eight or Election Projection. In fact his re-election odds have grown to over 70% according to the former site. The Romney campaign probably senses that they have become the clear underdogs, and decided to go with a high risk / high reward strategy, which is arguably the correct thing to do if you're expected to lose anyway. Ha... funny enough Nate Silver wrote a piece about this very idea. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/ I don't buy the argument that Ryan will alienate moderates. He is representative for a fairly pro-democrat district and carried it fairly easily even in 2008. Just watch. I've been seeing this talking point make its way round the internet since the Ryan pick and calling it "pro-democrat" is really stretching. 1) The 1st district of Wisconsin has had a republican representative since 1995. 2) GWB got 53% of the vote in 2004 3) Obama won the district in 2008 but it was a narrow victory of 51.4 to 47.45 At best you could call it a swing district.
It's a swing district as far as Wisconsin politics are concerned. Ryan leaving will likely leave it to a democrat this term.
Ryan is a moderate btw.
|
On August 14 2012 03:45 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2012 13:05 ZeaL. wrote:On August 13 2012 12:54 xDaunt wrote:On August 13 2012 12:13 Signet wrote:On August 13 2012 11:44 ContrailNZ wrote:
As someone not in America, i think Ryan as VP has basically ended the election for Romney.
The real swing voters don't fall for the lies / rhetoric from both sides. They will see a big debt problem and are probably not those that would greatly benefit from either Obama's or Romney's plans.
I think in choosing Ryan, Romney has chosen to lose some swing voters (which are rare in today's polarized environment) in hopes that conservatives will simply turn out in higher numbers than liberals/Democrats. Putting Ryan on the ticket gives them something to vote for, in addition to voting against Obama. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. But it's worth noting that, for at least the past month, Obama has been getting well over 300 electoral votes on poll tracker/forecast sites like Five Thirty Eight or Election Projection. In fact his re-election odds have grown to over 70% according to the former site. The Romney campaign probably senses that they have become the clear underdogs, and decided to go with a high risk / high reward strategy, which is arguably the correct thing to do if you're expected to lose anyway. Ha... funny enough Nate Silver wrote a piece about this very idea. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/ I don't buy the argument that Ryan will alienate moderates. He is representative for a fairly pro-democrat district and carried it fairly easily even in 2008. Just watch. I've been seeing this talking point make its way round the internet since the Ryan pick and calling it "pro-democrat" is really stretching. 1) The 1st district of Wisconsin has had a republican representative since 1995. 2) GWB got 53% of the vote in 2004 3) Obama won the district in 2008 but it was a narrow victory of 51.4 to 47.45 At best you could call it a swing district. It's a swing district as far as Wisconsin politics are concerned. Ryan leaving will likely leave it to a democrat this term. Ryan is a moderate btw.
Yeah, also should point out that since 1995, Wisconsin's 1st district has had two GOP reps: Mark Neumann and Paul Ryan, who has been there since 1999. So saying it has had a Republican representative since 1995 and implying that makes it a GOP district is being a bit misleading. It's not that constituency is Republican, it's that Ryan has been a popular rep.
|
|
|
How do they determine those scores? o.0
|
On August 14 2012 04:46 Mohdoo wrote:How do they determine those scores? o.0
They took VP candidates' voting records, so they only measure VPs who were in Congress (note Palin is not on there). Note that the source blog says it comes from a common ideology scale but that's not true, it's candidates voting against their own parties. Republicans can make un-conservative bills (e.g. social conservatism) while Democrats can make un-liberal bills (e.g. all the military funding bills since 2006).
So by this measure, Ryan is the most loyal Republican soldier, not the most conservative. He's the candidate least likely to vote against the party ever (or vote for the other side).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
