On September 27 2012 02:17 xDaunt wrote: Before y'all start popping champagne corks, you may want to have a closer look at the samples of these new polls.
The same results are happening in polls that don't weight by party ID.
Party ID is kinda a weird variable. Its trends don't always line up with actual party registration numbers. Many people call themselves "independent" even though they vote for the same party every time, or 90% of the time. We know that only about 6% of the electorate is in play this time around; everyone else made up their minds long ago.
In 2010, which was a route, equal numbers of voters in the exit polls self-identified as Democrats and Republicans. Remember, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to call themselves "Independent" (the opposite trend holds for partisans calling themselves "moderate").
The only time I think party ID is worth paying attention to is if they include leaners in with the self-labeled partisans. In that case, each party should have between 45-48% of likely voters with only a small number of true independents.
I disagree that the Party ID figure in these polls does not matter. Here's the problem: the Party ID numbers in these polls reflects a higher percentage of democrat voter turnout compared to republican voter turnout in 2012 than in 2008. This is clearly bullshit.
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
It is an obvious and pointless statement. We all pay the government to build those roads and bridges so we should all be allowed to use them freely.
The world actually existed before you started paying taxes, you know.
Just for fun, do the Romney statement next, JonnyBNoHo. I want to see if you're as delusional as kmillz or not.
Romney's statement about the 47% was stupid on many levels.
Retired WW2 veterans who pay no income tax are hardly freeloaders. People that don't pay tax for temporary reasons (lost job etc) aren't freeloaders either. I could go on... it was just a stupid thing to say.
On September 27 2012 02:17 xDaunt wrote: Before y'all start popping champagne corks, you may want to have a closer look at the samples of these new polls.
Every poll since the convention shows an Obama lead, and nearly every poll has the lead increasing. Combine that with Wisconsin being out of play, Ohio and Florida leaning Obama and NC coming back into play and its pretty desperate for Romney at this point. Aggregate polls have Romney down nearly 5 full points, and 538's 'now cast' is what, 95% certain of Obama winning?
I'm not seeing the sparkle of hope for Romney here. His debate performance is going to have to be stellar, and given the basic problem he faces when, you know, opening his mouth and making a sentence, I can't see it happen there either.
As for polling errors: When faces with many many many polls all telling the same story, I'm not buying it anymore. Some polls do structurally oversample certain group, but they do show trends when you look at the bigger picture. Romney is loosing, badly.
On September 26 2012 07:51 Defacer wrote: Have you ever wondered why the Romney campaign is freaking out about polling data, and insisting it is biased, skewed or flat-out wrong?
It's simple really. Donors don't bet tens of millions of dollars on losing horses.
If conservative donors lose faith in Romney's ability to win the presidency, they will focus their money on shoring up their majority in congress.
They could be insisting it is biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong... Or it could actually be biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong. Your argument would support either case. Either way, the only poll that matters is the one on November 6th.
Actually either way, there is no confidence among conservative high-rollers that Romney will or can win. Romney can't afford to have a bad debate. And the first debate could be Obama's opportunity to put Romney away early, and turn a respectable lead into a blow-out.
The first debate could be Obama's opportunity to blow the election too, what is your point? I'd hardly call the lead respectable, Romney is still within the margin of error, and there are still 42 days til the election.
You didn't read the actual article, did you?
The point is that Obama has out-raised Romney significantly, and has more money to spend. The only actual money-advantage Romney has is Karl Rove's Super-PAC, which has out-raised Paul Begala's, about 5 to 1. But Romney has no control over that money, Karl Rove can spend it however he fucking wants.
That's why you're seeing less and less advertising coming out of Rove in these battleground states. People assume Romney has the funding advantage, when it's actually Rove. He'll be deciding whether or nor Romney is going to have a ad blitz after the debates.
If Obama blows the first debate -- and it's typically for an incumbent to lose the first debate -- he still has a campaign, with more than enough money to sustain his campaign. If Romney blows it, he might as well hang up his gloves.
I don't see such an incredible speaker like Obama losing a debate against Romney, who has made every single mistake he could during the whole campaign and is a notoriously mediocre debater. I don't say that Obama will blow him up straight away, although it's very possible, but the chances of the opposite happening are imho almost non existent.
Thing is that an incumbent has basically less bullets than his challenger, usually, because the challenger can't be criticized and attacked on what he has done, or his results while being in office. It puts him in a naturally defensive position, which is always uncomfortable. It was very clear in France, Hollande demolished Sarkozy during their debate by attacking him again and again and again on his results, without even talking on what he was planning to do. With the crisis, he had an easy job at blaming Sarkozy for all the evil of the world. Although Sarkozy is a better debater, it basically ended up in a KO standing.
But here is the specificity of this election: Romney, because of his past at Bain Capital, because of who he is, and because of how much he has massively and utterly fucked up during the last months has given Obama an incredible amount of ammunitions. It is very unnlikely that he will manage to put Obama on a defensive posture. I would say they are very even in terms of their potential to take the initiative in the debate, but again, Obama is a gazillion time better speaker than Romney.
It's funny, Romney should have had suuuuuch an easy job. Look in Europe, Spain, France, UK, Denmark, have all changed governments, because it is so hard to be reelected in a period of deep crisis. And he even had more money...
Public speaking and debating are two different things.
Romney is actually a very strong debater. Sure, half the stuff that falls out of his mouth is crap, but he debates to win, not to be right. Obama only seemed like a good debater because he was up against McCain, who was equally uncomfortable with the format. Neither Obama of McCain are comfortable with speaking off the cuff or boiling down a complicated answer into a sound bite.
On September 26 2012 20:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:34 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:17 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:11 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:58 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:51 Defacer wrote: Have you ever wondered why the Romney campaign is freaking out about polling data, and insisting it is biased, skewed or flat-out wrong?
It's simple really. Donors don't bet tens of millions of dollars on losing horses.
If conservative donors lose faith in Romney's ability to win the presidency, they will focus their money on shoring up their majority in congress.
They could be insisting it is biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong... Or it could actually be biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong. Your argument would support either case. Either way, the only poll that matters is the one on November 6th.
Actually either way, there is no confidence among conservative high-rollers that Romney will or can win. Romney can't afford to have a bad debate. And the first debate could be Obama's opportunity to put Romney away early, and turn a respectable lead into a blow-out.
The first debate could be Obama's opportunity to blow the election too, what is your point? I'd hardly call the lead respectable, Romney is still within the margin of error, and there are still 42 days til the election.
You didn't read the actual article, did you?
The point is that Obama has out-raised Romney significantly, and has more money to spend. The only actual money-advantage Romney has is Karl Rove's Super-PAC, which has out-raised Paul Begala's, about 5 to 1. But Romney has no control over that money, Karl Rove can spend it however he fucking wants.
That's why you're seeing less and less advertising coming out of Rove in these battleground states. People assume Romney has the funding advantage, when it's actually Rove. He'll be deciding whether or nor Romney is going to have a ad blitz after the debates.
If Obama blows the first debate -- and it's typically for an incumbent to lose the first debate -- he still has a campaign, with more than enough money to sustain his campaign. If Romney blows it, he might as well hang up his gloves.
I don't see such an incredible speaker like Obama losing a debate against Romney, who has made every single mistake he could during the whole campaign and is a notoriously mediocre debater. I don't say that Obama will blow him up straight away, although it's very possible, but the chances of the opposite happening are imho almost non existent.
Thing is that an incumbent has basically less bullets than his challenger, usually, because the challenger can't be criticized and attacked on what he has done, or his results while being in office. It puts him in a naturally defensive position, which is always uncomfortable. It was very clear in France, Hollande demolished Sarkozy during their debate by attacking him again and again and again on his results, without even talking on what he was planning to do. With the crisis, he had an easy job at blaming Sarkozy for all the evil of the world. Although Sarkozy is a better debater, it basically ended up in a KO standing.
But here is the specificity of this election: Romney, because of his past at Bain Capital, because of who he is, and because of how much he has massively and utterly fucked up during the last months has given Obama an incredible amount of ammunitions. It is very unnlikely that he will manage to put Obama on a defensive posture. I would say they are very even in terms of their potential to take the initiative in the debate, but again, Obama is a gazillion time better speaker than Romney.
It's funny, Romney should have had suuuuuch an easy job. Look in Europe, Spain, France, UK, Denmark, have all changed governments, because it is so hard to be reelected in a period of deep crisis. And he even had more money...
Public speaking and debating are two different things.
Romney is actually a very strong debater. Sure, half the stuff that falls out of his mouth is crap, but he debates to win, not to be right. Obama only seemed like a good debater because he was up against McCain, who was equally uncomfortable with the format. Neither Obama of McCain are comfortable with speaking off the cuff or boiling down a complicated answer into a sound bite.
I think you'll be surprised.
However, I think that Obama has learned a lot in terms of debate over the years as president - specifically in listening to and dealing with bad arguments.
Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
On September 27 2012 03:25 ImAbstracT wrote: Obama will absolutely own Romney in the debates. Romney is very robotic with a lack of personality. He doesn't react well when flustered.
Obama is too pensive for his own good. Romney is actually fantastic at standing around and looking like he knows what he's talking about.
He projects a condescending, smug, Scientologist-kind of aura. What you see as 'robotic' a lot of people see as confidence or assertiveness.
On September 27 2012 05:05 NeMeSiS3 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDyDxgJuaDY&feature=g-vrec Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
Ludwig van Mises Institute. Sounds like it will be a video FULL of facts and educating sheeple!
On September 26 2012 20:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:34 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:17 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:11 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:58 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:51 Defacer wrote: Have you ever wondered why the Romney campaign is freaking out about polling data, and insisting it is biased, skewed or flat-out wrong?
It's simple really. Donors don't bet tens of millions of dollars on losing horses.
If conservative donors lose faith in Romney's ability to win the presidency, they will focus their money on shoring up their majority in congress.
They could be insisting it is biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong... Or it could actually be biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong. Your argument would support either case. Either way, the only poll that matters is the one on November 6th.
Actually either way, there is no confidence among conservative high-rollers that Romney will or can win. Romney can't afford to have a bad debate. And the first debate could be Obama's opportunity to put Romney away early, and turn a respectable lead into a blow-out.
The first debate could be Obama's opportunity to blow the election too, what is your point? I'd hardly call the lead respectable, Romney is still within the margin of error, and there are still 42 days til the election.
You didn't read the actual article, did you?
The point is that Obama has out-raised Romney significantly, and has more money to spend. The only actual money-advantage Romney has is Karl Rove's Super-PAC, which has out-raised Paul Begala's, about 5 to 1. But Romney has no control over that money, Karl Rove can spend it however he fucking wants.
That's why you're seeing less and less advertising coming out of Rove in these battleground states. People assume Romney has the funding advantage, when it's actually Rove. He'll be deciding whether or nor Romney is going to have a ad blitz after the debates.
If Obama blows the first debate -- and it's typically for an incumbent to lose the first debate -- he still has a campaign, with more than enough money to sustain his campaign. If Romney blows it, he might as well hang up his gloves.
I don't see such an incredible speaker like Obama losing a debate against Romney, who has made every single mistake he could during the whole campaign and is a notoriously mediocre debater. I don't say that Obama will blow him up straight away, although it's very possible, but the chances of the opposite happening are imho almost non existent.
Thing is that an incumbent has basically less bullets than his challenger, usually, because the challenger can't be criticized and attacked on what he has done, or his results while being in office. It puts him in a naturally defensive position, which is always uncomfortable. It was very clear in France, Hollande demolished Sarkozy during their debate by attacking him again and again and again on his results, without even talking on what he was planning to do. With the crisis, he had an easy job at blaming Sarkozy for all the evil of the world. Although Sarkozy is a better debater, it basically ended up in a KO standing.
But here is the specificity of this election: Romney, because of his past at Bain Capital, because of who he is, and because of how much he has massively and utterly fucked up during the last months has given Obama an incredible amount of ammunitions. It is very unnlikely that he will manage to put Obama on a defensive posture. I would say they are very even in terms of their potential to take the initiative in the debate, but again, Obama is a gazillion time better speaker than Romney.
It's funny, Romney should have had suuuuuch an easy job. Look in Europe, Spain, France, UK, Denmark, have all changed governments, because it is so hard to be reelected in a period of deep crisis. And he even had more money...
Public speaking and debating are two different things.
Romney is actually a very strong debater. Sure, half the stuff that falls out of his mouth is crap, but he debates to win, not to be right. Obama only seemed like a good debater because he was up against McCain, who was equally uncomfortable with the format. Neither Obama of McCain are comfortable with speaking off the cuff or boiling down a complicated answer into a sound bite.
I think you'll be surprised.
Unless Romney was concealing these skills during the Republican debates, I'm pretty skeptical. The fact that Perry, Herman Cain, and Gingrich (and McCain in 2008, for that matter) all had better performances than he did does not bode well. And his off the cuff speaking was pretty sub-par back then, remember the ten thousand dollar bet? I can't remember a debate after which the newscycle was "great job by Romney."
On September 26 2012 20:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:34 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:17 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 08:11 Defacer wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:58 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 07:51 Defacer wrote: Have you ever wondered why the Romney campaign is freaking out about polling data, and insisting it is biased, skewed or flat-out wrong?
It's simple really. Donors don't bet tens of millions of dollars on losing horses.
If conservative donors lose faith in Romney's ability to win the presidency, they will focus their money on shoring up their majority in congress.
They could be insisting it is biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong... Or it could actually be biased, skewed, or flat-out wrong. Your argument would support either case. Either way, the only poll that matters is the one on November 6th.
Actually either way, there is no confidence among conservative high-rollers that Romney will or can win. Romney can't afford to have a bad debate. And the first debate could be Obama's opportunity to put Romney away early, and turn a respectable lead into a blow-out.
The first debate could be Obama's opportunity to blow the election too, what is your point? I'd hardly call the lead respectable, Romney is still within the margin of error, and there are still 42 days til the election.
You didn't read the actual article, did you?
The point is that Obama has out-raised Romney significantly, and has more money to spend. The only actual money-advantage Romney has is Karl Rove's Super-PAC, which has out-raised Paul Begala's, about 5 to 1. But Romney has no control over that money, Karl Rove can spend it however he fucking wants.
That's why you're seeing less and less advertising coming out of Rove in these battleground states. People assume Romney has the funding advantage, when it's actually Rove. He'll be deciding whether or nor Romney is going to have a ad blitz after the debates.
If Obama blows the first debate -- and it's typically for an incumbent to lose the first debate -- he still has a campaign, with more than enough money to sustain his campaign. If Romney blows it, he might as well hang up his gloves.
I don't see such an incredible speaker like Obama losing a debate against Romney, who has made every single mistake he could during the whole campaign and is a notoriously mediocre debater. I don't say that Obama will blow him up straight away, although it's very possible, but the chances of the opposite happening are imho almost non existent.
Thing is that an incumbent has basically less bullets than his challenger, usually, because the challenger can't be criticized and attacked on what he has done, or his results while being in office. It puts him in a naturally defensive position, which is always uncomfortable. It was very clear in France, Hollande demolished Sarkozy during their debate by attacking him again and again and again on his results, without even talking on what he was planning to do. With the crisis, he had an easy job at blaming Sarkozy for all the evil of the world. Although Sarkozy is a better debater, it basically ended up in a KO standing.
But here is the specificity of this election: Romney, because of his past at Bain Capital, because of who he is, and because of how much he has massively and utterly fucked up during the last months has given Obama an incredible amount of ammunitions. It is very unnlikely that he will manage to put Obama on a defensive posture. I would say they are very even in terms of their potential to take the initiative in the debate, but again, Obama is a gazillion time better speaker than Romney.
It's funny, Romney should have had suuuuuch an easy job. Look in Europe, Spain, France, UK, Denmark, have all changed governments, because it is so hard to be reelected in a period of deep crisis. And he even had more money...
Public speaking and debating are two different things.
Romney is actually a very strong debater. Sure, half the stuff that falls out of his mouth is crap, but he debates to win, not to be right. Obama only seemed like a good debater because he was up against McCain, who was equally uncomfortable with the format. Neither Obama of McCain are comfortable with speaking off the cuff or boiling down a complicated answer into a sound bite.
I think you'll be surprised.
Unless Romney was concealing these skills during the Republican debates, I'm pretty skeptical. The fact that Perry, Herman Cain, and Gingrich (and McCain in 2008, for that matter) all had better performances than he did does not bode well. And his off the cuff speaking was pretty sub-par back then, remember the ten thousand dollar bet? I can't remember a debate after which the newscycle was "great job by Romney."
I have no idea what you're talking about. Other than Gingrich, Romney was by far the most consistently good performer at the debates. He only had one bad debate where he got baited by Perry. I didn't even want Romney to get the nomination, but I always scored him at or near the top after each debate.
On September 27 2012 02:17 xDaunt wrote: Before y'all start popping champagne corks, you may want to have a closer look at the samples of these new polls.
The same results are happening in polls that don't weight by party ID.
Party ID is kinda a weird variable. Its trends don't always line up with actual party registration numbers. Many people call themselves "independent" even though they vote for the same party every time, or 90% of the time. We know that only about 6% of the electorate is in play this time around; everyone else made up their minds long ago.
In 2010, which was a route, equal numbers of voters in the exit polls self-identified as Democrats and Republicans. Remember, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to call themselves "Independent" (the opposite trend holds for partisans calling themselves "moderate").
The only time I think party ID is worth paying attention to is if they include leaners in with the self-labeled partisans. In that case, each party should have between 45-48% of likely voters with only a small number of true independents.
I disagree that the Party ID figure in these polls does not matter. Here's the problem: the Party ID numbers in these polls reflects a higher percentage of democrat voter turnout compared to republican voter turnout in 2012 than in 2008. This is clearly bullshit.
If it was all polls that weight by Party ID then I could see it being a systematic problem. Or if it were one or two polls that don't weight by party, it could be an issue of random sampling error. But the odds that polls which don't weight by Party ID would consistently oversample Democrats is low, particularly since the hardest households to get responses from tend to be those that speak Spanish, are young, or only own a cell phone - all of which lean D.
Can you think of a reason why Republicans would be refusing to answer polls? Am I missing something?
I find it much more plausible that, in the current political climate, a higher number of Obama voters are calling themselves "Democrats" while Romney voters may be calling themselves "Independent."
On September 27 2012 02:17 xDaunt wrote: Before y'all start popping champagne corks, you may want to have a closer look at the samples of these new polls.
The same results are happening in polls that don't weight by party ID.
Party ID is kinda a weird variable. Its trends don't always line up with actual party registration numbers. Many people call themselves "independent" even though they vote for the same party every time, or 90% of the time. We know that only about 6% of the electorate is in play this time around; everyone else made up their minds long ago.
In 2010, which was a route, equal numbers of voters in the exit polls self-identified as Democrats and Republicans. Remember, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to call themselves "Independent" (the opposite trend holds for partisans calling themselves "moderate").
The only time I think party ID is worth paying attention to is if they include leaners in with the self-labeled partisans. In that case, each party should have between 45-48% of likely voters with only a small number of true independents.
I disagree that the Party ID figure in these polls does not matter. Here's the problem: the Party ID numbers in these polls reflects a higher percentage of democrat voter turnout compared to republican voter turnout in 2012 than in 2008. This is clearly bullshit.
If it was all polls that weight by Party ID then I could see it being a systematic problem. Or if it were one or two polls that don't weight by party, it could be an issue of random sampling error. But the odds that polls which don't weight by Party ID would consistently oversample Democrats is low, particularly since the hardest households to get responses from tend to be those that speak Spanish, are young, or only own a cell phone - all of which lean D.
Can you think of a reason why Republicans would be refusing to answer polls? Am I missing something?
I find it much more plausible that, in the current political climate, a higher number of Obama voters are calling themselves "Democrats" while Romney voters may be calling themselves "Independent."
There was an article that I saw a while ago stating that republicans/conservatives were often more difficult to get ahold of relative to democrats/liberals for polling purposes. When pollsters make the calls during the 5-7 pm window that they typically use, republican/conservative households are more likely to be working still or eating dinner as a family, thus they are less likely to respond.
This is anecdotal, but I get calls from pollsters daily and ignore every one of them for those very reasons (plus I just don't want to be bothered period).
Quite frankly, I don't think it really matters why republicans are underrepresented in the polling samples. Just the mere fact that they are should raise some questions about the accuracy of the polls.
Who knows, it may not matter in the end. However, let's say Romney wins six weeks from now as I have predicted. Given these polls that are out there today showing Obama way ahead, what are we going to conclude regarding what happened? Is it likely that Romney will have affirmatively done something to cause a stunning turnaround? Or is it more likely that all of these polls are garbage? I'm thinking that the latter is more likely (of course, this only matters if Romney wins).
On September 27 2012 05:05 NeMeSiS3 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDyDxgJuaDY&feature=g-vrec Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
Just from logic: The reason for why not many laws are blocked is probably also a result of the legislature knowing the limits of the constitution better than 100 years ago. Jurisprudence is cumulative...
Is the US constitution really meant to be anti-big government argument as opposed to anti-totalitarianism?
His arguments against the constitution is mostly not about what is in the text, but what he inferes as the background.
The economic reasoning is not completely off, but it disregards that the constitution is not exact enough without interpretation...
A lot of teabagging of neoconservatives and "nationalists".
"Civil war ended the small government argument" It sounds like he is implying that the southern states were overthrown illegally and that they were actually couped from their arguments for small government.
A little bit oldfashioned tinfoil hat on caveman uttering and it sounds like he actually somewhat believes it: "Go arm yourself" "Be patriotic, don't vote"
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
Actual statement: If you own a business, you didn't build that Actual meaning: If you own a business, you didn't build the roads, bridges, etc.. Actual statement: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. Actual meaning: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about getting those peoples votes
Neither statement needs defending.
Since you edited your post, I'll edit mine:
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
This is an actual fact, 47% of people actually pay no income tax.
True or false? Much of Romney's statement relies on assumptions about one demographic: The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." So is it true that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income tax? Essentially, yes, according to the the Tax Policy Center, which provides data showing that in 2011, 46.4 percent of American households paid no federal income tax. The same data shows, however, that nearly two-thirds of households that paid no income tax did pay payroll taxes. And most people also pay some combination of state, local, sales, gas and property taxes.
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
He summed up exactly what he was talking about if it wasn't clear enough.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the Obama "gaffes" it is that being pithy is a new presidential quality. If you do not provide the context for a point in the same sentence you are making it in then you are asking to be taken out of context and Obama is long winded (or at least normally winded for a thoughtful person).
On September 27 2012 05:05 NeMeSiS3 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDyDxgJuaDY&feature=g-vrec Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
Just from logic: The reason for why not many laws are blocked is probably also a result of the legislature knowing the limits of the constitution better than 100 years ago. Jurisprudence is cumulative...
Is the US constitution really meant to be anti-big government argument as opposed to anti-totalitarianism?
His arguments against the constitution is mostly not about what is in the text, but what he inferes as the background.
The economic reasoning is not completely off, but it disregards that the constitution is not exact enough without interpretation...
A lot of teabagging of neoconservatives and "nationalists".
"Civil war ended the small government argument" It sounds like he is implying that the southern states were overthrown illegally and that they were actually couped from their arguments for small government.
A little bit oldfashioned tinfoil hat on caveman uttering and it sounds like he actually somewhat believes it: "Go arm yourself" "Be patriotic, don't vote"
Well, to be fair, the civil war did end the small government argument. 14th Amendment was a huge one. Changed our Constitution forever. Not to mention the complete obliteration of Nullification and Secession arguments.
Again, these are the sorts of arguments that would make me hesistant to say that the 9-1-1 service is Constitutional. Or nationwide telephone networks. Or nationwide ISPs. Hell, would net neutrality have to be done statewide??? I don't know how you would do anything with telecom without the FCC. Spectrum allocation by state? It just sounds like a completely terrible and inefficient way to do things all around.
On September 27 2012 06:50 xDaunt wrote: Who knows, it may not matter in the end. However, let's say Romney wins six weeks from now as I have predicted. Given these polls that are out there today showing Obama way ahead, what are we going to conclude regarding what happened? Is it likely that Romney will have affirmatively done something to cause a stunning turnaround? Or is it more likely that all of these polls are garbage? I'm thinking that the latter is more likely (of course, this only matters if Romney wins).
This part of your post makes no sense to me. You're basically saying that if we assume the outcome of the election to contradict the prognosis, we have to take the prognosis as wrong. That's... well... absolutely correct, I guess.
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
Actual statement: If you own a business, you didn't build that Actual meaning: If you own a business, you didn't build the roads, bridges, etc.. Actual statement: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. Actual meaning: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about getting those peoples votes
Neither statement needs defending.
Since you edited your post, I'll edit mine:
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
This is an actual fact, 47% of people actually pay no income tax.
True or false? Much of Romney's statement relies on assumptions about one demographic: The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." So is it true that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income tax? Essentially, yes, according to the the Tax Policy Center, which provides data showing that in 2011, 46.4 percent of American households paid no federal income tax. The same data shows, however, that nearly two-thirds of households that paid no income tax did pay payroll taxes. And most people also pay some combination of state, local, sales, gas and property taxes.
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
He summed up exactly what he was talking about if it wasn't clear enough.
On September 27 2012 02:18 Mazer wrote:
You're just lying to yourself over this one and it's kinda disgusting.
No I actually believe what I said, I am not lying to myself, and I think your opinion is disgusting too
On September 27 2012 05:05 NeMeSiS3 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDyDxgJuaDY&feature=g-vrec Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
Just from logic: The reason for why not many laws are blocked is probably also a result of the legislature knowing the limits of the constitution better than 100 years ago. Jurisprudence is cumulative...
Is the US constitution really meant to be anti-big government argument as opposed to anti-totalitarianism?
His arguments against the constitution is mostly not about what is in the text, but what he inferes as the background.
The economic reasoning is not completely off, but it disregards that the constitution is not exact enough without interpretation...
A lot of teabagging of neoconservatives and "nationalists".
"Civil war ended the small government argument" It sounds like he is implying that the southern states were overthrown illegally and that they were actually couped from their arguments for small government.
A little bit oldfashioned tinfoil hat on caveman uttering and it sounds like he actually somewhat believes it: "Go arm yourself" "Be patriotic, don't vote"
Well, to be fair, the civil war did end the small government argument. 14th Amendment was a huge one. Changed our Constitution forever. Not to mention the complete obliteration of Nullification and Secession arguments.
Again, these are the sorts of arguments that would make me hesistant to say that the 9-1-1 service is Constitutional. Or nationwide telephone networks. Or nationwide ISPs. Hell, would net neutrality have to be done statewide??? I don't know how you would do anything with telecom without the FCC. Spectrum allocation by state? It just sounds like a completely terrible and inefficient way to do things all around.
Well if you also eliminated anti-trust laws then eventually monopolies would probably own the entire spectrum, though I suppose they'd still have to hire Pinkertons or something to go beat up pirate broadcasters.
On September 27 2012 05:05 NeMeSiS3 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDyDxgJuaDY&feature=g-vrec Interesting video in which a lecture kind of depicts why America's constitution had to be destroyed I think it is relevant with regards to the politics and where America kind of stands right now. It is really easy to follow and he backs his claims cleanly.
That guy has some serious cognitive dissonance going on.
"The battle between federalists and anti-federalists has been going on since the beginning" "Hamilton and the other federalists wanted to do x" "The founding fathers fought a revolution against x and the constitution totally isn't intended to do x"
EPT
