The USA Political Thread

[lennco]

Here you can spout your USA political views.

Rules:
1. Keep it clean
2. No fighting
3. Respect the views of others.
4. US Political views, No Religious views
5. Have fun

:wave:

 

[JB Lions]

Ah, I see Obama is actually leading Virginia. That would make Nate Silver 50/50 picking states if it holds out, amazing - http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Intrade 49/50, they picked Florida for Romney.

They have a track record of success now picking these things. I need to call up Nate, help me with my NFL picks.

"Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball Prospectus from 2003 to 2009" Reminds me of that movie Moneyball.

"California might change that"

True, will be real tight. Even if Obama loses the popular vote, will balance out what happened in 2000. Now you might hear more Republicans jump on getting rid of the Electoral College. Don't see it happening but there will be that discussion.

 

[hollywood]

You see the USA county map, so much red, by land of course. And Mitt still leading the popular vote. California might change that

With all that red on the map, kinda looks like the south won the civil war after all

 

[JB Lions]

Most of the red is inhabited by cows and grass, low population areas.

 

[DU]

Now you might hear more Republicans jump on getting rid of the Electoral College. Don't see it happening but there will be that discussion.

Or we could give hispanics 3/5 of a vote.

What irks me is that already the discussion is surrounding what the Republicans can do to win the hispanic vote. What can they do to win the next election. etc. etc.

What should the Republicans do? They should build a platform that they truly believe is better for the country. I'd like the Democrats to do that too. Otherwise what's the point?

 

[silentg]

That was one close race in some of the states.

 

[JB Lions]

"What should the Republicans do? They should build a platform that they truly believe is better for the country."

I think they're going to have problems with that, what I touched on early on. If the country is moving more to the middle/left on social issues. What are the Republicans going to do? Move to the middle, lose the right vote? Stay to the right, watch their numbers dwindle. How are they going to up the non-white numbers, when their Convention looks like a white out. They have problems. What if in the next 4 years, the economy continues to improve, that'll lead up nicely for the Dems next election.

wow

Romney 49,028,980
Obama 49,028,645

335 votes difference, going down to the wire

 

[DU]

Not a bad call I made almost 4 months ago.
I'll be back in two years to let you know who will win in 2016

:wave:

If the Republican candidate says:

Climate Change is Real.

If the Republican candidate can :

Pick out random European country on a map

And the Republican candidate is not:

Marco Rubio or Rand Paul

Then they will win.

 

[JB Lions]

Not a bad call I made almost 4 months ago.
I'll be back in two years to let you know who will win in 2016

:wave:

"They would love to get Cris Cristie"

Except they want to get him in another way now, they have some beef going on right now

Christie
"All this other noise is coming from know-nothing disgruntled Romney staffers who don’t like the fact that I said nice things about the president of the United States,” Christie said during a news briefing in Westwood."

And Obama just took the lead in the popular vote.

Colorado just passed something that legalizes use and posession of marijuana, state taxed and regulated like alcohol 53%-47%, of course not ok with Fed government. See, slowly moving left. What are the Republicans going to do? They're stuck.

 

[DU]

If the country is moving more to the middle/left on social issues. What are the Republicans going to do? Move to the middle, lose the right vote? Stay to the right, watch their numbers dwindle. How are they going to up the non-white numbers, when their Convention looks like a white out. They have problems. What if in the next 4 years, the economy continues to improve, that'll lead up nicely for the Dems next election.

I'm still an idealist when I'm limited to the system from which things operate.

Build a platform that's better for the country then everything takes care of itself surely?

Focus on "non-white" numbers? Focus their voters? That doesn't sound like a positive platform worth worrying about.

It's like those people that own a business that are losing money that refuse to change because they don't want to lose their existing customers.

Ideally I would like to remove the party system completely.

 

[JB Lions]

Nobody can agree on what that platform would be.

Social Issues
Gay marriage
Legalization of marijuana
Abortion

Those issues aren't going to fly with the Christian Right, when the country is slowly moving in that direction, at least gay marriage, marijuana. Don't see how it's going to work, I think they put themselves in a bad position with the extreme right views and now they're going to pay for it. Unless they find some young, superstar moderate in the party, with the political courage to start moving it back to the middle. Like I mentioned earlier, they picked Romney, who was the most moderate of the bunch. That's a glimmer of hope I guess, they didn't pick the 2 Christian Right candidates in Bachmann or Santorum. If the country is moving in one direction, and your party is stuck in the same positions, just don't see how they can do it. We shall see.

Maryland approves same-sex marriage law
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...fcac54-282f-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html

Moving left, what's the Republican's move?

Romney about to give his concession speech, let's see if he keeps it classy.

haha, Donald Trump Tweets:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!

The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!

We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!

Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.

This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!

etc. Somebody's mad.

Of course, Obama is winning the popular vote now as well.

Washington ok with marijuana as well, Maine same sex marriage

"Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use and voters in Maine approved a same-sex marriage initiative during voting on Tuesday."
http://news.msn.com/politics/election-day-2012-ballot-initiatives

 

[sanfran]

GOP
still hasn't figured out that in 2012 USA is no longer a Lilly-white country
and people want their joints
and gay folks don't want to hide in the closet
and there are many many diff lifestyles

:bingo:

 

[DU]

I just realized that it's Wednesday.

Adios.

 

[verbster]

I'm reminded of an old Star Trek episode called 'The Enemy Within'. Something goes wrong with the transporter, and Kirk arrives as two people. One is gentle, reasonable, unconfident, scared, indecisive, passionate and emotionall. The other is arrogant, confident, uncooperative, violent, brave, paranoid and impatient. The gist of the story is that the two selves have to figure out how to work together in order to become one again in order to avoid death from being apart. Eventually, with no time left, they figure it out and merge into one person again where all their separate strengths and weaknesses work together to produce the best they can be.

Congress should be forced to watch that episode every morning for as long as it takes for them to figure out how it applies to them.

 

[bmugford]

That was a resounding defeat for Romney and Republicans.

Here are my thoughts -


1.) The electoral college is a blowout. 332 - 206

Romney only picked up North Carolina and Indiana from 2008.


2.) Obama will win the popular vote by 2M+ votes and 2%+.


3.) The competitive Senate races were basically a sweep.

Democrats won - Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin.

North Dakota, Montana, and Nevada are close. It looks like those will go +2 for Democrats.


4.) Alan West, tea party darling, lost.

Right now Michelle Bachmann is basically tied in her race. It could go either way.


5.) Nominating fringe candidates cost the Republicans two seats.

In Missouri, a state that was +9 for Romney, Aiken lost by 15%.

In Indiana, a state that was +10 for Romney, Mourdock lost by 5%.

Some advice to future candidates - quit saying stupid things about rape.


6.) Romney won 61% of the white vote and got blown out in the EC. George Bush beat Michael Dukakis 426-111 in the EC with the same % of the white vote.

Demographically the Republican party is in trouble. It needs to become a bigger tent, or become irrelevant.

The days of just being able to win one group, white males, and win a national election are over.


7.) If the Republicans plan to just obstruct, without making any reasonable effort, they will pay the political consequences.

The GOP has a lot of soul searching to do.

Brad

 

[Domainace]

I think the GOP needs to embrace the Libertarian party, who are the true conservatives. A bigger tent will always mean they are Democrat-lite. They should stand for limited government, explain why, and people will eventually come over when they wake up and smell the $500 fill-up for their car.

 

[verbster]

I think the GOP needs to embrace the Libertarian party, who are the true conservatives. A bigger tent will always mean they are Democrat-lite. They should stand for limited government, explain why, and people will eventually come over when they wake up and smell the $500 fill-up for their car.

Does the Libertarian party have a plan to reduce the price of gas?

 

[JB Lions]

Just checking the popular vote real quick, wanted to see how close Nate Silver got it.

He predicted
50.8 - 48.3 (2.5 difference) it was 51.1 - 48.8 (2.3 difference)

Obama - 59,971,178
Romney - 57,304,430

So he ended up 2.6 million+ ahead

Just checking, so they still didn't call Florida? Always having problems. I guess some did.

 

[enlytend]

Those issues aren't going to fly with the Christian Right, when the country is slowly moving in that direction,

Saving grace for the Republican party would be if the far right branched off to form their own party and left the Republicans to move pragmatically towards a more moderate platform.

Christie: I think he despises Romney and I wouldn't be surprised if he voted Obama once the voting booth doors were closed. Is it personal? Maybe - rumor has it he was passed over last-minute for Romney's VP choice and wasn't told in a timely or courteous manner.

Very Jersey of him to act the way he did. His future? I think he's gained a lot of respect among area voters for keeping his priorities straight during a crisis and not letting politics stop him from giving credit where credit was due.

How the republican party feels is another matter altogether. Pretty sure they are Not Amused.

(I also think if he's considering a run in 2016 he needs to drop a few lbs and focus on his health - for his own good.)

 

[JB Lions]

I actually like Christie, seems like a decent guy and was thinking the same thing as you, what if he ran next time. I don't personally have a problem with his weight but I know it's not a good look and was thinking the same. For his own health and I know he would get hammered on it in the National Spotlight. The only other thing that might be an issue, is temperament. You have to stay level and I've seen him go a little over at times.

Couple of other things I found interesting from reading around, Daily Kos etc.

Rasmussen
Besides getting the National/Popular vote wrong, they got all these important states wrong as well:

Colorado
Florida
Iowa
New Hampshire
Ohio
Virginia
Wisconsin

Democrats have now won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.

Latino Vote
George W. Bush won 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004.
John McCain won 31 percent
Mitt Romney won 21 percent

downward trend

Trump is still steamed, going at it with Brian Williams of NBC - https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

 

[Ms Domainer]

Ah, I see Obama is actually leading Virginia. That would make Nate Silver 50/50 picking states if it holds out, amazing - http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Intrade 49/50, they picked Florida for Romney.

They have a track record of success now picking these things. I need to call up Nate, help me with my NFL picks.

"Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball Prospectus from 2003 to 2009" Reminds me of that movie Moneyball.

"California might change that"

True, will be real tight. Even if Obama loses the popular vote, will balance out what happened in 2000. Now you might hear more Republicans jump on getting rid of the Electoral College. Don't see it happening but there will be that discussion.

*

One of The happiest people today has to be Nate Silver. In a sense, he, with the exception of the candidates, had the most to lose.

His entire career, book, and credibility were soundly on the line.

His 90% odds for Obama was gutsy and breathtaking, but, in the end, he was right, given that Obama nailed it so early (I was expecting another 2000 debacle).

Evidently, Nate Silver's website ran over 30,000 simulations a DAY, crunching numbers from an aggregate of polls, liberal, moderate, and conservative, which is why the odds were constantly changing on FiveThirtyEight, but always staying above 60%.

I was also impressed with CNN's coverage, particularly John King's explanation (with that amazing touch screen map--I want one!) of why Ohio could not flip red, even while Karl Rove was begging Fox to to un-call Ohio. (To their credit, they refused.)

I must admit: after voting I spent the entire day gorging on election coverage.

I told my exasperated better half, "Just pretend this is baseball season and I'm watching the World Series."

:lol:

Back to Nate Silver: I remember him from 2008 and wondered if he'd be back for 2012.

I'm pretty sure he'll be back for 2016.

The candidates, whoever they may be, will (or should) definitely take Silver a lot more seriously.

*