Active Users:786 Time:23/12/2024 03:20:25 PM
I hate when people do that. Joel Send a noteboard - 05/03/2012 09:49:36 AM
During the primaries the candidates spend a lot of time in the non-swing states. Iowa isn't one.

In passing, I must note that is a very good point: Because the primaries mirror the Electoral College to a great degree, many states that are "safe" in the general election (and therefore receive little attention) are hotly contested during the primaries, often by both parties. That forces all candidates to visit most states and become somewhat familiar with (or at least aware of) the issues most relevant to residents. Without the Electoral College the primaries would probably be decided by popular vote also and the whole affair become a purely urban concern.

Yes, I really feel running for president as we currently making them do it is one of the best instructions on being a decent president, a year and change of racing everywhere and meeting everyone and eternal jet lag is good leadership experience.

Or, for incumbents, penance. :P

We can talk about red state blue state but there's really no such thing, a state with few exceptions is essentially red or blue based on its urban vs rural breakdown, cities are not really capable of rebellion, one could do it but not all of them at once. Cleveland isn't going to break off with NYC to form a new country.

Here I must quibble; while I realize you qualified your statement, it is not as simple as red vs. blue equaling rural vs. urban (and to the extent it is, the suburbs swing.) Correct me if I am wrong (it is your home state, after all) but Columbus and Cleveland would make OH pretty blue despite its large rural population—except Cincinatti is pretty red. It was one of things I found hinky about the 2004 election; despite all the reports of folks in Cleveland and Columbus giving up on voting after 10 hours in the cold November rain due to insufficient electronic voting machines, no such problems were reported in Cincinatti. Given that Bush won re-election by (essentially) 160,000 votes in OH, that bothered me a lot. ;)

Cincinatti is essentially the old bastion of the GOP, and it wasn't a big margin, the Mayor, Mark Mallory, is a Dem. But you're seeing Hamilton County not the City, on those maps, and the Metropolitan area includes roughly a dozen counties in KY and IN too. Red v blue county breakdowns are illuminating but one has to remember that unless they have purple shadings it's a touch questionable and a county can flip just by having two medium-small cities in it. Ditto a city, in terms of effective metro area, can easily sprawl over two counties that both break red. It's less surprising though, regarding the voting, complaints of that sort really originate - not saying they aren't real or legit, just who blows the horn - with hardline partisans usually working at the BoE or holding office.

Insofar as elections and polls are controlled almost entirely by the County in Ohio, from a pragmatic POV, we usually consider it ironic when someone in, say, Cleveland, which is hard blue in terms of governance, blows a horn essentially saying that the local Democratic leadership has successfully disenfranchised it's own voters, which is not entirely fair but still pretty on the mark. In Ohio the local county parties get together (unofficially) to decide where the hell to draw the precinct lines and where to put the voting locations, generally an entirely non-partisan effort that in my area at least most revolves around trying to un-fuck whatever new weird ass division of school districts has made voting school board and school levies a nightmare. But there's 2 dem and 2 GOP precinct judges for each precinct and we tend to keep our precincts on the small side in Ohio, what happens is an area that nobody's really bothered to adjust in a while from general business and indifference can swell in size and voter level, and if a couple of precincts are in the same place it can cause a glut, especially when some whacked out person comes in trying to vote with a bottle of prescription medicine as proof of ID... no seriously... general policy in Ohio is just to hand anyone a provisional ballot even if they're trying to vote in the wrong county if they make enough of a fuss just to keep the line moving and to prevent them from, say, going on a shooting spree when you deny Batman the opportunity to vote. Not to be un-PC but that sort of stuff just happens more in the cities... in the country we have our loons vote absentee from their bunker or cult compound. Anyway that clogs things up.

I think that is policy with provisional ballots generally, both for that reason and because the whole process could be streamlined by have a separate slot for them directly over a shredder. They are SUPPOSED to be used for people who ignorantly show up at the wrong precinct (more common than you might think; in my second election back in 1996 I just headed to the same place I voted in 1992, where the polling place had been set up just as before—for a different precinct; I found and reached the CORRECT one about 6PM, with an hour left to vote) or whose votes require validation too complex to be done on the spot. In practice, everything I have heard says they are pretty much just dumped without any verification attempts, let alone counting.

Of course, that is not much of an issue with electronic voting, but electronic voting WAS the issue in Cleveland in 2004, as you may recall. It is hard to imagine what Democratic county officials had to do with the Secy. of States failure to provide more than a small fraction of necessary voting machines. That is nearly as inexplicable as him believing he could be elected governor after that, but maybe he thought as long as he maintained Diebolds grip on OH voting he could not lose. In a sense, his loss tends to vindicate them, but Clevelands Democratic county government did not disenfranchise its voters in 2004, its Republican Secy. of State did, possibly to the extent of wrongly re-electing a president most of the country did not want. Tough to say whether it cost Kerry 150,000 or so votes, but Cleveland and Columbus (which encountered similar problems for SOME reason) might have. Bet Blackwell himself had no difficulty voting in Columbus. ;)

Cannoli recently suggested all the liberals in Houston and Dallas should not be allowed to turn TX blue, but the fact is there ain't that many liberals in Houston or Dallas, else they would do exactly that whether he liked it or not. In fact, as I pointed out to him, the most liberal, or at least Democratic, areas in TX consist of a single city (Austin) and rural areas in the Rio Grande Valley and the Piney Woods. Those are the areas that benefited most from farm subsidies and other largely Democratic federal programs designed for subsistence farmers, though Democrats embracing and Republicans largely abandoning racial equality helped in the Valley (but hurt in the more traditionally Southern east.)

Well... define liberal, have the time I can't remember if I am one, a GOP moderate, or an Arch-conservative. As Jon Stewart said re: Scott Brown "A Massachusetts Republican is still considered like a gay Democrat in other parts of the country", I'm pretty sure from my time spent Exiled to Montana in the middle of the damned winter that 'democrat' there may translate as someone who doesn't believe you have constitutional right to own artillery pieces, except maybe the small 105 mm sort. I personally analyze my own county by precinct and you get some weird bubbles, blue area that aren't cities are usually mostly upper-mid to rich, whereas red parts of cities tend to be very old and/or wealthy. It's just general statistical effect, but when I talk about urban vs rural I'm not really talking red vs blue but more of the historical sense, there tends to be a marked contrast between cities and country where often two cities separated by large distances have more in common in many respects than either do with the villages five miles away.

It does vary by location, yes, but even by local standards there are plenty of relatively liberal rural regions and conservative urban ones.

We didn't abandon racial equality either, barring some assholes, which the Dems have too, we stuck to the old party line, ignore skin color, or do your hardest too. The perception of that being the case is certainly true but I've never felt that charge was valid.

After the eight page Rolling Stone article I just read filled with quotes from Reagan Republicans horrified at anti-tax RINOs dominating the party I am not sure there still is a Republican Party. I would post a new thread, but at the moment just find it too depressing, and do not want to hear Cannoli explain why eliminating all taxes actually IS moral and patriotic. Tax hikes on the poor to finance tax cuts for the rich were bad enough, but tax cuts FOR tax cuts is just terrifyingly bad math.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109

I know I am biased, but for the most part ignoring color and trying your hardest seems like something the GOP rarely rewards with success except for people born into a pretty successful position in the first place. I dunno, man; the GOP achieved a dominant role in national policy about the time we were born: Tell me how we are better off now. Unemployment is nearly twice what it was when I was born, CPI five times higher and the deficit about twenty times higher.

Someone once asked "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" and when I multiply that question by almost ten the only possible answer I see is "not only no, but HELL, no!" At least HE understood that if the new fangled "starve the beast" policy only spikes the deficit and slows growth it may justify tax HIKEs and closing loopholes. The modern GOP evidently feels that in the present crisis, tax cuts are not the cause of any problem, they are the SOLUTION to ALL problems.

Sorry if I am being too confrontational, but the people who used to run your party are publicly as exasperated with its fiscal policy as I, for the same reasons.

Without the Electoral College, presidential elections would become an almost purely urban campaign, but it does not follow from that Democrats would own the White House (though even if it did that would be a partisan and poor reason for changing election laws.) Rural areas tend to be red and urban areas tend to be blue, but it is only a very loose tendency, close enough in most places that it is not automatic unless the state as a whole is very partisan and/or one of the nominees is absolutely awful. I suspect those arguing for a direct popular vote from purely partisan motives would quickly find that out the hard way if it were adopted. Democrats lost the rural regions when they turned their backs on farmers, and turning their backs on (the rest of) labor is hurting them in cities now, too, else OH would not even be close and PA, MI and WI would never be in play.

Pretty much agree

Honestly, that the country has become such a laissez-faire bastion the Democrats crony capitalism can pass for "liberal" is very disturbing. These days it is just two groups of insiders competing over who can best empty the nations wealth into the hands of its robber barons. The obvious answer is "the one that talks the best game on working class issues so the working class does not storm the Bastille," but it is still frightening and painful to endure. One day the BS will not fly and all Hell will break lose, to the detriment of ALL Americans, and in the interim the nations economic, strategic and diplomatic security is being annihilated. Unless we reverse course soon, we will wake up in America where about as many people own their own business or even HOME as owned their own farm after 1930. The Ownership Society looks a lot like an On Your Own Society, and the Democrats refusal to provide any alternative only increases rather than reducing the need for one.

OK, I will try to go back to letting wads be wads now; I did not mean to vent at you just because you are the nearest Republican, sorry. :<img class=' />

I do not think that entirely fair, for two reasons.

First and foremost, while the terms can be parsed both ways, America is more a constitutional representative republic than a democracy. Hence our first impulse when the validity of something is challenged is not to consider the majoritys preference, but whether it complies with the Constitution and other federal laws. That is no accident, and ultimately a good thing; it prevents atrocities resulting from a mad and/or inflamed majority deciding all Muslims are terrorists or all pro lifers are fascists, and perpetrating some appalling national tragedy.

Precisely... and by the way I do appreciate your efforts regarding DA in that other thread but 'lost cause' comes to mind. We're not a majority rules places, we're land of law where voting acts as one of many checks.

Yeah, I need to pop back there, too, if only to take my lumps for conflating Tim Ryan with Paul Ryan (I was tired and I needed the sleep. :<img class=' />) Yet if socialism is the best economic compromise to prevent communist/laissez-faire excesses, republicanism is the best government compromise to prevent dictatorial/democratic ones.

I still contend the Ninth and Tenth Amendments effectively prohibit slavery on a similar basis, because that is the idea the Constitution repeatedly reflects: Because we are ultimately governed by LAWS our elected representatives enact, rather than simple referenda by those represenatatives or the general public, minority rights are protected from majority abuse. Thus amending our highest national law requires two-thirds of the states or Congress to propose and three-fourths to ratify it, rather than a simple popular majority. As a result, the US Constitution has only been amended about once per decade in its 220 year existence, and nearly half of those amendments were introduced with it but ratified separately.

Well I think we have to accept that it was in the constitution, it's no secret many objected to it from the get go but that's also why that whole 1808 thing is in there.

It was shoehorned, but there; the problem is the particular exemptions carved out for it conflict with the Constitutions general terms elsewhere. However, the Ninth and Tenth AMENDMENTS to the original document invalidate, rather than being invalidated by, the three-fifths compromise etc. just as the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments do. Even the Fifth does; unless one argues slaves were not people (at which even Jeff Davis would balk,) they were deprived liberty without due process.

Arguing emancipation on any basis BUT those legitimizes Southern claims the Civil War unconstitutionally infringed on state and property rights. Acknowledge people are not property and thus the Fifth Amendment required rather than prohibited emancipation is logically and morally correct; arguing the Union is insoluble and/or that foreign powers may not rest US military occupation has no such constitutional standing. State rights were not the problem any more than with segregation, any more than they are the solution with gay marriage or abortion now. The solution was and is that, just as state rights limit federal authority, individual rights limit state rights. Daniel Websters stirring "liberty and union" speech was nice oratory, but flies in the face of virtually every equally eloquent and far more logical word every Founding Father wrote on both union and secession. Without guarantees of the latter the Constitution would never have been ratified, so arguments ratification contingent on that right somehow relinquished it demonstrate a weak grasp of both the history and logic involved. It is precisely the kind of federal tyranny the Tenth Amendment was created to prevent; I know of no Constitutional clause (even now) prohibiting secession.

Sacrificing that vital bulwark of American liberty to end an infringement on that liberty was, shall we say, counterproductive, as well as unnecessary. The whole issue has been hopelessly muddled and contradictory ever since, with the same people and places alternately affirming state rights and claiming the Civil War revoked them de facto, as convenient. Meanwhile, within a decade of Civil War "victory" over slavery the South inaugurated a century of Jim Crow with Northern complicity. Americas biggest merchants were no more committed to liberating slaves with civil war in 1860 than they were to secession to avoid enforcing an embargo as part of an ongoing international war fifty years earlier: They were committed to MERCANTILE PROFITS, whether by ignoring an embargo against a nation at war with us (specifically, the one from which we won our hard fought independence, that sacked the capital and burned the White House even as MA et al. threatened secession over the embargo) or by ending the Souths cheap labor and high prices for raw materials.

Historically, American conservatism has been a very mercenary, autocratic and ugly thing almost from the start. Its greatest and founding members were Adams and Hamilton; the former made it a federal crime to criticize a member of the federal government, while the latter proposed at the Constitutional Convention America should install a new king in place of the one it had just renounced. Those alone ought to be enough to discredit the whole philosophy.

The other thing is, it is REALLY unfair to compare America as "the birthplace of modern Democracy" to the UK as a country that "took up the practice." We owe most of our federal character to the successes and failures of British parliamentary democracy, traced all the way back to Runnymede and the first limits on absolute federal power through local representatives of the people. Granted, the petty nobility of the time had little accountability to the people, and the king still retained great power, but by 1776 both of those things had changed drastically.

I'm an American Republican, Joel, I'm being pretty nice not to refer to the UK as Royalist Dogs. :P No, I was pointing to UK to remind that person was not from the US but a different democracy, and it was us that pushed this system of government forward more than any else, the UK's shed a lot of blood and gold for the cause too, more than anyone else I can think of besides us, maybe more blood depending on how you tally it. I'm not knocking them, but I don't count pre-revolution efforts because we were them until then. In this respect mentioning the UK just means 'not US'

Well, but really, the principal difference between our government and theirs is in the President as a strong head of government rather than the House Speaker as one chosen by Congress. That, and the fact he can only be removed every four years rather than at any time. In terms of democratic principles, the British system has more, and that was largely true within a generation of the Revolutionary War. Again, the problem with Britain was not that it denied its citizens the franchise, but that it did not recognize its colonists as full citizens. However, and also once again, America did not and has not altered that, only whom it recognizes as colonists. That three-quarters of the 800 year democratic legacy to which Americans are heir comes from Britain only underscores the depth of that debt. I much prefer our more republican system, but "Royalist Dogs" was not a truly fair charge against Britain in 1776, and certainly not now.

The problem with Britain then was not that it was undemocratic, per se, but that it did not extend the franchise to colonies. Manchester and Liverpool residents had taxation WITH representation, but the colonies had only royally appointed governors (one of the few powers the monarch retained.) Prime Minister William Pitt echoed protests against taxing unrepresented colonies, but without that representation the parliamentary majority was against him. America considered that tyranny, particularly as both federal taxes and other authority increased without their consent or even consultation, but residents of Guam or the US Virgin Islands might be perplexed at the suggestion todays US is more democratic. ;)

Had Britain not then been "the vanguard of democracy," George III would have simply levied another huge army to send against American colonies that only prevailed at Yorktown because the French navy prevented the arrival of British reinforcements. He certainly WANTED to—but Parliament required he accept a peace and, being little more than a figurehead of a democratically chosen government, he was legally bound to comply.

Not that I disagree with your arguments in the main, I am just being (perhaps unduly) particular on a few of them.


Well they're mostly fair points, it was a rushed, overly brief, and choppy post.

All better? :P Sorry for the delay, and if sleep deprivation and disgust with what old school Republicans have to say of todays GOP fired me up a bit too much.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.

Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!

LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Reply to message
Now That Romney Is Officially the Republican Presidential Nominee: Pick the President! - 29/02/2012 08:29:02 PM 1261 Views
I have never understood the point of the Electoral College. - 29/02/2012 11:39:11 PM 702 Views
You don't think like a politician then - 01/03/2012 12:38:36 AM 745 Views
I also have not seen most of that mentioned in the popular vs. electoral debate. - 01/03/2012 02:34:31 PM 630 Views
what about one vote one value? - 02/03/2012 11:51:32 PM 714 Views
That has not really changed. - 03/03/2012 03:30:34 AM 899 Views
a bit simplistic and unrealistic - 02/03/2012 11:44:02 PM 672 Views
When illustrating a point realism is not required and simplicity is a plus - 03/03/2012 03:04:26 AM 689 Views
I have a couple quibbles. - 03/03/2012 05:23:46 AM 716 Views
Oh, certainly, I'm over-generalizing but I was already getting long-winded - 03/03/2012 06:52:04 AM 676 Views
I hate when people do that. - 05/03/2012 09:49:36 AM 659 Views
What a bunch of waffle! - 03/03/2012 10:47:19 AM 820 Views
First you complain of simplicity then of my lack of brevity? - 03/03/2012 11:18:11 AM 607 Views
A simplistic argument doesn't mean it's brief *NM* - 03/03/2012 09:55:51 PM 336 Views
Also I don't like this refrain that implies only the POTUS vote matters - 03/03/2012 03:29:58 AM 833 Views
IMHO, parliaments choosing prime ministers is LESS democratic than the electoral college. - 03/03/2012 05:57:41 AM 633 Views
Re: IMHO, parliaments choosing prime ministers is LESS democratic than the electoral college. - 03/03/2012 07:02:30 AM 670 Views
*is learning* - 04/03/2012 09:49:42 PM 662 Views
Re: *is learning* - 04/03/2012 09:56:16 PM 675 Views
To the extent I can (yet again) claim to speak for Europeans... - 04/03/2012 10:33:01 PM 651 Views
I've fairly limited exposure and that from some years back - 04/03/2012 11:35:12 PM 712 Views
Re: *is learning* - 05/03/2012 12:08:08 AM 716 Views
You could imitate the French. - 07/03/2012 10:40:16 PM 649 Views
That seems... unlikely.... - 08/03/2012 03:03:54 PM 650 Views
I don't know much about Norwegian politics, but you seem to be wrong. - 03/03/2012 06:18:08 PM 689 Views
Do you happen to have that link, please? - 03/03/2012 06:46:31 PM 566 Views
Sure. - 03/03/2012 06:58:07 PM 740 Views
Guess we did not read far enough. - 03/03/2012 10:38:07 PM 683 Views
Yeah, you have to know a few things about European politics... - 03/03/2012 11:49:44 PM 887 Views
Re: Yeah, you have to know a few things about European politics... - 05/03/2012 06:56:24 AM 684 Views
Fascinating. - 05/03/2012 10:52:32 PM 668 Views
Re: Yeah, you have to know a few things about European politics... - 08/03/2012 07:11:12 PM 634 Views
Many valid reasons, including those Isaac cited. - 02/03/2012 02:26:37 AM 784 Views
Most states are ignored anyway - 02/03/2012 11:56:12 PM 860 Views
Why would we do something logical? Dude, you're utterly ridiculous. *NM* - 05/03/2012 04:53:38 PM 373 Views
I'm kind of sad- does this mean Santorum won't be providing wonderful sound bites anymore? - 01/03/2012 02:22:31 PM 624 Views
Nothing has shut him up yet, why should this? *NM* - 01/03/2012 05:27:30 PM 355 Views
Maybe he'll pull a Palin and go touring around the country *NM* - 01/03/2012 07:06:02 PM 323 Views
No, it probably means we will get more and worse than ever. - 01/03/2012 11:25:25 PM 804 Views
Romney or Obama, either way, America loses. *NM* - 02/03/2012 01:10:26 AM 448 Views
Hard to dispute that either; six of one, half a dozen of the other. - 02/03/2012 01:38:07 AM 605 Views
Couldn't agree more *NM* - 02/03/2012 06:52:51 PM 363 Views
It reminds me of when Denver backed into the NFL playoffs. - 02/03/2012 09:36:13 PM 599 Views
I'd agree hope and change was extremely unrealistic - 02/03/2012 11:58:57 PM 603 Views
Romney is damaged - 02/03/2012 11:27:33 PM 619 Views
Obama is rather damaged also; it will probably come down to FL and OH, yet again. - 03/03/2012 02:23:53 AM 724 Views
I'm hoping for Rubio as VP... then FL probably won't matter - 03/03/2012 04:28:08 AM 606 Views
You should put that on your license plates. - 03/03/2012 06:41:34 AM 728 Views
Re: You should put that on your license plates. - 03/03/2012 06:51:00 AM 677 Views
Ax murderers are people, too! - 04/03/2012 08:23:41 PM 629 Views
And what are you basing all of this on? - 03/03/2012 09:54:06 PM 719 Views
The closeness of several states when Obama was far more popular, and UTs heavily Mormon neighbors. - 03/03/2012 11:44:06 PM 674 Views
Wrong - 04/03/2012 08:08:56 AM 790 Views
Higher turnout magnifies the Mormon effect. - 04/03/2012 08:08:09 PM 829 Views
Your reasoning is flawed and if you can't see it there is no hope for you - 05/03/2012 11:39:04 PM 735 Views
Yeah, I think we had that conversation already, several times, in fact. - 07/03/2012 05:36:45 AM 571 Views
Do you have any knowledge of statistics at all? - 07/03/2012 09:04:15 PM 735 Views
I hate this message board - 07/03/2012 09:06:30 PM 530 Views
Some, though it is far from exhaustive. - 08/03/2012 02:29:06 PM 712 Views

Reply to Message