Election 2012 - The Thread

Of course you do, because people tell this to you all day long during this time.
It's everywhere
 
You do realize Paul HAD more than 5 states but GOP changed rules enough to make him only with 4 states. Not lying I was keeping up with that shot. Not that 400+ is enough, and after rule changes he dropped to like 280 ish and 30 ish of his delegates were bound to Romney.

.

I'm not voting what I believe is the lesser of two evils. I'm voting Gary Johnson.
 
Critical my man, in English terms please.
What I got was that after the debate Ryan must have gotten Romney more votes?
 
Biden kicked ass tonight. Martha Raddatz was a WAY more competent debate moderator than that geriatric Lehrer, thank goodness. Recognizing that there are a minuscule amount of movable voters left, Biden did the right thing by re-energizing the base and bringing the fight to that lying sock-puppet Paul Ryan. I loved it. Great bit of political theater there.
 
Critical my man, in English terms please.
What I got was that after the debate Ryan must have gotten Romney more votes?

I was addressing an old post not the VP debate sorry.

I already know all their policies, I don't need to watch the debate. The debates
Are important for making a good impression on 60% of the country that don't pay attention until televised debates. I see no point in watching it when Paul Ryan is a liar
Of the highest degree.

He voted for every single thing that caused our defeceit.

Yet somehow he is known as the budget guy. Budget guy? He created the defeceit with his votes. No doubt Biden probably kicked his ass.
 
Oh ok.

What is the deal with Ryan lying anyway? The hell are you going to accomplish?

The republicans policies are so anti-middle class and anti poor. And for the rich that they need to lie to get votes. I forgot the term but Ryan and romneys strategy is basically to put so much bull shit on the table that Obama and Biden can't without alot of time for explaining debunk all their lies so some of them will slip. And if your mathmatically illiterate you'll just have to trust one. And these people that only listen to debates and don't do their own research and fact check will believe his lies.


When your strategy is to lie in such large numbers to overwhelm his opponent in debates so they can't address them all.


You shouldn't have even made it this far in the race.
 
Biden kicked ass tonight. Martha Raddatz was a WAY more competent debate moderator than that geriatric Lehrer, thank goodness. Recognizing that there are a minuscule amount of movable voters left, Biden did the right thing by re-energizing the base and bringing the fight to that lying sock-puppet Paul Ryan. I loved it. Great bit of political theater there.

I can't really agree. Well maybe I can. I felt in terms of being aggressive, Biben clearly won that and had Ryan on the defense pretty much the whole night. It's hard for me to pick a winner cuz I felt they both danced around questions. I did think Biden may have answered some but I just felt like they never provided straight answers. I do like how Biden never gave Ryan a chance to answer, not that he would have, because of his interruptions. I felt like that was smart. Overall it was a more entertaining debate, but ultimately came away feeling like I didn't learn anything.

I'm not a democrat, or really a republican. I'm don't like Obama and I don't like Romney. So I don't know who I'm going to vote for, prolly just going to write in my right nut or that guy who is the most interesting man in those dos equis commercials. I do think Obama is going to win though.

I'm just going to prepare for the next debate. And by prepare mean buy booze so I can do the drinking game.
 
I'll agree with you reluctantly on that, Freyith, but I will also point out that VP debates never decided anything.

If it blunted Obama's slip in the polls until Tuesday, then it achieved exactly what it needs to. I don't think anyone has argued that Biden won Obama the election last night. He did however, make Ryan look like a phony, out-of-his depth, not-to-be-taken-seriously schoolboy. As Critical pointed out, Ryan voted for nearly all of those budget-busting policies like the two wars, Medicare Part D, etc. He's a deficit* hawk? Yeah, right. Deficit chicken-hawk is more like it. This blustering about deficits from the party of explode-the-deficit is nothing more than agitprop to move people who can't accomplish simple arithmetic (though, there might be a lot of those once we axe PBS...)

I can't really agree. Well maybe I can. I felt in terms of being aggressive, Biben clearly won that and had Ryan on the defense pretty much the whole night. It's hard for me to pick a winner cuz I felt they both danced around questions. I did think Biden may have answered some but I just felt like they never provided straight answers. I do like how Biden never gave Ryan a chance to answer, not that he would have, because of his interruptions. I felt like that was smart. Overall it was a more entertaining debate, but ultimately came away feeling like I didn't learn anything.

I'm not a democrat, or really a republican. I'm don't like Obama and I don't like Romney. So I don't know who I'm going to vote for, prolly just going to write in my right nut or that guy who is the most interesting man in those dos equis commercials. I do think Obama is going to win though.

I'm just going to prepare for the next debate. And by prepare mean buy booze so I can do the drinking game.

I think if you look at some cursory fact-checks, it becomes evident who was doing most of the obfuscation and lying.

But wait for it, here comes Freyith's trademark condescension and Superiority Complex(TM), brought to you with limited commercial interruption by Twinings of London (Do not read unless you are OK with your worldview being challenged!)
Spoiler:


Personally, I can't understand how anyone can be undecided (I don't personally care who you decide for; that's your decision to wrestle with) this late in the game. It doesn't take that much effort to research the record of the candidates, maybe fact-check them for yourself, and come to some basic conclusions. Perhaps it's a lack of general understanding of public policy in most people, but I'm not sure how you can have a pulse and be undecided. I'm pretty sure that this amorphous mass of 'undecided voters' the media talk about are so asleep or unawares that they wouldn't know meat if a steak was rubbed right under their collective noses. You're either paying attention, or you aren't. You're either doing your homework, or you aren't.

Relying on what either campaign or candidate tells you by itself is not being a responsible citizen.


I want to leave this here. I don't always agree with this column, but it does say some very truthful things, and this one bears repeating. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...7685b70-1485-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_blog.html

This isn’t a big surprise, but as the election moves closer, views of President Obama have become even more polarized. So far in October, according to Gallup, 90 percent of Democrats approve of Obama versus 8 percent of Republicans. This 82-point gap in partisan approval is the largest ever recorded by Gallup: at this point in 2004, 12 percent of Democrats approved of George W. Bush (an 80-point gap). In 1996, 23 percent of Republicans approved of Clinton, and in 1992, 11 percent of Democrats approved of George H.W. Bush.

The intense polarization of the Obama era is one reason that Mitt Romney has been able to build traction with the claim that Obama has spurned bipartisanship and hasn’t worked with Republicans. He hit that mark when criticizing the Affordable Care Act in last week’s presidential debate:

“So entirely on a partisan basis, instead of bringing America together and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through...
“I think something this big, this important has to be done on a bipartisan basis. And we have to have a president who can reach across the aisle and fashion important legislation with the input from both parties.”
And Paul Ryan made a similar claim in last night’s vice presidential debate, accusing the administration of excluding Republicans from the decision making process:

“Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, where 87 percent of the legislators he served, which were Democrats. He didn’t demonize them. He didn’t demagogue them. He met with those party leaders every week. He reached across the aisle. He didn’t compromise principles.”
With few exceptions, this narrative has gone unchallenged for most of the year, despite the fact that it bears little relationship to reality. Close political observers know that congressional Republicans began the Obama presidency with a deliberate strategy of categorial opposition. As Robert Draper details in his recent book, GOP leaders had no intention of cooperating with the president on any of his major initatives. From inauguration onwards, their plan was to “Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies.”

As political strategy goes, this was incredibly smart. Voters don’t know much about legislation, and their views are shaped by the responses of political elites. Because the entire Republican Party denounced stimulus or health care reform as “radical” and “too partisan,” voters understood those laws as outside the mainstream, even as they agreed with the actual provisions. The Republican strategy of complete opposition is part of what made the Obama agenda — or large parts of it — unpopular.

It’s clear from this campaign that the strategy served another purpose: To allow the Republican presidential nominee to portray himself as bipartisan and able to “work across the aisle.” Put another way, over the last four years, the GOP has generated intense partisanship, blamed it on the president, and now is trying to capitalize on voter discontent over gridlock. It’s a neat trick.
 
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I watched the VP debates last night

Ryan just seems like a pre-scripted robot to me

Biden seems more "loose" and genuine

loved what he said about him being a devout catholic, but not imposing his views on others
 
I can tell you why I'm undecided, I just don't like either one. I could, and should, brush up on both candidates some more. Maybe it'll give me someone to vote for, or maybe I'll just pick stupid reasons. Might pick Obama cuz he drinks beer.

Bottom line is, I shoulda left that part of my post out. And shoulda added more to the beginning because that's mainly what I wanted to comment. Like if we were choosing winners based on flag pins, Ryan won, but I'll have to deduct points because he was using a blue pen, so Biden won. And I came away learning nothing because these debates are more about painting the other guy as wrong more than you being right. I thought Ryan stayed pretty poised through the whole thing, even though I didn't believe everything he said.
 
I watched the VP debates last night

Ryan just seems like a pre-scripted robot to me

Biden seems more "loose" and genuine

loved what he said about him being a devout catholic, but not imposing his views on others

In my experience of being a Catholic, that doesn't surprise. I have never imposed my beliefs on anyone, and everyone else in my church or the other churches did either. Not like those southern Baptists. Every chance they could they would try. But I'm just mainly speaking for the people I know that are Catholics, I do know some could be pushy but all religions are like that.
 
Not gonna tell you if you should or shouldn't vote it's a free country but I'd rather have
A super Informed freyith who votes Obama, than some tag along that doesn't follow anything political until the last minute and just takes a politician that takes corporate money for their word.

I'm voting Gary johnson, for my own conscience. But if I had to say who is the lesser of two evils out of mitt and Barack? Barack by a landslide. Obama is atleast honest on his social policies. I just thinks he's horrible on civil liberties and foreign policy.


Romney Would be worse on foreign policy just so you know. And I'm super sure he's gonna be worse on civil liberties.
 
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I'm done with this 'lesser of two evils' horseshit. I'll probably vote for Gary Johnson; since he's on the ballot in almost every state, it's about the most boisterous protest vote I can possibly make.

So ****ing sick of this two party system. Two shitty parties, two shitty candidates, two shitty outcomes.
 
The republicans policies are so anti-middle class and anti poor. And for the rich that they need to lie to get votes. I forgot the term but Ryan and romneys strategy is basically to put so much bull shit on the table that Obama and Biden can't without alot of time for explaining debunk all their lies so some of them will slip. And if your mathmatically illiterate you'll just have to trust one. And these people that only listen to debates and don't do their own research and fact check will believe his lies.


When your strategy is to lie in such large numbers to overwhelm his opponent in debates so they can't address them all.


You shouldn't have even made it this far in the race.

I actually get to tell you a fact that I actually know!?

The strategey is Gish Galloping! I feel smart.
But yeah the technique is dumb as hell cause for the non-voters all that stuff would sound like facts.
 
Alex, to be honest, this is the first time in a while I feel like you've expressed genuine respect for my opinion/position, regardless of our previous engagements. Thanks for that.

I think there's something fundamental to address about this election. It seems there are a lot of people who dislike both equally, or view both Romney and Obama as wrong. That's their right. However, this leaves a logical paradox in its wake. Let's evaluate.

Scenario 1 (The undecideds' view in writ large):
That the election is a false dichotomy; "A is true, B is false" when in fact, both A and B have an equal probability of being false. This is N = 1 truth thinking, black and white thinking, which the voter will reject in this scenario.

Scenario 2:
Multi-value truth (n = >2). Neither A or B is true (therefore are equally false) and C is true, or less starkly, "A is A, B is B, and C is C" with the implication that C ( a third party candidate like Jill Stein, who was not on my ballot, but Johnson was) is a viable alternative.

Scenarios 1 and 2 are largely the thinking of the populace. Both are not good choices, and I'd rather vote for a third choice (without consideration that said third choice is merely taking away a vote from A or B). If we accept that C is not viable, because the number of votes needed to win > C's support, then we can conclude:

Scenario 3: Hobson's choice.
The proposition of the election is decide between A or B (If scenario 1 = true, then A = B), which is just now A(1) (vote for one of the two candidates) or B(2)--don't vote at all. Put more simply, the election is take it or leave it.

Scenario 3 cannot be true if you accept the stance that you should be active in civics/politics and exercise your right and responsibility to vote.

My conclusion is therefore the classic one, Scenario 4:
Both candidates have things that detract from their value, but since the option is only between one or the other, they must be evaluated based on which will do the least harm (as opposed to the most benefit). This is apart from a false value judgement that it is a choice of a 'lesser of two evils'. It's simple evaluative reasoning. If candidate A supports a policy that hurts the nation by a small amount, and candidate B supports a measure that hurts the nation more, both A and B are causing hurt to the nation ('evil'), but one is substantively better than the the other for the difference in harm done. This is a realist perspective.
 
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I'm done with this 'lesser of two evils' horseshit. I'll probably vote for Gary Johnson; since he's on the ballot in almost every state, it's about the most boisterous protest vote I can possibly make.

So ****ing sick of this two party system. Two shitty parties, two shitty candidates, two shitty outcomes.

When people vote for candidates who have no shot at winning, I believe they do it so when shit goes wrong they can say:

"Hey don't blame me, I voted for _______ ________"
 
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