Author Topic: Election 2012  (Read 231809 times)

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Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1680 on: March 15, 2012, 01:17:03 PM »
I know, but I don't think it's that simple.  I think a lot of delegates that Romney actually won because votes against him were split between Romney and Santorum, Romney would have actually lost to Santorum if not for those splits.

If you meant to say Gingrich and Santorum, this makes sense, otherwise, not so much.

Offline bosk1

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1681 on: March 15, 2012, 01:19:13 PM »
I know, but I don't think it's that simple.  I think a lot of delegates that Romney actually won because votes against him were split between Romney and Santorum, Romney would have actually lost to Santorum if not for those splits.

If you meant to say Gingrich and Santorum, this makes sense, otherwise, not so much.

Yes, that is what I meant.  Sorry.
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Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1682 on: March 15, 2012, 01:21:23 PM »
There's definitely a lot to that theory. There are a number of fairly significant states where Romney won, which could have been taken by Santorum had Gingrich not been splitting the vote. There's even talk that the wealthy donor who is more or less single handedly funding Gingrich's campaign at this point is doing so to stop Santorum.

Quote
Also, since 1976, no incumbent president has been reelected when the unemployment rate is at or over 7%  I don't know if there is enough time to get the rate back under 7% between now and November.
Statistics like this are meaningless bullshit that news networks use to fill airtime.

The unemployment rate is "meaningless bullshit" as it applies to and impacts presidential politics?  Wow.  Um, ok.  :|

Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1683 on: March 15, 2012, 01:23:22 PM »
I know, but I don't think it's that simple.  I think a lot of delegates that Romney actually won because votes against him were split between Romney and Santorum, Romney would have actually lost to Santorum if not for those splits.

If you meant to say Gingrich and Santorum, this makes sense, otherwise, not so much.

Yes, that is what I meant.  Sorry.

No problem  :lol   That's what had me doing this:

Otherwise, I think you're definitely on the right track there. 

Offline rumborak

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1684 on: March 15, 2012, 02:11:39 PM »
If you (generally speaking) are pissed about genocide in [insert third world garbage hole here], then travel there and buy some guns. We have zero obligation to anyone but ourselves. Ron Paul has said countless times that he is for defense, not offense, and that we'd probably have more military bases on our soil than in other areas around the world.

And that's the rub, and the reason why RP is out of the game. Like it or not, but Democrats and Republicans, that is, just about every American, feels there is a moral obligation (of course, within reason) to help people in need who are getting murdered wholesale by some ruthless dictator or whatnot.
Paul's answer was, in essence, "Eh, not our problem. I'll buy their goods, maybe that helps them". If he really thought that kind of answer would find any resonance in the general public, especially Republicans, well...

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Offline TL

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1685 on: March 15, 2012, 02:17:24 PM »
There's definitely a lot to that theory. There are a number of fairly significant states where Romney won, which could have been taken by Santorum had Gingrich not been splitting the vote. There's even talk that the wealthy donor who is more or less single handedly funding Gingrich's campaign at this point is doing so to stop Santorum.

Quote
Also, since 1976, no incumbent president has been reelected when the unemployment rate is at or over 7%  I don't know if there is enough time to get the rate back under 7% between now and November.
Statistics like this are meaningless bullshit that news networks use to fill airtime.

The unemployment rate is "meaningless bullshit" as it applies to and impacts presidential politics?  Wow.  Um, ok.  :|
No. Statistics like "only X out of Y Presidents between the years E and F were re-elected when statistic A was at B%" are meaningless. The sample size as far as presidential elections go is just far too small, and the number of variables too great and differing, for any statistics like that to mean anything in that sort of context. I explained that in my post about this.
It's like when CNN go on about their exit polls where 37% of men in Jackson county who are left handed and put cream in their coffee chose Romney over Santorum. It's just chatter to fill time.

Unemployment obviously matters. It's currently lower than it was when Obama took office. That's what matters.

Including the 1976 election, we've only had 3 incumbent presidents lose re-election in that timeframe; Ford, Carter, and Bush senior. Three elections each with a large, differing set of circumstances doesn't really lend itself to statistics like the one you presented.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2012, 02:25:05 PM by TL »

Offline rumborak

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1686 on: March 15, 2012, 02:24:35 PM »
Yeah, it's the same with sports stats. "Team X has not won against Y since there's been more than 3 players whose last names start with an M".

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Offline kirksnosehair

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1687 on: March 15, 2012, 02:35:07 PM »
But I disagree that it's a meaningless statistic.  Not all statistics are just mental masturbation.  I believe the unemployment rate has a strong impact on how people vote.  Personally, I know people who are independents who voted for Obama last time, but are telling me they will not vote for him this time because he hasn't improved the job market.  These are hard, unmitigated facts.  Votes he previously received that he now will not receive.



Offline rumborak

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1688 on: March 15, 2012, 03:19:34 PM »
"I liked when Myung looked like a women's figure skating champion."

Offline bosk1

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1689 on: March 15, 2012, 03:21:40 PM »
That's terrible. 

I...just...I feel like that deserves a longer response, but I'm honestly completely at a loss for what to say to that.
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1690 on: March 15, 2012, 03:21:48 PM »
Oh dear.

Offline yeshaberto

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1691 on: March 15, 2012, 03:35:17 PM »
 :xbones

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1692 on: March 15, 2012, 03:37:28 PM »
That's just not right.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1693 on: March 15, 2012, 03:54:53 PM »
The family across the street from my place has these on their bumpers:



I guess it's supposed to be witty (hah, Dems = donkey = ass), but still pretty low-brow. Oh well, they're hermits anyway, the only neighbors you never see outside.

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Offline bosk1

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1694 on: March 15, 2012, 04:06:40 PM »
Okay, that one is actually funny.
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1695 on: March 15, 2012, 05:03:54 PM »
heh, cute.

Online Chino

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1696 on: March 15, 2012, 05:52:15 PM »
I'm so fucking sick of hearing this shit about Romney putting his dog on the roof of his car. It's not different than letting a dog ride in the bed of a pickup truck.

Offline Rathma

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1697 on: March 15, 2012, 06:54:04 PM »
Can Romney get Evangelical votes? I bet a majority of them refrain from voting entirely if he's nominated.

Offline juice

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1698 on: March 15, 2012, 07:17:43 PM »
I think that whoever becomes the Republican candidate will gain the majority support of whoever doesn't want Obama as president.  So I would think so.  If they're smart they'll vote for someone no matter who the candidate is.

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1699 on: March 15, 2012, 07:25:42 PM »
I'm so fucking sick of hearing this shit about Romney putting his dog on the roof of his car. It's not different than letting a dog ride in the bed of a pickup truck.

I have no idea what story you're talking about but roof = can slide off, bed of truck = must jump out. I think there is a big difference.

Offline PraXis

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1700 on: March 15, 2012, 07:29:37 PM »
I refuse to put any anti-Obama bumper stickers on my luxury SUV. I do not want it damaged.

Offline TL

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1701 on: March 15, 2012, 09:53:53 PM »
But I disagree that it's a meaningless statistic.  Not all statistics are just mental masturbation.  I believe the unemployment rate has a strong impact on how people vote.  Personally, I know people who are independents who voted for Obama last time, but are telling me they will not vote for him this time because he hasn't improved the job market.  These are hard, unmitigated facts.  Votes he previously received that he now will not receive.
Again, I'm not saying all employment statistics are meaningless. Saying "no president in the last randomly selected number of years with less than an arbitrary number next to this statistic has ever been re-elected" is meaningless.

The fact is, unemployment is lower now than when Obama took office. I don't think the average worker really cares about employment statistics from the Carter administration. They care if things have or haven't gotten better under the current administration. Those who will ignore facts and blame him anyway probably weren't going to vote for him in the first place.

Offline Super Dude

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1702 on: March 15, 2012, 10:12:51 PM »
It's not a *meaningless* statistic, it's just that the scarcity of evidence makes any trends statistically non-significant. We'd need a sample size of at least a hundred more elections to make even an educated guess about things like that.
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Offline emindead

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1703 on: March 15, 2012, 10:40:15 PM »
Obama is "War"?



rumborak

Um... yes? Where have you been the last four years. Oh, and his rhetoric is very bellical.

God, I remembered that Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize. :rollin

Offline emindead

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1704 on: March 15, 2012, 10:42:24 PM »

NO FUCKING WAY!!! I want to smash his window so bad right now.

Offline Super Dude

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1705 on: March 15, 2012, 10:51:32 PM »
Obama is "War"?



rumborak

Um... yes? Where have you been the last four years. Oh, and his rhetoric is very bellical.

God, I remembered that Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize. :rollin

Where have you been?
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Offline Riceball

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1706 on: March 15, 2012, 11:04:24 PM »
It's not a *meaningless* statistic, it's just that the scarcity of evidence makes any trends statistically non-significant. We'd need a sample size of at least a hundred more elections to make even an educated guess about things like that.
Maybe not 100...but yes you need a bigger sample.

I think the point the people who use it are trying to make, in broad brush strokes, is that in an environment of high unemployment the incumbent is more likely to be blamed than any challenger and so it makes it more difficult to be re-elected.

As you learn in Stats 100 - correlation does not imply causality. People forget/ignore that sometimes.
I punch those numbers into my calculator and they make a happy face.

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Offline Super Dude

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1707 on: March 15, 2012, 11:26:06 PM »
But it's not impossible. We live in extraordinary and unusual times.
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Offline Riceball

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1708 on: March 15, 2012, 11:33:47 PM »
Oh ofcourse, and I think unemployment will be 7.x by November, so it will be well off its highs.

Also: from an outsiders perspective, I can't see what Obama has done wrong. Secondary to this, I can't see how America as a collective would allow any of the republican candidates except Romney get into office. In a battle between Obama and Romney, I see Obama winning, because as I said from an outsiders perspective I can't see what he has stuffed up so badly that he needs to be turfed. All I can see from the Obama is bad camp is that he isn't white and he isn't republican.

Can someone correct me?
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1709 on: March 16, 2012, 12:20:18 AM »
He has made bipartisan consensus out of some of the worst post-9/11 Bush era abuses, so there's that.

Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1710 on: March 16, 2012, 01:19:38 AM »
And speaking of war, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill has an excellent new piece in The Nation called Why is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen about the detention of a Yemeni journalist who first uncovered in 2009 that the US was behind reportedly Yemeni airstrike on an Al Qaeda camp that killed 14 women and 21 children. He also conducted interviews with Al Awlaki and members of AQ. It's somewhat long but definitely worth it.
Quote
There is no doubt that Shaye was reporting facts that both the Yemeni and US government wanted to suppress. He was also interviewing people Washington was hunting. While the US and Yemeni governments alleged that he was a facilitator for Al Qaeda propaganda, close observers of Yemen disagree. “It is difficult to overestimate the importance of his work,” says Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar at Princeton University who had communicated regularly with Shaye since 2008. “Without Shaye’s reports and interviews we would know much less about Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula than we do, and if one believes, as I do, that knowledge of the enemy is important to constructing a strategy to defeat them, then his arrest and continued detention has left a hole in our knowledge that has yet to be filled.”


Offline Super Dude

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1711 on: March 16, 2012, 07:33:57 AM »
Oh ofcourse, and I think unemployment will be 7.x by November, so it will be well off its highs.

Also: from an outsiders perspective, I can't see what Obama has done wrong. Secondary to this, I can't see how America as a collective would allow any of the republican candidates except Romney get into office. In a battle between Obama and Romney, I see Obama winning, because as I said from an outsiders perspective I can't see what he has stuffed up so badly that he needs to be turfed. All I can see from the Obama is bad camp is that he isn't white and he isn't republican.

Can someone correct me?

I agree, while acknowledging goon's contribution. But I mean come on, as far as presidents go, he's actually been really good, and no president's policies are ever perfect. Plus, do you really think his Republican equivalent would not continue Bush era abuses? In fact I can easily see things getting much, much worse under a Republican.
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1712 on: March 16, 2012, 08:18:37 AM »
No, of course a Republican president would. However there would have at least been some resistance to it by people pretending to care 'cos it wasn't "their guy" in the white house. I think Democratic presidents are more dangerous in that regard.

Offline Super Dude

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1713 on: March 16, 2012, 08:32:06 AM »
No, of course a Republican president would. However there would have at least been some resistance to it by people pretending to care 'cos it wasn't "their guy" in the white house. I think Democratic presidents are more dangerous in that regard.

Well if OWS doesn't work under a Democratic president, what makes you think it would with a Republican one? In fact, when did Bush ever consider any constituency other than his own support base?
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Election 2012
« Reply #1714 on: March 16, 2012, 08:37:09 AM »
I'm not talking about OWS. I'm talking about people in power who would publicly decry what he did. That was valuable. Instead of all the Bush Administration crap being an aberration, it's now just the way we do things.