Election 2012

[Super Dude]

Whaddya know, so am I!

[rumborak]

I guess the article tried to stay with the "let's hear RP talk about it" theme, but I don't think it's all that hard to guess why he's not getting anywhere. First of all, he's a Libertarian running for a Republican nomination, that's the biggest.  Sure, Republicans stand for small government, but that's not all they stand for, and Paul never managed to even address the concerns of the "average" Republican. In fact, anytime a topic in either Foreign Policy or Social Issues came up it became brutally obvious that he either doesn't care, or has an almost juvenile stance on it.
So, the younger crowd is energetic and idealistic enough to zone out all that, but the older folks I think cared about the "full package", and Paul was just weak. Some of his public debate responses also made one wonder how close he is to becoming senile, and that is another death sentence for voters.

rumborak

[jsem]

He's not senile. He can think like he has always done. He just has never been the best at delivering the message. He has to explain a position completely contradictory to common belief in 60 seconds, and he has so much to say that he mumbles and puts his foot in his mouth way too often. Plus, the constant traveling is not a bonus for a man his age - he does get exhausted.

It was better when he was like 50, he had a flamethrower back then.

[Cool Chris]

He's not senile. He can think like he has always done. He just has never been the best at delivering the message. He has to explain a position completely contradictory to common belief in 60 seconds, and he has so much to say that he mumbles and puts his foot in his mouth way too often. Plus, the constant traveling is not a bonus for a man his age - he does get exhausted.

It was better when he was like 50, he had a flamethrower back then.

And yet he keeps being the spokesperson for libertarians 

[rumborak]

He's not senile. He can think like he has always done.

He has to explain a position completely contradictory to common belief in 60 seconds
[/quote]

Eh, that awfully sounds like the "people don't vote for him because the message is too complex for them to understand" I've seen float around.

Which arguments do you think were not understood by the people? The isolationist one I think was pretty obvious. The "I will tear down half of the government in one year" too.

One of the weirdest aspects of the RP campaign were the ads tbh. They looked more like ads for The Biggest Catch than for a candidate whose message is the important thing.

rumborak

[Super Dude]

I think once Santorum loses the primary he or his P/R should go to Hollywood and start a career in showbiz.

[jsem]

Eh, that awfully sounds like the "people don't vote for him because the message is too complex for them to understand" I've seen float around.

Which arguments do you think were not understood by the people? The isolationist one I think was pretty obvious. The "I will tear down half of the government in one year" too.

One of the weirdest aspects of the RP campaign were the ads tbh. They looked more like ads for The Biggest Catch than for a candidate whose message is the important thing.

rumborak

It's not that the message is that complex, it's that it challenges most of the things believed by ordinary people. And people are reluctant to change their own views.

[Super Dude]

Or his views are just crazy.

[jsem]

Ugh. Not even worth addressing that.

[antigoon]

There is a ton of truth to a lot of what Paul says. His problem is that he doesn't articulate his ideas very well, and that kernel of truth is often times couched in extreme rhetoric.

I agree that dismissing Paul as crazy is a convenient way to dismiss him out of hand. There are tons and tons of "crazy" policies our government has (war on drugs) that have just become the way we do things. I think a lot of the Obama administration's policies are 'crazy.' Just because they've been going on for years and years and years doesn't make them any less so.

Taking Paul out of the picture for a moment, libertarianism is, by nature, a radical world view. A pure libertarian is probably never going to get an overwhelming amount of support because most people aren't comfortable with something like that.

 

[jsem]

As long as there is sufficient reasoning (moral or empirical) behind any belief, it should never be called crazy. (including the war on drugs, even though it has been a total failure - morally and pragmatically)

[rumborak]

Well, while the stuff he said in the debates might not all have been that crazy, you gotta look at the whole picture. Paul wants to have private companies issue competing currencies. No matter how you slice it, that's a bad idea, and pretty close to "bats hit" territory. Remember when the Saudi company did the US border control? Now imagine the same, but the company controls your monetary policy.

rumborak

[jsem]

Why not just legalize other currencies to compete with the Fed's currency? I thought we had established that violent monopolies were bad, but no - not when it comes to currency is it.

[kirksnosehair]

Why not? 

[snapple]

Why do we even have the fed...

[kirksnosehair]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System

[rumborak]

Why not just legalize other currencies to compete with the Fed's currency? I thought we had established that violent monopolies were bad, but no - not when it comes to currency is it.

Well, first of all, nobody keeps you from keeping your money in a foreign currency. When you actually do the purchase you will have to convert, but how would that be different in your scenario? What you would want is to push the conversion down to the vendor (who likely will have his account in a different currency than you do), but what incentive would any seller have for that? Frankly, if a law like that *ever* got through, nothing would happen at all. All vendors would plain say "we accept US dollar" and that's it. Just like they already say "we only accept Mastercard and Visa" because they don't want to take the burden of American Express' fees.

Why do we even have the fed...

Interestingly, that question is always swept under the rug by Fed abolishers. You know, there was a reason for its inception (and its equivalent across the globe).

rumborak

[snapple]

I like the fed. Just wish that the people who worked for it had more accountability.

[rumborak]

In my understanding, the Fed acts like the shocks in a car do. There's external impacts to the system (international market events), but the Fed can absorb those events somewhat and spread them out over time, by adjusting the money printed/interest collected on it. Whether that always works is a different question, but taking out the shocks of your car is *definitely* not the right thing to do.

rumborak

[kirksnosehair]

The Wiki I linked to above is actually quite good and describes how it works, what it does and why it was established in pretty clear terms.

[Riceball]

Something that link doesn't pick up on, suprisingly, is the Feds role in creating a market for money. IMO, first and foremost the Fed is the bank of the banks. It manages transactions and the supply and demand for "money" in the market. Say you've got two banks. Overnight, one has a surplus holding of cash equal to 100 billion bucks, while the other has a deficit of 100 billion (it must equal zero all up, because MS=MD). The first bank lends it to the Fed at the going rate of interest, while the second borrows it from the Fed at the rate of interest. Now, scale this up to 2,000-3,000 financial institutions....

The Fed also sets the benchmark rate which every other asset is priced relative to, and acts as the 'lender of last resort' (like Rumbo said).

So you don't just get rid of the Fed....

[jsem]

Kinda funny, an anarcho-capitalist who has worked for Fed Reserve of NY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YasmmiR0PrM

[Scheavo]

If anarcho-capitalists build a rocket, and colonize Mars, I don't doubt that their society would (at least immediately) succeed.

[Scheavo]

https://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-04-01/swing-states-poll/53930684/1

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

So ya, I'd say Obama's gonna win.

[rumborak]

Eh. Political polls mean very little up until a few weeks before election.

So, yet another set of primaries tomorrow, and then a long stretch of no primaries. The story will be the usual, Romney winning, Santorum shortly behind, and Gingrich and Paul nowhere to be seen. Any bets on whether one of them will bail out after tomorrow?

rumborak

[Scheavo]

Eh. Political polls mean very little up until a few weeks before election.

So, yet another set of primaries tomorrow, and then a long stretch of no primaries. The story will be the usual, Romney winning, Santorum shortly behind, and Gingrich and Paul nowhere to be seen. Any bets on whether one of them will bail out after tomorrow?

rumborak

Normally, I'd probably agree with you, but this is a pretty good signal that woman aren't going to vote Republican, in heavy numbers. It's become too much of a campaign issue, and Republicans took the wrong side on the birth control fiasco. Romney was close, until this issue, and there's no reason to think woman are going to just forget, or that Democrats aren't going to use it. 

[bosk1]

Which woman are you talking about?

[Super Dude]

 

[TL]

Any bets on whether one of them will bail out after tomorrow?

The only one who might drop after today is Gingrich, and I doubt he will.

Santorum will stay in at least until April 24th, when Pennsylvania has its primary.

[Scheavo]

Which woman are you talking about?

The one women elect to vote. That's how it works, right?

[kirksnosehair]

Any bets on whether one of them will bail out after tomorrow?

The only one who might drop after today is Gingrich, and I doubt he will.

Santorum will stay in at least until April 24th, when Pennsylvania has its primary.

Gingrich has far too massive an ego to drop out.  The only way he drops out is if his campaign is financially bankrupt and that won't happen because he's got enough of his own funds to keep at least a skeleton campaign up and running until the convention.

[TL]

So out of the three contests tonight, Santorum isn't even on the ballot in D.C. He never even applied. Seriously, it's not like he submitted an application and didn't meet a certain criteria; he didn't apply.

Romney is polling far ahead of Santorum in Maryland. I wouldn't be surprised to see that one called as soon as the polls close.

So the race to watch tonight is Wisconsin. Santorum started off well there, but Romney pulled ahead when he started spending fifty times as much money there. At the very least, it won't be called instantly.

[kirksnosehair]

Santorum is finished.  The only question now is whether or not he has a shred of common sense or if his ego, like Gingrich's, is big enough to literally help Obama by prolonging this thing or -worse yet- taking it to a floor fight at the convention.

[TL]

Oh, Romney will be the nominee. For there to even be a remote chance that it goes to convention, Santorum would have to win Wisconsin tonight, and have a strong showing on the 24th. He'll continue to the 24th either way, but if he doesn't win Wisconsin tonight, it's effectively over.

[rumborak]

Then again, there's a lot of Southern states yet to come up, and Santorum (maybe not incorrectly) banks on them giving him a late boost, at least enough to make it a brokered convention. Essentially the whole month of May could be good for Santorum, as long as he can scrape together enough momentum until then.

rumborak