US of A Presidential Elections 2012

Bill Clinton talks about Romney's plan on The Daily Show
If I come to you and I say we have this terrible national debt and here's my opening gambit. First thing I want to do is increase it by $5 trillion over a decade by doing another round of tax cuts that mostly benefit the people we benefited in the last decade, even thought it didn't produce jobs. Now we're in a really deep hole, much bigger than this clock I just showed you. Now let me tell you how we're going to get out of it. Well, what about the details? See me about that after the election.

So I wanted to try to explain that in very simple terms. No one else would do that; no one . Unless you were being driven by ideology instead of by evidence. This is a practical country. We have ideals. We have philosophies. But the problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence. So you have to mold the evidence to get the answer that you've already decided you've got to have. It doesn't work that way. Building an economy; rebuilding an economy is hard, practical nuts and bolts work.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...nt-Bill-Clinton-The-problem-with-any-ideology
 
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You know having a country divided 50 - 50 roughly is not a recipe for success. How you fix it I do not know, ours is similar except we have a 3rd party and that is how for the moment we are being governed 2 parties against 1.
 
Having two parties isn't inherently a problem. It becomes a problem when members of those parties become so polarized that they refuse to have meaningful discussions with the other party and try to actually work things out. That, unfortunately, is where we are today.
 
I think this election is probably the most polarized in decades. But I also think it's the last of its kind. It just can't continue, speaking of demographics and the way the people are turning.

Heck, how many Americans are pro-choice? 60 percent? That's a 20 point lead that more or less just favor democrats. To mention one issue. The GOP needs to move to the left within the next four years or become dead as a dodo. And they're not that stupid, they'll move on.
 
Just elect Hillary next time round as long as she promises to let Bill to the talking... and thinking... and everything else :)
 
Billy boy was the best republican president in the last hundred years or so and they refuse to learn anything from his time in office.
 
Having two parties isn't inherently a problem. It becomes a problem when members of those parties become so polarized that they refuse to have meaningful discussions with the other party and try to actually work things out. That, unfortunately, is where we are today.

Political polarisation was the case in the UK back in the 70s/80s, during Wilson & Heath then the Foot & Thatcher years.

Foot was a real old school leftie and Maggie more right wing than Atila-the-Hun.

After, it swung back to centre-ist in the Major/B-liar years and sort of continues today, sort of.

:smile:

(Maybe I should start a History of Politics Thread. :think:)
 
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According to Intrade Mitt is already in worse shape then McCain was at the same point in 2008.

https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/intradeTV/

At this time in 2008 the Race was still pretty close according to Intrade markets. There was about a two point spread.


https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743475

Mitt is sitting at a 28.5% chance right now.

That is bad news for him.

Obama is at a 71.5% chance and he has all the momentum.

https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474
 
You know having a country divided 50 - 50 roughly is not a recipe for success. How you fix it I do not know, ours is similar except we have a 3rd party and that is how for the moment we are being governed 2 parties against 1.

We will have an effective two party system soon enough because the Lib Dems are going to end up split again, with the Orange Book Liberals caucusing with the Tories and Social Democrats going with Labour.

First Past the Post systems always trend towards a two party state, its statistically inevitable.
 
I think this election is probably the most polarized in decades. But I also think it's the last of its kind. It just can't continue, speaking of demographics and the way the people are turning.

Some studies show that the US is more polarized now than it has been since the post-civil war years, though it is not a complete consensus. Unfortunately I do not have my sources on hand, but the point is that we are in a rare situation right now. It is unclear whether it is here to stay or where we will go, but two scenarios are the most likely. Either the country sinks into one party rule or nothing gets done, or we see a party realignment. My money has been on the latter happening not far from now; we may even be seeing the beginning of it already.
 
Disclaimer: I've had quite a lot of beer tonight and had to help evict a couple of speeded up Latvians tonight, so I'm a little drunk now. Sorry for the sorry state of this post.

Political polarisation was the case in the UK back in the 70s/80s, during Wilson & Heath then the Foot & Thatcher years.

Foot was a real old school leftie and Maggie more right wing than Atila-the-Hun.

After, it swung back to centre-ist in the Major/B-liar years and sort of continues today, sort of.

:smile:
The thing about the Thatcher years to understand is that there was a fight between two revolutionaries. Scargill and Maggie.

(Maybe I should start a History of Politics Thread. :think:)
It's absolutely unfathamble that I haven't yet, you know.

Some studies show that the US is more polarized now than it has been since the post-civil war years, though it is not a complete consensus. Unfortunately I do not have my sources on hand, but the point is that we are in a rare situation right now. It is unclear whether it is here to stay or where we will go, but two scenarios are the most likely. Either the country sinks into one party rule or nothing gets done, or we see a party realignment. My money has been on the latter happening not far from now; we may even be seeing the beginning of it already.
I think there'll be one party rule for a while, followed by a realignment. That or just a realignment.
 
The GOP needs to move to the left within the next four years or become dead as a dodo. And they're not that stupid, they'll move on.

No chance in that happening until the Boomers start croaking in large numbers.
 
Yeah, well, they're caught between on the one side loosing their base and on the other side loosing despite having their base. Tea Party movement isn't strong enough to replace the boomers, so it's going to happen.

Put it this way, once they've lost two or three consecutive elections for President, when the House looks blue and they can't fillibuster in the Senate, they're going to wake up snappingly.
 
Yeah, well, they're caught between on the one side loosing their base and on the other side loosing despite having their base. Tea Party movement isn't strong enough to replace the boomers, so it's going to happen.

Put it this way, once they've lost two or three consecutive elections for President, when the House looks blue and they can't fillibuster in the Senate, they're going to wake up snappingly.

The Southeast and rural US will keep electing Republicans. Gerrymandering has been legal here for awhile now, too.
 
And it will go on for quite a while. But once it stops working, and that day will arrive, they will start to get insecure.
 
The Southeast and rural US will keep electing Republicans. Gerrymandering has been legal here for awhile now, too.

It isn't about people voting for new parties, but the parties themselves shifting positions. The current GOP does a horrible job of actually representing its voters as they keep moving farther to the right, increasingly excluding people from the process because they aren't extreme themselves. The last of the liberal Republicans have left Congress and almost all the moderates are gone. This might work for them in the short term (and it has), but eventually they are going to lose big, and the current GOP is going to be overthrown by different voices.

The Tea Party wouldn't be the realignment, they would be the cause of it. The Tea Party is too absolutist, too extreme. That said, they've also lost a lot of steam since the midterms.
 
And it will go on for quite a while. But once it stops working, and that day will arrive, they will start to get insecure.

You have to remember that here in the United States, people will vote against their own best interests (job security, fair taxation, fair legislation) as long as they feel that the candidate they are voting for is in line with their religious beliefs.

If voting for the anti-abortion (or in the case of Rand Paul, anti-civil rights) candidate, over the progressive candidate who wants to do things like raise minimum wage wasn't something accepted as normal, I would agree with you.

In the Southeast, where education lags behind the rest of the country, and in rural America, many people really believe that they, too, can be "rich" someday, even though the statistical probability of that happening is close to 0. I believe this is a large part of the reason that people will vote for their religious interests over their financial and life interests.
 
It's the damning fact of the American dream. Everybody worries about the day they will be rich. It's the patological ideological mania that I need to hedge my bets so the tax code works out for me when I'm a millionaire.

Yeah, people vote against their own best interest. But it will change. It always does.
 


:lmao:
 
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