US of A Presidential Elections 2012

Instead of seeing this as the longest election ever (it's not, voting will take place and be over with today), you should see it as the election in which the most money ever was spent. It must be irritating as Europeans to see this in your news constantly.
 
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Instead of seeing this as the longest election ever (it's not, voting will take place and be over with today), you should see it as the election in which the most money ever was spent. It must be irritating as Europeans to see this in your news constantly.

It is. Part of the blame for that is with lazy Euro media though, going for easy filling of time/space/pages/airwaves/whatever.
 
Infrastructure is not as big an issue in America as it should be. Our electrical grid is stuck in the early 20th century in many places (even in much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic), our highways and bridges are very much stuck in the 1950s, and how rail system is ancient.

In 2008 and 2009, stimulus should have taken the form of the largest infrastructure project ever put forth in human history. We should be demanding the rebuilding of every bridge, the repaving of every road, the relaying of every rail line. The entirety of the electrical grid should be redone and put underground. Every communication line should be replaced with fiber optics. While we are at it, we should be investing in REAL public transportation systems in every city across the country. Real trams, real buses, modern subways, and they should all be connected by the most modern and advanced high speed rail in the world. It should be the Marshall Plan and the Federal Highway Act put together and pumped with all the steroids we have.

How many construction workers would be employed? How many high tech US companies would be contracted?

Instead, we have the instigation that the slightest spending increase is the most sinful thing government could do, the implication that the tiniest of tax increases on the rich, where most our money is, would cripple the economy, all motivated by the idea that America is the greatest and thus nothing needs to be done.

How about we cut defense spending by $200b, but instead of firing people, we reroute those efforts and people to these massive infrastructure projects.

How about we do something completely different from what we've been doing for the past 20 years instead of the same crap that put us where we are now?


Stop making sense, dammit! We don't need no logic here!

:p
 
Instead of seeing this as the longest election ever (it's not, voting will take place and be over with today), you should see it as the election in which the most money ever was spent. It must be irritating as Europeans to see this in your news constantly.
I suppose it may be for some. I know I have been irritating quite a few people recently with frequent outbursts such as "FUCK! ROMNEY'S UP BY FOUR IN OHIO!" or "WHY THE HELL DO THEY POLL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS WHERE THE INCUMENT IS WINNING WITH 34 POINTS?! SHOW ME MARGINALS!". I've gotten a few weird looks for sure.

I don't mind. I'm a political animal, I can lap it up most of the time.
 
MacGuffin, even though we don't see eye-to-eye on many topics, I agree with the gist of the Spiegel article. There are a few pieces within the article that seem a bit overblown but overall I think it paints a decent picture of what's been going on over the past decade or so. However, I remain more optimistic than the article, I have hope that America will come to its senses, that is once the baby boomers within the GOP die off. Will it be to late? Maybe. But hopefully enough damage control will exist to ride out the GOP storm.
 
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Now, for the last months, I've been following some idiot conservative from Ohio* who runs his own "political daily" (aka a wordpress blog with Obamabating 'reporting' about college transcripts and so on) on Twitter, arguing from time to time. He's said he'll be calling states "far earlier than the MSM", and he also says he is "staking his reputation as a political analyst" on them.

So I tought I might as well do so myself, albeit just using the common old garden polling available today and previously. So I've started with RCP's Electoral map with Toss Up states greyed. I've added the states that we know will go either direction to a starting number, added them up and put a lot of postit notes on my wall, next to the photo of the pool table carpenters in Damaskus. I've also put the Toss Up states in the middle, between the 'O' and the 'R', and I will be making a prediction about most of the toss ups riiiiight now.

map-01.jpg


The states under toss up are the following: Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Here's my prediction as of 21.34 CET (whatever the hell that is in American, I think it might be 4.34PM):

map-02.jpg


States going to Romney: North Carolina and Florida
States going to Obama: Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada
States still in play: Iowa and Virginia

That's 44 to Romney, 83 to Obama. It means Obama is winning the election at 284.

Analasys: Obama can win without Ohio (and become historic) if he wins Iowa and Virginia, and lose no other states. Some of these states have been polling weirdly the last couple of days, but I've called them as much on the momentum I've percieved to either direction as one single last poll before election day.

I suppose that by 9.59PM EST, I will be acting like Josh Lyman and calling out for numbers. Wehey!
 
Re: US of A Presidential Elections 2012

Now, for the last months, I've been following some idiot conservative from Ohio* who runs his own "political daily" (aka a wordpress blog with Obamabating 'reporting' about college transcripts and so on) on Twitter, arguing from time to time. He's said he'll be calling states "far earlier than the MSM", and he also says he is "staking his reputation as a political analyst" on them.

So I tought I might as well do so myself, albeit just using the common old garden polling available today and previously. So I've started with RCP's Electoral map with Toss Up states greyed. I've added the states that we know will go either direction to a starting number, added them up and put a lot of postit notes on my wall, next to the photo of the pool table carpenters in Damaskus. I've also put the Toss Up states in the middle, between the 'O' and the 'R', and I will be making a prediction about most of the toss ups riiiiight now.

map-01.jpg


The states under toss up are the following: Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Here's my prediction as of 21.34 CET (whatever the hell that is in American, I think it might be 4.34PM):

map-02.jpg


States going to Romney: North Carolina and Florida
States going to Obama: Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada
States still in play: Iowa and Virginia

That's 44 to Romney, 83 to Obama. It means Obama is winning the election at 284.

Analasys: Obama can win without Ohio (and become historic) if he wins Iowa and Virginia, and lose no other states. Some of these states have been polling weirdly the last couple of days, but I've called them as much on the momentum I've percieved to either direction as one single last poll before election day.

I suppose that by 9.59PM EST, I will be acting like Josh Lyman and calling out for numbers. Wehey!

You sir have farrr too much time on your hands. :lol:
 
You sir have farrr too much time on your hands. :lol:

Writing a bachelor's degree, doing some UV-mapping, some 3D modelling, some texturing, some work on marketing a big production and running the door at the student pub. Sir, I put it to you that I do not have too much time, but that the election is every FOUR years, and I want to do this. :p
 
Washington Post have an update out from Wisconsin. Partisan poll watchers are challenging voters in an agressive manner. I expect that this Koch-funded disgrace will get more and more complaints all over the states tonight.
 
Re: US of A Presidential Elections 2012

Here it the only eventful part of the polling place experience was the lines...insane doesnt even begin to describe.

I had to vote provisionally due to not wanting to drive 45 minutes one way to vote. I dont think it'll even matter now but oh well.
 
I have to say I don't get why it's this hard to do democracy..
 
I have to say I don't get why it's this hard to do democracy..

This.
You get a letter a month before the election telling you where to vote, on election Sunday you go vote between 8 and 18 showing them the letter (optional) and your ID, get handed a ballot, go behind a screen, tick a box or three, fold, throw in a box. Wait a few hours, get results - in case of federal elections you get official results around 22ish. No data whatsoever, not even polls, before 18 to not influence anyone.
If you can't vote there you can request to vote elsewhere.
If you can't vote that day you can request voting by mail.

:dunno: I mean, how hard can it be?
 
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Let local government work it out..
 
Washington Post have an update out from Wisconsin. Partisan poll watchers are challenging voters in an agressive manner. I expect that this Koch-funded disgrace will get more and more complaints all over the states tonight.
Try that lark here and the old Bill would bang 'em up at least for the night.
 
Now, for the last months, I've been following some idiot conservative from Ohio* who runs his own "political daily" (aka a wordpress blog with Obamabating 'reporting' about college transcripts and so on) on Twitter, arguing from time to time. He's said he'll be calling states "far earlier than the MSM", and he also says he is "staking his reputation as a political analyst" on them.

So I tought I might as well do so myself, albeit just using the common old garden polling available today and previously. So I've started with RCP's Electoral map with Toss Up states greyed. I've added the states that we know will go either direction to a starting number, added them up and put a lot of postit notes on my wall, next to the photo of the pool table carpenters in Damaskus. I've also put the Toss Up states in the middle, between the 'O' and the 'R', and I will be making a prediction about most of the toss ups riiiiight now.

map-01.jpg


The states under toss up are the following: Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Here's my prediction as of 21.34 CET (whatever the hell that is in American, I think it might be 4.34PM):

map-02.jpg


States going to Romney: North Carolina and Florida
States going to Obama: Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Nevada
States still in play: Iowa and Virginia

That's 44 to Romney, 83 to Obama. It means Obama is winning the election at 284.

Analasys: Obama can win without Ohio (and become historic) if he wins Iowa and Virginia, and lose no other states. Some of these states have been polling weirdly the last couple of days, but I've called them as much on the momentum I've percieved to either direction as one single last poll before election day.

I suppose that by 9.59PM EST, I will be acting like Josh Lyman and calling out for numbers. Wehey!
I think that Romney will loose all of the swing states bar 1 - Virginia.
 
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