The inevitable political thread (Iowa Caucus and beyond)
So now that the insanity is less than a day from starting, who are you hoping to be the leader of the free world.
Another four years with Obama or someone else who is yet to be decided ?
Another four years with Obama or someone else who is yet to be decided ?
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Religion?
Romney and Huntsman are the only two candidates that I feel a moderate American might vote for, but Huntsman has no believable shot at the nomination and Romney can't really excite the Bible Belt Tea Party types due to being Mormon as well as "Romneycare." Plus there's all that dumb stuff like "corporations are people" and the $10,000 bet with Rick Perry at a debate a few weeks ago.
I'm a pretty moderate guy and while I like Obama I don't think he's doing an amazing job, but I definitely don't think any of these guys are much of an alternative.
I think we're going to have another 2004, where the incumbent should have been absolutely vulnerable but the opposing party managed to find the perfect people not to beat him.
I really liked John Huntsman, who originally refused to play Tea Party politics and while he's dabbled in it, still hasn't been nearly the extremist the other candidates have been.
There has been alot of buzz around Ron Paul but who knows at this point really.
Everybody is looking for the perfect candidate that does not exists.
This. all of it.
Lol, "veritable clown college." I like that.
EDIT: Incidentally, my brother-in-law (who is very conservative indeed), changed his party affiliation from Republican to Independent when the Republican Party sent him a flyer in the mail which had a picture of the World Trade Center on fire and saying that if the Democrats won the 2008 presidental election we would be attacked again. This sort of fear mongering is absolutely unconscionable.
No, actually. We had that discussion before and it went quite well. In fact, I don't even think the thread ended with a lock; I think we all got bored, actually.
I have seen society for what it is, and I have decided to live with the Moon people.
The Moon People have no need for money. Their economy is based on cheese and fart gags.
The Moon People have no need for goverment officials, for they have a collective hive mind attuned to the collective knowledge of the universe, (which may also be related to fart gags).
The Moon People don't have time for the evils of sentient thought, for they are too busy arranging the annual Moon People Festival, which will occur when the three suns of Traziark align for the first time in a thousand years! In which they will eat exactly three times more Moon cheese then their dialy allocated amount, so that they may successfully initiate their mating ceremony, (which again, mostly consist of fart gags, and eating Moon cheese).
Look the main point here is people, is that we humans must be more like the Moon people. Only by adopting cheese and fart gags into our hearts will we ever achieve true happiness.
No I am not Doodoo, the original Moon Man, but the society of Moon People were built upon his founding principles
*blows the horn of summoning, which, of course, sounds like a slightly wet fart*
Now Bartholemew the 23rd, we must take this Moroccan Gorganzola back to the ship before sundown, for that is when the Moon Rats, which are superior to Earth Rats to the scale of 10, come out of hiding and begin to feast upon the stragglers. We must also not keep Lord Bucket waiting, for he gets a little cranky when he has not had his daily dose of cheddar.
TO THE SHIP IMMEDIATELY!
EDIT: Did I say Lord? That was a mistake generated by my tragically flawed human cerebral tissue.
Bucket is the grand protector, the one who united the tribes in a race of prosperity.
His ways have allowed an imperfect creature as such as myself, learn the ways of the Moon People.
No psychic indoctrination was involved at all.
*peice of brain falls out*
Whoops! I have dropped my....... br..encil, I have dropped my pencil.
*picks up brain, turns around, and quickly stuffs it back into the hole*
I have resecured the pencil, no need to panic.
To be honest I'm not even sure some of these people would be accepted into a clown college.
I'll vote for you, but I demand some sort of high paying, little work required position. Like if you could support my bid for a Congressional seat or something.
So I just went on over to CNN.com and at the moment Santorum is winning in Iowa.
Santorum. Is. Winning.
You can be the adviser for the price of fish. Bring other people in and I'll increase the rank until you're vice president.
EDIT: So now Paul's winning by 200 votes. Hooray?
Seriously, politics bore me more often than not. During the Iowa Caucuses tonight, I didn't know whether to do a running MST of the "speeches", fall asleep on the couch or get a headache for two hours straight. I really just didn't give enough of half a care to keep watching it. I find myself less and less involved in politics every year, which is not a good thing considering I'm not even at voting age yet. (Still got a year and two weeks left exactly.) I understand how important it is to get involved in politics, but... I just find myself becoming more and more apathetic. Which is odd, considering I'm also becoming more cynical.
Whatever, I'm going back to my stable. As for the rest of you, Happy Bucking New Year.
EDIT: Fight the system, my friend. Fight the system.
Can someone explain this whole caucus thing to me? I understand you have to register with the party to be eligible to vote in the caucus, but what's to stop me registering with both parties? And then, say, voting for the crappiest, most un-electable candidate in the party I hate? If enough people did that the results could be amusing, so I assume there must be something in place to prevent such shenanigans.
I'm accustomed to a political system where the party elects their own leader and presents a united front, and infighting is (generally) kept behind closed doors. It's strange to see people who are basically on the same side quibbling, knowing that they may later have to support one of the other candidates. Might just be a preference for what I'm used to, but the party-elects-own-leader system seems to encourage a greater emphasis on policy over personality.
First, a caucus isn't the only type of Presidential Primary election. Some states have caucuses, others have primaries. Both work differently, and both vary in terms of execution across different states.
A caucus does not work like an election. Someone who shows up to a caucus has to stay there for the duration, there's no "walk in, cast ballot, leave" to it. Primaries DO work like elections, and because you live in New York this is probably what you were thinking about or have been told about, because most people don't understand really how the primary system works outside of their own state and the fact that some states get to go first. New York has what's called a "closed primary", which IS like an election and IS restricted only to party members(Georgia has an Open primary, I can vote for whoever in whichever).
...
Do you really want to get into this? Because this could take awhile. On the other hand, I could point you to the relevant Wikipedia articles. That's not actually HELPING much, though. =P
Which is to say that if you're not a Republican or a Democrat, you can't vote in either of those parties' primary elections. I live in Oklahoma, which has closed primaries, so I am familiar with this.
Also, Tulsa County (and I believe the State of Oklahoma) has paper ballots that require no more than to connect the head of an arrow to its tail with a Sharpie (black magic marker) next to whichever choice one makes when voting. It's odd that the ballot says "use #2 pencil (no ink)" on it, but the machine that read the ballots doesn't seem to care.
As you can see, it's brain-dead easy to use and there is also a paper trail, so there's none of this voter-fraud/voter-confusion stuff going on here. Everyone should use a style like this.
Oh, and btw in case someone doesn't think I should be posting those, they're just screenshots of sample ballots taken directly from the Tulsa County Election Board website.
Whenever there's a surprise primary winner (this happened in 2010 in South Carolina), it does sometimes cause speculation that people from the other party went in and deliberately voted for a weak candidate. There's never (to my knowledge) been a widely organized effort to do so, though. If you care about your party enough to vote in the primaries, you should be choosing someone you feel can stand up to whomever the other parties can nominate.
I'd actually say the opposite is true, in that allowing the general population to participate in electing the candidates (thought different states have different systems for this) is actually more democratic, and allows the voters to examine the differences in policy. I like the fact that it is not handled behind closed doors, and the process is more transparent. Even some political parties in France, are starting to adopt the primary system.
Down the rabbit hole! This whole thing is going to be a marvellous learning journey for me.
Whoa wait, you elect your judges?? I had no idea. Is that standard across the States?
How does voting on specific issues work? Is it state-specific? Any real-life examples you could give me?
I'm sort of confused about why the states have such different systems for primaries, when this is a precursor to a federal election. Shouldn't it be standard across the board?
I see what you're getting at there... maybe I'll just reserve judgement on that one for now. Do you get any input into who the running partner is, or does the selected candidate choose that person themselves?
Based on my understanding of things right now, my preference would be for open primaries. Jokes about trolling the rival party aside, if that candidate wins the election they become my president too, regardless of who I chose to support during the campaign. Because of that I think it's only fair to have some input into who option 2 would be.
But then I just strongly dislike the whole simple majority thing - you have to put all your money on one horse. Is it really that basic, or am I missing something? Seems like preference voting would almost certainly produce a better reflection of the actual wants of the voter group.
Each state and local area can also choose how their own government is structured. This is to say that I'm not sure if all states elect their judges or if they are appointed elsewhere, but the point is that the federal government doesn't force such a standardization; so, even if it was the same throughout, it wouldn't have to be.
About that General Election sample ballot I posted... here is the back of the page:
and the second page:
Okay, so how it works is, each state is broken up into voting districts. Each political party has their own rules regarding primary election results for their own candidates.
As I understand it, the Democratic Party takes individual districts into account when deciding primary election results. This is to say that, for a Democrat, a candidate can win one portion of a state, while another candidate wins a different portion.
The Republican Party has a "winner-take-all" approach to primary voting in each state. If a Republican candidate wins the largest percentage of the districts in a state, the whole state is then won for that candidate.
There are positive and negative aspects to both methods. While the Democrat method, with enough candidates running, can dilute the results such that no one wins a significant overall percentage, the Republican candidate can win their primary election with only a small percentage of the party having voted for them.
EDIT: For the Presidential general election (the election between each party's final candidate), most states (except Maine and Nebraska) have a "winner-take-all" system, similar to the Republican primary election. The difference is that, in this case, a system called the "electoral college" is used. What this means is that each state is allotted a certain number of "electors"; one for each member of Congress that that state has. These electors then are tasked to vote for their state's chosen candidate, and the majority number of those votes wins.
Not at all standard. It depends on what kind of judge you are and where you live. Some places think electing judges forces them to do what's popular rather than do what's "right," and making them run for election requires them to ask for money from donors who might expect certain legal favors in return. Some places think the public should have recourse against a judge who makes "bad" decisions.
In reality, the public hardly ever hears about what judges do, unless they're presiding over a case that attracts a lot of media attention. So judge elections really just create a lot more annoying political advertising.
Issues can be all over the map. Sometimes the public is asked to support a tax hike, either because the state constitution requires it, or the politicians think an idea is good but don't want to be called out on pushing a tax hike to pay for it. An example I can think of is a town wanting to open a center for senior citizen activities, which would be supported by a sales tax increase. If the voters think that's a good idea, the politicians won't have to take the heat for supporting a tax hike, because it's "The Will Of The People."
Other issues can include big changes to a state's constitution, or the merger of cities that are close to one another.
The more interesting issues are social ones. A lot of states have had issues legalizing marijuana for medical use, or explicitly banning (or legalizing) gay marriage. Sometimes these issues are blatantly illegal at the federal level, in which case they're not enforceable, but the public still votes for them anyway.
Primaries are really just for the benefit of the political parties, and every state wants to have their say. You can theoretically win a federal election without winning a primary. Party conventions (where the nominee for the party is officially decided) used to be really disorganized and fun to watch as candidates battled to the very end (40 or so years ago). Now, the most entertaining thing about them is the TV guide description. The last one read, "Republicans gather to choose their candidate, which unless something really unexpected happens, will be Senator John McCain."
It would, but that would also make it easier for non-big-two-party candidates to win. Guess which big two parties in power would fight to keep that from happening.
The U.S. election system is a mish-mash due to the differing authorities at the federal, state, and local levels, and the constant battle between them.
Oh, shit! I forgot Vermin Supreme! Man, a Supreme Quazniki ticket would be unbeatable. Ponies for everyone and no more bullshit!
I'd vote for them.
If only this were fully true, American politics effects the whole world as no western country really wants to be on particularly bad terms with the USA, lest we run the risk of St Patricks day being frowned upon in America and Irish Stew renamed '52 State Stew.'
Living in a border region of N. Ireland I actually have 3 political systems to try and keep up with, British, Irish and Northern Irish. Of all three the N. Irish is the least corrupt and depressing suprisingly.
Anyway, i'm sticking with Barry O for another four years til the Republicans present somebody with more centrist policies. You can't keep shifting heavily from left to right every four years, ye need a middle ground for stability.
Aye, pretty much this. It always makes me a bit sad to see someone pushing their opinion heavily on somebody. Be it science or a more spiritual view that helps you make sense of the world nobody should be rushing in to take it away from you because they think you're wrong.