USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[sanctuary 19]

My bet this time (and hope) is on Obama, even if i believe considering what happened to the past election (Kerry was on top in the polls but Bush won in the real election) that it may be sadly McCain in the end.

[chops 111]

Well if I could vote, I'd have to give it, begrudgingly, to Obama.

McCain has my respect, but Sarah Palin is indeed a disgrace.

Neither candidate is particularly inspiring and the whole election has been around Sarah Palin's fucking clothes, lipstick on pigs, Joe the fucking plumber (who wasn't a plumber?), some whacko from the 1960s who blew shit up when Obama was 8, change this, change that.

"I said change first, then he said change", "Oh no he won't change things, I'll change things". WTF are you two idiots talking about?

How and what is it that you plan to "change", for fucks sake?

"A plague on both your houses!"

[scubaman3D 0]

Ok, as long as you would vote for him begrudgingly - I can accept this

Anyways, I blame it on the 24hr "news" cycle for all of these ridiculous stories about the campaign. Nobody asks really tough questions about the issues and principles the candidates stand for. CNN included, neigh - CNN especially.

[froggyluv 2136]

Ok, as long as you would vote for him begrudgingly - I can accept this  

Anyways, I blame it on the 24hr "news" cycle for all of these ridiculous stories about the campaign.  Nobody asks really tough questions about the issues and principles the candidates stand for. CNN included, neigh - CNN especially.

CNN didn't kill the support for the Republican Party -George W. Bush did that. Add to that, one of the nastiest smear campaigns I've ever seen. People are tired of living in the climate of distrust and fear that Bush/Cheney kept us in for all of these years. Thats why Republicans are shaking their heads in bewilderment over why the "Elitest/Socialist/Whitey-Hating-Friends/Terrorist Pal'er-Arounder/Israel-Hater" tag ain't stickin. It's not going to work anymore.

By the way, when's the last time the Terror Alert in this country was green?

[scubaman3D 0]

Take some of your own advice and lighten up my friend. It was a poor attempt at humor.

Who do you know in the US will say "neigh" in a serious context?

[froggyluv 2136]

Take some of your own advice and lighten up my friend. It was a poor attempt at humor.

Who do you know in the US will say "neigh" in a serious context?

Hehe-sorry   I guess it was those years I lived in Amish-Country,PA, where they take 'Neigh' quite seriously.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Do NOT forget.......Democrats vote on Wendsday this year.

[scubaman3D 0]

[NoRailgunner 0]

Hehe US people want a change but some of them are bit afraid to vote for "That one". The world had a good laugh last time especially about voting procedure & machines.

...and now guess who will "win"!  

[Sertorius 0]

Anyone else watching the returns? Electoral-vote.com has called Pennsylvania and Ohio for Obama. Unless a meteor takes out New York and California, Obama should win.

[Call911-AGE- 0]

Were not fighting terror, were fighting for Oil. 50 yrs ago they'd had Bin Laden's head on a platter within weeks. All about $ grew up proud an for what everything we stood for an what they taught us to believe in school---croc. Served in a War an for what. I do what I do to survive nothing more anymore. An no I did'nt vote.

[jakerod 254]

Ah, i see, i understand now why living out of the USA we haven't heard a word about the other alternative candidates, as our medias are mostly talking about Obama, and in a lesser amount of McCain, and very few even knew other candidates are actually existing.

Very unfair system that gives so much audience reaching privileges to the candidates with the most money.

For the anecdote, in the last US election, in my country media most of the news and articles were all about Kerry, his program and projects if he was to be elected, and very few about Bush ones.

So much that if there were bookmaker bets, Kerry was an easy winner at least according to those famous "polls" that usually means nothing the day people are voting.

Now the same treatment is done for Obama, we hear very few about McCain here, so much that again Obama is supposed to win easily those elections always in polls.

So i would really not be surprised to see McCain winning, considering my country medias "guesses" being usually very wrong (and not just about foreign elections, even about our own )

There is some theory about why a democracy will always focus on two parties but I cannot remember what the name of it is. Pretty much it states that any democracy will eventually turn into a two party system. Other parties will exist but their chances of getting elected are very slim. I don't remember why though and I wish I could remember the name of the theory/law.

EDIT: It might be called Game Theory or at least have something to do with it.

[ralphwiggum 6]

It was some sort of voting theory. IIRC it goes something like this.

In a 2 party system, requirement for winning in popular vote is to capture a bit more than 50%. So it is easy for each party to position themselves closer to the middle.

In a 3 party system, in order to get more than the 1/3 for each party, at least one party will overlap with other parties, and that will cause loss in the one of the other two parties.(or both). In other words, say party A had 1/3 of the votes. In order to increase their votes, they can adopt policy stances that overlap with party B which will cause one of two things. 1. party A loses some of its vote to party B, or 2. party B loses some of its vote to party A.

In both scenarios one party will dominate the game(say party A gained B's vote), so B will either become obsolete or have to merge with C. And that means we will end up with two results

1) A and B dominating, and C is marginalized(like US, you have GOP, Dem, and others)

2) A will still be standing, but have to face coalition of B & C, which is practically two sides fighting for votes.

[gsleighter 0]

CNN Just called it for Obama!

P.S. - Fox news just called it, NBC too.

Awesome news.

[belgerot 33]

Oh Jesus

[jakerod 254]

It was some sort of voting theory. IIRC it goes something like this.

In a 2 party system, requirement for winning in popular vote is to capture a bit more than 50%. So it is easy for each party to position themselves closer to the middle.

In a 3 party system, in order to get more than the 1/3 for each party, at least one party will overlap with other parties, and that will cause loss in the one of the other two parties.(or both). In other words, say party A had 1/3 of the votes. In order to increase their votes, they can adopt policy stances that overlap with party B which will cause one of two things. 1. party A loses some of its vote to party B, or 2. party B loses some of its vote to party A.

In both scenarios one party will dominate the game(say party A gained B's vote), so B will either become obsolete or have to merge with C. And that means we will end up with two results

1) A and B dominating, and C is marginalized(like US, you have GOP, Dem, and others)

2) A will still be standing, but have to face coalition of B & C, which is practically two sides fighting for votes.

Thank you for explaining that I couldn't find the reason anywhere.

[scubaman3D 0]

It was expected but

[Halochief89 0]

Well Obama dominated

[Sertorius 0]

"Yes! Yesss! Oh, let me taste your tears, Republicans! Mmm, your tears are so yummy and sweet! Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! Mmm-yummy!"  

Now I can eagerly look forward to watching people become disillusioned as Obama's Messiah luster fades. Hooray for a pessimistic libertarian outlook on politics .

[General Barron 0]

There is some theory about why a democracy will always focus on two parties but I cannot remember what the name of it is. Pretty much it states that any democracy will eventually turn into a two party system.

The problem is the voting system used. In most elections, you get ONE vote, even though there may be more than 2 choices.

Say you really support candidate #3 (a third party), but only candidate #1 or #2 seem likely to win (the two major parties). Say that, given a choice between #1 or #2, you'd prefer #1. But more than anyone, you prefer #3.

Since you only have one vote, you have to decide whether to "throw your vote away", and vote for your favored candidate, or whether to vote for one of the two major candidates. Most people will take the lesser of two evils, and vote for one of the 2 major parties. This is why we have a 2 party system in the US. (It has nothing to do with money; that is a consequence of the above, not a cause).

An alternative would be "approve/disapprove" voting. In this system, you vote for as many candidates as you approve of. So, in the above example, you can vote for #1 and #3. Effectively you are voting against #2 in this case. You don't have to stop voting for the 3rd party candidate, because you can vote for both them and the major party.

What would happen under such a system? 3rd parties would start getting much more votes, even if they don't start winning elections right away. More votes means more recognition, more support, more money. Eventually, it would be possible to have more than just 2 major parties. You would have more choice, and wouldn't have to vote for someone who you only partially agree with.

There are other alternative voting systems, but most of them are even worse than the current one, in terms of you "having" to vote for someone you don't fully agree with. There was a really great website that discussed them very well, but it seems to be down now. Here is an archived link though.

[chammy 7]

We're f**ked

[jakerod 254]

We're f**ked

Sure hope not.

[Mr_Tea 0]

We're f**ked

Guess McCain had won, and at some point Palin would have to take the job. Than we all would be f**ked for sure, and not only the Americans.

[ralphwiggum 6]

4 years ago some people here complained about all the "liberal" postings here and wondered if Department of Defense, the one who bought VBS, would appreciate such treasonous behavior. I wish I kept list of those people.

[william1 0]

Obama yeah ! still there is hope for the united states