all the popular vote in America does is tells the puppet masters who they are to groom for the next president. The day one realizes that the same people in Washington regardless of Republican Democrat liberal or conservative control the country the day you will stop voting and start meditating or praying or at least building some decent models.

I got involved in politics years ago and found how corrupt it is at even the grassroots level, to vote is to be a lost in the matrix.....

The Auld Grump

LOL Grump!

Not pointing at anyone currently posting on the thread because it doesn't appear to be happening here, but I really hate when the winners are sore winners! I'm on a couple of other forums and one person I know, he lives in my area, is just being a total a$$ and he voted for Obama!

I can understand people who didn't win being upset and saying bad things but the winners?!?!

That sounds very odd. Do they just stand there shouting "What Have I Done?!" to the heavens?

Possibly with the occasional break to self harm?

Or is it the thought of not having control of the house that's causing them mixed feelings? The thought of all the squabbles to come.

Something to bear in mind is that while some people voted for Obama others were voting against Romney.

I think that the latter were more prevalent than the former - some heard hi 47% comment and others his 'Binders full of women' and left him alone after that. I know at least one economic (not social) conservative that voted for Obama after looking at Romney's five point plan.

Mind you, Peter also voted for Clinton and Gore, then Gore and Lieberman, so I am not certain how much credence to give his claim to being a Republican at heart - though I think that he does view himself as a 'big tent Republican'.

He did vote for Bush Sr. though, but not Reagan... and is one of the few people that I know that has kind words to say of Nixon. And bad things about Kennedy.

The Auld Grump, so I would chalk him up as Independent with Libertarian leanings....

The system appears to be a single party with two branches. One is a liberal party, the other is a liberal lite party. The "third parties" cannot win because they have never won. Everyone is afraid to throw away their vote because they know their best candidate can't generate enough votes to win. Most people are voting against a candidate r/t for a candidate. Two party systems suck. They tend to be a choice between worse and worse.

If everyone that wanted to vote for a 3P actually did, elections would look very different. I am not saying they would win much, but at least there would be a better feel for how the populace is actually thinking.

It is why I prefer the Irish Ballot.

Portland uses one for the mayoral race.

I will say though that calling the Republicans 'Liberal Lite' kind of makes me think 'Non-toxic strychnine'. In short, just not true.

If anything, I think that the Dems are 'Liberal Lite' and that there is no liberal party. Right now the Dems are leaning towards Centrism while the Republicans are leaning too far to the Right and are starting to topple over.

I lean towards the Middle Left, myself.

In Massachusetts Romney was more of a Centrist, but he needed to court the Right to snag the Presidential nomination. In the end, I think that was a big chunk of what cost him the election - he tried back pedaling towards the middle, but it lacked conviction in the eyes of many.

Or to put it another way, most voted for what they saw as the lesser evil, not the greater good.

The Auld Grump, remember, if you choose the lesser of two evils, still, you have chosen evil.

Interesting.

By UK standards, I'd say the Democrats are a Centre Right Party, with the Republicans being a Far Right Party (with the Tea Party way to the right of them!).

This is kind of mirrored in the UK, with the labour party having moved from a Left wing party to Centre Right (with a few leftish tendencies currently being beaten out of them!), over the space of about 15 years or so. (Interestingly, the Conservatives have moved a little more to the left, away from their far Right stance of the Thatcher years).

Be glad you don't have a third party there (who in our case, actually sold their souls* to become a minority party).

* well not really, but going against a MAJOR manifesto commitment for student tuition sure felt like it!

Well, we do have many other parties and even some independents at the national level, but I would welcome one or more of them having significant representation at all levels.

One of the problems with 3rd parties in the US is that at some of the local and state levels the game is fixed for the two existing parties.


For example where I live a 3rd party has to have significantly more signatures to get on the ballot then either the republicans or democrats need to get their candidates on the ballot.
Not that it was impossible. I mean I had 5 parties that I could have voted for president from... Just two of them didn't have the money to let me know what they stand for, and I actively follow politics so I'm easy to reach and the third was an isolationist right wing loon who made Romney/Ryan look liberal.

Sometimes it still happens though - Maine now has an independent Senator. He was also a twp term governor of the state, and left when his term limit was up. He then spent a couple of years enjoying being an ex-politician, writing a book about it.

Then Snowe declined to run again. Despite Snowe being a Republican, I liked her. The Republicans, on the other hand, often called her a RINO. She was not afraid to cross the aisle.

***

I once lived in a neighborhood that had a Green representative in the State legislature (the highest a Green has reached, or was at the time). There were shenanigans pulled - at first they tried to disallow his election in favor of a Democrat. That went to court and the Dem got laughed out of the room. (Sorry, you don't get to disregard the election results, stupid.) Then they tried some good old fashioned Gerrymandering, removing his district. He moved over two blocks, and again won. And with fewer chairs his vote counted more.

In that case the shenanigans played against the perpetrators.

***

When I was a child in Boston folks still spoke of James Michael Curley - a man that served a term as mayor from prison where he was being incarcerated for fraud. But that's okay - he was elected while in prison as well.

When folks spoke of him it was still with fondness - mind you, that was in an Irish neighborhood. He was as bent as a paperclip. Also, an independent. And a sometime Democrat. And a tool of the Irish mob.... But he also funded the city bath house and pushed through a lot of protections for the poor of the city. Two statues of him are near Faneuill Hall, well, one stands, the other slouches, comfortably, on a bench.



The Auld Grump, I've seen people sitting on that bench, having a one sided conversation with that long dead politician.

No.. Snowe crossed the aisle exactly once, and promptly stayed there. When even John Stewart jokes about 'She's a Republican, we had NO IDEA!', and your voting record is more Democrat than most Democrats... you've got yourself a RINO.

Seriously, she was always a reliable vote for the Democrats, particularly when things were contentious. It's not 'reaching across the aisle' to give everything the opposing party once, particularly when it really counts, it's called 'betraying the public trust'. And she did.

Good riddance.

So, doing what her constituents wanted her to do is 'betraying the public trust'?

I'll update my dictionary.

Seriously - it was part of why she held on to her seat in a mostly Blue state. And, sorry - what her constituents, in her own state, want is more important than what somebody from away wants. If she had gone against those wishes then she would have been betraying the public trust.

Doing other than she had done would have ended up losing her elections - Maine is more moderate than most states. Maine did not vote for a hard right Republican.

There were enough issues where she sided with Republicans that I do say that she was a Republican - a moderate Republican, and had been even when she ran the first time. She was a moderate Republican, ran as a moderate Republican, won as a moderate Republican, and served as a moderate Republican.

She was a moderate Republican, not a right wing Republican. The party has shifted, and has been shifting since at least the eighties. Under the Shrub the Right drifted even further right. He pushed her, and she pushed back. And she waited until he was out of office before giving up her seat.

Good on her.

The funny thing is that there are Democrats that will tell you that she was too Republican.

And she likely could have won this election if she became Independent. An independent won this term, and, barring disaster, is likely to hold the seat for decades. One who used to be a Democrat.

So, cheer up - she has been replaced by somebody that is further left than she was.

The Auld Grump

Which is probably more honest and better suited for her constituancy. (I'm having to guess that Maine's DNC runs very weak candidates for Senate...) Anyway, I would much rather have a principled Democrat than an unprincipled anything.

Several were near misses for PotUS, so you may need to update your definition of 'weak'. You definitely need to rework your definition of both 'honest' and 'better'.

She held to what she promised the people of this state - and served them well. Had she served her party more than her state then she would have been 'dishonest' and 'worse'.

A senator is supposed to serve the needs of her state within the larger picture of the US as a whole - not shore up a party that does not serve the needs of those people.

This would equally be the task of a Democratic senator in a red state - the needs of the people that voted her into office must be placed above the diffuse needs of the party. Mind you, Democrats are not nearly as locked into party ideology - Democrat translates as 'Ruled by the crowd'.

For someone that is not a constituent of that state to decide that she has 'betrayed the public trust - when he is not a part of the body that placed her in office, is a likely indicator of why she did not serve her party above the people of her state.

She left because of the partisan nature of her party. You have done a very good job of supporting her position in that matter.

Maine is not your state - you do not serve the needs or the positions of the people of that state.

Nor do I, in turn, serve the needs or positions of your state.

And I am glad of it.

Anything further will be arguing to no point - I do not agree with you, you do not agree with me, and this will not change. Nor should it - we are different people of different and opposing views, such is the nature of democracy.

The Auld Grump

Chris Howard's Electoral map of the US, corrected for population density and returns.

I found this on the webcomic Candi, and thought it worth sharing.

The Auld Grump

I vote to eliminate parties and having politicians run on principals only. Imagine if all candidates for a position at a particular level did this? If the D or R was removed from the end of their name and people actually had to vote based on the person's personal platform (and not on a party platform), I do believe it would be a more honest way to get representatives in that truly reflect their constituencies.

To play devil's advocate, that would require a more involved and up to date voter. I have faith that some would rise to the occasion, but I question how many would.

While a nice idea in theory, humans don't work that way. Look at any large group of people and you will find some sort of social hierarchy. We are a social species and so for better or worse we will always form groups.

Plus the organization needed to get 100 million people to agree on anything requires some sort of group to be established. Without parties of some sort that will never happen.

While I agree, I think the very nature of this will cause many more to become informed. So many just vote D or R (or avoid D and R). At least if you are going to vote in this scenario (other than randomly) you have to know SOMETHING about the candidates. There will still be political junkies (myself included) that follow things closely, but I think the general awareness level of the masses would rise, magnitude of said rise TBD.

I did not say that we would not form groups. I rather think there would be more informed grouping...the radius of informed people would widen.

Why do they need to agree on anything? If they do not agree, perhaps it is better that a certain path not be followed. Personally I would rather the government be deadlocked than continue to spend with no thought of how to actually pay for things.

In Maine the head of the GOP held a press conference about the elections....
"In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day," he said. "Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in (these) towns knows anyone who's black. How did that happen? I don't know. We're going to find out."

"I'm not talking about 15 or 20. I'm talking hundreds," he said Wednesday. "I'm not politically correct and maybe I shouldn't have said these voters were black, but anyone who suggests I have a bias toward any race or group, frankly, that's sleazy."

In case anybody wonders, all the polling places are scratching their heads and asking 'What the heck is he talking about?' So they must have been invisible black voters. Maybe they were ninjas.

Not the first time crazy for Charlie Webster, either - he previously decided to investigate 200 college students that he claimed voted illegally - turned out that, no, they hadn't. That they were in fact allowed to vote.

And that wasn't the first time, either.... He has it in his head that the reason that the Democrats do well in Maine is voter fraud... no matter how many times he is proven wrong.

In this case the trigger incident was two (2) Somali women that voted in Auburn - the Republican poll warden challenged them on the grounds that 'he just had a feeling'. He backed down when told that he would have to sign an affidavit. They had the right paperwork, were citizens, and what he had was a 'feeling'.

The poll workers checked the paperwork, and the women were allowed to vote.

From this non-incident Webster decided that there dozens and then hundreds of invisible black voting ninjas stealing the election. (Webster was one of the Republicans that lost his seat - that he had been dropping like a rock in the polls was of course coincidental to the IBVNs.)

Not singling out Republicans on this one - pretty much everybody on both sides of the aisle were calling Webster on this, with GOP Mark Summer's campaign organizer calling for Webster's resignation. Webster is just plain crazy.

Webster has also made two attempts to remove the same day voter registration available in the state.

The first was a legit, it was placed on the ballot, where it was overwhelmingly defeated.

The second was pushed through as part of a larger package, then was overturned by public ballot before it was implemented. This one made it into Doonesbury:


Pretty sure that Webster is done - his craziness was picked up by national news services again with his 'I'm talking hundreds' comment being waved like a flag.

The GOP in Maine does not appreciate being made a national laughing stock. They really do not want to give a burning torch to the folks that claim racism. Add to this that Webster announced his theory at a press conference, without discussing it with other GOP leaders - so it came as a nasty surprise.

Webster is just plain nuts. If he were a Democrat then he would be a crazy Democrat.

The Auld Grump

I thought that I mentioned this above, but it appears not - and there is now a sequel, so....

Maine Republicans had this to say about Democratic State Senate wannabe Colleen Lachowicz:
“Democratic Senate Candidate Colleen Lachowicz’s Disturbing Alter-Ego Revealed.”

They launched a campaign to out what they were calling her "disturbing alter-ego" and her "bizarre double life."

Their point?

Colleen Lachowicz plays a level 68 Orc in World of Warcraft.

Sequel the first: Outing her online RPG habit did not work as intended - she won against the incumbent.

Sequel the second: the very best response was also by a Republican: Kari Zielke -


Aside from her motivational poster the most memorable portion of her reply was "We may have different political views but I won't stand by while my fellow Horde are treated this way."

A response that I can endorse in good conscience.

I call this a win for RPGs on both sides of the aisle.

Source. The story was also picked up by the BBC. *EDIT* The BBC article was the first that I had heard of it, even though I live in Maine....

The Auld Grump

HI,

Yeah I saw that one. I remember muttering "puerile infants" to myself over:-

1) the pettiness of it
2) the disambiguation, seemingly indicating that there was something sleazy or dishonest about her.
3) the usual bandwagon jumping of comments.
4) the sadness that running for office is once again reduced to putting down your opponents at any cost, regardless of how minor.

Fortunately, there was enough of a "so what" to shut it down. But on a different topic it would have run longer, with all of the above still applying.

So with all the talk about how much voter fraud there is, or how voter fraud is all imagined, why don't we all register to vote? Then, the day of elections, when we get to where we are going we just pull out that document we all carry around with us so that we can cash a check, check out a book, drive a car, get on a plane, get our food stamps, or what ever we do to prove who we are, and just show it to the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on the voting machines? Then, dip our fore finger in the purple ink and be done with it.

Now, the issue of voting machines. You do know they have to be "programmed"? By someone. Who does have political views.

I am all for abiding by the national whim. But I also believe in fairness and lawfulness, whatever the outcome.

Not sure where this came from, but thought it was a very interesting observation: Any political system that requires a billion dollars to be candidate cannot be a Democracy.

The term 'Plutocracy' becomes applicable.

Mrken - the reason that not all municipalities require the use of voter ID is that ID can be used as a means of controlling the vote - who is allowed to vote and who is not. Look up Charlie Webster from here in the sunny state of Maine as a recent example - he is in public record.

At this time it is the Republicans that are trying to limit the franchise - but in times past it was the Democrats. This latter changed with FDR and the New Deal.

It also resulted in the spinning off of a fortunately short lived political party known as the Dixiecrats - those Democrats that did not want an increase in enfranchisement.

But now, it is the Republicans.

Any time there is an attempt to disenfranchise a portion of the populace it is being used as a means to control the electorate - to allow the folks that agree with you to vote and prevent those that do not agree with you from doing so.

The Romney campaign sent inaccurate information and tutorial to its poll wardens - and only corrected the information under threat of not being allowed to have poll wardens.

For the record - I do not believe that Romney had any knowledge of those shenanigans, and that he would have prevented such had he known.

***

As an aside - is anyone else of the opinion that much of Obama's strategy was to let his opponents self destruct? That one 'Please, proceed Governor' at the second debate sort of summed it up.

The Auld Grump