U.S. ELECTIONS DISCUSSION THREAD

[Tessera]

Nationwide legalization is inevitable.

[Uglek]

Make bongs not bombs! 

[mouser]

Nationwide legalization is inevitable.

I'd wait and see what the federal response is to those ballot initiatives first.
They still have the power to shut them  down if they want to.

[perez007usa]

Nationwide legalization is inevitable.

I'd wait and see what the federal response is to those ballot initiatives first.
They still have the power to shut them  down if they want to.

Then it is not democracy running. 

[Tessera]

Several states have had medical marijuana for years.
The feds have not intervened within those states.

[Caspa]

At least we didn't vote for Margaret Thatcher. 

Neither did anyone in my region.  The entire North-East of England has an unrequited hatred for her.

[Cat]

GOP chairman Charlie Webster to investigate 'black people' voting as potential fraud

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/14/politics/gop-chairman-charlie-webster-to-investigate-black-people-voting-as-potential-fraud/

"In some parts of the state, there were dozens of black people who came in to vote," Webster said. "Nobody in town knew them."

He told Carrigan he believes Democrats "represent Portland" and that "Republicans will start winning elections when people who drive trucks start voting Republican."

One dumb comment after another.

[Tessera]

Well, gee... none of the white people in town knew any of the black people in town.

How unusual...

[Avocado]

There's a lot you can take away from this election.

With the GOP's marginalization of the "minority" groups, you have to realize something:

• Asians prefer larger government to smaller government, as stated by another poster previously.
• The mexican vote was lost whenever the GOP brought up the border issue to appeal to their voters, even though they actually like illegal immigration due to illegal wages
• For one reason or the other, most blacks are lower class and thus are brought in by democrats welfare, "equality" and all other manner of propaganda.*

Not to mention that whites in the country are less than 60%, their birth rates are less than 50%, and the numbers are even worse if by white you think I mean true europeans and not simply what the government passes as white to inflate or deflate crime statistics as they wish. Check the FBI top ten list as an example. The overwhelming supporters of the republican candidate were whites this election.
It's going to be a simple demographic change that decides the future elections.

The only way to get third parties to rise is a change in mainstream thought**, not demographics.

*=I'm not saying that democrats are the only one's that rely on propaganda, simply that theirs are aimed at towards different people.

**Simply talk to anybody who voted. If they actually researched the person's political position and still voted democrat or republican, that's one thing. But most everyone is doing it out of a "lesser of two evils" approach. Even you, tessera. As long as people are trapped in the mindset of the false dichotomy, that's all that will persist.
There were some posters who said they would vote 3rd parties because they live in a solid state. It would hurt them more if they lost potential support in a swing state.

[Tessera]

But most everyone is doing it out of a "lesser of two evils" approach. Even you, tessera.

Mainly because I refused to vote for Romney, or any other Republican pig.

[mouser]

The only way to get third parties to rise is a change in mainstream thought**, not demographics.

Money wouldn't hurt either.

See Tess, no arguing  :angel:

The last 'successful' 3rd party candidate I can think of was Ross Perot, who had that odd combination of money and insanity (and who made an absolutely terrible choice for a running mate). He even made it to the televised debates.

Part of the 'problem' with 3rd parties (and it's more of an obstacle to be faced than a something's wrong type problem) is that there isn't a third party. There's probably four or five minor parties splitting most of the 'third party' vote, and then another dozen or so rounding out the list.  That may work for smaller elections, and candidates from those parties have certainly been elected to offices at all levels of government, but when you're going up against the well oiled machines of the major parties, that kind of fracturing doesn't help any of them.

[Tessera]

The last 'successful' 3rd party candidate I can think of was Ross Perot

... and Ralph Nader.

[mouser]

The last 'successful' 3rd party candidate I can think of was Ross Perot

... and Ralph Nader.

I've heard of him, can't say I know anything about him though.

Don't think I've ever seen his ads on TV, either - but I could easily be wrong about that, there's so many I tend to block them out.

[perez007usa]

mouser, He's the guy who got the Chevy Corvair off the road. The car was too dangerous to be on the road, one good puff of wind will blow it off the road, you could lift the front end off the ground. You had to put weights in the front end to keep it on the road. (It wanted to fly), had one way back when. The motor was the only good thing about it.  I also converted it to become a dunebuggie.

[Tessera]

READ...

http://nader.org/2006/03/01/biographical-facts/

...and be educated.

[mouser]

Sounds like the VW microbus.  I was so upset when I found out my grandfather had sold his (I had told him many times I wanted it).

Little air cooled engine in the back, decent gas mileage, and you could pack a busload of people in it. That and he had kept all the seats and interior covered, so it was absolutely beautiful inside. So, it didn't like trucks and windy bridges. Didn't stop it from being a great ride.

Ok, and now I sort of remember Nader - but never in a political way. I don't know, sounds like he could be the kind of 'nanny' PC police who got lawn darts banned.

How much of the popular vote has he ever gotten? And does he get the level of money needed to run an ad campaign? (serious questions).


Edit: I read the biography Tess linked. Sounds like he did a lot of stuff in the 70's, but it doesn't mention any successes in running for public office.

[Tessera]

Nader was the main reason that John Kerry lost the 2004 election, for starters.

In fact, it could be said that the reason George W. Bush won the 2000 and 2004 elections was because
a large portion of the leftist vote was going to Nader, instead of to the Democratic candidate.

In both of those elections, Nader received more votes than Ross Perot did back in 1992.

[Cylnar]

Many Democrats have never forgiven Ralph Nader for "spoiling" the 2000 election and bringing us President George W. Bush instead of President Albert A. Gore. Nader believed, and stated, that there wasn't "a dime's worth of difference" between Bush and Gore. Democratic strategist James Carville hyperbolically stated that there was no one in the world he held in greater contempt than Nader for spoiling the election, and even ardent 2000 Nader supporter (and voter) Michael Moore begged him not to run in 2012, and risk throwing the election to Mitt Romney.

What sunk Ross Perot's political career was his waffling about being in the race in 1992. He actually dropped his bid for a few weeks, then came back after having disillusioned most of his supporters; his polling numbers up to that point were extremely strong, in the 20s to 30s if I recall correctly, possibly enough (if carried over to the actual election, and in the unlikely event he actually carried some states) to deny either Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush 50% of the electoral vote, which would have placed Perot in the position of "kingmaker" able to instruct his electors to cast their votes for either Clinton or Bush.

Perot, despite sinking his own campaign, still managed to humiliate both career politicians in the 1992 Presidential debates (the second to be run by the Democrats and Republicans rather than the League of Women Voters after the 1987 takeover), however, leading subsequent debates to be "invitation only" events to which only the Democratic and Republican candidates were invited, having agreed prior to a manifest listing which topics would be debated, which topics could be debated, and which topics could not be debated, a system which persists to this day.