U.S. Republican Primary

[JudeMorrigan]

They clearly didn't even attempt to make it internally consistent or logical.

Got it in one. I think the actual federal elections would be a bit less baffling to an outsider (or most insiders, for that matter) as those actually are something that are supposed to be consistent across the board.

[Webzter]

They clearly didn't even attempt to make it internally consistent or logical.

Got it in one. I think the actual federal elections would be a bit less baffling to an outsider (or most insiders, for that matter) as those actually are something that are supposed to be consistent across the board.

Electoral College

[Griffin]

Yeah, the thing is, the primaries are not elections. While the govs get involved sometimes to make sure they aren't too fucked, its mostly the party's thing and doesn't actually have anything to do with the election.

Technically, if every single state voted for one guy the Republicans could STILL decide to push someone else, as far as I am aware.

[JudeMorrigan]

They clearly didn't even attempt to make it internally consistent or logical.

Got it in one. I think the actual federal elections would be a bit less baffling to an outsider (or most insiders, for that matter) as those actually are something that are supposed to be consistent across the board.

Electoral College

That's why I said "a bit". Although honestly, the electoral college is really pretty straightforward. Whether or not it's ideal is something that could be reasonably debated, but it's not especially complicated and is completely internally consistent. (Well, technically the state legislatures can choose their own method of assigning electors, but it's really pretty homogenous these days.)

[Dauric]

Every state has elections on different dates, with different types of elections, some binding, some not, some proportional, others not. Some states are penalized for having their elections to early, while others have theirs even earlier without penalty. Some states get extra delegates, others don't. They clearly didn't even attempt to make it internally consistent or logical. In fact it seems designed for obfuscation. And that's just the Republican primaries.

The thing to keep in mind is that when the U.S. constitution was written the United States was more akin to the modern European Union than to say England, Spain or France alone. States select their representatives as sovereign territories with their own internal rules and means of governance (which the original 13 colonies already had said rules and wouldn't have signed on if they lost too much of their own internal sovereignty to this funky newfangled 'union' thing people were suggesting) much as the Netherlands, France, or Germany would be rather upset if the EU demanded that all member countries elect their representatives the same way.

The only reason that U.S. elections are as uniform as they are (like having the same parties across the nation) is that the founding of the majority of the states is post-U.S. Constitution, and even the original 13-colonies (in their most modern forms of government) finalized the codification of their own governance at roughly the same time and there's been two+ centuries of that coexistence.

[Diadem]

much as the Netherlands, France, or Germany would be rather upset if the EU demanded that all member countries elect their representatives the same way.

But the EU does demand this. And no one minds. Ok some minor variations between countries are allowed, but every single nation has their elections at the same time (a 3 day period), and the division of seats has to be proportional.

[Garm]

Can anyone tell me if Jon Stewart is wrong about this leveraged bailout stuff regarding Mitt? Seems to me if he's right then the campaign ads pretty much write themselves from this video:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-31-2012/indecision-2012---bain-man

Having recently been part of some very direct democracy, I have to say that it is an incredibly boring process (a friend of mine got appointed to the state leg, I went to the vacancy committee meeting). So if nothing else, our elections provide for some entertainment.

[Dauric]

much as the Netherlands, France, or Germany would be rather upset if the EU demanded that all member countries elect their representatives the same way.

But the EU does demand this. And no one minds. Ok some minor variations between countries are allowed, but every single nation has their elections at the same time (a 3 day period), and the division of seats has to be proportional.

lack of information on the EU is my mistake there, however holding elections at the same time, and enforcing said regulations is vastly simpler in an era of internet and airplanes. The parts of the U.S. constitution regarding how presidential elections are held since the early 1800's (1806 actually). Congressional elections were last updated in 1913, almost an entire century ago.

It's also vastly more difficult to get sovereign states to agree to unified rules of governance when the major issue the unionizing is supposed to address is the ability for said member states to maintain their sovereignty in the face of edicts from overseas. Nobody was looking to replace the King of England with another, more local, centralized power at the time.

[Vaniver]

Here's a more complete description. The company was doing poorly, Bain Capital bought it, increased the debt, and passed up on an offer to sell the company, instead taking out part of their investment (financed by more debt). (Around here Romney retires from Bain Capital.) The economy turned south, the company filed for bankruptcy to wipe out some of its debt, survived, grew, and then was eventually bought by Siemens. All told, a positive story with several painful moments . Most of the pain can be traced to Bain Capital, but it's unclear that things would have been less painful if they hadn't bought the company.

[Whammy]

Alright, I'm getting tired of lurking this thread so I'm gonna talk..by going off the current trend of talking XD

So in my American Presidency class we've been following the primary, going all political scientist on it, and the Florida primary gave some interesting results with the exit polling data (it's on the NBC website if you're interested in finding it). We also looked at some data from before the primary, also done by NBC. Surprisingly enough...Romney and Gingrich pretty much ended up the same way as the pre-polls suggested. Both a little higher than predicted, with Santorum and Paul getting less than the polls said, but over all about the same difference between them.

The more interesting data is if you look at what people said influenced their choices, which, by the way, for most people was made about a month ago or so, which fits what I've read actually (see The American Voter). The biggest factor that seemed to pop up? The debates; advertising was of little to no importance for most people, yet candidates spend a crap load on them. We're theorizing it's for the percentage that didn't make up their mind a month ago or so, which was like 14% of the electorate. Not the majority, but large enough to be pandered to.

Of course, the next debate isn't going to be till Feb. 22, and since that's been the lifeblood of Gingrich's campaign so far, it'll be interesting to see what happens to him without debates to counter anything stupid he might say or to keep interest in him.

[Garm]

What's also interesting is the enthusiasm gap between Romney and Gingrich. In counties that Romney won, voter turnout is lower than it was in 08; for counties that Gingrich won, it's the opposite.

Sorry for the huffpo link but here's the source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/theyre-just-not-that-in-t_b_1246896.html

[mmmcannibalism]

What's also interesting is the enthusiasm gap between Romney and Gingrich. In counties that Romney won, voter turnout is lower than it was in 08; for counties that Gingrich won, it's the opposite.

Sorry for the huffpo link but here's the source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/theyre-just-not-that-in-t_b_1246896.html

To me this makes perfect sense. I can't think of many parts of the electorate that would be positively excited about the prospect of Mitt Romney as president.

[CorruptUser]

Wait, there are people excited at the idea of The Grinch as president?

The more interesting data is if you look at what people said influenced their choices, which, by the way, for most people was made about a month ago or so, which fits what I've read actually (see The American Voter). The biggest factor that seemed to pop up? The debates; advertising was of little to no importance for most people, yet candidates spend a crap load on them. We're theorizing it's for the percentage that didn't make up their mind a month ago or so, which was like 14% of the electorate. Not the majority, but large enough to be pandered to.

That's what people said was most influential in their votes. Doesn't mean it's actually true. Everyone, myself included, wants to believe that every idea they have is their own, and that advertisements have no effect on our habits or decisions. Yet, advertisers, and more importantly the firms/people that use them, still pump out billions in advertisements, so either every business is run by idiots or advertisements work.

[Lucrece]

I worked a precinct in the primaries the 31st in Florida, and an old lady asked me to approach her booth to help her decipher the purposely obfuscated amendment questions, to which I said she need only fill in for and vote whatever she wanted -- she didn't need to vote on all issues of the ballot. She then told me if she had bubbled in the right candidate, and she took out of her purse two publicities -- one for Mitt Romney, and one for Gingrich.

The publications said in rather big, bold letters the name of each candidate, and we provide our voters with magnifying sheets. She still told me she wanted to make sure she "voted for the old one because she doesn't want to vote for young people".

This and other episodes really make me question our voting system.

P.S. I'm really tired of this circus where progressives pretend that Gingrich stands a chance and try to prop him up even when he's clearly getting smacked around in hopes that when hell freezes over it'll be Obama vs. Gingrich. Stop fantasizing and get to making a goddamn case and mobilizing/fundraising/increasing base turnout for your president, because if you don't we'll be saddled with the guy who bought his way into Presidency.

[Whammy]

Wait, there are people excited at the idea of The Grinch as president?

The more interesting data is if you look at what people said influenced their choices, which, by the way, for most people was made about a month ago or so, which fits what I've read actually (see The American Voter). The biggest factor that seemed to pop up? The debates; advertising was of little to no importance for most people, yet candidates spend a crap load on them. We're theorizing it's for the percentage that didn't make up their mind a month ago or so, which was like 14% of the electorate. Not the majority, but large enough to be pandered to.

That's what people said was most influential in their votes. Doesn't mean it's actually true. Everyone, myself included, wants to believe that every idea they have is their own, and that advertisements have no effect on our habits or decisions. Yet, advertisers, and more importantly the firms/people that use them, still pump out billions in advertisements, so either every business is run by idiots or advertisements work.

Now hold on, remember though most people also stated that they had made up their mind on who they were going to vote for about a month ago, long before Florida got hit with the massive advertising spree. And this is consistent with other research on voter decisions (again, see The American Voter); most people already know who they are going to vote for long before the actual election, and are pretty consistent in keeping that.

Now, advertising has an effect of course, but what I'm arguing is that it's importance was only in affecting a small part of the electorate, that 14 percent or so who stated it to be the MOST IMPORTANT factor. The rest of the population was:

Category Gingrich Paul Romney Santorum % Total
The most important factor - - - - 14
One of several important factors 24 4 59 13 27
A minor factor 33 6 46 14 30
Not a factor at all 36 8 38 15 26

*sorry, chart not copy/paste friendly. I linked it down below, and since there were several other questions asking the same thing, it's got some good internal validity.

But yeah, by self-reporting at least, the debates were more influential than advertising was:

Category Gingrich Paul Romney Santorum % Total
The most important factor 40 9 38 12 18
One of several important factors 32 7 44 17 51
A minor factor 29 7 45 11 17
Not a factor at all - - - - 11

Again, apologize for the mess XD.

Florida Exit Poll: http://elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/polit ... yoZKfnhKSo

[Dark567]

She still told me she wanted to make sure she "voted for the old one because she doesn't want to vote for young people".

Trigger for South Park and suicide:

Spoiler:

How I feel reading that:

Well, I’m out guys. I no longer have any connection to this world. I’m gonna go home and kill myself. Goodbye, friends.

[Griffin]

Now hold on, remember though most people also stated that they had made up their mind on who they were going to vote for about a month ago, long before Florida got hit with the massive advertising spree. And this is consistent with other research on voter decisions (again, see The American Voter); most people already know who they are going to vote for long before the actual election, and are pretty consistent in keeping that.

But that isn't really how these negative ads work. They don't exist, primarily, to change peoples minds (though not many minds need to be changed to give you an advantage!)

They exist so those people who were going to vote for the other guy? They just don't bother to vote at all.

(Note that Florida primaries were down something like 15% from last time)

[CorruptUser]

Don't worry, we Millenials will make sure that said old lady doesn't get her Social Security check. We know that we will never get any benefits from Medicare or SS, so why should we give two shits if "Greatests" and Boomers get it? Letting them have it means more for us to pay without ever seeing anything in return. 45% of people aged 18-29 do not have a job, so fuck everyone else.

[Ghostbear]

(Note that Florida primaries were down something like 15% from last time)

Exit polling for Iowa and NH also had self-identifying republican turnout down from 2008 as well. South Carolina bucked that trend I believe. So the observation that counties that supported Gingrich having higher turnout than counties that supported Romney has apparently been ongoing the whole time. Which just reinforces my feeling that Romney is going to have trouble turning out the base in the general election.

[Lucrece]

Don't worry, we Millenials will make sure that said old lady doesn't get her Social Security check. We know that we will never get any benefits from Medicare or SS, so why should we give two shits if "Greatests" and Boomers get it? Letting them have it means more for us to pay without ever seeing anything in return. 45% of people aged 18-29 do not have a job, so fuck everyone else.

And Sallie Mae is still calling me at 8am, 12pm, 4 pm, and 9pm every day threatening me with collection since I couldn't pay them due to unemployment. Finally get in-school deferment back on, and they will still hound me with collection for the months I did not pay.

I love Sallie Mae. I even have account managers scold me over the phone about how dare I, a student, take out a loan I cannot pay back as an unemployed/laid off student. The gall! Meanwhile, the old people who own Sallie Mae get to live off my taxes as they seek to sequester my returns lol.

[CorruptUser]

And didn't you say you owned some businesses and how you were a better employer than all the other dirtbag vampires in town? What happened to that?

[Ghostbear]

So I thought this was interesting: Romney is a gaffe making machine. For someone who defending his taking a quote of Obama's out of context as completely fair, he sure seems to love giving his opponents ammunition.

[EsotericWombat]

Is it just me or did Romney switch from awkwardly reciting verses of America the Beautiful in his speeches to singing them poorly because of that clip of Obama singing a bar of Al Green at the Apollo?

[sardia]

So I thought this was interesting: Romney is a gaffe making machine. For someone who defending his taking a quote of Obama's out of context as completely fair, he sure seems to love giving his opponents ammunition.

He didn't seem to understand that he was making a gaffe either. Makes him sound as out of touch as liberals portray him as.

[Dauric]

So I thought this was interesting: Romney is a gaffe making machine. For someone who defending his taking a quote of Obama's out of context as completely fair, he sure seems to love giving his opponents ammunition.

He didn't seem to understand that he was making a gaffe either. Makes him sound as out of touch as liberals portray him as.

Ehh... I think that most of us on these forums would be gaffe making machines if we were in a similar position, and frankly Id' rather have XKCD forumites in that position than the yahoos that typically get the job. Gaffes like this last one are artifacts of the soundbite media environment where the target audience is someone with the attention span of a fish rather than an actual failure of the candidate to be able to handle rational analysis.

For my money this is one of those depressingly sad incidences where much ado is made about nothing and we all suffer for it.

[EsotericWombat]

This is only a gaffe in the sense that Mitt Romney, in a moment of off-the-cuff cluelessness, accidentally gave an honest assessment of his policy provisions, which would close the budget gap caused by his regressive tax cuts with regressive spending cuts.

[JudeMorrigan]

He didn't seem to understand that he was making a gaffe either. Makes him sound as out of touch as liberals portray him as.

It's not just liberals. The most brutal hit pieces I've seen on him have come out of Gingrich's camp.

[Ghostbear]

Ehh... I think that most of us on these forums would be gaffe making machines if we were in a similar position, and frankly Id' rather have XKCD forumites in that position than the yahoos that typically get the job. Gaffes like this last one are artifacts of the soundbite media environment where the target audience is someone with the attention span of a fish rather than an actual failure of the candidate to be able to handle rational analysis.

For my money this is one of those depressingly sad incidences where much ado is made about nothing and we all suffer for it.

I know I'd be a fucking gaffe factory in a similar position. That's not the point I was getting at (though you weren't responding to me directly)- I thought it funny that he was so foolish as to say (paraphrased) "yeah it's totally OK to take someone's words out of context", and then he goes and just keeps saying things over and over and over again that are so wonderfully capable of being taken out of context. I don't think he's made a big stink out of people doing so yet, but he has criticized them for doing so. Many of them aren't really bad things when taken in context ("I enjoy being able to fire people"), others are just horrible jokes ("I'm unemployed too"), others are just outright lies ("I was afraid of a pinkslip myself"), and some of them are bad because they're a true and succinct summary of his concerns ("I don't care about poor people" and "Corporations are people, my friend"). Many of those were made before he even said it was OK to take quotes out of context. It seems to me that it was just a dumb campaign move through and through.

Something I do care about, however, that they do relate to. They all paint him as being really inarticulate when forced to think on his feet. With some decent effort, just about anyone can sound good with a prepared speech that they don't need to deviate from. All of the clips I've seen of him from debates or his gaffe moments show him being really tongue tied when he's presented with something he wasn't able to reason out how to respond to before hand. I don't know that I'd do any better, but I think those moments do speak poorly of his ability to intelligently respond to the unexpected. A leader isn't going to have all of the situations they encounter choreographed for them in advance- sometimes, they're going to need to think on the spot. Of course, even then that's not a decisive proof of anything- Churchill was quite bright, but poor at speaking without preparation (he dealt with this by being prepared for practically anything), and Jefferson was possibly the most intelligent US president, while also possibly the worst public speaker of them all. But that doesn't mean those traits aren't helpful for a leader, they just aren't necessary.

[Lucrece]

And didn't you say you owned some businesses and how you were a better employer than all the other dirtbag vampires in town? What happened to that?

They are family businesses. What I get goes directly to my living expenses, and you sure as hell don't take from everybody else to pay for something solely beneficial to you. Especially when you're not working full-time any longer.

[EsotericWombat]

I'm pretty confident that I'd be looking much better than Romney on the trail if I had millions of dollars to spend on people to keep me from fucking up and 6 years of experience running for President. The gaffes he's been making come partly because he's not good at unscripted politics and partly because he's advocating terrible policies that are impossible to reconcile with the notion that he gives a fuck about anyone but rich people. And on some level he knows it.

Whether he's trying to sell his own terrible beliefs as good policy or merely playing to a crowd that has terrible ideas (or some combination of the two) is a separate matter, but concealing either in off-the-cuff remarks is a lot easier if you're as narcissistic as Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain. Mitt Romney isn't like either of those guys, but in order to win he needs to act like them to an extent, and he isn't up to it.

[Lucrece]

I'm pretty confident that I'd be looking much better than Romney on the trail if I had millions of dollars to spend on people to keep me from fucking up and 6 years of experience running for President. The gaffes he's been making come partly because he's not good at unscripted politics and partly because he's advocating terrible policies that are impossible to reconcile with the notion that he gives a fuck about anyone but rich people. And on some level he knows it.

Whether he's trying to sell his own terrible beliefs as good policy or merely playing to a crowd that has terrible ideas (or some combination of the two) is a separate matter, but concealing either in off-the-cuff remarks is a lot easier if you're as narcissistic as Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain. Mitt Romney isn't like either of those guys, but in order to win he needs to act like them to an extent, and he isn't up to it.

He's also accustomed to speaking among wealthy Republican people and other contacts, where it's not rare to express in a nonchalant way about how the poor are fine -- which is implicit in his "and if the safety net needs repairing I will do that, but the middle class is my focus". There's only so much you can filter about your contempt at people who aren't as successful as you are.

I am annoyed how the media has spun the tale that he outright said he doesn't care for the poor. He didn't say that, even if we pretty much suspect it to be true. Nevertheless, he was careful to phrase his answer in a way that didn't say he would do nothing for the poor. His answer to Soledad O'Brien's question is fair enough, "finish the sentence". It was in very poor taste to take one phrase out of context and throw it back at the candidate's face during the interview.

[EsotericWombat]

The rest of the sentence is meaningless, and was only added on there because he suddenly realized how bad the first half of the sentence sounded.

"If there are holes in the social safety net, I'll fix them," tells me absolutely nothing about what the social safety net would look like under Mitt Romney. It doesn't even tell me whether he thinks there are holes in it, or what he thinks they might be, let alone what he'd do to fix them. It's either a hand-wave or an admission that he actually doesn't know a goddamn thing about the state of the social safety net

[Garm]

Didn't Romney endorse the "Ryan Plan?" That would remove a lot of the social safety net. I just don't see him fixing medicare, medicaid, welfare, and social security. "Fixing" maybe but not fixing.

[EsotericWombat]

Funny story about that: He only fully endorsed the Ryan Plan as a means of positioning himself against Gingrich. Originally he said that he'd have his own plan, but the Ryan Plan was alright. When Gingrich came out in favor of the Ryan-Wyden plan (basically Ryan lite), Romney responded by fully endorsing the Ryan plan and then criticizing Gingrich for not having a consistent position on the issue.

So I mean, it's anyone's guess what he'd actually do about Medicare as President.

[jareds]

The rest of the sentence is meaningless, and was only added on there because he suddenly realized how bad the first half of the sentence sounded.

"If there are holes in the social safety net, I'll fix them," tells me absolutely nothing about what the social safety net would look like under Mitt Romney. It doesn't even tell me whether he thinks there are holes in it, or what he thinks they might be, let alone what he'd do to fix them. It's either a hand-wave or an admission that he actually doesn't know a goddamn thing about the state of the social safety net

Under any impartial application of this standard, the entire sentence is meaningless, since it doesn't tell you what Mitt Romney would actually do--it just provides hints in two opposite directions.

However, if you read the original New York Times article posted by Ghostbear to bring up this topic, you would have seen that he reiterated his support for increasing the federal minimum wage with inflation, contrary to the common Republican position and to current law. Therefore, we do know that he thinks that the social safety net has at least one hole in it.

[Whammy]

(Note that Florida primaries were down something like 15% from last time)

Exit polling for Iowa and NH also had self-identifying republican turnout down from 2008 as well. South Carolina bucked that trend I believe. So the observation that counties that supported Gingrich having higher turnout than counties that supported Romney has apparently been ongoing the whole time. Which just reinforces my feeling that Romney is going to have trouble turning out the base in the general election.

Yeah, I haven't gotten the chance to look at those exit polls yet, but if that is the case then yeah, I would say the effect of the ads was even more minimal. It's getting the base excited, or lack of excitement, that's keeping people home. And since the Florida polls showed people barely being satisfied with the current pool, and the whole mess that has been the primary so far showing people desperately wanting someone, it wouldn't surprise me.

Unfortunately, we don't have polls on those who didn't vote so can't say anything for sure *sighs*. The disadvantages of survey research. Though I guess there might be research on the effect of negative advertising, but what I tend to remember about it, the results are kind of mixed so can't say anything for sure.

[Vaniver]

partly because he's advocating terrible policies that are impossible to reconcile with the notion that he gives a fuck about anyone but rich people.

Uh, like his plan to index the minimum wage to inflation, rather than relying on Congress to increase it?

Is there a good way to say "I'm more concerned about the challenges facing the middle class than the challenges facing the poor or rich"? I'm finding it hard without resorting to individual issues and hoping people notice.

[Ibid]

Difference between positive and negative messages.

"My primary concern is the middle class, those who create wealth for the rich and a safety net for the poor, not the rich and poor on their own but the majority in the middle"

is a lot more positive than

"I don't care about poor people..."

[EsotericWombat]

Yeah thanks guys, I already knew about that half-measure that would never pass the kind of Congress we'd be looking at if Romney got elected President.

The minimum wage used to have a purchasing power easily twice what it is now. Just indexing it to inflation is closing the door after the horse has left the barn. It needs to be increased substantially and indexed to inflation.

It doesn't begin to make up for the massive cuts to the safety net that would be needed to square his regressive tax cuts.

[Cathy]

Rick Santorum thinks that it's totally OK for drug prices to be hugely high because, people pay 900 bucks for an iPad!

I can't stand him. A few Catholic friends of mine on facebook posted links to a more biased article on the same incident and denounced him for being unchristian.

He's disgusting.