U.S. Republican Primary

[Ghostbear]

I'm still not seeing the functional difference between $5 million of labor and $5 million of dollars.

I think your statement right there (emphasis mine) highlights it rather succinctly. One is a human resource, wherein someone needs to actually use that $5 million of labor working for you. For $5 million in money, they just need to write you a check. At the very least and most basic, there's a huge time and personal investment difference between the two of them.

[lutzj]

I'm still not seeing the functional difference between $5 million of labor and $5 million of dollars.

I think your statement right there (emphasis mine) highlights it rather succinctly. One is a human resource, wherein someone needs to actually use that $5 million of labor working for you. For $5 million in money, they just need to write you a check. At the very least and most basic, there's a huge time and personal investment difference between the two of them.

The money comes from somewhere. Suppose someone expends an amount of labor equivalent to our hypothetical campaign manager and mines $5 million in gold, then donates that to a political campaign. Would you be okay with that?


You also still haven't shown a difference in the impact of 5 million talent-dollars versus 5 million dollar-dollars, which is all we really care about when we're worried about harmful impacts on our democracy.

[Ghostbear]

The money comes from somewhere. Suppose someone expends an amount of labor equivalent to our hypothetical campaign manager and mines $5 million in gold, then donates that to a political campaign. Would you be okay with that?

No, I wouldn't, because, as you started off saying- the money does come from somewhere, all money does. The political act of theirs- donating the money- lacks the time or personal commitment that you see from the political act of the other- donating time and talent- which requires time and personal commitment as effectively an essential component. Due to that, there are more direct limits on that person's ability to influence events. With money, you're only limited by what you have- not your time, not your willingness to avoid sleep, not your charisma, not your intellect, not even your ability to tolerate the candidate as a human being. Your only limitation is your bank account.

You also still haven't shown a difference in the impact of 5 million talent-dollars versus 5 million dollar-dollars, which is all we really care about when we're worried about harmful impacts on our democracy.

That depends a lot on what you specifically mean by impact- do you mean the direct impact, the impact on the political process, the impact on the person giving it, the impact on the candidate, or what? The answer could vary depending on which of those you intend, and your question isn't specific enough for me to risk a guess at which impact you did mean.

[LaserGuy]

In other news, Gingrich and Santorum have both recently put out strong, public statements against the policy of separation of church and state.

[Garm]

In other news, Gingrich and Santorum have both recently put out strong, public statements against the policy of separation of church and state.

Just remember, they're the ones who can best channel our founding fathers. A Christian state is really what Jefferson wanted.

Also, too: preventing abortions, limiting access to health care, and having the final say-so in who can get married is totally not like the supposed Sharia law, guys, so stfu.

[lutzj]

Romney eked out a win in Michigan today (although he and Santorum get the same number of Michigan delegates as far as I can tell).

This NYT exit poll has some interesting results:

Catholics prefered Romney, while non-Catholic Christians preferred Santorum.

Romney's lead over Santorum was slim among men but sizable among women.

Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney.

A majority of those who classified their vote as representing a dislike for the other candidates voted for Santorum, while people who described themselves as liking their preferred candidate tended Romney.

[Garm]

Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney.

Wait, whut?

[netcrusher88]

Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney.

Wait, whut?

Pragmatism.

[CorruptUser]

So, wait, the Dems were voting for who they thought was the worse candidate to improve Obama's chances in November?

[netcrusher88]

Nah, it's probably a typo.

[Garm]

See, I know that the Santorum campaign appealed to Dems and the Daily Kos was engaging in a bit of ratfucking by recommending that Dems go vote for Santorum. My problem here is this:

"Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney."

If the Democrats aren't moderate to liberal, who the fuck is voting for whom?

[CorruptUser]

Well, I consider myself to be 'liberal', but in the 19th century or modern European sense of the word, and yes, I'm less disgusted by Romney than Santorum. In the US, people tend to avoid the term 'liberal' except as a pejorative.

[Garm]

Well, I consider myself to be 'liberal', but in the 19th century or modern European sense of the word, and yes, I'm less disgusted by Romney than Santorum. In the US, people tend to avoid the term 'liberal' except as a pejorative.

I, too, am less disgusted by Romney than by Santorum. That still doesn't explain the sentence.

[CorruptUser]

Well, I consider myself 'moderate to liberal', and I'd choose Romney over Santorum, and though I'm in a different state that particular result is not different from mine.

And as I said, most people, Democrats included, wouldn't classify themselves as Liberal as the word is an insult these days.

[Ghostbear]

And as I said, most people, Democrats included, wouldn't classify themselves as Liberal as the word is an insult these days.

Then fuck 'em. Don't let them make it an insult. I'm a liberal and glad to call myself such. People who use it as an insult can go fuck themselves- I'm not going to make conservative an insult, even if I may disagree (and perhaps quite strongly much of the time) with the resultant political philosophy of such.

So, wait, the Dems were voting for who they thought was the worse candidate to improve Obama's chances in November?

Yep. I don't agree with the idea, even as being unabashedly in favor of Obama over any of his competition, but it's actually happened before in Michigan. Democrats voted for McCain in 2000 (giving him a wide margin of victory I believe), to try and weaken Bush a bit. As well, many democrats in New Hampshire voted in this years primary. In this instance, I don't think many of them actually went through with it- Santorum's final vote percent lines up perfectly with what polling would lead you to expect.

I, too, am less disgusted by Romney than by Santorum. That still doesn't explain the sentence.

I was greatly confused by the sentence myself. My best guess at a logical interpretation: "Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while [independent or republican] people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney."

If we assume that "moderate to liberal" was applied to the voters that were not democrats, the sentence might actually make some semblance of sense.

You're just, again responding to a hypothetical with a different hypothetical. The hypothetical I came up with wasn't to show that a good campaign manager and $5 million dollars are exactly the same in all circumstances, so you can stop attacking it based on that. I brought up the brilliant campaign manager to demonstrate that the system allows a single person to have a hugely disproportionate influence and raise the question of whether that was undemocratic. Anyway, their are plenty of things that a brilliant campaign manager can do that a few dozen relative dullards couldn't, like create an effective architecture for the entire campaign or get an issue talked about on news programs and talk shows. These things aren't just a matter of (skill)*(time)

And I used my hypothetical to show why I thought one was not undemocratic while the other was, and part of that was in how they do work out differently.

No slight taken, but there's nothing stopping you from replying to those points now.

Sure, I had thought the topic had moved a bit too far by the time I noticed it, but here you are:

Spoiler:

As for name recognition, what's wrong with paying for some name recognition? The incumbent naturally starts off with a huge advantage. The mainstream media will carry water in the name recognition department for certain candidates that they think might win, and will ignore or only dismissively mention any candidates they find 'fringe,' and don't tell me they don't love being in that kingmaker position. What's so bad about evening things up for the challengers and the candidates that the media has already dismissed?

There's nothing wrong with paying for name recognition. There's also nothing wrong with paying for staff, or phone banks, or anything else that a campaign needs. There is something wrong with a campaign getting all of that money from a small group of individuals.

Dude, it's a secret ballot, just take the money and vote for whomever you were going to vote for anyway. Also, buying votes is flatly illegal.

Also, just to clear things up, I'm not saying money = speech, just as paper and bindings aren't speech on their own. Money used to produce and disseminate speech is (and should be) protected speech, just as books are considered protected speech because they are a method of storing and disseminating speech.

Something being illegal does not make it impossible, however.

Saying that money used to "produce and disseminate speech" is protected speech still does not sound all that dissimilar from my food for thought that spawned the response, allow me to slightly adjust it: If money used for speech is speech, why is money used for votes not votes? Yes, it is a flawed comparison, but it's meant to bring attention to the idea of how you can protect money expenditures that are related to speech, but completely separate it from money expenditures that are related to votes.

Oh, good the government will tell me, "you have freedom of the press because we determined who the press is and we massively restrict everyone that we determined wasn't in it." That's not at all Orwellian doublespeak.

You have a valid concern, but I think our ability to protect the democratic process is more important; it is our main protection against ending up in an "Orwellian" society. That said, as a defense of Citizen's United specifically, it falls flat- we still need to define what is political speech, even now. The limitations placed on political speech over normal speech are less, but they are still there.

I feel better about our ability to democratically elect people when voters aren't treated as though they need to be protected from certain types of political speech.

It isn't about protecting voters from political speech. It's about protecting voters from having their politicians in the pockets of rich groups willing to invest in elections. This already happens, but we should not make it even easier. I want politicians that are solely held accountable to the people, with no extra concern for what a handful of billionaires, large union leadership, or large corporation leadership thinks of their actions. Allowing those groups to spend in unlimited amounts in elections means that politicians will care what they think, and they'll care a great deal- and they won't care about it because of the potential insights those groups will have on the effects of decisions on the economy, but because of how their decisions affect the willingness of those groups to spend money on getting that politician elected.

[lutzj]

I was greatly confused by the sentence myself. My best guess at a logical interpretation: "Democrats voted for Santorum by a wide margin, while [independent or republican] people who described themselves as moderate to liberal in their political views gave the edge to Romney."

If we assume that "moderate to liberal" was applied to the voters that were not democrats, the sentence might actually make some semblance of sense.

This, I'm pretty sure, explains the poll results. Moderate Republicans and independents are generally horrified by Santorum, but Democrats would do well to embarass Romney. Santorum has even been sending robocalls to Democrats, urging them to vote in the Republican primary because they vote for him so often.

[Griffin]

I don't see any problem with the statement.

Democrats, as a whole, including both liberal and conservative Democrats (and one would expect a good chunk of the second group to involve themselves in this sort of situation to epxress their opinion) went for Santorum.

Those who identified themselves as liberal or moderate went for Romney.

Since Democrats as a whole went for Santorum, this simply means more Conservative Democrats voted than Liberal Democrats.

The Democratic party has it's conservative wing just like the Republicans have their Libertarian wing.

[Ghostbear]

Or it means that more moderate to liberal republicans voted than democrats- and considering that Santorum didn't get much of a boost over his polling (with any pollster worth their salt probably statistically removing most democrats from their data with likely voter models) it does seem fairly plausible. Michigan apparently has a lot of deeply conservative republicans, but I could see it just as easily having a decent number of "Rockefeller" republicans too.

[Diadem]

Is it possible to give this whole 'influence money has in politics' discussion its own thread?

News about the republican primary is getting completely snowed under now.

[Zamfir]

Good point. The last bunch of funding-related posts have ben moved to a different thread. Please keep further discussion to that thread

[lutzj]

Back on topic, Romney apparently has a shot at beating Santorum in Ohio, which was unthinkable a week or two ago. I doubt he'll pull it off since he's going to be focusing elsewhere on Super Tuesday and Santorum will do whatever it takes to secure Ohio for various reasons (large battleground state, demographically similar to his home state of Pennsylvania, humiliating if he loses), but this takes some of the wind out of Santorum's campaign.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/ohio/2012_ohio_republican_primary

[Diadem]

Isn't the race pretty much over now that Romney unexpectedly carried Michigan? At least that is the impression I got.

[Ghostbear]

Yes and no; Romney winning Michigan, despite early polls saying otherwise, was never truly unexpected. Instead, it was the last great opportunity for someone else to derail his path to the nomination with a single victory. Super Tuesday is a lesser opportunity from a probability stand point (Romney is almost certain to win at least three states from my understanding- Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia), but if anyone can convincingly get a solid lead on total votes on Tuesday, they'll be able to continue to present a large obstacle to Romney. Realistically, this race has been "pretty much over" since Florida voted. It's just a long slog from Romney now to prove that he won't spontaneously combust.

Romney's delegate lead is likely to continue growing, even if an opponent does manage to rise ahead. His biggest danger from a nomination standpoint is that he might not get an outright majority of delegates before this is over. He'll keep getting hurt for the general election so long as this fight continues though. Even if he does miss the delegate majority, he'll probably still be the nominee anyway; Paul and him seem to have an odd friendship going on, and I expect Romney would gladly let Paul get some spotlight at the convention in exchange for his delegates, and Paul would probably oblige.

As for Ohio, I wouldn't read too much into Romney's win in Michigan for it; Romney consistently polled ahead of his national numbers in Michigan, and below his nation numbers in Ohio. To win Ohio he'll probably need a lasting bounce from Michigan (unlikely), a concentrated investment in the state on his behalf (wouldn't be surprised), or for Santorum to just fuck up (not that unlikely).

[sardia]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/us/po ... f=politics
Romney wins Ohio, but Santorum had a strong showing several states. Lastly, Newt's win in Georgia keeps him in the race. As a result, Mitt extends his delegate lead, but is unable to secure the nomination. This means yet another round in this grueling primary. Yawn, I'm really getting tired of this.

[CorruptUser]

Same, I can't be bothered with more boring debates. Let's just strip all the Republican candidates naked and throw them in the Thunderdome already.

[Lucrece]

*shudder* Keep em clothed!

[bentheimmigrant]

What happened to "Ohio is the last chance for Santorum to show he can beat Romney"? Stupid media.

[Lucrece]

It was never a close race. The media just likes to paint it as such because we have to remember cable news channels are ENTERTAINMENT media, and they have to convince the viewers that they're relevant.

[Tirian]

What happened to "Ohio is the last chance for Santorum to show he can beat Romney"? Stupid media.

It was, he didn't, and it should be clear now that Santorum isn't going to get a majority of the delegates. That doesn't mean that he's obligated to drop out. Because Ohio was also another chance for Romney to show that the rest of the country's Republicans should shut their think-holes and get in line behind him, and he didn't do that either.

[sardia]

It may not be a close race, but none of the candidates have a reason for dropping out. Newt got his Georgia, Santorum has enough states to keep going, and Paul is doing well considering his low standards of success.

[lutzj]

It may not be a close race, but none of the candidates have a reason for dropping out. Newt got his Georgia, Santorum has enough states to keep going, and Paul is doing well considering his low standards of success.

Gingrich and Paul must know by now they won't win the nomination; they're probably mainly in it right now because they can still afford to (Gingrich has a few big backers, Paul runs a shoestring campaign) and because presidential runs are good platforms whence to push one's vice-presidential bid/autobiography/libertarian ideology.

[CorruptUser]

Ugh! I was going to vote for Romney over Obama if he won the primary, but if Romney chooses Gingrich as his VP? (Or Santorum for that matter.) I'll choose Obama in that scenario.

[dhokarena56]

I think he'll be forced to choose a wingnut.

I actually heard a brilliant joke about him a few days ago. A liberal, a moderate and a conservative walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey, Mitt, how's it going?"

[CorruptUser]

Considering that 'liberal' is actually 'conservative' at this point (defining liberalism as the 18th century movement), and that true conservatives are moderate (the people that get labeled 'conservative' are really 'regressive'; conservative just means only reacting after long and careful decisions- think the Ents from LotR), well, ok, yeah the joke is pretty good. Mind if I use it?

[dhokarena56]

But from the normal definitions of US politics, it is true. This unrepentant socialist is dismayed at the state of politics, but still finds it funny.

[BlueLabel]

The recent shift toward awarding delegates proportionally (and front-loading the primaries with proportional contests) seems like it might make the process more fair, but overall it's damaging Republican prospects this cycle. If there weren't so many proportional states left, non-Romneys would have much less reason to stay in the race. As it stands, it seems like this system just incentivizes protracted contests and increases the possibility of a contested/brokered convention. This can't be what the RNC intended when they instituted these rules, right?

Also: nobody makes more sense to me as the eventual GOP running mate than Marco Rubio (if he's willing). Young, charismatic, Latino, from Florida... his positives are overwhelming.

[bentheimmigrant]

It may not be a close race, but none of the candidates have a reason for dropping out. Newt got his Georgia, Santorum has enough states to keep going, and Paul is doing well considering his low standards of success.

Gingrich and Paul must know by now they won't win the nomination; they're probably mainly in it right now because they can still afford to (Gingrich has a few big backers, Paul runs a shoestring campaign) and because presidential runs are good platforms whence to push one's vice-presidential bid/autobiography/libertarian ideology.

Paul's pretty much admitted that he's not trying to win outright, but if there isn't a clear winner in the first round at the convention, the delegates are free to switch. Apparently he thinks they'll chose him then.

[Ghostbear]

There seems to be a very definite trend here; Romney always gets exactly the win he needs to continue his slow, meandering path to the nomination, but is completely unable to get a sufficiently large win to end the process. He needed to do well on super Tuesday, and he did got just enough of a victory for, well, absolutely nothing to change. At this point though, I don't think there's any remaining good chances for those that are still around to change momentum sufficiently in their favor. Though I think the next round of states voting are all southern, so that might give Santorum a change to eek out a little bit of momentum. Still, Tuesday basically cemented Romney as nominee-to-be, even more than before.

Paul's pretty much admitted that he's not trying to win outright, but if there isn't a clear winner in the first round at the convention, the delegates are free to switch. Apparently he thinks they'll chose him then.

I highly doubt that's his hope; it's a completely unrealistic expectation. Instead, he's counting on someone else wanting him to pledge his delegates to them. Imagine in Romney gets 45% of the way to the delegates he needs- almost but not quite there- and then he needs someone else to push him over the top for the nomination. Gingrich or Santorum would probably want to be his running mate or some equally risky demand for Romney, while Paul might want his son to be the running mate (less contentious, since he hasn't had the media focusing on how much people in his own party hate him for the past half year+) or some policy demands or similar. Basically, Paul wants to be able to exert some influence on the process. I'd be shocked if he actually thought he had any actual chance of becoming the nominee.

[Diadem]

With the way popular support has been meandering all over the place I'd say Paul actually did have a chance at the nomination. It doesn't take much to be the poster-boy-of-the-day, and the other candidates are extremely weak. And once Paul would have gathered enough momentum, he would have been unstoppable, because in contrast to the other candidates, he's sympathetic, honest, and only slightly insane.

A long shot, certainly, but not so far out there as to be unbelievable. Though right now he's certainly just running for other reasons.

[sardia]

The recent shift toward awarding delegates proportionally (and front-loading the primaries with proportional contests) seems like it might make the process more fair, but overall it's damaging Republican prospects this cycle. If there weren't so many proportional states left, non-Romneys would have much less reason to stay in the race. As it stands, it seems like this system just incentivizes protracted contests and increases the possibility of a contested/brokered convention. This can't be what the RNC intended when they instituted these rules, right?

Also: nobody makes more sense to me as the eventual GOP running mate than Marco Rubio (if he's willing). Young, charismatic, Latino, from Florida... his positives are overwhelming.

This is what political scholars have been clamoring for when they compare winner-take-all systems to proportional voting in other countries. The idea behind proportional voting is it gives weaker candidates a chance at the national stage without the bigger candidate overshadowing them. That means that they still pick up delegates despite not winning 50+1 % of the votes. So yes, this is what they wanted. Partisans who wanted a superstrong united front for their candidate on the other hand...

As for Rubio, watch for his power play when 2016 rolls around (if Romney Loses) or 2020 if Romney wins.