Hillary Clinton 2016 - Politics & Religion

Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

Revolution909 wrote:

I disagree. Smile

Firstly, I will say that California, New York and Texas under popular vote would have a large influence over the way the vote goes. But they have that now, with their high numbers of electoral college votes.
Also, from what the Internet and some simple arithmetic tells me, there are approximately 80 million people in these states combined. The entire US population is around 320 million. The population of "the rest of America" is 240. Therefore, the population of rest of America (and thus popular vote sway) outnumbers the CA-NY-TX three to one. So to say they will be making decisions for the rest of the country is simply not true.

Secondly, under popular voting the US would get a more accurate representation of their opinion/vote. Taking Texas in 2012 as an example, 4.5 million votes would have gone to Romney BUT Obama would have gotten 3.3 million voters from TX.
The way things are, everyone in Texas is just percieved as "REDREDRED" when in fact, only around around 57% voted Republican in 2012. The Democrat voters in Texas (and indeed Republican voters in Blue States etc) are having their voice taken away from them by the electoral college system.
What we see now is that voters in swing states (some with small populations) are deciding everything coming election day. To be frank, it would be fairer that CA-NY-TX were wielding the type of influence swing states have, since it's CA-NY-TX and other highly populated states that actually have the people in them.

Well you're assuming that the rest of the country would vote the same away, against the other three states. But you're right, they still have far more electoral votes. I completely agree that the winner-take-all system is just awful. I'm not sure how efficiently it works in European countries, but I'm always jealous when I see how so many Parliaments have proportional representation. I think that's definitely one of the root causes for how stuck we are in the two-party system in the US. Granted, in Europe some parties still dominate, but here we get nothing. Personally I feel that as far as political action goes, I may as well be disenfranchised.
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Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

Revolution909 wrote:

Also, why is it that the GOP aren't being crucified by negative public opinion for their lack of action in Congress? It is them who insist on obstructionism, yet it seems Democrats are taking the blame the whole time.

Is it ineffective media? Lack of "Democratic propaganda" (for lack of a better word)?
Conservative propaganda?

How is it that the Democrats, by all accounts, are looking at losing their majority in the Senate? Mad

Recent approval ratings have the Democrats like 10 points above the Republicans. At least the ones I've seen. And while it's true that the GOP deserves crucifixion for their insanity, public opinion is definitely moving in a more liberal direction. It's just the establishment media and the party leadership (of both parties) that seems to be moving to the right. It's absolutely reactionary. I'm actually pleased with public opinion lately. Relatively anyway... I'm definitely further to the Left of the general public.
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benpaco
Who's gonna watch you die?

Age: 27
Location: California

Democrat here. Hard liberal, y'all probably know this by now. I don't have time to answer every question, but I think if she runs, barring anything weird, she will win. I honestly don't think she's best for the job for republicans or dems, but hey, we vote for the popular opinion, not the best. Honestly liking Jeb Bush (as much as it hurts to use that last name) most for the republicans, and it'd be nice to see a fresher face out of the dems.
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Romanelli
Bone Swah

Gender: Male
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

Keep in mind that the Democrats have had consecutive different men elected President only twice in recent history. Kennedy & Johnson (Johnson re-elected in 1964 following the death of Kennedy), and Roosevelt & Truman (Truman re-elected in 1948 following the death of Roosevelt). Neither man chose to run for a second elected term. The last time the Democrats won consecutive terms with two different candidates without the preceding President dying in office was in 1856, when Buchanan took over for Pierce.

History, man.
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Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

Romanelli wrote:

History, man.

I know, I'm a history major. Drool

We had never had a black president before either. Things are changing FAST right now.
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Revolution909

Age: 29
Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Romanelli wrote:

Keep in mind that the Democrats have had consecutive different men elected President only twice in recent history. Kennedy & Johnson (Johnson re-elected in 1964 following the death of Kennedy), and Roosevelt & Truman (Truman re-elected in 1948 following the death of Roosevelt). Neither man chose to run for a second elected term. The last time the Democrats won consecutive terms with two different candidates without the preceding President dying in office was in 1856, when Buchanan took over for Pierce.

History, man.

Very interesting.

I remember in 2012, lots of pundits were going on about how unlikely ( Rolling Eyes

) it was for Obama to be re-elected, and they used loads of historical reasons to back up their theories (something like "Obama can'tbe re-elected, a President had never been re-elected in such poor economic circumstances" etc.). And they were pretty wrong, weren't they? Wink

So while I feel it's important to keep abreast of history ( I love history actually! ), I think that each period in time is wildly different from previous ones and therefore, things such as election results aren't dependant or predictable based on previous precedents.

So even though a the last time a Dem has taken over from a living Dem was back in 1856, I don't feel that that fact is an indication/barrier to Clinton taking over from Obama.

But you all probably feel similarly and I'm just verbalising something really basic... Laughing

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Revolution909

Age: 29
Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

benpaco wrote:

Democrat here. Hard liberal, y'all probably know this by now. I don't have time to answer every question, but I think if she runs, barring anything weird, she will win. I honestly don't think she's best for the job for republicans or dems, but hey, we vote for the popular opinion, not the best. Honestly liking Jeb Bush (as much as it hurts to use that last name) most for the republicans, and it'd be nice to see a fresher face out of the dems.

I actually know next to nothing about him, though I heard one speech he gave and he sounded quite articulate and not pandering to his (no doubt conservative) crowd. Applause

I've read good things too (like how he likes reading and expanding his knowledge etc... respectable stuff you want in a politician).

I must investigate more.
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Revolution909

Age: 29
Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Jasonconfused wrote:

Well you're assuming that the rest of the country would vote the same away, against the other three states. But you're right, they still have far more electoral votes. I completely agree that the winner-take-all system is just awful. I'm not sure how efficiently it works in European countries, but I'm always jealous when I see how so many Parliaments have proportional representation. I think that's definitely one of the root causes for how stuck we are in the two-party system in the US. Granted, in Europe some parties still dominate, but here we get nothing. Personally I feel that as far as political action goes, I may as well be disenfranchised.

Firstly, I know that CA-NY-TX wouldn't vote together, and against the rest of the US. I simply was using them as an example because a previous poster had used them also. Smile

We have proportional representation here in Ireland (for our lower House anyway, our ceremonial upper House is voted in by, get this, members of the lower & upper houses, the head of government and members of the public who have graduated from certain designated universities!) and lemme tell you, we have record levels of voter apathy here too. Having said that, I do like PR and believe it's a good system, although I actually haven't looked into it in a while. I'd need to refresh my mind to its advantages.

The main problems here is all the parties (perhaps barring Sinn Féin, though they have their IRA baggage) are basically exactly the same as each other, barring some minor disagreements on certain minor ideological issues, plus historical issues).

Plus our economic situation was DIRE there for a while, it's still poor tbh.
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Revolution909

Age: 29
Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Jasonconfused wrote:

Recent approval ratings have the Democrats like 10 points above the Republicans. At least the ones I've seen. And while it's true that the GOP deserves crucifixion for their insanity, public opinion is definitely moving in a more liberal direction. It's just the establishment media and the party leadership (of both parties) that seems to be moving to the right. It's absolutely reactionary. I'm actually pleased with public opinion lately. Relatively anyway... I'm definitely further to the Left of the general public.

So Dems have a higher approval rating and yet they seem like they'll lose the Senate. Amazing really, in a bad way Confused

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Revolution909

Age: 29
Location: Galway, Ireland's 4th City

Revolution909 wrote:

Firstly, I know that CA-NY-TX wouldn't vote together, and against the rest of the US. I simply was using them as an example because a previous poster had used them also. Smile

We have proportional representation here in Ireland (for our lower House anyway, our ceremonial upper House is voted in by, get this, members of the lower & upper houses, the head of government and members of the public who have graduated from certain designated universities!) and lemme tell you, we have record levels of voter apathy here too. Having said that, I do like PR and believe it's a good system, although I actually haven't looked into it in a while. I'd need to refresh my mind to its advantages.

The main problems here is all the parties (perhaps barring Sinn Féin, though they have their IRA baggage) are basically exactly the same as each other. Fiscally what I would consider very centre, which means slightly to the left of your average democrat on the American spectrum. Except fairly more conservative socially, abortion is mega taboo in politics still.
Plus our economic situation was DIRE there for a while, it's still poor tbh.

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