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About LinkBacksReally?Originally Posted by nathansmart
Really?
Last edited by AnnE; October 22, 2012 at 3:50 PM.
I'm kind of disappointed by some of the responses. I expected criticism but I also thought people might appreciate a young person's attempt to draw attention to the electoral college system.
Thanks to those who offered constructive criticism - I'll pass it along.
You underestimate the power of the hatred of youth.
I should know better. I also shouldn't be so mom defensive. He's not even my kid.
Goddamn election. I've spent hours obsessing over election maps these past few weeks. I've even signed up to call people in swing states for the Obama Campaign. And I'm not even really a democrat, it's just.... fuck, Republicans are a scary bunch of assholes.
I don't know how long Romney and his surrogates have been saying that some of their goals would be achieved by their second terms. Regardless, says so negates most of their criticisms of Obama's first term.
No, of course not! I thought I made that clear.
nathan smart!
http://www.nathansmart.com
I know there's greater differences between the two but what the shit kind of debate strategy is to essentially say "I agree with the incumbent on most of these issues. Vote for me!"?
Look, I know there's more to it than that but half of this debate felt like that from Romney (ignoring the constant regression to economic issues, which I will admit are the most pressing)...when it came to so much of the foreign policy shit was basically him parroting Obama and then basically going "But don't worry, my penis is bigger."
yeah, agree- especially on the foreign policy stuff debates are all about going "I'll kill anyone who fucks with America." And then the other person goes, "No, I'll REALLY kill anyone who fucks with America." It gets pretty sad.
"Look, I love Israel." - Obama
"Yeah, but I love Israel more." - Romney
"I WENT TO THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!" - Obama
"I COULD LIKE LITERALLY CALL NETANYAHU AND HE'D SEND HIS BOMBERS!!" - Romney
But Biden's the only one who gets to call him "BB."
I'm just proud of Mitt for utilizing his word-a-day calendar during this debate. October 22 was "tumult". A presidential candidate hasn't taken advantage of the educational benefits of a word-a-day calendar like this since Al Gore learned what "lockbox" means.
The electoral college system is flawed, sure, but at least you do sort of get to vote for your head of state. I vote in two countries, Australia and Italy.
Australia's head of state is nominally the queen of england, but is really the governer-general (who is appointed by the prime minister), who only wields any power in the event that parliament is for whatever reason no longer able to function, and needs to be dissolved and an election called. Parliament is made up of the house of representatives and the senate. The senate is the upper house as in the USA, so legislation from the HoR has to go through them to be approved. The HoR is controlled by the party or coalition of parties that holds the voting majority. Whoever this party or coalition selects as their leader is the prime minister who is in practice our chief executive but not really, at least not in the way the POTUS is (the party/coalition can change who the prime minister by a party vote, no election). Who do I vote for? My representative and the senate. I live in an electoral division that consistently votes for conservative candidates who I would never vote for, so my vote has never affected who the prime minister is.
The senate is decided by proportional representation, each state has 6 senators, each territory 2, so if a party ticket gets 33% of the vote in a state, they get 2 senators, 4 senators if they get around 65% etc. So even radicals like me get a voice there sometimes, but they won't be a powerful voting bloc unless a larger party needs them to maintain a voting majority, but giving too much influence to minority radicals is often a bad thing.
Italy is a bit different, and I understand it less, but that's mostly because it's such a mess I'm surprised they have roads. I am classified as an Italian living abroad, so I vote for a senator and a representative for Italians living in the region of oceania and antarctica. The president is elected by parliament, so again I don't vote for my head of state, but the prime minister is the real power in Italy as in Australia. Party coalitions are a lot more diverse in italy, with each major voting bloc often made up of a dozen or so parties often with seemingly contradictory political goals. However my vote did count for Prime Minister once when Romano Prodi briefly dethroned Berlusconi several years ago, which is more than I can say for my other country.
In principle I prefer republic over monarchy, in practice Autralia works a lot better than Italy politically. Australia would be better off in my opinion with a popular vote elected president who has much the same limited powers as the governor-general and marsupials on both sides of our coins. Italy would be better off if it weren't so institutionally corrupt.
TLDR^
We could elect our head of state without the idiotic electoral college system. Besides, voting for your head of state is overrated anyway. It means that the symbolic figurehead of the country is inherently politicized. A few years ago, Obama gave a televised speech to the nation's school children telling them to do school, drink drugs and stay off milk, yada yada, and Republicans shit their pants in outrage. And don't tell me the idea of Mitt Romney douching all over your kids wouldn't stick in the craw a bit. There's a reason that, even though the U.S. was one of the first constitutional republics on earth, no other country has subsequently copied its system.
If you ask me, it's not the young people of today who are to blame - it's their companions who are the problem.
"You heard the post debate analysis--Obama and I are basically exactly the same. If you were leaning towards me due to the economy, but had misgivings of how I'd interact with the rest of the world, feel free to vote for me now." I think it's a brilliant, pandering play for the undecideds.
I'm surprised how much of a difference that first debate ended up making. I'd read that the 47% comment had significant impact but that first debate undid that plus added gains. So, what, people who were going to vote for Obama based on previous polls have decided to vote for Romney now? Weird!
Any pre-debate poll should probably just be ignored, as those voters were not yet aware of the shiny new General Election version of Mitt Romney.
The pandering is the problem. And yeah, I know everyone does it. But it's callous. The man hasn't earn the office he aspires to and the most insulting way to earn it is to just sit back and ride on a wave of collective rural stupidity. And I'm from New Hampshire so I get to use that damn word. There's apple farms and shit here!
Bottom line is that while the economy might be the single determinant of this election (and by default any dissatisfaction is never attributed to the facts of the situation but just rather the guy in the chair at the time; this itself is a flaw of the dichotomous system America cannot seem to break from)...we have enough people who are going to willfully ignore social issues in exchange for what little bit of security they want to muster for themselves.
That's not a way to vote. Well, it is but it's a fuckin' stupid one. Beyond that, Romney can't play the foreign policy experience card even post debate because he doesn't have any and has made an ass of himself consistently when he was abroad. So, okay, ape what the other guy says (while somehow still pushing for that military budget that's going to help with our dept so much) and then just keep saying "I know what it takes to make jobs". The first part's paper thin and the second lacks substance.
Listen, and first off let me say that I'm only ranting because you gave me something to springboard off of and that none of this is directed to *you* obviously, but...
How can no one see through this? The social issues alone should mean that significant voting blocks should be against him. African Americans, Women, the LGBT vote, Hispanics, the Youth. Yet we have half of a population apparently that wants to give up on a fundamental principle of this country (ie. equality..well...yeah, I know we fucked up with slavery back then but you get the point) for the off chance that a return to trickle down economic somehow magically makes everything better?
Because I'm sitting here looking back and trying to find the moment. There has to have been a moment in recent history when this sort of mental regression started. It's reached it's apex now; attempts to block minority voters, what seems to be a rebirth of a 1950's mentality towards women. Sufferage happened. The Civil Rights movement happened. We can't go back.
And fuck it, I'm not completely satisfied with Obama but I'm supposed to potentially risk the civil liberties and equalities of other countrymen and, in this case especially, women for this theory that if we just give the Ken Doll his chance to take the reigns that the rest of the rich folks are going to start up massive job creation on a whim?
That is insane. And the only way someone could make me vote for that theory, for that man, and against those principles is if they had a gun to my head and even then I'd have to choose really carefully about punching that ballot or having my life's ballot punched, as it were.
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