2012 USA Election Thread: Obama projected winner

Who are you going to vote for in the 2012 Election?

  • Barack Obama

    Votes: 221 54.8%
  • Ron Paul

    Votes: 44 10.9%
  • Mitt Romney

    Votes: 37 9.2%
  • Jill Stein

    Votes: 85 21.1%
  • Vermin Supreme

    Votes: 11 2.7%
  • Gary Johnson

    Votes: 5 1.2%

  • Total voters
    403
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Let's be real the debate will have little to no influence on the election.

Though I may be underestimating america's propensity to superficially judge people.
Out here in the Netherlands, polls and debates prior to recent elections had a massive influence on the results, and led to a lot of 'tactical voting'. Now, the American system differs a lot from the Dutch system, but I wouldn't be surprised if the elections are won or lost by the way the candidates present themselves in debates. Elections have become yet another talent show.
 

WaterBomb

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There are a sizeable chunk of Americans who are ignorant and will vote for whoever they thought looked better in their suit, and couldn't care less about the issues. It's sad, but when you have a country of this many people it's incredibly difficult to reach everyone on a political level.
 
i think it's actually the fault of the media and the current politicians to not make the issues clear. i'm pretty sure the avg. american doesn't think "wow i'm such a dumb shit, this guy looks cool!" most people are like you and say "sigh informed electorate." and even if you're right, there's no changing it, the impetus is much more on the ppl with the positions and the people whose job it is to talk about them.
 
Now what I don't get is when people say that voter ID laws somehow discriminate against the poor, or are racist. 99% of these simply want some form of picture ID. Who the hell doesn't have one of those? Now pardon my lack of research but i find it hard to believe that the government would not issue photo IDs to claimanats of Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc. don't even get me started on the fools who call them racist. Do black people not appear on digital film or something?
Australian, but hi. I don't have photo identification, and have to specifically apply for it (which costs money, which I'm lucky enough to have -- it's $50 here, which you might not consider a lot of money, but many people have to consider it a lot) so I can attend a concert in January. I'm disabled and can't get a driver's licence. My Medicare (our universal public health system) card isn't photo ID. I don't have a passport. I don't know if photo ID is more ubiquitous where you are, but here's an example of 'who the hell doesn't have one of those'.

As a relatively privileged person you may not realise that driver's licences are the main form of photo ID most places, and as Trax said, requiring photo ID is another obstacle for people who don't have it. Think about who would be unlikely to have a driver's licence or a passport -- the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. These kinds of applications also take time, and the election is pretty close.
 
Was I the only that felt like if the election was decided by last night's debate Romney would have won?

I don't support Romney whatsoever and he won't be getting my vote this November, but he seemed to destroy Obama in the vast majority of the issues last night. He started off incredibly strong (although his constitution speech was pretty bullshit and felt weak in my eyes) and I would say he ended on a good note. All he really had to say was "but you've been president for 4 years" over and over and I believe his message would have been conveyed.

Also as many noticed his body language was superior to Obama's. The only thing I absolutely hated about Romney last night was his use of the term "Obamacare." It's not professional, regardless of if Obama said "he endures it."
 

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just gonna leave this here

it's easy to win snap polling when the only people polled are the most conservative segment of the electorate
 
Romney elegantly ignored it and moved on to how Obama is cutting Medicare and how that is terrible.

Because you know cutting is bad... wait, no Romney said all he wants to do is cut?...

hmm... gonna make sure you keep those senior voters man, slick move Romney
 
Being in my 20's, the most important issue for me is the national debt. I don't want the US to end up like Greece or Spain. I don't want to get stuck with the bill for our countries overspending.

Please, one of you Obama supporters, please tell me why I should trust Obama when he says he will cut the national deficit by $4 trillion? He promised to cut the deficit in half back in 2008, and instead he has caused it to grow at an even faster rate than Bush did during his 2 terms. Instead, the keep interest rates at all time lows so the Government is able to pay back the interest on $16 trillion worth of debt. Obama is no better than Bush at fixing the economy; in fact, he's worse.

Please don't say "He's doing the same thing as Clinton." The main reason the economy was so successful and we had a budget surplus during his terms was because of the .com boom. Don't make it out that Clinton was some awesome economical genius.

Once again, please tell me why I should trust Obama when he says he will cut the deficit by $4 trillion?

Obama promises to cut deficit in half by 2012
 

symphonyx64

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Being in my 20's, the most important issue for me is the national debt. I don't want the US to end up like Greece or Spain. I don't want to get stuck with the bill for our countries overspending.

Please, one of you Obama supporters, please tell me why I should trust Obama when he says he will cut the national deficit by $4 trillion? He promised to cut the deficit in half back in 2008, and instead he has caused it to grow at an even faster rate than Bush did during his 2 terms. Instead, the keep interest rates at all time lows so the Government is able to pay back the interest on $16 trillion worth of debt. Obama is no better than Bush at fixing the economy; in fact, he's worse.

Please don't say "He's doing the same thing as Clinton." The main reason the economy was so successful and we had a budget surplus during his terms was because of the .com boom. Don't make it out that Clinton was some awesome economical genius.

Once again, please tell me why I should trust Obama when he says he will cut the deficit by $4 trillion?

Obama promises to cut deficit in half by 2012
You just answered your own question.
 
@ J^2

Pretty much all of your questions were ironically pointed out in debate last night if you didn't watch it. Regardless of what you think, this is the democratic answer:

-Obama is not responsible for the increased deficit, we needed to bail out large companies early in his presidency or else our economy would of crashed.
-Despite the increased deficit, and the mountain of unemployed received from the Bush-era, Obama has made slow yet steady progress to fix the economy.
-Obama actually has a realistic plan to cut the deficit in the long term by cutting programs AND increasing revenue. This would slowly decrease the debt, which still having essential programs.
-This is opposed to Romney solution, which is just to cut, and hope the hypothetical boom in the economy will just increase everyone's salary and thus the taxable revenue.

I'm not an economist, so I can't really go into detail, and I might be off a bit from what Obama meant. But these are the answers that Obama put forward, and I believe in them, they seem to have a solid logic behind them.
 
Cross-tab of the CNN snap poll post debate that really determined the narrative into "Romney won decisively".
You're ignoring the fact that nearly every poll said Romney won, I can't find any legitimate site that reported that Obama won. Please don't confuse people by reporting limited information, that's what we have politicians for.

Relevant:
[youtube]iNhUI8ktHuw[/youtube]
 

symphonyx64

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You know if you just focus on getting people back to work, they will earn a salary, thus giving the government more revenue. Taxing the rich is an idiotic idea. This isn't about everyone paying their fair share, its about fixing the unemployment problem.
 
why does everyone think that investing in the richest, most witholdingest billionaires will create jobs like where the fuck does this correlation come from...rich people want to hold on to their money and always will, there are 000s of better ways. also, regardless of current problems, i think the huge gap between rich and poor is still a pretty huge fucking issue that america has to deal with, practicality aside (lol)
 
@ J^2

Pretty much all of your questions were ironically pointed out in debate last night if you didn't watch it.
I did watch it.

-Obama is not responsible for the increased deficit, we needed to bail out large companies early in his presidency or else our economy would of crashed.
So, the high estimates say the GM/Chrysler initial bailout cost was around $75 billion, and the Freddie MaC/Fannie Mae bailout was around $300 billion. In fact, let's just say that Obama had to spend $1 trillion that was out of his control to save the economy. That means he still missed his goal of cutting the deficit by about $7 trillion. Where did all that come from? Is he going to blame that on the wars he also failed to get us out of?

-Despite the increased deficit, and the mountain of unemployed received from the Bush-era, Obama has made slow yet steady progress to fix the economy.
Uh, what progress has there been? Unemployment has gone up. The economy is still in a rut and only artificially being held-up by the Fed and low interest rates. 25% of college grads don't have jobs, and another 25% have jobs not related to their degree. I'm not really seeing the progress.

-Obama actually has a realistic plan to cut the deficit in the long term by cutting programs AND increasing revenue. This would slowly decrease the debt, which still having essential programs.
This was the whole point of my post. I'm pretty sure Obama had a plan last election showing how he was going to cut the deficit. That plan proved to be a farce. Why should I believe his new plan will work. Isn't it the same plan he has been following the last couple of years? I don't think that plan has been working very well.
 
Uh, what progress has there been? Unemployment has gone up. The economy is still in a rut and only artificially being held-up by the Fed and low interest rates. 25% of college grads don't have jobs, and another 25% have jobs not related to their degree. I'm not really seeing the progress.
I have to agree with this. I mean, I don't pay attention to politics nearly as much as I used to, but I haven't noticed any progress, and neither does anybody I know. The people who do tell me things are getting better say they heard it on TV, and that's all they can tell me. And every single news channel in America has a biased agenda, so I take it with a grain of salt.
 
I disagree, I personally think there should be a separation of pokemon and state, we don't want politics to ruin a great game.

So Romney is stopping by Abingdon, Va. sometime next week, which is like 20 minutes from where I live, to talk about coal, since it's one of only three things my area care about(the other two is religion and "not letting those damn gays git married"), so of course my area is going crazy about it. Because of this, my local news station decided interview some people about it and the recent debate that just happen, and this one guy said "I was going to vote for Obama, but since Romney looked better last night, I'm going to vote for him."

Even though it is wrong, I sometimes think we should have literacy test, except everyone takes it this time. smh
 
Being in my 20's, the most important issue for me is the national debt. I don't want the US to end up like Greece or Spain. I don't want to get stuck with the bill for our countries overspending.
I'll fix your overspending problem: slash the military down to half what it currently is (still massively more than any other military in the world), eliminate earmarks and corporate welfare, raise taxes (yes, it's pretty much essential, unless you want to eliminate spending equivalent to both the total spent on Social Security and Defence).

Also, the US won't end up like Spain for a variety of reasons: for starters unlike Spain the US didn't massively take in migrants to fuel a construction boom, and US government bonds are stable which is not the case for Spain or Greece.


Please, one of you Obama supporters, please tell me why I should trust Obama when he says he will cut the national deficit by $4 trillion? He promised to cut the deficit in half back in 2008, and instead he has caused it to grow at an even faster rate than Bush did during his 2 terms. Instead, the keep interest rates at all time lows so the Government is able to pay back the interest on $16 trillion worth of debt. Obama is no better than Bush at fixing the economy; in fact, he's worse.
I'm not really an Obama supporter (as a non-American who would vote Independent even if I was), however, most of the expenditure is from Bush policies that have carried over and the Bush tax cuts crippled revenue which hasn't helped.

Neither candidate has presented even the most framework of a plan that can conceivably bring down the national debt in any significant way any time soon -- Obama because he won't talk about cutting spending, and Romney because he won't talk about raising taxes.


You know if you just focus on getting people back to work, they will earn a salary, thus giving the government more revenue.
There is only a finite number of necessary jobs in the world (and a successful company does not employ people unnecessarily), with a growing population at some point unemployment can't really do anything other than rise.

The whole point of the free market is that it ultimately means that the people and businesses decide if there will be new jobs or not rather than governments, booms have happened under pretty much all tax policies and the same is true for busts.

This being said, people are getting back to work: unemployment is under 8% for the first time since 2009.


Taxing the rich is an idiotic idea. This isn't about everyone paying their fair share, its about fixing the unemployment problem.
Tax rates for the top bracket were over 70% for the entire golden era of capitalism when unemployment was consistently lower than it has been in decades for a period of 20 years.

The cut taxes and hope for the best strategy hasn't been shown to reliably increase the number of jobs in the country any more than any other tax plan, in the case of Bush it clearly didn't work.

Many major economic crashes of the last 100 years have been preceded by tax cuts (87 Crashes, GFC, great depression, amongst others). Cutting taxes (or raising taxes if it comes to that) hasn't got any kind of conclusive evidence to do anything either way for the economy.



Semi related, it really irritates me when people talk about "highest debt ever" and "highest deficit ever".. all that shows is that inflation (or, as some call it "growth") means that a dollar doesn't go anywhere near as far as it did in 1940.
 
I would have voted for VS, but he seems to have dropped out. Oh well, no free pony for everybody. I guess we'll have to stick to Barack Obamasnow. Free hail for everybody! Ice-types, Water-types, Grass-types, Conservative-types, Liberal-types, idiotic-types, indiependent-types!
 
I would consider myself an conservative independent as well (I don't really like Mitt either), but I just think it's funny how Democrats just eat up President Obama's false promises and plans.

Also, the US won't end up like Spain for a variety of reasons: for starters unlike Spain the US didn't massively take in migrants to fuel a construction boom, and US government bonds are stable which is not the case for Spain or Greece.
The unstable bonds is an effect of Spain's deficit, not the cause. Because of Spain's debt, their credit rating has been downgraded. This makes buying their bonds more risky, which means the yield on their bonds must be higher (I believe Spain's is above 6%, which is ridiculous). If the US ever gets to the point that our credit rating goes down because of our high debt, you will see the US bond market become very unstable. We have already seen a slight downgrade in our credit rating.

I'm not really an Obama supporter (as a non-American who would vote Independent even if I was), however, most of the expenditure is from Bush policies that have carried over and the Bush tax cuts crippled revenue which hasn't helped.
I agree. This is why I thought it was stupid that Obama extended Bush the tax cuts in 2010. Taken straight from the article:

The president acknowledged that the bill's cost and the coming effort to address the deficit, stating, "In some ways this was easier than some of the tougher choices we're going to have to make next year."
Mr. Obama said the bill would create jobs and boost the still-struggling U.S. economy. He called it a "substantial victory for middle class families" who would otherwise have seen a tax increase.
What's changed? Flip-flopping much? It's quite obvious to me that Obama says he care's about the debt, but his actions have been completely contradictory.

This being said, people are getting back to work: unemployment is under 8% for the first time since 2009.
I find the time of these revised numbers from this summer to be funny. Not wrong, just funny. I also find it funny that most of the jobs that the US gained were part-time jobs, while manufacturing jobs have decreased. Not really as good of a sign as you think.

Semi related, it really irritates me when people talk about "highest debt ever" and "highest deficit ever".. all that shows is that inflation (or, as some call it "growth") means that a dollar doesn't go anywhere near as far as it did in 1940.
That's why it's better to discuss the deficit as a % of the GDP. And when you look at it that way, it is still at it's lowest point since World War 2. I'm pretty sure it's over 10% now.

Obama has failed, even in his own words. It's time to be "held accountable."
 
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