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Election 2008, United States

Who would you vote for if the presidential race is held now?

  • Barack Obama

    Votes: 415 72.4%

  • John McCain

    Votes: 130 22.7%

  • Other (Please specify)

    Votes: 28 4.9%
  • Total voters
    573
I am afraid that I will sound ignorant to the point of offensiveness but I still would like to see people's opinions.

What are everyone's thoughts of the idea about if Obama is elected we are only one bullet away from turning every major city in the nation into chaos with mobs and riots of angry and fear. The president is the most protected man in the world, but the chance is still there for the unthinkable to happen. White supremacists are not dead. They merely have been suppressed in recent years.

I am curious what everyone thinks of this idea, if it will affect their vote this November and if it will influence the outcome of the election as a whole.
 
XCPetro5678 said:
I am afraid that I will sound ignorant to the point of offensiveness but I still would like to see people's opinions.

What are everyone's thoughts of the idea about if Obama is elected we are only one bullet away from turning every major city in the nation into chaos with mobs and riots of angry and fear. The president is the most protected man in the world, but the chance is still there for the unthinkable to happen. White supremacists are not dead. They merely have been suppressed in recent years.

I am curious what everyone thinks of this idea, if it will affect their vote this November and if it will influence the outcome of the election as a whole.
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We have an extremely effective secret service.

Additionally this fear of what might happen (especially since it is in no way related to policy) seems like a really silly (stupid, actually) way to decide on a presidential canidate. I don't even like Obama but it irritates me that people would stoop to using this sort of scenario to try and FUD people out of voting for him. If you like what the man has to say and think he can do the job vote for him and tell the people feeding you this to get bent.
 
I'm only sixteen so I will not be voting nor do I follow politics closely. However, I did attend an Obama rally at my high school. It was my first rally so I'm sure that had some affect on me, but he was incredibly charismatic as has been said a thousand times before and I (most likely naively) think that he's what we need. If he's feeding us lies, it may be ok. We need to change our countries image and our president is the best place to start.

Now someone rip my sheltered ideas apart.
 
I'm going Obama.

McCain seems like Bush 2.0 to me. Also, if Nader runs again, then he is even stupider than we imagined, if that is even possible. Personally, I think McCain's an idiot. I mean, he only started using the Internet recently. How can this man not use something so important to today's world. Also, his war policy makes me angry, I do not feel like staying in a place we never should have been in for one hundred years.

You can say Obama gives us empty promises, but who is to say McCain isn't either, or what if Obama and his people can do it. We need change, not more of the same crap we got for the last eight years.

Oh, a little off-topic, but did anyone catch the Secretary of Education on "The Colbert Report." She, too, is a major idiot. She believes our education is better because our test scores are higher when all we truly did was lower our standards.
 
extremely effective secret service? hai, 9/11!

I don't see why nader shouldn't run. It's supposed to be a democracy, afterall; it's not his fault you've got a shitty FPTP voting system.
 
Uh, 9/11 was caused by the failure of the CIA, not the Secret Service.

Any president is a major assassination target. So is any vice president. But keep this in mind - Kennedy is the only president to be assassinated in A HUNDRED YEARS (the Secret Service was commissioned to protect the president after the assassination of McKinley, who was assassinated in 1900.) Particularly considering the Reagan assassination attempt failed, I'd say the USSS's track record is pretty impressive.
 
akuchi said:
extremely effective secret service? hai, 9/11!

I don't see why nader shouldn't run. It's supposed to be a democracy, afterall; it's not his fault you've got a shitty FPTP voting system.
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Uh, the secret services job is to protect the president, the vp, their families, visting leaders, and some other riff raff. Oh, and to investigate counterfeiting of US currency.

And yes, we unfortunately inhereted a shitty system for electing our officials. From you lot, if I am not mistaken.
 
okay, I must admit I have no idea as to the difference between the CIA and the secret service - here I think we just have MI5 which covers the lot.

I'm not saying our electoral system is any better - first past the post is fucking awful.
 
Yeah, we now theoretically have copied the MI5 with the Department of Homeland Security, but the DHS is such a fucking mess that it is basically irrelevant. Hopefully whoever becomes president next does a massive reorg on it.


Today I started thinking about "tipping points". The idea here is that certain states are demographically similar to others but tilt more to one party. For instance, North Carolina is similar to Virginia but tilts more Republican. One therefore can conclude that, if Obama wins North Carolina, he will probably win Virginia. Similarly, if he loses Virginia, he is almost certain to lose North Carolina. On the other side, if McCain wins Michigan, he is almost certain to win Ohio. Using this plan, I considered some states that will be critical and others that will just be "gravy". These are ranked - if one of these tips towards a certain candidate, the rest doesn't matter.

Tipping point #1 - The national popular vote - Despite cries of "2000 AGAIN", the simple fact is that 2000's popular vote was extremely close (.7% margin). If either candidate wins by 2% or more, they have 99.999% won the election. The popular vote has to be close for this to work.

Tipping point #2 - Florida - Florida ranks so high mostly because of its size, but also because it is relatively independent of other demographic factors. Florida is simply a unique state. If Obama wins Florida, he has 99.99% won the election - the only possible way for him to lose here is if he loses Michigan and every single other swing state.

Tipping point #3 - Michigan - On the other side, if McCain wins Michigan, he has won the election, assuming he holds Florida. A win in Michigan means McCain has probably won Ohio, along with Missouri and Virginia. There simply isn't enough left for Obama to win.

Tipping point #4 - Colorado, Ohio, Nevada - Assuming the above states are in the bag for their standard sides, these states will decide the election. If McCain wins all three, he wins a squeaker. If he loses any one of them (and Obama wins New Mexico and Iowa, plus all the Kerry states, as expected), Obama wins.


The point of all this is that any state I have not listed is irrelevant. Pennsylvania? If McCain is winning here, he's winning Michigan. Missouri? If Obama's winning there, he's winning Ohio. Virginia? Gravy on the real meal - Ohio. There are some potential swing states like Montana that simply don't have the electoral strength to decide the election themselves (Nevada without CO or OH gives Obama a tie, but the House is likely to be extremely Democratic.)
 
I don't see the point in voting this election. I figure that the country's going to hell in a handbasket anyway, regardless if we're being led by jackass or elephant.

Besides, presidential elections aren't even important. Most of our problems seem to be stemming from the Legislative rather than the Executive Branch.
 
WER said:
I don't see the point in voting this election. I figure that the country's going to hell in a handbasket anyway, regardless if we're being led by jackass or elephant.

Besides, presidential elections aren't even important. Most of our problems seem to be stemming from the Legislative rather than the Executive Branch.
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I would say choosing the best president is pretty important. The president, Vice President, and cabinet put ideas through the legislative branch, not to mention pick Supreme Court Justices that can determine how we interpret the constitution. Also, the president can make it so some bills will never be passed. I mean Congress just had to override Bush's Veto on bill which holds off a Medicare cut.

As in, if the bill got vetoed and congress didn't override, then there would have been a cut in Medicare funding. Yeah, way to piss off old people, Dub-ya.

Also, the president gives our country an image. With Bush at the head, our image was unintelligent and overly aggressive. So, when we look to the president we need one that will define how we want to be viewed by the world. To me, Obama fits the image I think we need. I think this one could be even more important.
 
I chose other.

#1 McCain is alright. A moderate republican is not bad imo. However, he is one of the most boring speakers I've ever heard and he just doesn't get my blood boiling.

#2 Obama is a good speaker I suppose ( I really don't think so). However, I really don't trust him and I believe that he is full of mepty promises.

#3 I actually liked Hillary.
 
Today, Obama has a 9-point lead in Gallup, his highest ever, which follows his 7-point lead yesterday, which was his previous best. This is probably just a bounce following his overseas trip; the main question now is how much will wear off in a few days.
 
I don't really see this bump being permanent.

Obama didn't do anything rhetorically that he hasn't done before, nor has he given his detractors anything to change their minds (or intensify their hatred of him).

This election is NOT over in the slightest; McCain looked absolutely lost this time last year and well, who's the GOP nominee for President?


Obama probably wins, but it's going to be a 51/49 one state decides it type thing. However, the Republican brand is irrevocably screwed (thanks a lot george bush so Democratic margins of victory are just going to grow.

Unless Obama royally fucks up in term one he will win reelection by a landslide.

Don't believe the hype about Hillary/Obama - 1: the divide between their bases is REAL, and it could be a problem. The fact that millions of Hillary supporters are at least right now threatening to support McCain (including a pledged delegate), says that a lot of that base is angry at the Dems for "cheating" Hillary out of the nomination.

(though it would have been a LOT worse if Obama hadn't won; lower-middle to middle-class African-Americans aren't too far from the Republican party ideologically (generally socially conservative, actually divided fiscally but kind of tending towards fiscally conservative) and the GOP could easily make a play for pissed off Obama supporters)
 
An interesting article in the Weekly Standard (of all places) points out that the Republicans are heading down the path that the British Conservative party went down in the 1990s. The latter took over a decade to recover from the problems that beset it, not to mention three straight election loses (1997, 2001, 2005). Ultimately, the road to recovery is going to require cleaning up the Republicans' image, finding new ways to hijack Democratic messages, and waiting for the Democrats to inevitably screw up.
 
WER said:
I don't see the point in voting this election. I figure that the country's going to hell in a handbasket anyway, regardless if we're being led by jackass or elephant.

Besides, presidential elections aren't even important. Most of our problems seem to be stemming from the Legislative rather than the Executive Branch.
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Fuck this. The direction of the country doesnt somehow make your vote less valuable. It isnt going to matter who you vote for in any election. IE by your reasoning no one should ever vote.

Voting for a third party or whatever is never any more a waste of a vote than voting for one of the main two, so you can do that if you like, but you have to vote for someone. If you are truly unhappy with all the parties then vote for a comedy option, if people start doing that, then the message will get through.

Have a nice day.
 
Agreed hip its not the direction of the country that makes my vote worthless, what makes my vote worthless is the electoral system. Obama is going to win Washington because westerners outnumber the easterners. The cascades are like a political divide here, with the liberals being west and conservatives east generally.

But due to the south sound area containing most of the state's population, the mob wins and my vote does not count because they will vote democrat as they have since Reagen.
 
Basically you should simultaneously be working to promote the social democrats or greens or whoever, getting their message out, raising the level of public discourse etc. and also trying to slap the Democratic party back to their senses before they complete their mass exodus into DLC land while still supporting them over Republicans.
Neither of which end with voting Dem. in swing states and Moore elsewhere so none of this "welp I voted Nader now I'm blameless for everything".

edit: also you chumps should get instant runoff voting its like the only good thing about our system in Australia (fuck mandatory voting seriously it is the WORST idea)
 
Kietharr said:
Agreed hip its not the direction of the country that makes my vote worthless, what makes my vote worthless is the electoral system. Obama is going to win Washington because westerners outnumber the easterners. The cascades are like a political divide here, with the liberals being west and conservatives east generally.

But due to the south sound area containing most of the state's population, the mob wins and my vote does not count because they will vote democrat as they have since Reagen.
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No your vote would be worthless regardless. You are one out of 200 million or something voters. There will never be an election decided by 1 vote.

Whatever system you have in place, it wont make any difference. Voting for a losing cause is just as useful as voting for a winning one. So dont think you can excuse laziness by blaming it on the electoral system.

Have a nice day.
 
your vote will make the most difference if its for a 3rd party just cause the total votes are smaller. if you get a million more people to vote for barr let's say, it will be much more noticable than a million more to vote for mccain or obama and you are the same proportion of that million either way, if that makes any sense (probably doesnt but oh well)

still voting for nader, and yes I really do think he'd do a better job than the two main candidates. :)
 
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