[Official Thread] OBAMA WINS RE-ELECTION

[Alyrium Denryle]

Idiots say they're moving to Australia if Obama wins. And the Australian reply:

Attention Romney supporters. Australia has mandatory voting, an unmarried female Prime Minister and spiders outnumber us 10,000 to 1.

Oh come on, just the lethally venomous spiders outnumber you by more than that.

[Dark Hellion]

Well, this thread was an interesting read. Too bad I couldn't stay up and watch the lot of it.

Regarding the Electoral College system, if you actually had a national popular vote for the presidency, then you could have more than two serious candidates and they would have meaningful shares of the results. Since the EC only affects the vote for the office of president, the change would do nothing to alter local politics in the different states. Legislation about toxic waste dumps and so forth wouyld still be decided by the state parliaments and federal legislation by Congress.

Don't conflate issues that do not belong together.

Edi, while I am quite sure this is just an honest slip of the tongue calling the state legislatures parliaments could seem ignorant and may make some people not want to listen whether you are making a good point or not.

I think some of the issues being brought up have to do with aspects of American demographics that are hard to understand if you haven't actually experienced them. For example, it is hard to actually write down how signifigant the urban/rural divide is in America or to understand the actualities of so called 'fly over' country without actually seeing it first hand. As a silly little example, from living in rural IL what I consider a short afternoon trip would quite literally take me across some European countries yet I would do it to go to a nice fishing spot.

But don't take this as American Exceptionalism, it is much more a fact that certain countries have demographic challenges that are difficult for other countries to understand. I don't pretend to understand how Japanese politics function because I honestly can't fathom how a city like Tokyo with approximately a zillion people actually functions as a political entity.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, this thread was an interesting read. Too bad I couldn't stay up and watch the lot of it.

Regarding the Electoral College system, if you actually had a national popular vote for the presidency, then you could have more than two serious candidates and they would have meaningful shares of the results. Since the EC only affects the vote for the office of president, the change would do nothing to alter local politics in the different states. Legislation about toxic waste dumps and so forth wouyld still be decided by the state parliaments and federal legislation by Congress.

Don't conflate issues that do not belong together.

That isn't necessarily true at all, Ed. Candidates who focus advertising time on say, California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Ohio and a few others could be viable contenders in a third party role with the Electoral College. You would just have to split up your vote by region, since any one region doesn't carry the decisive EV margin.

[AniThyng]

Doesn't first past the post/winner takes all also have the effect of skewing local/legislative representation anyway though?

[Dalton]

Nevada goes to Obama. Florida is next.

[wautd]

Well I'm happy. Not so much that Obama won, but that the republicans lost. I wonder when the GOP realizes that pandering to right wing extremists, anti-intellectuals, the greedy, racists and homophobes, lunatics, misogynists, fundamentalists, warmongers and people who enjoy sucking Netanyahu's cock may not be the best of strategies

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Nate Silver's projections were pretty much right on the head with respect how the states were voting. And that Florida still not being called for basically verifies his contention that it was on the tipping point (50.3% favored Obama).

[Patrick Degan]

Well I'm happy. Not so much that Obama won, but that the republicans lost. I wonder when the GOP realizes that pandering to right wing extremists, anti-intellectuals, the greedy, racists and homophobes, lunatics, misogynists, fundamentalists, warmongers and people who enjoy sucking Netanyahu's cock may not be the best of strategies

Basically not until they suffer the same sort of electoral defeat the party got handed to it in 1932. And through multiple election cycles. Expect them to trot out what's become their standard-model excuse for losing: that they just weren't "conservative enough".

America dodged a bullet last night. But it's still disturbing that there were fifty million fools willing to vote for Romney.

[wautd]

Well I'm happy. Not so much that Obama won, but that the republicans lost. I wonder when the GOP realizes that pandering to right wing extremists, anti-intellectuals, the greedy, racists and homophobes, lunatics, misogynists, fundamentalists, warmongers and people who enjoy sucking Netanyahu's cock may not be the best of strategies

Basically not until they suffer the same sort of electoral defeat the party got handed to it in 1932. And through multiple election cycles. Expect them to trot out what's become their standard-model excuse for losing: that they just weren't "conservative enough".

America dodged a bullet last night. But it's still disturbing that there were fifty million fools willing to vote for Romney.

If Romney was serious about backing Israel for attacking Iran, then the world has dodged a bullet last night.

[Zaune]

"You have $6bn. Which would you rather fund: One Presidential election, or one ENTIRE BBC?" -- A guy I know, via Facebook.

[Dalton]

Obama has more than 2 million votes over Romney in the PV, a 2% lead. Much smaller than the 10 million votes he had over McCain, but there's still a lot of ballots to count. Florida is still undecided, and from what I hear, they have stopped counting ballots for tonight and won't count more until tomorrow. Not like the election is riding on them this year.

[Crossroads Inc.]

For those wanting a good laugh.. More insightful comments courtesy of Townhall.com

Now that Obama has gotten his undeserved 2cnd term,
BHO will be shown for the anti-American-Communist, Collossal-Lying-US-Traitor that he really is !
obamasrealfather.com/frank-marshall-davis
/downloads/Comparison_Photos.pdf
/breaking_news001-007

Well, progressives, you got what you wanted.
And I hope you are ready to accept the responsibility of your actions.
You can no longer blame anything that goes wrong on someone else.
This is YOUR doing. And when there is no more money- tax revenues drop, jobs are lost, no one lends us money, another credit downgrade,- I'll be there to say
"I told you so"

White hot hatred, raging anger and complete despair. Other than I am numb. Well done America, you have commited suicide for everyone. I simply debate the depth of American stupidity anymore with anyone. I suspect that America has to diminish in power for certain end times Bible prophecies to come true. Perhaps Obama is the implement to effect that. I just hope some Muzzie doesn't detonate a nuke in a major population center because Obama insists on labeling militant jihadists as "people protesting anti-muslim media presentations who get carried away a bit".

Obama won largely because of blacks voting for him because he's black, low income and no income people voting for him to get the "free stuff", illegal aliens hoping to get illegal amnesty. And because of deluded college kids who think he's going to get them jobs.

It seems the nation has reached that point of critical mass where enough people have figured out that they don't have to work. All they have to do is vote for the guy who promises them the free stuff.

Fun times people!

[Simon_Jester]

Your argument rests that there is negative harm from having a popular vote election, which you have not demonstrated.

I'm not convinced there's harm from having the electoral college elect the chief executive. Have you demonstrated this? The biggest consequences are:

1) Sometimes the electoral college winner wins with 1% or so less of the popular vote than their rival.
2) Certain states are disproportionately important because their population is nearly split 50/50, and winning a thousand voters in a state where you're leading 55/45 matters less than winning them in a state where you're 50/50.

(1) isn't inherently wrong unless we can prove that all positions in a democracy should be handled by strict popular vote- in other words, more Athenian-style and less Roman Republic-style. That is at best hard to prove.

(2) is going to happen anyway. Right now, the candidates pay the most attention to places where there is a real struggle, and a nearly tied one, over what kind of policies and people we should have in charge. They know they stand to gain a huge amount by convincing people in those areas- look at how much Obama has gained by being able to convince, say, Virginians (or some of them) that he's the right man for the job.

Go to national popular vote, and they will pay the most attention to places with a large population density, and ignore places where it takes more dollars per person to win hearts and minds. The result is that (for example) New York City and its metropolitan area gets a lot more attention than a swath of rural America with a similar-sized population, because you get more bang for your buck by visiting New York 30 times than you do by visiting 30 rural cities of 40000 people each and trying to appeal to all the people who live scattered around them.


Oh- one side effect: suppressing voter turnout becomes more important. Suppose you're worried about the Orange Party suppressing voter turnout to favor itself over the Lemon Party by passing discriminatory laws. Now they have more incentive to do that in states where the Oranges already have a huge advantage, and can pass whatever laws they please. Because getting ten thousand Lemonists not to show up on election day could win the election regardless of what state you do it in...

We can solve that with mandatory voting and a sane, centralized set of rules for who is allowed to vote and so on. But that's a big enough change that it might fix our problems in its own right. Better to implement that first and worry about the electoral college later.

Now all the President has to do is kludge the House into working. Now that he don't have to worry about re-election, he can start putting boot to ass.

Getting the House to work when they actively oppose him is going to be tough. We're probably back to business as usual until 2014; how the Republicans fare in the midterm election is an open question.

[Irbis]

Obama winning seems to be one optimistic news from USA recently. Congratulations

Why I support the electoral college:

It prevents a regional fanaticism from dictating control of the entire nation, like in the days when the Dixiecrat pro-segregation party was popular in the south. If southern whites turn out, to take an extreme example, 90% for a candidate who wants to reenslave blacks while marching under confederate banners, should we bow to their candidate being elected?

Conversely if a regional political movement like the Progressives in Wisconsin with LaFollette's paramilitary guards with fixed bayonets at the start of his campaign in the 1930s were to completely dominate the sympathies of a regional part of the electorate, should that be allowed to dictate the direction of the nation?

Basically the Electoral College prevents a movement which excites total lockstep sympathy in a small part of the US from dominating the whole nation. People hate it when it means their candidate loses and love it when they win, but when you get down to it, it does its job.

Wrong. Right now, Electoral College lets someone with 16% of the votes become the President of the United States. Plurality would make it impossible. It's precisely EV that allows regional nutjob to screw 4/5 majority.

Also, there is the 'small' issue of 3rd party candidate with 5% support in just 4 states, just like the regional political movement you mentioned, easily deciding the whole course of presidency by nudging them to the otherwise loser, just like that idiot Nader did. Take a guess, how long it will take Republicans to remember that, find a left-leaning guy for 2016/2020, give him nice PAC in swing states, and run him as interference to Democratic candidate mostly in swing states to win? Yeah, great system

We still have nine states that hold over 50% of the total American population and that's going to get worse over the next ten years. If we switched to a popular vote only method only ten states would be payed attention to, if we keep our current system only ten states will be payed attention to. Take your pick, either way forty states do not matter.

Why is it a better idea to have a purely popular vote?

First, I'd have thought 10 most populous states deciding is more democratic than 10 random ones...

But anyway, plurality vote doesn't work that way. Let's suppose Guy A focuses on these 10 states and wins them... So what? There is no stupid 'winner takes all' clause of EC. He still needs the votes of 40 others to clinch the vote. He ignored them? Oops, he lost. In reality, with majority vote, candidates would need to pay attention to all states, not safely ignore every stronghold as if people there were non-voting slaves.

That's why popular vote is better - because your vote actually matters, because regional nutjobs and fringes have no chance of winning, and most importantly, because it's crushing blow to the two party system hold. Read, it's actually democratic.

The majority of the nation doesn't vote, I'll remind you.

Because of the EC, not the other way around.

Jogurt, you have to look at the fact that the East Coast Megalopolis, Chicago, and LA are basically a huge chunk of the population. There's no point to campaign in Maine or Montana or Alabama or even in a place like Rockford, IL because they are so unimportant compared to New York City or Boston. The Electoral College isn't a very good system to be sure but at least it makes people campaign in Ohio or Pennsylvania as opposed to simply campaigning in the few major cities that have some giant percentage of the US populace.

Big chunk? Not really. Seriously, watch the video - really unfair way to win (by ignoring big cities) lies with EC

No, you spend NO resources on small amounts of population. So, for example, the people of Los Angeles want to dump toxic sewage into your rivers....too bad, so sad, you should have lived in a place that matters.

A) wrong (which I say as someone actually living in place were President is picked by majority); B) Since when majority voting for president leads to dumping of sewage?

This is really grasping at straws, and actually false seeing EC leads to situation where these are ways for nutjobs to win with less than 22% of support to really harm you by repealing healthcare or gays rights, too bad, so sad, you should have lived in a place with actually sane elections

1) Sometimes the electoral college winner wins with 1% or so less of the popular vote than their rival.

Only because US political system leads to two-party clinch. Have plurality vote and more candidates emerge, people stop voting 'against X' except in second round, etc. And even if he wins by 1%, so what? Remember how clear majority that voted for Gore was shafted? Was that democratic? We got Bush and 2 major wars instead, thank you very much.

Go to national popular vote, and they will pay the most attention to places with a large population density, and ignore places where it takes more dollars per person to win hearts and minds. The result is that (for example) New York City and its metropolitan area gets a lot more attention than a swath of rural America with a similar-sized population, because you get more bang for your buck by visiting New York 30 times than you do by visiting 30 rural cities of 40000 people each and trying to appeal to all the people who live scattered around them.

Diminishing returns, and it's false, anyway, our last elections saw candidate take an election bus trip through more than 2 hundred meetings. That was in country with ~size and population of Texas, in USA it would be far more work than just visiting NYC. As it is, EC causes them to visit swing states only while pissing all over actually decided ones.

Oh- one side effect: suppressing voter turnout becomes more important. Suppose you're worried about the Orange Party suppressing voter turnout to favor itself over the Lemon Party by passing discriminatory laws.

Nope. In current EC system you can win presidency by suppressing, say, 10.000 voters in Ohio. Or, as in 2000, 1.500 votes in Floride. An microscopically tiny % of the population. Switch to majority and it becomes utterly meaningless gesture not worth bothering, in fact, trying to suppress 10.000 somewhere might just lead to 50.000 who wouldn't otherwise going voting making the system far more fraud-resistant.

[Aaron MkII]

Optimistic news?

The only good news here is that Mittens won't be able to push for rolling back womans rights.

Obama brings four more years of torture, prosecuting whistleblowers, drone strikes, and more surveillance. So more of the same. Just because he was the least worst option doesn't mean things are looking up.

[Broomstick]

Optimistic news?

The only good news here is that Mittens won't be able to push for rolling back womans rights.

You forgot about Mittens wanting to invade Iran. Avoiding another war is a good thing for the most part, don't you think?

I acknowledge there remain other problems

Obama brings four more years of torture, prosecuting whistleblowers, drone strikes, and more surveillance. So more of the same. Just because he was the least worst option doesn't mean things are looking up.

Do you honestly think Romney would have stopped any of that? His foreign adviser was the guy who invented rendition. Both the corporate world and the Republicans have a long history of shitting on whistleblowers. Drone strikes? There might be fewer, but as I said, Romney was leaning towards another out and out war so I'm not sure that would be an improvement. Surveillance? It's going to continue regardless of who is in office because it's so damn useful to the power structure.

Electing Romney would have continued all the stuff you objected to PLUS added more shit on top.

[Dalton]

Florida results haven't changed for hours now. I think they stopped counting for the night. Should pick up again soon.

[Aaron MkII]

Optimistic news?

The only good news here is that Mittens won't be able to push for rolling back womans rights.

You forgot about Mittens wanting to invade Iran. Avoiding another war is a good thing for the most part, don't you think?

I acknowledge there remain other problems

Obama brings four more years of torture, prosecuting whistleblowers, drone strikes, and more surveillance. So more of the same. Just because he was the least worst option doesn't mean things are looking up.

Do you honestly think Romney would have stopped any of that? His foreign adviser was the guy who invented rendition. Both the corporate world and the Republicans have a long history of shitting on whistleblowers. Drone strikes? There might be fewer, but as I said, Romney was leaning towards another out and out war so I'm not sure that would be an improvement. Surveillance? It's going to continue regardless of who is in office because it's so damn useful to the power structure.

Electing Romney would have continued all the stuff you objected to PLUS added more shit on top.

Yes mom, I realize all that. And I even acknowledged that Mittens would be worse. That doesn't change the fact that Obama is a shitty Pres and will continue to be so. So yes you picked the "better option" congratulations. My problem is that this problem exists at all.

Edit: the hilarious thing is that you assume I'm in favour of Romney because I oppose Obama.

[Broomstick]

Edit: the hilarious thing is that you assume I'm in favour of Romney because I oppose Obama.

My apologies if I gave that impression.

I certainly agree there are still problems with Obama. Frankly, I was never surprised - he came out of Chicago politics, which I've had a ringside seat on for nearly a quarter century. In many ways he runs the country like the former Mayor Daley ran Chicago.

I had hoped Obama would be a great president but he hasn't been. I still think there is some merit in avoiding the worst possible outcome. Optimism? No, I could give a long list of reasons to be pessimistic this morning, too.

[Aaron MkII]

I just think that choosing a President based on how many people he might not abuse or murder isn't really the way to go.

A friend called Obama the "least worst option" and I agree but after 30 years of that you get tired of it.

[Broomstick]

Tell me about it - I have been voting 30 years now.

Unfortunately, there were no viable options this time around. Bad shit was going to continue no matter who I voted for. >sigh< I did the best I could.

My dad bitches about that too - I think he's been voting for 60 or so years now (not sure if he started at 18 or 21 - in his day that varied from state to state)

[Channel72]

Fox News on why the Republicans lost: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/ ... from-here/

Basically, Romney sucked because he was too moderate. So yeah, MORE CONSERVATISM is still apparently what the Republicans are going to take away from this election.

[K. A. Pital]

Hahaha, had some beer this night. Obama's still the better choice even if he's an inadvertently evil technocrat. Romney can roast in Hell along with the millions of morons who voted for him.

[Broomstick]

Fox News on why the Republicans lost: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/ ... from-here/

Basically, Romney sucked because he was too moderate. So yeah, MORE CONSERVATISM is still apparently what the Republicans are going to take away from this election.

I guess they have to lose a few more elections before they get it - they are not the majority viewpoint.

[Channel72]

The GOP has some tough choices to make. Their anti-abortion/gay-marriage stance automatically guarantees them a sizeable chunk of the population, so they're not likely to give that up anytime soon. Still, it's looking like pandering to evangelicals just isn't enough to win elections any more.

Then again, Romney still got 50 million votes - a lot of those votes were evangelicals, of course, and many others might have been moderates who bought into the fear/hype machine about Obama being a Muslim or a communist or a Romulan spy or whatever. Anecdotally, most Romney supporters I know aren't among the evangelicals or racist idiots. They're doctors or lawyers who are pissed off that Obama groups them alongside Warren Buffet style zillionaires, and they feel that since they work a lot harder than most poorer/lower-middle class people, they deserve higher salaries and lower taxes.