Yes we can. 2/12/08

Jim LotFP said:
Maybe if people voted for other parties when they don't agree with the two dominant ones, there wouldn't be a two party system.
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There have been attempts for "alternate" parties, but these have always been seen as outsiders or quacks. If a decent candidate would run with one of these parties, then we would have something.

Wasn't it a few years ago (2000 election?) that Ralph Nader ran for the Green party? Too much like the Democrat party with a very strange candidate. No wonder he didn't win and the party dissapeared after that....
 
Diamond45 said:
I tend to ignore the 24-hour blabbermouth talking head biased news networks and most biased newspapers. They spew more bullshit then the people on this forum. :lol:
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I didn't say follow what the news says blindly now did I? Sure pretty much every source has its bias but if you know how to think for yourself that shouldn't be a problem.

Diamond45 said:
I'll probably vote against whoever wins on the Democrat side by sending my vote to (not for) the candidate that wins on the Republican side.
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It doesn't make you morally superior to be able to go home and tell yourself "I didn't vote for him, I just gave my vote to him". If you have a serious objection to both sides, don't vote. I know the quiz didn't give you that as an option, but you can still do it.
 
shaq said:
It doesn't make you morally superior to be able to go home and tell yourself "I didn't vote for him, I just gave my vote to him". If you have a serious objection to both sides, don't vote. I know the quiz didn't give you that as an option, but you can still do it.
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I vote so I can keep the worse of two evils from the White House. So I make my vote "count" for something, even though it isn't actually "for" a candidate.

I don't like Dubbya, but I downright hated Kerry. Had to make a decision. :rolleyes:
 
Jim LotFP said:
I've voted Libertarian in the past two elections.
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Who ran last time? Who's running this time around?

A friend of mine who's Libertarian changed his party affiliation to Republican so he can vote in primaries in his home state of Louisiana.

In Virginia, anyone can vote for either major party in the presidential primary. So I voted for the person that I felt would lose in the "big" election. But she didn't win :goggly:
 
Diamond45 said:
I vote so I can keep the worse of two evils from the White House. So I make my vote "count" for something, even though it isn't actually "for" a candidate.

I don't like Dubbya, but I downright hated Kerry. Had to make a decision. :rolleyes:
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What did I do???!!! Oh, you mean G-Dubya.

We're in the same boat on the Bush vs Kerry. It was the lesser of 2 evils.
I'm actually kind of appalled at the "...don't vote..." comments. Even a write in vote for Charles Manson is worth more than no vote at all.....
 
I did that test thing and I most matched Ron Paul. Very simply, I am for less government control, especially federal. More state control then federal if you have to choose one, because each state is different and that way you can choose a state where you want to live that is just a little bit customized to your beliefs, but the country as a whole has basics. Same sex rights, abortion(even though I am totally pro-life, except with certain circumstances), should be left for the state, even though if one state is for same sex marriages, then would other states recognize their marriage and so forth. I am not big on politics because to me it is all very catch 22 and nobody is ever going to be fully happy unless they can treat their own neighborhood as their own kingdom persay, but that will never happen, at least not legally, and then once again we have a civil war. It is neverending, always some kind of bullshit going on.
 
J-Dubya 777 said:
I'm actually kind of appalled at the "...don't vote..." comments. Even a write in vote for Charles Manson is worth more than no vote at all.....
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Thats a bunch of horse shit. Both send exactly the same message. "You are all awful and don't deserve my time." Writing in a vote for someone rediculious is just wasting time at the polls. You could be doing something far more constructive, like having sex.
 
Dark One said:
"Don't blame me.... I voted for Kodos." :loco:
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"Don't blame me, I would have voted for Killface or Xander Crews, but neither one ended up being eligible to run!" :lol:

Diamond45 said:
Wasn't it a few years ago (2000 election?) that Ralph Nader ran for the Green party? Too much like the Democrat party with a very strange candidate. No wonder he didn't win and the party dissapeared after that....
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The Green Party is still very much alive. I know that everyone's favorite embarassment to humanity and the Democratic Party, Cynthia McKinney, was running to be their presidential nominee.

Err, okay, you're right. They ARE dead. :lol:


Jim LotFP said:
Seen as outsiders or quacks? According to...?

I've voted Libertarian in the past two elections.
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I see the Libertarian Party as a bunch of quacks. It might be more polite to say that, even moreso than G-Dubya, they "stay the course" with their political platform....to such a degree that most mainstream voters can't quite stomach their party platform enough to vote for them.

It's a shame. They might actually amount to something if they'd ever moderate their unyielding stances on several issues. Oh, and hire some decent speakers to run for office. I remember seeing their VP nominee haranguing the crowd one year at Atlanta PotFest, and singlehandedly driving a crowd of 4-5,000 people away from the stage and back toward the vendor booths. She was that bad. And shrill. (And this was a crowd heavily in favor of legalizing pot.)

So...yeah. They're all a load of useless loonies.


Diamond45 said:
In Virginia, anyone can vote for either major party in the presidential primary. So I voted for the person that I felt would lose in the "big" election. But she didn't win :goggly:
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heh.... Here in Georgia it's the same thing; you never have to register for a party (except for specifying one party's ballot in the primary).
Several friends of mine and I almost crossed party lines to cast a defensive vote for one candidate, in order to spoil the state for his evil rival...but in the end, our efforts weren't needed. :)
 
Diamond45 said:
Who ran last time? Who's running this time around?
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Michael Badnarik ran last time. The Libertarian convention isn't until May, so not sure yet who their candidate is this year.

Pellaz said:
They might actually amount to something if they'd ever moderate their unyielding stances on several issues.
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Which issues? And wouldn't doing that defeat the entire purpose of the party in the first place?

Pellaz said:
Oh, and hire some decent speakers to run for office.
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This I can agree with.

I think the networks need to invite every single person to the debates if they are on the ballots in enough states to possibly win. This "we decide who's important" bullshit kills worse than anything else. If they're on enough ballots, then they are a serious candidate, and they should be heard.
 
nailz said:
Thats a bunch of horse shit. Both send exactly the same message. "You are all awful and don't deserve my time." Writing in a vote for someone rediculious is just wasting time at the polls. You could be doing something far more constructive, like having sex.
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No, it doesn't send the same message. What you'll end up seeing in the vote tally is that there was an x% turnout rate, with a win % of x number of votes. The greater the voter turnout and the lower the win % the better the people will do, because it tells the parties that their candidates aren't worth voting for. If there's a 100% turnout rate, and the winner only gets 39% of the vote, that says a hell of a lot more than a 20% turnout rate with a winner getting 89% of that.

Yeah, the parties may not care the first time around. But the more often it happens, the more they will take notice. Especially if that win percentage keeps getting smaller and smaller, and closer to the the bare minimum amount they need to take office.
 
freakchylde said:
No, it doesn't send the same message. What you'll end up seeing in the vote tally is that there was an x% turnout rate, with a win % of x number of votes. The greater the voter turnout and the lower the win % the better the people will do, because it tells the parties that their candidates aren't worth voting for. If there's a 100% turnout rate, and the winner only gets 39% of the vote, that says a hell of a lot more than a 20% turnout rate with a winner getting 89% of that.

Yeah, the parties may not care the first time around. But the more often it happens, the more they will take notice. Especially if that win percentage keeps getting smaller and smaller, and closer to the the bare minimum amount they need to take office.
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Hmm, interesting, I never thought of that.

Jim said:
God forbid American Idol gets preempted for such a trivial thing as electoral debates.
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My statement has nothing to do with popular TV programming, and everything to do with People's attention span. Did you watch the Republican Debate debacle? Over the course of around 2 hours, the only candidates that got real questions were the ones who actually had a shot at winning. Paul, Thompson, and to a lesser extent Huckabee got to stand around with their thumbs up their ass all night. If you put, say, 6 candidates on a REAL presidential debate for 2 hours, how much information do you believe is going to be garnished? And lets face it, people don't do their homework on the 2-3 candidates that run now, how can you want to up it to (for example) 6? It wouldn't accomplish anything other than LESS informed choices.

Point is, mainly, you can't please all of the people all of the time, so decide what issues matter to you most, find a candidate that supports as many of your principals as possible, and pick your poison. The simple fact is you will never agree fully with any candidate on all opinions. It's just not possible. You can't run on a one dimentional platform.
 
I usually vote for any candidate that shows me a conservative element, butttttttt this year following the primaries a lot closer than I normally do. I have to say I do like Obama, and since Fred Thompson dropped out, I will in most likelyhood vote for Obama. I think he believes in what he says, and will do what he says, not like Clinton who changes with the wind.
 
nailz said:
Over the course of around 2 hours, the only candidates that got real questions were the ones who actually had a shot at winning. Paul, Thompson, and to a lesser extent Huckabee got to stand around with their thumbs up their ass all night.
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I would argue that the reason these candidates had no chance of winning is precisely because they didn't receive the same attention in the debates, on the news, or anywhere else, than the other candidates did. Look at Rudy Giuliani, he had tons of money, was getting a story on him doing every hour (even though he wasn't campaigning anywhere aside from Florida), and still managed to poll last or second to last virtually everywhere before he dropped out. In that final CNN debate before Super Tuesday, the moderators turned it into a Romney/McCain fight with two spectators because they assumed Huckabee and Paul were finished, but lo and behold Huckabee went on to win a ton of states and Paul is still in the race, whereas Romney is not.

Every candidate deserves a chance for their message to be heard, because there is no way of predicting who's a viable candidate and who's not until people know who they are, and where they stand on the issues. Virtually all perceptions about the strength of a candidate are heavily manipulated by the media outlets who, sadly, have their own agendas.
 
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