Every single person in that picture looks like they’re grinning through clenched teeth. Like, their warm up act (local Iowan celebrity Shuckey “The Pig That Can Fart the National Anthem”) just left the stage after an unfortunate bout of “hard gas”, and they’ve been forced to smile politely.

And also, a poor person darker than a manilla envelope tried to speak to them on a first name basis.

It was more like a roller coaster ride of “candidates” since most of the people apparently running were and are just pretending to run for the publicity. 

How do we know that?  Well, surely an actual candidate would run in all 50 states in an actual attempt to get enough electoral votes to win but only two Republican candidates are running in the Virginia primary.  Virginia requires specific numbers and kinds of signatures in a formal application to run.  Only four of the candidates bothered to apply at all (Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Perry) and two of them couldn’t be bothered to meet the signature requirement. 

So only Romney and Paul are in the Republican primary in Virginia and only Romney and Paul are really running for the presidency.  The rest of them are just posturing for the cameras.

I have not at any point thought that Obama’s re-election was really in jeopardy, and I am even more confident now. That’s not grounds for complacency, though; for all his serious shortcomings, given the alternative I regard his re-election as a matter of hair-on-fire urgency. (And yes, I’m as tired as anybody of voting for the least worst, but that situation can only be remedied by years of hard ground-up work, the same kind that conservatives did in the Republican party; there’s no possibility of taking a shortcut by starting at the presidential level.)

Ron Paul is stupid, evil, and insane, and would cause massive damage to the country if elected. Even when he’s right about something it’s an accidental byproduct of a profoundly crazy, ignorant, and dangerous worldview.

Well we have arrived at the future as predicted by Futurama.

Ron Paul is stupid, evil, and insane, and would cause massive damage to the country if elected. Even when he’s right about something it’s an accidental byproduct of a profoundly crazy, ignorant, and dangerous worldview.

Indeed. We may both have gone to a rally to end the war, but Paul stopped off at a Klan meeting on the way there.

It’s true that with one target candidate Obama’s re-election people have an easier time.  But part of the beauty of continuing the clown car right up to the convention is the continuing fratricide they would engage in, doing much of your oppo research for you.  Many of the hardest hits against Obama in 2008 came from the Clinton people.

If it worked really well, the Rethugs would have beat each other up so badly the last man standing would already be severely weakened even before the real race started.  OTOH, I guess the demands and litmus tests of the teabagging loons and the evangelical loons and all the other Reichwing loons have so compromised all the wingnut candidates that between Mittens’ policy flips, stupid statements that come back to haunt, and the big one: being a Mormon cultist — Romney is already pretty well weakened.

Regarding the Mormon thing, something I wonder about is whether (like some whites did voting for Obama in 2008) some wingnuts will vote for Romney as a way to show they are not (religious) bigots — not that being perceived as religious bigots is anything but a source of pride for many of them…

My favorite part of all this has been how Gingrich chooses to go negative (in speeches and interviews) against Romney just as he realizes he’s falling in the polls. I didn’t really understand why until I read Melissa McEwan’s analysis this morning: Keep it up, Newt Gingrich! The path to Rick Santorum’s presidency lies directly behind the trail of earth you scorch!

Newt is a vindictive asshole deficient in long-term strategy.

MikeEss- In line with Sarah’s comment, I think Gingrich may stay around for a while to blast away at Romney out of both spite and a nose for additional grifting opportunities. So we could have something like the best of both worlds.

I was thinking Paul could be the spoiler - and I still think his ‘naughty boy’ temperament might compel him to continue a Quixotic run long after it was clear he could never win. With lesser rivals out of the way, he could finally start going after Romney, that would be a potentially good thing.

On NPR last night they were talking about how maybe the CW on ‘bruising’ primary fights may be wrong - the argument being that the Obama/Hillary show in 2008 created drama and made the nation focus on the Dem primary after McCain had sewn it all up.

But I’d love to see Santorum - who has a naturally bilious personality type - start to tear into Romney as a phoney and plutocrat (which is what Obama will end up doing anyway).

Santorum wouldn’t stand a chance in a general, because he is all about the bile - if you don’t share his resentments and his bitterness, you are his enemy. His politics of negation and punishment will not motivate or inspire anyone.

But yeah, insofar as Santo is not an avuncular and heterodox figure like Paul, he could actually more effectively tar Romney. He is a natural attack dog, and might not be a bad VP pick for that reason. But I don’t think Romney would want Santo’s energy around him. 

I don’t know why so many people on the left are so quick to anoint Romney the winner. What’s the rush? Whether he wins or not isn’t the issue. We have to do all in our power to drag this process out.

Didn’t Rush suggest the last time around that Repubs should vote in Dem primaries? I think we should Occupy the GOP Primary and, in any state that it can work in, vote for Santorum! Or Paul, for that matter. Whatever it takes to drag this all the way to the convention. We all know that the media doesn’t actually do anything but a) cover the horse race and b) dutifully write down, without checking any facts, anything the candidates say. As long as they’re trashing each other, they don’t get the free press to trash Obama.

All the way to the convention!

I think it’s more about recognizing reality than about being quick to anoint. But certainly, all possible shit-stirring is welcome.

Remember how people were talked about how the long and protracted fight with Clinton was going to hurt Obama? That didn’t happen.

Remember how people talked about how McCain was going to suffer from a low evangelical turnout? That didn’t happen either.

Instead we had a big turnout on both sides.

There is going to be a lot of whining, but come election day the wingnuts will be completely behind Romney. It’s not the President that’s going to get rid of abortion after all, it is the Supreme Court.

The cover of the NYT had people counting paper ballots in Iowa.  Clearly the whole process is unconstitutional because according to Bush V. Gore, paper ballots cannot be counted if it hurts a Republican and boy did this hurt the Mittster.

There is going to be a lot of whining, but come election day the wingnuts will be completely behind Romney. It’s not the President that’s going to get rid of abortion after all, it is the Supreme Court.
Comment #14: librarian on 01/04 at 12:23 PM

The biggest reason reported among Romney voters for voting for Romney was “he can beat Obama.”

So don’t think they won’t hold their noses while pulling the lever.

@Steve LaBonne, I have no idea how voting for a guy who plans to dismantle Medicare is urgent.

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Vir, you are mixing up “making an observation” with “causing something to be true”. I can hope and pray for an extended primary all I want, but that doesn’t make it true. I’m not going to refrain from calling it like I see it because someone out there thinks it *might* be damaging. Refusing to deal with reality is never a good idea. People make better decisions with accurate information.

Anyway, like I said, I think the this protracted fight makes Romney look reasonable, and so the sooner the competition is out, the better. We need people to start comparing him to Obama sooner rather than later.

I love all the whining from the wingnuts on the thread. It’s only January 4th, and they’ve given up. Awesome.

That his base doesn’t like him is one thing, but do you think they won’t go and vote for the lesser evil, if only to get rid of the muslim communist terrorist socialist nazi negro?

@Steve LaBonne, I have no idea how voting for a guy who plans to dismantle Medicare is urgent.

I have no idea how you could not tell the difference between whatever Obama intends to do with Medicare (which you don’t know for certain any more than I do- and I’m old enough for it to be BIG BIG issue for me), and what a Republican President and Congress would do (see under: Paul Ryan).

@ Baruk @21: Sure they will.  Most of them.  But some just won’t be able to overcome their religious bigotry and vote for a “non-Christian”.  Some few, still feeling their Tea Party oats, will stay home in a snit at having yet another establishment candidate “shoved down their throats”.

The dream, of course, is a Ron Paul third-party run.  No chance of winning, but he’d bleed away what little youthful energy and enthusiasm the GOP can still scrape together.

History suggests sitting presidents do better against prolonged fights but it really comes down to candidate versus candidate.  I’m more intrigued to watch this play out till atleast super tuesday because Romney didn’t really “Win” Iowa so much as come in a first place tie.  New Hampshire he’ll win in a landslide but if Santorum can regroup in SC then you’ll have an interesting fight with tea party people running to Santorum and mittens just winning enough to stay ahead but not enough to clinch victory.

Obama has to win and win back congress to make this a poignant victory.  Taking hold of both houses even if not filibuster proof is sufficient to quiet down the degraded republican hype machine.

Anyway, like I said, I think the this protracted fight makes Romney look reasonable, and so the sooner the competition is out, the better. We need people to start comparing him to Obama sooner rather than later.
Comment #19: Amanda Marcotte on 01/04 at 02:22 PM

Tryin’ out the slick new quote feature…

Santo actually looks the most reasonable - except for maybe Huntsman - compared to Mitt. He is far more ‘establishment’ than heterdox Paul. For that reason, an extended fight between Santo and Romney might be the best case scenario for a ‘bruising’ primary - from the Dem perspective.

1. He represents the ‘true’ Christianity rather than the weirdo Mormon.
2. He clearly has all the evangelical street cred in the world.
3. He is a traditional GOP hawk on Israel and more foreign policy/experience cred as fmr Senator.
4. He is from the lower class, and, as David Brooks has noted, more of an economic populist. This COULD result in him going after MittRom as a plutocrat - that’s the same attack Obama will make, so he could get MittRom ‘started’ for BO to finish off.

I read at TPM that Ralph Reed was hanging around the Santo camp yesterday. Maybe the evangels will turn on their money and organizing on for Santo. It’s a real possibility for evangels obsessed with Christian purity.

The unfortunate thing is that Republicans always manage to rally the base, no matter who they pick. Romney could do what McCain did in ‘08, and pick a wingnut as his running mate to get the evangelical voters excited about him, but ultimately, it’s not going to matter. Not enough Republicans will stay home to send Obama to a clear victory unless the Democrats get good at what they did in ‘08 in terms of getting their people out. That’s what caused Obama to win - because, statistically, there are way more Democratic supporters out there than Republican supporters. It’s just that the pro-Democratic blocs tend to be the least likely to vote, whereas the pro-Republican blocs vote in numbers disproportionate to their actual size.

Republicans, because all wings of their bloc (the “business” wing, the “hawk” wing, the “religious” wing, etc.) are motivated by fear, selfishness and spitefulness, are always able to cut their losses and vote for their party’s pick even if he wouldn’t have been their top choice. Democrats don’t do that; so many people on the left always want to “vote their conscience” and be “noble” and that’s why it has so much stupid infighting.

And that’s why I can’t get excited about a Ron Paul third-party ticket. Yeah, he’ll leak a lot of people from the Republicans, just like Ross Perot did in the ‘90s. But there will also be some dim-bulb “liberals” who will vote for him just to spite Obama over his foreign policy and the Patriot Act, completely ignoring the fact that Ron Paul agrees with them on almost nothing else and all that other stuff is, as Amanda pointed out in one of her previous posts about Ron Paul, the core of what it means to be a progressive. And there will be few privileged white-male faux-liberals who really don’t give a damn about women’s rights, gay rights or anti-racism so long as they get legalized weed.

I would like to see some serious analysis (Nate Silver?) of how many votes Paul might draw from each side. My top-of-the-head assumption is that it would be a lot like the Perot effect (in which case bring it on!) but I could certainly be wrong.

“1. He represents the ‘true’ Christianity rather than the weirdo Mormon.”

...he’s worked at that very hard for years, but unfortunately for him, the people who hate Mormons most probably also hate Catholics almost as much, in my experience, YMMV…

“I read at TPM that Ralph Reed was hanging around the Santo camp yesterday. Maybe the evangelicals will turn on their money and organizing on for Santo. It’s a real possibility for evangels obsessed with Christian purity.”

You may very well be correct here, but it’s still amusing/sickening to me that Ralph Reed (a figure as sleazy as the fictional Elmer Gantry crossed with the all too real Jack Abramoff) could ever be connected to the concept of “Christian purity”. 

The very fact that a disgusting human being like Reed could achieve anything more than being a creepy deacon the kids are afraid of, or more likely a church secretary embezzling from the offering plate — in some no-name evangelical church in a bumfuck town in a shithole Southern state — is a condemnation of the entire group of Reichwing fundnuts.  If he’s your guy, Evangelical America, you deserve everything he does to you and your money…

@Steve LaBonne: Since Barack “300 Million Tits” Obama has made clear that what he and Ryan want are more or less the same thing, except that Obama fears losing reelection if he does it, 2013 is gonna be AWESOME.

Obama is a bagman for the 1%.  Remember, by this point in the S&L crisis, HW had found 1,000 bankers to prosecute.  Obama’s found 10, all from the same firm.  He constantly conflates Social Security and Medicare in order to create an artificial crisis in Social Security.  He had a chance to try to extend Medicare to everyone, but instead put it on the table with Boehner in negotiations.

Obama is Obama.  He makes nice speeches, but he’s got Bob Dole’s policy priorities.

He makes nice speeches, but he’s got Bob Dole’s policy priorities.

Which still beat the hell out of Paul Ryan’s. And that matters. A lot, actually.

I think there’s going to be one last great third act surprise to the republican race - some white knight coming in to try to take the nomination.

I think there’s going to be one last great third act surprise to the republican race - some white knight coming in to try to take the nomination.

Unlikely. Not only too late to build an organization- too late to even get on the ballot in some important states.

Punditus, the last time America was told “Both parties are the same, vote for Nader” we all know how that turned out.

No matter how disappointing Obama’s policies have been (and they have been too often disappointing, if not downright evil), there is no doubt in my mind that we still came out better than if The Angry Old Man from Arizona and the Grifting Ice Princess From the North had won in 2008 instead.

Obama v. Romney?  Obama is a moderate Republican by any historical measure.  Romney?  He might have been considered a current-style moderate Republican (which would have bordered on hard-core Goldwater-ism back in the day) a few iterations back, but god knows what he would do when he got into office now.  He’s taken so many positions on so many things I doubt he even knows what he would do (to us).

We all know the 1% own us, lock, stock, and barrel, and neither man will do much (if anything, other than actively help them suck in the few remaining loose bucks they don’t already have) about it.  But if Romney allows hard-right wingnuts to have a say on social and foreign policy, cabinet and department picks — even something as otherwise routine like the choosing the head of FEMA — in a hypothetical Romney administration, we are all screwed…even more than we are already…

It seems that Bachmann has pulled out, or is that already old news?  Was she ever in it seriously or just as a publicity thing?

I must confess, I find the US system endlessly fascinating (and weird), so I’d love to know - do failed primary candidates get anything out of having been in the race, albeit briefly?

Baruk @21 - sure, but enough of them might stay home to make a difference. The GOP post-Reagan has not done well when they don’t have a candidate who excites the base. The first President Bush was able to ride out the residual goodwill of the Reagan presidency, but in 1992, he couldn’t pull out re-election despite the base’s desire to keep the draft-dodging, pot-smoking, adulterer with the uppity wife out of the White House. (Yes, the economy too - nothing is single-factor.) Dole ‘96 and McCain ‘08 also weren’t the base’s favorites, despite attempts to woo them with veep picks appealing to them. Bush II, on the other hand, was much beloved by the base as one of them.

The radicalization of the GOP base is going to limit the nominee’s ability to reach out to voters who don’t share the base’s prejudices. Which is one of the reasons there’s such a push now to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters. Disenfranchisement, resentment, and a weak economy are the three keys to GOP victory.

What is especially funny is Newt going all negative while at the same time complaining about a Romney PAC going negative.  What a baby.

Katherine - I believe they get to keep their campaign treasure chests, but I’m not sure.  Anyone more informed (or with time to google) know?

“Katherine - I believe they get to keep their campaign treasure chests, but I’m not sure.  Anyone more informed (or with time to google) know?”

...don’t know for sure either what happens to campaign funds, but it certainly seems like we have a class of parasitic politicians who manage to always have money to live on, as well as occasionally campaign for elected office but have no job or other normal source of funds. 

Christine O’Donnell is a great example of a politician, not in elected office, having no visible means of support, but who manages to avoid having to get a real job.

It seems to me a variation on the old recursive idea of somebody “being famous because they’re famous”...

the people who hate Mormons most probably also hate Catholics almost as much, in my experience, YMMV…
Comment #28: MikeEss on 01/04 at 03:42 PM

I think in most of the US, more people have Catholic co-workers or neighbors than have Mormon ones.

It seems that Bachmann has pulled out, or is that already old news?  Was she ever in it seriously or just as a publicity thing?
Comment #34: Katherine on 01/04 at 04:16 PM

You’d have to ask her husband.

Two party system:
Goldman Sachs Banker Party of Zero and Mittsy.
and
Ron Paul.
Them’s your choices, like it or not.
He really should run third party to give us a choice.

Obama will win whether or Paul goes 3rd party or not, but if it’s just Obama and Mittens, it will be closer than 2008 (Obama will probably lose a few of his 2008 states). A Ron Paul 3rd party run would mean one thing - Obama wins in a landslide.

I like that they weren’t able to get much more than the same number of Republicans to show up in 2012 than in 2008…

I’ve had loads of FB arguments with holier-than-thou liberal friends who are currently refusing to hold their nose and vote for Obama. I’ve already agreed with three of them that I’ll vote for the Vegan Pony Party here in GA where it won’t matter while they hold their noses in FL and NC where it will.

Obama’s known he was going to draw Romney since before he was elected. It’s going to be the Cool Guy Who at Least Pretends to Give a Shit versus The Droid Who Laid Off Your Brother. Easy pickings but for voter suppression laws. And please, please, please let Ron Paul go third party.

You’re all absolutely correct. Obama will win. A landslide in Electoral votes, and the popular vote by a mandate generating 51% to 49% for some other person.

Now what?

Leftover campaign funds: according to this, they can be donated to other candidates or groups, but cannot be used for personal use.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/leftover-campaign-funds/

When we’re talking about Santorum as “reasonable”, let’s remember that he thinks the rot started with Griswold.

Ron Paul won’t run on a third party ticket for one very important reason: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky (my fair commonwealth)...Rand’s entire office is run by Ron’s Paultards (this is a bit of a scandal in KY—Rand does not have ONE Kentucky staffer in his congressional office, they are all Texans…its pretty weird honestly). Their political careers are very tied and I don’t think he’ll make that strategic move considering it.

I was thinking Paul could be the spoiler - and I still think his ‘naughty boy’ temperament might compel him to continue a Quixotic run long after it was clear he could never win. With lesser rivals out of the way, he could finally start going after Romney, that would be a potentially good thing.

Paul is the candidate with the least chance of beating Romney in a heads-up match-up for the Republican nomination.  The longer he stays in the race the better for Romney, as it results in a split of the notRomney vote and Paul can’t possibly beat Romney in a two man race.  If Paul didn’t exist the Romney campaign would have to invent him as a plant.

“When we’re talking about Santorum as “reasonable”, let’s remember that he thinks the rot started with Griswold.”

I would have pegged him as going back to at least Loving v. Virginia, if not all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition.

This whole “Constitution” and “Bill of Rights” thing probably really bugs a guy who I’d wager thinks the RCC let Galileo off way too easy.

I wonder if he’s ever read The Handmaid’s Tale, or even 1984?  I bet a guy like him could pick a lot of valuable tips on how to properly control a populace while inserting himself (sorry, very bad mental imagery) into the most personal and private aspect of American’s lives…

Don’t let the Santorum get all over us.  We’d never be able to clean it all off…

I must confess, I find the US system endlessly fascinating (and weird), so I’d love to know - do failed primary candidates get anything out of having been in the race, albeit briefly?
Comment #34: Katherine on 01/04 at 04:16 PM

If a candidate doesn’t hold federal office s/he can draw a salary up to the salary of the office they are seeking from the campaign funds.  I don’t know if he did it but Herman Cain may have been doing that.  I believe Al Sharpton did when he ran for office.

Also there is a ton of visibility in running for office and it can help with book sales or maybe a contract on TV.  A few months ago Gingrich was primarily going to book signings while he was running for office.  It can be quite lucrative for the ‘non serious’ candidates.

Sweet merciful crap.  Please forgive my awful grammar above.

  Thealogian, correct. Its actually touching in away that Ron won’t do anything that would hurt his son’s political career.

I absolutely agree that Obama will be a massively superior President to any Republican.

But I don’t see any “urgency” to reelecting a bagman for the 1%. 

@Punditus: Three words should drive home the urgency - Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Thanks for the replies everyone.  I am - surprise surprise - uniformly shocked by what little I know of US political financing.

Re electing Obama, wanting truly left politics to be viable etc etc - would it not be possible for a mass vote-swap scheme to be arranged?  Eg in states where the Democrats are a lock, you say to someone left, who doesn’t want the Republicans to win, but also would much rather vote for a third party, that you’ll vote for the third party in your Blue state, if they’ll vote Democrat in theirs.

Sure, it relies on trust a lot, but if it’s a win-win, then why not?

There are a lot of well-hashed out debates about wanting to vote for a third party, but the two party system locks people into holding their noses and voting Democrat.  Whilst it doesn’t look like a proportional system is a realistic option, a vote-swap scheme might allow a third party to grow in the meantime.

Thanks, Proboscidea @ 44.  I would have looked myself, but was very short on time yesterday.
According to that link, they could keep it back when I took my civics classes in HS and history classes in college, but stopped being able to do so in 1989.  That must be when there was that big uptick in paying spouses and adult children to be campaign workers (for themselves or for whomever they would then donate the remainder of their funds) and poiticians and their immediate family starting charities in which they would then hold paying positions since the money could be donated to political groups or charities without restriction.

Katherine, actually the usual way we do that is the deal described by felagund @ 42. 
In states where there is zero chance of the Democrats winning (e.g. GA), so no possible shift to blue, the people vote for the Greens, or whatever other liberal/progressive/anything but conservative national or state party, while the people in the states with a Democratic advantage hold that (and their noses), pulling the lever for the Democrat and not risk losing a state to the GOP.  This is much more important in the swingish states than the traditionally heavily Democratic ones, but low turnout caused by low enthusiasm for a lackluster or outright unlikeable candidate can cause unexpected flips [e.g. Sen Scott Brown(R) - MA replacing Ted Kennedy].

Yes, but if you do a proper official swap, you get even more people voting for Greens (or whatever) in safe states, and the same number voting for Democrats in non-safe states (and avoiding people in non-safe states saying “fuck it” and voting third party anyway and getting a 2000 Florida type situation).  That way, a third party actually has a chance of building a base, since the people who would support it but can’t (because of the aforementioned non-safe state thing) get their votes “counted” elsewhere.

@BABH: I agree that Obama’s strongest argument is that he’ll be selecting SCOTUS judges.  But which Obama will be selecting them?  Centrist Obama, who will reflect the American consensus that judges should be competent and drawn from every walk of life?  Or progressive-hating Obama, who likes to throw women under the bus at every opportunity?

@Punditus Maximus - so there’s no difference between who Obama would pick, even at his most conservative, and who Santorum would pick, even on his most liberal day?  Come on, already.
I did a swap in 2000.  A friend in Missouri was going to vote for Nader because Gore was insufficiently pure for him (there’s no difference between Gore and Bush - remember that?).  We agreed that if he would vote for Gore in Missouri, where Gore had a chance to win, I would vote for Nader in Kansas, where he didn’t.  Not that it helped in the end, giving us Roberts as Supreme Court Justice.  But Gore would have totally picked someone just as bad, right?

Centrist Obama, who will reflect the American consensus that judges should be competent and drawn from every walk of life?  Or progressive-hating Obama, who likes to throw women under the bus at every opportunity?

I’m guessing it will be the same Obama who put Sotomayor and Kagan on the Court, but hey, maybe he’ll lose his fucking mind and nominate Rick Santorum out of a sense of comity and fairness.

You don’t get to invent strikes against the President on an issue like judicial appointments, where he has a clear and solid record.

I don’t think that saying that Obama has a habit of mindlessly destroying good policy to pointlessly attempt to placate conservatives is “inventing” anything.

It’s a risk.

I didn’t say that Obama was indistinguishable from his Republican counterparts.  Well, except for his hiring decisions, when he kept on Bush’s highest economic officer.  That part was exactly the same. 

Anyways, I am saying that Obama is below the Mendoza line for doing his damn job, so I don’t feel any urgency to reelect.  I’ll vote for him, but it’s silly for us to waste time and energy on his behalf when he’s got the finance industry to bankroll his efforts.

@Punditus: If you want to sit this one out, then sit it out.  But if you continue to actively demoralize other potential Dem supporters, please understand that you are not sitting it out, you are actively helping the Republican candidate.  It is possible to criticize the President without undermining him, but that’s not what you’re doing.

We have a two-party system in this country.

1) You can vote for Barack Obama.

2) You can vote for someone other than Obama, in which case you are voting for Mitt Romney.

Oh, or you could choose not to vote at all.  Then you will be voting for Mitt Romney.

A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush and a vote for Bush is a vote for Gore.

That’s still the talking point right?

Years of being a semi-activist have shown me the vanity of telling folks how to vote. Therefore, please vote for whoever you want to vote for for whatever reasons you want to vote for ‘em. Or don’t vote, again for whatever reasons seem appealing. Just don’t attack me for being an Obama volunteer or I’ll have to laugh at you.

Dr Psycho @ 63 & 64:
We have a 2-party system and an electorial college. 
This means, partially contrary to your statement:
1 - If you are in a state that has anything down to a snowball in hell chance of electing Obama (e.g. CA, CT, DE, GA,  NY, OR, PA, MT) and you vote for anyone else, you are voting for the GOP candidate.  Some would argue that in a massively safe state (e.g. CT, DE, MA, NY), this is not true; but again, MA and Sen. Scott Brown.
2 - If you are voting a in a state that has no chance of electing Obama (AL, AR, ND, SD, UT, WY), a vote for anyone else is not a vote for the GOP candidate unless it is for the GOP candidate.

Which is why we switched to a MMP system.  My vote for my preferred party in Parliament means precisely as much as anyone else’s anywhere in the country, even when my electorate candidate is a done deal.

Alex, are you a new reader?  Because the “Plan B” pander is a perfect example of that.

Anyways, I think the current talking point is that the Drug War and Class Warfare are fine when a D does them, but they’re bad when an R does them.  Or something.

“It is possible to criticize the President without undermining him, but that’s not what you’re doing.”  So only if you pledge to vote for him, do you get the criticize him?  Anything else is ‘undermining’ and off the table? 

Also, not everyone who is strongly considering staying home or voting third party is doing it because they believe Democrats and Republicans are just the same.  It’s that the choice between evil and eviler is not one some are willing to make.  It’s going to be a long fight getting this nation to not be an oligarchy anymore.  i don’t see how supporting the dems on anything other than the local level furthers that goal.  I’d rather focus my energies elsewhere, TYVM.

“Which is why we switched to a MMP system.”

I would be completely shocked if any major changes to the American election system were made in the next 50-years.  Most Americans bitch and moan about our shitty process, but when it comes right down to it, they think our government (and our electoral system) were handed to us by God. 

We haven’t even fully absorbed electronic voting, and calls to go entirely back to paper votes are a regular feature in any election over the last 12-15 years.  We haven’t even switched to the metric system (except that for all intents and purposes we really have because of the needs of modern industry — we just have all our highway speed and mileage signs in miles…) because we think God measured everything in feet, pounds, gallons, and Fahrenheit…

“My vozte for my preferred party in Parliament means precisely as much as anyone else’s anywhere in the country, even when my electorate candidate is a done deal.”

Hey, my vote have just as much meaning as anyone else’s here (as long as you ignore the influence of the “1%”), which just about nothing.  As a fact, Barack Obama is the first presidential candidate I’ve ever voted for who actually became POTUS.

I honestly think bitching here on Pandagon has more meaning and influence than any actual vote I’ve ever cast, and we all know how much influence any of us (except for Amanda who’s getting closer every day to being a media star ) have on the world around us…

@Comment #74: MikeEss on 01/05 at 06:21 PM

I honestly think bitching here on Pandagon has more meaning and influence than any actual vote I’ve ever cast, and we all know how much influence any of us (except for Amanda who’s getting closer every day to being a media star smile ) have on the world around us…

You could very well be right.

Wonder Twin Powers… OPINIONATE!!!

I don’t trust electronic voting at all. Paper ballots, observers, counting done in public on the night of the election.

Since I’m getting a pony, I want proportional representation, the elimination of the Senate and the electoral college, the sort of voting where we get to rank our choices, and a complete ban on all non-public election-related spending. Also, no reëection of presidents.

But I wouldn’t be shocked at all if major changes to the system were made within the next 10-15 years. Everyone who knows anything about it knows the system utterly sucks, and only about one-fourth of those think the suckiness benefits them. The various Occupy movements were inchoate and too full of drummers, but they did perform one signal service: it’s okay now to say that this is not the best of all possible worlds.

Er, reëLection of presidents. You get one chance at a legacy, you’ll actually try to do something instead of playing it safe.

I admit I’m shocked that Frothy Mix is doing as well as he is.  Is this because they’re continuing to skew old on the right, so we’re getting to the point where only bitter cranks are voting R?

Wow, you guys need preferential voting like we have here in Australia. That would mean that if your preferred third-party candidate didn’t win, you could preference the least evil option as #2, and have that vote counted as the first preference is ‘exhausted’.

You can tell that works, because of Australia’s progressive politics and eschewing of expansionary austerity.

It’s that the choice between evil and eviler is not one some are willing to make.

Except that, because of the nature of our system, not voting, or voting for a third-party candidate, is making a choice between evil and eviler.  Example: Bush/Gore/Nader.  That’s how third-party candidates work in a two-party system.  If you don’t vote or vote for a third-party candidate in a state in which Obama might win, you are helping the GOP candidate.  You may decide that that is the true lesser of the evils, in which case, go for it.  Others may decide that voting for Obama is the lesser of two evils, in which case, they should do that.  When not choosing is not possible, choosing the lesser of evils is the moral choice.

Except that, because of the nature of our system, not voting, or voting for a third-party candidate, is making a choice between evil and eviler.  Example: Bush/Gore/Nader.  That’s how third-party candidates work in a two-party system.  If you don’t vote or vote for a third-party candidate in a state in which Obama might win, you are helping the GOP candidate.  You may decide that that is the true lesser of the evils, in which case, go for it.  Others may decide that voting for Obama is the lesser of two evils, in which case, they should do that.  When not choosing is not possible, choosing the lesser of evils is the moral choice.

Except, of course, that the situation is iterative.  Considered as one choice, if you had to choose between one person dying or a dozen, you’d go for the former option.  But if you have to repeat that choice for a score of times because you keep choosing that first option…

I’ll suggest a strong way to push the Democrats left-ward again - brinksmanship.  Choose five issues appealing over a broad spectrum of voters (such as, say, reproductive rights). Recruit a large base of registered voters.  Or reverse those steps and get the issues from those voters. And then publicly pin down the Democrat candidate for your congressional seat and tell him or her that if they don’t push for position X on each of those 5 issues, 20% of your organisation are pledged to vote for their opponent - no matter who it is.  Even the very worst Republican.

It depends on amassing an energised base of registered and organised voters in a key seat, then leveraging their power, and maintaining enough cohesion to retain credibility.  That last step is what torpedoes the idea in an apathetic late-stage republic.

I’m disappointed at Marcotte’s overall argument: the Iowa caucuses produced a GOP winner that will help Obama get re-elected. I’m not in the voting habit of just signing off on the candidate someone else picks for me. There isn’t a single candidate I could vote for without reservations. The least evil is still evil. The issue isn’t electability. It’s that the current electoral system forces voters to choose between two compromise candidates who proceed to sway voters based on ephemeral qualities that only television and other media can showcase. Why can’t we just have a full slate, including candidates like socialists, Buddy Roemer, or Gary Johnson, right up to the November general election? I don’t elect candidates based on what they give me or their hair style, but on issues. And, based on foreign policy and civil liberties issues, I would have to disqualify the entire field.

Pundits shouldn’t try to make elections easier, but how the candidates tackle the issues in an easier format. These creeps don’t have to be dog catchers, let alone president. Why is Marcotte anointing candidates, and handing out free passes?

How is the ‘plan B’ throwing women under the bus with such force that Republican President would?

In other words, you’re being a stupid ass with running mouth disease.

As pointed out before, a single point does not make up for Supreme Court nominees.

Why can’t we just have a full slate, including candidates like socialists, Buddy Roemer, or Gary Johnson, right up to the November general election?

Because the system was structured in the first place to prevent such things from happening. Go back and read the Federalist Papers: they’re most enlightening. The American system was intended to retain power within the hands of the aristocracy. It works very, very well. We can’t change it yet because changing it requires a large supermajority. Not enough people have figured out how broken the system is, because tremendous amounts of time and money are spent on propaganda designed to a) make everyone believe that America really is a place of freedom and democracy, and b) make the most selfish 30% of the population believe that demanding change is some kind of evil liberal plot.

Hold your nose and vote for Obama. Organize local supermajorities. Educate your friends and neighbors.

People don’t vote Republican because they are stupid.  People vote Republican because they’ve chosen misery and want us to be miserable too, to justify their decisions.