The General Election

[Danny Bateman]

So, I'll make a couple of overarching points to both you and JJ, since it seems you're in the same boat.

 

1. I'd never put down anybody's vote. I personally don't consider either of your votes "wasted" even though Johnson won't win. If he best represents what you guys want out of your candidate, the policies you want to see, or even just the highest character of the candidates in your mind, it's a good vote. They all count the same. I don't like it when people pressure people with the "If you vote for X, it's as good as a vote for Y" type tactics. Now, obviously, I'm voting Clinton. But I think it's a fundamental American principle that we all get to choose WHO we vote for, and WHY we do so. I think folks in swing states have a tougher time, since they know their votes could determine the election, but there's a legit discussion to be had about strategic voting for someone you may not love vs. voting for who you most agree with, even if they won't win.
2. The two party system here is really set up to sustain itself and try to crowd out other infringing entities. It reasonable to see why-- if your vision for the future is best, why forfeit power to any other side? I think our democracy is at its best when a competition of clashing ideas leads to the best rising to the top. Whether the two party system is currently suffocating that process and the good of the people itself is another discussion. I think there's hints of that with the amount of gridlock we see now. I wish both sides could work together better for the good of the people. Unfortunately, I don't know if a multi-party system is a remedy. But something's gotta change.

[Red Five]

Trump only +6 in Texas.

 

PPP's new Texas poll finds a relatively tight race, at least on the curve of recent Presidential election results in the state. Donald Trump leads with 44% to 38% for Hillary Clinton, 6% for Gary Johnson, 2% for Jill Stein, and less than half a percent (0) for Evan McMullin. In a head to head contest Trump leads Clinton 50-44 in the state, which Mitt Romney won by 16 points in 2012.

 

A Democratic victory in Texas this year remains a stretch but within the numbers there are signs of Democrats being positioned to become seriously competitive there in the years ahead. Trump's lead is based entirely on his holding a 63-33 advantage among seniors. With voters under 65, Clinton leads him 49-45. And when you look just specifically at voters under 45, Clinton leads Trump 60-35. Older voters are overwhelmingly responsible for the Republican advantage in Texas, and generational change is likely to help Democrats become more competitive.

 

 

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/08/trump-leads-by-only-6-in-texas.html

[Red Five]

To me, these are scary results of the Texas poll. Are people really this dumb naive?

 

We continue to find that Trump voters overwhelmingly buy into his preemptive claims about the election being rigged. Just 19% of Trump voters grant that if Clinton wins the election it will be because she got more votes, while 71% say that it will just be because the election was rigged. More specifically 40% of Trump voters think that ACORN, which hasn't existed in years, will steal the election for Clinton to only 20% who don't think it will, and only 20% who are unsure. Some things Trump says are a step too far even for his support base though. We find that 'just' 35% of Trump supporters think Barack Obama founded ISIS, to 48% who don't think he's responsible for that.​

 

[JJ Husker]

So, I'll make a couple of overarching points to both you and JJ, since it seems you're in the same boat.

 

 

• I'd never put down anybody's vote. I personally don't consider either of your votes "wasted" even though Johnson won't win. If he best represents what you guys want out of your candidate, the policies you want to see, or even just the highest character of the candidates in your mind, it's a good vote. They all count the same. I don't like it when people pressure people with the "If you vote for X, it's as good as a vote for Y" type tactics. Now, obviously, I'm voting Clinton. But I think it's a fundamental American principle that we all get to choose WHO we vote for, and WHY we do so. I think folks in swing states have a tougher time, since they know their votes could determine the election, but there's a legit discussion to be had about strategic voting for someone you may not love vs. voting for who you most agree with, even if they won't win.
• The two party system here is really set up to sustain itself and try to crowd out other infringing entities. It reasonable to see why-- if your vision for the future is best, why forfeit power to any other side? I think our democracy is at its best when a competition of clashing ideas leads to the best rising to the top. Whether the two party system is currently suffocating that process and the good of the people itself is another discussion. I think there's hints of that with the amount of gridlock we see now. I wish both sides could work together better for the good of the people. Unfortunately, I don't know if a multi-party system is a remedy. But something's gotta change.

I agree with that take.

 

Unfortunately I do live in a state where my vote could matter. My guess is Colorado will go blue this time but it certainly isn't set in stone like Nebraska going red. I'm not sure what is worse, knowing that I actually could help cause Trump or Clinton to win or lose in CO but still planning to vote for Johnson or if I was truly helpless, hating Trump, living in Nebraska and knowing I had no influence at all. It's just sad that so many Americans find themselves in one of these predicaments. Yeah, I would say the two party system is not working well right now.

 

BTW, out of curiosity, what state do live in dudeguyy?

[BigRedBuster]

 

So, I'll make a couple of overarching points to both you and JJ, since it seems you're in the same boat.

 

1. I'd never put down anybody's vote. I personally don't consider either of your votes "wasted" even though Johnson won't win. If he best represents what you guys want out of your candidate, the policies you want to see, or even just the highest character of the candidates in your mind, it's a good vote. They all count the same. I don't like it when people pressure people with the "If you vote for X, it's as good as a vote for Y" type tactics. Now, obviously, I'm voting Clinton. But I think it's a fundamental American principle that we all get to choose WHO we vote for, and WHY we do so. I think folks in swing states have a tougher time, since they know their votes could determine the election, but there's a legit discussion to be had about strategic voting for someone you may not love vs. voting for who you most agree with, even if they won't win.

Thank you for not putting down a vote. I wish more people would take that attitude.

 

 

 

 

1. The two party system here is really set up to sustain itself and try to crowd out other infringing entities. It reasonable to see why-- if your vision for the future is best, why forfeit power to any other side? I think our democracy is at its best when a competition of clashing ideas leads to the best rising to the top. Whether the two party system is currently suffocating that process and the good of the people itself is another discussion. I think there's hints of that with the amount of gridlock we see now. I wish both sides could work together better for the good of the people. Unfortunately, I don't know if a multi-party system is a remedy. But something's gotta change.

 

The problem is that it's set up to sustain itself. It is virtually impossible to have a different attitude and thought process come into play because of....

 

a) These two parties have all the money. All the big backers just keep feeding the machine and it keeps ticking along.

 

b) The only people who can change that is the people who have the power. So, no motivation to make it easier for a third party.

 

c) WAY too many people in the population give absolutely ZERO thought to possibly voting for someone other than their party. It's not even deciding between the two. It's flat out a fact that many people will only vote Democrat and others will only vote Republican. There are one hell of a lot of people who go through life never voting for someone outside their party.

 

My feelings are that when the public does that, they flat out give up any power they remotely have to affect the system. They THINK they have power because..."gosh darn it....I'm supporting Hillary/Trump against that other evil person/party."

 

But, in reality, they have no power and the party is laughing all the way to the bank.

[BigRedBuster]

I will say this about the two party system.

 

Even though I have always leaned towards conservative and until a few years ago, was always a Republican, I have always respected the other side as a needed element for the US to function.

 

Meaning, even though I was a conservative, no way in hell would I want to live in a world where everything was extremely conservative. We need the other side to moderate our own extremes.

 

And, as a general rule, some gridlock in Washington is actually a good thing. It should be very difficult for a party or ideology to come to power and make huge changes. One major reason why our economy has been so good for most of our existence is that our country policies and laws are fairly stable. Business wants to be able to count on that they know the rules of the game. Major change should be slow and the side that wants that change should be challenged every step of the way.

[BigRedBuster]

Fact Checking Trump Speech.

[Danny Bateman]

"The Best People"

Quite the clarification.

 

[Danny Bateman]

JJ, I'll be voting absentee out of Omaha, though I'm moving to Kearney soon. Omaha is really the only place in the state that really has any chance to flip to blue like '08. Though I think they redistricted after '08 to make it more red to try to prevent that vote going blue again. The other four electoral votes will go to Trump.

 

I'd feel even better about voting Johnson in Colorado. That's one of his strongest bases of support, isn't it? I know his strongly pro-pot stance tends to endear him to a lot of Coloradans. It is trending pretty safely blue right now. You could help him to a second place finish there. I think it would be really funny if he pushed Trump to second in places like Colorado and Utah.

 

BRB, I agree that some gridlock is necessary. I think the two parties should moderate each other, as you've said. I myself do lean fiscally conservative in some ways, and I don't mind some of their ideas. But what we're seeing now is the ideological crazies have gained the wheel in the GOP. They're drawing a line in the sand and refusing to compromise with a LOT of stuff if it's not perfect. Obama seems more than willing to be combative with them and chide them for a lot of it, which I feel is deserved in most cases. But none of that helps anything meaningful get done. This seems to me to be too much gridlock.

 

I do worry about whether the two party system lends itself to career politicians milking the system for their own gain. I tend to hope not, but I'm an idealist, and I know some degree of that exists. I tend to think the party's themselves as not corrupt (again, idealist) but sometimes incompetent (mostly the GOP, but the Dems have had their fair share of moments too).

 

As for the Libertarian Party itself, I find its social views refreshing, but a lot of their economic policy turns me off. I tend to lean away from large scale deregulation.

 

Red Five, are those numbers accurate? 71% of his TX voters think it's rigged? Oy. Maybe there's a reason Texas is closer than any swing state...

[BigRedBuster]

He's learned well from trump. Maybe he graduated from trump U.

[HuskerNation1]

While not tied to Hillary's 2016 campaign, it's probably not good news that a former Hillary staffer, Kathleen Kane (Attorney General of PA) was convicted of perjury.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pennsylvania-attorney-general-kathleen-kane-step-down-after-criminal-conviction-n631606

 

When you factor in increased belief that Hillary's right hand woman Huma Abedin was involved in the pay for play scheming at the Clinton Foundation while also serving in the department of State, it seems Hillary either does not surround herself with good people, or perhaps more likely, they follow her lead and believe they are above the law.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-15/special-government-employee-huma-abedin-smoking-gun-hillarys-pay-play-scheme

[HuskerNation1]

Fact Checking Trump Speech.

 

To counter all the Trump fact checking, I thought it would be nice to show Hillary has her "own fair share" of blatantly false statements she has made. And this coming from politifact which has been proven to be biased against Republicans.

 

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/statements/byruling/false/

 

And this coming from politifact which has been proven to be biased against Republicans.

 

http://www.politifactbias.com/

 

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2013/05/29/study-reveals-republicans-lie-moreor-politifact-has-serious-liberal

 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/03/14/mostly-true-ted-cruz-attack-proves-politifact-is-run-by-gigantic-a$$hole$/

 

So you will continue to see more claims that any GOP official is more dishonest than Democrats. How crazy is that...fact checkers are not even fair in their assessment, and viewers must read through the partisan lens from all "news" sources. I realize Breitbart is biased too but this article provided factual examples of the different ways politifact treats the GOP different from Dems.

[NM11046]

An open letter penned to the RNC and signed by more than 100 current and past republicans:

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/321380562/RNC-Open-Letter#from_embed?keyword=4417&content=10079&ad_group=Online+Tracking+Link&campaign=Skimbit%2C+Ltd.&source=impactradius&medium=affiliate&irgwc=1

[BigRedBuster]

I'm ok with not voting for either because they are both lying sacks of crap.

[zoogs]

I hope bnilhome is paid good money for his dogged work as a GOP counter-programming station. I respect that we disagree politically, but you really are a warrior for your cause.