Sensationalism by defeated voters

Jonny7

Spanish Johnny wrote: »

Same for quoting a world poll for their favored leader?? What does this tell us? Anything of substance?? No it tells us that the world favors the rock star President of who they see/hear a couple of popular soundbites a year against the guy they are told comes from the same party as Bush.

I disagree, I can't help but notice the trend, whether it's these polls, experienced political commentators, pundits, bloggers.. just about any external source on US politics seem to be universally much more critical of the candidates of the party of "angry old white men" than with their counterparts.. and I wouldn't put it down to a few soundbites and the "Bush effect"

What bearing does this view that have on domestic US politics? none.

What relevance? virtually nil, but the collective sigh of relief last week across almost anywhere outside the US was pretty tangible if you ask me.

jank

Memnoch wrote: »

Sorry... why did Bush start two wars again? It was to go and get Osama Bin Laden wasn't it? No, no wait... It was to stop Iraq deploying WMDs that could hit the UK within 45 minutes. No... no... sorry, I got it all wrong, it was to spread FREEDOM and democracy and stop the kind of torture that took place in Abu Gharib... and the kind of massacres that took place in Fallujah... wait sorry, I meant under Saddam's reign... okay... I forgot... so please remind me...

Why did Bush launch two wars again?

Clearly because he was in the pockets of the corporations and there is ample evidence to show that....... oh wait.....

joseph brand

Overheal wrote: »

So apparently, people in as many as 20 states thus far have filed petitions to the White House, demanding to have their states secede from the Union, since the outcome of the election one week ago.

http://www.examiner.com/article/citizens-from-20-states-file-to-secede-from-the-united-states

And now,

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056806620

Woman runs over her husband for not voting.

"Oh my God, he's right, this is the end of society as we know it!" and they take this **** seriously. Next thing you know they're running over their husbands and demanding to secede from the Union. I didn't vote for Obama either but I'm not out there doomsday prepping and all that bull****.

Instead, can't we all just calm the hell down? This country is losing it's sanity in a damn hurry.

Megachurch Pastor: Obama Re-Election "Reign of the Antichrist"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSMDUB4jjW4

Robert Jeffress, being a megachurch business man pastor, has a large audience of susceptible minds. They're probably all on sleeping tablets, due to the increased anxiety and fear that comes with the realisation that you're being ruled by a gay, muslim, communist, Kenyan Anti-Christ!

I wouldn't be surprised if some conservative started a rumour that Obama had the power to turn gold bullion into coal, just by touching it. The religious right could quite easily believe a crazy story like this, because they already believe in magic.

joseph brand

Manach wrote: »

Being a conservative myself and comment on some of their forums, I can empathise with some of their feelings of ire at how their candidate was steamrolled by a well-oil democratic attack machine that made it impossible to bring a balanced and reasonable debate. However, apart from a few fringe elements of the fringe elements, most of the Republician are of course accepting of the result and hoping that the next 4 years bring a turn around in that nation's fortunes.

Ha. Typical 'inside the bubble' talk.

The media found it hard to keep up with all his lies and flip-flopping. Records were broken.

Willard avoided the media for 22 days and debated Obama with some new persona, which differed from the 'real' Mitt, what ever that is.

Yes yes, the socialist, liberal media 'attack machine' ground Romney up like a pound of beef, by unfairly exposing his lies and his contempt for the 47%. It was pretty biased of them to report on the Tea Party or Anne Romney's "You people" comment, or Paul Ryan's childish admiration of the promoter of selfishness, Ayn Rand.

Regardless, the media didn't have to do a lot in fairness. The internet lit up after the 'binders full of women' and 'horses and bayonets' comments. Nothing to do with the media. This affected the youth vote but would have bypassed the sexagenarian and septuagenarian voters, Romney had his sights on. Anyone remember him singing in Florida in an old folks home?

Alas, all was not lost. Faux news, that beacon of impartial news reporting, worked tirelessly to shield American eyes from the truth. They did it right up until the end with the 'insightful' Karl Rove belligerently denying the figures and stubbornly sticking to his guns.

And I'm not afraid to adMitt it, I drank their tears. Those delicious, sweet Fox tears.

Memnoch

jank wrote: »

Clearly because he was in the pockets of the corporations and there is ample evidence to show that....... oh wait.....

Well done for dodging the question. I still want to know why you think he started two wars.

A few people got very very rich because of those wars. I wouldn't be so quick to discount such obscene amounts of wealth as a powerful motivator.

jank

Memoch, by all means post the proof of this, gut feelings are just that, feelings.

Memnoch

jank wrote: »

Memoch, by all means post the proof of this, gut feelings are just that, feelings.

Proof of what? That people who made strong campaign contributions to the Bush admin were in receipt of major reconstruction contracts?

Did Cheney not in fact sit on the boards of one of these? Halliburton?

InTheTrees

Manach wrote: »

Being a conservative myself and comment on some of their forums, I can empathise with some of their feelings of ire at how their candidate was steamrolled by a well-oil democratic attack machine that made it impossible to bring a balanced and reasonable debate.

The Republican Cocoon;

Where the Rightwing SuperPAC's that out spent Democrats by about three to one were "steamrolled".

Poor republicans with their 24/7 anti-obama attack ads financed by billionaires got themselves "steamrolled" by Truth and plain old Common sense.

Hopefully their delusion will continue at least until 2014 and on to 2016.

InTheTrees

joseph brand wrote: »

And I'm not afraid to adMitt it, I drank their tears. Those delicious, sweet Fox tears.

Yup. Same here.

And remember the "legitimate rape" guy? Who refused to retract. The repubs cut him off at first and then when it looked like he wasnt going to quit, they continued financing his campaign.

You have to wonder what they were thinking.

Although it looks like what happened was Mitt, was upset by his falling poll numbers so he hired a polling company that told him he was in the lead.

Hysterical really. I remember in the last election republicans tried to encourage people to lie to pollsters who called them. I have no idea why but the reasons are probably connected to Mitts campaign blunder, some sort of tea Party inspired War On The Media perhaps.

:pac: :pac:

RATM

Jonny7 wrote: »

I understand but it still doesn't explain the discrepency..

Poll most places in the world (between only the two candidates) - Obama fiercely popular
Poll in the US (between the two candidates) - very 50/50 between Obama and Romney

Now I understand we see through the "foreign" filter, not so much domestic, but like I was saying, a candidate like Romney with his background, policies, demeanor, etc, etc would not enjoy that proportion of the vote in many other "first world" countries.

It is difficult to explain the discrepency but a large part of it might be to do with how America and its foreign policy is perceived by the European public at large. There was mass scale anger and protests all across Europe when the US were making their case for a war in Iraq. The protests were huge, over a million people marched in London and Paris, with 100k+ in Dublin. The numbers were repeated across every major European capital and town. The average joe in the street in Europe just didn't believe American contentions about the existance of WMD, or the alleged threat of Iraq being ready to strike in 45 minutes. Conversely in the US (at the time) the existance of WMD was never in doubt or even raised in the media, it was all about 'supporting our troops'. Europeans had a completely different perspective to Americans on the justification for war. Add to this the butchering at Fallujah, Abu Garib, torture at Guantamono, extraodrinary rendition, soldiers disrespecting dead bodies, the Wikileaks scandals and video of journalists being shot dead, drone strikes on civilians, death squads operating in Afghanistan, soldiers burning Korans etc, etc, the list of US war atrocities just goes on and on. To the average European on the street the US is a jingoistic war mongerer and the party most associated with starting wars is the Republican party.

Romney is extremely weak on foreign policy and came across as have little or no concept of all the different factions at play in the Middle East. During the debates he more or less declared nuclear war on Iran. On the one hand he was saying that the US should protect Israel at all costs and then in the same sentence he was advocating a policy that could lead to direct warfare from Arab states on Israel. The guy seems to have no clue about how attacking Iran would sit with the Saudis, Egyptians, Israelis, Jordanians, Lebanese, Turks or Syrians. Instead he just thought 'heh lets fire a nuclear weapon in there' and ask some questions later. For me at least it was like listening to George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld all over again.

Maybe that goes some way to explaining the discrepency betwwen Europe and the US. Europeans are not as willing to tolerate wars as the US public are, especially if the supposed enemy has more or less no ability to launch a military attack on European soil. There was huge anger at Bush and the unnecessary mess created in Iraq, to many Europeans Romney's jinjoism showed his intent to creating another unnecessary mess in Iran, therefore the calm of Obama was much more palatable.

Raphael

Jonny7 wrote: »

I understand but it still doesn't explain the discrepency..

Poll most places in the world (between only the two candidates) - Obama fiercely popular
Poll in the US (between the two candidates) - very 50/50 between Obama and Romney

Now I understand we see through the "foreign" filter, not so much domestic, but like I was saying, a candidate like Romney with his background, policies, demeanor, etc, etc would not enjoy that proportion of the vote in many other "first world" countries.

The Poll you posted the data from (presuming it's the BBC one, since the numbers look similar) isn't a perfect metric, though - on average, they only spoke to 1000 people per country, and so they put their margin of error at 2-3.7%, which is pretty damned high.

On top of that, there's huge "Meh"* vote in a lot of places - could be there's a correlation between caring a lot about what America is doing and democratic values, rather than the foreign filter

*by Meh vote I mean either, neither, no difference, other or dk/na (don;t know/no answer), since while all were accepted, none were prompted, so the distinctions are less valid.

joseph brand

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

In short, Republicans would vote for Palin and Santorum because they're white.

G.K.

joseph brand wrote: »

In short, Republicans would vote for Palin and Santorum because they're white.

That's a ridiculous generalisation.

Nobody can deny that there are some (But nowhere near a significant portion) in the Repbulican voting bloc who voted on race, but the overwhelming majority of the 'ABO' group, as Permabear put it, voted on the grounds of policies that they wanted to do anything to avoid, such as Obama's economic policies, Obamacare or the extension of marriage.

Duck Soup

G.K. wrote: »

That's a ridiculous generalisation.

Nobody can deny that there are some (But nowhere near a significant portion) in the Repbulican voting bloc who voted on race, but the overwhelming majority of the 'ABO' group, as Permabear put it, voted on the grounds of policies that they wanted to do anything to avoid, such as Obama's economic policies, Obamacare or the extension of marriage.

I'd agree with you that the majority of voters for both candidates voted on policies, but there's a sizable chunk - maybe 20% - of voters who wouldn't vote for a black candidate if he was Jesus Christ returned to this earth. It's a highly regional issue - in 2008, Obama 'underperformed' amongst voters in the Deep South - Mississippi, Alabama etc. No real surprise there, I suppose.

And consider this. In 2011, 18% - pretty much 1 in 5 voters - said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon candidate. This rose to 25% amongst Democrat voters, which would suggest it was more a case of they wouldn't vote for that Mormon candidate.

The different cultural cross currents make it look complicated, but in a tight election, it's increasingly down to those mid-west battleground states. Race doesn't play such an important role there. Obama's success there was more due to (a) overperforming relative to the rest of the country amongst blue collar workers, thanks to his keeping the auto industry afloat, while Romney said they could go and shíte and (b) a persistent deficit amongst female voters.

If I were a Republican strategist, I'd be looking at the prospect of a Hillary candidacy and already be looking worried. She would carry the female vote; she'd do well in the South; she'd be remembered as part of the adminstration that kept the auto industry going in the mid-west.

And of course, Republicans do have a real problem with race. They lost African-American votes by the proverbial landslide, but also Latinos by 70-30 and Asian-Americans 75-25.

It was said that this was the last election you'd be able to win by consolidating the white vote. If it proved anything, it showed that moment has already passed.

What's going to kill the Republicans in the future is policies based on gender (cheerleading repealing Roe vs. Wade; personhood amendments; restricting access to birth control) and race (Papers, Please in Arizona; talk of 3,000 mile walls along the southern border). And even if they throw their hands up in the air and say innocently "What? Us?" about dogwhistle race ads, such as the Welfare/Workfare ads that Romney ran, minority voters know when they're being targetted.

What amazes me is that Republican strategists still run on Lee Atwater principles - you can do the race thing, you just gotta be more subtle about it. Minority voters these days can hear the dogwhistles even more clearly than the white voters they're aimed at. It's no use piling up white votes in the south where you were going to win anyway, when in 10 years Florida will be leaning distinctly Democrat, thanks to ethnic minority voters and in 20 years, even Texas might be doing the same.

Race is still a big part of this, but the issues are around policies and strategies not candidates. There's no use putting Marco Rubio forward if your party platform is still the same wish-list for a return to a white 1950s America you ran on the last time.