Politics '12: Election year shenanigans.

[metroid composite]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/rick-perry-drops-out-2012-_n_1214032.html

Brokeback Mountain drops out of the Republican race, endorses Gingrich.


Not a surprise, he placed a stake in the ground going after social-issues Christians when he made the Brokeback Mountain Voldemort ad...and then the social-issues Christians got together, decided they shouldn't split the vote, and made a statement of "Let's rally behind...Santorum".  Whoops.

What gets me here is the endorsement.  Endorsing Santorum would make sense; they have the closest political views and were going after the same section of the voterbase.  Endorsing Romney I could understand (vying for a vice president pick or something).  But...Gingrich?  Weird.  Not that I'm complaining.  I'm actually OK with Rick Perry supporters wasting their vote on a fourth-place candidate who doesn't actually act on any socially-nutty promises, and also happens to be a walking infidelity machine.  I find the irony delicious, in fact.  But it still seems an odd choice.

[NotMiki]

best headline of the election season (courtesy of Huffington Post)

RICK ROLLED: Perry Drops Out of Race

[metroid composite]

In non-election news:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/microsoft-calls-for-gay-marriage-in-washington-state/251680/

Microsoft urges Washington state to legalize gay marriage, because they're having trouble attracting the best in the world to a state where gay marriage isn't legal.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Nice.

[metroid composite]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/the-legislation-that-could-kill-internet-privacy-for-good/242853/

Oh yay, more bad internet legislation: requires ISPs to keep 18 months of record of everything you've done on the internet, and give this over to the government if requested.  (People don't even need to be under investigation).

WTF

[metroid composite]

Back to elections, Gingrich wins South Carolina in a landslide--I guess I shouldn't have mocked Rick Perry for the odd choice of endorsement:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/21/south-carolina-primary-results-live

And...it looks like Santorum won Iowa:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505103_162-57363390/iowa-gop-santorum-won-the-iowa-caucuses/

So...for number of states taken, it's now 1-1-1 for Santorum/Gingrich/Romney, and 0 for Ron Paul (not to mention South Carolina is Paul's lowest finish yet).


I'm...ok with the current state of things.  It's more interesting than "Romney wins the first three states, and everyone else drops out".

[Dark Holy Elf]

Can't say I agree there. I suppose a competitive primary offers some greater illusion of democracy or something inane like that, but in general I'm happier the further Gingrich and Santorum are from the White House. I mean sure I'd be happier if it was Romney vs. Paul and we had a clear dialogue on economic and foreign policy in the primaries due to this, but as long as I'm dreaming I think I'll just point out that I'd be happier still if Obama had stood up to the Republicans better, the Bush tax cuts had been repealed, America had stepped back from war, and the economy had rebounded.

Not sure why you find Perry's endorsement of Gingrich surprising. Santorum was possible, sure, but Perry probably felt that Gingrich was the more electable of the two... he could read the polls as well as the rest of us and knew who was going to win SC, for instance.

[SnowFire]

Gingrich's surge was super-late, actually, within the last week.... but sure, even when Perry conceded, he was leading Santorum in the polls so would be a preferred "not-Romney" from a conservative perspective.

I agree that this is more interesting from a political perspective, and a Gingrich nom would (making numbers up here) have a 20% chance at best of winning the Presidency, but see Dark Holy Elf, keep these people as far from the big red button as possible.  I'd also add that saying "Santorum won" vs. "Romney won" Iowa is entirely illusory considering the tiny margin of victory; as Charles Seife has pointed out, that margin is less than the expected counting error of a super-careful hand recount.  And these weren't even the results of a super-careful hand recount with 3 people carefully examining each ballot.  And it's not like the caucuses are winner-take-all anyway.  It was and is a Romney-Santorum tie, and shame on the media for even reporting it as a Romney victory in the first place.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml

I generally think that the people who expect the industries benefiting from legislation to not support it are silly, but this statement goes way over the line into corrupt.

[NotMiki]

Interestingly, though he hasn't won any races, the competitiveness of the GOP race is very good for Ron Paul.  We have yet to get to the states where Paul's more popular, and Paul's got the ground game, the enthusiastic support, and the money to keep running as long as he pleases.  And he's one of only two GOP candidates with his name on the Virginia ballot (along with Romney - the other candidates are so badly organized that they couldn't amass the signatures to get on the ballot.  I still don't think Paul has a ghost's chance of winning, but don't be shocked if he takes a state or two, and forces the other candidates to react to his position.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'd like to see Ron Paul do well even if I find some of his policies crazy.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml

I generally think that the people who expect the industries benefiting from legislation to not support it are silly, but this statement goes way over the line into corrupt.

Someone on Board 8 made a comment about the MPAA/RIAA recently, and I think it bears repeating:

At this point, we need to face the possibility that us hating them is in fact their goal.

[metroid composite]

Can't say I agree there. I suppose a competitive primary offers some greater illusion of democracy or something inane like that, but in general I'm happier the further Gingrich and Santorum are from the White House.

Well...fair about Gingrich and Santorum.

But in general I feel more and more like the majority of democracy in the American system actually happens during the primaries rather than during the actual election.  And this is more true in senate and house races, where a lot of districts are all-but guaranteed to be won by a particular party.  But that's where we have seen the largest actual political change in America (the Tea Party got Tea Party candidates into the house and senate--and these people essentially act as a third party; it will be interesting to see this election round if there are Occupy candidates).

In general this isn't an issue with presidential races.  It's more that...if the race comes down to Romney and Obama, I'm still unclear about how they differ on...any of their policies.  I mean, ok, Romney pays lip service to repealing Obamacare (despite him implementing a similar institution in Massachusetts) and signed the NOM pledge promising to make a constitutional amendment against gays (even though he was pro-gay when running Massachusetts).  But in terms of how they'd actually run the country if they didn't have to worry about public opinion?  I think it's nearly identical.  And I think a presidential race would really reflect that, ignoring issues and coming down to things like personality and trustworthyness.  It'd be Bush vs Kerry 2.0.

So...supposing Romney ultimately wins, I'd still rather see a longer primary where he's forced to debate with people who don't agree with him (and a shorter election by extension).

[SnowFire]

But in terms of how they'd actually run the country if they didn't have to worry about public opinion?  I think it's nearly identical.

metroid, this can obviously go on at some length, and I'm not 100% sure on where your own views are (be it the "so far left both parties are indistinguishable" version or the "disinterested observer of politics because the same crap happens") but...  let's just say I've heard the "there's no difference between the two parties" (or, in your example, Romney / Obama) before.  That was the line that Ralph Nader's camp took in 2000.  And look where that got us.  I can think of few things that have done as much long-term harm to America's standing in the world as George W. Bush being the president in office when 9/11 happened.  (and, being a fan of America, yes I think this by extension damages democracy and freedom abroad.).  For that matter, I'd also fault that bad luck of Gore not being in office for not having long-since passed some form of carbon emissions control, be it a carbon tax or cap & trade or whatever.

You also seriously underestimate how much campaign rhetoric can influence the course of action of the presidency.  Changing your mind ever is proof that you're inconsistent, and you probably changed your mind because you were bought by the Washington lobby, or something, according to dumb voters who watch campaign ads.  Even if you were to believe that Romney & Obama were to govern the same if they had a free hand, the very fact that they will run on different platforms and appeal to different voters and promise different things will drastically change how they actually govern.  Assume for a moment that Romney thinks Obamacare is actually a great idea.  Do you think he's going to say "Surprise, I'm not repealing Obamacare, I'm expanding it" in January 2013?  No.  Maybe once upon a time politicians could get away with that, but nowadays, that would be political suicide.  Romney will dismantle Obamacare if put into office, make no mistake - the very fact that he's had to repudiate it to gain Republican support guarantees it.  (Which is not to say that there aren't issues where politicians absolutely have a 'platform' with a large wink & fingers crossed...  but...  not the ones where they've had to publicly swear to be on the 'right' side of some critical issue to the base.)

[metroid composite]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160046/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/t/atheist-teen-forces-school-remove-prayer-wall-after-years/#.TybEslw7WAj

Prayer removed from school wall.

Girl who started the lawsuit about it receiving threats, three different local florists refused to deliver her flowers.

Location.....Rhode Island o_O

[Laggy]

Straight from the article:

New England is not the sort of place where battles over the division of church and state tend to crop up. It is the least religious region of the country, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. But Rhode Island is an exception: it is the nation’s most Catholic state, and dust-ups over religion are not infrequent.

[metroid composite]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/03/roseanne-is-running-for-president-not-a-joke/?hpt=hp_t2

A hardcore feminist lesbian is running for president.  Welp, as much as I hate to support the Green party ever, I strongly suspect she'll end up my favourite candidate.

[metroid composite]

So...three more states have their results in: Colorado, Montana, and Minnesota.  Two of these border Canada, so I'd assume they'd get some sanity partially just for having access to Canadian news broadcasting.  Colorado...hmm...wasn't that where the Democrat National Convention was in 2008?  Yeah it was--Obama won the state too.   And...let's look at who won these states...

Santorum
Santorum
Santorum

Wat.

[Laggy]

Well uh only Republicans are voting in these primaries and it's not all that surprising to hear that the conservatives in those states are hardcore bible thumpers to be honest. It is not representative of the state's political affiliations as a whole. (I mean, come on, Sant won Minnesota with 21000 votes. In a state of 5.3 million.)

[SnowFire]

Colorado in particular is a state where the Republicans are really, really conservative.  Colorado Springs, anyone?  Much like Virginia, that's part of the problem Republicans have been having in those states; they are purple as a whole, but the Republicans have a strong hard-right contingent that can win primaries and nominate candidates better suited for Alabama than purple states, which hands some free wins to the Democrats.  The reason that Romney's loss there is surprising is that you'd think he'd do okay among the more libertarian-minded Western parts and stem the bleeding, but he didn't really, so the social conservative contingent took it while Romney's base was places like Republicans-in-Denver.

Minnesota is just weird and idiosyncratic.  Hard to predict how they'd go.  (It is the state that has elected Michele Bachmann, after all.)  Montana there's no urban areas and urban Republicans tend to be Romney's base.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/on-gay-marriage-mitt-romney-veers-hard-to-the-right/2012/02/07/gIQALE48wQ_blog.html

Good ol' Mitt, either a pathological liar or a doucheface. (Probably both.)

[superaielman]

That reads like a desperate plea for the religious right vote.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Given how he's worried about ceding ground to Rick Santorum at this point, his actions are understandable.

I mean, understandable once you assume as a given that he'll pretty much change any stance he has for the sake of electability.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2010-elections/oklahoma-state-senator-constance-johnson-tries-ban-masturbation

“However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”

I like this lady.

[Cotigo]

Conversely, her husband probably doesn't.

BOOM!

EDIT: In any case, you missed the real hilarious part of this bit:

Democrat Jim Wilson tried to introduce a serious amendment stating that all men would be responsible for the full support and well-being of any woman carrying their child for the duration of the pregnancy, including housing, food, transportation and all medical costs. That amendment failed.

This is just hilarious, because if it wasn't hilarious it would be murderous rage inducing.

[superaielman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17005739 The Shining path isn't the threat they used to be, but this is still good.