posted
If Ron Lambert steps up and predicts that Romney is going to win that means Obama is winning with at least 300 E.C. votes. Its how it works.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Seems to me--and the take I am hearing from many commentators--Romney was dominant in the debate, showing himself to be everything he needs to be: passionate, knowledgeable, with accurate facts readily on hand, able to respond meaningfully, precisely, and forcefully to every point Obama tried to make, correcting Obama's errors effectively. (For example, when Obama claimed businesses were given incentives to relocate overseas, Romney replied that despite all his years in business, he had no idea what Obama was talking about; what Obama said was not the case. Obama had no reply to that.) Obama was stammering a lot, seemed to be looking to the moderator to bail him out several times, and was clearly on defense; while Romney was on offense all the way. Obama without a teleprompter is not a great debater. Romney is. Obama looked down and around a lot, very seldom meeting Romney's eyes; Romney was constantly looking straight at Obama. It was like Obama was being scolded and lectured, and knew it. FNC showed a reaction focus group of about 40 people, more than half of whom said they had been tending toward Obama, that overwhelmingly had decided in favor of Romney as a result of this debate. This same group was said to have responded in favor of the eventual winner in 2008.
It may be that Romney's red tie also made exactly the right psychological statement.
Edit: This argument is completely devoid of nuance.
posted
According to a CNN poll, 67% of viewers thought Romney won the debate, while only 25% thought Obama won the debate.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: According to a CNN poll, 67% of viewers thought Romney won the debate, while only 25% thought Obama won the debate.
I'm not disagreeing that Romney won the debate. But you're seeing a slaughter, where I saw (and I suspect most people)saw a much closer contest.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
As someone who coaches and judges competitive debate, Romney won hands down. That being said, this in no way makes me more likely to vote for him.
When I judge a debate, I'm not allowed to bring in my own biases and/or knowledge of the issues in evaluating who won. If a person misrepresents, misleads, or lies about something, it is the responsibility of the opponent to call them out on it. In other words, I'm not allowed to do the work for the debaters.
As an informed voter, I do my homework on what each candidate offers. I refuse to satisfy myself with cheap, predictable punditry or the promises of the candidate/campaign. The Governor's lack of integrity and tact in this debate makes me even less likely to vote for him (if such a thing were possible, I confess).
When only evaluating the debate in isolation, Governor Romney stomped the President. But I don't look at debates in isolation when it comes time to vote. And "winning" a debate means far less to me than how you've done it. Your opponent failing to call out your (to put it kindly) inconsistencies does not mean you weren't inconsistent. It means your opponent let you win.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
*nod* The main issue here -- and frankly I am astonished by this, as it had to occur to Obama's people that this was going to be Romney's approach, since it has been the cornerstone of his campaign -- is that Romney shamelessly lied about his stated positions, and Obama had no better way to demonstrate those falsehoods than to whine vaguely about them. That this was not anticipated, and that Obama was not provided with ample material documenting Romney's plan and previous statements of record, surprises me a great deal.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I got two things out of the first hour of the debate.
1. Obama's comment about the classroom in Las Vegas. In a way this should anger democrat voters in my state Maryland, who followed our governor's lead in legalizing gambling because it will solve all of our financial troubles, and all the money would go towards education. I am sure it fell on deaf ears, and had nothing to do with Obama. Sort of. Our governor tweeted some nasty things about Romney, and all I can think about was how his fellow democrat attacked the governor without even knowing it.
2. Romney wants to raise my taxes. He admits it. Lowering tax rates AND deductions/exemptions will raise my family's taxes. As a middle class family of four most of our tax breaks come from our deductions and exemptions. My wife and I total make around 100k, and this past year we only paid about 5.5% to the federal government.
I have always thought that I like democrats in charge of the country, and republicans in charge of my state. This proves it to me.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Vadon: As someone who coaches and judges competitive debate, Romney won hands down. That being said, this in no way makes me more likely to vote for him.
The debates of every election, in a nutshell! (they are not really watched by anyone likely to be swayed by them)
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Mitt Romney: "Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is innacurate"
A question about language: is it polite to say he when this person is standing right next to me? In my country it's extremely impolite, and this is the President Romney is talking about.
But maybe it's the matter of lack of coniugation...
Posts: 723 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:He'll crush him because Romney has either no ideas or terrible ideas.
This is not really much of a hindrance at all in the format of today's debates. both sides have pretty much figured out that the only important thing to do is put on appearances and give out platitudes, answering the question poised to you as superficially as possible while working ultimately only on hitting as many talking-point soundbites and attack points as possible and composing yourself in a way as to avoid even deliberate mistranslation as often as possible.
You don't have to have ideas. You just have to be coached to provide well-spoken platitudes.
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: Mitt Romney: "Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is innacurate"
A question about language: is it polite to say he when this person is standing right next to me? In my country it's extremely impolite, and this is the President Romney is talking about.
But maybe it's the matter of lack of coniugation...
It's not really a problem in that debate format. If you were having a three way conversation and kept referring to one of the other people as he/she and refused to address them directly then people would raise eyebrows.
There was a debate a few years ago between then Senator Obama and Senator John McCain though,
His using the phrase "that one" to refer to Senator Obama was considered very rude, though I think Senator McCain just got lost in his argument and used the first phrase that came to mind.
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quote:He'll crush him because Romney has either no ideas or terrible ideas.
This is not really much of a hindrance at all in the format of today's debates. both sides have pretty much figured out that the only important thing to do is put on appearances and give out platitudes, answering the question poised to you as superficially as possible while working ultimately only on hitting as many talking-point soundbites and attack points as possible and composing yourself in a way as to avoid even deliberate mistranslation as often as possible.
You don't have to have ideas. You just have to be coached to provide well-spoken platitudes.
tada
In my defense, this only works if Obama lets him get away with it.
And Obama let him get away with everything last night.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Szymon: Mitt Romney: "Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is innacurate"
A question about language: is it polite to say he when this person is standing right next to me? In my country it's extremely impolite, and this is the President Romney is talking about.
But maybe it's the matter of lack of coniugation...
It's not really a problem in that debate format. If you were having a three way conversation and kept referring to one of the other people as he/she and refused to address them directly then people would raise eyebrows.
There was a debate a few years ago between then Senator Obama and Senator John McCain though,
His using the phrase "that one" to refer to Senator Obama was considered very rude, though I think Senator McCain just got lost in his argument and used the first phrase that came to mind.
It's also worth remembering that Americans tend to reject deference to our leaders as a matter of principle, which often seems alien to people in other countries.
In case it wasn't clear, I'm specifically responding to Syzmon's comment about "this is the president that Romney's talking about."
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: In my defense, this only works if Obama lets him get away with it.
And Obama let him get away with everything last night.
Well, it "works" whether or not you "let" your opponent get away with anything — what I'm talking about is what the debates have become.
They're meaningless talking-point-spews where both candidates understand how unimportant the debates ultimately are, the leading candidate knows they need only maintain the status quo, try to get out as many of their talking points and avoid creating a gaffe so large that it actually effects the election.
Both candidates recognize that the game requires talking around both your opponent and the moderator as much as you can manage it, and it is easy to bully around the moderator since they are beholden to the structure in a way which effectively castrates them as actual debate moderators.
Since neither candidate provided a substantial gaffe, this event will not impact the election and you can give romney a little trophy for winning the debate (which he did, obama looked like he had been up all last night and just slammed a five hour energy to try to get through the debate), and we all move on and get just a little bit depressed over the fact that news analysts thought that tonight's pablum was "too much specific policy talk for the American people to follow."
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
What was as important as recitation of facts and correction of the opponent's errors, was indeed overall appearances. Romney just appearing on the same stage with the president made Romney look a lot more plausible as a candidate. Then Romney capitalized on it by being on the offense continually, looking straight at Obama, while Obama could hardly ever meet Romney's eyes.
Romney rebutted every claim put forth by Obama, citing specifics, including various acts and congressional reports that Obama has largely been ignoring. When Obama claimed that businesses were getting tax breaks for outsourcing or relocating to other countries, that opened the way for Romney to remind everyone that unlike Obama (who never so much as managed a lemonade stand), he had 23 years of experience as a successful businessman, and he had no idea what Obama was talking about. The fact is that corporations do not outsource or relocate to other countries so they can get a tax break, they do those things because of the cheaper labor costs in other countries. For Obama not to know this betrayed abysmal ignorance on his part. He was arguing on the basis of campaign ad propaganda, rather than facts.
Obama plain and simple got blown out of the water, clearly outclassed by a superior mind possessing real exprience in business. You would almost have to expect this, since the first debate was on the economy, an area where Romney has the education and the experience to run circles around Obama.
Obama could be nothing but vulnerable, considering the dire state of the nation's economy after nearly four years of his administration.
If I remember right, the next presidential debate will be on foreign policy. Obama should have the benefit of nearly four years of daily briefings from the intelligence services. But how much attention has he paid to them? Has he even read them? The extraordinary failure and collapse of his foreign policy in the Middle East will have to make him vulnerable again, in the next debate with Romney.
But you know, the reason why Obama was so ineffective in the debate was the fact that he has been coddled and protected for the past nearly four years. He hardly ever has a press conference. The mainstream media tends to favor him, and seldom takes him to task for anything. He has surrounded himself with people who only say what he wants to hear. So of course when he meets a serious debate opponent, he gives the impression of being hammered, and looks down most of the time (Dennis Miller suggested that maybe he had a teleprompter on his belt buckle), or to Lehrer hoping the moderator would bail him out.
I just wonder how Obama would fare in any face-to-face talks with people like the leader of Iran, or of Venezuela, or China. We already know that in his previous world tours, what he has wound up doing is apologizing for America.
Romney took exactly the right tone--going after Obama forcefully, with energy and passion and ready detailed facts to cite. He said that Obama was not accurate, but never used the blatant words, "You are a liar," though he certainly could have. He knew it would have been perceived as tacky to speak that rudely to the president. Romney got the point across effectively by saying things like, "As president, you get your own plane and your own house--but you do not get to have your own facts." Another time, when Obama kept repeating his misrepesentation of Romney's tax plan despite Romney correcting him about it twice, Romney said he has five sons, and thus he was familiar with people repeating the same story over and over again, hoping that it would be believed if they said it often enough.
OK, Parkour, since you keep asking for it. I predict Romney will win the election by double digits. If he keeps up his winning performance in the future debates, Obama might be persuaded to vote for him. (Tongue-in-cheek.)
I wonder if Obama will contrive, or try to contrive, some excuse for him not to show up for the remaining two presidential debates. He is such a narcissist, he has to hate being battered so badly as he was in last night's debate, and realistically, what hope can he have of doing any better, when Romney so clearly outclasses him?
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posted
Sam, I am thinking of the 1980 election, where former governor Ronald Reagan entered the debates double-digits behind President Jimmy Carter, and after the debates he had managed to turn things around so that he defeated Carter in the election by double-digits.
Like Carter, Obama has had four years of presiding over a terrible economy. (Carter even invented what he called "the misery index.") Like Reagan, Romney is showing himself to be more "presidential" than the incumbent president. And so far, Romney is prevailing so overwhelmingly in the debating, that even supporters of Obama had to admit that Romney was the clear winner.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Sam, I am thinking of the 1980 election, where former governor Ronald Reagan entered the debates double-digits behind President Jimmy Carter, and after the debates he had managed to turn things around so that he defeated Carter in the election by double-digits.
Like Carter, Obama has had four years of presiding over a terrible economy. (Carter even invented what he called "the misery index.") Like Reagan, Romney is showing himself to be more "presidential" than the incumbent president. And so far, Romney is prevailing so overwhelmingly in the debating, that even supporters of Obama had to admit that Romney was the clear winner.
Sure, but that doesn't mean Obama supporters are going to vote for Romney based on that performance. I think he won the debate, but he didn't win my vote.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Really when I say that both candidates understand how meaningless the debates are, it needs to be importantly underlined: winning the debates means crap-all. I said this last debate. I have tried to remind people of this constantly. The presidential debates are all but completely meaningless, even the ones that we call "the historic debates."
quote:Gallup, for instance, reviewed their polls going back to 1960 and concluded they “reveal few instances in which the debates may have had a substantive impact on election outcomes.” Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, in “The Timeline of Presidential Elections,” looked at a much broader array of polls and concluded that there was “there is no case where we can trace a substantial shift to the debates.” Political scientist John Sides, summarizing a careful study by James Stimson, writes that there’s “little evidence of [debate] game changers in the presidential campaigns between 1960 and 2000.
When Ron implies in a slippery post-hoc way that Reagan's debate performance resulted in or can be considered a major factori in his turnaround, he's wrong. Not that it is surprising, he's wrong about just about everything else: for instance, Carter was neither ahead of Reagan in the popular vote by double digits (It was actually Carter 45, Reagan 42), nor did Reagan win against Carter by double digits.
I know, Ron Lambert factually incorrect about something, major shocker, news at 11.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: What was as important as recitation of facts and correction of the opponent's errors, was indeed overall appearances. Romney just appearing on the same stage with the president made Romney look a lot more plausible as a candidate. Then Romney capitalized on it by being on the offense continually, looking straight at Obama, while Obama could hardly ever meet Romney's eyes.
Romney rebutted every claim put forth by Obama, citing specifics, including various acts and congressional reports that Obama has largely been ignoring. When Obama claimed that businesses were getting tax breaks for outsourcing or relocating to other countries, that opened the way for Romney to remind everyone that unlike Obama (who never so much as managed a lemonade stand), he had 23 years of experience as a successful businessman, and he had no idea what Obama was talking about. The fact is that corporations do not outsource or relocate to other countries so they can get a tax break, they do those things because of the cheaper labor costs in other countries. For Obama not to know this betrayed abysmal ignorance on his part. He was arguing on the basis of campaign ad propaganda, rather than facts.
Obama plain and simple got blown out of the water, clearly outclassed by a superior mind possessing real exprience in business. You would almost have to expect this, since the first debate was on the economy, an area where Romney has the education and the experience to run circles around Obama.
Obama could be nothing but vulnerable, considering the dire state of the nation's economy after nearly four years of his administration.
If I remember right, the next presidential debate will be on foreign policy. Obama should have the benefit of nearly four years of daily briefings from the intelligence services. But how much attention has he paid to them? Has he even read them? The extraordinary failure and collapse of his foreign policy in the Middle East will have to make him vulnerable again, in the next debate with Romney.
But you know, the reason why Obama was so ineffective in the debate was the fact that he has been coddled and protected for the past nearly four years. He hardly ever has a press conference. The mainstream media tends to favor him, and seldom takes him to task for anything. He has surrounded himself with people who only say what he wants to hear. So of course when he meets a serious debate opponent, he gives the impression of being hammered, and looks down most of the time (Dennis Miller suggested that maybe he had a teleprompter on his belt buckle), or to Lehrer hoping the moderator would bail him out.
I just wonder how Obama would fare in any face-to-face talks with people like the leader of Iran, or of Venezuela, or China. We already know that in his previous world tours, what he has wound up doing is apologizing for America.
Romney took exactly the right tone--going after Obama forcefully, with energy and passion and ready detailed facts to cite. He said that Obama was not accurate, but never used the blatant words, "You are a liar," though he certainly could have. He knew it would have been perceived as tacky to speak that rudely to the president. Romney got the point across effectively by saying things like, "As president, you get your own plane and your own house--but you do not get to have your own facts." Another time, when Obama kept repeating his misrepesentation of Romney's tax plan despite Romney correcting him about it twice, Romney said he has five sons, and thus he was familiar with people repeating the same story over and over again, hoping that it would be believed if they said it often enough.
OK, Parkour, since you keep asking for it. I predict Romney will win the election by double digits. If he keeps up his winning performance in the future debates, Obama might be persuaded to vote for him. (Tongue-in-cheek.)
I wonder if Obama will contrive, or try to contrive, some excuse for him not to show up for the remaining two presidential debates. He is such a narcissist, he has to hate being battered so badly as he was in last night's debate, and realistically, what hope can he have of doing any better, when Romney so clearly outclasses him?
Obama has the benefit of being president 4 years as far as foreign policy is concerned, but for running an organization he is still in lemonade stand territory? As if running multiple campaigns and the whole Executive Branch counts for 0 experience?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
BlackBlade, don't you know? Obama hasn't held a real job in his entire life. Four years of being President of the United States hardly gives a person the necessary experience or insight into what it takes to be President of the United States.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
The early bit about NPR may have a nasty backlash and ruin Governor Romney's debate win.
Mr. Romney said something along the lines of "I will cut all funding to PBS. I like you Tom. I like Big Bird. But I don't like you enough to borrow money from China to keep you on the air."
Within minutes a twitter feed was created, @firedbigbird
Within 10 minutes it had over 2700 followers, and it grew from there.
It a fun feed to follow.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Run on a platform underpinned by a mathematically impossible tax plan full of lies and also lies and ... eh, you sorta get away with it, but oh man the second you threaten the integrity of puppets you watched as a kid oh now that's crossing a line lets go lets do this
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: According to a CNN poll, 67% of viewers thought Romney won the debate, while only 25% thought Obama won the debate.
I'm not disagreeing that Romney won the debate. But you're seeing a slaughter, where I saw (and I suspect most people)saw a much closer contest.
~something interesting about that poll~
quote:
So, I was looking at the crosstabs on CNN's snap poll of "registered Americans" after the debate claiming Romney won the debate 69-25. They start on page 8:
Notice anything funny? According to the breakout, all the people surveyed are white, 50+, and from the South. Are they being serious with this? I know the media loves a horserace, and I'll admit Obama was less passionate and shouty than Mitt, but it's pretty hard not to ascribe a motive to their selection process.
posted
A lot of factors are going to be taken into account with this election. No matter what Obama says (within the realm of possibilities, of course) and no matter how well Mittins attacks and wins debates, Obama will still have the minority vote, which has in recent years become the majority. He also has the poor vote, which makes up a large class of people in the US. He literally could go sit in the white house and ignore everything between now and the election and he would still have a very good chance at winning the election.
With all that being said, I think Romney won the debate, hands down. He came out of nowhere with his arguments and I don't think the President was prepared for that. In fact, it seemed like the President was overconfident and, quite possibly, preoccupied with other things (probably with being President, since he still has that job). But who knows?
I thought it was funny there at the end when the two of them huddled up together with their families. I wonder what was said and if there was any spite between them?
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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posted
oh, probably not a whole lot. well, maybe. who even knows. I am sure on some level they know it's all what the game is bound to be, but they might just legitimately loathe each other
/edit - hey guess who posted on the wrong account again gdi
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Parkour: oh, probably not a whole lot. well, maybe. who even knows. I am sure on some level they know it's all what the game is bound to be, but they might just legitimately loathe each other
/edit - hey guess who posted on the wrong account again gdi
There's medication for that Sam, you need professional help!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Oh, goodness yes, Obama has the minority vote (which is now the majority...ummm, what?) just by default...or something. 'The poor', too, in spite of the fact that Mitt does very well with substantial segments of lower income voters who, you know, agree with him politically. Obama can just coast and have a chance. Romney has to work or something, I guess, goes this peculiar and troubling reasoning.
It's not as though Obama has done more for those voters (or perhaps offended less) that results in that support, rather than some...inborn...traits.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Ron, does it matter to you how much of Romney's forceful, alpha-male posturing has been shown to be inaccurate at best and outright lying at worst?
His $5 trillion tax plan may be revenue-neutral, as he claims. But he also offers no way to make that work without raising taxes or slashing everything from the federal budget but military spending. The math doesn't work. If that's what he plans, fine, admit it and let people vote on it.
In response to Obama's comments about the CBO's conclusions, Romney referenced 6 other studies. Problem was, all but one of those were from Romney backers (2 were just blog posts) and the one was from G.W. Bush's economic advisor who makes it sort of work by assuming a growth effect that's very unlikely to happen.
Romney claimed that Obamacare would ration health care prccedures. Not true. From the beginning it's been known that the board has no legal power to dictate treatment or ration care. It's tasked to find ways to slow the growth of Medicare spending but has no, repeat, no power to limit any individual care or procedure. This was a deliberate callback to Palin's mythical "death panels."
Obama has not doubled the deficit, no matter how many times Romney says he has. The deficit at the start of his term was $1.2 trillion.
Romney said “the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year.” That was their worst-case scenario. Most likely was 3 to 5 million, and in the best case more people, not fewer, would be covered. Romney also said under his plan, people with pre-existing conditions would be covered, and his own campaign has admitted that's not quite true.
"50% of college graduates can't find work." Untrue. 53.6 percent of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 were unemployed or underemployed in 2011, but that doesn't count all college grads (A.A., A.S. trades schools, etc) and it includes those who have a part-time job or a job for which they are underqualified.
Over and over Romney said Obama was slashing Medicare of $716 billion. That's a reduction over 10 years, not the sudden gutting of the program this year as he made it sound, and it's being done to extend Medicare's trust fund another 8 years.
He seemed to support Simpson-Bowles but failed to mention that his running mate was the person who scuttled it.
He said there is no tax break for moving jobs overseas, but under existing law, employers may take tax deductions for the costs associated with moving jobs out of the country and they don't have to pay tax on foreign profits if they don't bring the money back into the country. That's not so much a tax break as a tax loophole, but Democratic efforts to close it have been shot down.
The claim I laughed at was Romney's mention of bipartisanship. The health care plan in Mass. was based despite him, not because of his bipartisan efforts. Dems had to fight against his constant veto efforts to dismantle the bill.
And Obama spent far too much time, in my opinion, in the beginning of his term trying to work with Republicans who openly stated their goal was to bring him down. He used Republican ideas, which somehow magically became socialist in the transition. The GOP filibustered over 360 times since 2007 (link) to keep Dem and Administration plans at a standstill.
Sadly, he's probably right. Romney is more likely to get bipartisan movement, if only because some Dems will grit their teeth and work with the GOP to get something down, whereas the GOP flat out refuses to work with Obama for anything at all.
Obama certainly had his share of fact-stretching and fuzzy math and he's been called on it by the same fact-checkers, but nowhere on Mitt's scale. Romney won the debate -- and he clearly won it -- by being loud, talking over everyone else, and repeating his lies so many times Obama was unable to keep up with them all.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Oh, goodness yes, Obama has the minority vote (which is now the majority...ummm, what?)
A study was done recently on the American populous which stated that the minorities (which are generally assumed to be anyone not Caucasian or of European descent) are no longer minorities if they are pooled together into a single mass of individuals. It's a common idea that has been around for a few years now. The idea here is that if you can rally the minority vote (the Hispanics, African Americans, etc), you can overtake the majority vote. Obama appeals to the minority vote more than Romney does. Yes, there are surely exceptions, but people are generally more likely to pick the guy who can relate to them and who appears to have their best interest in mind. Obama has said time and time again that he is going to look out for the lower class, he's spent a lot of time in his career before Washington working with the poor, and he knows how to talk to them.
Romney is a rich white guy. For some people, that's all they need to know. I know that sounds like an awful thing to say, but it's true. It's the same reason a lot of old-fashioned ignorant racists won't vote for Obama, mostly based off the fact that he's a black man. I know because I am constantly surrounded by both sides and I hear all about it. The African American woman who works with me has told me (when I asked, of course) that she was voting for Obama, not because of his politics (she only knows he's a Democrat), but because "he's black and we have to support him". That's what she told me. On the complete opposite side of that, I've got my step-father, a southern, somewhat ignorant 60 year old white guy who is convinced that Obama can't do a good job, simply because he's a black guy (although he prefers to use the N word when speaking about the man). Both perspectives are insane and ignorant, but they exist, and those are not the only two people that I have met who think like that.
Maybe I'm wrong, who knows? Another study was brought up a few months ago on CNN news that stated that a Presidential candidate was 80% more likely to get elected if they were already President. That automatically gives Obama leverage. Certainly, it doesn't secure his victory, but it puts him in quite the position, which is probably why he doesn't seem to be sweating it too much. Remember back in 2004 when Bush was running for re-election and nobody thought he would win again because everyone seemed to think he was an idiot? Remember how he won anyway? Better to keep the idiot you know than trust the one you don't. That's politics.
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posted
The notion that we can lump all individual minorities into one big lump and count 'em as their no-longer-minority proportion is...problematic. Or does Obama simultaneously appeal to blacks, Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Middle Easterners, Indians, Native Americans, so on and so forth just...I'm still not sure why exactly, because he 'speaks effectively' to them or something? Look at just how problematic considering even a few of those groups individually homogenous is, much less all of them together, and perhaps consider thinking twice about the notion that Obama has their vote sewn up by default.
Possibly it involves Romney not really appealing to them on his side, as well as Obama's mysterious appeal. Or should we look at Dubya's performance among Latino voters to quickly dispel this notion?
Now, as for refusing to vote for a rich white guy and refusing to vote for a less rich black guy, they're not in fact the same. While I don't think it's a good thing, refusing to vote for someone simply because they're hugely wealthy isn't quite the same thing as refusing to vote for someone because they're black. In the former case, it involves a (bad, when made on ghat basis alone) decision based on a status one has control over. The other is what they're born with.
Furthermore, it's always strange to me, as well as amusing and frankly a bit offensive, at how quick members of a majority can be to equate the more virulent bigots of their side to members of the minority on the other side voting for the first candidate that is more like them.
Sorry. It's the same. They're not both equally insane or ignorant. One view is explicitly held out of contempt and hatred on racial lines. The other is held to support one's own racial group, the first of their kind so to speak with a shot at the majors. Perhaps if you say 'that's ignorant' there might be some discussion to be had, but there's not when you assume the ONLY reason she supports him is because of the color of his skin. Do you think she doesn't have a belief that he will understand her better, that she can relate to him better, that she feels like she will like his politics better? Or should we talk some more about how that's the same as someone refusing to vote for a n*%#ger?
Your analysis of politics runs contrary to much of what is known about presidential campaigns. Conventional wisdom hardly favors incumbents in time of ongoing recession! You continually speak as though Obama's (current, and not at all major of longstanding) lead is only due to...inertia and unknown but easily guessed at minority vote motives.
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quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: A study was done recently on the American populous which stated that the minorities (which are generally assumed to be anyone not Caucasian or of European descent) are no longer minorities if they are pooled together into a single mass of individuals.
Do you have a source for this? From what I can find, the white non-Hispanic/non-Latino population is 66 percent of the total population, and those numbers apparently come from the census (end of the second paragraph).
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Seems dubious to me too, the pivot date reported here is 2040.
quote:But a recent slowdown in the growth of the Hispanic and Asian populations is shifting notions on when the tipping point in U.S. diversity will come — the time when non-Hispanic whites become a minority. After 2010 census results suggested a crossover as early as 2040, demographers now believe the pivotal moment may be pushed back several years when new projections are released in December. The annual growth rates for Hispanics and Asians fell sharply last year to just over 2 percent, roughly half the rates in 2000 and the lowest in more than a decade. The black growth rate stayed flat at 1 percent.
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Well Rakeesh, I suppose we shall see what happens.
To answer your question, I had a fairly involving discussion with my coworker about this, and the answer and reasoning I was given was that, yes, she was going to vote for Obama for the same reason she voted for him the first time, which was simply that he is a black man, and she didn't care about any of the stats or stances or any of it. Believe me, I asked several questions, and most of the time she just laughed casually about it and said she didn't care about the political hooplah. "Romney's an old rich white guy", she told me. "Obama's black so he'll look after his own." That's all she needed to know. She said she didn't have the time or energy to do all that research anyway. And besides, if a black guy became the president, that was a win.
And yes, race played a role in the last election, just like it's going to play one this time around. If you don't think people went out and voted simply because they wanted to support someone of the same race, then that is delusional. Most of these people (on both sides) were not very informed about it; they just wanted to support or slam Obama because he was black. Race is very important when it comes to the election. You might not think Americans are that one dimensional about certain things, but they are. People are shallow and selfish, swayed by silly words and pretty faces. If you don't think that's true, you really don't understand America.
But I digress, when the election happens, my prediction is that Obama wins. He's got too many groups behind him. He's not white, he's already the President, he appeals to the lower class, and he's a democrat. Each of those groups will land him a TON of votes. Romney is a republican, an old rich white guy (very unrelatable), and he's never been President. Sure, to you and me, these might be silly things to focus on, but not for most of America. For most people, these are precisely what they'll look at, because that's all they've had time to notice.
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My primary dispute, though I take issue with several other things you claimed on factual or reasoning grounds, was the equivalence you suggested between refusing to vote for a n*%%er and endorsing a black man because he'll look out for his own, supposedly.
You might have meant they're both racist or mostly racially motivated, though you'd be wrong in the former and have a case in the latter. But to equate them is to say that a member of a minority who votes for a member of a minority, the first to contend, for that reason is just as objectionable as the guy who won't vote for a n*%#er.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Seems dubious to me too, the pivot date reported here is 2040.
Now that you mention this, I think you're right. I am pretty sure that the study I was referring to was saying that it was going to happen soon, not that it already had. Apologies for that. We were shown the numbers in a humanities class a few years ago, when our professor broke it all down for us and explained that pretty soon (he gave dates, but I can't for the life of me remember them) the population was going to see a huge shift in minority/majority numbers, and that Caucasians were in turn going to be the minority (but still the majority if you take each race separately).
Anyway, my original point was simply that the minorities make up, when pooled together, a powerfully large number of votes that can stagger the election in whichever way they see fit. And in this particular election's case, Obama holds that vote.
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Oh, and as for not understanding America...you are arguing that an incumbent minority contender is *more* advantaged in a time of ongoing major recession with the end only dubiously in sight, whose presidency has been mired in that recession throughout.
Tell me some more about who understands how elections work? Tell me more about how if Romney loses, it won't be so much his fault because Obama had a lock in the first place? Perhaps this ties directly in with your drastic overstatement of minority political power in this country. You're just enormously, and I mean by non-whites would need to double their current numbers to be neck and neck, wrong about that.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: My primary dispute, though I take issue with several other things you claimed on factual or reasoning grounds, was the equivalence you suggested between refusing to vote for a n*%%er and endorsing a black man because he'll look out for his own, supposedly.
You might have meant they're both racist or mostly racially motivated, though you'd be wrong in the former and have a case in the latter. But to equate them is to say that a member of a minority who votes for a member of a minority, the first to contend, for that reason is just as objectionable as the guy who won't vote for a n*%#er.
Why is it wrong for a white guy to not vote for a black guy because he's black, but it's okay for a black guy to vote for a black guy because he's black? If both of these voters are unwilling to listen to the other side, then how is it not racist? By definition, isn't racism a statement that you will treat someone a certain way simply because of their race? Wouldn't it be racist to vote for Obama because he is black, and not for Romney because he is white? By your own logic, voting for Romney because he is white is racist, but not so for the guy who votes for Obama because he is black. I don't know, Rakeesh, they both sound pretty racially motivated to me.
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I'm not so sure about the "stagger the election in whichever way they see fit" part. I guess if you assume that minorities all vote the same way AND a lot of white people vote that way too, then it might be true (assuming that they all vote in the first place). But whites still outnumber minorities 2:1.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Oh, and as for not understanding America...you are arguing that an incumbent minority contender is *more* advantaged in a time of ongoing major recession with the end only dubiously in sight, whose presidency has been mired in that recession throughout.
Yes, and if Romney wins or actually gets close to winning, you can come back and slam it back in my face. I won't even mind, honest. Not even a little bit.
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Ok. Just to be very clear, you're saying it's equally problematic to refuse to vote for a n*%#er as it is to vote for a member of your own minority on the basis of race and believing he will look out for his own?
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With your sarcastic remark to Jeff, are you implying it's not racist to vote for someone simply because they are a member of your race? Or it's only not racist if you and the person you're voting for are minorities? Or only not racist if you're just doing it 'cause you think the guy you're voting for is racist? Or what?
Or is it just that, yeah, it's racist, but it's less bad racism? Still despicable though, right?
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I'm not so sure about the "stagger the election in whichever way they see fit" part. I guess if you assume that minorities all vote the same way AND a lot of white people vote that way too, then it might be true (assuming that they all vote in the first place). But whites still outnumber minorities 2:1.
40% of the population is a large number of people, Jon. Maybe some of them vote for Romney, but I think it's a safe bet to say that most will follow Obama. Even if they don't all vote, many will. Couple that with the Democratic vote and you've got a pretty large group of people backing the man in the pretty chair for another term in office.
But who knows? Maybe they'll decide they prefer Mittins in office. After all, he did make that remark about 47% of Americans being freeloaders (or did he call them stupid? Oh well, I don't remember).
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