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DNC 2016:  Rock you like a Hillar-Kaine DNC 2016:  Rock you like a Hillar-Kaine

07-31-2016 , 10:01 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
Also, telling people to vote for Democrats in order to prevent childhood poverty lacks a bit of self-awareness. It's not that voting Republican is better, but just rolling over and letting Democrats get away with teaming up with Republicans to gut welfare was not a good strategy.

http://www.cbpp.org/research/deep-po...s-first-decade

(To Barney Frank's credit, along with 147/170 Dems in the house, he voted against Bill Clinton's welfare reform.)
Right. I follow the strategy of Barney Frank and Bernie Sanders. Let's get Clinton elected, and starting day 1 work hard to hold her feet to the fire and make sure she follows through with the progressive agenda outlined in the Democratic party platform. That goes for the Democrats in Congress as well.
07-31-2016 , 10:45 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by batair
Thought she would move up more in the polls after this...well its early and trump talks a lot...
+5, +5, +5, and tie in the four released in the last couple of days cited on RCP, plus the RABA Research +15. Also, +9 in PA (Thursday) and +1 in Missouri (!).

Expect a flurry of good results for her on Monday and Tuesday.
07-31-2016 , 11:06 AM
I wonder what RABA Research's damage is that they aren't in RCP.
07-31-2016 , 11:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by einbert
Right. I follow the strategy of Barney Frank and Bernie Sanders. Let's get Clinton elected, and starting day 1 work hard to hold her feet to the fire and make sure she follows through with the progressive agenda outlined in the Democratic party platform. That goes for the Democrats in Congress as well.
Because we know what happens if Clinton loses. We do not get progressive, forward thinking policies. Rights are undone, policy moves backwards, and democrats move to the right to capture more voters.

I was idealistic once and thought voting green could help push dems left, but the exact opposite happened. Dems tried having liberal policies and no one voted for them. Without any power they couldn't pass progressive policies. Without progressive policies, all the purists and protestors could claim dems weren't liberal enough and thus chase the party further right by refusing to vote for purists.

It's a cycle that has to stop. For better or worse, repubs at least appear to fall in lock step with their party, and what's the end result? Massively conservative governments in various states restricting or rolling back rights. Politics takes organization and dedication, and the left doesn't seem to care enough to actually get **** done. They seem to think watching daily show or John Oliver counts as participating, but it doesn't.
07-31-2016 , 11:22 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Noodle Wazlib
Because we know what happens if Clinton loses. We do not get progressive, forward thinking policies. Rights are undone, policy moves backwards, and democrats move to the right to capture more voters.

I was idealistic once and thought voting green could help push dems left, but the exact opposite happened. Dems tried having liberal policies and no one voted for them. Without any power they couldn't pass progressive policies. Without progressive policies, all the purists and protestors could claim dems weren't liberal enough and thus chase the party further right by refusing to vote for purists.

It's a cycle that has to stop. For better or worse, repubs at least appear to fall in lock step with their party, and what's the end result? Massively conservative governments in various states restricting or rolling back rights. Politics takes organization and dedication, and the left doesn't seem to care enough to actually get **** done. They seem to think watching daily show or John Oliver counts as participating, but it doesn't.
More young people and very liberal people have to start getting involved more in the process beyond just voting. Of course register and vote for every single election without fail, if every 29 and under did that this country's government would be very different. But activism beyond that, phone banking, donating, working for organizations that may be nonpartisan (like LEAP which tries to end the war on drugs), and even running for office are necessary components for our success. We want activism to carry over into actual change, we have to do all of these things ourselves. President Clinton or President Sanders or President Johnson or Stein cannot do it for us.
07-31-2016 , 11:41 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofball
I wonder what RABA Research's damage is that they aren't in RCP.
Seems like they're just too new, they were only founded this year.
07-31-2016 , 11:47 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gizmo
Grow a penis, imo
Wouldn't work. The same people hate trans people more than they hate women.
07-31-2016 , 11:53 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gizmo
I think his point was more that, for better or worse, we operate in a 2 party system. and more and more I feel like we will always be a 2 party system. Whether it's the Whigs and democrats, republicans and democrats, liberal and conservative. Etc
Repeating myself, but the system of voting for potus isn't so undemocratic if you include the primaries and view the GE as a runoff. The party members who insist that it's a private party are in the way, but at this point, that's too bad for them imo.
07-31-2016 , 01:18 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
Repeating myself, but the system of voting for potus isn't so undemocratic if you include the primaries and view the GE as a runoff. The party members who insist that it's a private party are in the way, but at this point, that's too bad for them imo.
The US electoral system is, hands down, the worst of any democratic nation. The electoral college serves one purpose, to ensure the survival of only two parties. It made sense in an era when you needed some way to get the results of a vote to DC when it took two weeks by horseback. It now takes two seconds.

Worse than the electoral college is the awful primary process. It forces your country to be in a perpetual election where you are forced to always, and without break, identify as democrat or republican. Your county is always in a state of us from them.

200 years of social science research demonstrates this can only lead to more tribalism and partisanship. It will not ever lead to compromise.

In our system, our elections last about 2 months from start to end. We do not spend every moment of our lives as political people but rather citizens.

The single best thing the US could do is force your elections to be much much shorter.
07-31-2016 , 01:23 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clovis8
The electoral college serves one purpose, to ensure the survival of only two parties.
I don't think the EC is the reason for two parties. It is the reason that politicians give a **** about states they otherwise wouldn't give a **** about, for both better and worse.
07-31-2016 , 01:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
I don't think the EC is the reason for two parties. It is the reason that politicians give a **** about states they otherwise wouldn't give a **** about, for both better and worse.
I agree it does force candidates to campaign in smaller states, which is good, but that can also be incentivized by other means with less serious side effects.
07-31-2016 , 01:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gizmo
I think his point was more that, for better or worse, we operate in a 2 party system. and more and more I feel like we will always be a 2 party system. Whether it's the Whigs and democrats, republicans and democrats, liberal and conservative. Etc
Every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative



(It's a British comic opera, but that production was staged in Sacramento CA, I think.)
07-31-2016 , 06:19 PM
For those who missed it, i thought this one was pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBiQydkWfU
07-31-2016 , 07:08 PM
The EC has nothing whatsoever to do with there being only 2 parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

^this is why

This youtoobz explains it well enough:

07-31-2016 , 08:25 PM
Canada has FPTP and has had 4 or 5 parties in every single parliament since 2000 (too lazy to look back past that).

The reason the US 2 party is so stable is that the parties are so absurdly flexible. The fact that Trump, Romney, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Michael Bloomberg have all run for office in the same party over the last decade is absurd. But when party leadership and ideology is so flexible (And primaries are so open) there's no incentive for a legit candidate to run outside the party system.
07-31-2016 , 09:39 PM
I wouldn't call Canada a multi-party system, there's like 2.5 significant parties at any given time. Not 4 or 5.
07-31-2016 , 09:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vixticator
I wouldn't call Canada a multi-party system, there's like 2.5 significant parties at any given time. Not 4 or 5.
Not true at all. We have 4 major parties which have held significant seats for years; progressive conservative, liberal, NDP and Parti Quebecois. We even have one green seat.

Provincially there are even more parties.
07-31-2016 , 11:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofball
Clinton haters - is there anything she could do to turn you around on her?
Does she have a Delorean with a flux capacitor? If so, she can set it back four decades and choose a better path.

      
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