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US election 2012

littlebabyjesus said:
It's not earth-shattering, no. Low pay rises rather than pay freezes. Perhaps 5k tuition fees rather than 9k. The Tories have just rather predictably lurched to the right, though, and we've yet to see exactly how their reforms of the NHS will pan out. And they are again attacking with gusto the very concept of things like social housing and universal benefits.
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Labour support the welfare reforms,. Labour MP's didn't vote against public sector pensions reforms, Milliband has said cuts are needed, labour won't stop Trident..... The proverbial cigarette paper.....
 
Yuwipi Woman said:
That's true to a certain extent, but there's a limit to it. The greater the divide between the haves and the have-nots, the more likely it becomes that they can't hide from the mass of unhappy people. Hiring guards and building gated communities only works so long. At some point they have to either compromise or use less subtle means of control.
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Well yes and no. That divide is an issue if it's going to translate into social unrest that disturbs the existing state of affairs. Turning that into election mobilisation is a great way of shutting it down...
 
Fedayn said:
No, i'm a socialist, why would I have voted Tory? I would vote for a socialist, last time I looked Obama, unless you're a loonspud Tea party dribbler, wasn't a socialist. Ergo I wouldn't vote for him.
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I'm a socialist as well. I would in certain circumstances vote for someone else. I would have voted for Chirac against le Pen, for instance, and I'd probably have worn the nosepeg. Something of a special case, but in some ways this is something of a special case, I think. The tea party dribblers are closer to power than ever - it seems to me that Romney is even more beholden to them than Bush jnr was. Even Colin bloody Powell has come out against his own party now.
 
Lo Siento. said:
Well yes and know. That divide is an issue if it's going to translate into social unrest that disturbs the existing state of affairs. Turning that into election mobilisation is a great way of shutting it down...
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It is, but there's a practical limit. Sooner or later you'll get riots in the streets and people blowing the tits off public buildings.
 
Fedayn said:
I wasn't meaning you did, but that voting for that lot becaise they're not as bad as that otehr lot is't really that great a step. I've always voted for what I support rather than simply against what I don't want if you get me.
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images

It's a dirty business.
 
Fedayn said:
Labour support the welfare reforms,. Labour MP's didn't vote against public sector pensions reforms, Milliband has said cuts are needed, labour won't stop Trident..... The proverbial cigarette paper.....
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Yes. It's depressing. If I were American, I'd be depressed by the choice they have been presented with too.
 
Lo Siento. said:
Do you really think that the most liberal democracies are about accommodating more ideas? I suppose maybe a young democracy is sufficiently unstable that it might involve such a process of negotiating different ideas, forming new coalitions etc (although even that is a highly structured development). In an old democracy like the US, the patterns are relatively fixed, the participants know who the plausible winners are, the arrangement of the policies, the way the electoral machines and maths work. The candidates for the most part know that what will win them an election is placing differing emphases on the status quo to appeal to relatively small sections of the population.
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Most governments try to limit opposing ideas, but when you give the vote to more and more people, you'll have to account for more views just as a function of the math. That may not translate into real change, but the people in power have to find some way of dealing with it. That may be voter suppression, as we're seeing now. Or, it may be compromise like we saw with civil rights in the last century.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Yes. It's depressing. If I were American, I'd be depressed by the choice they have been presented with too.
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Of course, but you play with what you've been dealt. You can hold out for pie in the sky, but it'll be a long wait. Me, I'm content when a few more scraps fall off the table for the little guy.
 
Yuwipi Woman said:
Of course, but you play with what you've been dealt. You can hold out for pie in the sky, but it'll be a long wait. Me, I'm content when a few more scraps fall off the table for the little guy.
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It does look like Obama's going to scrape back in. Romney's well behind with the bookies, which can be the best guide. But if Romney scrapes in, perhaps the best you can hope for is that he will be useless. I think he might be rather useless, in which case his ineptitude may limit the damage. A bit like Boris Johnson being London mayor.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
It does look like Obama's going to scrape back in. Romney's well behind with the bookies, which can be the best guide. But if Romney scrapes in, perhaps the best you can hope for is that he will be useless. I think he might be rather useless, in which case his ineptitude may limit the damage. A bit like Boris Johnson being London mayor.
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I'm voting purely on who's likely to make nominations to the Supreme Court that I can live with for the next generation.
 
Yuwipi Woman said:
Most governments try to limit opposing ideas, but when you give the vote to more and more people, you'll have to account for more views just as a function of the math. That may not translate into real change, but the people in power have to find some way of dealing with it. That may be voter suppression, as we're seeing now. Or, it may be compromise like we saw with civil rights in the last century.
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The civil rights compromise wasn't about voting blocs though, it was about direct action by citizens. That tends to be what shifts entrenched regimes likes the Democrat-Republican one. I don't think changing demographic has changed the party platforms one iota.
 
ayatollah said:
You Yankees (and a surprising number of other posters) are really getting excited about all this aren't you ! As if it actually mattered ! Sure there is the Healthcare issue to divide them -- but even there, Obama's Healthcare Bill is pretty shit, let's be honest - handing all that new money to the same old private sector crooks. And don't tell me that at least Obama's some kind of liberal ... he's too busy with new authoritarian law creation and drone strikes for that to have any mileage.

FFS, Romney is indeed a religiously eccentric, billionaire asset-stripping, job destroying, poor-people-grinding toerag, for sure........but what about Obama, how much better is this now proven stooge for Wall Street's interests ? Sorry, but the man and his party are also utterly corrupt upholders of US capitalism in general, and the interests of the superrich in particular. OK, unlike Mitt, Obama doesn't appear to be a stone bonker.. but even in bourgeois political terms he's no Roosevelt is he ? Not the man to face up to Wall Street and the fat cats in the wider real "national interest of the average family" -- just yet another master of empty sonorous feelgood rhetoric. Whichever guy wins, the US and world economies are longer term toast, as the continuing crazed priorities of the Financial sector and the superrich lead us all into ever greater banker-led speculative upheaval, and ever greater World Depression.

My advice is to chillax and just take a rest from the news till its all over. US policy is determined by the US capitalist ruling class on a very long term strategic basis, with only tiny detail differences of emphasis allowed between potential presidents like Romney or Obama. Your entire US "democratic process " is simply a manipulated sham nowadays. Get over it. Move on.
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yeah I know, thanks for that astounding revelation, it had never occurred to me before.

I'm interested in elections regardless of the twats contesting them, they fascinate me. Is that OK with you?
 
Paddy power are in the business of self-promotion.

How good does that look? A betting firm paying out before on something that is going to happen, probably. I'm sure not a lot of people are betting on it anyway- they can take the hit.

Media loves elections. Usually they talk about things that have happned- here they get to talk about things that are going to happen- what's more exciting than something being on a knife-edge.
 
It seems powered by sheer spite. What kind of 'democracy' is it to be proud of when you actively want someone else to fail, or to die in order to prove your own self worth? There's an element of gleeful mirth at the idea of depriving people from basic necessities. It goes beyond any economic or even ideological argument, and straight into the realm of pathological sociopathy.
 
TomUS said:
It's bizarre. It's been sold as government control of our lives. It's socialism, communism, fascism......& has something to do with sharia.
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I remember when I was working in NY, I first got an understanding of American's attitude towards universal free healthcare. I was with some left-ish friends, and after I was extolling the virtues of the NHS and of living in a society where you never have to worry about the cost of healthcare, the response was unanimous: "Why should I have to pay for that bum over there to get better?"

Apparently, failing to paying off the debts of healthcare for themselves or their relatives is the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the States.
 
editor said:
I remember when I was working in NY, I first got an understanding of American's attitude towards universal free healthcare. I was with some left-ish friends, and after I was extolling the virtues of the NHS and of living in a society where you never have to worry about the cost of healthcare, the response was unanimous: "Why should I have to pay for that bum over there to get better?"
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How did you answer that? I'd have said something along the lines of, "Firstly, it's $1T cheaper, and secondly because one day, that bum might be you or someone about whom you care."
 
Monday's national polls show Obama gaining ground almost across the board: only Gallup and Rasmussen show Romney ahead and even that Gallup poll shows Obama closing in. In this sense, the nationals are coming into line with the state polls now.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight now rates Obama's chances of winning at over 90% with a similar chance of him winning Ohio. He even rates Florida as being a very very small Democrat lean.

Either the polls are systematically wrong across the board or it's four more years for Barack Obama. Just the actual voting to go now...
 
Quartz said:
How did you answer that?
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Point out they've already paid for his education, roads, defence, etc etc. And that he is paying for their medical treatment as well. And that it is (as you say) shitloads cheaper to run a medical service that way, and that it will save 'the economy' loads as well, making the entire country (including them) richer.
 
Nates being treated like the antichrist by Republicans, for crunching numbers scientifically. Speaks volumes.
 
Rutita1 said:
Hour by hour: What to watch out for on Election Night: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121103/us-watching-the-returns/ …
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Re: Virginia, I seem to remember last time a lot of the rural, western counties reporting first there and obviously going for McCain by large margins. The north eastern part of the state, effectively the Washington DC suburbs, reported later and won the state for Obama.

If I'm right about this, what I'm saying is don't necessarily have the state down as a Romney win if early tallies show him well ahead there
 
JTG said:
Re: Virginia, I seem to remember last time a lot of the rural, western counties reporting first there and obviously going for McCain by large margins. The north eastern part of the state, effectively the Washington DC suburbs, reported later and won the state for Obama.

If I'm right about this, what I'm saying is don't necessarily have the state down as a Romney win if early tallies show him well ahead there
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The polls will come on from across the state at the same time tho (about five past midnight). If they show Obama ahead, or it being too close to call, he's won it. If they call it for Romney, start worrying.
 
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