Originally Posted By TomSawyer The GOP in it's current trajectory is dead in twenty years. There are going to be fewer and fewer angry white males with every election cycle. Texas is going to be a swing state maybe as early as 2016 and certainly by 2020. Even if Romney wins today, the GOP is still dead in 20 years unless they jettison the Tea Party and move back to the center.
Originally Posted By The Big Ragu What a load of cheesecake! You really think that most who vote for Mit are doing it against their own interests.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 What Maher was saying is that he, a rich liberal, voted against his own self-interest (i.e. he might have to pay a bit more in taxes) because he can afford it, and he's fully aware of what he's doing. That's quite different from working-class people voting to enrich the already rich yet further, either because they've bought into the myth (for most) that they might be rich one day themselves, or because they more concerned about gay people marrying each other or they're worried about the non-existent attempts to take away their guns (i.e. they vote against their economic interests because social issues dominate their thinking). You can disagree with that assessment, but that's what Maher was getting at, so it's not really a contradiction for him.
Originally Posted By The Big Ragu abortion/ that was absurd to the point of laughter gay marriage/ that was right contraception/ not if I have to pay for it Skmmerbox not a great round for you that time
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<My goal isnt to chastise someone for feeling that way, but to hepefully make them understand that there are good and loving and decent people like myself out there who just happen to have different core values and beliefs.>> OK, now I get it. The "good and loving and decent people," as you call them, who are voting for Republican candidates today, those people are being "demonized" by Democrats for their beliefs. Actually, plano, that's not true. Those people are being "demonized" because of the candidates they're electing, not the beliefs they hold. The vast majority of those Republican candidates who want to hold public office have clearly defined goals: They want to tell me and others whom we can and cannot marry, or what we can and cannot do to our own bodies, or what we can and cannot do with others like us who want to collectively bargain with employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. These Republicans want to take their deeply held conservative beliefs and force them onto non-conservatives such as myself, turning them into law. And part of those deeply held beliefs is the notion that only rich people matter, only millionaires and billionaires should be running the government, and that anyone who isn't one or isn't able to give over their entire life to one by working hard to make that millionaire or billionaire even richer, is basically on their own to fend for themselves, even when disabled or aged or destitute through no fault of their own. And anyone who is strongly motivated to vote for political candidates who wish to restrict the civil rights of others in this nation, I feel, is being selfish. Forcing someone to live per your belief structure is wrong. No one is forcing someone into a gay marriage they don't want to be in. No one is forcing a woman to have an abortion that she doesn't want. But if someone wants a gay marriage or an abortion, then they should have unencumbered access to those things. It's all about having the right to live your life as you see fit. But when that right is hampered by laws passed by conservative politicians that effectively make you a second class citizen, that's wrong. And that's where the loss of respect comes in. It's difficult to respect someone who wants to send a politician to Washington for the sole purpose of restricting rights for the 99%, for race and gender based minorities, for gays, for workers, for seniors, for disabled, just so the top 1% can become even richer. And that is now the main goal of Republican politicians in this nation: serve the rich. And if you're not rich yourself, then you're voting against your own self-preservation.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney Plano, try being chastised by those "good and loving" Christians for being Democrat and a Christian. Not a single Christian is able to tell me why voting for someone just because there is an "R" next to his name is the right thing to do, however you bet I've been told that "real" Christians are Republican. Or, how sad it is to see those who call themselves Christians voting for Obama.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I am a very respectable person in every aspect of my life. I love my fellow man, always put my family before my self and attempt to show love and kindness to everyone I come in contact worth. I have plenty of flaws, but I can honestly say I have never hated ANYONE in my life and I go out of my way,in my non-LP World Events life, to not be offensive to anyone. The fact that you cant respect someone like me, well, there is nothing I can do about that. I feel like democrats resort to trying to shame and ridicule and demonize us on the right because it angers them so much that we dont agree with them that they cant contain themselves." I know you're being sincere, but you have no idea how easy would be to describe myself and my view Republicans using your exact words. Perhaps we ought to start focusing more on what we have in common than what divides us.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Perhaps we ought to start focusing more on what we have in common than what divides us.<< That would be great for the country, but lousy for TV and radio ratings. Most of the media has a vested interest in stoking the flames unfortunately. I get what Plano is trying to say, I really do. But some of the policies that the right is in favor of tramples all over other people. And look what happens when Chris Christie and Obama work together during a crisis. It's newsworthy because Christie broke ranks, went off message.
Originally Posted By Labuda plano, please note that I am not a he. "That's not why. It's because the right currently espouses some pretty mean-spirited stuff. "Compassionate conservatism" is a distant memory. The current GOP is more about Ayn Rand" +1 to this
Originally Posted By Labuda "I've been told that "real" Christians are Republican" Yep, it kills me every single time I hear that. Christ was most certainly pro death penalty, after all. *rolling eyes*
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I remember being told many times on this board I wasn't a true Christian if I voted for Obama.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 I remember being told many times on this board I wasn't a true Christian if I voted for Obama.< By whom? And Beaumandy doesn't count...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Would it be churlish to point out to the Silver doubters that if VA and FL go to Obama, that he will, I believe, have called all 50 states correctly?
Originally Posted By mawnck Churlish, perhaps, but I'll sure be doing it for at least the next two years.
Originally Posted By Labuda Well, as of right now, the President has VA and our uber intelligent state of FL still has yet to be called per the map I'm looking at over on CNN...
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< <a href="http://natesilverwrong.com" target="_blank">http://natesilverwrong.com</a> Guess they're hoping for the best over there in Rightieland. >>> What did it say? They appear to have shortened it quite a bit today . Looking at the domain registration, it's registered to the GOP at the address of the Miami-Dade GOP HQ in Florida. Interesting. Speaking about polling in general, it does appear that Nate Silver got it exactly right: 50 out of 50 states called correctly. And, his projections of the popular vote were quite close to the actual results as well. Contrast this with what the Baghdad Bobs (Fox News, Drudge, etc.) have been telling us for the past few days. And a great many people believed them. I think this is very telling about what's happening on the Right these days: Much like Romney saying that he wasn't going to let his campaign statements be governed by fact-checkers, there seems to be a movement on the Right to treat "facts" as being as malleable as opinion: any time there is a fact presented that contradicts whatever the agenda-ju-jour happens to be, the thing to do is to present (and sometimes create) your own fact that supports your own point of view. With two sets of facts out there on any issue, it's easy to let people that are pre-disposed to agree with you to have "facts" to back them up. Usually, things are just slippery enough that they can get away with this. Take a look at climate change, for example. But not when it comes to the results of the election. It turns out that some facts really are more true than others. And, considering that Nate Silver got 50/50 states right this time, and 49/50 right in 2008, I'd say that this establishes a track record that goes far beyond luck that he's onto something and has a methodology that works. Just because the GOP finds Silver's facts inconvenient doesn't mean they get to make up their own set of facts and pretend they're true. Well, they sure tried to, up until last night.
Originally Posted By TMI It never said much of anything. It went "live" for a short time only and included a few quotes about how overrated Silver was, but I'm sure that was just set-up material and they had lots more planned and ready to go. Oops.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 Between 2008, 2010, and 2012, there should be no doubt that Nate Silver has the best method for tracking polling data...
