Yes this sort of spans several threads in both politics forums (fora?) but given that the primary season is over, I figured a new thread was warranted, Note: this is the boring thread. That means the focus is on policy proposals and the like. Perhaps you'd like to talk about the campaign gaffe du-jour? Do it elsewhere. Or perhaps you'd like to engage in some nonsense false equivalency? The Sanctum Santorum is elsewhere. Or maybe you just want to rant about how Obama isn't a real liberal or how Romney isn't a real conservative? Feel free to do it elsewhere. This thread is, by design, boring. Warning: I'm typing this on my iPad and that makes sharing links a pain, so the following is link light. I'll bolster it with some links when I get home, With that out of the, I'll kick things off. In almost all cases, campaign promises don't hold up to scrutiny. They aren't designed to pass CBO muster, they're designed to get the base fired up and/or to exploit the low information awareness level of the typical uncommitted voter. Even then, Mitt Romney's tax plan is egregious. He claims to want to drastically flatten the tax code to only two brackets: 15 and 25% (I think). Needless to say that since he's a Republican, this amounts to an enormous tax cut for the wealthy. He plans to pay for this by drastically slashing federal spending and by eliminating tax loopholes. However, he's famously declared his intention not to be specific about what loopholes and programs he'd eliminate, citing the potential political backlash as his reason (is the Romney campaign the first postmodern campaign?). However, over the weekend he got specific in front of some conservative donors, and what was striking is just how timid his plans are. Here is a link to Matt Yglesias that you should now read. So in short, from a policy substance point of view, the Romney tax plan is ridiculous. It's totally unworkable. If enacted, the subsequent deficits would probably destroy the nation. What's interesting is to contrast the GOP primary this year, which featured a great degree of nonsense and almost no policy substance, with the Democratic primary from four years ago. On healthcare, all three campaigns released very long, detailed policy proposals that were actually workable. They were pie in the sky plans with no chance of passing Congressional muster, but they weren't outright nonsense of the likes the GOP is offering.
At this point Romney is free to hang himself with marginal proposals in order to secure his footing with a Republican base that spent the last six months desperately trying not to nominate him. Honestly the election in my mind hinges on what happens in June and th Supreme Court's decision, or some unforeseen downturn. I get a sense of bitter resignation to Obama's reelection among the consevatives I'm around right now, none of whom cares a bit for Romney, at all.
I tend to be getting that sense as well, and I'm not even sure that the downfall of the PPACA would make a difference. Romney's evident unsuitability as a candidate combined with an modest increase in the Presidents popularity seem to be conspiring to assure a second Obama term. Of course anything can happen in the interim, but that is certainly the way the tide is presently pulling.
I can't help but feel that a repeal of the PPACA would start a backlash. It would be an action about as scummy as the Bush/Gore decision in 2000, but this time the media would actually report on it. It's possible liberals would simply despair and throw up their hands, but I'd have to think Republicans would get swamped when people and their kids start to get kicked off their insurance.
If a PPACA repeal had any effect, I suspect it'd be more on the conservative side. Right now Romney can campaign on repealing (or at least refusing to implement) the PPACA. A repeal takes it off the table. More likely I suspect the net effect would be minimal,
It would change the political narrative to "the liberal, unconstitutional President". It would be an Iranian hostage moment for Obama. It would put into question Obama's whole ideological foundations.
Among whom? Partisan republicans already do those things, Democrats are likely to view the court as illegitimate more than President, and independents are by and large irrelevant.
Among the media. It would mean any time Obama proposes something, the question can be raised, "is this constitutional?". But this depends as much on Republicans making hay when the sun is shining and they've shown themselves this cycle comprehensibly inflexible and ideological.
What about the independents? I'm thinking specifically of the people who might not be super-excited about Obama, but lucid enough to realize how out-there the republicans are getting. De-legitimizing the President as a narrative is definite possibility - but I think another strong possibility is de-legitimizing the GOP. Or the entire process, which is scary. I'm thinking back to last summer, during the debt deal negotiations. blah blah blah we all know what happened, but I noted with some interest the media was unwilling to jump on board with the GOP line "See? Government can't do anything!" I don't know if this was a lack of information to take a stand, or a simple realization of political realities, but I could have sworn the media was agog at how crazy the Republicans seemed to be were. It might be wishful thinking. It might fall down partisan lines. But I can't see how conservative cheering over the failure of one of their own plans, originally, does anything other than shoot them in the foot. But socialism, lol
Where do you get the idea that independents are irrelevant? You have massive amounts of people on both sides that care about nothing more then the person they vote for having the correct letter after their name on the ballot. It is the independents who may actually care about what someone stands for and decide the elections.
lol wut Have you considered the possibility that some highly partisan voters have reasons beyond tribal identity for voting the way that they do? Because your post is massively, massively insulting to those of us who do.
Also, and I'm sure jeffd will bring in the links for this (or someone else will) but the "Independent swing voter" is a bit of a myth. People who say they are independents pretty much vote party line for the way they lean regardless; they just like to say they're independent. The actual numbers of people who do swing back and forth is inconsequential to electoral results. IIRC, etc.
Mr. M. / Brett: which independents? There are three types: democratic leaning, republican leaning, and true independents. The first two are very reliably partisan (democratic leanings independents went for Obama by like 90% in 2008; GOP leaning independents went for McCain by about 80%). The third group is much closer to a fifty fifty split, but a) they are only about 7% of the total electorate b) their voting rate is lower than everyone else and c) they're about the lowest information voters out there. So when I say independents I mean the third group, and I say they're irrelevant because there aren't very many of them, by and large they don't vote, and they pretty much don't pay attention to anything. The likelihood of a Supreme Court ruling on the PPACA affecting their vote in November is approximately zero. Enidigm is right that the media would make a huge stink of it, and because they're largely useless they'd focus on the horse race ramifications (instead of, you know, the actual consequences vis a vis people who will go without health care), but the political media is collectively the stupidest of our political institutions, and I don't think that their coverage actually affects things as much as people assume. Datas. Sadly pay walled, you'll have to search around a bit to find references to the juicy bits.
No what is insulting is the massive numbers of people who will excuse anything someone with the right letter after their name on the ballot does. For example republicans who attack Obama for spending while excusing what happened under Bush, and dems who attacked Bush over civil liberties abuses while supporting Obama who is doing the same things.
Are you saying this in the general handwavy sense, or in the folks on this board sense? Because I remain unconvinced that the first has any more truth than the second, which is laughably false on the face of it.
Both, but one would have to go back to posts made on a different board to show that about some posters here.
Oh please, nobody's getting a clean slate from every member who posts here. The clean slate comes from Lum for ignoring transgressions that occurred elsewhere (as it should be). Anyone else offering it is doing so of their own accord and none should be demanded. I find it annoying when people defend someone with the "clean slate" argument. We're all the same people with the same thoughts and values as before and all of our pasts are unalterable. If you want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, fine but nobody should be demanding it for themselves or others. Personally, nobody get a "clean slate" from me but it's also rare for me to complete write someone off, if someone is producing a better signal to noise ratio than before I'm more apt to take them seriously. If their quality is the same as before, then so is my opinion of them.
This has nothing to do with a clean slate, most of us here have had extensive political discussions together before coming here, we know, for the most part, what we do and don't believe in politically. Those beliefs don't vanish because we are discussing them on Lums forum.
Posts from OP until thread derail: 14. Poster derailing thread: brettmcd. My surprise level: Zero. Quoting this because hey, maybe we can actually talk about the substance of the issue instead of just watching brett successfully troll people into shitting up the thread?
No trolling going on over here, I didn't know that talking about why people vote the way they do is 'shitting up' a thread about the upcoming elections where people will actually vote.
Brett if you want to throw your equivalncies around, I'd prefer you do it elsewhere. Preferably in the Sanctum. Otherwise, I gave you what I consider to be a well thought out post regarding the significance of independent voters. Care to respond to that?
While I'm at it: if you care about policy outcomes, voting for someone because of the letter after their name (e.g., partisan voting behavior) is the most rational approach. Individual members of Congress have very little leeway in how they vote, and their individual policy preferences are almost irrelevant in the face of their party's consensus. There are some edge cases, but for the most part this holds true. Thus, in any election, the most rational way to get the result you want is to pick which party is going to give it to you and vote for them regardless of the candidate they offer or what the candidate actually says during the campaign. This holds true at the national level, at the state and local level politicians have more leeway to maneuver.
Jeff, do you think that's a good thing? What would the Senate or House look like if the tradition was for Senators and Representatives to vote their conscience instead of the party line?
Ehh, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, I think it's hard to ascribe a value judgement to that sort of thing. Based on historical precedent and the nature of legislating, political parties pretty much seem to be inevitable. You need coalitions to do stuff, and building a new coalition for every vote seems hugely inefficient to me. Add in the reality of legislative horse trading, and parties almost seem to fall out any representative system by default. I get the abstract appeal of everyone just voting their conscience, but I think that in reality such a system would just as likely become a muddled mess as it would lead to good outcomes. From a voters POV it's a pretty good deal actually. You and I are by definition politics nerds (we post about it on the Internet). Most people aren't, they have much more important things to do. I don't mean that facetiously, the reality for a lot of people is working long hours to support a family, coming home bone tired, and maybe getting a chance to spend a few hours with your kids before you go to bed. Informing yourself on the individual positions of each and every candidate on each and every ballot is a daunting task. As a result, parties provide a sort of useful signal as to what, generally, you can expect from a given candidate.
Yeah. And like I said it breaks down quite a bit when you get to the local level. But in Congress, by far the most powerful predictor of how an individual will vote is party identification. Nothing else even comes close.
Romney's proposals are the standard bag of lies you get from post-1980 Republicans. I'm more curious what Obama is going to run on. Not that it matters, I guess; nothing more complicated than renewal-or-not of the Bush tax cuts is going to make it through Senate star chamber for a while, barring an unexpected disaster leading to a 60-vote majority one way or the other, or 51 senators suddenly agreeing to junk the 60-vote filibuster.
Here's a broader question: I think it is inevitable that Romney will attempt a move to the center and since he cannot do that based on charisma, he will have to throw some centrist policy ideas out there. Is there any room for him to do so without angering his base? What sort of ideas do you see him proposing to make himself appear more appealing to undecided voters? My own take is that whatever he does will be faux-centrist, since the current Republican base would oppose any true moderation. Romney will probably propose some kind of conservative hobby horse but dress it up as a moderate proposal. Maybe he will latch onto Paul Ryans purported Medicare reform and try to claim that as centrist (I know its not but that never stopped the recent Republicans.)
Relevant to what we discussed yesterday. I didn't say it yesterday, but I was thinking that if you were going to have a representative democracy, in terms of avoiding party influence your best bet would be to pick legislators at random. That gets into all sorts of other problems (not everyone is temperamentally suited to being a legislator, it pretty much destroys the opportunity for legislators to add value to the system by becoming experts, etc). On the other hand, given that your average legislator probably doesn't know shit about governing, I imagine you'd end up with a cottage industry of "advisers" and the like who would end up running the government.
Having the House be filled by a jury-duty-esque lottery/draft instead of elections has been one of my longstanding crank theories. It wouldn't reduce corruption, but it would spread it around! The Senate could remain as-is, to act as a theoretical check on even more whack-a-doodle proposed legislation both of the grandstanding type and legitimately crazy but seriously intended, for those 2 year periods where sheer random chance populates the House with a hypermajority of Nazis or NAMBLA members or reality television producers or whatever.
An alternative option would be lottoing five names out of a hat filled with anyone who wants to run, and voting on which one wins the seat. Self selection, randomization, and democratic choices as a single package. Give them a few months to show where they stand on stuff and things get interesting. I think a campaign to enforce Simple English in bills would do a hell of a lot more good, but if we're gonna go with system design fappery we should go all the way.
From the QT3 thread on some new Gallup poll where Obama's down by 9: 1) It's too early for polls to have any predictive power. 2) Gallup has a non-trivial lean to the right in their polling. They're not like those idiots at Rasmussen where they're in the tank for the GOP; just something about their methodology results in numbers that overshoot the GOP results. 3) Obama's job approval is right at 50%, with the hilarious exception of Fox's polls. 4) Given all those caveats, the full set of major polls are all over the place. Electoral college calculators show how favorable the terrain is for Obama; I expect his EC votes to outperform polls. If you use 2008 as the starting point and give Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, and all of Nebraska to the GOP Obama still wins 272-266. Any states beyond that imply it not even being close - he won Iowa by 10, Colorado by 9, New Mexico by 16, for example. Other people have different EC conclusions based on approval rating, but some of it seems implausible. Really, Obama's going to have a 16 point swing in 4 years in New Mexico and lose it, because his approval rating is 42% there? Seems unlikely. Similarly, if Obama loses Oregon (approval rating of 44.5%), which he won by 16% last time, and that hasn't gone for a Republican since 1984, it'll be such a bloodbath you won't need fancy math.
I notice that the only ones that have Romney up are Rasmussen, Gallup, and Fox. And even those polls don't have him up by much. All the other polls have Obama leading by a clearer margin. And yeah, none of them mean anything at this point. Romney hasn't even been nominated yet.
We're still four months out from either of the party conventions. We don't know who Mitt will pick as his VP. It was probably around mid-June when it looked like Obama had it in the bag in 2008, then that got disrupted with the conventions and Palin. If it's not a horse race, we'll probably know the result within a reasonable margin of error by early to mid October.
jeffd Does the VP choice make a big difference, election-wise? I want to think it doesn't, after the Palin fiasco of 2008, and all the others have been bland "pick up your home state for me, will you?" names.
MrMolecule: from what I gather the answer is a firm no, at least according to the poli-sci types. I don't think Palin actually affected things much; if you look at the polling in say June-July of '08 it pretty (before conventions and VP choices) it pretty closely mirrored the final results. Intuitively I think that the VP choice can only hurt you and probably can't help you. I'm open to the idea that Palin cost McCain a point or two nationally; I cannot imagine a scenario where a VP actually adds to the ticket.
He might pick up a few votes if he grafts Ron Paul onto his ticket, but I doubt it would help him pick up anything. I'm in agreement with jeffd on that. It can hinder a campaign, but picking up votes the top of the ticket can't get? Not likely in the numbers it would take to win.
Ugh Ron Paul would be poison. The people who don't flock to Obama out of spite would stay home in droves. Now that I think of it, Romney/Paul 2012!
