Who are you voting for in Nov and why?

[Sapphire]

Ohhh, so your comments were intentionally misguided and ignorant?

[Animeniax]

Which statement(s)?

You're A-A aren't you?

[Assertn]

One thing that IS true, however....

The value of a vote is definitely not weighted equally across all people in the nation.

[Animeniax]

And neither should it be.

[Sapphire]

Which statement(s)?

You're A-A aren't you?

Nevermind, everything you say is totally right.

[Assertn]

And neither should it be.

the should you're referring to is different than the should that it is.

[Animeniax]

Nevermind, everything you say is totally right.

I love when people use this argument to defer any further discussion. It's the easy way out all Americans desire.

[The Heretic Azazel]

The main defense for the electoral college is the fact that large volumes of people concentrated in large cities tend to vote the same way. It would really be an advantage for the democrats since the larger states, like in the sun belt, have a more sparse population and tend to vote republican. Those people are simply outnumbered when it comes to one person = one vote.

[Ryllharu]

I was listening to the radio the other day and they decided to explain the historical significance of the electoral college.

Basically, it exists and we are the only ones who use it due to one incredible lack of foresight by the Founding Fathers. They assumed that there would never be political parties in the US. So, the equivalent of the current 270 vote majority would never occur. Regular people would nominate several contenders they would like to see in the presidency, and because a lot of random names would never get any kind of majority, Congress would end up choosing among the highest ranking of these (as they would do in a situation today if it came down to a 269-269 split) to ascend to the Presidency.

It's a weird system, but it makes perfect sense if political parties don't exist. The people bring up suggestions, and then the people they chose to represent them would make the final decision, supposedly picking the wisest and most competent person to run the country.

Political parties, as usual, screwed the whole thing up.

[Assertn]

The value of an individual's vote can be derived by two variables: The ratio of a state's population to number of its electoral votes, and how close the state is to being a swing state.

For the former, your weight is higher if the population to vote ratio is closer to 1:1, and for the latter, your weight is higher if you're in a swing state.

Of course, this is entirely because our states represent us in the general elections.

[ChaosK]

The Electoral College is controversial but will stay because:
1) Nobody has faith in the American people to actually make informed decisions. Probably more than half the people voting aren't aware of the issues. I know people who just go in and vote for every democrat/republican depending on their affiliation merely because that's the party they have established themselves with. I personally have on faith in the American people either. The American people are fucking retarded. It is good that a retarded jackass's vote doesn't get too much say merely because it's been 18 years since he was born.
2) Most of the time, the popular vote and the electoral college votes agree on presidency although the popular vote was a lot closer this time than the electoral vote would have you think.

The electoral college however, is very flawed as New York and California will consistently be democratic states, and combined they have 86 votes. Also, the all or nothing bit inevitably excludes a great deal of the voters. In states like Florida and Indiana where the the victor is ahead by a mere 1 or 2%, for him to get all of the votes is essentially discounting the votes of 49% of the state population.

One thing that this election has done though is it's giving the democrats a shot. If the fuck up, it's all on them. The American people are never happy and always have a tendency to change ruling parties around every 2-3 terms (excluding FDR). This is cause they automatically assume that since their current state of life sucks, voting the other way will change it, then 8 years later they realize it still sucks, so they go back hoping it will be changed again, and it's just a endless cycle of incompetence. Things are different though, with the economy falling and Obama's presidency hyped up to the max, in 2 years, if shit's bad, the midterm elections will probably swing back in republican favor.

I personally don't think Obama will last in office for more than one term. Then again, I think he's probably going to be shot before he's inaugurated so...yeah.

[Animeniax]

I was thinking that too. Too many guns, too many gun nuts, too many people who won't give the man a chance. Joe Biden might have just won the easiest presidential bid in our history. The Rodney King riots will be the rhetorical boy scout cookout in comparison.

[Kraco]

I don't know about this shooting thing. Bush will soon have been in power for eight years, and nobody shot him. If you say there are so many guns and gun nuts, it would be impossible there aren't some among them who'd hate Bush, or simply wouldn't care who they are shooting as long as it's a president. Considering Bush's war record, there should be even some crazed ex-soldiers, who would have the experience.

[Ryllharu]

Secret Service will be watching Obama more stringently than any President before him, that you can be sure of.

[Animeniax]

I don't know about this shooting thing. Bush will soon have been in power for eight years, and nobody shot him. If you say there are so many guns and gun nuts, it would be impossible there aren't some among them who'd hate Bush, or simply wouldn't care who they are shooting as long as it's a president. Considering Bush's war record, there should be even some crazed ex-soldiers, who would have the experience.

Yes, but Bush isn't black.

[Kraco]

That doesn't change anything. The point was your line "Too many guns, too many gun nuts", unless you also mean guns only kill black people and nuts only kill black people. According to my experience of this world, neither select their victims very carefully. Besides, white American presidents have been killed before, and while assassinating leaders (unless they are like Hitler and Stalin) is not much of a solution in my opinion, you'd think Bush is much worse than Kennedy as a president, at least based on how much fame JFK later garnered.

[Animeniax]

JFK was assassinated for various political (and economic) reasons which will probably never fully come to light. Bush is the figurehead of the power structure that is in place and all of his actions work to keep it that way. Typically it's not some crazies that kill world leaders, it's usually more insidious. But in Obama's case, it will come down to some racist with a sniper rifle.

[animus]

That doesn't change anything. The point was your line "Too many guns, too many gun nuts", unless you also mean guns only kill black people and nuts only kill black people. According to my experience of this world, neither select their victims very carefully. Besides, white American presidents have been killed before, and while assassinating leaders (unless they are like Hitler and Stalin) is not much of a solution in my opinion, you'd think Bush is much worse than Kennedy as a president, at least based on how much fame JFK later garnered.

Bush is the figurehead and savior of all these Gun Nuts. He's got his gun policies with a cherry on top for them. Besides, all the gun nuts are the red necks that are the same breed as Bush and from his home state of Texas.

[rockmanj]

Secret Service will be watching Obama more stringently than any President before him, that you can be sure of.

Yea, I'm pretty sure of that. The crazies will be going extra hard. I actually find something funny...like all these white guys I know that say there is no more racism in America find out about all theses attempts to thwart the Dem's campaign, and like all the racist stuff thats being said, like amoung and between their family and friends and they are like, shocked that people still think that way...sadly, I know that they're not, and I'm starting to see why they don't know about stuff like that; like, cause they haven't had to deal with it in their lives.