US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012

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Red Dreams said:
no he wont.

the demographics are not in favour of a Republican president...unless the party moves to the center, which it wont because it is held hostage by the lunatic right and the tea party.
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I'm not an expert on American politics by any means so could you please explain to me why the Republicans won Congress during the last term and are apparently likely to hold it in this election, if the country is moving towards the democrats?

Are the election processes for Congressmen and president different to such an extent?
 
africanspur said:
I'm not an expert on American politics by any means so could you please explain to me why the Republicans won Congress during the last term and are apparently likely to hold it in this election, if the country is moving towards the democrats?

Are the election processes for Congressmen and president different to such an extent?
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The 08 were a bit of a one off in that the GOP takeover of the house had much to do with the Tea Party, which in turn were fueled by economic frustrations due to the recession. They won't pick up many (if any) seats this time, but they managed to pick up enough last time to where they will probably hold on to the house even if the Dems manage to gain seats. The Dems still control the Senate by a slim margin.
 
Ah ok thanks. Are the Dems likely to extend their margin in the senate?
 
africanspur said:
Ah ok thanks. Are the Dems likely to extend their margin in the senate?
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If they do, it will only be by a seat or two. The conventional wisdom is that with one key Senator retiring, the Republicans may have a chance to gain a couple of seats, which would of course make for a gridlocked 2nd term if Obama wins next November.
 
Mitt Romney, Man of the People:
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Sir Matt said:
Can anyone here explain why corporations have 1st Amendment rights in elections and are considered people in that case? Yet, if BP, Halliburton, etc are culpable for the deaths of employees(Gulf oil spill), they face relatively little sanction. The CEO got a nice severance package I'm sure before he was fired, leaving everyone else to deal with the aftermath.
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Actually, corporations do get criminal prosecuted. The easy case is where a corporation violates, for example, securities regulations or something relatively white-collar. In such instances, the regulating body, in this example the Securities Exchange Commissioner, presumably would seek criminal prosecution. If certain executives commit more heinous crimes, they individually can get prosecuted, e.g., Charles Keating who was found criminally culpable (though unfortunately later overturned) for his part in the Savings and Loan Scandal.

There are, however, an abundance of reasons why prosecuting corporations or certain executives are so difficult. For example, there is a lack of adequate resources. Recently, the SEC settled one criminal case with a corporation, but the federal judge rejected the settlement because he found the settlement woefully inadequate. The SEC simply threw their arms in the air, and said that they simply don't have the time and money to pursue all these criminal cases with vigor. Another problem is one of evidence, e.g., shredders. And yet another problem is one of politics, or in other words, greed and venality.
 
Grinner said:
Newt has put out a 28 minute hit piece on Romney. It's getting very tasty now.
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Romney should put out an ad in response from when he was leading in December and was all magnaminous, saying that republicans shouldn't be attacking other republicans.
 
Newt is a fool. He's just helping Obama. All that nonsense about Romney's time at Bain is really making the others look like idiots. At least Paul and Ass-juice didn't join in the attack on that one.

Big question will be will Paul endorse Romney when the time comes.
 
Raoul said:
If they do, it will only be by a seat or two. The conventional wisdom is that with one key Senator retiring, the Republicans may have a chance to gain a couple of seats, which would of course make for a gridlocked 2nd term if Obama wins next November.
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One final question. :D If (when) Obama wins and has to step down in 2016, who is likely to be the democratic candidate? I know a lot can change in that time obviously but Emmanuel? Kaine? Duncan? Or is Hilary likely to sweep anyone away?

I don't really know what Newt is doing, he must know he isn't going to win but he's potentially prolonging the race, giving Obama even more ammunition and infuriating the majority of his party I'm guessing. Is an attack like this even going to work for a Republican nominee anyway?
 
africanspur said:
One final question. :D If (when) Obama wins and has to step down in 2016, who is likely to be the democratic candidate? I know a lot can change in that time obviously but Emmanuel? Kaine? Duncan? Or is Hilary likely to sweep anyone away?

I don't really know what Newt is doing, he must know he isn't going to win but he's potentially prolonging the race, giving Obama even more ammunition and infuriating the majority of his party I'm guessing. Is an attack like this even going to work for a Republican nominee anyway?
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That's a tough one. Its just too early to tell at this stage.
 
I think Barry will do whatever he can to ensure the repubs don't get back in. I'm hoping HRC gets to run just to explode lots of righties heads. It was hilarious seeing them all go back on a decade of Clinton hate to support her over Obama.
 
africanspur said:
I'm not an expert on American politics by any means so could you please explain to me why the Republicans won Congress during the last term and are apparently likely to hold it in this election, if the country is moving towards the democrats?
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It is very, VERY rare for the party that holds the Presidency to actually gain seats in Congress in the mid-term election. Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan and on and on. Their parties all lost seats in Congress in the mid-term elections.

The Republicans are likely to control the House again for the simple reason that they hold a rather sizeable majority at present. They'd have to lose about 25 or more seats, which is a very large turnaround in general. Additionally, House elections generally lean heavily in favor of the incumbents. That's a recipe for the Republicans still maintaining control in the '12 election.

It's not so much that the US has moved towards the Democrats. Most people in the US are Democrats; however, that's offset by the fact that Republicans have a higher percentage of people that actually go out to vote.

Are the election processes for Congressmen and president different to such an extent?
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Very different. The most apparent is that Presidents are elected by an electoral college system as to where Congressmen are voted by simple majority vote by their constituents. Additionally, most people aren't really attuned to congressional elections. Most people don't know who their congresspersons are. Also, there is the difference in election coverage and so forth.
 
There's an interesting dynamic going on with the redistricting thats currently underway. A lot of incumbents are looking at tough re-election bids and some have given up and retired.

Hello Odorous...haven't seen your name before but welcome to the discussion.
 
Grinner said:
Newt is a fool. He's just helping Obama. All that nonsense about Romney's time at Bain is really making the others look like idiots. At least Paul and Ass-juice didn't join in the attack on that one.

Big question will be will Paul endorse Romney when the time comes.
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No. Newt knows what he is doing. He does not really have a future in the Republican party.

He thought he lucked out when Perry imploded, but Romney destroyed that dream. Now it is only a matter of revenge for Newt.

I feel sure Paul will eventually endorse Romney or whoever wins.
 
The latest poll I have seen out of South Carolina has nearly one fifth undecided with both Paul and Huntsman gaining support but still quite far off Santorum, Gingrich and Romney.

The next round of states after Florida are interesting as there is no recent polling on them - Nevada, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota. I imagine pollsters don't want to run numbers until some more candidates drop out.
 
Cali Red said:
Disagree with this as a generic statement. The country is moving left on social issues (gay marriage, personal privacy, etc). However I think there is more of a movement to the right on fiscal conservatisim. I'm not sure what part of the country you live in but the population centers seem are moving left but the rural areas are moving right. Even though I live in California the area I'm in looks at the bay area (San Francisco) and LA as complete nutters. Much like the those areas looking at central valley as hicks and red necks.
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if you mean concern about the defecit and spending. yes. I like that we are now looking at these things. But there is also a growing anger at teh disparity in income between the haves and have nots. The Occupy movement is not unrepresentative of a the larger population in feeling that there is an 'unfairness' about the difference in how those at the top are being treated compared to the rest. The President tapped into this in his Kansas speech.

I live in Minnesota btw and the local Republican party is in disarry.

‘Behind The Eight Ball’: Terrible Times For The Minnesota Republican Party | TPMDC

In 2010 we got a Democratic Governor when the nation was trending GOP as was the legislature.

The reason is the urban vote. That is why I am confident the Democrats will retain the two senate seats as well as the governorship. Now if as I expect the legislature flips back to DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor as the Minnesota Democratic party is called, we will move in the right direction. The GOP legislature caused the state's rating to drop just like the national congress caused did.

Most Minnesotans blame the GOP. Obama is a shoe in here.
 
Plechazunga said:
TB, there's really no need to pay attention to random 'latest polls' when there is 538.

It's like trying to post on the Caf with ink and a quill.
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Why are you putting blind faith into one source? Especially so when over the last three months polling data for the republican primaries have been completely all over the place?
 
Team Brian GB said:
Why are you putting blind faith into one source? Especially so when over the last three months polling data for the republican primaries have been completely all over the place?
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They dont poll. They just aggregate the numbers gathered by others. 538's real benefit is analysis which is almost always spot on.
 
mehro said:
They dont poll. They just aggregate the numbers gathered by others. 538's real benefit is analysis which is almost always spot on.
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I am aware of it though it doesn't mean you should always defer to it.
 
Team Brian GB said:
It remains one interpretation, we do a poll of polls here at election time but that is not to say that they are accurate.
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At this point, given Silver's track record, I think you pretty much have to give him at the very least the benefit of the doubt. It's not a single source, and it's not just a blind "poll of polls" either. it's a methodology for collecting the data from various snapshots (e.g. individual polls), takes into account pollsters' past results and tendencies, and produces predictions that have proven to be highly accurate. Looking at "the latest poll" as the new gospel instead of 538's far more thorough aggregation of all the polling data is outmoded thinking, not that the news media will do so, given their financial interest in horse race reporting.
 
Team Brian GB said:
It remains one interpretation, we do a poll of polls here at election time but that is not to say that they are accurate.
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All the polls are shown and displayed there, regardless of what stock you put into 538's own analysis. It's not like their own analysis is definitive either since they give you ranges if you don't want to believe the full blown projections.
 
I can't help thinking that all this interest in the republican primaries has little to do with who will be the president in 2013, which will surely be Obama, and more to do with the future, if any, of the republican party, and possibly the 2016 election.
 
I can't understand why people are so confident in the Dems winning

Obama's not particularly popular, in fact his numbers are only just recovering. The economy has real but weak growth, unemployment's still around eight and a half percent. If the Euro goes under, which is not that unlikely, it will all go tits up. And the Republicans are going to elect a not-wingnut who may not be wildly exciting but is smooth, looks the part and apparently has no major skeletons.

I hope you're right but I can't understand why you're so sure.
 
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