NH PrimaryFollow

Back to the NH primary, the prevailing reasoning why the polls were so off is that last minute undecideds broke for Clinton, adding to her "polled" percentage. New Hampshire being notorious for last minute undecided voters.

As the pollsters point out, the polls for the Republican side were accurate. Obama got the 37% he was projected to get. The "only" error was the surprising gain that Clinton made.

Not Illinois.

We avoid it via a morass of intra-party conflict which prevents us from ever passing a budget.

So there.

Sweet corn. Varrus uses it for ethanol.

I'm 2-2 with that these past two days.

I blame the rest of you.

Sure. Jibes are great. Talking smack is great. But for a while in this thread you guys were like glued to each new thing during the primary. Listing off numbers as they changed, commenting on each speech. It was like you were all sitting at home watching TV with your fingers crossed, straining your eyes at the ticker and looking for the slightest change, then running to the computer to post about it when it happened.

It's a primary! Heck. I'd get that if it was a sporting event. At least you can see things happening that affect the score. Absolutely nothing you see or hear on your TV has any bearing on the results in this case. None! It's a bunch of people talking about what happened. It would be like if a football game was determined by random number generation, and each quarters score was simply released once every half an hour, and you sat there glued to the screen watching the commentators talk about nothing for 30 minutes while waiting for each new change.


Maybe it's just me, but I don't find that too exciting...

ut for a while in this thread you guys were like glued to each new thing during the primary. Listing off numbers as they changed, commenting on each speech. It was like you were all sitting at home watching TV with your fingers crossed, straining your eyes at the ticker and looking for the slightest change, then running to the computer to post about it when it happened.


It is pretty crazy to be that involved in the political process that will determine the future of the Nation when we could be, instead, googling obscure facts to prove someone wrong and thereby... um, I'm not sure really. Some sort of ego boost? I find it hard to conceptualize of being that insecure, but hey, could be.


It's a primary! Heck. I'd get that if it was a sporting event.

IT IS A SPORTING EVENT, BUFFOON


At least you can see things happening that affect the score. Absolutely nothing you see or hear on your TV has any bearing on the results in this case. None! It's a bunch of people talking about what happened. It would be like if a football game was determined by random number generation, and each quarters score was simply released once every half an hour, and you sat there glued to the screen watching the commentators talk about nothing for 30 minutes while waiting for each new change.


So... exactly like a football game?




Maybe it's just me, but I don't find that too exciting...


I'm sure it's not just you. Most people aren't bright enough to find it engaging. It's not your fault, there's just a curve of intelligences and you don't fall toward the end enough to get it. The good news is that this fact seems to not bother you at all, and you can seemingly pass off your blatant jealous anti-intellectualism to yourself as folksy charm.

I realize that probably seems to you as if I'm joking or attacking you, but I'm really not. I'm completely convinced that you're just don't have the intellectual capacity to understand a great many things discussed here.

Poor poor Jophiel.

:(

Totem

Sometimes I can barely find him.

Besides the fact that he's adorable, what do you like about him Kachi?

Is it his support for the War?
Or is it his opposition to abortion, homosexuality in general, same-sex marriage, and civil unions?
Perhaps it's his support of the death penalty (while also being "pro-life")?
Or maybe it's his staunch belief in creationism?

Ron Fucking Paul

He's anti war, anti taxes, pro Habeas Corpus, pro guns, anti patriot act, anti torture, and Anti War on drugs.

(He's also staunchly pro life and anti-gay, but he is a Republican after all).

He'd also lose a Presidential Race to Dennis Kucinich, so there's that too.

That's actually what he's playing on. Huckabee is a "Religious Liberal". Meaning that his fiscal/governmental approach is actually virtually identical to those held by Democrats (spend money on government programs to solve problems basically). He's exactly the sort of guy who would have been a Democrat 50 years ago before the secularist movement took over and pushed anyone with a religious agenda out.

I think his biggest problem is that he's hinged his hopes on two conditions working in his favor: That Conservatives will vote for him because he's religious, and that Liberals (ok. Liberal leaning independants) will vote for him because he favors big government solutions to problems. IMO, the problem with this approach is that most conservatives *don't* actually define themselves by religious issues, but look at fiscal issues and "big government" issues *first*, whereas most Liberals *do* define themselves (or at least define candidates they wont vote for) on the basis of religious issues.


It's pretty easy to see this dynamic. Contrast the number of liberals you've heard argue their opposition to a conservative candidate on the basis of religion versus the number of times the opposition is framed around fiscal policies. It's pretty dramatic. When the Left labels George Bush as a religious zealot, you've got to know that this is a powerful deciding factor for Liberals.

Same deal on the other side. How often have you ever heard a conservative say: "Gee. I like this guys policies because he's advocating prayer in school!", or even the opposite "I wont vote for him because he's opposed to prayer in school". It just doesn't happen often (if at all). The religious angle is far more often used by the Left to demonize politicians on the right then it's ever used by conservative politicians to gain support. Conservatives run on their positions on big government almost exclusively.

Huckabee's strong religious background doesn't really help him with conservatives, but stands to seriously hurt him with liberal leaning undecideds.

More often then those same issues are used to demonize a Conservative?

I have *never* heard a Republican politician run on a platform about putting prayer in school. Not once. And while there are a number of Republicans who, when asked, say they are pro-life, I've never heard one at the national level run on a platform of changing federal law to make abortion illegal nationwide.


You can't help but trip over liberal pundits arguing that we shouldn't vote for Republicans because of their stances on abortion and prayer in school though. C'mon. This isn't exactly a stretch here...

My point is that a conservative who is moderate on abortion and prayer in school but tough on big government is far far far more likely to win over undecideds (on either side) then someone doing it the other way around (as Huckabee is). And that's exactly because the religious arguments don't sway conservatives much, but they do turn liberals right off, wheras the fiscal/big-government issues will bring conservatives to your side while *not* turning liberals off that much.


Didn't think that was a controversial observation Joph.




Well. We've discussed this many many times in the past. Giuliani didn't go to a religious position on either of those positions. You're missing the conservative position here. It is completely consistent with a conservative position to allow pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage (not going to follow your shortening that to "pro-gay" btw) measures to pass when one is the major of a large metropolitan city where those issues are strongly supported by the populace, but oppose them as national law applied at the federal level.

The defining point for conservatives is the level at which those things are decided. It would be hypocritical for conservatives to argue that controversial social issues ought to be decided at the lowest level possible, but then insist that all cities and states must come up with only laws that we agree with. That's counter to the entire position Joph. Liberals think that way. Not conservatives. And yeah. Religious folks who do want to do that sort of thing are (as I pointed out earlier) "liberals" in that context. They're just liberals with a different agenda then the ones in the Dem party. And they're by far in the minority in the Republican party.



The "strict constitutionalist" judge appointment position, while certainly favoring the religious folks, does so not by imposing their views on the nation as a whole, but by *not* imposing the opposing view on the nation as a whole. Again, that's a subtle difference that most Liberals don't understand. Because, as I've argued many times in the past, Liberals tend to define themselves by a set of positions they are "for" or "against", and push those things at the federal level whenever possible. Conservatives define ourselves by the degree to which an issue can and should be decided at the lowest level of government possible. Thus, it's not inconsistent for a conservative to support something at the local level and oppose it at the national level. It only looks that way to Liberals.

And yeah. Appointing judges who understand this is a critical component to the Conservative agenda. It only relates to religious positions in the sense that it makes it harder for Liberals to push their secular agenda at a national level. Conservatives, religious and non-religious all agree on this position btw. Giuliani can hold whatever personal views he wants, but his positions on judge appointments and DOMA are *not* inconsistent with his earlier actions as Major of New York. Not at all...

Edited, Jan 14th 2008 8:30pm by gbaji