Hey conservatives.Follow

The ability to have a reasonable discussion?

Timey,

Who's reasoning?

It's not really conservatives Samira is talking about, but the people she is speaking of definitely do exist as a demographic in the South, and I know a few of them personally.

They aren't so much conservatives as they are hugely antifederalists. They want the government almost entirely out of their lives. They don't care too much for Republicans, but they really don't care for Democrats.

The only reason these people aren't stirring up shiz now is because the government mostly doesn't bother them. They haven't paid taxes in years, they don't have a mailing address. If the government did start bothering them, they would violently revolt.

Okaaay... Back on topic!

One of the things that happens in any election is that voting groups become polarized to some degree. Positions become "this or that" affairs with little room in the middle. This necessarily tends to force candidates to have to pick a side on each issue, while their actual position is more nuanced. This happens to both Republicans and Democrats. Simple arguments supporting simple positions will tend to garner more votes out of a large pool of voters with a range of actual positions held. It's just the nature of the beast.

We all pine for a candidate who holds reasonable positions and can explain them clearly and succinctly. But candidates who do that in broader elections (especially presidential elections) tend not to win. Heck. They tend to get washed out in the primaries to guys who take the simplistic, but broadly appealing positions and can express them loudly and clearly. Most of the flip flops attributed to Mccain are of that variety. It's usually pretty easy to find a case in a nuanced position where the candidate appears to have taken the opposite "side" to the simplified position he must adopt in the campaign. It also should be treated as relatively meaningless in most cases (there are, of course, true examples of complete flips on position, but they're actually pretty rare).


It's also not necessarily a flip flop when a candidates position locally differs from his position nationally. Only an idiot assumes that the needs of <mytown, USA> will be exactly the same as the entirety of the country. A politician should not be punished for adopting a wider view when running for an office with wider responsibilities...


I think that as voters we need to understand this process and get past it. When looking at Mccain, for example, no amount of simplifying the language in order to reach a broader audience changed his core positions and anyone aware of the reasoning behind those positions understood this. Honestly, it's no different than what Obama did (with the exception that Obama didn't have 20+ years in the Senate to provide historical context). Are there any people here who voted for Obama who didn't understand that a lot of time he spoke in broad and simple terms, or white washed statements on his web site, but you knew what the real, nuanced, and more complex position behind it really was? You didn't vote for him because he was a random guy who said this like "I'm going to give 95% of Americans a tax cut", did you? The sheep did, I'm sure. But most thinking people voted for him because they understood his background, understood the much more complex political position that background and upbringing (politically speaking) meant, and agreed with those ideas and positions. At some level, you agree with the liberal professor and political organizer, and assume this means certain thins politically. You know that the position's he holds are more complex than can easily be presented to a national audience and therefore don't care that he's "dumbed down" his statements.


At least, I'm assuming that's the case for many of the libs on this board. Am I wrong? So... For me, a guy like Mccain is similar. Opposite side of the political spectrum, but it's certainly misleading to insist that by him "dumbing down" his positions for a national audience that we should make some great deal of hay out of it...


And to be honest (and as many of you know), I preferred Romney in the primary anyway. Mccain was a good candidate, but I really do think Romney would have had a better shot at the white house. And yes, that's for all the same "dumbed down for the broad audience" reasons. He's more photogenic. He's younger. He's a bit quicker on his feet verbally. He's smarter on economics. and he's just better able to communicate. None of these things (except perhaps the economics bit) makes him a better president. But all of them make him easier to elect. When you understand that 90% of the real work of politics is done based on more complex situations and positions than can ever be expressed in a campaign, you get that it's not so important to vote based on what someone says or what positions he holds while on the campaign, but a broader understanding of what his positions represent in terms of policies after the election. Everyone with a brain gets this. It's one of the reasons I'm still worried about Obama. I know (as most of you in your honest moments do) that his real positions on issues are not the simple things expressed in the campaign, but those represented by his previous actions. Those speak loudly and clearly as to what his positions and actions in office will be. And so far, he hasn't surprised me at all. He's been exactly what I expected.

And I said then that all of them were examples of the two cases I just mentioned again today. You showing a video doesn't prove anything at all Joph. I disagreed with you then, and I still disagree with you.

At least then, you could argue that there was something at stake though...




Let's also not label it a flip-flop then. A flip flop is when you take the exact opposition position in the exact same issue under the exact same conditions. There are occasional examples of this in politics, but most claims of flip-flop really are changes of condition in a complex issue, not of position itself. But the same forces which make it difficult to express complex positions in a broad election also make it nearly impossible for a candidate to explain this. That's also why it's a pretty cheap shot (also why it's often a very effective one of course).

Lol... Or you posted it on a Friday, and the thread dropped off the page by the following Monday maybe? Or your examples were too stupid to be worth responding to? I have no clue Joph. However, I do recall all the claims of flip-flopping against Mccain, and none of them were the cut-and-dry cases you seem to believe they were.


If you care that much about it, pull out the info again. It's frankly not that important to me. And honestly, I'm unclear why anyone is worrying about Mccain. He's not going to be a contender for President in 2012, so unless you live in his state, what the hell difference does any of this make?




Way to assume I hold your positions Joph. I don't agree that he made 180 degree changes. Or was I not clear enough before? The call to flip-flop is a cheap and easy political attack exactly because it's easy to find statements which appear to be flip-flops, and vastly harder to defend them. That's why those sorts of claims tend to fly around during a campaign. I'm just curious what's motivating you now, a full year and a half after the election is over...?


Is the national political reality so bad that the only way you can make things seem better is to continue attacking the guy who didn't win back in 2008? Really? That seems kinda sad...

Edited, Feb 24th 2010 2:29pm by gbaji

Honest ongoing dialogue about a difference in opinions? I am fucking ashamed of you both. Poosays.

Edited, Feb 24th 2010 7:35pm by Atomicflea