highwaystar101 said: SamuelRSmith said: highwaystar101 said: mrstickball said: Does that mean you'll go with UKIP come election time? No, UKIP fail for so many reasons. If there was a libertarian party with a liberal social policies and economically conservative policies (only without just cutting out national services like they did in the Thatcher era), then I would probably go for them. In fact I may find and vote for a small independent party just like that, even though they wont win. What do you mean by economically conservative policies? Er, perhaps Libertarian is a more suitable word, actually no it isn't. I'm not good with politics, I can't think of the word, perhaps you can. I just don't like how bloated and inefficient a lot of public services are in the UK, but I like having the actual services. I would consider voting for someone who is willing to cut areas of government spending that are just inefficient or a waste. Only I'm just plain fickle, because while I want them to cut spending, but not cut any services off totally (or at least most of them). Yeah, I know I want something that's pretty unlikely to happen.

Ah, I see. You know the best way to provide services, improve efficiencies, and cut Government spending? Privatisation.

I don't think any right minded person thinks that the BNP should not be allowed to exist.

Do I like them? Most certainly not, horrible Party, despicable.

Do I think they have the right to exist? Yes, of course, they have as much right as any other party.

I think your talking about classical liberalism

SamuelRSmith said: highwaystar101 said: SamuelRSmith said: highwaystar101 said: mrstickball said: Does that mean you'll go with UKIP come election time? No, UKIP fail for so many reasons. If there was a libertarian party with a liberal social policies and economically conservative policies (only without just cutting out national services like they did in the Thatcher era), then I would probably go for them. In fact I may find and vote for a small independent party just like that, even though they wont win. What do you mean by economically conservative policies? Er, perhaps Libertarian is a more suitable word, actually no it isn't. I'm not good with politics, I can't think of the word, perhaps you can. I just don't like how bloated and inefficient a lot of public services are in the UK, but I like having the actual services. I would consider voting for someone who is willing to cut areas of government spending that are just inefficient or a waste. Only I'm just plain fickle, because while I want them to cut spending, but not cut any services off totally (or at least most of them). Yeah, I know I want something that's pretty unlikely to happen. Ah, I see. You know the best way to provide services, improve efficiencies, and cut Government spending? Privatisation.

Nope, nope and nope. I'm not letting anyone take away Britain's precious NHS. 

Oh additionally, you'd be shocked how LITTLE having the most money seems to help winning campaigns.

I believe it's in Freakanomics...

What, like early 20th century GOP?

Ahh it was freakanomics here we go...

"Candidate A wins by 20 points and outspends Candidate B by 50 percent, it might be natural to assume that it was the money that made the difference. But how do you really know? It is hard to separate a candidate’s natural appeal from the appeal that is created by spending money on organization, ads, etc. So by measuring repeat challengers — i.e., races in which the candidates’ natural appeal stayed more or less constant — Levitt was able to isolate the impact of the money.

Here’s how we wrote up the results:

[T]he amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by only that same 1 percent.

What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are."

So according to them, massive campaign spending isn't so much the cause of voting, but the EFFECT of people wanting to vote for you.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/mccain-the-media-money-and-montesinos-and-obama-too/

Obama got his campaign rolling literally by word of mouth and Facebook, which is pretty impressive... It makes you wonder why he's not that effective as president lol.

Now that, my friend, is one hell of a book!

And once he got his campaign rolling he had so much extra cash he actually paid cable companys to have a 24/7 Obama network.

That was the insane part.  I edited my post above...

it appears the numbers seem to support that money and campaigning is actually the effect rather then the cause.

Of course it's probably different for the facebook advertising which is just "free" more or less.

Free advertising is more a basis of enthusiasm.   It's like whenever CNN had a poll about the republican primaries, Ron Paul always overwhelmingly won to the chagrin of the CNN experts.