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Forums - Politics Discussion - Only 4 days until Iowa caucuses!! C'mon, Let's GO RON PAUL.

SamuelRSmith said:

Well, in terms of delegates, Paul, Santorum, and Romney all tied first with 7. Perry and Gingrich got 2 delegates each. Bachmann didn't get a single delegate, Huntsman didn't run in Iowa (although I think he got a few hundred votes, anyway).

Gingrich will drop out after South Carolina, and he will endorse Santorum. Santorum will not win another state. Bachmann will either drop out in the next couple of days, or she will drop out after New Hampshire, she too will endorse Santorum. Huntsman may drop out after New Hampshire unless he does exceptionally well (polling third, which just won't happen), Huntsman will probably endorse Romney, though it wouldn't be the biggest shock to see him endorse Paul. I'm pretty much certain that Perry will drop out either after South Carolina or Florida, and that he will endorse Paul - Texan, pro-life, border defence, Perry admitted that Paul swung his opinion on the Fed.

The race is going to thin out pretty quickly, between Paul and Romney. Paul may pick up a handful of states, but Romney will win. What will be interesting, however, is what happens after Paul drops out of the race. I don't think he will run third party, per se, but his endorsement of Johnson will certainly boost Johnson's standings in the final race. Definitely taking the independant, red Dems, and libertarian Repub vote. Will probably result in a Obama marginal win.

Let's also not forget the Americans Elect project. Paul seems to be winning that, anyway, which means he might end up on the ballot on every state without running third party or winning the nomination. If Paul can capitalize on this, we will see a President (most probably Obama) going into the White House with way less than a majority vote. Politics in America will have radically changed.

There's also the vote for a third of the senate, the whole house, and 13 governors on this date. It could be a good night for Libertarians/Tea Partiers, even with an Obama win, setting the stage for a great 2016. With Obama definitely gone, and the two-party grip ceasing, something magical can happen that night. Hopefully Rand Paul will run

Clinton won under similar circumstances in '92. Nothing particularly radical there.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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Mr Khan said:

Clinton won under similar circumstances in '92. Nothing particularly radical there.


Except something more fundamental is changing now, I don't think elections will be "business as usual" for a long time after 2012. Too much is changing with the Republican party ripping itself in two, and a rapidly growing independant voting base.



mrstickball said:
FYI:

Santorum - 25%
Romney - 25%
Paul - 21%
Gingrich - 14%
Perry - 11%
Bachmann - 5%

Good showing for Paul. Scary that Santorum won the caucus, but I doubt he's going to gain much traction out of this - maybe a Mike Huckabee type run.

Santorum filled the social conservative role in the primary at this point.  As it is now, a decent 3 way race is Santorum for social conservatives, Romney as the establishment candidate, and Paul as the libertarian candidate and they can battle it out.  For real fun would be Perry or Newt hanging around and stealing some delegates also, and make the convention a real cluster of ducks. Paul has to start winning some candidates though.



mrstickball said:
Also, what's interesting is that exit polling showed that Romney only had 18% of the support of people making under $50,000/yr in Iowa. Paul had 35% of such support. Pretty interesting stuff.

Eh, a lot of common people support the Flat tax, if anything because they assume a lot of rich people are cheating their way to paying less then they do anyway.  (Which actually isn't true.)

Really, what I think would be a REAL winner... would be a Progressive "stairs'.

That is, a progressive tax with no Deductions outside the 3-4 most popular.  Children, Charity, and two others.

Would still fit on a postage card minus captial gains. 


Just tie it to a tax rate drop so effective revenue stays the same, and most people would probably vote for it to avoid subdizing the 50 thousand things other people are doing.



Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!



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Marks said:
Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!

Not necessarily, while nowhere near as drawn-out and public, parties without leaders hold conventions and MP's within the party vote for the new leader. 

But I can't see Ron Paul winning this and I can't see anyone beating Obama - it would have been nice to see Paul take it this year though, this likely being his last run for president.



Aj_habfan said:
Marks said:
Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!

Not necessarily, while nowhere near as drawn-out and public, parties without leaders hold conventions and MP's within the party vote for the new leader. 

But I can't see Ron Paul winning this and I can't see anyone beating Obama - it would have been nice to see Paul take it this year though, this likely being his last run for president.

Why couldn't anyone beat Obama?  Terrible economy with rising inflation and  losing credit score.  Check.   Not keeping promises?  Check.  Not doing literally one thing he said he was going to?  Check.    Obama is easily a one term candidate assuming America has the right choice from the Republican party.  Which Ron Paul would be.



Rpruett said:
Aj_habfan said:
Marks said:
Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!

Not necessarily, while nowhere near as drawn-out and public, parties without leaders hold conventions and MP's within the party vote for the new leader. 

But I can't see Ron Paul winning this and I can't see anyone beating Obama - it would have been nice to see Paul take it this year though, this likely being his last run for president.

Why couldn't anyone beat Obama?  Terrible economy with rising inflation and  losing credit score.  Check.   Not keeping promises?  Check.  Not doing literally one thing he said he was going to?  Check.    Obama is easily a one term candidate assuming America has the right choice from the Republican party.  Which Ron Paul would be.

Yeah, it's been a rough four years in a sense, but I just think people aren't ready to abandon Obama and switch back to Republicans so fast. Mainly because these Republican candidates are looking very uninspiring. I think Ron Paul could actually stand a chance because of his popularity with young people, but Romney or Santorum? I don't see it happening, but what the hell do I know.



Rpruett said:
Aj_habfan said:
Marks said:
Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!

Not necessarily, while nowhere near as drawn-out and public, parties without leaders hold conventions and MP's within the party vote for the new leader. 

But I can't see Ron Paul winning this and I can't see anyone beating Obama - it would have been nice to see Paul take it this year though, this likely being his last run for president.

Why couldn't anyone beat Obama?  Terrible economy with rising inflation and  losing credit score.  Check.   Not keeping promises?  Check.  Not doing literally one thing he said he was going to?  Check.    Obama is easily a one term candidate assuming America has the right choice from the Republican party.  Which Ron Paul would be.

I call it the "John Kerry" effect.  Most of the candidates are far to bland, unitneresting and generally undefined policy wise, that you may as well go with the demon you know then the demon you don't.

The problem with Ron Paul is that his isolationism would actually probably lose him a lot more votes then he'd gain.

Libretarians already tend to vote Republican, because they are (sometimes) economically liberal, while both Democrats and republicans want to increase federal power, but in different areas.

Liberals, COULD switch over, but likely won't due to Paul not supporting a federal stance on marriage and such, and most damaging of all, the Flat tax.

Furhermore, conservatives could sit home... or actually vote for Obama.  A lot of Republicans are "Security first" and Pau's isolatonism would make Obama look all the more attractive.

Libretarinism doesn't really have a chance to take over unless more people become invested in government policy and in general read research and studies... and understand how to read them.  There is a reason why Libretarinism is fairly small yet it's way overrepresented in things like MENSA.


Or heck, best example is these guys

http://www.triplenine.org/poll/index.html

I mean dang... hard to get more libretarian.



Kasz216 said:
Rpruett said:
Aj_habfan said:
Marks said:
Wow I still don't have a damn clue how American politics works, Canada is much simpler. Here we just pick a date and vote for a candidate, none of these primaries and shit.

I guess Ron Paul did pretty well, I'd rather see him win than get 3rd though!

Not necessarily, while nowhere near as drawn-out and public, parties without leaders hold conventions and MP's within the party vote for the new leader. 

But I can't see Ron Paul winning this and I can't see anyone beating Obama - it would have been nice to see Paul take it this year though, this likely being his last run for president.

Why couldn't anyone beat Obama?  Terrible economy with rising inflation and  losing credit score.  Check.   Not keeping promises?  Check.  Not doing literally one thing he said he was going to?  Check.    Obama is easily a one term candidate assuming America has the right choice from the Republican party.  Which Ron Paul would be.

The problem with Ron Paul is that his isolationism would actually probably lose him a lot more votes then he'd gain.

I don't disagree that a majority of players on the conservative side want to be everywhere in the world, securing their 'freedoms'.  I just believe that War is getting increasingly unpopular in this country.  Even from the conservative side.  We've essentially been in the Middle East stirring the pot since the Gulf War in the early 90s.  (And people are shocked Middle East dislikes the United States).

Liberals, COULD switch over, but likely won't due to Paul not supporting a federal stance on marriage and such, and most damaging of all, the Flat tax.

I think he has a pretty much a state stance on all forms of everything. I  think people if they realistically took a moment to think about it, would prefer that approach.  It gives peoples voices a much greater chance of being heard at a state level. And Obama isn't touching the federal stance on marriage he is riding the fence.

Furhermore, conservatives could sit home... or actually vote for Obama.  A lot of Republicans are "Security first" and Pau's isolatonism would make Obama look all the more attractive.

Republicans view Obama as Democrats viewed Bush.  That won't happen.  Mind you, I still believe Obama will win simply because the Republicans are obsessed with trotting some moron out there.

Libretarinism doesn't really have a chance to take over unless more people become invested in government policy and in general read research and studies... and understand how to read them.  There is a reason why Libretarinism is fairly small yet it's way overrepresented in things like MENSA.

I disagree with the notion that it doesn't have a chance to take over, in the near future.  Looking across history there has been drastic shifts in public opinion at periods of time.  I think we're seeing that a bit with the whole Tea Party movement ordeal which voted in a lot of Representatives.

But I understand and agree with your point regarding people actually paying attention to the political process.  That as you said is probably unlikely.  However, I will say that change usually only really occurs when people reach a boiling point and decide to try something different.   Plus it's not like Ron Paul is a communist or something.   We will have to see how he fairs in New Hampshire.  If he can take a strong second place,  he might just have a chance.


Or heck, best example is these guys

http://www.triplenine.org/poll/index.html

I mean dang... hard to get more libretarian.

Interesting read right there.