Turning The Ballot Box Against Republicans

@ehBeth,

If the media was as right-wing as you like to think it is, the stories would never have made the news in the first place. The fact that the media and Dems waited till after the primaries to bring them up shows that the left-wing controls the media. Hell they even thought Hillary had the election in the bag and Nov 8th was just a formality.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Not so much. There are still a number of cases proceeding. Interesting that America's right-wing MSM isn't continuing to cover them - the rest of the world is still covering them.

Do you speak for "the rest of the world"??

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

cicerone apparently believes he is more intelligent and observant than the voters, and that the American people don't know what is good for them as well as does he.

This line of attack seems a tad hypocritical.

I mean, when the voters elected Obama, twice, did you nod your head and say, well, "the American people know what is good for them"?

Or did you believe the voters to have made the wrong choice?

Because if you believed at the time, as I think you did, that the voters made the wrong choice, then weren't you by definition considering yourself to know better than the American voters what was good for them? Were you not considering yourself more observant than the voters who elected Obama?

Voters have made plenty of foolish choices in the history of democracy. Nothing wrong with believing you know better than the voters what's right. Ain't practically noone who hasn't believed that at some point or other.

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@Baldimo,

Quote Baldimo:

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It doesn't matter how it [nominating a party's presidential candidate] was done in the past, we never used to elect our Senators, that was done by House, do we move back to that system because it was the way it was done? It's funny how you want talk history, yet you want to ignore the screwing the Dems gave their voters. Free and Fair elections???

The Democrats never screwed their primary voters, Hillary won more elected delegates than Bernie, 2,205 to Bernie's 1871. And you know that, because you have been posting about the Democrats all throughout the race, so you full well know that Hillary won outright. Yet your boss gave you talking points to post here, and so you ignore what you know and posted on for months and post what the boss gave you to post.

And the way we elect Senators changed because of Constitutional Amendment. The way parties select their candidates was not changed by Constitutional Amendment, in fact there is no law saying how parties may select their nominee at all. Any party at all can use primaries, a convention of party leaders dealing with each other, mass prayer waiting for divine intervention, yodeling contests, wrestling matches, swimsuit competitions, or any means they choose.

Surely you don't think political parties are part of the government. For that would mean you've been posting about something you know nothing about.

Quote Baldimo:

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We have been doing them this way [primaries to select the nominee] for my entire life. How it was done 50 years ago or more has no bearing on today. I like the idea of picking who is going to run, it seems you only want to be told who to vote for. I'll take my ideal of liberty over yours any day.

Again, you post untruths. You are well over 30 years old. By 1992, Democrats had primaries in only 40 states, Republicans in 39-and that was the most primaries to that point. And I might point out that up until the last few presidential cycles, all the primaries were open only to party members. Letting non-party members vote in the primaries was something that was adopted only recently by a few states-the majority of states have closed primaries. And that is the crux of the "unfair" cries-that new voters showed up ready to vote in the primaries but got turned away because in the majority of states, party primaries are open to party members only. All registered voters are entitled to vote in the election on and around Election Day. Whether they are entitled to vote in a party's primary depends on the state. Whether all the parties in that state even have a primary to select a candidate, or use some other method, is entirely up to the parties.

Once again, you have posted all along throughout the primary process this year and previous years, yet now you pretend to know nothing about what you have been posting about all this time.

Quote Baldimo:

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I didn't lie, the DNC used the super delegate process to break the will of the Bernie supporters when it was starting to look like Bernie was actually going to make a showing in the primaries.

Ho ho ho, you say you are tired of political business as usual, but when making a statement that was proven false, you suddenly obfuscate and try to "walk back", (love that euphemism for double-talk), that statement. In the Democratic Party the elected delegates counted for 85% of the nominating vote, the superdelegates, (party leaders), counted for 15% of the nominating vote, and it didn't matter because Hillary won the elected delegates by 2,205 to 1871. "Intimidate" my foot. What the Bernie delegates, many of them young, were screaming about was the fact that they did not bother to register as a member of a party before the primaries, which in most states means you cannot vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. That's where the screaming was.

Quote Baldimo:

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The last desperate act of someone who can't discuss the facts. Hillary and the DNC screwed their voters

I have just educated you as to how that is nonsense. And you watched the entire primary process, and you know it's nonsense. But your boss has given you your talking points, so you post them here even though you followed the primaries and know your own statements to be untrue.

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@Blickers,

Quote:

Surely you don't think political parties are part of the government. For that would mean you've been posting about something you know nothing about

.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
cicerone apparently believes he is more intelligent and observant than the voters, and that the American people don't know what is good for them as well as does he.

This line of attack seems a tad hypocritical.

I mean, when the voters elected Obama, twice, did you nod your head and say, well, "the American people know what is good for them"?

Or did you believe the voters to have made the wrong choice?
.....

I was challenging cicerone on his presumption in speaking for others and assuming he has an inside track on their real desires. A minor fault, but something he does frequently. That's it. It wasn't a "line of attack".

In the case of Obama, during his first election campaign I observed a large number of observant, intelligent people I know speaking in awe of his presumed unique vision, talents, and even credentials. It all appeared like BS to me and a case of mass delusion. These were all well educated, professional people. I found their unwarranted (in my eyes) credulity to be almost irrational : their suspension of critical thought quite amazing. However, there was no denying what I saw.

I expressed ny skepricism, but was greeted with horror at the obvious impieties I was advancing. Only then did I recognize the phemomenon I was seeing. We are still friends and about half of them now express amazement att their prior delusion; while the other half still cling to it. That's human nature too.

I am VERY skeptical of those who claim to "know" the inner thoughts and motives of others.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Only then did I recognize the phemomenon I was seeing. We are still friends and about half of them now express amazement att their prior delusion; while the other half still cling to it. That's human nature too.

Obama approval rating 54.2

Not the highest, but certainly not the lowest, nor his lowest in fact I think it is his highest. Higher than Trump's.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

I suspect (don't know for sure_ there is likely some undetected bias in the sample reporting behind these statistics. In the recent election Hillary's share of the vote was in m ost states about 5% (of the total) less than was forecast in the late polls just before the voting and, a phemonenon also to a lesser degree detected in some of the exit polls early in the process.

I can think of many possible causes for this, including undetected bias on the part of the poll designers (who, where, how large a sample, etc. ) and even disingenuous responses on the part of those polled, and other possibilities as well.

The results of the Congressional and State government elections strongly suggest a rather broad repudiation of current policies and the perceived state of the country. Despite this the Presidents poll numbers remain slightly favorable.

How do you interpret these combined results?

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@georgeob1,

I interpret the results as valid. Obama has always been liked and the closer it gets to him leaving, the more people are liking him.

If you had kept up the polling on RC right before the election you would have seen it was a lot closer than many would admit. Five thirty eight was one poll statistic guy who did give the close polling a look and admitted there was more a chance Trump would win if certain conditions were met in the swing states. Hillary had a lot to fight with FBI and then WikiLeaks, however, one thing she failed to do on her own in those swing states was to fight for the working poor and that is why she lost, in my opinion.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Quote:

Yet your boss gave you talking points to post here, and so you ignore what you know and posted on for months and post what the boss gave you to post.

Which boss would that be? Dean, Eric or John?

Quote:

The Democrats never screwed their primary voters, Hillary won more elected delegates than Bernie, 2,205 to Bernie's 1871. And you know that, because you have been posting about the Democrats all throughout the race, so you full well know that Hillary won outright.

Her win isn't in doubt, what is in doubt is how she won. When the primaries first started off after the first of the year, Bernie was keeping pace with Clinton and even won some states they didn't think they could. Once media and the Clinton camp saw how well Bernie was doing, the media started talking about the superdelegates and how those were mostly going for Hillary. So in essence what took place was the equivalent of announcing a state for a winner before the polls close. It discourages the opposition from coming out and that effects the vote. Just as the claim is made that the Russians influenced the general election, so did the media in their support for Hillary during the primaries.

You are correct, I have followed this closely and I even talked about this very thing when it was going on.

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The way parties select their candidates was not changed by Constitutional Amendment, in fact there is no law saying how parties may select their nominee at all. Any party at all can use primaries, a convention of party leaders dealing with each other, mass prayer waiting for divine intervention, yodeling contests, wrestling matches, swimsuit competitions, or any means they choose.

Most Americans prefer primaries but it's good to know you prefer some other non-democratic system. We like to have a say in who the party we support nominates instead of leaving it to the elites to choose. In fact CO until recently used a caucus system, we changed that this election cycle by a state vote to create a primary system and to open those primaries up to all people, regardless of party.

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Again, you post untruths. You are well over 30 years old. By 1992, Democrats had primaries in only 40 states, Republicans in 39-and that was the most primaries to that point.

I don't speak untruths, I speak from my voting experience and every state I have lived in as an adult has had primaries and or a caucus. I lived in CA until 2000 and moved back to CO. The CO caucus system was almost like a primary but less official, it's one of the reasons we made the change this year. Now I didn't get to vote in the 2012 or 2016 caucus because I wasn't a support of either the GOP or Dems in those elections, I left the GOP and haven't been a "member" since 2013. You your boss line is pointless and nothing more than a distraction, I'm a convenient target for your sadness about the election. Don't feel bad, my vote didn't count either as CO went for Hillary.

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I have just educated you as to how that is nonsense. And you watched the entire primary process, and you know it's nonsense. But your boss has given you your talking points, so you post them here even though you followed the primaries and know your own statements to be untrue.

You didn't educate me on anything, if anything you have shown how much Hillary kool-aid you have been drinking. You are part of the Hillary machine who screwed people over like Lash, so it's no surprise to see you defending the primaries which Wikileaks proved were a shame for DNC voters. Hillary was going to get the nod no matter who they had to screw over.

By the way, did you see the final results of the EC? Hillary lost 5 EC votes and 3 of those went to Colin Powell. How funny is that? Well she would have lost 8 but the states with those electors aren't allowed to vote how they wish for the EC, so they were replaced. What were you saying about changing votes from the wrong candidate?

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

Most Americans prefer primaries but it's good to know you prefer some other non-democratic system. We like to have a say in who the party we support nominates instead of leaving it to the elites to choose.

The Democrats do run primaries where the votes of the members are by far the largest factor determining the nominee. But, as is their right as an organization entirely separate from the government, they give 15% of the weight to party leaders who have a lifetime of service to the party. That's their right. And as pointed out before, for most of American history primaries didn't even exist, the Democrats and Republicans and third parties gave all the weight to the decisions of party leaders and guess what-the nation flourished.

The public gets the chance to exercise their democratic choice on or slightly before Election Day from the slate of candidates presented to them on the ballot-how those parties choose their candidates that go on that slate is up to the parties themselves.

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

Her win isn't in doubt, what is in doubt is how she won. When the primaries first started off after the first of the year, Bernie was keeping pace with Clinton and even won some states they didn't think they could. Once media and the Clinton camp saw how well Bernie was doing, the media started talking about the superdelegates and how those were mostly going for Hillary. So in essence what took place was the equivalent of announcing a state for a winner before the polls close.

It would be remiss of the press to ignore the fact that Hillary held a big lead among superdelegates. As it turned out, she defeated Bernie Sanders by over 400 elected delegates, and beat Bernie in the superdelegate count by 571-45. You are grasping at straws. Bernie showed surprising strength in the campaign, but Hillary defeated him soundly in both elected delegates and superdelegates.

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

I don't speak untruths, I speak from my voting experience and every state I have lived in as an adult has had primaries and or a caucus.

That's not what you said before. In this post you said that primaries were the way the nominee was chosen for your entire life. Now you are switching over to claiming it was for your adult life. If you are 35, your adult life is less than half your life. That puts you over 50 percent off. Even if you are 45 years old, your non-adult life is still 40% of your life and doesn't come close to counting as negligible, as you are trying to do. The backtracking and untruths continue with you.

Hillary won the nomination according to the rules. She won the popular vote by millions, and lost in the Electoral College because the states use hackable voting machines and have made actual recounts almost impossible, in addition to being expensive. And now the Republicans are pushing to make recounts even harder to do. That's like a bank making it harder to check on your record of deposits and withdrawals-who would deal with such a bank?

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Quote:

The Democrats do run primaries where the votes of the members are by far the largest factor determining the nominee. But, as is their right as an organization entirely separate from the government, they give 15% of the weight to party leaders who have a lifetime of service to the party. That's their right. And as pointed out before, for most of American history primaries didn't even exist, the Democrats and Republicans and third parties gave all the weight to the decisions of party leaders and guess what-the nation flourished.

You are further proof that the DNC earned what happened to them this election. You don't want a democracy of one vote for one person you want an elected ologragy, you want to vote for who the party leaders want you to. All that talk of getting orders from the boss was transference. It shows in your DNC talking points. I can't debate a sheep.

What you fail to mention is that those parties have to function under the state laws that govern those elections. I know this because of the Colorado history with the caucus/primary system, which has flipped back and forth since it was created in early 1900's.

Quote:

It would be remiss of the press to ignore the fact that Hillary held a big lead among superdelegates. As it turned out, she defeated Bernie Sanders by over 400 elected delegates, and beat Bernie in the superdelegate count by 571-45. You are grasping at straws. Bernie showed surprising strength in the campaign, but Hillary defeated him soundly in both elected delegates and superdelegates.

Remiss? Of course, I'm talking to a DNC lacky, what you call 'remiss" the rest of us normal people see as in the pocket of. When the media saw how well Bernie was doing, they would be remiss to not mention that it didn't matter how many votes Bernie got, the superdelegates were going to make sure Hillary got the votes to win the nomination. It isn't the concern of the people to select who they want, the DNC machine will tell them who they will vote for. The fix was in from the start, the DNC knew it, the media knew it and now the people know it. Wikileaks has shown the DNC to be the vile group we know they all are.

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That's not what you said before. In this post you said that primaries were the way the nominee was chosen for your entire life. Now you are switching over to claiming it was for your adult life. If you are 35, your adult life is less than half your life. That puts you over 50 percent off. Even if you are 45 years old, your non-adult life is still 40% of your life and doesn't come close to counting as negligible, as you are trying to do. The backtracking and untruths continue with you.

Your desperation is showing and it isn't looking good for you. My comments are fine and truthful and no backtracking. If you look at the history of the states I have lived in, you would know my words are true. Colorado has had the same system caucus/primaries since the early 1900's, it wasn't the parties who made the rules, it was the state. The same applies to CA, which has had a primary system in place as early as 1972 but I think it was much sooner than that, I was born in 1973, making me 43 in 2016.

Since you want to talk history, did you know that by 1916 that over half the states had primary systems? 25 of 48 states were using a primary system to get away from the very thing you are advocating. What states have you lived in and what are their histories with primaries? I shared, will you?

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Hillary won the nomination according to the rules. She won the popular vote by millions, and lost in the Electoral College because the states use hackable voting machines and have made actual recounts almost impossible, in addition to being expensive. And now the Republicans are pushing to make recounts even harder to do. That's like a bank making it harder to check on your record of deposits and withdrawals-who would deal with such a bank?

She might have won according the rules, but that doesn't mean she had an unfair advantage. The DNC, news media were in her pocket the whole time, they weren't interested in a fair primary season, they wanted Hillary, fairness be damned. Once again Wikileaks has shown this to be true.

You keep mentioning the popular like it means anything. It doesn't mean anything and you look foolish to keep mentioning it. You also look foolish trying to push the whole voting machine hacking gig. Not an ounce of proof exists to show that the machines were hacked. It's only the tin foil hat crowd that seems to think it took place and continues to push the BS.

Recount, recount, recount... blah, blah, blah... The Constitution has spoken and now we get to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, I don't think he will get a 2nd term, he's a one trick pony. I can only hope that we end up with a strong Libertarian candidate that can give a good showing in 2020.

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@revelette1,

revelette1 wrote:

I interpret the results as valid. Obama has always been liked and the closer it gets to him leaving, the more people are liking him.

Perhaps so. However liking someone and believing he was a good or effective President are not the same thing. I believe the overall election results amply confirm that the voters don't like the way things are going (poll results confirm that one); don't want more politically of what they have been seeing for the past eight years; and want a new direction in both foreign and domestic policy.

revelette1 wrote:

If you had kept up the polling on RC right before the election you would have seen it was a lot closer than many would admit. ....... Hillary had a lot to fight with FBI and then WikiLeaks, however, one thing she failed to do on her own in those swing states was to fight for the working poor and that is why she lost, in my opinion.

The polling did get closer towards the end of the campaign as you indicated, but they still showed Hillary winning by a comfortable margin, even in the contested midwest states. The distracting "fights" with FBI & others Hillary had were real enough, but they were all results of her own misdeeds and prior deceptions. She rather clearly showed the working poor in West Virginia that she valued her environmental agenda more than their economic welfare:this wasn't a result of too little campaigning, rather too much and in the wrong direction for them. At the end of the day I believe Hillary had lost the trust of a very large segment of the voters and had herself lost touch with both the voters and her own campaign staff.

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@Baldimo,

Pocket book issues will tell the story about Trump. His tax plan will benefit the richest, and the irony is that the poor and middle class voted him into office.

There are many articles to support the fact that Trump's tax plan will benefit the richest most. Here's one of many.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tax-cuts-benefit-richest-study-205538214.html

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

In the case of Obama, during his first election campaign I observed a large number of observant, intelligent people I know speaking in awe of his presumed unique vision, talents, and even credentials. It all appeared like BS to me and a case of mass delusion. These were all well educated, professional people. I found their unwarranted (in my eyes) credulity to be almost irrational : their suspension of critical thought quite amazing.

Right.

So Cicerone feels that the American people who voted in Trump were wrong, and that they demonstrated that they're "not that informed or sophisticated" by doing so.

You felt that the Americans who supported Obama were wrong and that they demonstrated, for all their supposedly observant, intelligent ways, "mass delusion" and a "suspension of critical thought" by doing so.

But somehow these two things are really different. By imputing a lack of information and sophistication to Trump voters, cicerone is guilty of "presumption in speaking for others and assuming he has an inside track on their real desires". But when you impute "mass delusion" and a "suspension of critical thought" to Obama voters, well - that's different. Because you're the kind of guy who is "VERY skeptical of those who claim to "know" the inner thoughts and motives of others".

Sophistry.

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@nimh,

As I've said before, I wouldn't mind a Trump presidency if he keeps our economy in good shape.
The only problem is his threat of a tariff of 35% which will increase the cost of everything for everybody, and huge loss of jobs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/25/donald-trumps-trade-war-could-kill-millions-of-u-s-jobs/?utm_term=.8b7ea154863f

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@Baldimo,

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

You don't want a democracy of one vote for one person you want an elected ologragy, you want to vote for who the party leaders want you to

Once again you show that, despite posting on the topic for a year, you still don't understand the difference between an election, (in which the public has the constitutional right to vote for a candidate), and a nominating process of a political party, (which the public does NOT have the constitutional right to vote for, and for most of history has never voted for). Apparently, you think America didn't believe in democracy before the "open" primary.

Then, to contradict yourself further, you claim to have voted for a candidate other than the Democrat or Republican in the election-yet still claim not to understand that the public has the right to choose the candidate in November among several parties, but not necessarily choose who those parties nominate. The constitution guarantees your right to choose in November-not in April.

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

Remiss? Of course, I'm talking to a DNC lacky, what you call 'remiss" the rest of us normal people see as in the pocket of.

So now you want to say that the newspapers don't have the RIGHT to point out that Hillary was hugely ahead in the informal polls of superdelegates? Maybe the newspapers should ask the permission of conservatives to see if they will allow them point out that Hillary was way ahead with that group. Of course, if the media weren't so biased in favor of covering Trump-the amount of coverage he got more than Bernie and Hillary combined was mind boggling-you would think conservatives would be loving the media right about now. But as usual, the Right is complaining the media doesn't like them, even though the media acted throughout the nomination and election as The Trump Tweet Report.

Quote Baldimo:

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My comments are fine and truthful and no backtracking. If you look at the history of the states I have lived in, you would know my words are true.

That would almost make sense if, instead of saying that primaries or caucuses were used exclusively to choose the parties' presidential nominee for your entire life, you had said instead that primaries or caucuses had been used to choose the major parties' nominee in the only two states you happened live in during the 58% of your life you were eligible to vote. But you didn't. As such, you posted a grevous untruth. And decided to construct an alternate reality that never happened to cover it. Shame on you.

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

Since you want to talk history, did you know that by 1916 that over half the states had primary systems?

Yes, and quite a few states decided to revert to the old convention system so by 1968 only a quarter of the states were using primaries. Which proves even more that political parties are free to use whichever system they want to choose a candidate, and your maintaining otherwise is simply another in a long line of untruths you have posted.

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

You also look foolish trying to push the whole voting machine hacking gig. Not an ounce of proof exists to show that the machines were hacked.

They never did a hand ballot recount to see if anything didn't add up!!! And yet the guy who got the most Electoral Votes in his favor was hollering repeatedly that there would be cheating. And Trump's international supporter, Putin, has a whole world of electronic and espionage expertise at his fingertips-but you insist we must ignore that. And informal trios of university professors in America have no trouble hacking those voting machines even though they are not connected to the internet, imagine what the Russian intelligence service can come up with. And despite Jill Stein raising the money to get the ballots recounted in three key states, the full hand recount of the ballots didn't happen in all three states. And here you are, trying to claim that shows American elections are 100% honest?

I wouldn't do business with a bank that refused to give me a receipt of all my deposits and withdrawals. Yet when it comes to selecting America's leaders, we are supposed to take everyone's word for it and not recount. What hokum.

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@nimh,

Quote:

So Cicerone feels that the American people who voted in Trump were wrong, and that they demonstrated that they're "not that informed or sophisticated" by doing so.

I explained why. Trump's first offer for legislation was to "build a wall, and change the tax code" that would benefit the rich more than others. Trump said Mexico will pay for the wall, but the president of Mexico said 'no.' When Trump met up with the Mexican president, he didn't mention the wall.

Trump also said he was going to bring back "waterboarding" which is against international law AND domestic law. He also said he was going to persecute the families of terrorists. That's also against domestic and international law.

Trump can't lead our country not understanding our Constitution or international laws. His actions would merit impeachment.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

The results of the Congressional and State government elections strongly suggest a rather broad repudiation of current policies and the perceived state of the country.

Let's take those Congressional elections. The Republicans obviously won an ample majority in the House. Did their victory reflect "a rather broad repudiation of current policies and the perceived state of the country"? Nation-wide, GOP House candidates got 49.1% of the vote. Democrats got 48.0%. Not that broad a repudiation, it seems.

I actually responded to a few of the same points you are making here about the character and quality of polling just the other day, the last time you made them. I don't think you saw the response. Might be worth checking out: http://able2know.org/topic/355218-118#post-6325398

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@nimh,

I do not agree, and I certainly did not employ any sophistry there.

Again here is what I wrote; "I found their unwarranted (in my eyes) credulity to be almost irrational : their suspension of critical thought quite amazing. However, there was no denying what I saw."

I was very clearly communicating my own impression and evaluation of their words and behavior in the discssion of the then new candidate, Obama. I made no claim about their inner motives or thoughts about the matter, and instead indicated my strong impression of the, inexplicable (to me), incongruity in their very credulous reactions to someone I then found to be markedly superficial and lacking in substance, with the often incisive and critical analysis I had previously observed from most of them on other matters.

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Turning The Ballot Box Against Republicans

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