OCCOM BILL wrote:
How partisan can a non-citizen be? Hillary is perhaps the least popular front runner in history. Tons of A2K's own Democrats have expressed their disdain for her candidacy (including the one I was arguing with) even as she continues to lead the polls and you want to pretend the Democrats like their choices? Knock it off Nimh. You of all people know better than that.
Huh? You're making some very basic logical mistakes here. I'd even go as far as saying you're just being plain dishonest.
First, about where the dishonesty comes into play. What Cyclo said was "that the Dem party likes the majority of our candidates." You tried to tear him another ass about that, even when the numbers he brought show him simply to be right (you cant get any more straightforward than the question "Are you generally satisfied with the candidates now running for the Democratic nomination for President, or [not]").
Now that you're being called on that, you make a big spiel of how impopular
Hillary is, as if that proves anything in regard to
what Cyclo actually said and what you tried to rip him another one for. It doesnt, of course. Even if Hillary were hugely impopular, it still wouldnt prove him wrong in any way: Dem voters still "like the majority of our candidates." The people you cite as hating Hillary usually love Obama, and like Edwards, or vice versa.
The whole point of Cyclo's observation is that the Dems have
a choice they like - even if there's some one candidate they dont like, there's several they do like, a majority of the ones running even. This is obviously not true for the Republican voters, as is born out from the polls Cyclo and eBeth have quoted right here.
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As if that's not enough, you then make a very basic logical mistake in trying to illustrate "that Hillary is perhaps the least popular front runner in history" by saying that "tons of A2K's own Democrats have expressed their disdain for her candidacy". I mean, hello? Since when are A2K's Democrats representative of Democratic voters overall?
Yes, Hillary is hugely impopular among a significant strand of liberal Democrats; a strand dominated by young, (upper) middle class, well educated people who are activists or follow the political news intensely. Yep, check those boxes when you go through most of the Hillary-hating A2Kers. But if that strand had been representative of your regular Democratic voters, Howard Dean would have won the primaries in a landslide.
Among those regular Democrats, meanwhile - among working class Democrats, among blacks, among older Dems, among those simply nostalgic for Bill - Hillary is not in the least impopular. In fact, she seems to be appealing to your typical Democrat perfectly fine. She IS after all, as you mention, a convincing front runner in the polls even as there is an alternative with high favourables (Obama) they could have switched to if they were indeed so contemptuous of her.
Note that even the Hillary critics here on A2K worry loudly about how the problem is primarily that Hillary might win the primaries because she
is popular among many Democrats, when the trouble is that she stands the least chance of winning the generals because she is NOT popular among independents and possible cross-over voters.
On that note,
you wrote:If the party polls better than the candidate; that is pretty clear evidence that the suggestion "they are happy with their choices" is pure nonsense.
But as OE pointed out, there's another basic logical mistake here when you use the party's and candidates' standing
among the general population as a purported evidence for how
the Democrats feel.
EDIT: Just saw JoefromChicago's post - there's a
second logical mistake you made here as well, as he pointed out.
Finally, if you do insist on bringing the opinion among A2K Democrats up as proof for anything, remember the point you're arguing - Democrats dont like their candidates - and see that in
the first A2K straw poll, 43 out of 54 posters voting the Democratic ticket could find a frontrunner they liked (Obama - 24; Hillary - 11; Edwards - 8), and just 11 (0r 20%) opted for a non-running candidate, an undeclared candidate, or one that doesnt stand any chance. As a sign of greater dissatisfaction among A2K Republicans, the three frontrunners there got just 14 out of 26 votes, with 12 (or 33%) opting for a non-running candidate, an undeclared candidate, or one that doesnt stand any chance.
OCCOM BILL wrote:I'd wager neither Democrats nor Republicans have been happy about their choices since Ronald Reagan's name was on the ballet. Can you show me any statistics that show a leading candidate from either party who polled better than his/her party affiliation in general since Reagan? Regardless; I provided sufficient evidence that shows NONE of the current Democratic crop meets this criterion.
I missed that evidence, I think; and in addition, I'll note that "well they are less popular than Reagan" hardly qualifies as evidence of any particular
impopularity. Reagan won two landslide victories. Might as well say, "Well, the candidate does worse than FDR, so they must hate him".