2012 Presidential Election

[Summa]

Only thing I came away with from the second debate is just how screwed up our society is; obviously we have deteriorated to nothing more than 30 second sound bites. IMO you cannot reduce complex subjects into something that fits on a bumper sticker. You cannot be considered knowledgeable or form good opinion on topics without some hard work. It takes more than spending a minute reading Wikipedia or some other online resource to be truly well-informed yet it is clear that politicians think that is all we do. And in many ways they are right. This is our own fault, they are pandering to us correctly. They know that they can simply spin BS half truths/present things that are completely out of context and we will fall for it.
And of course the media is right there assisting in treating us all as morons and like we cannot figure out their agendas. Watching the media cover this election is like reading another Tone/alien thread in these forums. Feeding us a bunch of bullshit like we cannot figure out that people are financially invested in this stuff. (Poor Tone has yet to figure out that he has never posted a thing from anyone who didn’t have a financial interest in publishing a book, movie, blog, etc.)

Here is how I think this will unfold over the next 3 weeks. I think that this election will have the biggest voter turnout in years. Many, many people (mostly Republicans) who have avoided voting in recent years will vote in this election. But the liberal media will begin to present a ton of ‘feel good’ news in an attempt to sway people that things are better, watch as suddenly the nightly news is filled with ‘good’ economic reports for the next few weeks. If people are idiots and buy into this media deception then the election will be very close. It may even be close enough for Romney to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college vote and put Obama back in office. If people don’t buy in to the media trash than it could be a decisive win for Romney. But the one thing I don’t see happening is a decisive win for Obama.
eph

In regards to your first part, I think the problem is worse than you characterized it in America. I am biased because I wrote my Senior Synth on this, but I sincerely believe that there is a crisis in America regarding our Philosophy of Education and particularly Civics Based Education; a problem that could only be solved by a 2nd term President imo. The education Philosophy stuff is probably is not for this thread, but basically boils down to there being a shift in the demand curve for education in America, and no one ever shifted the supply curve to follow it. However; what is scarier is that education is the lifeblood of democracy and we are failing at it. In order for government by representation to work effectively, you need an educated, interested, and involved populace who selects leaders who would properly represent their interests and gets rid of them when they don't . Look at our society, in 1960, 47 states REQUIRED at least one civics education class to be passed in order to graduate from high school, and 96% of schools offered a class. In 2006, 0 states REQUIRE a civics education to graduate, and a mere 22% of public schools even offer the course. We have a system that leaves people uneducated on how society even works. In regards to interest, in 1966, 60% of college Freshman thought it was important to follow politics regularly; in 2000 that has dropped to 22.5%, our youth is uninterested. In terms of involved, forget the media and how much they disillusion people, just look at the figures: in the early 70s, just over half of people in the 18-29 age group voted, and today we are down to below 1/3. The only reason that the media fearmongering and oversimplification of complex issues both works and has to happen is that we have a systemic problem where we leave our citizens with a child-like understanding of government and expect them to elect officials who will govern well. It is a joke, and it can't be solved by many. No candidate who is ever seeking re-election would ever try a massive reform of education, and anybody who tried to remove education prerogative from states would catch endless political fire; however, 91% of polled citizens believe something needs to be done about the lack of civic education in America. So I would say a 2nd term president with balls is the only thing that will help. (Most of these statistics are from various articles written by William A. Galston).

Hell I even heard an interesting point of view from the NYTimes head statistician on The Daily Show last night where he said part of the deconstruction of journalism in the media and the rise of fear-mongering was due to the internet and expanded cable television. That is to say that in regards to domestic affairs at a national level, nothing really significant happens most days. Government and progress is a slow moving process, however news stations have to fill headlines even on days when nothing happens; so they started blowing up non-issues and forcing politicians to comment on stupid stuff, etc. I found it interesting at least.

In regards to the debate. Nothing really relevant was discussed, it was two guys being asked questions by an entirely white and old audience, and them bickering. Obama probably won only because he got a "moment" when the moderator basically told Romney, "you're lying". Still favoring Obama over Romney at this point; although not voting is looking good too. Idk, just something about Romney's ability to adapt his point of view to anything just so that he can get elected leads me to believe he has 0 spine. Also, Paul Ryan is a dick.

[Ephemeral]

Although I do agree with your assessment of the US educational system, I refrained from painting a more grim picture for the following two reasons. First, I am not so sure that the current trend of ‘wiki-style’ education is limited to just the US; it seems to me that it is persuasive in many other countries and is probably being driven by the internet and other instant delivery of information. Second, US universities are still held in very high regard as shown by the number of non-US people who flock to them. In fact, I think that most of the prestigious PhD programs are now populated with more non-US folks than US folks. This seems to be an endorsement of a world class system.

I think that civics simply highlights one of the real issues with the flaws and short-comings in the current education of people. ‘Instant information access’ paradigm shift has impacted many aspects of our lives but its influence over the educational process has yet to be fully realized. As ubiquitous computing becomes even more widely accepted, we will all have to adapt to having instant access to a lifetimes worth of information at our finger tips. This screams for a move away from the traditional ‘rote and memorize’ educational approach. I think it is all about learning how to learn. Simply put, it is now more important to teach someone how to find quality information than it is to get them to retain that information. (Einstein was right when he said to never commit anything to memory that can easily be looked up.)
Of course in the above statement the key words are ‘quality information’. The news media has been rocked by instant information access and still holds on the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ mentality. ‘Breaking news’ has now just about become standard on every screen. But this hunger for instant access to news supports poor quality information. Which is better, having real-time poor quality misinformation or waiting for the correct version? The news media is no longer the simple stating of the facts of a story, they must fill the 24/7 air time so blend the delivery of facts with commentary. The result is that we don’t just hear about an attack on the embassy in Libya, we hear speculation about how and why it occurred. (This is the kind of differentiation skills we should be teaching people.)

But the really scary part is that we still have not been told exactly when the US figured out that this was an outright pre-planned attack and not a spontaneous demonstration. Was the White House really thinking that it was spontaneous for two weeks or did they know much earlier but not telling us? And what did the American public take away from the debate on this? Some bullshit semantics where it looked like Obama came out ahead because he used the words ‘act of terror’ buried in weeks of spontaneous demonstration rhetoric. And Romney falls on his face because he cannot correctly raise the issue and got sucked into a ‘debate 101’ mistake.

Both of these guys are morons and neither one deserves to be elected based solely on leadership qualities. I think that leadership is by far the most important aspect of the executive branch, it HAS to be there to counter balance the legislative branch. This is because the economy hinges on ‘certainty’. Without leadership and the ability to bring people together in the middle of the legislative aisle this period of economic uncertainly will continue to plague us all. We have contemporary examples of this happening, Reagan did it many times. A good example was his handling of the CFC/ozone issue. he lead not only the US congress to do the right thing but also demonstrated the ability to bring the rest of the world (including the Euros who really pushed back on this) into not destroying the very planet we live on for the sake of financial gain. If Obama had 10% of this leadership ability, we would have addressed the global warming issue by now. Another four years of this? It is sad to say this but I guess I will be voting only to ‘throw the bums out’ in every election.
eph

[DKFett]

Change it to the white one, duh.

Republicans across America have the same logic.

[Summa]

Although I do agree with your assessment of the US educational system, I refrained from painting a more grim picture for the following two reasons. First, I am not so sure that the current trend of ‘wiki-style’ education is limited to just the US; it seems to me that it is persuasive in many other countries and is probably being driven by the internet and other instant delivery of information. Second, US universities are still held in very high regard as shown by the number of non-US people who flock to them. In fact, I think that most of the prestigious PhD programs are now populated with more non-US folks than US folks. This seems to be an endorsement of a world class system.

I think that this much is true for the Western World. Places like South Korea, Japan, and to some degree China are still holding on to more classical education practices and in some cases have stayed with the 6 days on 1 day off schedule vs the western world's 5 days on 2 days off; as well as a year round schedule that has 2 larger breaks rather than one that gives students 3 months to forget everything and lose all desire to go to school. It's a style of education that is demonstrating high levels of success with extremely high literacy levels, economic and business success, and good graduate level education; however it would never work with lazy Americans entrenched in their ways. As for our Universities, you are right that our post-graduate programs in America are the best in the world, and also graduating more foreign people than American; however Undergraduate programs are essentially garbage. I can't find the statistic exactly to cite, but it goes something like this: What was considered a standard test in 1965 was given to High School Junions, to which the average score was a 76%; in 2005 the same test was given to High School Juniors to which the average score was 49%; it was then given to college Juniors to which the average score was a 77%. It is part of an article that makes the argument that the college education is the equivalent of what a high school education was and that America does not actually want to give its citizens free education, it wants to monetize it and collect on its investment by lowering free education standards and forcing people to pay the gov't back through public college tuition in order to have a functional education (I agree with the first part of the article, not so much the 2nd).

As for most of everything else you posted, I agree almost entirely.

But the really scary part is that we still have not been told exactly when the US figured out that this was an outright pre-planned attack and not a spontaneous demonstration. Was the White House really thinking that it was spontaneous for two weeks or did they know much earlier but not telling us? And what did the American public take away from the debate on this? Some bullshit semantics where it looked like Obama came out ahead because he used the words ‘act of terror’ buried in weeks of spontaneous demonstration rhetoric. And Romney falls on his face because he cannot correctly raise the issue and got sucked into a ‘debate 101’ mistake.

In debate you're taught 2 ways to win: 1) make a better argument or 2) undermine the person's legitimacy. Those can both be accomplished through a variety of methods, but US politics has basically shrugged the first (probably because the populace couldn't understand a decent arg if it hit them in the face), and voila Obama wins a debate because of #2. However, as far as the details of Obama declaring things later rather than sooner; I actually appreciate him for that. It is not a case like Katrina where the damage was obvious and apparent, and safety had been assured, and the facts of what happened were clear and apparent; so a timely response should have been made. Nor was it a case like 9/11, where regardless of having all the facts on hand, an immediate response had to be made. While the Republicans have criticized Obama for being slow at times, I like that he tends to wait until the facts are there and there is a definitive answer; I also read in one of his books a long time ago that he disagreed slightly with Bush always being on TV talking about terrorist groups, because it gives them a form of legitimacy in people's and their own minds.

This is because the economy hinges on ‘certainty’.

This is the most true sentiment ever. This is actually why anyone with an ideology should never be an economist. Ideologies pre-suppose answers and seek to find justification to support that answer. Economies need to be built on fact, following the facts, to whatever outcome it leads to; even if it is one your ideology wouldn't believe in.

[Salubrious]

This seems fitting for your discussion

[Mantra-Slider]

[Money]

[T3l Ca7]

I think you have a winner ... not that you got whole lots to choose from. Just saying ...

[Ephemeral]

There is no mandate, nothing has changed. We have put the same situation back in place, a Democratic President but Republican House majority, but expect different results? I think Obama has about 2 weeks to make his promise of bipartisanship work but after that business and the economy will begin to vote. If Obama can get the Republicans on his side (by selling out) perhaps he can actually get something done.

But the group of people who I am most familiar with, those who own small ($1M - $50M and employ between 10-100 people) businesses, over-whelming think this is another four years of uncertainly. Several do not think they will survive unless Washington quickly turns things around. In short, this was the worst case scenario as far as business confidence is concerned.

This is an epic failure by Republicans, they could have run a monkey as a candidate and done better than Romney. So perhaps this will be the thing that shakes them up and they begin to work with the Democrats. (Yeah right.) I expect another four years of ‘this mess isn’t my fault’ from Obama and another four years of a completely impotent Congress. IMO we should have thrown them all out of office and started over.
eph

[Summa]

There is no mandate, nothing has changed. We have put the same situation back in place, a Democratic President but Republican House majority, but expect different results? I think Obama has about 2 weeks to make his promise of bipartisanship work but after that business and the economy will begin to vote. If Obama can get the Republicans on his side (by selling out) perhaps he can actually get something done.

But the group of people who I am most familiar with, those who own small ($1M - $50M and employ between 10-100 people) businesses, over-whelming think this is another four years of uncertainly. Several do not think they will survive unless Washington quickly turns things around. In short, this was the worst case scenario as far as business confidence is concerned.

This is an epic failure by Republicans, they could have run a monkey as a candidate and done better than Romney. So perhaps this will be the thing that shakes them up and they begin to work with the Democrats. (Yeah right.) I expect another four years of ‘this mess isn’t my fault’ from Obama and another four years of a completely impotent Congress. IMO we should have thrown them all out of office and started over.
eph

In the show The West Wing, which is in general heralded as a decently accurate portrayal of Presidential politics; they claim that a newly elected President has about 60 days at the start of their term to REALLY do something. The rest will all be watered down. If something isn't set in motion by the end of January (February if you wanna be generous), expect very minimalist changes over the course of the following four years. I disagree that this was the worst case scenario though. I did take up your mantle of voting for the non-incumbent in all circumstances though.

The more interesting thing I heard tonight, although I can't recall exactly from whom I heard it, was the claim that as the Republican party currently stands, a non-catholic Republican cannot win the presidency. In terms of polling, Republicans have been demolished for a while now in regards to women and minority voters, particularly Hispanics. Someone (believe it was a Dem, so maybe take with a grain of salt) was making the claim that unless key fixtures in the Republican platform are changed that specifically target those groups (i.e. immigration policy and abortion), which probably won't happen because they have become stalwart fixtures in the platform; then there is no chance with how the American population statistics are going that we will see a non-Catholic Republican president (hispanics tend to be Catholics is the link there). And as much as I think the guy sensationalized his argument to the point of never, he has a point. The Democratic party has a growing base in terms of population and already has the moral high ground in regards to issues their key demographics see as valuable to them; while the Republican party has a shrinking base and has alienated many growing demographics with their platform's policies. I mean, look at this election: Over 50% of ppl said the primary issue was the economy, over 50% believed Romney was more knowledgeable about the economy; Romney was the Republican's economic candidate. And he lost. It may be difficult in the near future for Republicans to win a General Election unless something changes.

[Mantra-Slider]

Chris Christie 2016!!!

[Supreme]

Ron Paul 2012!

[Ephemeral]

In the show The West Wing, which is in general heralded as a decently accurate portrayal of Presidential politics; they claim that a newly elected President has about 60 days at the start of their term to REALLY do something. The rest will all be watered down. If something isn't set in motion by the end of January (February if you wanna be generous), expect very minimalist changes over the course of the following four years. I disagree that this was the worst case scenario though. I did take up your mantle of voting for the non-incumbent in all circumstances though.

The more interesting thing I heard tonight, although I can't recall exactly from whom I heard it, was the claim that as the Republican party currently stands, a non-catholic Republican cannot win the presidency. In terms of polling, Republicans have been demolished for a while now in regards to women and minority voters, particularly Hispanics. Someone (believe it was a Dem, so maybe take with a grain of salt) was making the claim that unless key fixtures in the Republican platform are changed that specifically target those groups (i.e. immigration policy and abortion), which probably won't happen because they have become stalwart fixtures in the platform; then there is no chance with how the American population statistics are going that we will see a non-Catholic Republican president (hispanics tend to be Catholics is the link there). And as much as I think the guy sensationalized his argument to the point of never, he has a point. The Democratic party has a growing base in terms of population and already has the moral high ground in regards to issues their key demographics see as valuable to them; while the Republican party has a shrinking base and has alienated many growing demographics with their platform's policies. I mean, look at this election: Over 50% of ppl said the primary issue was the economy, over 50% believed Romney was more knowledgeable about the economy; Romney was the Republican's economic candidate. And he lost. It may be difficult in the near future for Republicans to win a General Election unless something changes.

Agreed. The demographics of those who vote have clearly changed and left the Republicans in the dust. But I can’t help but feel that after two years and 6 billion dollars spent for the status quo is a huge failure by the American public.

There is one more irony here, that being that this election was won by taking those states which benefited from the auto industry bale out. (I am a guy who loves old cars and is very familiar with automobile history.) After WW2 America had many independent car companies like Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker, and Packard. But the ‘Big 3’ used economy of scale pressure to run all the independent car companies out of business. AMC, run by Romney’s father, was the last of these independent companies. If there was ever a time for America to step up and bailout out a company it would have been then. Instead America got three decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s) of the Big 3 selling crap and it took Japanese competition kicking their ass before quality was ‘rediscovered’.
So the Romney family first got screwed by no bailout for the auto industry and then decades later got screwed by an auto industry bailout. lol
eph

[renzi]

kthx> gays and god and such

[Ephemeral]

BTW Summa,
I said two weeks because everyone is going to have to come together before Jan 1 and vote down the monster tax increase set to kick in (this tax increase would be in excess of $3500 for any family earning $70k per year). Note, this tax increase occurs automatically UNLESS both Democrats and Republicans vote to change it. Given that the Congress is just as divided as before (or more so) and the status quo, what makes anyone think that middle income families aren’t now going to be paying the ‘bill’ for the benefits that the Feds provide? So my thinking is that the acid test is going to be very quick here, no election honeymoon, this is going to be put to the test almost immediately.
eph