On the Nature of Things | Forum

Enki wrote:

Mr. Perfect wrote:If there had been no EC Bush would have won anyway by pursuing a different electoral strategy. Al Gore would have been worse than Bush.

He wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq.

No, we have no assurance in our speculations that he wouldn't.

Start by considering that the Clinton Administration signed the Iraq Liberation Act (in an attempt to placate a public which was polling around 70% in favor of the removal of Saddam,) which declared that "it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime" and Vice President Gore is on record as being assured as late as 2002, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which couldn't be regulated by international sanctions.

Furthermore, Gore, working with the same intelligence would be surrounded by a most hawkish Democrat Joe Lieberman as Vice President; by his old friend and confidante Marty Peretz; the general Washington bureaucracy which wouldn't have been too dissimilar regardless of who is President; would have been pressured by outside voices like Tom Friedman and would have had to deal with Republicans screaming for Saddam's head. Which gets into his volition: Gore made a name for himself as being a hawkish Senator in the 80s. Clinton chose him because he was one of the few Democrats that voted for the first Gulf War. And when in 2002, he spoke in opposition to the Bush administration, he never was opposed to the goal of removing Saddam and the weapons stockpile but the fact that Bush didn't have enough international support.

All this is speculation in the end but it is ludicrous to clearly assert that Gore "wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq." Even if he were a changed man from his public history in 2001-2002, he may not have had much of a choice. Clinton, like Bush 41, barely held back the call for regime change and Gore is no Clinton- he would not have stood a chance at opposing what was popular sentiment through the 90s, especially after the attacks, even if he wanted to...he would have dealt with the same conditions presented.

Napster, thanks for doing the work, I can hardly trouble myself to do it anymore. Certain people have total amnesia before 2003 or 2001, depending.

Mr. Perfect wrote:Napster, thanks for doing the work, I can hardly trouble myself to do it anymore. Certain people have total amnesia before 2003 or 2001, depending.

The converse isn't totally dismissible either...Gore may have allocated more resources to fighting in Afghanistan from the get go making a war with Iraq impossible.

But considering that our strategy from the get-go has been bigger than individual states but the whole middle east as an aggregate, war with Iraq was down the pike in one way or another.

I agree with that. Most people I knew, and polls at the time supported it, wanted Saddam's head on a pike on the day of 9-11. whether he was behind it or not. People forget Saddam was world enemy #1 previous to 9-11 and so forth. You laid out the basics although much much more could be written.

I will also allow that Gore may not have gone to war, but not due to any clairvoyance but to general Gore weirdness. I will say the war effort would probably have gone better under Gore because Republicans and Europeans would have been far more supportive of it than Democrats and Europeans were under Bush.

So this confirms the suspicion that it doesn't matter who is POTUS. Any pair of white teeth will do.

It depends. A GOP President would never have done health care or half the stimulative stuff done by Obama, and probably not T&A/TSA and most of the other Obama constitution subversions. We would likely have pulled out of Iraq sooner with a GOP President. So depends on what you are looking for.

But what you can take to the bank is never trust a Democrat, all they are really for is massive government and abortion, everything else is negotiable no matter what they tell you.

Mr. Perfect wrote:It depends. A GOP President would never have done health care or half the stimulative stuff done by Obama, and probably not T&A/TSA and most of the other Obama constitution subversions. We would likely have pulled out of Iraq sooner with a GOP President. So depends on what you are looking for.

But what you can take to the bank is never trust a Democrat, all they are really for is massive government and abortion, everything else is negotiable no matter what they tell you.

Don't know. It seems that the USA has a few systemic problems with issues like health care, no matter the white teeth. How to organize a healthcare system that serves most people best is IMO not a political issue but a technical one. Similar to questions of health and how to best maintain it: 1) don't smoke, 2) regular physica exercise, 3) healthy food, 4) etc How to organise your healthcare system goes along similar lines.

Should people have the freedom to ruin their own health? I'd say certainly. But if in the process of neglect, chosing for no insurence and some bad luck... parents ask me to take care of their sick kid that needs life saving treatment for 40.000 dollars... I'd propose those parents take a fat life insurence, I'd pay for that bill and then help euthanise themselves to cash in the money and save the kid.

Do you know that Barack Obama spent 9 months passing a health care bill that now has public support in the 30% range? That is what I was talking about.

Mr. Perfect wrote:Do you know that Barack Obama spent 9 months passing a health care bill that now has public support in the 30% range? That is what I was talking about.

I have no idea what it means.

It means Republicans and Democrats are not the same.

Mr. Perfect wrote:It means Republicans and Democrats are not the same.

You'll have to excuse my countryman, he doesn't know the difference between domestic and foreign policy.

What I do know is that Obama is a continuation of Cheney/Wolfowitz/Perle neoconservatism, and you have said many times that Obama is governing as you expected, which means this is what you expected when you campaigned so enthusiastically for him.

So welcome aboard the neoconservative bandwagon.

Mr. Perfect wrote:

Zack Morris wrote: An enormous amount of people in Washington (and Nevada, and Oregon, and Arizona, and even Idaho) are from California.

And the people from those states hate them.

That's silly and irrelevant. State-based affiliations are no more significant than preferring a particular sports team. States are an administrative construct and the democratic (and completely legal) elimination of the Electoral College reflects that.

Err, the electoral college has not been eliminated.

You may say such affiliations are silly, but then you may say in god we trust on the dollar is silly but there it is.

Mr. Perfect wrote:Err, the electoral college has not been eliminated.

You may say such affiliations are silly, but then you may say in god we trust on the dollar is silly but there it is.

It's going away slowly and you seem to have a problem with it. Already, electoral votes frequently must go to the winner of the popular vote. When that becomes the reality across the board, the Electoral College will effectively have ceased to exist.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

More than half way there. New York has passed it in the Senate. The small rural states will soon no longer be under the thumb of the large ubran swing states.

It's so hard for me to believe you can think that is true. I'm very suspicious that this is some sort of sophistry on your part.

crashtech wrote:It's so hard for me to believe you can think that is true. I'm very suspicious that this is some sort of sophistry on your part.

And yet, all those small states thought it was within their interests enough to ratify it.

It's kind of interesting how the more homogenous large states have a common cause with the smaller states against the second tier large states no?

I have a question in regards to this issue. How does garnering more visits from Presidential candidates translate into political power? To me, the electoral votes ARE the power. More visits might be more of a spectacle and generate some revenue, but beyond that I do not understand this argument from the popular vote people.

crashtech wrote:I have a question in regards to this issue. How does garnering more visits from Presidential candidates translate into political power? To me, the electoral votes ARE the power. More visits might be more of a spectacle and generate some revenue, but beyond that I do not understand this argument from the popular vote people.

Because you are more likely to vote for someone if you have shaken their hand or seen them in person.

No, they are talking about political power that is somehow conferred to states that receive more visits from candidates, not the other way around. I can't think of any real power that this would bring.

Here's a snip from the National Popular Vote site:

Although the small states theoretically benefit from receiving two extra electoral votes corresponding to their U.S. Senators, this "bonus" does not, in practice, translate into political power. Political power in presidential elections comes from being a closely divided battleground state—not from the two-vote bonus conferred on the small states in the Electoral College.

Under the winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state), candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of battleground states. This means that voters in the vast majority of the states are ignored in presidential elections.

It seems like they are equating being paid more attention to political power, but I don't see how campaign visits lead directly to favorable legislation. For my part, I'm happy to be left alone; having the electoral votes is quite enough consolation.

Fair point. I think it's the fact that only battleground states really matter in the ultimate decision of who becomes President.

Enki wrote:Fair point. I think it's the fact that only battleground states really matter in the ultimate decision of who becomes President.

Wouldn't it just shift to a different sort of focus on a few states if it was popular vote total only? Repub candidate trying to boost his margins in certain populous red states, dem candidate in populous blue states, or both in perhaps 10 massive states? For example, you folks have over half the population within 10 states.

anderson wrote:

Enki wrote:Fair point. I think it's the fact that only battleground states really matter in the ultimate decision of who becomes President.

Wouldn't it just shift to a different sort of focus on a few states if it was popular vote total only? Repub candidate trying to boost his margins in certain populous red states, dem candidate in populous blue states, or both in perhaps 10 massive states? For example, you folks have over half the population within 10 states.

Not really because then there would be underserved markets that candidates would pander to. That's part of the reason why it's important for the candidate to spend time in that state, because they come to your state and have to learn your issues and care about them.

There is no such thing as a homogenous state that is all Dems or all Reps. It might lead to Democrats focusing on urban areas and Republicans focusing on rural ones. Might actually end up benefitting cities generally as we are becoming a much more urban society.