OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Spendios]

Cthulhu '08

Why vote for a lesser evil ?

[Meursy]

lol! :P

(high fives Spendios)

[Ironhawk]

LOL nice, spendios

[Micah]

I was for Nader in 2000, and man, did I learn that lesson. As much as the "they're all the same" rhetoric sounds nice, and even has a lot of truth to it, there's a pretty big difference between the parties, since I don't recall 8 years of wanting to flee the country before Bush was elected.

Voting for a third party is a wasted vote on a national election (though locally they can and do win, which is awesome). If you really want to get some change started and make 3rd parties a viable reality instant-runoff voting seems like a pretty damn good place to start, not shooting for the white house. If people can't even organize enough to get what's a pretty common-sense approach to voting to be enacted I can't imagine actually getting a nuanced 3rd party candidate choice voted into office.

That being said, I think a proportional representation system would be even better, but let's start small, shall we?

[licker]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Licker: I disagree that you have to be either a sheep or delusional to vote for one of the major candidates, that is too narrow of a grouping and does not account for all variables.

I also disagree with this - "So honestly, how would you know if these 3rd party candidates are worth listening to or not? Probably just because you've bought the lies the media and politicians would have you believe."

I don't know about you but I haven't heard ANYTHING about the 3rd party candidates. And I'm sure many others haven't either. I would bet more people just don't care about them because they get no media attention. How are we ever going to elect someone who doesn't get any air time? From what I can tell the majority of american voters get most if not all of their information from television. Sad, but it seems to be the case.

I agree, my first statement was a bit strong, but was only made in response to an equally strong, and equally limited statement.

As to the 3rd parties...

That's my point!

Do you think the Green party or the libertarian party does not roots? Why is it that you haven't heard what they are saying, other than that you are just taking what is spoon fed to you.

They have been on NPR, they have been in some newspapers, and they have had some limited TV exposure, but the main stream media doesn't touch them.

And why?

Because they know who is cutting them their checks for all the ad time they allow.

Take MONEY out of the political equation as much as possible and you'll start to hear more varied platforms and opinions. European nations do this, sure, they have their big parties, but the smaller parties are also heard from, with our winner takes all congressional design (which isn't necessarily a bad design, it's just been completely subverted by the haves to completely exclude the have nots) if you are not a repub or a dem you get very little monetary support (which is derived from the dnc and rnc) and have very little chance to actually compete.

Look at Obama and his earlier stance on what money he would use for the campaign, and how he completely discarded that stance when he realized he would benefit more by dropping it. Disgusting, and just another example of our politicians doing whatever they want since they know there are no consequences.

McCain is no saint here either, none of them are, that's my point. Voting for them is just casting your ballot for more of the same screw job we've become accustomed to.

For either of those candidates, if you support them and they win, write down what their campaign promises were, and then actually bother to track what and how they go about fulfilling them. Of course most people won't do this, hell most people don't even know what the promises are, other than in some incredibly pointless and generic sense.

Change? What the hell does that mean? It could mean anything, and it probably will since both campaigns are using it.

[Tichy]

Two words, guys. Judicial appointments.



As one commentator (can't remember who) put it about Obama: "It'll be nice to have a president who has read the Federalist Papers."

[DonCorazon]

I realize arguing politics is pretty hopeless since nobody ever changes their mind. I will just say that any chance that I might vote for McCain vanished when he picked Palin as VP. The thought of her as president is terrifying and IMHO reflect very poorly on McCain's judgment. Obama is smart and was against the Iraq war when it wasn't cool to be which I think reflects well on his character and intellect. For me the choice is easy and I think a vote for McCain is irresponsible because it puts the presidency one heart attack away from Palin.

[rdonj]

The one good thing about sarah palin is, so far as I can tell, she actually does what she says she's going to do. Even if she decides later it was a bad idea and tries to pretend she didn't really do it.

Personally, I want presidential campaign money to come from taxes and guarantee all candidates equal air time, or at least all candidates who received a certain amount of votes. Of course, it would be better if we didn't have to pay for it, but at least that way it would lessen the power of money to influence the elections.

[Lingchih]

Gee, this is starting to look like a landslide. I hope the general election goes the same way.

I already voted (for Obama). Unfortunately, I live in Texas, so that was a thrown away vote essentially.

[otthegreat]

I'm curious about what some of our friends outside of the US (i.e other dominions players) think about the two party system. I agree with what seems to be the general opinion here that it needs some work.

One thing I like about Vermont is that campaigns run on a very limited budget so third parties are better represented. In fact the republican candidate for senate last election spent much more money and ran the first real attack adds we've seen in the state. I was very happy when the whole scheme backfired and the independent won handily (admittedly no democrat was running).