GOP2020: What Becomes Of The Collaborators Post-Trump?

Bad news: Bachmann will make Palin look sane. Yet strangely, right now, I hate Joe Lieberman more than Bachmann...
That aside, I have to confess that the phrase "Louisiana Purchase" is perfect, and funny.

The Republican party would probably be much better off if we had an automatic runoff system like Australia, and then they could have a bunch of splinter parties in which most members would still rank the mainstream Republican candidate (a Mitt Romney) as their second choice. Here's how it works: your vote is reassigned by the computer to your second choice if your first choice candidate does not place in the top two. It ends the third-party spoiler problem. But will Republicans be smart enough to favor such electoral amendments?

Opening up something like this might open up the issue of direct election of President, getting rid of the electoral college and saying that the extra weight small population states have in the Senate (esp. under cloture!) is more than enough protection for them. Could we get three-quarters of states to ratify this? Maybe if the amendment were bundled with other things that small states want. Like, for example, some system to rotate first primaries among blocks of states on (say) a 5 presidential election cycle [imagine, five primary dates, 10 states per day, with these 10-state groups rotating each election, each group being first for one presidential election every 20 yrs -- how beautiful, efficient, and FAIR]. Okay, NH is not going to ratify this, but who cares if we have enough other states that benefit.

While we're at it, we might as well tackle gerrymandering, and lack of representation in Congress to DC, US protectorates, and Puerto Rico (who did us harm by refusing to become a state, though). This is much of what ails our system of elections. DO all this, and I'd predict that smaller political groups, districts gerrymandered to be safe, safe states in presidential elections, and late primary states would not feel so alienated. They would feel they were getting a fair shake at being heard at the national level in party primaries and general elections. That might actually build solidarity and fraternity -- almost totally forgotten virtues among American political opponents and alienated voters.

My immediate reaction to the system in Australia is that it would put more wackos in office than already are. if people can have a second choice, there's no reason to not vote for a nutjob that would otherwise be unelectable. The issue of electability goes out the window. So someone like Steve Lonnigan (not that I think he's a wacko) could get elected because people who didn't think he could beat Corzine could still vote for him and put Christie as their second choice.

That said, the idea that you need to win a majority, and not just a plurality, is somewhat appealing to me.

Posted By: rastroMy immediate reaction to the system in Australia is that it would put more wackos in office than already are. if people can have a second choice, there's no reason to not vote for a nutjob that would otherwise be unelectable. The issue of electability goes out the window. So someone like Steve Lonnigan (not that I think he's a wacko) could get elected because people who didn't think he could beat Corzine could still vote for him and put Christie as their second choice.
In the scenario you describe, Rastro, Christie (as the second choice of most) would most likely be the winner, not Lonegan (who I think IS a wacko, but that's a different topic).

Wikipedia has a good description of how this system, known as Instant Runoff Voting, works.

IRV is an interesting concept, especially if the Electoral College was eliminated. Almost certainly the nearly 20% of the vote in 19952 for Ross Perot would have swung the election tot George Herbert Walker Bush and put him in the White House for a second term and in 2000 Gore would have picked up enough Nader votes to increase his majority in the popular vote and put him in the White House.

Of course if Bush I won in 1992 Gore probably wouldn't have been the candidate in 2000. Revisionist history is so much fun. LOL

Bob, what states would GHWB have carried that he did not, were there runoffs? Federal elections are different because they are still governed by the electoral college. Which means Perot's votes would have had to change the election in enough states to make a difference. I don't thin they would have. But I don't have the electoral data to know.

Rastro, I think part of the argument for instant runoff voting is to eliminate the electoral college, and under that scenario GHWB almost certainly would have won the election. I ain't anal enough to go through the election results state by state to see what possibly could have happened in the Electoral College scenario.

Posted By: bobkRastro, I think part of the argument for instant runoff voting is to eliminate the electoral college, and under that scenario GHWB almost certainly would have won the election. I ain't anal enough to go through the election results state by state to see what possibly could have happened in the Electoral College scenario.


yeah, but if you're imagining no electoral college in 2000, then Nader's votes were inconsequential, since Gore won the popular vote anyway.

Any while not admitting to any amount of anality, I do remember reading several analyses that said Perot not running would not have put Bush in office - that that analysis was probably electoral college dependent anyway, so I'm not sure which fantasy scenario applies.

:wink:

Here is a chart showing a scenario with Bush winning. I think exit polls showed that Perot took votes from both Clinton and Bush in about equal numbers, something I find almost unbelievable given Perot's platform, but my off the cuff remark earlier may not have been orrection

(http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/GENERAL/pe1992whatif.html)

The Perot campaign brings up an interesting scenario if someone like Bloomberg decides to go the third party route in 2012.

A fairly common scenario wher IRV shines: 2 candidates in the same ideological ballpark run, along with a third candidate who is of the opposite persuasion from the first two. The 2 similar ones between them, take 65% of the vote, leaving the third candidate to win the election with 35%. It happened in New York when liberals Liz Holtzman and Jacob Javits both ran for the Senate, effectively handing the seat to Conservative James Buckley. Slightly different but also not uncommon is when a candidate garners a small number of votes, but they're enough to swing the election - case in point: New Hampshire in the 2000 Presidential election. Bush won the state by about 7000 votes, while Nader garnered about 20,000. With IRV, most of those 20,000 would (presumably) have gone to Gore - giving the state to Gore and rendering the outcome in Florida irrelevant.

**"With IRV, most of those 20,000 would (presumably) have gone to Gore - giving the state to Gore and rendering the outcome in Florida irrelevant."**

Sorry Jeff, but the best man won...

The best man may have won but the other guy got the job.

**In a way it's too bad Gore didn't get elected...**

One thing for sure, Obama or any Democrat wouldn't have been elected again for the next forty years!

and so with the republicans...get ready for that loooong nap

Posted By: ffofand so with the republicans...get ready for that loooong nap


"Who knows what dreams may come..."

We might remember Lani Guinier, dumped by Bubba for her ideas about cumulative voting among other "radical" notions.

Posted By: ajc

In a way it's too bad Gore didn't get elected...

One thing for sure, Obama or any Democrat wouldn't have been elected again for the next forty years!



You really live in a world of your own, don't you?

Posted By: LOST
Posted By: ajc

In a way it's too bad Gore didn't get elected...

One thing for sure, Obama or any Democrat wouldn't have been elected again for the next forty years!



You really live in a world of your own, don't you?


Like the Global Warming deniers, a segment of this country has dumbed themselves out of any conversation. They were in charge in the Bush years, but thankfully we've seen the result of that.

Just how ajc doesn't get why his beliefs and attitude are toxic on the local level, we're seeing why some segments of the population have made themselves irrelevant.

OK, here we go with the MOL dynamic. Do libs spend time convincing ajc that the sky is blue while cons allow him to represent the "conservative" POV?

**Do you really believe I represent the conservative point of view?**

Damn you GL2, you really know how to hurt a guy... Listen up pal; me and my buddy Glen Beck are just trying to ask a few questions about what's really going on in America. This is no longer about any one party, or any one person. Bigger and bigger government in general has been taking us all on a cruise to nowhere for years now.

Anyway, who's been in charge of this ship of fools for the past year? IMO, the Democrats own this mess now; not just Bush, not the cons, and damn sure not me....

"me and my buddy Glen Beck are just trying to ask a few questions about what's really going on in America"

maybe proof to the saying "there's a sucker born every minute."

**"...there's a sucker born every minute."**

That comment can cut both ways pal...

Posted By: GL2OK, here we go with the MOL dynamic. Do libs spend time convincing ajc that the sky is blue while cons allow him to represent the "conservative" POV?


is it really possible that among all the MOL'ers out there, reading this right now, that there isn't someone who can rationally represent the con point of view?

I guess it's not really possible - how can you rationally represent something that's basically irrational?

Posted By: drummerboy
Posted By: GL2OK, here we go with the MOL dynamic. Do libs spend time convincing ajc that the sky is blue while cons allow him to represent the "conservative" POV?


is it really possible that among all the MOL'ers out there, reading this right now, that there isn't someone who can rationally represent the con point of view?

I guess it's not really possible - how can you rationally represent something that's basically irrational?


That's how this becomes a microcosm of what happens nationally, and certainly not to the distress of libs, who hoot as these folks carry banners and claim the con POV. When cons don't call out "cons," then "cons" are seen as cons.

The march to glory continues...

November 29, 2009
South Carolina Rift Highlights Debate Over G.O.P.

By SHAILA DEWAN
CHARLESTON, S.C. — When Senator Lindsey Graham joined forces last month with Senator John Kerry on a compromise to the climate change legislation known as cap and trade, it was the last straw for the Charleston County Republican Party.

The county party, which has traditionally been considered moderate, voted by a wide margin to censure Mr. Graham in harsh terms.

Their grievance list was long: it cited the senator for calling opponents of immigration law change “bigots,” holding the Republican Party “hostage” by participating in bipartisan maneuvers, voting for the Wall Street bailout and tarnishing the ideals of freedom.

It even criticized Mr. Graham, a Republican and the state’s senior senator, as having “stated on many occasions that his primary concern is to ‘be relevant.’ ”

The party had no such criticism for the other senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint.

In fact, Mr. DeMint, a Republican in his first term, is the leader of a movement to pull the party in the opposite direction from Mr. Graham’s conciliatory approach. The political action committee he founded, called the Senate Conservatives Fund, backs only candidates who are rock-solid conservatives, and adherents to his views have led the efforts to censure Mr. Graham.

The problem is confusing conservatism with hyper-partisanship or right-wing populism. Lindsey Graham is a solid conservative on almost every issue but as a US Senator in the minority he understands that he has to work with Democrats to get anything done. Does the fact that John Kerry works with him make Kerry not a liberal?

When conservatives like McCain and even, Lord forgive me, George Bush wanted to reform immigration law in a sensible way the right wing fake populists went after them. What makes Sarah Palin a "conservative? What does she want to conserve?

Even Speaker Gingrich used to refer to certain members of his Party "the perfectionist caucus".

And this is how these Republicans will spend 2010 - trying to contain the crazies. Imagine the weight of this Tea Party Convention idea. Who's on the guest list? Who isn't? Who can speak? Who can't? Who wants to be associated with these folks? Who can't afford not to be? This is the price they pay for neglecting their responsibility to behave in a constructive way.

Wanna double-space and wide-margin a doc that amounts to a few hundred pages so that you can tote it around as an albatross rather than deal with it? Read it, D-bag. You're not a 13-year-old complaining about a school assignment. Read the f'ing thing and offer some serious critique. It'll keep yer asses out of trouble maybe. Have a sleepover at the "house" and all read the bill and eat popcorn. No hookers. Just reading. Later on you could have discussion groups. Ya jerks.

Posted By: GL2The march to glory continues...

November 29, 2009
South Carolina Rift Highlights Debate Over G.O.P.

By SHAILA DEWAN
CHARLESTON, S.C. — When Senator Lindsey Graham joined forces last month with Senator John Kerry on a compromise to the climate change legislation known as cap and trade, it was the last straw for the Charleston County Republican Party.

...


there you go again, ripping off ajc's style.

Wanabe's, they're everywhere lately...

Of course there's an ocean of differences between what Catholic laity believe and what Bishops and Pope command them to believe. Like Protestant christians, Catholics too must choose...

an excerpt from:
Does God Hate the Kennedys?
by James Carroll

How reactionary has the Catholic hierarchy become? Let me count the ways: 
• Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence “respectfully” tells Congressman Patrick Kennedy to refrain from receiving communion, a harbinger of what every pro-choice or pro-gay-marriage Catholic politician faces. 
• Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington threatens to cancel Catholic provision of services to the homeless and poor if the D.C. City Council passes a law giving equal rights to gays. 
• The Vatican, uneasy with the relative liberalism of American nuns, launches an intimidating investigation of U.S. religious orders of women, which, when criticized by Maureen Dowd, prompts New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan to complain of anti-Catholicism in the New York Times. 
• In October, Rome violates a generation-long tradition of inter-denominational respect to invite disgruntled conservative Episcopalians to join a special new wing of the Catholic Church. Hostility to gays and rejection of equality for women trump theology, tradition, and even courtesy. 
• Last week, more than a dozen of the most influential U.S. Catholic bishops (including Dolan and Wuerl) join far-right-wing Evangelicals like James Dobson in “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience.” Its co-author Chuck Colson (of Watergate fame) describes “a hierarchy of issues,” but the Catholic Church now has an issues hierarchy.
• On Capitol Hill this month, the Catholic bishops make clear their readiness to scuttle the entire package of health-reform legislation if they do not get their way on abortion restrictions. Health-care reform hangs in the Senate by a thread, which the bishops prepare to cut.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-28/the-vatican-goes-rogue?cid=hp:mainpromo5

GL2, you've posted some 36 times on your own thread! Is that some kind of record for you?

I doubt if anything you might say is going to change the 2000 year old institution called the Roman Catholic Church! What comes across to me, however, is your hate for this particular religion. Not very cool - and it certainly does not fit the Maplewood/South Orange diversity tag. You're a tad critical of protestants, too.

yeah, gl2!

Stop being critical of groups that do eff'ed up things!!

you hater you.

oh - and stop posting so much too because there's a right amount of posting, which everyone knows, and you've exceeded that amount.

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