2012 Election Thread (probably contains partisan bickering)

[pioneer98]

Your VP candidate won't win you an election. He just needed somebody that wouldn't hurt him.

I agree with this. Ryan won't have a big impact, but could possibly put Wisconsin into play.

[slide_into_first]

In November, 2008, Sean Hannity started calling the economic crisis, "The Obama Recession."

[ghostrunner]

John Kerry in 2004 showed that it's a poor strategy to rely on your base turning out to vote "against" a polarizing sitting president by voting "for" a mediocre, uninspiring candidate.

Mittens is John Kerry 2k12.

The difference though is as much as we might disagree with everything Bush did in his first term, he was very active, and I'm not sure moderate voters then were willing to see what a different candidate could do, especially considering the fear that 9/11 stirred up.

Bush was very active? The guy spent a third of his tenure on vacations at Camp David or retreats at the Crawford ranch.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

That's kind of insignificant. For him or any president those are basically working vacations. I'd say he was pretty active regardless of whether you agree with what he did.

[Radbird]

The bishops are mainly conservative on social issues and liberal on economic issues, so I don't think they can back either ticket 100%.

Is there any group out there that's the opposite - liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues? I recognize to some extent that may not be possible because social liberalism spends money, but just on basic things like the right to choose and gay rights.

It seems to me that the conservative economic viewpoint is lost on many because it's intertwined with a narrow interpretation of the bible (and even the constitution).

[New Pagodi]

The bishops are mainly conservative on social issues and liberal on economic issues, so I don't think they can back either ticket 100%.

Is there any group out there that's the opposite - liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues?

That's supposed to be the central idea of American Libertarianism.

[AdmiralKird]

This is why I tune into elections:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... n_activity

[pioneer98]

John Kerry in 2004 showed that it's a poor strategy to rely on your base turning out to vote "against" a polarizing sitting president by voting "for" a mediocre, uninspiring candidate.

Mittens is John Kerry 2k12.

The difference though is as much as we might disagree with everything Bush did in his first term, he was very active, and I'm not sure moderate voters then were willing to see what a different candidate could do, especially considering the fear that 9/11 stirred up.

Bush was very active? The guy spent a third of his tenure on vacations at Camp David or retreats at the Crawford ranch.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

That's kind of insignificant. For him or any president those are basically working vacations. I'd say he was pretty active regardless of whether you agree with what he did.

I guess I need a clearer definition of "pretty active". All I can come up with is tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, and the Medicare drug benefit. If 9/11 hadn't happened, that's about the extent of what his legacy would be.

I'd feel different if Bush had led differently on some of these things. Contrast how Bush pushed NCLB through with how Obama did health care. We could have easily had a year-long debate about what to do about education in this country, like we had on health care, but Bush never reached out to the other side. Then he told us to go shopping after 9/11. He didn't want a public discussion or decision on really anything he did. This is why I think he came off as not as "active" to me. He didn't engage the public. He just did what Halliburton wanted and then let Fox News and others sell the ideas.

[cards2468]

I don't think more changes have occured over an 8 year span in this nation since WWII. I'm not saying they're good changes... just that a lot happened and Bush was the center of a lot of it. To me the past 4 years have felt like stale mate. We can... and have... argue over who's at fault for that, but that's beside the point. All I was pointing out was that with as much as was going on in the world at the time of Bush's re-election, I think the general population feared changing powers. That's all I'm saying as to why I don't see Romney as being similar to Kerry in this election.

[MrCrowesGarden]

WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

I'm not the praying kind, but I don't really think a rich white guy needs my prayers.

[cpebbles]

Tell your friends that the progressive/Democrat brainwashing machine known as "7th grade English teachers" wants them to read up on capitalization and comma usage.