Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

[we_are_toast]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

I think that this should actually make you sad.

...

Obama is neither liberal, nor progressive, nor even a proponent of his own ethnicity .

Not only does it not make me sad, it makes me very glad. I would consider any candidate who would be "a proponent of his own ethnicity", to be extremely dangerous and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a position of power. IMO a leader in the U.S. needs to lead ALL ethnicities and not be "a proponent of his own ethnicity."


Back to the subject at hand, Rick Perry is tweating that he will NOT withdraw from the race, which will help Romney. We'll see if he lasts after South Carolina.

[c1ue]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Not only does it not make me sad, it makes me very glad. I would consider any candidate who would be "a proponent of his own ethnicity", to be extremely dangerous and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a position of power. IMO a leader in the U.S. needs to lead ALL ethnicities and not be "a proponent of his own ethnicity."

I'm glad to see that you, as a representative of the liberal political spectrum, have such equanimity that you applaud Obama's failure to even benefit his own ethnicity much less all of America's ethnicities, at the price of his bankster sponsors.

That not letting 'them' win is a well worth the price of giving up even the historical platform of liberalism: progressive economic policies, civil rights, and so forth.

But then again, the dynamic of combative small minded prerogatives is exactly what has led us to this point.

[ST]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

this from Bloomberg on Santorum, is interesting:

Santorum Becomes Millionaire After U.S. Senate Loss

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...nate-seat.html

[don]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Haven’t you figured it out yet… if it wouldn’t be so rude, the GOP convention would be nominating OBAMA in 2012, right?

That’s why they’re running Newt, Santorum, Bachman, the black guy with hundreds of sexual harassment suits filed against him that he supposedly knew nothing about, what was his name? He was awesome. Rick Perry, another Texas Governor who can’t talk? Ron Paul isn’t even a Republican, so don’t even go there.

There was Gary Johnson, or was his name John Garyson? Jon Huntsman was Mormon 1.A. And Tim Pawlenty had a cup of coffee in the race, took one look around and had to get back to running Minnesota.

Oh wait, I forgot about Thaddeus McCotter? But then, so did you.

I think the inside joke was that no one told Mitt Romney that the whole thing was a giant gag… that they actually wanted Obama in 2012. So, Mitt thought the others were actually trying to win. So then, remember when The GOP debates were in Nevada? And they asked Mitt what to do about foreclosures and someone told him to say that he thought they needed to happen faster? In Nevada? Foreclosures need to happen faster? Come on now… I was rolling on the floor.

I just know I’m right about this. What about Newt’s plan for 9 year-old janitors in poor neighborhoods? And you want me to believe that he’s seriously campaigning for president? Come on now… and Newt’s in first or second place? Sure he is. The man asks his wife for an open marriage, consults for Freddie Mac and bounces ten grand worth of checks… and then wins in South Carolina? Look, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

And the Godfather’s Pizza guy… Cain? That was like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Every day two or three more women show up and start yelling about how he sexually harassed them. He had no idea that might happen? Uh huh, sure.

Don’t even get me started on Bachman… I mean, who would have ever thought that Palin’s job could have been at risk. But along came Michelle and she said, among so many other zingers…

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

Or what about when she was in South Carolina and she said “Happy Birthday” to Elvis on the anniversary of his death? She was like watching Phoebe on the television sitcom, “Friends.”

And wasn’t Donald Trump in the race at the beginning too? People, this is a show for sure. “Candidate Trump, if you were president, what would you say to the leader of Iran.” And Trump responds: “I’d simply tell him… You’re Fired.” (Insert laugh track here.)

I knew something was up for sure when Huntsman started making sense, and they got rid of him immediately.

Golfing with Boehner…

Ask yourself this question: Why would the Republicans want Obama out? He does everything they want and more.

He gave Wall Street untold trillions with no conditions… never closed Guantanamo, is still rearranging rocks in Afghanistan, made Bush look good by winning in Iraq… said he was going to spend $75 billion on helping homeowners but only spent $2.4 billion… let the bankers pay themselves whatever they wanted… threw out health care reform and replaced it with a gift to health insurance insurers…. didn’t regulate derivatives… what more could Republicans ask for?

Obama even alienated enough Democrats and Independents to hand the House back to the GOP in the midterms. Four more years of Obama and the Republicans will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate too.

I’m sure the GOP wanted to just go ahead and campaign for Obama in 2012, but how rude would that have been. I mean, if Mitt Romney had come out saying what a great job Obama has been doing? That would have been a total ‘no respect.’

So, they had to run someone who they could be sure had no shot whatsoever. They put the word out and so may showed up, that they just said… “Go ahead, you can all go at it. We’ll just book a hundred debates so you can all have a chance to pretend you’re running for president. Just make sure you don’t start making sense out there.”

Mitt’s not sure what’s going on, so he just keeps changing his positions on everything. They must have someone working with him every night so he knows how to cover the issues properly.

What’s wrong with business in America, Mitt? “Too much regulation.” What do we do about immigration? “Build a fence.” What’s your number one priority? “Repeal ObamaCare.” And, Iran? “Nuke ‘em.” Abortion? “Only in certain cases.” Noooooo. “Oh yeah, I’ve got this one… “ Okay, let’s try again… Abortion? “Over my dead body.” Good, very good.

Of course, every time Obama goes on television they have to send Newt back out there to make sure he doesn’t actually win.

Hey, you can believe what you want. I’m just saying…

http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2012...in-2012-right/

Obama has proven too damn useful and there's more work to be done. He is the man to front austerity from above and when he's hated by everyone in the lower 90 percentile, he can be impeached. That will buy at least another year of distractions . . .

[reallife]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

My prediction: Bachmann flames out early. Palin never enters the race. Perry and Romney split the primaries by pandering to the tea partiers and the religious right, leaving the moderate center to Obama. Romney wins the convention after a vicious floor fight when the tea partiers walk out. Obama wipes the floor with Romney in the general election.

Not much activity on this string for a long time....

I guess I got my first prediction wrong....so far. Bachmann and Perry? Who would have guessed former Sen. Santorum and and former House Speaker Gingrich would be the candidates pulling Romney into the far-right Neverland? Ron Paul is starting to sound like a moderate....

I'm still putting my bet with Romney vs. Obama with Obama winning the general election. Anyone else?

[walenk]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

This Greg Palast post leaves this mischeivous Dem wondering how to make the most mischief in the Republican circular firing squad come my state's primary? Let's see if I've got this straight, if I want to thwart the Koch-roaches, I vote Mitt?
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news...-needs-be.html

[c1ue]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

My view is still that whomever the Republican candidate is, the quality of the candidate will be irrelevant.

Its the economy, stupid - as Carville said (not originally Clinton).

I've seen a number of articles talking about the extraordinary high price of gasoline so early in the spring; in the meantime oil has gone over $105 due to Iran's self embargoing.

$150 oil and $5 gasoline throughout the summer is not going to yield a happy populace, and an unhappy populace almost invariably goes for 'regime change'.

[don]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Ron Paul quietly amassing an army of delegates while GOP frontrunners spar

While the Republican nomination race is focused on the ongoing battle between frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the Ron Paul campaign is waging an under-the-radar "delegate strategy" that could make the libertarian-leaning Texan the surprise kingmaker of the race.

In states that have already voted via a caucus system – rather than a straight primary ballot – Ron Paul supporters are conducting an intensively organised ground effort aimed at securing as many convention delegate slots as possible, often in numbers that far outweigh the number of actual votes that Paul got in the ballot.

If successful, it means Paul's campaign could arrive at the August Tampa convention at the head of an army of delegates far larger than the proportion of votes that it won during the nomination contest.

It could also increase the chances of a contested convention – where no candidate has enough delegates to declare the winner – as well as give Paul much greater ability to inject his beliefs into the Republicans' 2012 policy platform.

The strategy is based on the fact the GOP race is in fact a "delegate contest" despite an overwhelming focus by the media and most campaigns on "winning" individual states by coming top of the popular vote. But in reality, each state, weighted proportionally by population, sends a number of delegates to Tampa where a nominee is then chosen.

A total of 2,286 delegates are sent to Tampa and so a candidate must secure the support of 1,144 of them in order to win the nomination.

However, a bewilderingly complex set of rules, often varying from state to state, exists to actually assign these delegates. Ron Paul's campaign is seeking to work that system in order to maximise its delegate count.

So far signs are that the campaign is being so successful at its strategy that it may be able to "win" delegate counts in states where it did not win the popular vote.

"They will be able to perform well enough that in some states where they came in third or fourth in the straw poll, they will come in first or second in terms of the delegate totals. I am fairly confident in making that bet," said Professor Josh Putnam, a political scientist at Davidson College who runs the Frontloading HQ blog dedicated to tracking the delegate fight.

How the strategy works

The strategy works because of the varying ways each state assigns the delegates that get sent to Tampa. Some states hold a "winner takes all" primary that will assign all its delegates to the candidate who tops the vote.

Others assign delegates proportionally according to the vote, splitting the delegates roughly according to the results and ensuring each major candidate gets some delegates.

But it is in the caucus states that the Ron Paul campaign is focused. There the method of assigning delegates is complex and lasts a long time. In caucus states that have voted so far like Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maine, the process of assigning delegates in support of each candidate has barely begun.

That process begins on caucus night when each precinct votes and then chooses delegates to send to a county convention to be held later in the year. Those county conventions will then choose a smaller number of delegates to send to a state convention or conventions held in each state's congressional districts.

Those state and district level conventions are the bodies that actually finally choose which delegates to send to the Tampa national convention.

However, at the start of the process – the precinct level meetings held on caucus day – the delegates selected to go to the later county conventions are frequently under no obligation to declare which candidate they are supporting or to support the "winner" of the day's actual voting.

Ron Paul's campaign strategy is to get enough of his precinct-level supporters to volunteer to become delegates to the county conventions so that they outnumber other campaigns. "Their strategy is to gobble up as many of these slots as they can," said Putnam.

Then, if you manage to stack the beginning of the process with Ron Paul delegates, as the system moves through the county conventions and the district and state-wide conventions the chances of Ron Paul-supporting delegates emerging at the end and being chosen to go to Tampa is greatly increased.

The entire strategy is helped by the fact that Paul's supporters are seen as far more organised and dedicated than other campaigns.

Is it successful?

It is currently impossible to say. No caucus state that has already voted has yet held any county conventions at which an idea of the number of Ron Paul-supporting delegates chosen at the precinct level may emerge. Those first indications should come in March.

However, the Ron Paul campaign itself, which is at pains to point out their strategy is entirely within the rules, has released information from Colorado that shows how they hope it could be playing out.

In one precinct in Larimer County there were 13 delegate slots available. Santorum had won the precinct's vote by 23 votes to Paul's 13, with five votes going to Romney. But Paul supporters took all the delegate slots.

In a Delta County precinct all five delegate slots went to Paul supporters though he came behind Santorum and Romney in the popular vote. In a Pueblo County precinct Paul supporters got the two delegate slots available despite the fact Paul finished fourth in the precinct's vote with just two actual votes.

Those examples are likely cherry-picked by the Paul campaign as best case scenarios. But Colorado party officials are – officially, at least – sanguine about what is going on as it obeys the party rules. "We are just here to play out the process. Whatever happens happens," executive director of the Colorado GOP Chuck Poplstein told the Guardian.

But Poplstein did say a successful delegate strategy was not easy to pull off. "It is difficult for any campaign. You have to be very well organised and in all of the counties. It is not an easy process. You have to have a very good ground game," he said.

But that might not be too much of a problem. The Ron Paul campaign is highly organised and focused. "We are also seeing the same trends in Minnesota, Nevada and Iowa, and in Missouri as well," the campaign said in its statement on the precinct performances in Colorado.

A recent report by the Washington Post from a caucus in Portland, Maine, revealed a dedicated activist organisation complete with pre-printed lists of which delegates should be voted for at the precinct level. That is likely true across all the caucus states.

"They do tend to be very organised and very enthusiastic for Ron Paul," said Professor Tim Hagle, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

What impact could it have?

The fact is that Paul's delegate strategy would have little impact in a normal Republican race. The system is set up with enough winner-take-all and primary states to ensure that Paul's strategy has no chance whatsoever of picking up enough delegates via this method to actually win the nomination himself.

But it all changes when the Republican race becomes protracted and closely fought. If Santorum, Romney and Newt Gingrich all stay in the race beyond Super Tuesday and start to amass their own large piles of delegates, then reaching the vital 1,144 delegates needed to win starts to become more difficult.

If that scenario plays out – something most experts see as possible but unlikely – then Paul's delegate total becomes crucial. He could become a kingmaker, agreeing to throw his hefty delegate total behind one candidate who could then claim victory.

As a candidate with a very clearly defined agenda – on foreign policy, the role of government and fiscal issues, especially the Federal Reserve – Paul could demand a high policy price for that support.

However, even if a nominee emerges prior to the convention, Paul's delegates will still be important. If he amasses a loyal and large delegate total he will able to secure a high-profile, possibly primetime, speaking slot.

He will also be more able to get his agenda into the party's official policy platform. Given Paul's stance on issues like American foreign policy and the wars in Afghanistan, that could upset the party elite and the nominee.

Modern conventions are supposed to be highly organised, tightly controlled displays of party unity. At the very least a successful Paul delegate strategy could shatter that prospect.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...lican-election



Romney heads to Michigan as GOP figures lament dismal Arizona debate

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum fail to shine, prompting Republicans to speculate about new candidate joining race

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...arizona-debate

[tallone]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Could Ron Paul be winning? I found the following post when I searched for Republican primary information: "Neville March 4, 2012 at 9:18 pm · Reply

This might interest some people. The first set of data below is the "official result" from Thurston County, in Washington state, from yesterday's caucus.

1,140 people voted in the presidential preference poll, in Thurston County, with the following result published (Google Politics, CNN, etc.):

(percent) (candidate) (#votes)
40.4 Romney 485 votes
26.4 Paul 317
20.5 Santorum 246
7.7 Gingrich 92

That's the people who come and fill out their "preference poll" ballot, turn it in, and then maybe stay around for the actual delegate selection. But most of these folks don't stay, because they are not involved enough in the political process of choosing candidates to stick around. Thus, the actual work of delegate selection falls to the more engaged and serious voters.
Here is the result of precinct-by-precinct summary forms handed in at the end of a pooled caucus delegate vote in the same county:
(168 delegates were elected in the precinct caucus delegate meetings, in this pooled caucus from Thurston County, shown below as #delegates + #alternates)
75 + 41 (116 total) Paul
13 + 12 (25 total) Romney
12 + 5 (17 total) Santorum
3 + 5 (8 total) Gingrich
168 total (delegates + alternates)

Using just the delegate counts, and not the alternates, and changing to percentages, it looks like:
72.8% Paul
12.6 Romney
11.7 Santorum
2.9% Gingrich

No matter what you hear or read on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. this is how the delegate selection process actually works. In fact, it works pretty much this way in many Primary states as well, not just in caucus states. However, in the Primary states those delegates are generally required (bound) to go the national convention and vote for a certain candidate, whether or not they support that candidate. After 1, 2, sometimes 3 ballots, if it goes that long, then even the Primary-state delegates are free to vote for their chosen (not assigned) candidate.

Many will be surprised by the unleashing of the Ron Paul beast. It is fierce, well-armed, and purpose-driven, with a fire in its belly. Here there be dragons! (a good story always needs a good tagline, doesn't it?)

Feel free to share, not conservatively, but liberally."

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Romney surging in polls against Obama after a couple of months of weak job growth, a couple of weeks of stock market weakness, a sustained rise in gas prices and Europe on the precipice.

I told you all that one more very public economic blip would swing this thing to Romney. Obama is all done. a One-term phony populist clown.

[raja]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Obama is an enabler of the Financial Elite.
Romney IS the Financial Elite.

About half the People are stupid enough to vote for Romney.
The other half will vote for Obama because they are still hoping he'll stop being Steppin' Fetchit for the Rich.
It's a toss up who actually wins . . . and what difference will it make? None.

I'm waiting for the stupid and the self-deluded to feel the pain and wake up. When that finally happens, then there might be someone worth voting for who has a chance of being elected.

[shiny!]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Obama is an enabler of the Financial Elite.
Romney IS the Financial Elite.

About half the People are stupid enough to vote for Romney.
The other half will vote for Obama because they are still hoping he'll stop being Steppin' Fetchit for the Rich.
It's a toss up who actually wins . . . and what difference will it make? None.

I'm waiting for the stupid and the self-deluded to feel the pain and wake up. When that finally happens, then there might be someone worth voting for who has a chance of being elected.

I used to think the same way, but not anymore. If our votes really mattered, they wouldn't allow us to vote.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

I used to think the same way, but not anymore. If our votes really mattered, they wouldn't allow us to vote.

Ouch.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

Dems always win the women, blacks and young people. The overall "Enthusiasm Gap" swung over to the GOP side a long time ago - think 2009. 2008 is ancient history. White, middle aged voters have been chomping at the bit to get rid of Obama.


Historically, 2008 is going to prove be the anomaly for a state such as NC. The Repubs won both house seats in NC in the 2010 midterm. NC is long gone for the Dems.

We know the economy is not going to recover. I'm so confident in this, unless there is a MAJOR Romney scandal, this thing is over.


The only question is how many House and Senate seats does the GOP win? I don't care to follow those numbers closely enough and will wait to find out in November.


But I digress, this is an investment forum, so let's get down to brass tax.

Romney is at 39.2% on InTrade. Buy shares for $3.96 and if he wins, the shares pay out at $10.00 / each. You avoid fees on InTrade by simply not carrying a balance in your account.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Election 2012 - predictions, discussion?

I used to think the same way, but not anymore. If our votes really mattered, they wouldn't allow us to vote.

Yeah I haven't felt that my vote in a national election "counts" in a meaningful way for a long time now.


This isn't about my personal feelings, this is about gauging the results.

Dems always win the women, blacks and young people. The overall "Enthusiasm Gap" swung over to the GOP side a long time ago - think 2009. 2008 is ancient history. White, middle aged voters have been chomping at the bit to get rid of Obama.


Historically, 2008 is going to prove be the anomaly for a state such as NC. The Repubs won both house seats in NC in the 2010 midterm. NC is long gone for the Dems.

We know the economy is not going to recover. I'm so confident in this, unless there is a MAJOR Romney scandal, this thing is over.


The only question is how many House and Senate seats does the GOP win? I don't care to follow those numbers closely enough and will wait to find out in November.


Romney is at 39.2% on InTrade. Buy shares for $3.96 and if he wins, the shares pay out at $10.00 / each.

I just bought 125 shares.