Presidential Election (4 Viewers)

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

Yeah, it's totally a maturity thing. Not a social status thing. Not a cultural thing. Not an economic thing. It's just about how mature they are.

i would argue that it is a bit about maturity. part of what we consider the maturation of a western person is getting a job, having a family, getting a mortgage, having retirement savings, so on and so forth. maturity, therefore, goes hand in hand with conservatism, because when confronted with change, your political calculations increasingly concern "what will happen to my job", "what will happen to my mortgage", "what will happen to my family", "what will happen to my retirement". as you accumulate responsibilities and obligations, your politics increasingly becomes the preservation of the status quo.

this is obviously a generalisation. there are plenty of other reasons for the increased incidence of conservatism in more "mature" folk. but conservatism and "maturity" are definitely related.

 

[Lentern]

Re: First Presidential Debate

i would argue that it is a bit about maturity. part of what we consider the maturation of a western person is getting a job, having a family, getting a mortgage, having retirement savings, so on and so forth. maturity, therefore, goes hand in hand with conservatism, because when confronted with change, your political calculations increasingly concern "what will happen to my job", "what will happen to my mortgage", "what will happen to my family", "what will happen to my retirement". as you accumulate responsibilities and obligations, your politics increasingly becomes the preservation of the status quo.

this is obviously a generalization. there are plenty of other reasons for the increased incidence of conservatism in more "mature" folk. but conservatism and "maturity" are definitely related.

That might be true of a more moderate branch of conservativsm but it hardly fits in with this modern wave of warmongering, climate denying, migrant bashing neo conservatism.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

That might be true of a more moderate branch of conservativsm but it hardly fits in with this modern wave of warmongering, climate denying, migrant bashing neo conservatism.

yes, but we're not talking about them in particular. simply the conservative ethos.

i'm not saying that, for instance, older people are more likely to be solooooooists

 

[soloooooo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

That might be true of a more moderate branch of conservativsm but it hardly fits in with this modern wave of warmongering, climate denying, migrant bashing neo conservatism.

Your views might be very left of centre but it does not mean the rest of society's are.

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

lentern you didnt give a proper answer as to who you think would win the election.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

You can't separate an individual candidate from the general "conservative" ethos, people don't vote for a general ethos they vote for a candidate and with some exceptions eg Johnson and Cameron in the UK, most conservative parties and governments in recent years have frittered away enormous resources, or advocated doing so, on ideological impulses.

increasingly conservative ethos --> increasingly favourable perception of conservative candidates --> increasing likelihood of voting for the conservative candidate

the conservative ethos that comes with maturity leads to voting for the conservative candidate. it doesn't matter whether they're "truly" conservative or not, if they monopolise the conservative brand like the republicans do. i don't think that electoral politics can be so easily partitioned but it's a simple fact that the other you get, the more likely you are to vote conservative (for the reasons i elucidated before).

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

Have a guess what that means?

you dont want to give one

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

Blah blah blah causation and correlation blah blah blah blah.

no

 

[soloooooo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

Solo, never, ever pretend to speak for the mainstream. You are the most singularly out of touch individual there is.

I think you will find my views are quite mainstream actually. However, I admit some of them may not be politically correct, hence why less people are willing to admit to them openly. I am more than happy to continue this discussion in another thread if you want to start it.

 

[soloooooo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

increasingly conservative ethos --> increasingly favourable perception of conservative candidates --> increasing likelihood of voting for the conservative candidate

the conservative ethos that comes with maturity leads to voting for the conservative candidate. it doesn't matter whether they're "truly" conservative or not, if they monopolise the conservative brand like the republicans do. i don't think that electoral politics can be so easily partitioned but it's a simple fact that the other you get, the more likely you are to vote conservative (for the reasons i elucidated before).

Funkshen is correct.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

It means I don't know.

that's not the point

 

[soloooooo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

It means I don't know.

I think you do know and just don't want to admit that Romney has it in the bag.

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

It means I don't know.

fair enough.

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

I think you do know and just don't want to admit that Romney has it in the bag.

no one has this "in the bag".

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

if Romney were to lose this election would he have a chance again in 4 years? or would the republicans choose a new candidate.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

if Romney were to lose this election would he have a chance again in 4 years? or would the republicans choose a new candidate.

no, no chance at all. and as far as i know, he's stated that he's out of politics if he doesn't win.

 

[soloooooo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

if Romney were to lose this election would he have a chance again in 4 years? or would the republicans choose a new candidate.

I doubt it. He was a major player in the 2008 primaries, then won the nomination in 2012. I can't see him lasting another 4 years if Obama somehow wins this election. The Republicans would want a fresh face then.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

I doubt it. He was a major player in the 2008 primaries, then won the nomination in 2012. I can't see him lasting another 4 years if Obama somehow wins this election. The Republicans would want a fresh face then.

i don't just doubt it, i know it won't happen. no one recovers from a failed presidential bid. the only presidents to ever win a presidential election after a previous, failed bid are:

1. thomas jefferson (failed 1796, won 1800 and 1804)
2. andrew jackson (failed 1824, won 1828 and 1832)
3. william henry harrison (failed 1836, won 1840, died)
4. john tyler (failed 1836, presidency 1841)
5. richard nixon (failed 1960, won 1968)

these four presidents fall in to two chronological groups that prove the exception to the rule. pre-civil war elections were generally far more chaotic than what we know now. you had several parties, none as cohesive or as entrenched as the modern parties. you had a different electoral college system, so while jefferson didn't get enough votes in the college to become president in 1796, he did to become vice president. andrew jackson was the first president to be elected after men of all classes (not just land-holders) could vote, and more importantly, the election of 1824 was determined in the House of Representatives as no candidate received a majority of the electoral college votes. harrison and tyler were both Whig party candidates in the 1836 election, and are the only time a party has fielded two candidates. the whig party did not have the shit together at all in 1836, harrison didn't contest a number of states and therefore lost to van Buren in 1836, but beat Buren in 1840. furthermore, he served the shortest term ever - 30 days before dying from a cold. tyler replaced him, not having won an election at all.

you then have a 120 year gap where no presidents were elected who had lost a previous bid. this was only broken by Nixon, hardly an average presidency. while Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960, he beat Humphrey in 1968. this can be attributed to Nixon's advantage of being a former vice president, and also the extraordinary circumstances of the time; a recent assassination of a president and then his brother, the escalating vietnam war, the incumbent president Jonhson withdrawing from the race etc.

each of these are exceptions to the rule: if you lose a presidential bid, you will won't be president in the future. it is for this reason that no one would back romney in 2016.

 

[funkshen]

Re: First Presidential Debate

Adlai Stevenson contested two elections for the democrats against Eisenhower, but he was a lot younger then Romney the first time.

yeah i didn't really delve in to who had contested multiple elections having won none, but the fact remains that it is 1) unusual and, 2) given the extraordinary financial demands of modern elections, it simply can't happen anymore. you back a winner or no one at all.

the parliamentary system is conducive, and indeed characterised, by the opposite phenomenon, for the fact that such systems have a leader of the opposition, who can spend his/her period in opposition establishing credibility etc. not in a presidential system, and moreover a first-past-the-post presidential system. there's also the fact that the prime minister isn't elected, i guess.

 

[halapenyo]

Re: First Presidential Debate

only a week to go now. want Obama to win but wouldnt mind if Romney got through.