• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Hold Your Nose .. And Vote For Romney

There is no divinity here - unless you consider mathematics to be devine (which I do.)

There are two candidates with a chance to win. You get to ADD your vote to one of their totals. The one who has the most votes at the end of the cycle is the winner and will be POTUS for the next four years.

Now you can choose to NOT participate in this great endeavor - you can stay home, go fishing, cast a meaningless vote for someone other than the two with a chance, or anything else. If you don't vote for (or against) one of them you are wasting your effort - you may as well go fishing.

You can support who or what represents you principles in many way - try to influence voters before the primaries - write letters to the editor - work in a campaign - bring your children up to 'think right' - etc.

But voting for POTUS on national election day is different. Wasting your vote here is like spraying graffiti in an art museum - you get to express yourself, but everyone thinks you are a fool.

This is serious business - effecting the direction of the country for a generation or more. His Supreme Court choices alone will anchor whatever direction he points the nation.

If you don't care, then do as you please. Don't expect any respect for it.

Funny. I respect your vote no matter who you give it to. And you don't respect anyone's vote who doesn't vote for the two major parties. Who exactly of the two of us shouldn't get respect again?
 
The two-party bipolar politics in America exists because a game-changing "third" party has yet to arise.

So far, third parties are either more extreme or just as extreme (Greens to the left of liberals, Librertarians "schizoidly" liberal on social issues and conservative on economic-fiscal issues, etc.) compared with the major two parties with the classical breakdown of bipolar politics (Democrats being liberals that are left-wing on both social and economic-fiscal issues and Republicans being conservatives that aere right-wing on both social and economic issues).

Until a new centrist party appears to draw in 75% of America, those who hold their nose when voting or fool themselves into thinking they can breathe the stinky extremist air, we are stuck with a two-party bipolar disorded political dysfunction.

You don't have to be centrist to draw the vote... as you see every four years all you have to do is show that you have the ability to win. That's all that matters. People aren't bypassing Greens and Libertarians for their so-called extremism... they bypass them because they think their vote won't matter unless they vote for the two more prominent parties. The Dems and Repubs have sold a bill of goods and the American populace has bought it hook line and sinker.
 
I bet you would love to split more conservative votes away from Mitt. You are as transparent as a glass and just as partisan to boot.

I've voted third party on the liberal side for the last four elections so you are more than a little off base when it comes to you trying to pretend like you know my intent.

Then you ask a really stupid question as if you don't know the answer, lol.

I guess your answer is that yes, in fact the top two parties have a divine right to everyone's vote. It is where you and democracy disagree.
 
I'm still amused that we have to be like Ontologuy to be Centrists, because if we aren't we aren't "true" centrists. In reality, we'd just be Ontologuists.

I find it amusing that people think that all centrists have the same political platform.
 
I find it amusing that people think that all centrists have the same political platform.

The real political spectrum is a left right paradigm... once politics is assisted externally like with billions of dollars buying politicians it kind of pulls the parties off the political spectrum which is why you often find Libertarians closer to Greens on so many issues than Dems are and vice versa. Saying the "center" is somewhere in between Dems and Repubs is more than asinine.
 
I see you like playing the race card.


President Obama and the Democrats have been playing the race card mercilessly, he is just responding to the race card(s) the Liberals played.
 
Last edited:
I've voted third party on the liberal side for the last four elections so you are more than a little off base when it comes to you trying to pretend like you know my intent.

Well I am glad I was wrong then. Kudos for having guts.

I guess your answer is that yes, in fact the top two parties have a divine right to everyone's vote. It is where you and democracy disagree.

No they are not, but you read my reply correct? The election is very close this time. On top of that I live and vote in Florida. I and many others would rather see Obama lose and vote for the "shinier of 2 turds" than vote third party, and waist a vote that in enough numbers would grantee Obama's victory. I know it sucks as I would rather vote for the libertarian candidate but he has no chance, none. I would rather help Mitt who at least has some things I can get behind vs Obama who would rather strip some of my 2nd amendment rights etc.

If you can't understand that, then I don't know what else to tell you. I mean you don't have to agree, but I hope you understand.
 
Last edited:
Though clearly all parties out there, absent a centrist party, are evils in the mind of centrists, Romney is the lessest choice, as either Obama or Romney will be elected for a fact, with the only real choice being to decide which of the two it will be, and that clearly should be Romney.

We use "lesser" instead of "lessest" (to play with a made-up word for "least" imply three or more choices) because there really are only two choices worth comparing, Obama and Romney, the only two who have a chance to get elected.

Thus "lesser" is the proper term here.

What the hell is all that even supposed to mean?

Most people who even mildly hold a world view that resonates more with the left or right have a fairly clear decision.

Moderates and centrists need just choose between continuing the policy of the last 4 years or changing tack to try to improve our economic situation.

It's really simple. No mass amount of nose holding is even needed.
 
I'm still amused that we have to be like Ontologuy to be Centrists, because if we aren't we aren't "true" centrists. In reality, we'd just be Ontologuists.

It does seem to making Centrism an ideology. Perhaps they might also be called Independents.

The point of Romney being an excellent candidate is certainly valid. There have been a few successful, clean living people to grace American politics and Mitt Romney is certainly one of them. There is not a whiff of scandal attached to his name, apart from those who to try to manufacture it.
 
All Obama does is play politics, deliver empty rhetoric, make promises he doesn't even have the ability to keep, etc. Instead of working with people, he scapegoats. Instead of collaborating, he brings in people he sees eye to eye with and then tries to cram their plan down everyone else's throats. When his act doesn't work, he points fingers, attempts to lay blame, and throws people under the bus.

As Romney's new ad suggests, that's not leadership... real leaders find a way... and that's just what Romney's done... accomplishing real change in MA with an 85% opposition party legislature...
S

All you do is play on rhetoric...Go ahead tell us what Obama "has done"

2. You don't get it Romney didn't do anything. The opposition party legislature mowed over him..he tried to veto many of the prepositions but failed because of their overwhelming numbers..
 
No, a viable third party has not arisen because our voting system inherently naturally creates a two-party system.

Duverger's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is not opinion but rather objective mathematical fact.

Duverger's "law" is flawed as an axiom, and is merely an observed phenomenon that doesn't always hold true, as the counterexamples listed in your very own link here present.

It also doesn't present the process of how two major parties can become so polemically split that they then become less and less representative of the people, the case with the Dems and Repubs today.

When that split occurs, a new major party at the center can emerge and "divide and conquer" the two actual-minority parties .. and American politics is presently pregnant with that possibility, which often occurs in response to a major political disaster (The Great Recession) which neither of the two major parties are able philosophically to address and likely because they both are greatly the cause.

Then that new major party is dominant for a while .. who knows how long .. until a split occurs between factions in it that might create a divide.

Meanwhile, the previous dominant two parties, in our case the Dems and the Repubs, never regain their value to the public as politics has evolved beyond them, and they themselves may crop up from time to time as "third" parties far to the left or right of the dominant ones.

In America today, we are at that point, where old outdated political philosophy crops up from time to time as third parties to the left of liberal and the right of conservative, which appeal even less to the vast majority who reside at the unrepresented center of the political spectrum where the new singularly dominant party will now soon emerge.

Thus Duverger's is merely an observed phase in political party evolution in a plurality voting realm, not a static "law".
 
Libertarians are the fastest growing party in the nation. A high percentage of the country agrees on most of the party ideals. The problem is that no one ever reports on them or Greens or anyone else because the electoral college ensures that no third party can arise. Winner take all applies in 47 or 48 of the 50 states. That means that a party has to get a majority in a state to make a difference.

No difference in the end of the election = no coverage. No coverage = no one knows about the party. No one knows about the party = no difference in the end of the election.

Libertarians must join and influence the Republican party just as the far left infiltrated the Democrats. The far Left would never have been successful as a third party if they called themselves what they are, just as the Libertarians have never been successful as a third party. There is certainly room in the Republican Party for many Libertarian ideals.



y.
 
If you took out some of the arrogance and condescension from your posts, you might have room to include some logic and understanding. Luckily, getting you to go beyond your unfounded assumptions and misunderstandings isn't high on my list of priorities.

I'll hope other readers can understand that limiting government intrusion includes such things as allowing gay marriage and getting rid of the patriot act and the NDAA. Things centrists are usually fond of. I'll also be glad that they can read links and google on their own to find out that when it's on the issues, libertarians come out way up on the scale.

Those are the folks I would be interested in discussing things with. I'm not really a fan of assumptions and dismissals from someone who fears that one presidential election will be "fatal" to our great country.
:roll:

No matter how much you complain about an accurate assessment of libertarianism and The Libertarian Party, the fact that the Libertarian Party and libertarianism itself has very few members and those members are greatly mostly male is a fact that you simply cannot escape with all your "we poor misunderstood Libertarian" whining.

And no, centrists are not "usually fond of" the things you list -- you're simply projecting a la wishful thinking.
 
I personally am not thrilled with Romney being the GOP nominee since he has a liberal track record in Massachusetts.

Some of my Libertarian friends tell me they will vote LP because of stances other parties hold regarding the war on drugs, etc.
 
Libertarians are the goths of conservatism.
That's a fair analogy, from the economic-fiscal issue perspective.

From the social issue perspective, they're the "what?" of liberalism.
 
You don't have to be centrist to draw the vote... as you see every four years all you have to do is show that you have the ability to win. That's all that matters. People aren't bypassing Greens and Libertarians for their so-called extremism... they bypass them because they think their vote won't matter unless they vote for the two more prominent parties. The Dems and Repubs have sold a bill of goods and the American populace has bought it hook line and sinker.
Yes, people don't vote for the extremist third parties, though greatly because they don't relate to such extremism but yes, also because a vote for those parties don't matter.

And that's one of the points of the OP link, that wasting a vote on a meaningless third party when the most important goal this election is preventing Obama's race-baiting race-war by casting votes for Romney so he'll win and America will be spared legalization of 20 million illegals that would cause wage-scales to plummet, virtually ending the middle class in America.

It is so very important that even if one doesn't particularly like Romney all that much that one doesn't waste one's vote in "protest". The Perot supporters realized their mistake but it was too late, and they suffered eight years of impeachable Clinton, and the Green supporters then realized their mistake but it was again too late, and they suffered eight depressing years of Dubya.

Hopefully a word to the wise here is sufficient, as the last crazy thing we want to do this time around is vote for irrelevant third parties .. and expect a different result. :shock:
 
Your link is irrelevant, as though the specific link you presented is a "404" dead-end, it is to a site that is clearly libertarian, which is, therefore, biased, and that bias is obvious in the four breakdowns it presents. There simply wasn't an accurately presented centrist option to the questionaire that broke down everything inaccurately and erroneously into four categories .. and that "communitarian" category is a laughable obvious libertarian concoction. :lol:

Thus your referernces are erroneously meaningless with respect to reality.

"Too liberal" and "too conservative", as you present, is the lament of centrists, not "somewhat liberals" or "somewhat conservatives".

Though within the position of both liberal and conservative they too may differ a bit within themselves a bit to the left or right, they're still liberals or conservatives.

When you venture a bit to the right of all that is liberal (and there simply isn't that much of it) or to the left of conservative (which there isn't all that much of either) you're now in centrist land, not some nebulous "moderate" territory, "moderate" being a term that both liberals and conservatives have used to ludicrously attempt to claim half of the spectrum each for themselves.

Centrists oppose off-shoring American jobs to wage-slave labor, centrists support liberty and justice for all American citizens, and in dynamic balance between liberty and justice without an over-focus on freedom/liberty or security/jusice, centrists oppose amnesty for illegals, and centrists favor returning jobs lost to off-shoring and illegals to Americans, among other clearly centrist positions.

No liberal, libertarian, "communitarian", or conservative supports all these positions held by, that's right, about 75% of American citizens .. those who hold their nose to vote for the lesser of two evils every four years in November.

Because you disagree with it, doesn't make incorrect. There were two polls, and here are more recent results of the Gallup poll.

b1dtbephxukk1ie1qbtmqg.gif


2012 U.S. Electorate Looks Like 2008

Independents do not make up 75% of the electorate.

Here's another.

2067-2.png

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2067/2012-electorate-partisan-affiliations-gop-gains-white-voters

This one tracks independents though it is more favorable, they still only make up 34%.

Now, within that, as has been my additional point, centrist/independents vary in what they want. How any candidate could appeal to a strictly "independent" voters is a mystery to me. What kind of platform could that candidate promote? On abortion? Government regulations? Government programs? Here on DP, you can see great differences in what independent/centrist posters espouse. I don't think what you want, exists.

And again, I offer empirical data to back me up and you only have presented your opinion and link with no data, supporting that opinion.
 
Last edited:
I personally am not thrilled with Romney being the GOP nominee since he has a liberal track record in Massachusetts.

Some of my Libertarian friends tell me they will vote LP because of stances other parties hold regarding the war on drugs, etc.

He was up against 84% Democrats, but despite that he was able to get the budget balanced, the debt paid off and increase employment, all central Republican issues.
 
What the hell is all that even supposed to mean?

Most people who even mildly hold a world view that resonates more with the left or right have a fairly clear decision.

Moderates and centrists need just choose between continuing the policy of the last 4 years or changing tack to try to improve our economic situation.

It's really simple. No mass amount of nose holding is even needed.
Underneath your avatar it says "Independent".

The "independents" or Independent Party advocates are right of center, and thus to you, voting for right-of-center Romney doesn't require any nose-holding.

But to the great majority of Americans, those unpresented at the center of the political spectrum, both wings stink .. it's just that race-baiting wage-scale-reducing Obama, obviously, stinks more.

I don't care why people are voting for Romney, just as long as they do.
 
Because you disagree with it, doesn't make incorrect. There were two polls, and here are more recent results of the Gallup poll.

b1dtbephxukk1ie1qbtmqg.gif


2012 U.S. Electorate Looks Like 2008

Independents do not make up 75% of the electorate.

Here's another.

2067-2.png


This one tracks independents though it is more favorable, they still only make up 34%.

Now, within that, as has been my additional point, centrist/independents vary in what they want. How any candidate could appeal to a strictly "independent" voters is a mystery to me. What kind of platform could that candidate promote? On abortion? Government regulations? Government programs? Here on DP, you can see great differences in what independent/centrist posters espouse. I don't think what you want, exists.

And again, I offer empirical data to back me up and you only have presented your opinion and link with no data, supporting that opinion.
You do not offer "empirical data", you merely offer erroneous examles that simply do not reflect centrists at all, but merely support the inaccurate stance of liberals and conservatives that the political spectrum belongs solely to them. :roll:

Anyone can post graphics. The challenge is to post graphics that are meaningful, that do not originate from a limited and biased questionaire.

I could tell from the beginning of your posts in this thread that your tack was to simply trot out meaningless biased graphics and then egotistically say "look at what I did!".

:roll:

Meaningless.

Reality remains that the great majority of Americans are centrists, as only centrists relate to the list of tenets I previously presented and they don't relate to liberal, conservative and extremist third parties.

That's substance, and your graphs of mere form based on erroneous perspective are powerless to refute substance.
 
You do not offer "empirical data", you merely offer erroneous examles that simply do not reflect centrists at all, but merely support the inaccurate stance of liberals and conservatives that the political spectrum belongs solely to them. :roll:

Anyone can post graphics. The challenge is to post graphics that are meaningful, that do not originate from a limited and biased questionaire.

I could tell from the beginning of your posts in this thread that your tack was to simply trot out meaningless biased graphics and then egotistically say "look at what I did!".

:roll:

Meaningless.

Reality remains that the great majority of Americans are centrists, as only centrists relate to the list of tenets I previously presented and they don't relate to liberal, conservative and extremist third parties.

That's substance, and your graphs of mere form based on erroneous perspective are powerless to refute substance.

To the red: Then do it. Find graphics that support your claims. Merely waving your hand and dismissing an argument because you disagree with it, doesn't cut it.
 
I find it amusing that people think that all centrists have the same political platform.

That's it exactly. The both of you.
 
Yes, people don't vote for the extremist third parties, though greatly because they don't relate to such extremism but yes, also because a vote for those parties don't matter.

And that's one of the points of the OP link, that wasting a vote on a meaningless third party when the most important goal this election is preventing Obama's race-baiting race-war by casting votes for Romney so he'll win and America will be spared legalization of 20 million illegals that would cause wage-scales to plummet, virtually ending the middle class in America.

It is so very important that even if one doesn't particularly like Romney all that much that one doesn't waste one's vote in "protest". The Perot supporters realized their mistake but it was too late, and they suffered eight years of impeachable Clinton, and the Green supporters then realized their mistake but it was again too late, and they suffered eight depressing years of Dubya.

Hopefully a word to the wise here is sufficient, as the last crazy thing we want to do this time around is vote for irrelevant third parties .. and expect a different result. :shock:

Third parties are no more irrelevant than the 2nd party.
 
All you do is play on rhetoric...Go ahead tell us what Obama "has done"

2. You don't get it Romney didn't do anything. The opposition party legislature mowed over him..he tried to veto many of the prepositions but failed because of their overwhelming numbers..

I love when people who are just now reading about what happened in MA over the course of 4 years in little biased partisan excerpts written based off opinion pieces by liberals from the Boston Globe, the MA Taxpayer Foundation (run by a former Dukakis adminstration member), etc. try to tell me about what happened in MA while I was here in MA and actively involved in the political scene at the time...

Romney got several pieces of legislation through that legislature that were controversial in nature, and would not have gotten passed before Romney, or after Romney. Those would include spending cuts as opposed to tax increases, eliminating bi-lingual education, the Welcome Home Bill, Melanie's Law, the healthcare plan, etc. He also used his exective powers to get several others accomplished as well. Those would include instituting departmental consolidation, indexing fees to match inflation, forcing the resignation of Whitey Bulger's brother Billy, forcing the resignation of Matt Amorello and taking over control of the Big Dig to straighten it out, etc.

The real indication of how great Romney was as a governor... His successor, Deval Patrick (Obama's buddy), who is of the complete opposite political pursuation, has actually kept most of Romney's policies, and expanded upon them...

So yes, the 85% liberal legislature was successful in overriding his vetos and defeating several pieces of legislature that Romney proposed... but his efforts to bring people together and work with that legislature got enough signatures to pass significant pieces of legislature...

Imagine if he is able to run the country when he has control of at least 1 of the houses of Congress... given what he did with the opposition of an 85% liberal legislature...
 
To the red: Then do it. Find graphics that support your claims. Merely waving your hand and dismissing an argument because you disagree with it, doesn't cut it.
I realize you're used to posting links to Youtube and MTV videos, but it's totally different here where presenting real facts in meaningful relevance from your own knowledge and in your on words is appropriate.

You simply aren't going to find what you're lookiing for to make a cogent argument from referencing your biased surveys and polls that were not designed at all to determine where people actually are on the political spectrum but were designed to create guestimates of how a given real or imagined vote on a specific issue(s) might result, etc.

If you can find a survey/poll that was truly designed to find where people definitively are on the political spectrum and is obviously without bias, then by all means post it because that would be relevant. I haven't found such an animal, and that's because polsters and those who fund them simply aren't interested in such a non-profitable academic exercise. But if you want to really scrutinize the internet and be discriminating in hunting for such a thing, be my guest.

In the meantime we have the tried and true political science analysis that distinguishes positioning on the political spectrum with respect to where people are with respect to the dynamic complements of freedom v. security, the foundations of liberty v. justice, and how they play out in social and economic-fiscal issues.

I presented in accurate words how these dynamics reflect the positions on the political spectrum definitively, specifying what in these terms defines the great majority at the center of the political spectrum.

If you can speak to these intelligently using your own personal knowledge, then a real discussion may ensue.

If you're just looking for self-serving links, the mechanics of which are engrained in you from all the entertainment forum posting you do, then you'll be at a significant disadvantage in this forum.
 
Back
Top Bottom