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Bernie and Liz may be better served in the Senate where we really need some progress. O'Malley, Webb and Schweizer (should they all run) should be able to appeal to centrists while bringing out liberals to vote.
Still, all the Hillary disaffection reminds me of the lukewarm feelings toward Al Gore. Was he so bad, in retrospect, considering the Cheney imperialist machine we received instead?
It is absolute idiocy to think that two political parties can adequately represent the incredibly diverse range of opinions of the American people. It's weird that the two-party system has survived this long.
Two reasons: the first past the post (FPTP) voting system, and the spoiler effect. Remember the Nader campaign in 2000? He racked up a significant number of votes, and to this day, Dems still blame him for preventing an Al Gore victory. Ross Perot in 1992? Some GOPers still blame him for Bill Clinton's victory. There have been many instances in U.S. political history where popular third-party candidates have been blamed for "ruining" other candidates' chances.
The last time a third party candidate won a statewide or nationwide election for executive office was Jesse Ventura, when he won the office of Governor in Minnesota in 1998, despite being a member of the Reform Party. The GOP and Democrats are the sole political groups in every partisan legislature with the exception of Vermont's.
Unfortunately, third parties won't find much success in legislative or executive elections unless the voting system is changed to something more like instant-runoff voting, single transferable vote, or mixed-member proportional.
Democrats for whatever reason have not been able to develop any kind of farm team in the past decade or so. Their hopefuls all seem to be in their 60's and 70's.
The GOP by contrast is awash in young talent from Rubio, Jindal, Mia Love, Elise Stefanik, Erika Harold, etc.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
Remember last election? Remember how the biggest question in the GOP was, "Can we find anyone other than Mitt Romney? Please??" Welcome to history repeating itself, but this time on the Democrat side of things.
Americans on both sides of the aisle are already grumbling in disgust against another Bush or another Clinton POTUS. A Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton national election might just drive election turnout to all-time lows.
But the rhetoric coming from the Left sounds awfully familiar. "There just isn't anyone else that stands any chance of winning the national election." Sound familiar? That's exactly what we heard about Mitt all through the 2012 election cycle.
Will a good alternative to Hillary please stand up? Please???
LOL at internet polls.
Anyone remember the Vice Presidential debate and the poll that followed on (i think it was) Democracy now(a left leaning site). Fox News had its web team sharing that poll on social media and was reporting that "The public" saw the debate as a win for Paul Ryan as he was leading the internet poll with 55%. With in 15 minutes of airing that, the poll had flipped to 70% Biden.
And seriously, the new yorker ? has anyone ever gone to the new Yorker for Political advice ???? If you gave me a minute I could put forth a better argument than you did, infact, i think I already did a while back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsjj251
Show me where the LeftWing Media has done that and we can discuss our difference of opinion.
Did you watch and read left wing media for the last week ? No one painted Hillary Clinton as a liberal, she was thrown under the bus to the point that I was disgusted with MSNBC,Mother Jones, the Atlantic,New Republic and others. we had Host in shouting matches with Clinton surrogates.
As for the left every trying to paint Hillary as a Liberal ????
Anyone remember the Vice Presidential debate and the poll that followed on (i think it was) Democracy now(a left leaning site). Fox News had its web team sharing that poll on social media and was reporting that "The public" saw the debate as a win for Paul Ryan as he was leading the internet poll with 55%. With in 15 minutes of airing that, the poll had flipped to 70% Biden.
And seriously, the new yorker ? has anyone ever gone to the new Yorker for Political advice ???? If you gave me a minute I could put forth a better argument than you did, infact, i think I already did a while back.
The New Yorker is a liberal biased media outlet. Do I go to them for political advice? No, of course not. What I am seeing is something of a vote of no confidence for Hillary Clinton from them. If it was Fox News, this would surprise nobody. This is why I avoided conservative leaning sources.
The real thing I'm getting at here: As I am a pretty open minded guy (even if I don't agree with somebody, I can still respect them and be their friend) I have quite a few very liberal leaning friends. All of them say pretty much the same thing: Hillary is the inevitable candidate they really don't want. The consensus seems to be "If Hillary is the nominee, I'll plug my nose and pull the lever for her if that's what it takes to avoid having a Republican president."
What I'm not seeing is much enthusiasm for Hillary from the left. And in all honesty, other than her having a vagina, why should anyone get excited about Hillary Clinton for President? But I'm more than happy to hear from somebody on the left explaining why she's such a good candidate. Elizabeth Warren seems to get a lot more love in my experience, which this poll seems to align with. I even put in the last option so people who despise Democrats aren't skewing the results too much.
Two reasons: the first past the post (FPTP) voting system, and the spoiler effect. Remember the Nader campaign in 2000? He racked up a significant number of votes, and to this day, Dems still blame him for preventing an Al Gore victory. Ross Perot in 1992? Some GOPers still blame him for Bill Clinton's victory. There have been many instances in U.S. political history where popular third-party candidates have been blamed for "ruining" other candidates' chances.
The last time a third party candidate won a statewide or nationwide election for executive office was Jesse Ventura, when he won the office of Governor in Minnesota in 1998, despite being a member of the Reform Party. The GOP and Democrats are the sole political groups in every partisan legislature with the exception of Vermont's.
Unfortunately, third parties won't find much success in legislative or executive elections unless the voting system is changed to something more like instant-runoff voting, single transferable vote, or mixed-member proportional.
- skbl17
The spoiler effect is very fixable. It's as simple of having an automatic runoff. If no candidate gains a +50% majority of the vote, you take the top two candidates and vote again. The two parties hate the idea of course. It destroys their spoiler-effect argument -- which is really just coercing people to vote for the lesser of two evils and not what they actually believe in. But it's a lot easier to institute an automatic runoff than you'd think. It can only be created at local and state levels anyways. Hence, less interference from Washington D.C.
The most clear example was the 1992 election. Bill Clinton only won a majority vote in his home state of Arkansas and in the District of Columbia.
George Bush Sr didn't win a majority in any state.
Ross Perot grabbed at least 10% of the popular vote everywhere but Mississippi and DC. In some states he took a full 30% of the vote.
As Perot mostly appealed to conservatives, Bush almost certainly wins that election if Perot hadn't run.
Perot played spoiler again in 1996, though it is much less likely that he changed the result of the election that time around. Unfortunately, we can't know for certain.
Because the winner in 2000 comes down to Florida, the tiny 1.63% of the Florida vote that Ralph Nader got was enough to change the end result, just like we saw in 1992.
An automatic runoff fixes all of them, ensuring that the man elected president really is America's choice. more importantly, if you happen to like a third party candidate better, you can choose to vote for them without worrying about hearing "you ruined the election!" An automatic runoff in every state would take care of everything. It already exists in a number of places.
Truth be told, I don't hate the woman. I've said more than once that she'd have done a better job than Barack Obama. She's a fairly average politician in a big sea of other politicians. But I do think she's a fatally flawed candidate and that the Dems can do better. I'm astounded by the fact that no viable threat to Hillary has announced their bid for POTUS yet.
Agreed. THAT right there bugs me too; no "serious" rival against Hillary in the Dem primary, at least not yet.
Democrats for whatever reason have not been able to develop any kind of farm team in the past decade or so. Their hopefuls all seem to be in their 60's and 70's.
The GOP by contrast is awash in young talent from Rubio, Jindal, Mia Love, Elise Stefanik, Erika Harold, etc.
Perhaps it is time to examine why that is....
Like my comment to the OP; that's def screwy right there since word was the Dems were the "young peoples' party and the Repubs were for the old people. But that's been turned on its head in 2015.
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