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Oh and for the record - birth control medication is used, very commonly, for treating a wide range of medical conditions, particularly in people that suffer terrible reactions from hormonal flux. Perhaps you are fortunate to have not have experienced this or had to raise a daughter that had to spend many days suffering from migraines, terrible cramping, etc. So does the ban cover all medications that are related to sex? I just don't see a similar reaction to, say, Viagra - or does it just not get as much press?
In the case that this is an actual question instead of a straw man argument:
Even the Catholic Church believes that birth control pills are okay for medical reasons unrelated to birth control. At least as long as the real reason for use isn't as a loophole to use birth control.
Thank you for your polite comments and advice. Rest assured that they will receive all the attention they deserve. And congratulations. You have perfected a method of expression in your posts that exemplifies the sincerity of the calls from the left for a new civility in political discourse.
You keep complaining about my tone, yet you fail to refute any of the points I made. That's kind of what happened to Nate Silver this year.
You keep complaining about my tone, yet you fail to refute any of the points I made. That's kind of what happened to Nate Silver this year.
That's because you don't make any points. You just state that any views contrary to yours are invalid, and pretend that is a fact. Of course you're wrong but that's obvious to most people. I simply try to avoid restating the obvious.
Last edited by Glenfield; 11-12-2012 at 01:13 PM..
Glenfield - that was not directed at you. I should have quoted to be more clear. I was referencing the earlier post in the thread:
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Originally Posted by Mark_22
5. The belief that religious institutions should not have to pay for birth control as part of health insurance plans they offer if it violates their beliefs - and related, the belief that expecting a woman and her partner to pay for their own birth control does not somehow constitute a "war on women."
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Originally Posted by northsub
In the case that this is an actual question instead of a straw man argument:
Even the Catholic Church believes that birth control pills are okay for medical reasons unrelated to birth control. At least as long as the real reason for use isn't as a loophole to use birth control.
I am still wondering if that means they are okay with erectile dysfunction medication? Or are these banned as well? They [Catholics] don't like IVF, right? So I am just trying to figure out what the boundaries are.
Does it mean that we do not want religious institutes to do things that violate their beliefs, in general? To make this Minnesotan: I seem to remember a brouhaha when Muslim taxi drivers did not want to carry passengers that had alcohol - did their demands gain support from Catholics or others? I didn't follow the story too closely.
There are nuts on both sides of the aisle, but I agree that the Dems control their messaging better. It doesn't hurt when the media is sympathetic to the cause either. I think there's room within the party on both sees of the global warming issue, as well as gay marriage. We have people who love that climate change issue, and we have the Log Cabin Republicans.
The media isn't always sympathetic to the Democratic cause. We have come largely to believe this thanks to an amazing marketing effort by Fox News to assert that they are the only conservative voice. But let's not forget that the Wall Street Journal is hardly liberal. Some of the regular news stations clearly had plenty of conservatives watching during the debates (ABC viewers, for instance, were more likely to give Romney points for winning the second and third debate, though they still choose Obama by a narrow margin, I believe). Plus we have what now passes for the media: talk radio (where conservatives dominate) and blogs (Drudge is often treated as real news when he's little more than a sensational aggregator).
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Originally Posted by Glenfield
I don't think the answer is looking to flip people who voted Dem last time; they already have a political home. So there's no point at looking at which positions turn off liberals. They ALL turn off liberals. I think we'd be better off looking at voters who sat out the election. Romney got 2 million fewer votes than McCain. McCain! Those folks are disgruntled conservatives turned off by a candiate reluctant to espouse conservative positions in his campaign.
The fact that Romney received less votes than John McCain really makes you wonder where he went wrong. I can't say that I think it was lack of conservatives getting to the polls because they didn't believe in Romney, though. I just have a hard time thinking that with the nation as polarized as it is that a conservative would think, "Well I agree with Romney more, but it doesn't really matter who wins because Romney doesn't share all of my views." For starters, he ran aggressively as a conservative early on and made a very late duck to the center. Also, it's hard to imagine conservatives sitting down and just taking an Obama victory. My father identifies as a conservative and will probably say Romney was soft, but he still cast his vote for the man. Anything to get Obama out of office is enough for most conservatives.
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Originally Posted by Glenfield
Near the end, I think it was extremely close and what put Obama over the top was praise from Chris Christie who was positioning himself for his own reelection campaign in heavily Democratic NJ. I suspect we won't have to worry about a Christie 2016 effort in our party. It didn't hurt that the press suppressed bad news about Sandy and wouldn't look into Benghazi. It's already come out now that Petraeus' resignation was delayed because of the election. Who knows what other problems have been hidden by his lapdogs in the press.
I don't mean to insult you here, but I think your assumption that it was getting close was more reality distortion field on the part of the GOP. They told themselves over and over that they would win, hoping that if they wished enough that it would come true. Simply put, none of the polling aggregators were seriously showing Romney with a strong chance of winning pre- or post-Sandy. In fact, there was just an article that came out that showed Sandy had barely any effect on overall vote.
People like Nate Silver (who the right vilified for nearly the entire election simply for aggregating the numbers!) were clearly showing that Romney got a bounce after the first debate that started to subside fairly quickly. Obama led on average by 2 points according to the aggregations--which was considered about the average during the entire race--and finished 2 points ahead.
It's also unclear how Petraeus' affair would actually affect the president. After all, the president wasn't having an affair. I'd be surprised if most people still trying to make up their minds at the last minute even were aware of who David Petraeus is. The rumor was floating around Fox that it was delayed because of this, but there seems to be no evidence outside the echo chamber that reflects that reality.
I partially agree with you on Christie and Sandy. First of all, I think he sincerely meant it: the President was quick to act and made sure emergency declarations were made and such. And Christie's praising of Obama only seems "political" to us now because we live in such a polarized world. In reality, I would hope anyone would be grateful that the President was checking in and making sure everything was okay. The praise he gave wasn't over the top. In some ways, it may have helped Romney: If Christie came across as negative, the press would have seen it as a partisan snub. Christie, however, probably saw the writing on the wall: Romney was toast. So he didn't have anything to lose by giving the praise the President deserved and getting a few points for bipartisanship. He can still keep his conservative chops, but he can say that during times of crisis he is willing to compromise.
The media isn't always sympathetic to the Democratic cause. We have come largely to believe this thanks to an amazing marketing effort by Fox News to assert that they are the only conservative voice. But let's not forget that the Wall Street Journal is hardly liberal. Some of the regular news stations clearly had plenty of conservatives watching during the debates (ABC viewers, for instance, were more likely to give Romney points for winning the second and third debate, though they still choose Obama by a narrow margin, I believe). Plus we have what now passes for the media: talk radio (where conservatives dominate) and blogs (Drudge is often treated as real news when he's little more than a sensational aggregator).
But I would argue that even the media outside Fox/WSJ helps Republicans by being complicit and non-inquisitive. Journalists so rarely ask tough questions of the candidates. David Gregory had several very bad days during the campaign. He did a horrendous job of moderating one of the Massachusetts debates.
As for Drudge, this is just a personal observation, but I think his influence is waning. A lot of his links come from places like the Daily Mail and other low-rent UK sites who have acknowledged that an enormous amount of their traffic originates at Drudge. I'm sure he's got some agreement with them that they publish baloney and he sends readers there. I used to read his site daily, but stopped a few years ago. It just got too sensational.
Quote:
I don't mean to insult you here, but I think your assumption that it was getting close was more reality distortion field on the part of the GOP. They told themselves over and over that they would win, hoping that if they wished enough that it would come true. Simply put, none of the polling aggregators were seriously showing Romney with a strong chance of winning pre- or post-Sandy. In fact, there was just an article that came out that showed Sandy had barely any effect on overall vote.
Agreed. Sam Wang at Princeton showed that Sandy had no net effect:
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People like Nate Silver (who the right vilified for nearly the entire election simply for aggregating the numbers!) were clearly showing that Romney got a bounce after the first debate that started to subside fairly quickly. Obama led on average by 2 points according to the aggregations--which was considered about the average during the entire race--and finished 2 points ahead.
For me this was one of the most gratifying things about the election. Reality won, fantasy lost. The complete dismantling of that Unskewed Polls guy was a thing to behold, especially after he publicly insulted Nate.
But it also resulted in a massive take-down of the horserace pundits (which describes about 90% of pundits). Silver (and Sam Wang, and Drew Linzer) demonstrated that polling is largely accurate (despite cries from the right that they're slanted), and that it is possible to account for house effects, and adjust the outcome accordingly. In fact, he even found that the state polling had a Romney bias of +0.1. Nothing he does is magic (though a lot of people still think it is). Even on the last weekend of the campaign, Chuck Todd and other horseracers were still harping on how close the national polls were, completely ignoring the state polls and the electoral college.
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It's also unclear how Petraeus' affair would actually affect the president. After all, the president wasn't having an affair. I'd be surprised if most people still trying to make up their minds at the last minute even were aware of who David Petraeus is. The rumor was floating around Fox that it was delayed because of this, but there seems to be no evidence outside the echo chamber that reflects that reality.
It's just another conspiracy-turned-excuse for why Romney lost.
Quote:
I partially agree with you on Christie and Sandy. First of all, I think he sincerely meant it: the President was quick to act and made sure emergency declarations were made and such. And Christie's praising of Obama only seems "political" to us now because we live in such a polarized world. In reality, I would hope anyone would be grateful that the President was checking in and making sure everything was okay.
But let's not forget that everything is political. Christie was not praising Obama only out of the goodness of his heart. That was calculated too, whether we want to admit it or not.
The fact that Romney received less votes than John McCain really makes you wonder where he went wrong. I can't say that I think it was lack of conservatives getting to the polls because they didn't believe in Romney, though. I just have a hard time thinking that with the nation as polarized as it is that a conservative would think, "Well I agree with Romney more, but it doesn't really matter who wins because Romney doesn't share all of my views." For starters, he ran aggressively as a conservative early on and made a very late duck to the center. Also, it's hard to imagine conservatives sitting down and just taking an Obama victory. My father identifies as a conservative and will probably say Romney was soft, but he still cast his vote for the man. Anything to get Obama out of office is enough for most conservatives.
Part of this is simply the drop in turnout from 2008, which featured the highest turnout since Amendment XXV mandated that the maximum voting age be no higher than 18 (turnout in 2008 was even higher than in 1968, the last election before Amendment XXV was enacted).
But that is only part of it.
Mitt Romney: exciting voters even less than John McCain.
Quote:
People like Nate Silver (who the right vilified for nearly the entire election simply for aggregating the numbers!) were clearly showing that Romney got a bounce after the first debate that started to subside fairly quickly. Obama led on average by 2 points according to the aggregations--which was considered about the average during the entire race--and finished 2 points ahead.
It is also worth noting that before the first debate, Nate Silver said this:
*Challengers usually win the first debate against an incumbent President
*Said challengers get a resulting bump
*That resulting bump fades
But some people were too busy 'unskewing' polls to pay any attention.
It will be interesting to see what sort of attention Silver gets in subsequent elections!
Part of this is simply the drop in turnout from 2008, which featured the highest turnout since Amendment XXV mandated that the maximum voting age be no higher than 18 (turnout in 2008 was even higher than in 1968, the last election before Amendment XXV was enacted).
But that is only part of it.
Mitt Romney: exciting voters even less than John McCain.
It is still crazy, though, that despite all the fervor to get Obama out that the GOP couldn't even muster the numbers they got for McCain...after all, he fizzled in the end as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miclantecuhtli
It is also worth noting that before the first debate, Nate Silver said this:
*Challengers usually win the first debate against an incumbent President
*Said challengers get a resulting bump
*That resulting bump fades
But some people were too busy 'unskewing' polls to pay any attention.
It will be interesting to see what sort of attention Silver gets in subsequent elections!
Silver was indeed right about this. The challenger typically does get a bump. From what I understand, this is often because it's the first time the public truly gets to see the issues laid out and make impressions. Of course, that's not as much the case anymore: This election stretched out over years with a candidate we had seen before. And 24-hour news, social media, etc. make it so much easier to find out what candidates are doing at all times.
I think a major part of the bump was that Obama performed so poorly, even based on expectations, and the news media, which tried and tried and tried its hardest to make this an even horse race to keep numbers/interest/ad revenue up, finally saw a legitimate opening where there was a chance that Romney could win.
Of course, they kept it up for far too long and were burned. But we forgive and forget and will trust them next time when they say it's a "razor tight" race...even if they're completely off.
Silver is a genius, if only because he's the one of the few people covering politics who spits it straight, regardless of today's prevailing winds. Essentially, he isn't a liar.
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