The Next President is...

[hispeed7721]

FWIW there were nearly 2x more Hillary voters in Texas than in Massachusetts. There were also more than 3x more Trump voters in California than in Alabama.

Do you have a source for this? I'm not arguing about it, I'm genuinely interested to see statistics showing it to be the case. I would think it's because of the population differences, but not to that extent.

we need to do a better job of working to find common ground rather than assuming the worst about the "other side."

Truth. The biggest problem is that the MSM and the parties themselves only portray the insane extremism of either side, which brings out the crazies on each side, which polarizes the non-crazies of each party even more, and all of a sudden you have a self-perpetuating machine of idiocy


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[tk1313]

52 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

we need to do a better job of working to find common ground rather than assuming the worst about the "other side."

The common ground has been there, but I just don't think the issues dominate politics today. It's a popularity contest.

2008: Dems masterfully slipped in the "first black President". He was the cool new guy and didn't fit the old, grumpy, lack-luster politician look that McCain had going on.

2012: Romney reeked of snobby rich guy, and Obama just put out the zingers during the debate and everyone drooled over the "cool-guy" persona again.

2016: The media shoves Clinton's "credentials" down our throat and calls her the "most qualified candidate in history" - just 4 years after telling us that being qualified wasn't "cool" and that we needed less politicians and more cool guys like Obama that treat the President's podium like a celebrity roast.

Also, the moderates aren't in control of the media... So as a moderate Republican, all I hear is:
-Don't want to jail/kill a cop for shooting someone who acted like they had a gun, or actually did have a gun pointed at the cop?-> Racist
-Want to vet immigrants from a war torn country? -> Islamaphobe
-Are you a successful straight white male? -> Everything was given to you.
-Unsuccessful woman, gay, and/or black? -> You're not successful because the straight white male dominated system is out to get you.

[brickhistory]

48 minutes ago, Kiloalpha said:

Slight change of topic, but I have observed a noticeable difference in the amount of people saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" this year. Anecdotal, I admit... but interesting nonetheless. 

I do it intentionally including and especially to those who wish me "Happy Holidays."  99% of the time you can see the relief on the well-wisher's face that they aren't A) going to be sued or called racist and that B) some traditions remain.

 

I started to post the below in the "leaving for the airlines thread" since it essentially dealt with a form of stop-loss.  But in the time from work to driving home, the powers that be caved to liberal pressure so to here it is posted:

Rockettes must perform

 

With this as a nice chaser:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/23/donald-trump-voters-revenge-giving-holidays-christmas-gifts-donations

Tell me again how it'sboth sides that need to "get along?"

[pawnman]

6 hours ago, tk1313 said:

The common ground has been there, but I just don't think the issues dominate politics today. It's a popularity contest.

2008: Dems masterfully slipped in the "first black President". He was the cool new guy and didn't fit the old, grumpy, lack-luster politician look that McCain had going on.

2012: Romney reeked of snobby rich guy, and Obama just put out the zingers during the debate and everyone drooled over the "cool-guy" persona again.

2016: The media shoves Clinton's "credentials" down our throat and calls her the "most qualified candidate in history" - just 4 years after telling us that being qualified wasn't "cool" and that we needed less politicians and more cool guys like Obama that treat the President's podium like a celebrity roast.

Also, the moderates aren't in control of the media... So as a moderate Republican, all I hear is:
-Don't want to jail/kill a cop for shooting someone who acted like they had a gun, or actually did have a gun pointed at the cop?-> Racist
-Want to vet immigrants from a war torn country? -> Islamaphobe
-Are you a successful straight white male? -> Everything was given to you.
-Unsuccessful woman, gay, and/or black? -> You're not successful because the straight white male dominated system is out to get you.

My favorite part of the whole thing is that 8 years ago, they had a president who, standing in front to the smoking hole that used to be the Twin Towers, urged Americans not to retaliate against Muslim Americans.  A president who spoke fluent Spanish and attempted to pass the most comprehensive and forgiving immigration reform in history...and democrats wouldn't support him.  President Obama, on the other hand, has killed more people in more countries than Bush did, has deported more illegal immigrants than any president in history, and has presided over what is perceived as a huge upswing in racism.  And somehow, Donald Trump is the one that is racist for wanting to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and to deport the ones that are here.

All I see from the liberal side lately is a knee-jerk opposition to anything anyone in the Republican party says, whether it's actually good for the country or not.  I haven't seen many well-reasoned opinions or arguments (and that goes for both sides, really).

[HU&W]

9 hours ago, hispeed7721 said:

Do you have a source for this? I'm not arguing about it, I'm genuinely interested to see statistics showing it to be the case. I would think it's because of the population differences, but not to that extent.

 

http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president

Texas votes for Clinton - 3.9M
Massachusetts votes for Clinton - 2M

Pretty close to 2x.

California votes for Trump - 3.9M
Alabama votes for Trump - 1.3M

Almost exactly 3x.  So fact check's good, but the statistic is meaningless when corrected for population.  

 

Broken out by total population over 18, 

Texas votes for Clinton - 19%
Massachusetts votes for Clinton - 37%

California votes for Trump - 13%
Alabama votes for Trump - 34%

 

 

Edited December 24, 2016 by HU&W

[M2]

As HU&W said, the statistic is meaningless when corrected for population; so here are those numbers...

Population of Texas = 26.96 million (2014)
Population of Massachusetts = 6.745 million (2014)

Population of Califonia = 38.8 million (2014)
Population of Alabama = 4.849 million (2014)

[hispeed7721]

As HU&W said, the statistic is meaningless when corrected for population; so here are those numbers...

Population of Texas = 26.96 million (2014)
Population of Massachusetts = 6.745 million (2014)
Population of Califonia = 38.8 million (2014)
Population of Alabama = 4.849 million (2014)

That's what I figured...comparing Texas to Massachusetts just didn't sound quite right. Thanks for the numbers


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[nsplayr]

I would argue it's not meaningless at all. Yea, obviously there are way more total people in Texas than Massachusetts, or California than Alabama, we all know that.

The point is that we shouldn't get too wrapped up on our stereotypes. There are literally millions of likely born-and-bred and proud Texans who cast votes for Hillary, just like there were millions of Best Coast Californians who voted for Trump. 

My comment was meant to demonstrate that we're more alike than different when you zoom out a little bit, and that Americans with diverse backgrounds can come to similar conclusions. Trump voters in California in many ways are pretty different than Trump voters from Alabama, but they agreed that he was the man for the job. Same goes for Hillary voters in Massachusetts and Texas. 

[busdriver]

People need to lay off the identity politics. You are not who you voted for, you are not a canned platform of unrelated "issues," you are not your f'ing party.

[HU&W]

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

I would argue it's not meaningless at all.

Perhaps not.  On further reflection, I think the numbers and percentages argument serves to validate the importance of the electoral college.

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

There are literally millions of likely born-and-bred and proud Texans who cast votes for Hillary

There might be a few, but most of the demographic is likely the California transplants that have taken over Austin.

[waveshaper]

5 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

True.

I'm honestly curious, do you think the Electoral College needs to go? 

IMHO, the Electorial College needs a wee bit of tweaking. Maybe a fairer way to divide the electoral college votes would be to partial them out, below state level, based on Congressional Districts/Senate seats won. Of course, to do this, we would have to hold the Senate elections every four years to coincide with the Presidential election cycle. Downside; the political parties would still find a way to rig the system/districts.

The current 538 electors (Electoral College Votes), correspond to the 435 House of Representatives and 100 Senate seats, plus the 3 electors for the District of Columbia.

Example of how something like this might look for California; The 55 California electoral votes would be given out for the 2016 election cycle as follows;
1. The Republicans would get 23 electoral votes to put into the Republican Presidential nominee electoral vote basket (Note; The Republicans won 23 Congressional Districts in California).
2. The Democrats would get 32 electoral votes to put into the Democrats Presidential nominee electoral vote basket (Note; The Democrats won 30 Congressional Districts and 2 Senate seats which in California = 32).

Example of how something like this might look at a National level; The total 2016 National Presidential electoral vote tally would look something like this (I think a few seats are still being contested or votes are being counted);
1. The Republican Presidential nominee would get 290 electoral votes (239 House of Representatives districts + 51 Senate seats won = 290).
2. The Democrat Presidential nominee would get 243 electoral votes (192 House of Representatives districts won + 48 Senate seats won + 3 Washington DC electoral votes won = 243).
3. Independents/others won a total of 5 districts/seats = 5 electoral votes?
Totals; 290 + 243 + 5 = 538 electoral votes.

[guineapigfury]

You could tweak it to awarding the electoral votes by congressional district, with the extra 2 electoral votes awarded to the popular vote winner of the state.  That would avoid the need to adjust the length of Senate terms.  I think the primary virtue of the electoral college is that it precludes us from ever having to conduct a nationwide recount in a close presidential election.

[tk1313]

21 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

Too funny. I've taken a similar approach with regards to the "Merry Christmas" thing this year.

Let's see... I was a conservative Political Science major in college. I had a professor once tell me that I "should drop her class, if I knew what was good for me", suspiciously after I put a Romney sticker on my laptop in 2012. I had another class, (Women and Gender in Science and Technology... required for my major) and the professor essentially flunked me when I refused to accept that I was a part of the "patriarchy". She had me down as an F, but after various department heads and pulling political strings, I got that raised to a C. Woohoo. Other friends with similar beliefs caved and wrote the vanilla propaganda that was asked of them and never challenged anyone with meaningful questions. Yours truly took the Billy Mitchell approach. My GPA is an unfortunate testament to that. 

In follow-on jobs, I have been followed to my car, harassed, shoved and spat on. The daughter of a Representative I work with... overheard two men speaking about her in Spanish outside her apartment (she's fluent). They kept holding up their phone and looking at her face, then back to the phone. She bolted to the campus police and they followed. Cops arrested them and uncovered a plan to kidnap her and hold her for ransom until the Rep did what they wanted. 

I have friends working in the DNC who I talk with on a weekly basis. Not a single one has ever told me about anything similar happening to them.

This violence I mentioned before? It's real. The double standard? It exists. The "tolerance"? Is a joke.

Essay starts: "In a male dominated society, it has become increasingly difficult for women (or those who sexually identify as such) to pull themselves from the proverbial quicksand. However, as progressiveness becomes the new norm, we look to pioneers such as Hillary Rodham Clinton to uproot women from the desolate predisposition in which men have placed them."

Easy A

Edited December 24, 2016 by tk1313

[ItnStln]

You could tweak it to awarding the electoral votes by congressional district, with the extra 2 electoral votes awarded to the popular vote winner of the state.  That would avoid the need to adjust the length of Senate terms.  I think the primary virtue of the electoral college is that it precludes us from ever having to conduct a nationwide recount in a close presidential election.

I'd support that!

[HeloDude]

On December 23, 2016 at 8:16 AM, nsplayr said:

FWIW there were nearly 2x more Hillary voters in Texas than in Massachusetts. There were also more than 3x more Trump voters in California than in Alabama.

Its easy to just assume that all Hillary voters are hippy late-sipping costal elites or that all Trump voters are slack-jawed white nationalists from flyover country, but the facts say otherwise.

If as a country we're going to continue having close Presidential elections (2000, 2004, 2016) and divided government in Washington (most years), we need to do a better job of working to find common ground rather than assuming the worst about the "other side." That can be tough, but we need to try harder if we actually want to fix Washington rather than just talk about fixing it or railing against it. Most voters aren't nearly as polarized as the parties would have you believe. 

Interesting that you listed 2004 as a close election and not 2012, as the popular vote was nearly the same percentage-wise.  Unless you're saying we should only look at the electoral college vote, in which case 2016 wasn't a close election...

And the best way to fix Washington DC is for Washington DC to have/execercise less power.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), progressives are going to learn the hard way how it's not a good thing for the president to 'have a phone and a pen'...

[HeloDude]

19 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

Let's see... I was a conservative Political Science major in college. 

This was your first mistake...

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

You could tweak it to awarding the electoral votes by congressional district, with the extra 2 electoral votes awarded to the popular vote winner of the state.  That would avoid the need to adjust the length of Senate terms.  I think the primary virtue of the electoral college is that it precludes us from ever having to conduct a nationwide recount in a close presidential election.

It's almost as easy as if states could adopt this process on their own..wait a minute, two states already do!

We are the United 'States' of America...each state decides how to divide/award their electoral votes as the states decide how they choose the presidents, not necessarily directly the individual people within those states.  That being said, I always thought it was interesting how states like Michigan didn't take the same approach as Maine and Nebraska.  In 2012 Michigan was ran by the GOP but hadn't gone for a Republican since 1988...and I don't think too many GOP state legislators who really thought Trump was going to win their state in Nov.  My apologies if Michigan needs to be changed via a popular vote referendum vs state legislature--I'm too lazy to research.  

 

 

 

[guineapigfury]

2 hours ago, HeloDude said:

Interesting that you listed 2004 as a close election and not 2012, as the popular vote was nearly the same percentage-wise.  Unless you're saying we should only look at the electoral college vote, in which case 2016 wasn't a close election...

And the best way to fix Washington DC is for Washington DC to have/execercise less power.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), progressives are going to learn the hard way how it's not a good thing for the president to 'have a phone and a pen'...

2004 was much closer in the electoral college.  It was a while ago, but we didn't know the final result until the morning after the election since Ohio was too close to call on Election day.  Had Kerry eked out a win in Ohio, he'd have pulled off the Electoral College win while losing the popular vote.  There was a real possibility that we were going to get a 269-269 tie, which would have been decided by a state delegation vote in the House (which the Republicans would have won handily).  I imagine if Bush had won that way, after effectively winning at the SCOTUS the election prior, the left in this country would have imploded before drowning in their own tears.

[HeloDude]

11 minutes ago, guineapigfury said:

2004 was much closer in the electoral college.  It was a while ago, but we didn't know the final result until the morning after the election since Ohio was too close to call on Election day.  Had Kerry eked out a win in Ohio, he'd have pulled off the Electoral College win while losing the popular vote.  There was a real possibility that we were going to get a 269-269 tie, which would have been decided by a state delegation vote in the House (which the Republicans would have won handily).  I imagine if Bush had won that way, after effectively winning at the SCOTUS the election prior, the left in this country would have imploded before drowning in their own tears.

All completely valid, but that wasn't my point.  My point is that 2004 was similar to 2012 in popular vote and that 2016 wasn't too far from 2012 from an electoral college standpoint...yet Nsplayr didn't mention 2012 as being close but said 2004 and 2016 were both close.  We have to compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges not apples to oranges...

[nsplayr]

16 hours ago, HU&W said:

There might be a few, but most of the demographic is likely the California transplants that have taken over Austin.

That is the attitude I'm talking about! The population of Austin is like 800K people and Hillary won 3.8 million votes in Texas.  As much as it may rub up against conventional wisdom, there are lots and lots (i.e. hundreds of thousands to millions) of cowboy hat-wearing, truck-driving, Don't Mess With Texas Hillary voters in Texas.  Just like there are lots and lots of latte-sipping Californians stuck on the 405 who voted for Trump.  Not a majority of those people in either state voted that way obviously, but many more than you might think and we shouldn't discount those people's voices in our politics.

Edited December 24, 2016 by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

15 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

I'm honestly curious, do you think the Electoral College needs to go? 

I would like to see some changes that retain the good things about the EC but help prevent outcomes like we saw in 2016.  Assigning electoral votes by congressional district plus some number of votes per state depending on the state-wide vote winner may work but I'm not married to the idea.

When the popular vote is very very close, like in 2000, it's gonna come down to 1-2 states (which themselves may be very close), so that's not necessarily a bug, especially if that outcome only happens very infrequently.  1960 was very very close as well but the popular vote winner also won the EC.  But when you lose the popular vote by millions of votes, the system should ideally reflect that basic little "d" democratic outcome IMHO.

The EC is good in that it ensures that smaller states get a voice if they are politically divided and prevents candidates from solely campaigning for base turnout, but in some ways those advantages have broken down.  Base turnout really is one of if not the key in many recent elections.  Small states have a voice sort of (in the primaries more so), but large swing states like OH and FL and PA and NC still receive a very outsized portion of the attention compared to smaller swing states like NH, IA or NV..

Overall, it goes against my basic sense of fairness to have the popular vote winner not win the election, especially when the popular vote was not incredibly close.  The fact that it happened 2x in 16 years and benefited the same party is extra frustrating (or extra lucky depending on your political beliefs), and highlights that some changes may be in order i.e. that the 2000 outcome maybe wasn't just an expected, unlikely outlier.

As of today, the EC is all that matters and whoever wins is the legitimate President, but I think it's helpful for the President to have a democratic mandate from the people.  Winning the popular vote nation-wide is the best example of that.  It strengthens the President's ability to govern successfully, and at the end of the day I want all of our Presidents to succeed in broad terms because that means that the country is succeeding.

Edited December 24, 2016 by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

4 hours ago, HeloDude said:

Interesting that you listed 2004 as a close election and not 2012, as the popular vote was nearly the same percentage-wise.  Unless you're saying we should only look at the electoral college vote, in which case 2016 wasn't a close election...

And the best way to fix Washington DC is for Washington DC to have/execercise less power.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), progressives are going to learn the hard way how it's not a good thing for the president to 'have a phone and a pen'...

2004 came down to OH, which was very close and the election hung in the balance.  President Bush won with the 52nd most electoral votes out of 55 previous elections, meaning the vast majority of previously elected Presidents won many more electoral votes.

In 2012, with a similar popular vote margin, the EC was not particularly close.  President Obama with the 37th of 57 previous elections.  Not a blowout by any means, but no one state of even combination of two states (unless they were CA and TX that were split anyways) that could have de-throned him.  It was a middling EC win, but not nearly as close as 2004.

2016's margin is much closer to 2004 than 2012 percentage wise if you want to compare apples or oranges or whatever.  Trump won 56.5% of the electors, 2004 W. Bush won 53.1%, and 2012 Obama won 61.7% of the electors.  The delta in winning margins is more than 1.5x comparing Obama to Trump vs Trump to Bush.

BL: 2012 was a somewhat under-average win for a President EC wise, 2004 was very very close EC wise compared to all past elections, and 2016 was highly unusual in that it was relatively close EC wise and the popular vote was skewed in the opposite direction by a healthy margin.

So what you're trying to get me to say I think is that the EC matters...which it obviously does.  It's the only thing that matters in terms of deciding who is President.

I happen to also think the popular vote matters in helping to give the President and his party political legitimacy to govern.  I would greatly prefer for all elected Presidents to have won the popular vote because it helps them govern better and would confirm that our system, which is complicated for some very good reasons, gives outcomes that seem fair on a very basic level.  The person with the most overall votes should win in all but the most exceptionally close contests.

The second part of your statement is true in that the left will now suffer the political consequences of the imperial presidency, just like the right did under Obama.  The presidency has been getting more and more powerful for a variety of reasons, and both parties have used that to their advantage.  It has caused wild swings in US policy that I think are hurting the country, but there really aren't a lot of easy answers either when the main check on the President (the legislature) can't work together and doesn't stand up for it's own institutional rights.

Edited December 24, 2016 by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

p.s. - Merry Christmas to all!  Who else is looking forward to President Trump's White House Christmas ornament next year?  I bet it will be extremely gold-plated 

Edited December 24, 2016 by nsplayr

[MooseAg03]

What we really need is a legitimate push for a Convention of States to help reign in the out of control federal government. If we can pass amendments to limit executive overreach, decrease excessive bureaucracy, limit the out of control spending, and limit the Supreme Court's impact back into what the framers intended, then it won't matter who is elected President in the future. Executive power has been expanded so far beyond what the Constitution intended that our government is now dysfunctional. I'm looking forward to putting Constitutional mechanisms in place so that it won't matter which lying jackass is elected by our uninformed populace.


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[Lord Ratner]

Overall, it goes against my basic sense of fairness to have the popular vote winner not win the election, especially when the popular vote was not incredibly close.  .

Do you acknowledge that this is exactly why the EC exists? 2016 wasn't a fluke, it was the EC working exactly as it was intended to. I don't understand why people keep talking about the difference between the EC and the popular vote when the EC exists to protect against the popular vote.