Who do you think will be the next President of the US?

[Igloodude]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
My comments regarding Dodd were sort of meant as an epilogue on the most intersting part of the race -- the part where there is still the illusion of real democracy. I watched a couple of the Democratic debates. There is no way you could convince me that Dodd, Biden and Richardson didn't outperform Hillary, Obama and Edwards. If the media storm and the constant droning of polling numbers were removed from the process, how different might it look? The whole primary thing in general is anti-democracy. It should be one person, one vote, secret ballot, all on the same day nationwide. Done. That's it. I don't even care that that would screw over small states in terms of exposure to candidates. Yes, they would spend all of their time in Cali, Florida and New York, but at least it would somewhat resemble democracy.

And the result would be... Hillary.

Part of the justification of the current spread-out affair (particularly starting with a few small states) is that candidates that haven't got the name recognition (and thus the campaign donations) to compete nationwide get a chance to get their foot in the door and compete on a somewhat equal basis with the heavy hitters. Your same-day-nationwide idea simply crowns the most well-known candidate in each party, and I'd submit that that is even less democratic than the current system.

[DirtyMartini]

Since it's just a pipedream anyway --

my plan also requires that the media STFU, and quit telling us who are the "frontrunners". Polls will be illegal. Exit polls on election day will be illegal. Projecting winners will be illegal. Campaign finance will be stricly enforced. There will be regularly scheduled national debates which will be shown on all TV channels, broadcast on all radio stations, and for which all employees must received paid breaks to watch. We will force feed fairness and equality to the American voter!

Whoo, back to reality -- I agree that if we just switched it to a big national primary that it could be just a name recongnition exercise, but I don't even see how that's really worse than letting 200,000 Iowans narrow the field by half by standing in little herds in the corners of high school auditoriums and church basements. Have you heard the stories on the news? The deal-making and coersion is absurd. "Hey Hillary group. Send us over two more of yours or when we get disbanded we'll all go over to the Obama club. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah boo boo." Just the fact that it takes two plus hours is almost a form of temporal poll tax. I could go on...

[DirtyMartini]

sorry DP

[Imran Siddiqui]

Your same-day-nationwide idea simply crowns the most well-known candidate in each party, and I'd submit that that is even less democratic than the current system.

Maybe it isn't well advised, but it surely isn't less democratic. Every voter gets a great number of people from the two major parties to vote from for President. That's pretty damned democratic... of course the one with most name recognition wins, but in plenty of democratic elections it turns out to be a popularity contest.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Igloodude


And the result would be... Hillary.

Part of the justification of the current spread-out affair (particularly starting with a few small states) is that candidates that haven't got the name recognition (and thus the campaign donations) to compete nationwide get a chance to get their foot in the door and compete on a somewhat equal basis with the heavy hitters. Your same-day-nationwide idea simply crowns the most well-known candidate in each party, and I'd submit that that is even less democratic than the current system.

Whats wrong with the old way, where elected pols and party bosses picked the candidates in smoke filled rooms. You didnt like one, you voted for the other one. You didnt like either, you voted for a third party.

Thats the system that gave us Lincoln and FDR (well it also gave us Rutherford B Hayes and Warren Harding, whatever). Vs the system thats worked oh so well these last 40 years.

[Kuciwalker]

Whats wrong with the old way, where elected pols and party bosses picked the candidates in smoke filled rooms.

Secondhand smoke

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Perfection
Dude's a Creationist, having one of those in the White House scares the hell out of me.

Most people (in the US at least) don't know anything about the science and evolution is as much an item of faith to them as creationism.

JM

[Impaler[WrG]]

Most people aren't scientists that true but they are not expressing 'faith' when they believe a scientist. Evolution its accepted on the Credibility of the Scientific establishment (Argument from Authority) who themselves accept it on Scientific Evidence (Argument from Logic).

Faith implies a belief that dose not rest on the Authority of other people or on Logic.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Most people aren't scientists that true but they are not expressing 'faith' when they believe a scientist. Evolution its accepted on the Credibility of the Scientific establishment (Argument from Authority) who themselves accept it on Scientific Evidence (Argument from Logic).

Faith implies a belief that dose not rest on the Authority of other people or on Logic.

That is no good.

You could say that Creation is argument based on credibility of Tradition (Argument from Authority) who themselces accept it based upon evidence (Argument from Observation - ie they are shown by God).

Now, I know about science, so I know what someone means when they say something is scientific and I know what goes on in the scientific establishment (so I understand the logic that I think it being followed). But most people don't....

When I get into discussions with people (even when I see discussions here on apolyton), I am amazed and just how big people's misperceptions are.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

FDT.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Most people (in the US at least) don't know anything about the science and evolution is as much an item of faith to them as creationism.

You don't need to understand evolution to reasonably believe it. I don't understand plate tectonics well, but I'm pretty sure geologists aren't full of poop. Same goes for evolution.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Good point Tradition can be a source of Authority, and being in the immovable past it much harder for its credibility to be shaken. The weakness is that people for their natural ego-centric reasons consider only THEIR OWN traditions to be of any authority and only the most resent ones at that. Their are currently many traditions that claim to have a similar observational origin, and history is littered with traditions that have fallen by the way-side as well. So we must add an unsupportable Cultural Bias to your recipe to explain belief in Creationism.

So lets summarize, to believe in evolution one can be personally ignorant of scientific principles but choose to accept it on the credibility of a scientific establishment which is broad International group in good standings, they claim to know the truth by direct study and observation in the present time and have produced impressive technology using their knowledge. Creationism on the other hand requires one to accept the Authority of an arbitrarily selected Tradition which itself traces back through countless layers of accepting past Traditions to the long dead original observers.

The only similarity is that you have picked an Authority outside of ones self to base a belief in something on, but in the first case the authority choosing is done well and in the second its done poorly aka 'blindly'. Furthermore anyone with a greater then room temperature IQ can study the evidence fro Evolution themselves and made their own judgments on logic and I believe the vast majority of people are capable of understanding Evolution and making sound judgments on it if they approaches it with an open mind.

OK thread-jack over

[OzzyKP]

Re: Who do you think will be the next President of the US?

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Ron Paul included this time (in place of the banana).

*sigh* you leave him off the who do you like poll and include him on the who will win poll (when lots of people like him here and it is obvious he isn't gonna win).

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Wezil


I've been watching for the spin from Clinton's Poly supporters but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe they are still in shock.

Clinton was hurt by Iowa, but that doesn't mean she's out. The person who took the biggest hit was Edwards. He needed the win in Iowa much more than Clinton and Obama. 2nd place just won't cut it for him.

[Impaler[WrG]]

But a #2 is good enough to Be the parties #2 which is all he ever had a chance at IMHO. Edwards demographics are very complementary to both to both of the front runners and I the chance that he would be tapped for VP is increased. In fact I think thats been his main goal all along with the Nomination itself as a marginal possibility.