2012 US Presidential Election

[zherok]

You have got to be kidding me. Obama BELIEVES what he says? Really?

Don't you have a space station to be building or something? Shit be easy, or so I've heard. Maybe they sell them in kits?

More seriously, yeah. I don't doubt his sincerity on gay rights, abortion, the use of diplomacy, or that you don't fix the economy by giving tax cuts to the class that mostly ends up saving it or stashing it away abroad. Speaking of which...

Ace, so now you too have joined the know nothing intelligentsia, eh? Know the cost of everything, the value of nothing. I can't wait until we need a phD to change a burned out lamp.

Yeah, he disagreed with you, so he's totally clueless now and in the tank for those damn elitists.

Or maybe he just has a better respect for astronauts than you. Maybe watching a video of a spacewalk doesn't suddenly qualify you to be one. I think this might be an area where you've managed to trump even Santorum. What even makes you think all they do is spin wrenches up there anyway?

You have to admit though, compared to the last two fail candidates from the republican party Dole and McCain, Romney is shaping up to be pretty good.

He's certainly run a more successful race (and indeed, could still win it.) I don't agree that he'd be a better president though.

I was 12 when Dole was running, so it's outta my frame of reference, but a McCain from 2000 would have been a much better candidate than what we got. It's unfortunate he didn't really come out of that election quite the same. But I think even now, if not for his age, he'd be much more level-headed than Romney is likely to be.

[Nikkoru]

To be honest, I think Stewart is more emotionally drained by talking about election shit than anyone else. It comes from 2 stupefying years of campaigning, non-stop media coverage, and some truly epic bullshit.

We're at the point -- or have been at that point for a while now -- that everything gets on the nerves and you just want to watch the world burn.

[Burkingam]

^Only 5 days to go before the election. We can almost see the light. Probably a mirage but...

[Ixarku]

You have to admit though, compared to the last two fail candidates from the republican party Dole and McCain, Romney is shaping up to be pretty good.

The best turd in the punch bowl is still a turd.  Over the last few decades, the Republicans have had the rather remarkable ability to consistently put forward candidates that I can't stand.  I think the best thing I can say about Dole, McCain, and Romney is that I never hated Dole because I didn't care enough about him in the first place.  The last major Republican Presidential candidate that I actually liked was Bush # 1.  I don't think he entirely deserved the bad rap he got.  Of course, the Democrats have had plenty of duds, too.
 
Despite making the unbelievable gaff that was Palin, at least with McCain, you had an idea of where the man stood and what he believed in.  With 'Romnesia', there's no point in listening to the words coming out of the man's mouth, as they will be different today from what they were yesterday and what they'll be tomorrow.  Setting the issues themselves aside, it's OK to have a change of opinion once in a while, but I simply can't stand it when someone will say whatever it is he thinks his target audience wants to hear, regardless of how much it contradicts his past statements.  Romney may have Romnesia, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us do, too.
 
 

We're at the point -- or have been at that point for a while now -- that everything gets on the nerves and you just want to watch the world burn.

I think that sums up my feelings quite well.  I'm at the point where I want Romney to win -- if he somehow succeeds in making the U.S. better, well, fuck me, I'm man enough (most of the time) to admit when I'm wrong; if he fucks things up or at best is completely ineffectual as a President, then I'll have quite a lot of stuff to shove in the faces of every one of my conservative family members when 2016 rolls around.
 
I've been waffling on it, but I've mostly decided though, that apathy, disillusionment, and despair are going to win out for me this election.  I don't really believe in my country's political system any longer, and I'm not going to participate in it this time, possibly not ever again.

[Nikkoru]

I suspect that, had McCain been the nominee in 2000 the world in general would've been a better place. By 2008, regardless of what I thought of him personally, the Republicans had poisoned the well so thoroughly that it simply didn't matter what McCain said or did. Although, much to my regret, his more independent minded qualities -- that which was the basis of his core integrity and was what separated him from the chaff -- were so watered down by the Republican primaries and the Evangelicals that his "maverick" status seemed more like a cheesy pick-up line he gave to America. He lost, and he lost having been a sell-out.

Romney's virtue is that he's running against Obama, which appears to be sufficient for half the country. There's honestly nothing I can identify in him that I should give a shit about. As I've said, every detail which truly interests me is left intentionally vague and ponderous, it's truly difficult to be sufficiently invested to put forth the effort of actually disliking him. He's like the villain from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I could probably tell you that there was one and some melodramatic reason why he must be stopped, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what his deal was.

[5Cats]

All this crybaby talk about "not knowing" Romney's platform! lolz!

You don't know it because the MSM refuses to TELL YOU about it!
The MSM also refuses to tell you about Benghazi...

Who can itemize Obama's 2008 platform?
(Hint: it's "Bush is bad" and nothing else)
And what does Obama run on in 2012?
(Hint: "It's STILL all Bush's fault")

Only a few days and the Fat Lady will sing her song!

[Burkingam]

Every time 5Cats says something, jaybug suddenly looks like an enlightened person. Are you sure you aren't just trolling 5Cats?

[Ixarku]

Every time 5Cats says something, jaybug suddenly looks like an enlightened person. Are you sure you aren't just trolling 5Cats?

This.
 

All this crybaby talk about "not knowing" Romney's platform! lolz!

Also, go fuck yourself.

[Burkingam]

To elaborate a little. Few of us actually read msnbc and even if we did, even them aren't as obviously dishonest as some the right's medias like FauxNews.

Yes, we all know about Benghazi and that's an unfortunate incident and yes the democrats are to blame, but contrarily to you, we realize that in the great scales of things it reallly doesn't matters. Iraq's war caused over 100,000 deaths including 4,486 U.S. soldiers which Romney supported.

As for Obama's 2008 platform all being about "Bush is bad", now I can't think of a more misinformed statement ever sprouted on these forums.
Here, PolitiFact have a list of over 500 promises that Obama made on his last campaign, complete with references and an whether it was kept or not. Notice how very few of them say something like "I promise that Bush is bad."

[Monkeyfinger]

Careful 5cats, challenge a liberal's way of thinking and you will be subject to incessant foam-at-the-mouth accusations and insults. Burk, meet Brian Williams.

As for Obama's promises, they fall into one of these categories:

A. no one gives a damn
B. bad ideas to begin with
C. broken. (these are the big promises that people are harping on and actually care about, like cutting the deficit in half and unemployment staying below 8% if we passed the stimulus package)

[krumm]

I can't wait for this to be over.  Living in Ohio sucks due to all the ads.  I don't know if I even care who gets in anymore.

Are the ads so bad elsewhere?  I cant remember the last time Ive seen an ad that was not political.  between Obama, Romney, Josh Mandel, and Brown all the ad space is taken.

[Burkingam]

Careful 5cats, challenge a liberal's way of thinking and you will be subject to incessant foam-at-the-mouth accusations and insults. Burk, meet Brian Williams.

As for Obama's promises, they fall into one of these categories:

A. no one gives a damn
B. bad ideas to begin with
C. broken. (these are the big promises that people are harping on and actually care about, like cutting the deficit in half and unemployment staying below 8% if we passed the stimulus package)

So in what category would you put "end the war in Iraq", Monkeyfinger?

[zherok]

I love this idea that the few conservatives on the board are offering startling rebuttals to Obama's agenda, when you can barely even be bothered to mention your alternative by name, never mind justifying his policies (well, jaybug tried (albeit, also couldn't mention the guy he's obviously voting for by name), but somehow we ended up on space stations and how overqualified astronauts are.)

You've got a candidate with a flimsy, arbitrary policy of across the board tax cuts just a few years out from when it was last tried. These are lazy numbers that pretend that you just can't help cutting taxes on the most wealthy in order to help everyone else. Surprise, this disproportionately benefits them more than the rest, but it'll all work out in the end! Except as mentioned earlier the upper class tends to save their refunds rather than inject it back into the economy.

Were he all that focused on the deficit maybe he'd have something to talk about, but outside of perennial Republican favorites like public broadcasting, we're just told we have to trust the numbers wonk with the ? step in his magic recovery plan. Too bad he offsets whatever he could save by cutting public broadcasting by planning on increasing the military budget by a trillion dollars. Unless we've got a couple thousand PBS/NPRs lying around, we're not even revenue neutral on just THAT part, never mind offsetting the tax cuts. You'll pardon me if I'm skeptical that saying you're really serious about the deficit actually makes you serious about the deficit given these plans. Slashing social services to fund tax cuts doesn't even begin to touch the deficit.

Then you couple it with religiously motivated regressive social policies. Republicans can talk about the economy all they want as being more important than social rights, but it's HIS social policies, no need to act as if saving the economy is irrevocably coupled with denying equality to gays or attempting to ban abortion.

So yeah, lapsing the Bush-era tax cuts and slowing military growth sounds like a nice alternative. And I'll take diplomacy over saber-rattling and trying to conjure up a Rocky IV-era Russia to pick a fight with.

Are the ads so bad elsewhere?

All my television watching is done online now, so I have no idea. From what I've seen it's pretty bad even here in California, but I can only imagine what it'd be like in Ohio right now.

[Nikkoru]

Are the ads so bad elsewhere?

All my television watching is done online now, so I have no idea. From what I've seen it's pretty bad even here in California, but I can only imagine what it'd be like in Ohio right now.

I watched an hour of television from Michigan.  Of the 12 minutes of advertisements, 2 minutes were devoted to selling actual products. Everything else was about propositions, state supreme court justices, state senators, congressional races, and a few on the presidential election. Watch 6 hours of television a day as is the average, and I'd be surprised if you weren't a massive cynic and possibly suicidal.

The sad thing is, as an outsider who doesn't know the issues -- nothing actually makes sense. No one explains anything, it's all just "proposition (#) will lead to our collective doom", and "candidate (X) supports the molestation of children, terrorism, and Satan". Even the positive advertising is just meaningless fluff, "candidate (Y) is a family man, who supports goodness and the American way" or "Judge (Z) hates crime and will see criminals vanquished from the face of the Earth".

I weep for Canada's democracy if this is what we've apparently decided to be emulating.

[AceHigh]

So in what category would you put "end the war in Iraq", Monkeyfinger?

In combination with "lets fire 100+ tomahawks in Libya and start a war there", the category would be "hypocrisy" 

[Burkingam]

So in what category would you put "end the war in Iraq", Monkeyfinger?

In combination with "lets fire 100+ tomahawks in Libya and start a war there", the category would be "hypocrisy" 

You can try to bend history all you want but the fact is that USA didn't start the war in Libya nor any of the countries affected by the Arab Spring. They just decided to join in after it had already started.

[Monkeyfinger]

So in what category would you put "end the war in Iraq", Monkeyfinger?

Broken. On the campaign trail he promised an end of the war in 2009. Should I applaud him for eventually getting around to it?

[AceHigh]

Yeah, he didn't start it, he just intended to finish it... with extreme prejudice!!!

Seriously Burk, you are falling into that distasteful American logic where one side must be good and other must be bad. No, they are both bad as they both enjoy fucking the world with their penis shaped warheads.

[Monkeyfinger]

Ace I will willingly admit that I'm following the same distasteful logic, only on the other side of the coin. Socialists are evil and must be exterminated!

[Burkingam]

Yeah, he didn't start it, he just intended to finish it... with extreme prejudice!!!

Seriously Burk, you are falling into that distasteful American logic where one side must be good and other must be bad. No, they are both bad as they both enjoy fucking the world with their penis shaped warheads.

It's not one bad one good. It's one bad one mediocre. If you find a place where I say Obama was not a mediocre but a good president without any indication that I'm only speaking by contrast with some of them Republican fuckers, then I will saw my own leg with a spoon.