Posted on 11/07/2012 12:24:48 PM PST by Kevin in California
Something just doesn't add up about this whole election. One side of me is telling me that the election was legit while the other is telling me that election fraud is deeper than you and I may envision. It just seems out out the realm of possibilty that all the key states went in O's favor and not by big margins. Just enough to put him over the top. Coincidence or very well calculated?
Again, not a sore loser but something just doesn't add up and it's been gnawing at me all day.
Seeing that Romney barely matched McCain...I’d say forget about the fraud...alot of GOP just plain stayed home.
I read today an intersting observation:
Romney did well where Obama did well (urban areas)....just not as well.
Romney did poorly where Obama did poorly (rural areas)....but not as poorly.
The urban areas being larger than the rural areas, it was a fait accompli that Obama would win.
Or in other words - Obama was better at being liberal than Romney. It was an interesting analysis, which pointed to the necessity of finding a candidate who would do WELL in rural areas. When you really look at it, Romney has danced with being pro-choice, he has badmouthed coal in the past, of course there was his healthcare plan, and I think he even signed some gun control legislation. Looking back on it, of course he wasn’t going to fire up the base in rural areas...and he wasn’t going to ‘outbama’ Barry in the urban areas.
Yeah, I believe it was rigged as well. Label me the appropriate nickname I don’t care.
You have to give Nate Silver credit for accurately predicting the voting, based on rational use of survey data. Maybe the problem isn’t fraud at all, but systematic misinformation. The election results came as a great surprise to many people, but shouldn’t have.
What we have is a media problem, and specifically too many people trusting sources they should not. Are you?
5% of voters in FL and OH voted for the President and did not vote for the Senator.
To them, Big Government means Mourdock and Akin dictating which rapist's babies need to be carried to term. It means old white guys preventing their gay and lesbian friends from getting married. It means government refusing to give them free birth control, because it wants to control their sexual behavior. It means politicians spending money on the military instead of the free health care the people "need".
We have a big problem with definitions. And with the fact that young Americans want the upper middle class lifestyles they see on television without having to do any real work to achieve them.
To them, Big Government means Mourdock and Akin dictating which rapist's babies need to be carried to term. It means old white guys preventing their gay and lesbian friends from getting married. It means government refusing to give them free birth control, because it wants to control their sexual behavior. It means politicians spending money on the military instead of the free health care the people "need".
We have a big problem with definitions. And with the fact that young Americans want the upper middle class lifestyles they see on television without having to do any real work to achieve them.
Let me state up front that I am liberal, not conservative. I might find it interesting to discuss/debate with you this hypothesis of massive fraud, if you are willing to have a civil debate with a liberal.
My main argument against the possibility of fraud of this scale is that Nate Silver, Sam Wang, Simon Jackman and other statisticians all used polling data to forecast the electoral college results with high accuracy. Sam Wang did this using statistical algorithms that are implemented in MatLab with code that he has published. The source polling data is from Simon Jackman’s pollster.com (now associated with Huffington Post) and that polling data is freely available to everyone. So, anyone who is proficient with MatLab can inspect his source code and documentation in order to understand the analysis, and independently verify the results.
This means that if the Obama campaign somehow committed large scale fraud, there must have been some collusion between the Obama campaign, the statisticians who created the forecasting models, and all of the polling organizations that created the datasets used by the statisticians.
It seems obvious to me that such large scale collusion can’t possibly be done without someone deciding to blow the whistle, but of course the same is true for various long-lived conspiracy theories.
The other side of the argument has already been articulated well by lacrew in post 41. There is a lot of evidence that Romney simply wasn’t a great candidate. It’s clear to me that many people wanted Obama to lose. It’s not so clear that there was a significant portion of the population that was genuinely excited by Romney in particular.
Obama’s biggest weakness was the economy. But polling data (both before the election and exit polls) make it pretty clear that Obama was able to convince half the country that he had handled the economy as well as he could under the circumstances.
So, to Kevin or anyone here who is inclined to think that large scale fraud is the only possible explanation for Romney’s loss, where are the weak links in the above arguments?
I agree with your analysis.
I weep for my childrens future.
wife and i wondering same thing before reading this post.
just how close were the swings?? we didnt stay up and look
at numbers state by state.
Mr. Jeeves came close to representing my views. I don’t want my government imposing religious beliefs on secular society. In particular I don’t want men defining policies that adversely affect women’s health.
I agree that young Americans want the upper middle class lifestyle. And I suppose it is true that many of these people only see that lifestyle on television, though in the SF Bay area they see that lifestyle all around them. I disagree with the notion that all these young people, or even a majority of them expect to be able to have that lifestyle without doing any real work. I see lots of young people working very hard to learn programming skills and trying to come up with an idea to turn into a startup.
Liberals were energized, everyone else was waiting for a reason to vote for Romney, but Romney just never delivered.
Ha! I tried to write it in a clear way to express that this is social theory, not my personal wish. In fact, I see that stage as terrifying because it means that we are very quickly turning into a 2nd world nation.
The course that this Government is heading toward is as old as man itself. And the manner in which a citizenry reacts is also already set in stone.
It’s just a matter of time unless the Government changes course.
Diax,
I’m happy that you’ve posted a statement. However, and with respect, your examples are anecdotal and I have equal examples to the contrary.
If you have a moment, please post your particular reasons for voting for Obama (i.e. his economic plan, his vision for Afghanistan, &c.).
As he laid out no specifics during his campaign I am curious if you, yourself, know - or if you are simply a Partisan voting on faith of Party.
Also, are you proud that Democrats are known as the Party of voter fraud? And if you are not, then would you be willing to help fix the problem? I have some organizations that I could turn you to.
Check a thread about 1 AM for a vanity.
Noamie,
Thanks for reaching out to have a discussion. I’m happy to try in good faith to have the discussion, but I can already sense before we begin that the discussion with be very difficult if we don’t acknowledge up front that we are coming from very different “world views” or “narratives”. Your conservative narrative includes not just strongly held beliefs about the correctness of various conservative ideals, values and policies. It also includes a distorted view of what the liberal narrative is. Your understanding of the liberal narrative comes not from what liberals themselves believe, but from what other conservatives believe about liberals.
And of course, the same is true to for me — my understanding of the conservative narrative is a distorted one. For example, whenever I take some time to listen to Bill O’Reilly, or Rush Limbaugh, or Sarah Palin, or Ann Coulter, I am continually thrown off-balance because they seem to be speaking with sincerity yet most of the claims they make seem at best to be only half-true.
Does what I have said here so far make sense? Do you agree that your understanding of my world view, my narrative, is at best a significant distortion of what I actually believe? I fully accept that my understanding of your conservative world view must also be likewise distorted.
If we can’t start the discussion with that basic agreement, then it seems to me that there is no point in having a discussion. Because otherwise we will both tend to reinterpret everything the other person says to fit our own distorted understanding.
To try to answer your requests, let me say that I am a secular humanist and highly value science as the best means of understanding truth about the world/universe. I believe that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender or race. I believe that our constitution is a brilliant but imperfect document. I believe that the United States is still the greatest country on earth, even though it is no longer the greatest country when measured on a variety of important metrics. I believe that the two party system and the electoral college are deeply flawed. I believe that congress now suffers from institutional corruption that seriously affects members of congress from both parties, but it affects the Republican party somewhat more than Democratic party because the GOP is more overtly pro business and pro upper class whereas the Dems are stronger advocates for the middle and lower class.
Given all of the above, Obama and the Democratic party are far better aligned with my beliefs and motivations than Romney and the Republican party. With the current state of two party politics in this country, I fully expect that every election will be one where I vote for “the lesser of two evils”. In this particular election, I didn’t hesitate to choose Obama.
Finally, let me say that if you think the Democratic party is “known as the party of voter fraud” then I strongly suspect that you get nearly all of your information from very conservative sources. Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters have been far more effective than any of the claims of Democratic vote fraud.
By the way, do you know what the “begging the question” fallacy is, and do you see how it applies to how you phrased your question about voter fraud?
Diax,
“Your understanding of the liberal narrative comes not from what liberals themselves believe, but from what other conservatives believe about liberals.”
In the first paragraph you make a crucial error that many Liberals make and is one reason I no longer vote Democrat/Liberal, but I will explain what and why.
I was raised in a liberal household in a predominately black, Democrat, liberal area. My Grandfather and parents are/were active in the Democrat Party; my Grandfather was elected to high state office twice as a Democrat. I have and am looking at several of his awards and announcements - some awarded and signed by Democrat governors - on my wall across from my desk.
To assume that I am Conservative simply because I don’t understand Liberalism “in its true form” is exactly the kind of presumptive arrogance that led me to believe that modern Liberalism is no longer liberal, introspective, wise, nor thoughtful.
I know your values, your world-view, your arguments, and even your fears as well as you probably do because I have been there on the ground level. I was born there and in my life I have made the very same arguments you make on a wide array of issues.
So, regrettably, we are unable to begin our discussion there as you had hoped, but I appreciate your trying.
However, using your own language - but with some editing - I will lead you closer to where I am now:
...let me say that I am a liberal Christian who is accepting of all faiths and beliefs (even agnosticism) and highly value science as the best means of understanding truth about the world/universe. I believe that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender or race. I believe that our Constitution is a brilliant, but imperfect document. I believe that the United States is still the greatest country on earth, even though other less great nations try to undermine its lead with misleading, unequal, and irrelevant metrics. I believe that the two party system is deeply flawed. The electoral college prevents mob rule and a radical third party candidate from assuming power as a minority of the vote and population. I believe that Congress now suffers from institutional corruption that seriously affects members of congress from both parties, but it affects (and is documented simply if you look at the number corruption indictments) the Democratic party the most. The GOP is more overtly pro business - large and small - and anti-classist. Whereas the Dems are stronger advocates for the upper, upper class (look at their donors) and use the poor, not to better their plight, but to keep them as loyal apparatchiks through the advocation of divisive propaganda. Much of which I have personally participated in myself in the past.
Lastly: Democrats own voter fraud and they need to stop. Fast. I know this for a fact. I have seen it in my lifetime. I now believe - in the strongest terms - that vote fraud is a coup and is treason. Violations should be treated as such. A nation that looses faith in the vote turns to violence.
What voter fraud and/or suppression have you witnessed from the Republican Party? (Assertion and presumption is not truth, experience, nor knowledge.)
Regardless, whether you agree with me on which Party is more culpable will you stand with me when I write that all voter fraud needs to be stopped?
Some possibly pedantic pearls of pee from an old war horse. You can listen, or not, it is up to you:
1. The Party lies. Everything it has told you is a lie.
2. Someone has to be in charge. However, most often the person who wants to be in charge is the very person who should never be and is the least qualified.
3. “Liberty” is the litmus. “More Freedom” is the answer I want to hear. It doesn’t matter which Party - if these words are not in their deeds and actions (forget speeches) then they are against them.
(By the way, limiting the size of a soda container is an epic fail on the road to Freedom and Liberty.)
4. If a man seems to be voting (as my close, Liberal friends say) “against his best interests” then pay attention. He probably knows more than you and is more concerned with critical Stage 3 thinking.
5. I could care less whether you believe in God or not, the Ten Commandments are still the best list of things to live by when personal catastrophe strikes. It’s easy to be a secular humanist when life is easy and the stores are full and open. When the SHTF it’s best not be near anyone who professes their own moral relativism.
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