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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Lepage won with 48% of the vote, which is par for course; his two opponents added up to 51% and change, with the independent sapping 8.4% for himself even after he tacitly endorsed the Democrat. Depending on the breakdown, ranked-choice voting would have had a good chance of giving Lepage the boot and making him a one-termer.
edited 26th Dec '16 11:23:05 AM by ViperMagnum357
An exit poll suggested most of Cutler' voters would have had Michaud as their second choice; with Lepage failing to break 50%, ranked-choice voting with perhaps 85-90% crossover would have dumped Lepage without a runoff. Post-2012 Republicans tend to have very low favorability outside their core base, while most third parties outside the Libertarians and Federalists tend to lean Democrat when push comes to shove.
edited 26th Dec '16 11:42:29 AM by ViperMagnum357
Indirectly, with some of the support for Big Government split between the Democrats by default, and others making a push at the state level with the goal of moving upwards; playing into the hands of the GOP at a time when a united front is necessary to curb their horrid platform. The end result is whatever groundswell getting fractured before takeoff, with stuff like this [1]
becoming more common.
...??? I was referring to the grassroots "Federalist" movements today, including basic big government types scattered throughout the Democrats, and several factions that have coalesced at the state and municipal levels after the perceived failure of the DNC to rein in the Tea Party. Some of them have abandoned the Democratic coalition and stand in opposition to them, and are focusing efforts below the national level in order to unseat both parties.
In the long term, unlikely to happen without splintering the Democrats into several factions, and in the short term undercutting unified resistance to Republican dominance across the board. There has been a lot of noise since Trump was confirmed as candidate, and the article I linked to above is a taste of what may come soon. Abandoning the fight for Congress and the White House in favor of building from the ground up makes the dangerous assumption you will not be locked out of office in the meantime.
I was referring specifically to the elements in those movements that have gotten fed up with failings both real and perceived by the current parties; fracturing now risks leaving us with another Green Party, a spoiler that has to carve out a niche to the expense of mostly Democrat bases to gain a voice-and doing the GOP's work for them.
edited 26th Dec '16 3:52:53 PM by ViperMagnum357
The Guardian: Julian Assange gives guarded praise of Trump and blasts Clinton in interview
Relevant quote from the article:
This confirms the only thing transparent about Assange is his being a Kremlin puppet.
edited 26th Dec '16 4:47:54 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV![]()
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You will need to be more specific-the scattered groups I am referring to are preexisting elements, mostly within the democratic party, that have made increasing noise about the current direction of neoliberalism and advocate a fundamental overhaul. I lumped them in with the Libertarians because their current aims will inadvertently align with the goals of the GOP, rendering them as part of the problem long before they get their solution.
Not to be confused with "New Federalism", which was a fresh coat of paint Reagan slapped on State's Rights as part of his overhaul of the Republican Party. The article I linked dates back to March, and was simply one more voice among several splitting the Democrat base with little to no gain within immediate reach.
edited 26th Dec '16 4:59:52 PM by ViperMagnum357
First, getting rid of Political Parties overall would be a good move, removing blind Party faith, and forcing people to actually research what each candidate stands for.
You're grossly overestimating the average voter, then. Most voters won't bother doing any research beyond the superficial campaign promises and maybe debates, if that. One of the benefits of political parties is that they serve a similar purpose to chain restaurants. You don't always need to have eaten at a specific location to have a good idea of what you're getting if you're familiar with another. The vast majority of the population is politically illiterate, and having convenient parties that they can look at and say "Yeah, that mostly sounds like what I'm for," lets them make a more educated decision than what they would without political parties, which is to vote for whoever the most charismatic candidate is.
The problem we're facing is not that political parties exist, but that one party has spent the last few decades radicalizing its base through fear, hate, and ignorance to vote for them religiously, and is now losing the reigns to people who earnestly believe in the propaganda the party knowingly seeded them with.
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Just read that snippet myself. Well, not that that will change the mind of Malaysian tankies RT viewers.
Trump does not actually have a plan to defeat Daesh
. Gingrich is going to spend a while prostrate for this...
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Are we going to have to spend the next 8 pages watching you continuously moving the goalposts again?
edited 26th Dec '16 5:04:22 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotSeries Of Numbers: That won't happen if the government is Kremlin friendly. Only when it's anti-Russia, and Trump's definitely pro-Russia, so Assange won't inform shit.
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVI mean, I guess if he wanted to maximize the amount of corruption in our government to inform us of, he made the right call in working to tear down Hillary and giving Trump a free pass.
But more seriously, fuck Assange, he clearly has no interest in the best interests of America or its people and will likely continue to only release information that serves the interests of nations that seek to undermine democracy.
Honestly, if you can read a post that mentions Assange praising Trump what you get out of it is 'he's letting us know about corrupt in government', then, well, I'm forced to question the amount of effort you put into having an informed opinion about corruption in government. And if you're not interested any putting effort into that, I dunno why you'd consider that a silver lining about Assange.
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...Do you mean do we believe what he says, that he believes what he says, or that he can say it with a straight face? I don't believe a thing he says, and if he said the sky was a certain color I would go get a second opinion. I believe he can say the things he does because he is either under someone's thumb or legitimately detached from reality-call it a coinflip on that last one.

Doesn't count the free advertising that Trump got from the press though.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran