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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Romney's campaign came out and said outright that they are not going to let their campaign "be run by fact checkers". They have raised the art of dishonesty (the lie told often enough becomes the truth) to a level not seen in a long time.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"As he said, Tomu seems to have been the only person who understood my question. The people in this thread have been making some extremely dire predictions of the effect of a Romney presidency, including a new Great Depression, wars in the Middle East, mass poverty/death among the poor, etc. What I am asking is, what if none of that happens? What if in 3 years the economy is chugging along happily, the situation overseas is still relatively under control, and the American standard of living is still rising steadily?
In that situation, would you decide that maybe the case for more left-leaning policy wasn't as clear-cut as you'd thought, or would you rationalize it as being caused by some other factor, or would you explode in a Puff of Logic, or what?
It's not an especially serious question, just something that I've been wondering of late, as I tried to picture what this thread or its descendant would look like in a couple years.
<><I get the distinct impression Obama hasn't been lying more than he is simply because he doesn't need to. He's demonstrated throughout his presidency that he's willing to do really shady stuff when he thinks nobody's looking, but when his opponent is tarring and feathering himself this gratuitously it's pretty expedient to just sit back and let the public tear him to shreds while you dangle a few token carrots on a stick.
His campaign is to just let the far-right fringe self-immolate. It's not working quite as well as he'd hoped by virtue of Romney's base mostly falling into either willful delusion or outright corruption, but it's his best shot.
edited 31st Oct '12 4:03:40 PM by Pykrete
@EG: I've already outlined one possible scenario for that happening: Romney doesn't carry through with his fiscal conservative rhetoric and instead acts like Obama 2009. It's interesting to note, however, that his "12 million jobs" talking point is actually a composite of several projections of employment numbers under current policy, with a few extra things thrown in; it in no way reflects even those vague statements about his policy that Romney's been willing to make.
In other words, a normally functioning economy would generate 12 million jobs in 4 years regardless of what the President does.
But I doubt that's what you're asking. You're asking: what if Romney does all the fiscal con stuff he's promising, makes the rich richer in the name of "job creation" and the poor poorer in the name of "moral hazard", in true Reaganomics style, and the economy enters a boom?
As unlikely as that is, I have a feeling that economists like Krugman would be revising their models to see where they erred. I mean, the goal is full employment and utilization of production capacity. If Romney delivers that and can demonstrate that his policies are responsible, rather than taking credit for something that was going to happen anyway, then I'll be willing to reconsider my economic thinking.
I wouldn't put money on that, though. Every time someone's put money on the economy booming under a fiscal conservative this last century, they lost big.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@Grizzly: Well, I'll still be a liberal, considering that whether or not things get better under Romney won't change the fact that I see his many of his views as morally bankrupt.
It's much in the same way that things getting better under Obama hasn't stopped you from being conservative.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianWell, Grizz, it depends. If Romney wins and suddenly turns into a milquetoast who doesn't actually push for any of the things he's claimed to push for, I'll have to chalk it up to flip-flopping working in our favour. If he pushes all that stuff and things don't get worse, I'll be incredibly surprised, then I'll look at reasons why (and why not). Can't give more than a vague answer to such a general question.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Most of us are drawing these conclusions from the comments Romney and his surrogates have made. And as far as wars in the Middle East go, I'd be more willing to trust Romney on just being a shitty at-home president, repeating a larger scale version of his governorship, if he didn't immerse himself in Neo-Cons for his entire foreign policy campaign team. Most of whom are carry overs from the Bush Jr's administration.
Unless you're trying to argue Romney's just spewing blather, and is going to switch to another Romney if he gets in other.
If things chug along well during a Romney presidency, it ain't gonna be 'cuz of Romney, as far as I'm concerned. It's going to be due to a sane Congress, or someone did something fucking amazing in the private sector.
edited 31st Oct '12 4:13:24 PM by PotatoesRock
@Grizzly: If things worked out under Romney, I'd be glad they did. That's about it. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I don't want him to fail, I just think he will.
Whether that'd change my stances on economic policy depends on a number of things, namely what he actually does during his term and what else is going on at the time. I can't give a better answer than that because it's such a speculative question.
edited 31st Oct '12 4:14:27 PM by HilarityEnsues
@ Fighteer:
Personally, I think they only way that'll happen is with Total Economic Mobilisation due to some outside event, like World War III.
Keep Rolling On"What if in 3 years the economy is chugging along happily, the situation overseas is still relatively under control, and the American standard of living is still rising steadily?"
Yay? I'm sorry but it's sort of a useless question. We aren't arguing against his policies because we don't like them, we're arguing because we think they won't bring about those conclusions. If his policies succeed either are model of reality is wrong or something else is going on to influence the conclusion.
With economics it's especially hard to tie any success or failure to a certain policy as economics does not work that way. Raising the tax rate on the rich will not cause a mass exodus of millionaires and lowering their tax rate won't promote significant growth in the economy. The economy is made up of millions of variables doing a million things every single day. It's harder to predict then the weather because the weather doesn't suffer computer errors causing massive sell-offs for no fucking reason.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Another thing to note is that even if the economy is chugging along well and good, there would be no evidence that the policies of the president caused this nor that other policies couldn't have been better. This is true for a Romney presidency. This is true for an Obama presidency. This is true for a Stein presidency. Thus, even if the economy is fine after 4 years of a Romney presidency, I will still believe that left-wing policies are better. The same can be said about an economy that crashes.
@Grizzly: I figure one of two things will happen
either
1: Romney doesnt do anything he promised because he isnt stupid enough to do what his voterbase wants.
2: Romney supports everything his base wants and I likely dont get to finish my college degree, get no healthcare help, and likely die at a young age from overwork or terrible nutrition because I cant afford decent healthcare or food and opportunity doesnt exist in the midwest unless you kiss the asses of rich businessmen.
edited 31st Oct '12 5:01:11 PM by Midgetsnowman
Rommney wins: We'll be pretty much rehashing this thread word for word in four more years, when a Democrat challenger steps up.
Obama wins: We'll be pretty much rehashing this thread word for word in four more years, when both candidates are challengers.
Some specifics will be different, but a lot of the underlying things are going to remain the same, provided that neither party completely rewrites their methodologies and stated goals.
There will be mud-slinging. Both candidates will make lofty promises that they can't or won't keep. Both will lie. Both will exaggerate the truth. Both will rely on spin-artists. Both will pander to select segments of the population. Both will claim to be better than the other candidate.
They're Not So Different in a lot of ways. Obama tells the truth one out of five times. Rommney does it one in seven. That's not really that much different. 15% versus 22%? A five-percent error rate means that they could be identical.
edited 31st Oct '12 5:21:24 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Jill Stein has been arrested. Again.
Isn't this 95% of all politicians?
Regardless I put more weight on a candidates positions than there tactics. I mean look at LBJ and Goldwater, they slandered the crap out of each other.
edited 31st Oct '12 5:50:11 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016How Rick Scott And Rick Perry Could Cost Hospitals Billions
This thread will be closing on November 8, after a year and half of pretty interesting conversation.
What if we get another 2000 fiasco?
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Lying is a pretty terrible tactic now-adays actually. Sometimes lies get ingrained in the public consciousness but with the promotion of fact checking it's now harder then ever to actually get something off the ground.
Politifact has a page of Obama
and Romney
.
Looking at the raw data it would seem that Romney lies more often but it's probably more likely that his big lies get more air play.
The better metric is how truthful a candidate is. Obama leads in truthfulness by an incredibly depressing 22% of statements being true to Romney's 15%. Obviously you have to account for a certain amount of bias in anything and even if we swing a whole 5% either way Obama still has a high lead on simply stating facts.
edited 31st Oct '12 3:43:46 PM by thatguythere47
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?