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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I'd like to remind everyone that this topic is not about shaming people for their political beliefs. Well, people who participate in it, anyway.
edited 1st Nov '15 12:12:27 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There's a competitive House seat vacancy in Minnesota (just south of the Twin Cities) and the candidates have already spent $2 million on their campaigns. (Minnesota is a blue state, but the southern suburbs are somewhat conservative due to affluent white flight back in the day.)
http://tinyurl.com/ogztpaf
I question how much these big political ad campaigns actually affect anything. You need a certain amount of advertising to get your name out there and let people know what your positions are, but once that's accomplished, I'm not sure how more advertising is gonna sway people to your side.
What I was taught is that there are two kinds of ads: informative and perusasive. Informative ads let you know that a product exists, what it can do, where you can find it, and how much it'll cost. Persuasive ads, while they may contain some information, most focus on convincing you to buy this particular product instead of a competing brand.
Perusasive ads work best when there's little objective difference between different brands of the same product. Think of Coke vs. Pepsi. In terms of flavor, price, and nutritional content, they're virtually identical. So when someone's out shopping for a soft drink, they have no rational reason for picking Coke over Pepsi or Pepsi over Coke; that decision is made based (essentially) on a whim. And its that sort of whim that persuasive ads are good at shifting in the direction that the advertisers want.
But politicians aren't like Coke and Pepsi; there are very real and substantive differences between political candidates. Maybe in a primary race candidates' platforms could be similar enough that voters see little difference between them. But when it comes to the big Democrat vs. Republican showdown, trying to make someone change who they're voting for is like trying to convince someone who lives in an apartment to buy a lawn mower: no matter how slick the ad campaign is, they're just not in the market for what you're selling.
These days, asking me to choose between Republicans and Democrats is like asking me whether I'd rather contract cancer or AIDS. And unfortunately, no third-party candidate has a snowball's chance in Hell...
Just for the record, I'm registered Non-Partisan/No Affiliation.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Former Senator Fred Thompson has passed away at 77.
edited 1st Nov '15 3:21:57 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."![]()
I'd hardly say the difference between Trump and Sanders (or even Clinton) is so little, it's only so little for people already in a comfortable place who don't need Ombamcare, don't need welfare, don't need reproductive rights, don't need minority rights, and don't need workers rights.
He could be arguing that both sides are too extreme.
Ironically, "both sides are too similar" and "both sides are too radically different" are both equally common complaints about the two party system.
Leviticus 19:34The AIDS-Cancer comparison clearly indicates that he thinks I they'll both as horrible as each other, which is something I'm sure the people in this is thread who like the things sited would disagree on.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIMO, the major political parties have become so polarized and so dead-set against each other, there seem to be no moderates anymore, and no room for compromise. Whenever the balance of power shifts from one party to the other, they spend the next year or so trying to undo everything the previous administration did.
You may disagree with me all you like. I simply don't see any party that I'd bother joining. And by the way, I'm only referring to parties, not individual candidates.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Have you got a political fallacy bingo card or something? Because you've managed both "they're the same and both horrible" and "they're just mirror images of each other that want to do political partisan things and undo what the other did".
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Hey, I'd love for you to prove me wrong. But can you do that? I mean, with verifiable facts and a well-reasoned argument, rather than just nay-saying my views? I admit that I'm rather ignorant about politics in general, but I simply can't get too deeply into the subject without becoming totally disgusted and suddenly feeling the need for a shower.
Although he likes to call himself a Democratic Socialist, I'm not even sure that Sanders is that left wing by American standards (I mean it really depends on who you consider Moderate).
I'm trying to think of a good way to put this, but I'd also say that besides his being more pro-gun than most Democrats, Sanders also kind of positions himself generally as appealing to working class (read white) voters. I mean I'm not saying that he's racist (and in fact he supports what I guess I'd call "racial justice" policies, but it's not a coincidence that Black Lives Matter targeted him, and to some degree, I think he is courting the votes of voters who are racist.

Yeah-I mean, what you're complaining about is a concern OTHER countries might legitimately have, but one of the small benefits of being a Superpower is that your political corruption is all locally grown, here in the US of A.