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 Seaward wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:Eh? How do you figure never?

Because the GOP has not won the popular vote since 1988 and their voting base is rapidly dying of old age.

Did 2004 not exist in Canada or something?

Didn't you know? Bush lost the popular vote in Canada.

Jihadin wrote:Az...your going to die of old age to.

Sure hope so.

The point is that the GOP's ability to win the popular vote is rapidly dwindling as America naturally becomes more diverse and progressive. The current GOP platform of demonizing minorities and the poor is really not a long-term gameplan for success considering they tend to make more people poor, and the country is naturally moving away from the hard racial lines of the early 20th C.

Basically, I'm just saying that as long as the GOP continues to rephrase their message, they'll keep losing the popular vote. It's not the syntax they've got wrong, it's the message itself.

So really, though, did 2004 not exist in Canada?

 djones520 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If any state splits it should be California. North and South.

LA's stealing all the water we need for agriculture, they should have to pay for it through the nose. Although I'd personally rather they get cut off. Just enough to drink, let the lawns die.

LA has something like 150,000 gang members, They could just ride up and kill you all Mongol style.

150,000 gang bangers doing drive by's should kill 3 people. I'm sure the armed redneck population of Northern California would pick them off before they got within the 5' range they needed to be accurate.

The fault of your plan is that all the Northern California rednecks have moved to Texas, the Redneck Paradise.

The only thing standing between you and the Pomona Crips, are 10,000 bicycle shorts wearing mocha latte guys. Good luck!


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 Breotan wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:Eh? How do you figure never?

Because the GOP has not won the popular vote since 1988 and their voting base is rapidly dying of old age.

Did 2004 not exist in Canada or something?

Didn't you know? Bush lost the popular vote in Canada.

Having just returned from Toronto, what the hell happened to Tim Hortons? Its like Starbucks went all Mad Max on them. I only saw two and one of those was in the air port.
For the record Toronto Pearson sucks. You should know that.

 Seaward wrote:
So really, though, did 2004 not exist in Canada?

To be fair, even I voted for Bush in 2004. If they only winning strategy for the GOP is "lets hope the democrats run a horrible candidate" then they are in trouble.

(Looks at Biden)
Well actually...

 d-usa wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
So really, though, did 2004 not exist in Canada?

To be fair, even I voted for Bush in 2004. If they only winning strategy for the GOP is "lets hope the democrats run a horrible candidate" then they are in trouble.

If we get to attribute Bush's 04 victory to Kerry, then I think we can give Obama's 12 victory to the Romneytron 3000.

My overall point, though, was that declaring a party dead doesn't make it so. I remember Democrats doing their soul-searching and hair-alighting in '04, only to crush it in the midterms in '06. They found their way out of the wilderness pretty fast. It happens. Claiming electoral invincibility offends the gods, and they're going to punish you for it.

(My real overall point, though, was that claiming the Republicans haven't won the popular vote since 1988 is bs.)

Hey, I've been saying that 2012 was the Republicans to lose since 2010!

 Seaward wrote:
So really, though, did 2004 not exist in Canada?

According to them... guess so. To be honest, I think most American voters who voted for Bush in '04 game him a little bit of a mulligan due to 9/11 and the fact it's hard not to re-elect a president while US is at war.


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 Frazzled wrote:
(Looks at Biden)
Well actually...

Heh... lol... good point.

But, let's be honest guys, it's going to be Hillary.


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 d-usa wrote:
Hey, I've been saying that 2012 was the Republicans to lose since 2010!

Yep... you did.

Ah, Seaward, you're missing the fundamental difference there: the very definition of conservatism is to not change. And unless the GOP changes, they will never win the popular vote again. Therefore, the GOP will never win the popular vote again unless they cease to be the ultra-conservative party (with a dash of bigotry for flavour)

whembly wrote:But, let's be honest guys, it's going to be Hillary.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was Christie. Seriously.

Of course, if you eliminate the Electoral college, will we also get rid of state wide primaries?

How will parties select their candidates? If you get rid of state by state primaries, then you'll see more moderate GOP candidates get nominated.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:But, let's be honest guys, it's going to be Hillary.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was Christie. Seriously.

Really?

What makes you say that? Do you think he'll survive the primary? If Romney did... I guess Christie could.

As long as he keeps his bombastic Northeastern persona... he'd be cool with me. *shrugs*


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 Polonius wrote:
Of course, if you eliminate the Electoral college, will we also get rid of state wide primaries?

How will parties select their candidates? If you get rid of state by state primaries, then you'll see more moderate GOP candidates get nominated.

ding, ding!

We have a winner here!

Moderates in BOTH parties would have an easier chance of getting nominated/elected. (mean, if you open up the voting to everyone and not to just the primary voters.)

Good point Az. If Christie runs that be a Heck of a toss up. I like Hillary and I like Christie. I tend to edge towards Christie being that he shot down the bill in his state to ban the Berreta 50 call rifle. When have a Beretta 50 cal rifle (sniper) ever been used in a crime?

 Frazzled wrote:
(Looks at Biden)
Well actually...

 Seaward wrote:
My overall point, though, was that declaring a party dead doesn't make it so. I remember Democrats doing their soul-searching and hair-alighting in '04, only to crush it in the midterms in '06. They found their way out of the wilderness pretty fast. It happens. Claiming electoral invincibility offends the gods, and they're going to punish you for it.

I agree with you that the GOP is a long way from dead. The issue with the trend in demographics is a long term one - not one proved by a single presidential win that means the GOP will never win again. Right now the 2016 story is that the Democrats need to get their numbers out or they'll lose to the 50 million of GOP voters that turn up pretty consistently.

The issue is that while the GOP is pretty close to even with the Democrats right now, every two years they're going to drop behind by a little more until they do something to fix the problem. It's a problem that's going to make it noticeably harder for the GOP in the medium term, but probably won't be terminal for several decades. By that time the GOP will have acted, rebranded or refocused in some way, and hey maybe the Democrats will have too - politics is an unpredictable thing.

And the things is, you can't really deny this, because the GOP doesn't deny it either. Well, some parts of the GOP don't deny it, and that's why they've attempted all kinds of programs to win various minority groups over. They've shown fairly mediocre results so far, of course.

 Jihadin wrote:
Good point Az. If Christie runs that be a Heck of a toss up. I like Hillary and I like Christie. I tend to edge towards Christie being that he shot down the bill in his state to ban the Berreta 50 call rifle. When have a Beretta 50 cal rifle (sniper) ever been used in a crime?

Would have been an epic crime.

 Jihadin wrote:
Good point Az. If Christie runs that be a Heck of a toss up. I like Hillary and I like Christie. I tend to edge towards Christie being that he shot down the bill in his state to ban the Berreta 50 call rifle. When have a Beretta 50 cal rifle (sniper) ever been used in a crime?

People watch too much TV

I would like to see the primaries process shortened and the voting to happen like the general election. Everyone country wide, votes their primary ballot the same day across the country.

Less influence from some states going first, and a much less drawn out and more dynamic process overall.

Reminds me of the whole Nunavut thing we had here, still don't understand why we did that...

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:But, let's be honest guys, it's going to be Hillary.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was Christie. Seriously.

Really?

What makes you say that? Do you think he'll survive the primary? If Romney did... I guess Christie could.

As long as he keeps his bombastic Northeastern persona... he'd be cool with me. *shrugs*

I don't particularly like Christie that much, but if the liars-for-jesus camp can be convinced not to primary him out, he'll be the next president. However, if the likelihood of getting primary'd is high, I honestly could see him attempting to run on a D ticket.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I don't particularly like Christie that much, but if the liars-for-jesus camp can be convinced not to primary him out, he'll be the next president. However, if the likelihood of getting primary'd is high, I honestly could see him attempting to run on a D ticket.

He is nowhere near liberal enough to make it through a Democratic primary. Don't forget those operate just the same as Republican ones, with candidates having to play to the extremist base to get through.

Yeah, Obama is such a Commie.

 Seaward wrote:
He is nowhere near liberal enough to make it through a Democratic primary. Don't forget those operate just the same as Republican ones, with candidates having to play to the extremist base to get through.

While Democratic candidates have to position left for the primary and then lurch back to centre for the main election, they have to do this to a much lesser extent than Republicans.


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 azazel the cat wrote:
I don't particularly like Christie that much, but if the liars-for-jesus camp can be convinced not to primary him out, he'll be the next president.

That's a crazy big if. As I said at the start of the thread, Christie can't even get an invite to CPAC. And that's not an invite to speak... that's just an invite to attend. The more important conservative convention there is, the one with the famous strawpoll that's used to gauge the most likely Republican candidate, and they won't even let Christie attend.

I mean, to put it another way, remember how Jon Huntsman was the favourite among the moderate Republicans and people outside of the Republican party? Remember how that got him a nice bit of air time and pretty close to feth all votes? Yeah.

Not that Christie is the same kind of politician as Huntsman, they're opposites in a lot ways, but the problem is the same for anyone that doesn't have the proper tru-conservative bona fides.

However, if the likelihood of getting primary'd is high, I honestly could see him attempting to run on a D ticket.

In the current political climate switching tickets is near fatal for a low profile career politician. Trying to do it as part of a presidential bid is just not something that's can happen right now.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yeah, Obama is such a Commie.

Change his skin tone and Clinton would have kicked his head in. Lets get serious here.

 sebster wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
Did some quick math. If the listed counties seceded and formed their own state, Colorado would see a 6.5% drop in population, keeping it firmly in 22nd place for most populous state. The new state, on the other hand, would be firmly lodged in 51st place for population, at a whopping 340,000 people. I'm not even sure Colorado would lose one of its representatives to the House (too lazy to do math on who would get how many seats with 51 states).

Holy gak, seriously? The counties complaining are just 6.5% of the state's population? There's 6.5% of the population complaining they don't get properly heard?

I mean, I live in a place where the rural population is full of precious little martyrs, but I've never heard of anything like that.

Well, remember, democracy is always great - until the majority does something you don't like, or the minority does something to shake up the status quo.

I kind of think that it would not be a great move for "northern colorado", as their congressional representation would be utterly tiny ... but hey... if they really want to, and are willing to work for it. Go for it.

 Haight wrote:
Well, remember, democracy is always great - until the majority does something you don't like, or the minority does something to shake up the status quo.

Sort of, in some situations, but certainly not this one.

I mean, yeah, if the religious faith of 6.5% of the population was being banned, that'd be a big deal. But that's why you have constitutional protections for that kind of thing. The complaints from the people wanting their own state are more along the lines of 'someone else gets priority for the special issues over us'... which is, you know, welcome the world, whingers.

I kind of think that it would not be a great move for "northern colorado", as their congressional representation would be utterly tiny ... but hey... if they really want to, and are willing to work for it. Go for it.

They'd get two senators, giving the state the same senate power as California or Texas. The power each North Colorado voter would have would incredibly high.

 sebster wrote:
That's a crazy big if. As I said at the start of the thread, Christie can't even get an invite to CPAC. And that's not an invite to speak... that's just an invite to attend. The more important conservative convention there is, the one with the famous strawpoll that's used to gauge the most likely Republican candidate, and they won't even let Christie attend.

At some point, Christie should point out that, as of the next election, CPAC's straw poll winner has gone on to win the election 3 times in 40 years. As an institution, they're maybe a little flawed. I think he could win if given a chance.

Anyway, for our next state, I'd nominate Australia. I think our cultures mesh well, and this would give us excellent timezone coverage.

 Ouze wrote:
At some point, Christie should point out that, as of the next election, CPAC's straw poll winner has gone on to win the election 3 times in 40 years. As an institution, they're maybe a little flawed. I think he could win if given a chance.

Yeah, I'm not saying anything about the importance of the strawpoll result, but how many times was the winner of the Republican nomination completely excluded from the strawpoll? How many times has the winner not even been allowed to attend CPAC?

Anyway, for our next state, I'd nominate Australia. I think our cultures mesh well, and this would give us excellent timezone coverage.

I don't know about the rest of Australia, but at this point I'm pretty sure WA would agree to become the 51st state. In fact, given the deal we're getting from the Federal government right now, and the fact it won't change no matter who wins the election on Saturday, I'm pretty sure WA would agree to becoming a part of Hawaii.

I hate how people say america is a divided country, and the way to fix that is to divide us more.
Sometimes I think All of americans nee to go back to kindergarten to learn to share, We have to share with country, We should get the hell along

 sebster wrote:

 Haight wrote:
Well, remember, democracy is always great - until the majority does something you don't like, or the minority does something to shake up the status quo.

Sort of, in some situations, but certainly not this one.

I mean, yeah, if the religious faith of 6.5% of the population was being banned, that'd be a big deal. But that's why you have constitutional protections for that kind of thing. The complaints from the people wanting their own state are more along the lines of 'someone else gets priority for the special issues over us'... which is, you know, welcome the world, whingers.

I kind of think that it would not be a great move for "northern colorado", as their congressional representation would be utterly tiny ... but hey... if they really want to, and are willing to work for it. Go for it.

They'd get two senators, giving the state the same senate power as California or Texas. The power each North Colorado voter would have would incredibly high.

I was more joking than anything ... well, not really, but i meant the comment more to be funny than anything else.

Well, yes, but every state has 2 senators, so the senate vote is equal. Further, with the cap going from 100 to 102, each individual senators vote now becomes less. So each voter in a Northern Colorado would be extremely powerful in electing their senator, but their senators would be on a level playing field with all other senators, and with their addition, slightly less powerful than the previous 100 were each.

Rhode island is a good parallel. 2 senators, and not that many representatives (and i think it just went down..).

Rhode island is not the congressional equivalent of Mr. Burns steepling his fingers by any stretch of the imagination.

They'd have very few house of representatives votes however.

 Haight wrote:
I was more joking than anything ... well, not really, but i meant the comment more to be funny than anything else.

Oh, okay. Missed that, sorry

Well, yes, but every state has 2 senators, so the senate vote is equal. Further, with the cap going from 100 to 102, each individual senators vote now becomes less. So each voter in a Northern Colorado would be extremely powerful in electing their senator, but their senators would be on a level playing field with all other senators, and with their addition, slightly less powerful than the previous 100 were each.

Yeah, each senator would be less valuable, but where there used to be 5 million people in Colorado that elected 2% of the senators, there's now 300,000 people electing 1.96% of the senators. It's a massive increase in political influence for those people.