Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

dogma wrote:

TheHammer wrote:
It's baffling. How could someone think Gingrich is a viable candidate while not giving Romney a chance without his Mormonism being an issue?

Mormonism isn't the issue, at least not the heart of it. The issue is that Gingrich is willing (and able) to sell himself using soaring, populist rhetoric while Romney is not.

Mormonism is part of the problem, but only in the primaries where the Christian block matters a little more. Romney's real problem though is that he's too moderate for the current republican party. He's had to flip flop on several of his positions to appear more conservative and people are noticing.

So has Newt, but the difference I suppose is that newt isn't romney so they're ignoring it.

biccat wrote:Every time I worry about the current slate of Republican candidates I look at the opposition and am immediately heartened.

I've said it before, the Republicans could win this election with a cardboard cutout.

Of course, this assessment is predicated only on the level-headed consideration of electoral indicators as determined by the comparative analysis of past Presidential elections, particularly those featuring unpopular incumbents, and not in any way shaped by the partisan leanings of the poster in question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:So has Newt, but the difference I suppose is that newt isn't romney so they're ignoring it.

Its interesting because, socially, Romney is notably more conservative than Gingrich, who largely hand-waves the issue, or at least has done so historically. That being said, Gingrich's emphasis on economic issues likely plays well in the current political climate, especially since Romney's conservative economic platform is a relatively recent invention of his campaign.

It isn't so much that Romney changed his mind, as he actually took an explicit position where previously he had avoided committing to any particular side of the ideological battle regarding the role of the state in the economy.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:Every time I worry about the current slate of Republican candidates I look at the opposition and am immediately heartened.

I've said it before, the Republicans could win this election with a cardboard cutout.

Of course, this assessment is predicated only on the level-headed consideration of electoral indicators as determined by the comparative analysis of past Presidential elections, particularly those featuring unpopular incumbents, and not in any way shaped by the partisan leanings of the poster in question.

You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

biccat wrote:

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:Every time I worry about the current slate of Republican candidates I look at the opposition and am immediately heartened.

I've said it before, the Republicans could win this election with a cardboard cutout.

Of course, this assessment is predicated only on the level-headed consideration of electoral indicators as determined by the comparative analysis of past Presidential elections, particularly those featuring unpopular incumbents, and not in any way shaped by the partisan leanings of the poster in question.

You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

"Economic indicators"
"Various measures"
"Not just what you hear rush say every fifteen seconds"

Adorable.

mattyrm wrote:Isn't that just the opinion of some pretty right leaning Republicans? I always thought he was apparently a super racist, eternally dishonest bastard of a man?

I thought the general consensus was that he was extremely intelligent and helped things along with regards to the commies and such, but he was morally lacking in pretty much every department?

I suppose it's all down to your definition of a good president as well. I mean, I can see the point that he was a good one because he did the job pretty good, but if he was an absolute toilet of a human being I cant happily say that he was "one of the better ones" because.. well.. its a happy medium between the two isn't it?

Like Clinton was only half the jerk he was, and he did as good a job as a president didn't he?

Although, its my missus who sings his praises.. and she has a heavy democrat bias.

Although I vote for Republicans on occasion, I definitely don't think I could accurately be called a Republican. I skew liberal in general. That being said, your middle part accurately depicted how I feel about Nixon. His moral compass was sort of skewed, sure. But here's what I liked about him:

He ended Vietnam
He started to reduce nuclear proliferation
He wanted universal healthcare (but couldn't get it done, settling for some elements of it)
He visited China, a diplomatic first
He formed OSHA
He created the EPA
Supported the Clean Water Act
Supported the Equal Rights Amendment

He personally didn't like black people, but pushed desegregation hard. He didn't like Jews, but airlifted arms to Israel. I'm not a big supporter of Israel currently, but that's because I feel they can adequately defend themselves without our interference. Definitely a different situation in 1973. In short, the man had enormous personal failings, but still managed to get a tremendous amount of things done in a relatively short timespan, and I respect the job he did if not the person he was.

We should probably start a new thread if we want to talk about Nixon, though.

biccat wrote:
You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

Alright, let's break this down.

Economic indicators:

This is probably the most interesting means of determining the feasibility of a given President's reelection bid, though it isn't quite so clear cut as it seems. First of all, the two most important statistics, relative to electoral politics, are unemployment and CPI, everything else can essentially be ignored.

Speaking first to unemployment, while the figures under Obama have been high, they are not unprecedented. Reagan presided over a similar increase in unemployment, peaking at 9.7% in 1982, that did not fully abate until he left office in 1988. Indeed, he faced reelection with unemployment at 7.51%, which, while likely below what Obama will see, speaks to the manner in which notable drops in unemployment can positively impact a Presidential bid; especially when your opponent is a "cardboard cutout" like Goldwater.

Concerning CPI there has been no significant change, relative to inflation, over Obama's term in office, so it indicates nothing.

Presidential approval:

Obama's latest weekly approval average was, according to Gallup, 43%. This is lower than all recent Presidents except Carter. However, incumbent candidates generally see a 3-5% increase in their approval ratings following the close of the opposition primary, and it is not unheard of for sitting Presidents to win their bid for a second term despite sub-50% approval, a fact which must be granted consideration given that Obama is currently polling ahead of all Republican contenders when presented with a mock vote; even Rasmussen, who traditionally produce results skewed towards the GOP, only has Romney leading by 3 points. Further consider that the President with the approval pattern most similar to Obama's, Gerald Ford, managed to be only narrowly defeated by Carter, and the picture looks more like a close election than one which will be carried by a "cardboard cutout".

Public Confidence in Government:

Historically, public confidence in government (or trust in government, depending on the methodology you prefer) has little effect on the Presidential election. Note that both Richard Nixon and the second Bush secured reelection despite presiding over periods of falling public confidence in the state, and that Carter and the first Bush failed to do the same despite rising confidence, and high, stable confidence respectively.

dogma wrote:Ultimately it doesn't matter anyway, as I sincerely doubt young Newt intends to do anything substantive vis a vis Israel-Palestine if elected.

Well, if he won office he'd certainly do one thing, maintain the US's constant and absolute support to Israel no matter what they do.

As opposed to (some) Democratic presidential candidates, who make speaches about resolving the issue and hint ever so slightly at making US support of Israel something other than completely unconditional... before winning office and doing exactly what every Republican presidential candidate does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mattyrm wrote: What I cannot fathom, is that a nation of over 300 million people cant rustle up a single nominee for the Republicans who isnt an absolute prick.

Thing is, there's a series of arbitrary criteria that have to be met for someone to be considered electable to the Presidency, and the same apply to both sides.

The biggest filter is that they have to have just finished their second term as governor, be in their second term as governor, or be a senator from one of the bigger states. These are the only people with the connections to raise a proper war chest capable of sustaining a national presidential election. Consider Herman Cain here, despite leading polls for some time and raising all kinds of media interest, his war chest was never going to sustain a primary run, let alone a presidential race. So we're looking at about 70 people total that could potentially run for president for either party.

The second criteria is that you have to have some kind of position on national matters. They don't have to be sensible, they just have to sound not completely stupid. Of that list of 70 people, maybe half are capable of this, leaving us with about 35 people who could seriously run in a primary with a chance of winning.

Then you have to 'look presidential', having that kind gravitas and strength of personality that makes people take you seriously, even if they hate you, they have to admit you're a person of power and authority. Consider Fred Thompson, who was for a brief time seriously considered as a 2008 presidential nominee, despite having a political career full of exactly zero achievements, just because he really, really looked like a president. Basically think of this being everything Bobby Jindal doesn't have. This category would cut out about 90% of people, but the people who won senate seats and governorships contain a pretty high proportion of people who look presidential, so it maybe cuts out another third, leaving us with about a dozen people).

Lastly, you can't be damaged goods. This might mean a political scandal, but just as often it means not losing a previous presidential election, nor coming really close to winning a primary (though Republicans seem a lot more forgiving in that regard that Democrats). Still, it knocks out about another third of candidates, leaving us about eight people.

Thing is, when you get eight people, picked not on their capability for actually being president, but just by the rules of a very silly game, it's pretty much luck if one or two of them could actually conceivably be any good in the role. Consider the woeful Democratic field in 2004, that ended up picking John Kerry, despite him being absolutely nobody's first choice for President. Without anything really major changing, the next Democratic field had Obama and Clinton, who were both solid choices.

It's just luck. This time around the Republicans got poor luck, and are likely to end up with their own version of John Kerry, Mitt Romney. To their credit, they're desperate to pick anyone but Mitt Romney, but it isn't going to happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wolfstan wrote:How is JFK viewed nowadays? Has his time in office been turned into some kind of ideal myth or was he a great President? If so, what happened to that mould?

The way I see, every Democrat was desperate to consider JFK a really great president, because they didn't want to go pre-war to start talking about the last great president, and Johnson didn't win office of his own, and Carter had, well, the Carter presidency, so it had to be JFK as the shining light of everything that's good in the world.

Except the Democrats have since has Clinton, so now they don't need JFK anymore.

It's like the Republicans with Reagan, they don't want to go all the way back to Eisenhower to talk about a president that was any good, so instead they pretend Reagan did the stuff that Eisenhower did.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:Every time I worry about the current slate of Republican candidates I look at the opposition and am immediately heartened.

I've said it before, the Republicans could win this election with a cardboard cutout.

If only they had someone as electable as a cardboard cutout.

sebster wrote:
Well, if he won office he'd certainly do one thing, maintain the US's constant and absolute support to Israel no matter what they do.

As opposed to (some) Democratic presidential candidates, who make speaches about resolving the issue and hint ever so slightly at making US support of Israel something other than completely unconditional... before winning office and doing exactly what every Republican presidential candidate does.

To be fair, its gotten to be so that even referring to Jewish people as Jews, and noting that Jewish people are different from non-Jewish people, is considered antisemitic by a large chunk of the voting populace. God forbid actual criticism follow either point.

sebster wrote:If only they had someone as electable as a cardboard cutout.

the ones that are won't play ball. Like this guy.

What happened to electing generals?
I hear Stanley McChrystal is available.

AustonT wrote:the ones that are won't play ball. Like this guy.

Yeah, he falls foul of the political scandal thing. Not for anything he's done, but you know, it's hard to distance yourself from that other guy.

What happened to electing generals?
I hear Stanley McChrystal is available.

Good question. Coming from over here I have an immediate freak out at the idea of military officers moving into civilian politics, but you guys don't have that reaction, and at the end of the day the last general who moved into the Whitehouse was the last really good Republican president.

It's an ever weirder thing that you don't worry about electing generals anymore, considering how much of an advantage it is for a candidate to have military experience.

sebster wrote:
It's an ever weirder thing that you don't worry about electing generals anymore, considering how much of an advantage it is for a candidate to have military experience.

Most US generals cum President were associated with the Civil War, the Revolution, or WWII.

Generals only tend to get elected given extraordinary circumstances.

Edit: I forgot a ton of early Presidents that were also Generals.

dogma wrote:

sebster wrote:
It's an ever weirder thing that you don't worry about electing generals anymore, considering how much of an advantage it is for a candidate to have military experience.

The last general we elected was Eisenhower, and that was on the back of WWII. Prior to that we had Grant (Civil War), Jackson (Revolution, 1812), and Washington (Revolution).

Generals only tend to get elected given extraordinary circumstances.

Did you intentionally skip Taylor, Garfield,W.H. Harrison,Hayes,Pierce, Johnson, Arthur, and B. Harrison?

What happened to electing generals?
I hear Stanley McChrystal is available.

Colin Powell runs he's got my vote

I would vote for him too. He always seemed one of the most sensible and moderate of the Republican crew of that time.

...

biccat wrote:Every time I worry about the current slate of Republican candidates I look at the opposition and am immediately heartened.

I've said it before, the Republicans could win this election with a cardboard cutout.

Frankly a cardboard cutout could avoid screwing up 50% of the time. I fear thats a far higher rate than the current candidates and holder of the office can do.

Frazzled wrote:Frankly a cardboard cutout could avoid screwing up 50% of the time. I fear thats a far higher rate than the current candidates and holder of the office can do.

Precisely.

A cardboard cutout would at least know when to keep their mouths shut (or, if their mouth is permanently open, at least no when not to say anything).

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Frankly a cardboard cutout could avoid screwing up 50% of the time. I fear thats a far higher rate than the current candidates and holder of the office can do.

Precisely.

A cardboard cutout would at least know when to keep their mouths shut (or, if their mouth is permanently open, at least no when not to say anything).

I think we may have just found the greatest politician of our time

biccat wrote:
You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

Screw it, Ill put my money where my mouth is!

Ill have 50 bucks says Obama pisses the next election because the Republicans cant get anyone who isn't a trainwreck. And I'm unbiased, I desperately wanted McCain to win last time until he picked/was forced to take that fething.. thing as VP.

Whaddya say? With paypal we can gamble internationally!

Unless your anywhere near California, then I can probably nip round and drop it off sometime as long as you buy me a can of Tecate.

If you take the bet Im writing to Michelle Bachman and asking her to run as VP with a giant talking animatronic fetus.

biccat, I'm willing to bet a 40k battleforce or Fantasy battalion that a Republican will not win in 2012 for president. I'm serious, send me a message and we can work out the details.

mattyrm wrote:

biccat wrote:
You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

Screw it, Ill put my money where my mouth is!

Ill have 50 bucks says Obama pisses the next election because the Republicans cant get anyone who isn't a trainwreck. And I'm unbiased, I desperately wanted McCain to win last time until he picked/was forced to take that fething.. thing as VP.

I'd be careful with that, Matty. I don't know how slowly moving election momentum is in the UK, but in the US it changes pretty fast. In December 2007, it was clear that the election would be a narrow Hillary Clinton win over Rudy Giuliani.

Calling biccat:
You have two people willing to place bets with you!

Or do you not truly believe the things you say?

Ouze wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

biccat wrote:
You're right. Looking at economic indicators, presidential approval polls, and various measures of public confidence in the government, President Obama is looking at a single term.

Screw it, Ill put my money where my mouth is!

Ill have 50 bucks says Obama pisses the next election because the Republicans cant get anyone who isn't a trainwreck. And I'm unbiased, I desperately wanted McCain to win last time until he picked/was forced to take that fething.. thing as VP.

I'd be careful with that, Matty. I don't know how slowly moving election momentum is in the UK, but in the US it changes pretty fast. In December 2007, it was clear that the election would be a narrow Hillary Clinton win over Rudy Giuliani.

Well, Hilary and Obama went pretty close, and Hilary would have equally pissed it against McCain/Palin, so my bet still looks pretty secure. I really cant see the Republicans whipping anybody up in time. Unless someone just appears who we have heard nothing from like Powell or Condi or something.

What the hell is she doing anyway's? I bet she would do a good job, plus she is a woman, in fact why didnt McCain/Rice go for it? Id have happily voted for those two and im sure an enormous amount of Americans would. McCains chances only vanished after Sarah "the walking abortion" Palin showed up.

Matty lad...talk to wife to make sure you can cover down on bet incase you lose. I rather argue with a bunch of afghani truck drivers that has me surrounded that deal with my wife when she "rolls" with rightous fury

Jihadin wrote:Matty lad...talk to wife to make sure you can cover down on bet incase you lose. I rather argue with a bunch of afghani truck drivers that has me surrounded that deal with my wife when she "rolls" with rightous fury

Ancient Buddha say: even the devil not with angry fish wife ***shudder***

Jihadin wrote:Matty lad...talk to wife to make sure you can cover down on bet incase you lose. I rather argue with a bunch of afghani truck drivers that has me surrounded that deal with my wife when she "rolls" with rightous fury

The long haired colonel is known amongst soldiers the world over for her incandescent rage.

I mean, she only weighs 105lbs, think I could take her out pretty easily, but dispatching her with a throat punch is shunned in Western nations, whereas Kung-fu kicking an Afghan in the neck brings whoops of delight to all who gaze upon it.

So it may be more of a fear of society as a whole on mental grounds, rather than lacking confidence in my ability to toss some phosphorus grenades into the master bedroom and spray into the smoke with machine gun.

dogma wrote:Most US generals cum President were associated with the Civil War, the Revolution, or WWII.

Generals only tend to get elected given extraordinary circumstances.

Funny that as the military has gotten bigger and bigger, generals have become less likely to be president. Think it'd be the opposite.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jihadin wrote:Colin Powell runs he's got my vote

It's a shame that the guy who's career got truly s***canned by the Bush administration was the guy who had the most to offer.

Didn't Colin Powell do it himself when he said he'd vote for Obama? Was there something before that that I missed?

dogma wrote:To be fair, its gotten to be so that even referring to Jewish people as Jews, and noting that Jewish people are different from non-Jewish people, is considered antisemitic by a large chunk of the voting populace. God forbid actual criticism follow either point.

It is weird, true. It's funny to read Israeli experts on the Palestine issue, and whether they're conciliatory or expansionist, they're at least coming at the issue from a position of knowledge, and there's nothing off-bounds when it comes to discussing it. Which to be frank is really impressive, when you consider how sensitive it would be to them to discuss it. Whereas Americans have a whole host of weird hang-ups, you can't say that Israelis are mostly Jewish, you can't point out that Jews undertook their own terror campaign to win Israel in the first place, it's very strange.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:Frankly a cardboard cutout could avoid screwing up 50% of the time. I fear thats a far higher rate than the current candidates and holder of the office can do.

It's why I think you guys just need to get rid of all the voting nonsense and put zombie Roosevelt* in the Whitehouse. He's dead so he can't feth anything up, and no country is going to mess with you because they'll be all 'holy fething gak they've put a corpse in a chair and every year they have a state of the union and it's just everyone sitting there staring at a fething corpse for twenty minutes we are not fething with those guys'.





*If forced to pick which Roosevelt, it's probably better to go with FDR, just because there's chance Teddy isn't really dead, but is just pissed off and waiting for whoever is stupid enough to dig him up.