Rant: Ron Paul/Rand Paul- 2016 and this previous election.

[XgrimX]

This is my rant about what happened to the republican/conservative vote this past election including the primaries and more. If you don't agree with me that's fine. I just want to get a few things off my chest.

First off this primary season when Mitt Romney won the so called "Primary" they really dicked Ron Paul and most of his supporters over. Ron Paul did very well in many states with a base of around 20 to sometimes 40% of the vote. I personally voted for Ron Paul and think that he is the "Voice of Reason" over anyone else. Guess that is just my opinion. Opinions are like assholes everyone has one and they all stink.

Anyways after the "Primaries" were over they focused on Mitt Romney which in my opinion is a joke of a candidate. I admit I got on the Mitt Romney train because I can't stand Obama. Like I said, my opinion. So during the RNC they denied Ron Paul a speaking slot, fucked him over during the primaries, made fun of his "rational" views on shit and more. Rand Paul got a speaking slot and "Endorsed" Mitt Romney if you call it that.

Here it is. Election time- Republicans think they have it in the bag and don't need the independent vote to beat Obama until they do their "Internal Polls" and realize. Oh shit we fucked up by not putting Cain/Paul/Rand on any ticket, etc.

I guess my rant is about how the republicans could have walked away with a victory just by doing one thing. Not fucking over a person who has a VAST independent base because you are "Going to Win" and Obama has no chance.

Furthermore, Rand Paul has already said he is running in 2016. I think they will give him more respect than his father and I will definitely be rooting for him in the Primaries. It's just really unfortunate that this could have all been avoided and we could have had a voice of "Reason" instead of a robot like Mitt Romney as the republican Candidate. I guess it's just funny how they were really looking for that independent voting base the last month or so of the election because I think it would have been a shitload better for them.

If you don't agree with me that's fine. Just have to get a few things off my chest and to be quite honest my wife doesn't have time to listen because she studies like a boss....

[Reiker000]

Ron Paul wasn't very popular with traditional conservatives, despite absolutely mercing Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum in the debates. However, these are the older, generally undereducated, churchgoing types that plague the gop.

Barack Obama resonates with younger voters, minorities, and the lower & middle class. Republicans really needed a candidate that was on Obama's level. Even Obama's own supporters were becoming a bit disenfranchised with what he was doing the past 4 years. The gop really needed a candidate that appealed to these groups of people to not only win over some of the the "Obama crowd," but also get the votes from the above mentioned conservative folk who pretty reliably stay out of politics other than watching some Fox News and checking every Republican box every 4 years.

Instead, they chose Mitt Romney.

Republicans only had themselves to blame for carrying such a lousy candidate. This election was nearly handed to them on a platter and they were like "Nah... we'll take this Romney guy instead, thanks."

Personally, I probably would have supported Ron Paul over Obama. Not because I'm in 100% agreement with his agenda and policies (neither am I with Obama), but because he's a very intelligent person who I feel for the most part can lead the country in the right direction. I'm sure there were at least a few million other people like me who would have made a big impact in the swing states. If Romney did this well while such a low % of the minority/young/female vote, imagine what Ron Paul could have accomplished.

[Daldolma]

Problem: Republicans lose election because they get destroyed in the minority votes.

Solution: run a candidate that has published virulently racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic literature.

If Ron Paul ever gets the Republican nomination (which he won't), the Republican party will have to spend the next decade doing damage control for the spotlight the national media will put on his newsletters. And rightfully so.

[Lazortag]

Here it is. Election time- Republicans think they have it in the bag and don't need the independent vote to beat Obama until they do their "Internal Polls" and realize. Oh shit we fucked up by not putting Cain/Paul/Rand on any ticket, etc.

I hope the Cain you're referring to is not of the Herman variety.

[Tanthallas]

Gold Standard lol

[Lexical]

Gold Standard lol

this

[Black Jesus]

ya lol gold standard besides the fact every fiat currency has destroyed itself (and look at history repeating death of the dollar any day now) and the societies always go back to gold.

[Tanthallas]

Look at history in the future?

Cool bro.

[Black Jesus]

its 410 ladies and gentlemen, we're about to collapse

i know, i know, you don't care about the lessons of history, don't know about rome falling to alaric the visigoth leader, but you better learn history this is dangerous

the globalist social engineers look at you, and how pathetic you are, how you don't know anything, and how youre obsessed with justin bieber and lebron james, and they say we got a buncha shmucks, a buncha morans, lets destroy their society, lets loot it, lets pass carbon taxes, expand nafta and gatt, get rid of the dollar as the world reserve currency

DO you know what happens when they get rid of the dollar? We've already lost most of our industry. You will be a 3rd world slave like they are in mexico or nigeria, but those people at least know why theyre slaves. You people are so stupid, and so focued on crap, you'll still be talking about lindsay lohan as your homeless on the streets

[Orruar]

Ron Paul wasn't very popular with traditional conservatives, ...

Agree with most of the rest of what you said, but here I think you consider traditional conservatives as equal to social conservatives. There are also many of us that are fiscal conservatives that would consider ourselves conservatives. There are also non-interventionists, who look for a more conservative foreign policy. And considering Ron Paul focused primarily on economic issues and foreign policy, I'm not sure how you could say he wasn't popular with conservatives. He also won the CPAC (Conservative PAC) straw polls in 2010 and 2011.

Also, his social policy views weren't strictly conservative, but they were probably moreso than Romney. Keep in mind that many of the religious folks of this country, who you would probably label as social conservative, don't necessarily think the government should be the entity to fight things like drug use.

Old people who want more money spent on government programs that benefit them (medicare and ss) may call themselves conservatives, but there's nothing conservative about supporting these programs.

[Black Jesus]

heres one of the headlines today u moran fucks

Fiscal Cliff Worries Drive Gold to $1,731 | $1,600 territory likely a thing of the past.

[Orruar]

heres one of the headlines today u moran fucks

Fiscal Cliff Worries Drive Gold to $1,731 | $1,600 territory likely a thing of the past.

What a stupid headline. A reduction in the deficit (the fiscal cliff) would be bearish for gold, as Bernanke would be able to lower the printing presses from 5th gear for a time. In general, gold is up because the Fed continues it's indefinite QE program. Money supply is the primary factor in the price of all goods. However, gold price is influenced by many other factors. Trying to attribute it to worries over the fiscal cliff is like an astrologer trying to blame the outbreak of war on Mars being in a certain part of the sky.

[XgrimX]

I hope the Cain you're referring to is not of the Herman variety.

I just threw that in there for the black vote. I still think he is a smart guy and put up against Obama he might have done better then Romney.

Anyways I think I forgot to say Rand Paul 2016!

[Lazortag]

I just threw that in there for the black vote. I still think he is a smart guy and put up against Obama he might have done better then Romney.

Anyways I think I forgot to say Rand Paul 2016!

I'm just not crazy about someone who is an admitted islamophobe/homophobe being president of the most powerful country in the world. I also object to this idea that he would get the black vote, as if black people have no agency and only vote for people who look like them.

[Orruar]

I'm just not crazy about someone who is an admitted islamophobe/homophobe being president of the most powerful country in the world. I also object to this idea that he would get the black vote, as if black people have no agency and only vote for people who look like them.

You really think Cain wouldn't have done better than Romney amongst blacks? Obama did get something like 90% of the black vote...

[Black Jesus]

I'm just not crazy about someone who is an admitted islamophobe/homophobe being president of the most powerful country in the world. I also object to this idea that he would get the black vote, as if black people have no agency and only vote for people who look like them.

I know youre Canadian so don't understand but those people have destroyed America.

[Lazortag]

You really think Cain wouldn't have done better than Romney amongst blacks? Obama did get something like 90% of the black vote...

I think he would have done negligibly better. Obviously some people vote for people with whom they share an identity characteristic (hence why Ann Coulter supported Hillary Clinton, and arguably why Colin Powell supports Obama), but the vast majority of voters are concerned more with ideology than identity. Obama only got about 6-10% more of the black vote than the average democrat, so Cain would have barely done better than Romney in that respect. In other respects he would have done much worse than Romney because Romney was really just a much more qualified candidate, and also he would have been eviscerated by Obama in the debates (moreso than Romney).

[Orruar]

I think he would have done negligibly better. Obviously some people vote for people with whom they share an identity characteristic (hence why Ann Coulter supported Hillary Clinton, and arguably why Colin Powell supports Obama), but the vast majority of voters are concerned more with ideology than identity. Obama only got about 6-10% more of the black vote than the average democrat, so Cain would have barely done better than Romney in that respect. In other respects he would have done much worse than Romney because Romney was really just a much more qualified candidate, and also he would have been eviscerated by Obama in the debates (moreso than Romney).

6% is negligible? I realize it wouldn't have tipped the election, but it's certainly not insignificant. Now you could make an argument that there are probably a significant number of anti-black votes that went Romney's way, which might have stayed home or gone for the half'n'half Obama instead of Cain. This may have even balanced the difference in black vote.

[XgrimX]

I think we can all agree there is a POSSIBILITY he could have been a better economy. I still think he would have won hands down over Romney just because Obama has a terrible record to run on for the last 4 years. But the point I was making more was the fact that the GOP screwed Ron Paul therefore if they would have just accepted him gave him speaking slots etc. they would have had the 4-5% of the independent vote that would have put them over the top to beat Obama this past election. Just wondering if anyone thought the same I do on the mistake by the GOP/RNC

Good discussions though

[Reiker000]

I like Cain as a dude but he was an awful presidential candidate.

[Daldolma]

I think we can all agree there is a POSSIBILITY he could have been a better economy. I still think he would have won hands down over Romney just because Obama has a terrible record to run on for the last 4 years. But the point I was making more was the fact that the GOP screwed Ron Paul therefore if they would have just accepted him gave him speaking slots etc. they would have had the 4-5% of the independent vote that would have put them over the top to beat Obama this past election. Just wondering if anyone thought the same I do on the mistake by the GOP/RNC

Good discussions though

I say this as respectfully as possible, but you're being delusional. Romney did awesome with independent voters. He did awesome with white voters. He did as well as you could have possibly expected in those demographics. He lost because he got destroyed by the Latino, black, and gay votes, and alienated single women. Ron Paul doesn't help with those demographics -- he hurts. And Ron Paul cannot be put in a central position within the party because there is entirely too much dirt on him. The minute he starts seriously stumping for a presidential candidate is the minute national news agencies start talking about his newsletters, which referred to MLK Jr as a "pro-communist philanderer" and MLK Day as "Hate Whitey Day". And that's seriously just the tip of the iceberg. It's not a mistake that the Republican leadership's approach to Ron Paul has been "thanks but no thanks".

The reason the Republicans lost is because their campaign strategy is a thing of the past. You cannot win on white voters anymore. You cannot win by taking average Joes and independents. You absolutely must be competitive within the Latino and black voter blocs to have a shot. You don't have to win them, but you can't lose them by 40+ points. Especially not when you're strategically ceding the gay vote.

There wasn't a single serious candidate for the Republican nomination that had any shot in the general election. They were all going to lose 90+% of the black vote, 65%+ of the Latino vote, and 60+% of the gay vote. You can't win like that. Not anymore.

[Lazortag]

6% is negligible? I realize it wouldn't have tipped the election, but it's certainly not insignificant. Now you could make an argument that there are probably a significant number of anti-black votes that went Romney's way, which might have stayed home or gone for the half'n'half Obama instead of Cain. This may have even balanced the difference in black vote.

6% of a group that comprises 12% of the population is negligible. It's mathematically impossible for that to have given Cain more electoral votes than Obama. I also think a lot of independent voters, and some smarter republicans would not have voted for Cain because of other problems I mentioned in previous posts (like the fact that he's blatantly prejudiced against muslims, to the point of saying he would never appoint one to his cabinet, and saying that it should be okay to outlaw building mosques). Also he was completely incoherent in the primary debates, so I can't imagine he would have done well in the debates against Obama.

(I realize this thread is more about Ron Paul now, I just wanted to get this out of the way since Cain was mentioned earlier)

[Orruar]

stuff

Keep in mind that there were 15 million fewer voters this year than in 2008. Voter turnout was below 60%. I'd imagine a big chunk of that were people completely disallusioned with both candidates, whether they are leaning left or right. I know a lot of usual Republican voters who couldn't vote for the moderate Romney. I know the media paints Romney as a right winger, but he is very much in the middle. The Republicans keep putting up these moderates and they keep losing. A Ron Paul would have brought in a lot of people who otherwise were not voting. He also would have picked up a good chunk of Obama voters who were simply voting anti-Romney.

[Daldolma]

Keep in mind that there were 15 million fewer voters this year than in 2008. Voter turnout was below 60%. I'd imagine a big chunk of that were people completely disallusioned with both candidates, whether they are leaning left or right. I know a lot of usual Republican voters who couldn't vote for the moderate Romney. I know the media paints Romney as a right winger, but he is very much in the middle. The Republicans keep putting up these moderates and they keep losing. A Ron Paul would have brought in a lot of people who otherwise were not voting. He also would have picked up a good chunk of Obama voters who were simply voting anti-Romney.

I disagree that Ron Paul would've been a net positive with independents as compared to Romney, but even granting that point, you're continuing to work from a starting point of ceding Latinos, blacks, and gays. You cannot do that and win. The country's electorate has changed. It's not 1950. If you want to take Louisiana and Alabama, you can fight for the independent vote and ignore minorities. If you want to win Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- the states that actually decide the election -- you MUST compete in minority demos.

I believe that you know a lot of people that are sick of the Republican party running moderates. Rush was complaining about it just the other day. But if you think the Republicans stand to gain more than they lose by shifting even further right, particularly in the states that matter, I think you're kidding yourself. The Republican party is in bad shape and it's only going to get worse. Young people are overwhelmingly Democrat and minority populations are growing by vast margins.

[Barkingturtle]

Even my wife's 83 year-old, white, FOX News addicted, staunchly Catholic grandmother voted for Obama.

It's over for the GOP. You can't win national elections when your televised convention looks like the alzheimer's wing of a white-supremacist nursing-home for the terminally wealthy.

[MrSparkle001]

Ron Paul won't ever make it. He's too libertarian and isolationist for the mainstream.

I'm hoping for Christie myself but he has to worry about reelection in 2014.

The Dems will have to nominate a woman or another minority if they hope to have the same turnout they did the past two elections. If it's Joe Biden, well lol.

Look at how the election went this year. A lot of the battleground states saw the majority of counties go red, but the populated urban counties went blue. Why is that you think? And do you think the same results would have been seen if the democrat was a white guy instead of Obama?

Cain would not siphon the black vote from Obama. Republicans will always lose that fight. The most that will happen is they don't bother to vote at all. But they can siphon the latino vote, and possibly the woman and youth vote if they change their stances and strategy. Obama's personality is infectious and won over a lot of people. Voters are fickle and naive and a lot are easily swayed (oddly enough, that's exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers created the electoral college to prevent).

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

[Lazortag]

The Dems will have to nominate a woman or another minority if they hope to have the same turnout they did the past two elections. If it's Joe Biden, well lol.

Look at how the election went this year. A lot of the battleground states saw the majority of counties go red, but the populated urban counties went blue. Why is that you think? And do you think the same results would have been seen if the democrat was a white guy instead of Obama?

Cain would not siphon the black vote from Obama. Republicans will always lose that fight. The most that will happen is they don't bother to vote at all. But they can siphon the latino vote, and possibly the woman and youth vote if they change their stances and strategy. Obama's personality is infectious and won over a lot of people. Voters are fickle and naive and a lot are easily swayed (oddly enough, that's exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers created the electoral college to prevent).

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

I like how in your world, minorities all have no agency and feel compelled to vote for people who they "identify" with, but white people vote for people whom they share an ideology with (ignoring the fact that less white people voted for Obama than the average democrat, meaning that whether the democrats pick a minority or not is irrelevant). There's a ton of evidence that minorities vote democrat because they agree with their policies (or at least they're revolted by republican policies), including statistics that were already mentioned in this thread, while there's no evidence that they voted for Obama just because they look like him or because they identify with him as a minority. That's seriously very farfetched, and saying it over and over again won't make it true.

[Autotune]

I like how in your world, minorities all have no agency and feel compelled to vote for people who they "identify" with, but white people vote for people whom they share an ideology with (ignoring the fact that less white people voted for Obama than the average democrat, meaning that whether the democrats pick a minority or not is irrelevant). There's a ton of evidence that minorities vote democrat because they agree with their policies (or at least they're revolted by republican policies), including statistics that were already mentioned in this thread, while there's no evidence that they voted for Obama just because they look like him or because they identify with him as a minority. That's seriously very farfetched, and saying it over and over again won't make it true.

go check out twitter and facebook.


"my president is black like me!"

[Orruar]

I disagree that Ron Paul would've been a net positive with independents as compared to Romney, but even granting that point, you're continuing to work from a starting point of ceding Latinos, blacks, and gays. You cannot do that and win. The country's electorate has changed. It's not 1950. If you want to take Louisiana and Alabama, you can fight for the independent vote and ignore minorities. If you want to win Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- the states that actually decide the election -- you MUST compete in minority demos.

I believe that you know a lot of people that are sick of the Republican party running moderates. Rush was complaining about it just the other day. But if you think the Republicans stand to gain more than they lose by shifting even further right, particularly in the states that matter, I think you're kidding yourself. The Republican party is in bad shape and it's only going to get worse. Young people are overwhelmingly Democrat and minority populations are growing by vast margins.

Disagree. There are a huge number of people on the right that believe in economic liberty, and as a candidate moves more and more towards the center, it becomes harder to believe that candidate when they say they'll govern under economic liberty. Romney lost a lot of votes because people realized he'd govern 80% as a democrat and only throw a few bones to those who believe in liberty. As a Republican moves farther to the left, the contradictions become more and more obvious, and fewer and fewer from the right will vote for them. The general election this year was basically like another democratic primary. Romney may have talked about cutting spending and balancing the budget, but the only program he ever specifically mentioned in regards to cutting was PBS. Hell, his running mate was seen as this extreme conservative, while his budget plan only cut the rate of growth of programs, without cutting any actual spending. With this kind of team, they really only picked up the anti-Obama vote, which is not enough to win.

[Barkingturtle]

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

Que?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAOjpWVJ3y8

On the left our stable is overflowing with charismatic folks of all hues.

[Orruar]

Que?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAOjpWVJ3y8

On the left our stable is overflowing with charismatic folks of all hues.

I think the point he was making is that minorities got out and voted in huge numbers for Obama. If it's back to 2 white guys in 2016, will that continue? I haven't seen numbers on the voter participation rate for minorities in the last few elections, but that would be interesting to see.

[Daldolma]

Disagree. There are a huge number of people on the right that believe in economic liberty, and as a candidate moves more and more towards the center, it becomes harder to believe that candidate when they say they'll govern under economic liberty. Romney lost a lot of votes because people realized he'd govern 80% as a democrat and only throw a few bones to those who believe in liberty. As a Republican moves farther to the left, the contradictions become more and more obvious, and fewer and fewer from the right will vote for them. The general election this year was basically like another democratic primary. Romney may have talked about cutting spending and balancing the budget, but the only program he ever specifically mentioned in regards to cutting was PBS. Hell, his running mate was seen as this extreme conservative, while his budget plan only cut the rate of growth of programs, without cutting any actual spending. With this kind of team, they really only picked up the anti-Obama vote, which is not enough to win.

The core of our disagreement is apparently over how many hardcore fiscal conservatives in swing states have grown so disencouraged that they will not vote. That is an extreme minority in my opinion. Implicit in your argument is the belief that, by getting those conservatives to the polls, and despite any subsequent loss in moderates, a Republican candidate would be able to overcome blowouts amongst Latinos, blacks, and gays. That simply doesn't work anymore. The numbers bear it out.

Unless you expect a Republican candidate to carry 65-70% of the white vote by moving even further right, you're fighting a losing battle. And winning that kind of majority with white people just doesn't happen.

I also disagree that Romney was merely attracting anti-Obama voters. He did extremely well with whites and independents. If you're beginning with a premise of getting thrashed amongst Latinos and blacks, you can't do much better than Romney did.

[MrSparkle001]

I think the point he was making is that minorities got out and voted in huge numbers for Obama. If it's back to 2 white guys in 2016, will that continue? I haven't seen numbers on the voter participation rate for minorities in the last few elections, but that would be interesting to see.

It's fewer than 2008, but Republican turnout and youth were less too. There just wasn't as much enthusiasm this time.

In 2016 the Democrats have to recapture what they had in 2008. How will they? Maybe Hillary? She comes with baggage now though. Who knows.

I like how in your world, minorities all have no agency and feel compelled to vote for people who they "identify" with, but white people vote for people whom they share an ideology with (ignoring the fact that less white people voted for Obama than the average democrat, meaning that whether the democrats pick a minority or not is irrelevant). There's a ton of evidence that minorities vote democrat because they agree with their policies (or at least they're revolted by republican policies), including statistics that were already mentioned in this thread, while there's no evidence that they voted for Obama just because they look like him or because they identify with him as a minority. That's seriously very farfetched, and saying it over and over again won't make it true.

Yes they vote Democratic most of the time, but in Obama's case they have reason to go out and vote.

Do you think they would have voted in such numbers if it were two old white guys running? You think they voted en masse for John Kerry, or Al Gore? Nope. They didn't.

Watch this for a fun sample of what it was like in 2008 and I'm sure 2012

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It's just an example and doesn't represent everyone, but I daresay it does represent a good portion.

[Orruar]

The core of our disagreement is apparently over how many hardcore fiscal conservatives in swing states have grown so disencouraged that they will not vote. That is an extreme minority in my opinion. Implicit in your argument is the belief that, by getting those conservatives to the polls, and despite any subsequent loss in moderates, a Republican candidate would be able to overcome blowouts amongst Latinos, blacks, and gays. That simply doesn't work anymore. The numbers bear it out.

Unless you expect a Republican candidate to carry 65-70% of the white vote by moving even further right, you're fighting a losing battle. And winning that kind of majority with white people just doesn't happen.

I also disagree that Romney was merely attracting anti-Obama voters. He did extremely well with whites and independents. If you're beginning with a premise of getting thrashed amongst Latinos and blacks, you can't do much better than Romney did.

We've both been making a mistake here which has lead to some confusion and fallacious ideas. We have been using a single axis (left-right) for political thought. This is a common practice, though it is an overly simplified model which does not come close to being useful for political discussion. People don't just place themselves at some point on a line and then look for the candidate who is closest to them. The truth is that people have multiple issues they vote on, and each of these issues can be pictured as its own axis, or dimension. Everyone's multi-dimensional space is different as not only do they have a different set of issues they care about, but they place varying amounts of importance on each one. Thus you could get someone who considers them self as a democrat voting for a Republican and vice versa. For most of my youth, I considered myself as a democrat because I cared most about social liberty. You could say I moved to the right as I became more interested in economic liberty, but the truth is that I really moved out of the left-right axis and now have equal distance to both the dem and repub ideologies.

The dimension I've been mainly focused on here is the "economic liberty" dimension. This is the dimension which I think the republicans need to move to the right on to have any chance. There are many on the left who would be considered on the right side on this dimension. Blue dog democrats, west Texas democrats, there are many examples of this. And on this dimension, the Republicans are being soundly destroyed. It's not because their position is far from the majority of Americans on this, but because their actions do not match their words in this area. Once they let Bush enact the largest expansions to Medicare and the Department of Education (which they had talked about eliminating entirely only 20 years prior), the Republicans lost all credibility on this issue. Their words are on one end of the spectrum and their actions on the other. And remember that Romney was very much the same in this respect. He talked about economic liberty, while his tenure in Massachusetts was wildly different. People tend to remember the things that piss them off about politicians, and so people on the liberty end of this spectrum will remember the statist actions of Bush and Romney and people on the statist end will remember the liberty rhetoric. This disconnect loses a lot of votes. Not only does it lose the votes of those who care greatly about this dimension, but it's also a glaring contradiction that makes the person look like a liar. This hurts the candidate even with those who place little value on this particular dimension.

So I suppose the key is that the Republicans would need to move their actions to match their rhetoric, or vice versa. Currently they are trying to plat both sides, and I think most people see right through it. I wouldn't bet on that changing anytime soon though.

[Autotune]

no one is gonna read that

[Orruar]

no one is gonna read that

Did I do that right?

[Black Jesus]

no one is gonna read that

[Lazortag]

It's fewer than 2008, but Republican turnout and youth were less too. There just wasn't as much enthusiasm this time.

In 2016 the Democrats have to recapture what they had in 2008. How will they? Maybe Hillary? She comes with baggage now though. Who knows.



Yes they vote Democratic most of the time, but in Obama's case they have reason to go out and vote.

Do you think they would have voted in such numbers if it were two old white guys running? You think they voted en masse for John Kerry, or Al Gore? Nope. They didn't.


I know it's been a week since someone posted in this thread, but I couldn't let this ridiculous post go unanswered.

You keep making these assertions about black voter preferences and voter turnout, but you never back them up with statistics, leaving others to do all the work. Black voter turnout was highest in 2008, but the increase was consistent with increases in previous years (see here: http://www.ssdan.net/sites/default/files/briefs/vtbrief.pdf). Different sources give different numbers, but usually the turnout rate of blacks in 2008 is estimated around 65%, while the rate in 2004 is around 60%, with 56% in 2000, and even lower in 1996. The 1992 rate is as high as that of 2000 but the point is that it fluctuates over long periods of time, and in the short-term (the past 16 years) we can see that it's been increasing. Back to your original point: a 5% increase in voter turnout among a group that represents 1/8 of the US population could not possibly swing an election. With what we already know about how people voted in the swing states, what you're saying is mathematically impossible. Moreover, saying that voter turnout went up significantly among blacks because one of the candidates was black, just shows ignorance of basic math. It's also kind of offensive to assume that black people are somehow unique in (sometimes) preferring candidates who share their background, since (a) more white people voted for Romney and McCain than previous GOP candidates (how many times do I have to repeat this?), and (b) only marginally more black people voted for Obama than previous democratic candidates, something which has already been proven in this thread. For further proof that black voters just prefer the democrats and that Obama's skin colour is completely irrelevant, just look at the election where Keith Ellison handily obliterated Chris Fields with over 75% of the vote, even though both candidates were black, and Fields frequently played the race card to try and secure the black vote. Just keep pushing this idea that the democrats will only win if their candidate is a minority, who cares if it doesn't have an ounce of truth to it.