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

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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...

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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.

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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)