Lobowolf Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 If you weren't eligible to vote (from a country other than the USA...underage...whatever), but would have voted for one of the two, please feel free to answer the poll as you would have voted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerardo Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 Obama. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 I think McCain would have been better for Europe. If I had been living in the US, I would probably have been selfish enough to vote for Obama. Or at least to vote against Palin, lol. I voted "Neither". Maybe "Obama" would have been more honest. I dunno. If I had been a US voter I would obviously have made myself better informed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_U_Card Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 On Leno last night, McCain said that he was now sleeping like a baby.....waking every 2 hours and crying.... Almost makes me want to vote for him like I might have if I had not observed the last 6 months of the campaign... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 As promised, I voted for Obama and I wish him well. In the Post this morning there was an article about the reaction from Iran. Apparently a meeting without preconditions between heads of state is now being described as a devious plot by the United States. His welcoming introduction to world politics. Good luck, buddy, you will need all you can get. Btw, Al, the "sleeping like a baby" is a very old joke. Leno needs to get a new crew of writers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gauchy Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 I would have voted Nader, because of his concern to environmentalism... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 I would have voted Nader, because of his concern to environmentalism... I would have voted for Nader, too. In fact, I have in the past. But, this year I wanted my vote to count, even if it just added to the margin of victory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_U_Card Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 As promised, I voted for Obama and I wish him well. In the Post this morning there was an article about the reaction from Iran. Apparently a meeting without preconditions between heads of state is now being described as a devious plot by the United States. His welcoming introduction to world politics. Good luck, buddy, you will need all you can get. Btw, Al, the "sleeping like a baby" is a very old joke. Leno needs to get a new crew of writers. For sure, it was just more in character with the "character" that I had seen previously. He got pretty damn ridiculous toward the end of the campaign. Must have been the Palin factor....(puts the l in Pain...lol) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherdano Posted November 13, 2008 Report Share Posted November 13, 2008 I would have voted Nader, because of his concern to environmentalism... I would have voted for Nader, too. In fact, I have in the past. But, this year I wanted my vote to count, even if it just added to the margin of victory. Have you seen his post-election "Uncle Tom" interview comments? That might cure you from any temptation to ever vote for him again :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akhare Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I would have voted Nader, because of his concern to environmentalism... I would have voted for Nader, too. In fact, I have in the past. But, this year I wanted my vote to count, even if it just added to the margin of victory. Have you seen his post-election "Uncle Tom" interview comments? That might cure you from any temptation to ever vote for him again :)I was cured of that temptation after Florida 2000 :(.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mosene Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I voted for Cynthia McKiney (sp?). She was the Green Party candidate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I would have voted Nader, because of his concern to environmentalism... I would have voted for Nader, too. In fact, I have in the past. But, this year I wanted my vote to count, even if it just added to the margin of victory. Have you seen his post-election "Uncle Tom" interview comments? That might cure you from any temptation to ever vote for him again :( No, I haven't seen any post-election interviews. Maybe I will look for it. I really do not know a whole lot about Nader; my votes for him have been more along the lines of "none of the above" than any real liking for Nader. The few things that I have heard him speak about have made sense to me, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jikl Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Would Al Gore have had a chance? This is a serious question because who knows which party he would represent apart from Republican. Sean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobowolf Posted November 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 On a national platform, I don't think any third party candidate really has a chance. If you mean, would he have had a chance running in the Democratic primary and trying to get the nomination, maybe a very outside chance. If you mean running against both Obama and McCain, a la Ross Perot, I think all he would have done is win the election for McCain. Edit: By "a very outside chance" I mean somewhere between 1% & 5%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoAnneM Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Nader is the "very old joke". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoAnneM Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Voting for a 3rd party candidate is doing nothing more than taking a vote away from either the Democrats or Republicans, and if you want your vote to mean absolutely nothing then go right ahead. I would rather make a positive statement and vote for someone who is running with a chance of winning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdonn Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 No vote means absolutely nothing. The fact that people believe they have reason to vote for a person who is not their first choice makes the whole system not work. I strongly disagree with voting your preference out of who has a chance to win if it's not your first choice. That gives people crazy ideas like that 50 million people want George Bush to be president from time to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherdano Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I don't disagree in principle with voting for a candidate with no chance of winning. But the main point Nader supporters seem to have made in 2000 was "there is no difference between Gore and Bush anyway".I guess Nader still thinks that is true... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdonn Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I actually think the best system theoretically would be to deduce the true opinion of each voter about each candidate on a scale of say 0 to 10 and then add up the total points. Of course it would never work in practice, mostly because people would rate their favorite 10 and everyone else 0. Such a system would surely have worked against Obama this year... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Voting for a 3rd party candidate is doing nothing more than taking a vote away from either the Democrats or Republicans, and if you want your vote to mean absolutely nothing then go right ahead. I would rather make a positive statement and vote for someone who is running with a chance of winning. I don't think settling for a major party candidate when you think someone else would make a better President is necessarily a "positive statement". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobowolf Posted November 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I strongly disagree with voting your preference out of who has a chance to win if it's not your first choice. That gives people crazy ideas like that 50 million people want George Bush to be president from time to time. I agree (!!) I don't see how any given vote for Nader is any less meaningful than a vote for Obama or McCain would have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al_U_Card Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Actually, it counts more! It takes one vote away from one of the candidates and that makes the other one one vote closer.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mycroft Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 It's better than a "no vote". In the warped world that is U.S. politics, it does tend to work out that voting for a third-party candidate is a vote for the person you least want to win (as its -1 for the one you'd vote for *if* you were forced to pick). In Canada, voting for a party gives them (if they win enough, but enough is rather small) $1.75/year until the next election for campaign funds. Therefore, there is a reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 Voting for a 3rd party candidate is doing nothing more than taking a vote away from either the Democrats or Republicans, and if you want your vote to mean absolutely nothing then go right ahead. I would rather make a positive statement and vote for someone who is running with a chance of winning.That depends on your timeline. Here in Canada, the Green Party is slowly gaining popular support. Its share of the national vote is still small, and the party really didn't come close to winning a seat, altho a number of its candidates did quite well in their electoral areas. I think that the party will continue to grow... and that it may, just may, someday attain a critical mass where it will finally be seen as having a real potential to affect the balance of power. Our method is fundamentally different from the US, in that we have multiple parties (4 different parties have seats in parliament) and the Prime Minister is the leader of the party that is able to command a majority of votes in the legislature...which doesn't mean having 50%+1 of the seats or, as happens elsewhere, forming a coalition government: a minority government can function by pandering to another party on specific issues, by staying away from controversial topics, or by taking advantage of the reluctance of the opposition parties to trigger another election... our elections happen whenever the government decides to call an election or after the government is defeated in a vote of no-confidence (altho the election cannot be delayed more than 5 years) Thus a party can gain some effective power even while a long way from having any chance of becoming the government. Indeed, the Bloc Quebecois, is a one-province party, with neither any desire nor any chance of success outside of Quebec, but it has influence in parliament because it has enough seats that, in combination with the other opposition parties, it can force an election. All of this tends to grant a new party a slightly better chance here than a similar party in the US.. but here and there, the new party needs to attract voters in steadily increasing numbers even when, or especially when, the votes will be, short term, wasted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I actually think the best system theoretically would be to deduce the true opinion of each voter about each candidate on a scale of say 0 to 10 and then add up the total points. Of course it would never work in practice, mostly because people would rate their favorite 10 and everyone else 0. A lot of research has been done on optimal election procedures. It can be proven mathematically that every scheme with more than two alternatives is subject to "manipulation", i.e. it may sometimes be in the interest of voters to lye about there pov, e.g. by voting for their second choice because he has better chances than their first choice. But in practice, there is scheme, "the absolute majority" rule, which works pretty well. It is this:Each voter is asked to rank all candidates, say you might give 0 to Barr, 1 to McCain, 2 to Hillary, 3 to Obama, 4 to Nader or whatever. Now, for each pair of candidates (say Barr vs Hilary), the winner is computed on the basis of a hypothetical vote with only those two candidates. If someone wins all of his hypothetical head-on matches he will become president. Theoretically this might not work because it is possible that e.g.Hilary>McCainMcCain>ObamaObama>Hilary but in practice it will almost always work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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