he said jczeroman was not privileged? where? oh i get it you're just being a contrarian cock without putting enough forethought into your effort for something sensible to come out

this is kind of fucking my mind, Obama and Romney believe opposite things about women's sovereignty over their own bodies, how is that not a monumental fucking difference?

how do you rationalize that away as herp derp same candidate

ron paul

no, that republicans and dems arent the same

yeah, he did say that, and so did I so why exactly were you arguing with me?

Which candidate is gonna make laws that are unfair to gays? Because I'm voting for that one.

something has to be done about all of the gays, and the blacks, and the mexicans and especially the ayrabs

you can't live here if you declared war on our freedom i mean seriously why is alahabi alahakbar still selling me cigarettes? this is america.

Ron paul

it's one word:

ronpaul

Ron Paul lays down truth about "honest rape"

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ronpaul

ronpaulryanrandpaulromneyaynrandbachman

you said idiots when speaking with zeroman, so I guess i thought you meant anyone against obama itt

rawpaw

Is banning abortion on Romney's platform? I'm pretty sure he will not pursue any policy on abortion of substantial difference to Obama. Even if he's going to do some incremental thing which can be overturned under the next Democratic president, it seems silly to throw away an opportunity for ten or twenty percent of the hard-core left to show what's most important to them by voting Green, Nader or Johnson.

I certainly do. Goodness knows that, gun to my head, I would rather keep Romney out of the white house. Ron Paul 2008 promoted an ideological shift in no small portion of republicans, a shift which even led to election results at the Senate level for the far-right. The same will happen if even 10% of democrats stay home or vote for someone else.

And the fact that McCain and Obama were similar also doesn't really invalidate my overall point.

romney doesn't have a platform like mccain didn't, they stay on script according to what the RNC decides.

who is johnson, nader doesn't exist, the green party sucks KUCINICH/SANDERS '16

If you want to be a mainstream politician in america you have to play to the center. Its a big, diverse and complicated electorate

Its true a president romney wont start banning abortions or anything i think the case for obama is more about not enabling boehner and mconnel and the overarching 'fuck you i got mine' gop agenda. I dont think many competent people think obama and romney are lightyears apartin governing

yes, voting for a third party candidate is much more important than keeping another antonin scalia off the bench. because... message sending!

you're the most impractical person i've ever encountered.

I'm voting for myself. Here I come, Washington fat cats!

Wait, is his argument "One step backwards and one step forward is just as good as two steps forward"?

Hey it's been pretty quick and painless to unfuckup the W. shit stain, right?

This is a goddamn outrage! I can't find someone who perfectly represents all of my beliefs and never compromises and always accomplishes his/her goals in a representative government such as this republic?! Are you kidding me? Fuck it all, I'm not voting then!

well in some countries i'd be able to vote for my party but not here

This is always the nuclear option when people get their blind faith in the party questioned. I'm surprised it came up so early. The supreme court is not going to ever, EVER overrule Roe and apart from a few dinosaurs who are left on the court, any future appointees are going to be moderates regardless of president because of this:

People can't say that, on the one hand, presidential candidates are rigid ideologues (always exceptions, but generally the rule) but are also focused on expedience, self-interest or corporate influence or whatever. Sane people know that Order 66 is right, but few people are willing to let this fact actually do the work of abolishing the myths that the party tells them.

Voting for a third party does not win elections but it shifts party ideology. This has been quantitatively proven god knows how many times. Heck, Romney is being forced by the Paul delegation today to support an audit of the fed - never would have happened if all those people would have voted for McCain in 2008. If you want to keep voting, year after year, for garbage, then vote for candidates like Obama and Romney.

Don't blame me for the impracticalities of the system - I didn't make up the rules for FPP elections. If it were up to me, we'd use AV or something better, so that we're not required to play these games.

Actually the big parties absorb the little parties' beliefs and make them obsolete - see bee sting parties. The democratic process breeds moderates. The closer to the middle you are the more votes you can get. This is political science 101 and I feel stupid laying it out to anyone over 20.

Kind of stupid opinion here. I want a specific football team to win too, but they don't control public school, research, medicine, a powerful and expensive military, tax rates... Sorry but the stakes in a presidential election are pretty high.

the president doesn't control public school or tax rates

i dunno what medicine and research mean but i'll let you have them

Veto power herrderr.

Also we're talking about parties in that opinion, not one specific office.

you're very silly

I'll assume you meant to type sexy.

sig war declared

i just want an excuse to post japandroids

That's not true at all. FPP breeds moderates - or at least, wins them elections. Plenty of other democratic-ish states have voting systems which allow for representation of non-mainstream beliefs.

The point of the article is not to suggest that people shouldn't want specific candidates to win. It is expressing the idea that the general election is theatre at best, and the arguments which are being used by Romney and Obama are applicable, at least in a general sense, to each other.