The Grown-Up Person Club talks about the U.S. elections

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:07 pm

It's true! I voted for the winner in a state which, in turn, voted for the winner!

I am the best!

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:10 pm

Xyloart wrote:

roquentin wrote:

take a look at the map from 1972 if you want to see a real blowout

I wasn't alive then so it doesn't matter! :!!:

Since the results were so close maybe you should only have to eat half a hat.

i put money down on the election, so i think that absolves me from any non-metaphorical hat eating

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:31 pm

Beth and Justin when you get as old me, you will be more conservative too. David also.

Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 5828 Location: Los Angeles, CA

I am probably as "classically conservative" as you are, to be honest.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:41 pm

See? It's happening already!

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:41 pm

Boorishly P. Foundry wrote:

Beth and Justin when you get as old me, you will be more conservative too. David also.

... you do realize that both of us are older than you, right?

At least, I'm pretty sure Justin is. He's like, really old.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:44 pm

I think I'm a teensy bit older than you. And David. I'd check Facebook but it's blocked at work.

And Justin's what like 35? 36?

Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 5828 Location: Los Angeles, CA

No I think he's like 32 or so.

You are a few months older than me but we're both 1980 kids.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:49 pm

Yeah the joke was that we are all practically the same age but you know Beth she had to go and ruin it.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:51 pm

Oh, yeah, you're three months older than me, Boorishly. And I'm 1.5 months older than David!

Let's all agree that Justin is very very old.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:53 pm

I think I was the only one born under a Carter moon!

Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 5828 Location: Los Angeles, CA

Well, no, we were all born before the 1980 election.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:55 pm

Justin was talking about the Carter Family.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:58 pm

You guys remind me of myself at your age if I was more boring back then!

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:04 pm

If you were more boring, maybe.

Wait, you can't tell I was correcting your grammar.

Now you can.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:08 pm

I hope Steve appreciates this when he shows up.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:15 pm

Pretty sure Steve's old, too!

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:18 pm

He's probably getting the early bird chicken-fried steak special at Big Boy as we speak.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:18 pm

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:25 pm

Yeah Kate you will never be as old as me cuz every time you go up a year so do I. So I guess you will always be a damn hippie.

Christmas came early Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 9225

boorishly i'm a pretty straight-edged democrat (not an ounce of third party in me, i don't think) but this election i decided i both understand and appreciate the idea behind the electoral college. does this mean i'm becoming more conservative?

I'm pretty sure it means i'm disenfranchising somebody at least. Hopefully those fuckers in jersey.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:49 pm

>:o

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:00 pm

I can't even remember why I liked the electoral college, except that it often magnifies the size of victories, reduces the size of potential battlegrounds for recounts in close elections, and makes it more difficult for third parties to act as spoilers. I guess those aren't bad reasons.

But I am actually starting to wonder if I should start voting Libertarian in national elections. Not because I want them to win (since they support a lot of policies that I think are unworkable), but more in the hopes that eventually one of the major parties absorbs their "smaller government/fewer unnecessary regulations/less interference in social issues" platform in a more reasonable way.

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

But I like Big Government.

Christmas came early Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 9225

i've been thinking about third parties recently, especially with all this talk now about "what happens to republicans next" since 'republican' apparently means two not necessarily mutual things: socially conservative or fiscally conservative. The 'republican base' palin appealed to is not the one romney appealed to.

So it's really easy for me to imagine the libertarian party really making some headway, especially if, say, in 2010 midterms a bunch of social conservatives get power over social issues (gay rights, stem cells) and that leads to someone like, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger to swing over to Libertarian.

I think the intellectual aspect of the republican party has felt abandoned for at least 8 years and betrayed by McCain's handling of this campaign, at least as far as palin goes. It all seems pretty ripe for a third party upset in the future, providing the economy improves enough for people to feel comfortable "throwing away their vote."

Christmas came early Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 9225

tom i like big government too, but i especially like the democrat party of 2008 under obama (and even DNC chair Howard Dean) who actually worked to say "Here is why we should be president" to literally every american demographic, even the ones who would never have paid attention anyway. The dems spent the Bush years effectively saying "we should be in charge because we're not Bush" and Obama, even though he probably could have gotten away with that, still found ways to say "maybe improving the school systems by pissing off teachers unions isn't a bad idea. maybe encouraging faith-based initiatives will work."

I understand complaints about Obama and I don't think the next 4 years will be flawless, but I do think the democrat party behind Obama succeeded in every possible way and that's something I haven't seen in my life time and I don't think it's just because Bush is awful and the economy sucks.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:32 pm

It would be nice to think the current Republican party is going to be destroyed -- not because I hate Republicans or conservatives, obviously, but because they are ideologically lost in the wilderness as you point out. But Democrats balanced their unholy marriage of social progressives and fairly conservative union voters for years, with few consequences except an inability to win national elections unless you're running against the guy who pardoned Nixon.

So I guess I'll believe in the fall of the Republican Party when I see it. I'd almost rather see something like what happened in the years following 1992, when Ross Perot's message of fiscal responsibility was (at least temporarily) co-opted by both of the parties as soon as they saw how many people actually liked it. At the same time, they were also able to eject some of the crazier ideas like the flat tax. So I wouldn't really want there to be a powerful Libertarian Party, but I sure wouldn't mind if some of their ideology were absorbed by the two existing parties.

Christmas came early Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 9225

i guess maybe forbes could run in 2012 if a neo-con social conservative gets on the republican ticket and serve as a perot-proxy.

honestly i agree that it's hard to believe the republicans could tear themselves apart, but I could see a really bloody primary battle if you get, say, a palin and a romney facing each other

but being more current-thinking, I think the current economy is going to keep the democrats in check for at least a few years; if they're spending big they'll at least also have to be cutting and we'll see the spending also translating into regulation, which hopefully could mean another source of income for the gov't anyway. also obama's financial minds, the warren buffetts and henry paulsons, seem to be moderate overall. so i'm crossing my fingers for an obama administration that is moderate in all the right ways and liberal in the even better ways.

I'm also totally fine with the dem-majority occasionally spitting in the face of the conservative side, if only because I've grown accustomed to it over the past 8 years and i take some delight in comeuppance.

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 10:17 am

Boorishly P. Foundry wrote:

So I guess I'll believe in the fall of the Republican Party when I see it. I'd almost rather see something like what happened in the years following 1992, when Ross Perot's message of fiscal responsibility was (at least temporarily) co-opted by both of the parties as soon as they saw how many people actually liked it. At the same time, they were also able to eject some of the crazier ideas like the flat tax. So I wouldn't really want there to be a powerful Libertarian Party, but I sure wouldn't mind if some of their ideology were absorbed by the two existing parties.

I think for better or worse, this is what keeps a third-party from rising to a national level -- the big two tend to absorb the more sensible third party ideas of the time in order to become "the lesser of two evils" for potential voters.

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:26 am

Ah man I didn't know there was a grown person club.