Presidential Elections - Have You Decided Yet?

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

Sorry everyone,
I should have known better...

What I don't get though, is that the candidates spend months before had, getting the support of the people: right? Arn't y'all the ones voting them, in the primaries or whatever?

Then y'all come back and say, oh everybody sucks. Ok, so the majority of Americans prefer someone who sucks?

I don't know the process, but this is strange to me.

[Firestormalpha]

I'd say the root of the problem there is people buying into TV ads, or as mentioned in the Blog someone linked to, vote for the wrong reasons, then they get something they were shopping for. It's like buying a book based solely on the cover art, and lacking knowledge of the author or their style.

And I see no reason for you to be sorry. You sparked an interesting discussion is all.

[Bungleau]

In the primaries, you're voting for which candidate gets to represent your party. You don't get to vote for the other parties.

In the elections, you're voting for the best candidate across all parties.

So if your preferred candidate did not get nominated in the primaries, you're faced with the lesser of two evils in the elections.

[Chewbacca]

Originally Posted by Ilander ...I'm a little baffled that people think the two candidates are "the same," if anyone would like to elaborate on that...

Of course they are not exactly the same, but for a start they are both politicians who answer to lobbists and political parties and say primarily what they think people want to hear in order to get elected. Both are of the flawed partisan political condtion as well.

[Ladyzekke]

Hey I found Ross Perot!

http://perotcharts.com/

[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood Sorry everyone, I should have known better... What I don't get though, is that the candidates spend months before had, getting the support of the people: right? Arn't y'all the ones voting them, in the primaries or whatever? Then y'all come back and say, oh everybody sucks. Ok, so the majority of Americans prefer someone who sucks? I don't know the process, but this is strange to me.

To expand a little on what Bungleau mentioned, it works like this.....

Any candidate can throw his/her hat into the political ring at the beginning of the process. Then primary elections are held in different states to determine which candidate seems to have the most support. Each state carries a number of electoral votes - which were designed to be representative votes of the general population, but doesn't always work that way. In the primaries and the general election both, it is the ELECTORAL votes that determine the winner, NOT the popular vote. It doesn't matter if Candidate A receives more total votes than Candidate B, if Candidate A wins the states with the most electoral votes, they win the election (this is how GWB defeated Al Gore, even though Gore won the popular vote).

Electoral votes count in the primaries too. If Candidate A wins the states with large number of electoral votes, then his/her party is going throw their support to him/her and leave the other candidates swinging in the wind. Even when the candidates are allowed to debate, it usually ends up being a two-person show. In the last two election years, the Democrats had at least 5 candidates each time. Four years, the debates did spread the focus more evenly among the candidates, but Kerry still got the bulk of the attention since he was leading in the polls. This time, the debates were nothing more than the Obama/Hillary show with the other 3 Democratic candidates literally being completely ignored by the monitor. I believe over 90% of the questions (and responses) were directed to either Obama or Hillary.

After the debates and the primaries, then each political party officially "nominates" their chosen candidate. Of course, by that time the media coverage, sound bytes and internet bloggers have already swung the focus on to the candidate that is going to get the nomination. This year was the first time in a while that a primary has actually been very close until near the end.

So, the electoral votes and the respective parties are the ones that actually "choose" which candidate gets to run for office. That is why the general public usually feels like it's a matter of choosing between the lesser of two evils.

[wellard]

Hey! Ain't the important question this ....

Who is the high court going to vote for?


(or is that still swept under the carpet?)

[Felix The Assassin]

Will the real candidates please stand up, please stand up!

[Firestormalpha]

Originally Posted by Felix The Assassin Will the real candidates please stand up, please stand up!

We have real candidates? I thought it was all a farce put on by a secret organization called the patriots, who in fact control everything. Oh wait, no, that's the story in Metal Gear Sold 2.

[SecretMaster]

Originally Posted by Firestormalpha We have real candidates? I thought it was all a farce put on by a secret organization called the patriots, who in fact control everything. Oh wait, no, that's the story in Metal Gear Sold 2.

The la-le-lu-le-lo?