I'm sorry to say, that if the events from the past few days, and specifically today, are any indication; I'm extremely displeased and disappointed.

How's "hope & change" working out for you?!?!

Naw, you got me figured all wrong. I didn't vote for Obama, nor McCain.

Romney Ryan 2012

* Vote stealing and blatant voter fraud
* didn't like results, so invalidate delegates
* change rules to never allow a dissenting opinion again
* leave the rules to be open and changed by the CAMPAIGN, and the PARTY at any time, without any input from the delegates.

(and I can go in depth on a number of these)

I mean seriously, if this is any indication of how he runs things, I'm afraid of what he's going to do in the White House.

We're supposed to be a REPUBLIC, not a DEMOCRACY, or more increasingly an OLIGARCHY. Don't believe me? Read the Constitution and recite the pledge of allegiance! In a republic, the people are being represented.

And we're supposed to be the Party for State's rights. But no, we don't think they know how to run a convention, so we'll invalidated their results; just to knock Paul below the 5 State plurality. And that's after we tried to change the rules to a 10 state plurality. What a crock of fluff!

::yawns::

Not surprised.. even I can tell what they are like

go to protest @ it

lymz sounds like a Ron Paul fan.

It sounds like lymz is there at the Convention?

Sorry to hear that news lymz, but we are back to smoke-filled-room politics, remember?

I was just amused that they have 3,500 police brought in for the Convention... Anyone happen to know how many police were needed for Woodstock? Not saying they are comparable... just how far we have sunk as a nation.

Lymz was a delegate or somesuch i THINK. Too lazy to confirm and find the post.

woodstock didn't have cops, nation guard choppers yes

I've been following some twitter feeds and other sites where observers and people at the meetings have been posting and live blogging. So, I'm following things as closely as I can.

It's not just about Ron Paul, it's bigger than him. It's about getting back to the Constitution, and what this Country was founded on.

Why bother having rules, if you're deliberately break them, and leave it open for you to change at any time?


I was at my Arizona State Convention back in May as a delegate. I saw the stuff that went on at a state level.
* Endorsements on the BALLOT; like we need some sort of REMINDER of who we HAVE to pick; I guess the slates floating around weren't effective enough
* Priority given to those endorsed, and placed at the top.
* Vote counting in "secret" in the back on un-validated machines. (I was an observer)
* Tallying errors with said voting machines, SURPRISE!
* Over voting (voting on more people than you were supposed to)
* Ballot stuffing
* Closing the convention improperly and early, without resolving the National Commiteewoman (NCW) vote.

Regarding the NCW vote, they never contacted any of the delegates, or the person who was in 1st place (1st of 3; needed to have a runoff, since she didn't get majority, just plurality). It seems like they are waiting for the NCW seat to be "vacant", when her term is up after the RNC; and then they can fill it with whomever they want.

State Commiteemen, which I'm working towards; get to pick the party leadership in January. I've got work to do in my state to clean things up; starting with my District, then County, then State. But, at least I'm doing my part.

Oh you naive fool. You actually thought that the Republican Party could be an agent for change?

And they cleared out the jail in Tampa too. Like they're anticipating an influx :-P

from what i've heard, the local strip clubs just finished a lot of renovation :)
yay for family values, religion, and strippers!

In Charlotte they have been running stories on the news about all the renovations in strip clubs as well. Also lots of talk about human trafficing. How sad it is that these are the people running our country? (refering to both parties)

LOL@the so called tolerant crowd.

i'll take thirty five hundred cops over four hundred thousand filthy communist hippies any day.

an overwhelming majority of voters selected Mitt Romney, but Ron Paul and his followers want to subvert the will of those voters to shoehorn him into a larger role through political gamesmanship, exploiting the letter of obsolete delegate procedures. then they get all angry when their undemocratic maneuvers get blocked.

uhh if it is in the procedures then it is not undemocratic. In fact the entire way your retarded election happens does not need the winner to have more votes so yah...

don't be pedantic, you know exactly what i mean by undemocratic. and yah the whole electoral system is a joke lol, plurality fptp bullfluff :D

all you have todo to get a clear view of what they are is watch them run against themselves... its pretty clear, a party that wants to control Homosexuality, women, and the general Populous<sp be it legal or not... has/will have problems with the Constitution.

Oh yes, control, no Democrats want any more government that already exists ;). You mistake one wing of the Republican Party to represent the whole the same way some folks make silly claims that Maxine Waters represents all Democrats.

umm the "religious right" which is trying to control homosexuality and abortion rights (probably what Junky was referring to) is the pre-eminent force in the Republican party right now.

American politics needs four parties. They could have two liberalish parties and two conservativish with the more right and more left wing and two more to the center.

Canadian politics right now is fluffed over because we have one right wing party which has moved a bit to the center to take the middle votes and 3-4 left parties(Liberal, NDP, Green, and Bloq in Quebec) who split the vote and lose elections because of it. If it was split evenly it would be much more interesting.

So where the hell would I fit in? Why should only the people who fit on the left-right spectrum of idiocy have parties, why shouldn't those with common sense also be represented?

because anarchism isn't common sense :P

LoL... If those are the procedures of record, then using them is not "exploiting". Procedures can be changed, of course... I think what was being debated here was whether or not those procedures were "obsolete" or not. Is the National Convention still a venue for diverse views from the state delegations, or is it merely a pep-rally?

a pep-rally. obviously. the candidate is chosen by the voters and the media and the convention is used to fluff the candidate up, excite the base, whatever.

also you can't just say "you need more parties" because more parties are an impossibility. or, you can make all the parties you want, but you'll still have a 2 party system. duverger's law is basixcally correct

By what measure are they most "pre-eminent force in the Republican Party?" Perhaps in press coverage, but they're really not the pre-eminent force. In fact, if they were, the nominee walking across the stage would not be Mitt Romney. For a more empirical perspective, I would suggest reading the breakdown of the Washington Post/Kaise Family Foundation poll about the five types of Republicans: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...-of-the-republican-party/ (You may note that "Old School Republicans," the least religious of the groups, actually outnumber the religious right "value voters").

Bonus

(this is bonus thread right? cause all rep are worthless!)

More parties or more education? I tend to think the latter would be more helpful. People get caught up on "a bridge to no where" and misunderstand the real issues surrounding transportation policy such as an aging infrastructure, outdated funding mechanism, etc. Or take the debt, where some people believe you could feasibly achieve consensus simply by cuts to domestic spending sans entitlements (impossible unless you eliminate ALL domestic spending) while others parade around about taxing the wealthy will solve all the problems (you can get perhaps 10% of what you need via this route). The gap tends to be in education where people are more interested in soundbytes that confirm their pre-existing beliefs about government/spending/etc versus delving beneath the surface to see the wonk side.

It's one of the big reasons I was happy to see Paul Ryan selected. Win or lose, it should elevate the debate to a serious discussion about the future as it relates to reform. Or so I hope.

From your link: Tea Party - 87% think abortion should be illegal, 94% think gay marriage should be illegal. Religious value voters - ditto.
49% of Republicans fit those two groups.

Even of your "old school Republicans", the least religious group (lol "only 60% regularly attend services") about half are against abortion and gay marriage.

Basically, with the exception of a small group of libertarians, his point about Republicans wanting to control homosexuality and abortion (or in his words, women) is completely validated by your link.

or just remove parties entirely and vote for individuals.. although I guess in the US it is somewhat different in that even if you are a member of a party and get elected to senate/congress you don't have to follow the party line when you vote. "Democracy" is an umbrella of several different forms of government which we can argue the merits/problems of until we are blue in the face. Canada = Democracy but not the same as the US. In both systems, where you live impacts how much your vote matters. Hell, Canada/US/Germany/France/Italy.. all democratic.. all different systems.

MOre parties works in the case where representation is directly (or close to directly) proportional to the number of votes received. You can add 3 mountain states together to equal the population of washington state and they have more senators/congressmen than washington state so it's not true in the US (nor is it true in canada). For countries that are geographically very large or have regions that are significantly different from each other, straight rep by pop on its own does not make sense. Hence in the US there is the senate, and in canada uneven districts.

Having said that, there are a plethora of "fairer" solutions to address things like vote spltting btw.

Is the US democratic? definately. Are elections free and fair? That's somewhat relative. It's not terrible compared to many places in the world though. Are all votes equal? Definately not, but the system was designed that way. It's also not the only country that is democratic. No system is perfect.

imo the issue in the US isn't as much the system of government as the barrier to entry to be elected (mostly financial) as it stands right now.
THe other issue, as hit on by trumper, is that people are given blatently false/incomplete information thanks to Fox and CNN thus making things worse. There's a difference between believing in lower taxes and less government vs "I believe in cutting government services as long as they aren't the ones I use".

Repblicans are so far off the grid... Republicans 10/15 years ago would be painted as Democrats... its like they are trying to out crazy each other on how far they can go... I'm willing to bet the end game quote before the Party Collapses will be "I'd suck Jesus' fluff."

not 10-15 years ago. the party's been going crazy since Reagan. can't say many better things about the democrats but at least Clinton's presidency ended in a balanced budget and nothing too egregious on the foreign policy front or the civil liberties front.

Proportional Representation is a necessary step in the right direction.

And by the same token, Democrats today would've been called Republicans 10/15 years ago. It's a constant slide caused by capitalism's gravitational pull.

check this out...

Strip Club Hires Sarah Palin Look-Alike For RNC Convention In Tampa Bay

http://youtu.be/0KXnV2-MG54

good info - they say the republican pack in the strip clubs more then when the dems come around

her name is Lisa Ann - so for research purposes... i watched a few of her vids - wow

at least hurricanes follow their own course, without external corrup...campaign funding O=)

1) There should be a national consensus of some kind of the mechanics of voting. Having each state set their own arbitrary guidelines and rules for the actual process of voting is incredibly flawed and abused like crazy.

2) There will never be more than 2 parties. The entire system as it stands CANNOT support more than that. The more one party shifts away from the center, the more centrists vote for the opposing party. It's simple mechanics.

So are you saying the religious right is or isn't the pre-eminent force in the Republican Party? I still think you guys are missing the forest through the trees. Just because someone has an opinion on an issue doesn't mean that's motivating their vote. That's why the Post's spectrum broke them down into motiviational subsections. Ergo, why I said the religous right really isn't the pre-eminent force. Or, put more simple, correlation doesn't equal causation. (Especially in voting).

One of the most important parts of political polling is looking at your tabs to see what issues and messaging are motivating what groups. It's rarely static and single-issue voters are a far smaller subsegment of society than you may think. What always amazes me is the crossplay between folks saying an issue is very important to them and then the same results not reflecting in messaging crosstabs.

For instance, I have seen results with folks saying "I am opposed to same sex marriage," on a scale of 1-10 counting 8-10s who then gave poor marks to "Candidate X has worked tirelessly to maintain marriage as the union between one man and one woman." They two don't compute and that's because people sometimes want to see themselves as strong on an issue, but it's not relaly why they're voting.

Moving to back pre-eminent power structure. Power is really determined by voting. Who yells loudest is often who gets press, but rarely who wins. See: Howard Dean, Al Sharpton, Pat Robertson, or Herman cain.

Anyway, a long diatribe saying it's foolish to project upon those you disagree with the "pre-eminent" force based on your perceptions.

Well, in the US, a nice start would be removing party affiliation from ballots. Sure people will still pass out "party ballot" tickets outside election precincts, but at least some folks may be forced to look a little deeper.

And I will always preach for non-partisan computerized redistricting (it will never truly happen).

So much potential, so little action, and all the ingredients for continued failure.

Most people do not vote because of their frustration with the two parties. There is clearly enough support for third parties, if they are just given a chance and not held off the ballot illegally in many cases, or kept out of taxpayer funded debates.

Additionally, you assume that everyone fits on a 1 dimensional political spectrum between the two parties, and that there is no one off the grid. That is also incorrect. Most people are nowhere near the spectrum between Republican and Democrat.

Looks like #RNCpowergrab hit the second spot on trends in Twitter. That's what this whole post was about. Not the left/right 2 dimension (and thus 2 party) paradigm. "Official business" will be starting up soon. CSPAN is covering it. But I'm also looking at other live feeds from those inside.

At this point, a viable third party still needs three things: a leader, money and organization. I would note, it's not impossible to do. But it is highly improbable, at least right now.

It may be possible with someone like a Bloomberg, but he would have to stake his fortune on it and he does not appear willing to do so. (Or he has polling data saying it won't work). It really wouldn't be too hard to generate interest. You would just run ads saying, "most of us can agree on a few key policy points, why can't our government? There is another way." Etc.