Topic: U.S. Election 2012 (the one that matters)

[Jake]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57447954-503544/scott-walker-wins-wisconsin-recall-election/

discuss.

too bad this thing cost wisconsin over $60mil

[Govtcheez]

I'm just gonna say this is the 2012 election thread if that's cool with you

I'm disappointed that Walker won but I'm not surprised.  I think (hope) it's far enough away from November to be replaced in voters minds before the general. 

My congressional district has been bizarre.  It's a solidly Republican district and has been held the last 10 years by Thad McCotter.  As you'd expect, I'm not really a fan.  So for this year, he went through the normal process of getting 1000 or whatever petition signatures to remain on the ballot in a district he'd win by a million points.  They turned them into the Secretary of State and all but 240ish of the signatures are fraudelent - photocopies from other petitions, duplicates, fake names, etc.  He immediately suspends his "campaign" (in quotes because it's not like he had much competition) and tells the SoS to remove his name from the ballot and he'll run as a writein.  A week later he basically says that the damage has been done and he's not going to seek re-election, leaving our district wide open.  As of right now there are two major party candidates on our ballot.  The Republican is a reindeer farmer and a hardcore tea partier.  The Democrat is a disciple of Lyndon LaRouche.  The local Democratic party is trying to get a local doctor on the ballot but he's got a foreign name so I expect that to go over like a lead balloon. So instead of a pity vote for the Dems I'm probably going Green or Socialist if there's one on the ballot.

edit: I just checked and McCotter won reelection in 2010 by 20 points, AND THEN the districts were redrawn to make it even more favorable to him.  He seriously just had to appear on the ballot and walk into his next term.

[Jake]

>>I'm just gonna say this is the 2012 election thread if that's cool with you

yes. I actually think that Walker winning might have implications for the general election. Wisconsin hasn't voted for a republican president since Nixon, and now, the gop might have enough momentum to deliver a similar result in November.

edit: it is also interesting the Obama stayed out of this recall election completely.

[Govtcheez]

Yeah I guess the one good thing for the Dems to take out of that is that the election was sort of close even though Barrett was outspent by a huge margin and the national party did essentially nothing to support the recall

[Steve]

Did anybody actually think Walker would loose?

[Govtcheez]

They had been polling within the margin of error recently but if Barrett had actually won I think most people would have seen it as a huge upset

[charlie]

The Walker election has minimal meaning for the Presidential election is what my sources are telling me.

[Steve]

Move this to sports board

for what purpose

[Steve]

While I accept your view because it is essentially a competition, the outcome affects us all for the next few years and potentially far beyond that so it should be treated more seriously than the playoffs.

[Steve]

I'm curious Ethic, do you vote? I do not recall if we have discussed this previously, if we have then I apologize.

[Steve]

I thought so but wasn't completely sure. Why don't you vote?

[charlie]

You guys treat all elections like sporting events.

Same with wars.

That is, generally speaking, a problem. But I don't think many people do it too much here. At least as far as rooting for a team. We talk about it as a competition because that's what it essentially is.

Of course, that's human nature and not specific to politics. We also act like there are "teams" in the argument over whether natural foods are better or whether Nintendo is better than Sony or Microsoft or Sega.

[Steve]

Team Edward, Team Jacob

[charlie]

For those of you who do like to follow this like a sport, you can now see one model of who is favored right now and why here:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/election-forecast-obama-begins-with-tenuous-advantage/

The current forecast is Obama with 291 electoral votes and Romney with 247, and Obama having a 62% chance of winning to Romney's 38%.

And to keep it relevant to the Wisconsin results, there is this quote:

...

Other states that are sometimes considered battlegrounds are even less likely to swing the national outcome. Mr. Obama has only about a 30 percent chance of carrying North Carolina again, according to the model. In the instances where he does, it will most likely come along for the ride only after Mr. Obama has already accumulated enough electoral votes elsewhere to win another term.

Likewise, although Republicans might be tempted to make a play for Wisconsin after winning the gubernatorial recall election there on Tuesday. The model suggests that it is over-hyped as a swing state. Mr. Obama has had a fairly consistent lead in the polls there, including in the exit poll among voters who turned out on Tuesday. Although Mr. Obama is unlikely to win Wisconsin by 14 points, as he did in 2008, all indications from the polls are that the state remains somewhat more favorable to him than the country as a whole, meaning that is not quite at the electoral tipping point and is more like Mr. Romney’s equivalent of North Carolina.

...

[KnuckleBuckett]

I am predicting an easy Obama win.