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How Close Were US Presidential Elections?
Mike Sheppard writes "I'm a graduate student in Statistics at Michigan State University and spent some time analyzing past US presidential elections to determine how close they truly were. The mathematical procedures of Linear Programming and 0-1 Integer Programming were used to find the optimal solution to the question: 'What is the smallest number of total votes that need to be switched from one candidate to another, and from which states, to affect the outcome of the election?' Because of the way the popular and electoral votes interact, the outcome of the analysis had some surprising and intriguing results. For example, in 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry; and in 2000, 269 votes would have given us President Gore. In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."
Sorry pal, but that is what they teach in high school Algebra I/II classes as a stand-in for analytically solving equations. When my father was getting his MBA 25 years ago, everyone in one of his classes complained about having to learn a bit of calculus, so the instructor taught with linear programming instead.
That having been said, calculus is a much more useful tool, and people would take you more seriously if you used it.
Gore is an 8 poped collar douchebag
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
So he would have invaded pakistan ? Now that would have been just peachy.
The next president will have to deal with peak oil, so whoever it is he's going to take many people's toys away. Whoever it is, we're not going to like him anymore in 2012 and true hate is going to surface before 2016.
We have a democrat congress, so shear damage control voting would be voting for McCain. Congress and the presidency in the hands of the same bunch of nitwits has always been disastrous.
At least when they both control parts "some" stupidities cancel eachother out. (or so I hope)
What Gore has done in the past eight years scares me even more than what Bush has done. I consider it a lucky break.
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You seem to have forgotten that Bin Laden's attacks on the USS Cole, Oklahoma Federal Building (suspected but not proven), and the World Trade Center happened during Al Gore's watch as Vice president. If he was not "on guard" enough to stop at least one of those, then he would not be on guard to stop 9/11 either.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Actually given Obama's track record of generally being a bad guy, I don't think he'll win. So I'd like to s/Obama/McCain/ in your post.
But otherwise, it seems quite correct.
However one thing that could change things is simple : people will see what will happen in other countries, like the EU or Russia. And the US is a *lot* better of peak-oil wise than the EU or basically any other country.
So if people compare enough to the situation abroad, and are fair (heh, fat chance of that, I know, but the media could help this), things could change.
The only good thing about the idea of a Gore presidency is that he would not currently be on the Global Warming stick.
Gore and Kerry were both bad for the country. Heck, Clinton will go down in history as a lousy president (Yeah go ahead, mod me down, I have Karma to burn).
Now we have Nobama. Why do the Dems even bring up these guys - first a draft dodger (Clinton), then a nutcase environmentalist (Gore), and finally a traitor (Kerry) (And yes, there is proof - from Kerry's own website - that he was given a dishonorably discharge in the early 70's, if you know what to look for. That's why he won't release his military records.) And now Nobama, the empty suit. No experince, no achomplishments, no real plans.
And finally, Gore tried to have 25,000 ballots ruled invalid in Florida in the courts, including mine. Fortunately, the judges in those two districts put the kibash on that try. (Oh, and it wasn't 269 votes. Try more like 15,000 valid Bush votes tossed in Palm Beach county with someone who double punched the cards there. The proof is there, because someone also did it for the previous election - for Clinton).
Don't believe the media, they have their agenda to put out there, and it is overwhelmingly liberal. Me? I quit believing the media the day I had to call my local news station to inform them that the "reports of my death were greatly exaggerated".
I supported our decision to invade Iraq and while I rather wish we weren't there now, I feel we need to stay there until we are certain the Iraqi government can keep the country stable on their own. And no, we didn't need any more penniless hippies with SUV envy throwing around one-sided statistics to promote a bogus theory that we are the cause of the current global warming trend.
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Notice how when a point is proven you just ignore and try to make a different one?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It is admitted that the first WTC bombing in 1993 was done BY the FBI. It even came out in the New York Times and in a CBS News broadcast.
The leader of the group to blow up the WTC in 1993 was an FBI informant. They were supposed to build a phony bomb and set the other guys up. When it came time to put in the fake powder, the FBI gave him real powder! The informant was so upset about it he secretly recorded his conversations with the FBI.
Of course the NYT and CBS didn't say the FBI did it. They claim the FBI failed to stop it, although its admitted that the FBI was supposed to supply the fake powder to the informant. The news stories fail to mention that the FBI gave him real powder. But I suppose that was an accident too.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
>Second, they showed that if there been a full statewide recount of all counties, Al Gore would have received more votes than Bush.
Bullsh*t
Full recount of all the votes showed that GORE lost. The only way he could have won was by a selective recount in the counties he was winning, which is the one way Al Gore did not want to recount.
Also, Orange county was conducting an illegal method of recounting, that was not giving correct results. The Orange County superviosr demonstrated on TV. He was determining BY EYE which marksense votes he thought were not being counted by the machine. Then he was recounting them by hand. NOT using the machine to determine which votes the machine could not read. It is called vote FRAUD and it ended up netting votes for Al Gore.
And then he never sent the form in, and NO records were released. Besides, the Boston Globe was in the tank for him, along with the LA Times and the AP.
The point being that John Kerry could not have been discharged in 1978. By law, he was discharged about 1975. But where is that discharge paper, and why get a new discharge in 1978 from the wrong agency. Only to get a pardon from the president, hmmm?
Actually, Nobama was a bumper sticker I saw the other day. I thought it was cute when I saw it.
FYI, John McCain wasn't my first choice either. But given the choice between the two of them, well, no contest.
Besides, I was throwing facts out there, which seemed to be lacking in this whole thread.
My vote was threatened by one of those court cases, I paid VERY close attention to it.
And after I said anything about Clinton, I figured the first person seeing thepost was going to mark it flamebait anyway, most of /. seems to be liberals anyway.
Your facts were entirely wrong in practically every single way possible. You are a moonbat. I don`t need to quote "facts" to back this assertion up because it`s clear as day to everyone not laughably deluded as you are. Mod me flamebait, I`ve got karma to burn. Your idiocy simply BEGS to be pointed out.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
If by stronger democracy you mean stronger liberal/socialist government, then yes, absolutely. Paying someone to perform a civic responsibility makes them into an employee. It would not take long before political parties started raising these 'vote stimulii' amounts would likely gain the favor of the majority. How would we pay for it? Why lets tax the corporations some more! They're evil! Whats that? The economy is stagnating? The government needs to step in and do something. Maintain control! Well why not let them just take over the industries altogether, they already control the financial sector.
I for one, do NOT welcome our new even-more-widespread-and-invasive government overlords.
-=Bang Bang=-
If by "won" you mean "we're 2 trillion and 4000 lives in the hole and the country's GDP is still below what it was before the war", then yes.
Well just remember the american belief that it's better to have someone of SOME faith in charge then an athiest. Athiests are morally bankrupt and not capable of anything but looking out for themselves... much better to have a nation of walking bombs on the hunt for virgins in the afterlife then an evil athiest. If you put an athiest in charge he'll eat your babys for science, have police in your house saying you can't pray, and kill god when the rapture happens.
...I still say if babys didn't want to be eaten they wouldn't taste like candy.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
We, the people of the United States, have not been attacked again by the terrorists which Afghanistan and Iraq were supporting. We won.
Want to point out the Americans which Iran has been killing?
There was no need there for tanks, artillery, or more than a few bombers, which is what largely went to Iraq.
People will always "wonder", but the move was not unreasonable. First of all, the "cotton bale next door" had its own, unrelated, shards, that had to be taken out — long ago.
And second, it was quite reasonable to believe, that the crafty needle would quietly move from the haystack to the cotton bale. Although Saddam's and Osama's distaste for each other was known, what was not as publicized, was Osama's earlier tensions with Mullah Omar. We only learned of it in 2004, when The Atlantic's journalist published his story:
Kicked out from Afghanistan by the US and its allies, Osama could very well have patched up his differences with Saddam, and begin a mutually-useful cooperation.
And then, of course, there was a question of moral high ground. Despite the howls of jealous "international disapproval" and the internal opposition (angry not so much at the war, as at Bush's earlier tax-cuts and reforms of the education system), ridding the world of an asshole of Saddam Hussein's caliber was a Very Good Thing (TM).
That the post-war efforts to rebuild the country were mismanaged and are only getting back on track now, is not an argument against it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"Thank god we have George W Bush in office to uphold the law and protect the constitution. Who knows what a bleeding heart liberal like Al Gore would have done with it?"
Considering that he's telling his followers to do "civil disobedience" to halt new coal plant construction, gee, as President, he probably would have stopped any new power plant construction, period. I don't care what you think of Bush, if you can't see that Gore has a messiah complex, you're blind. Yeah, lets put a guy like that in the oval office, where he can "save us" whether we like it or not.
Gore is also a longtime proponent of the "living Constitution" theory... that it's "living, breathing, and evolving", and that the actual text doesn't matter, as long as we interpret it correctly "for the times".
So never mind that tenth amendment thing... the "times" say federalism is outmoded, so out it goes, baby!
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
He would have in his possession, letters from Al Gore, strongly condemning Bin Laden for the adverse
environmental impact bringing down the World Trade Center towers caused for New York.
Hmmm... still want that recount?
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
No, we would have been wearing turbans and praying five times a day, in a society with no economy and no downtown New York City.