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Democrats Crowdsourcing To Vote Palin In Primaries
SharpieMarker writes "In what could be the most extreme and influential crowdsourcing project ever, Democrats are beginning to organize to purposely vote for Palin in the 2012 Republican primaries. Their theory is by having Palin as an opponent, Obama will have the best odds at winning reelection. Recent polls have shown that Obama comfortably leads Palin by 10-20 points, but Obama is statistically tied with Romney and barely ahead of Huckabee. They even have a state-by-state primary voting guide to help Democrats navigate various states' rules for voting Palin in Republican primaries."
I'm not sure if I can support this. I think it perverts the process.
What could possibly go wrong?
I thought it was rather embarrassing for the republicans when they tried these tactics against Obama. It saddens me that apparently some democrats are sinking to their level. Really, I can't imagine this being successful anyway.
Next thing you'll know, Republicans and Democrats will just appoint our "choices" for us.
Um, I have bad news for you...
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
This is dangerous. Jimmy Carter wanted to run against Ronald Reagan - 1 to 2 years out he was seen as the easiest to beat. Alas, didn't turn out that way.
... is that elections are largely driven by economic fundamentals and (to some degree) random chance. Meaning, there's a non-trivial probability that Palin might beat Obama. I'm not trying to be an ass about Palin, because I'm sure she's a nice person in the right context, but she has not demonstrated anything close to the knowledge and/or responsibility that I would expect in a Presidential candidate. She doesn't appear to have taken the lessons offered by the '08 election in terms of becoming more informed or dedicated --- all she seems to have learned is that she can get traction by attacking anything remotely related to the left wing. That's great for a pundit, not so great for the President of a large country.
In the long run a Palin presidency would be a disaster for Democrats and Republicans, not to mention Americans in general. These people shouldn't flirt with disaster.
The Nazis decided that if their plans weren't realistic, reality would have to budge.
Not saying (not even implying, hi there FoxNews) that Palin's a Nazi, will create a totalitarian state of some kind or other. I am saying that candidate Palin could become president Palin and Democrats would have noone but themselves to blame.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
You say that as if it's a bad thing. Why should the public pay for party primaries? If the parties don't want 5 (or 10...) people running, they should control and pay for their own internal selection process. There's no good reason to ask the public to pay for their internal politics. That would also eliminate the issue brought up here, which can work both ways.
Better yet, adopt a preferential voting system.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Seems like a terribly bad idea to me. (1) It corrupts the US election process, because that's not how it was supposed to work. (2) It legitimizes non-democratic measures to counter this. (3) It increases the odds that Sara Palin becomes President. On the plus side, it does show a rather touching confidence in the common sense of the US voter (that, sadly, I cannot share).
As a european my most direct concern is (3), because having an airhead as the leader of a large and powerful nation is bad for the whole world, but (1) and (2) are painful to watch too. To use a car analogy: of course my neighbor is free to use a sledgehammer on his own car, but it's still painful to watch.
President Palin.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If it truly was a 2 party system then you would not be groped at airports by the government.
At best you have the Dems afraid of the insane Reps.
At worst and most likely you have 2 sides of the same coin play fighting as if Washington was the WWE/WWF. and Corps are paying the Critters to "fight".
It's all bread and circuses. you can try to vote for a 3rd party but you cannot win. Easily-tampered electronic voting machines without a paper trail make sure of that. Then there's Florida...
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
This will just lead to more state parties moving to closed primaries. This means independents, most Americans, will have even less say in who our leaders are.
The 20% of the population who are hardcore partisan douchebags like these make me sick. What we need is a process that let's the other 80% of the population - most of who are so disgusted by this that they don't even vote - have more say, not less.
Why was this approved for Slashdot? This is not news. This is some lame attempt to drag democrats in the mud when there is clearly no democratic party member that is behind this website.
This is someone's successful attempt at site promotion. How did the mods sleep on this or should I be expecting more articles on Slashdot that have no references to actual news?
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
It's already been done successfully in South Carolina by the Republicans, and I suspect that this type of voting will just escalate. Hopefully this means that primaries will soon be replaced by a general free for all. Added bonus: it will reduce the value of being in the party structure when running for political positions.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I don't understand the concern. This is almost exactly what happened in Delaware this past election. A crazy won, and the democrat, who might've otherwise lost, ended up winning by a landslide. The main difference is that it's the democrats initiating the process rather than letting it happen organically.
What is humor if not pain tempered by time?
This is a terrible strategy. If they really want to guarantee a win, they should vote for Ron Paul in the republican primaries (or the libertarian type candidate that emerges with his blessing).
Not only does he have zero chance of winning, he would be blacked out and ignored by the media even if he won the primary, and if he did win your worst side effect would be liberty for all.
Liberty.
If they don't think Obama can win, maybe they should run someone else.
Isn't it a little early to call something like this "the most extreme and influential crowdsourcing"? Not that it's the end-all metric of popularity, but it has 16 follows so far 25 facebook likes for god's sake. Slow down a bit before you hurt yourself.
Yes but the average delawarian is a little more sane than the average Alaskan or Texan. Delaware is a swing state and the Republicans and Democrats they elect are moderate. Put Christine O'Donnell in Kansas and she might get her ass elected.
Also remember Palin won in Alaska. The US on the whole is more right leaning than Delaware is on the whole. There are enough nutjobs that think that voting for a Democrat amounts to treason and will even vote in an idiot like Palin to avoid that.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Not sure who he was, but it's made me recast these kinds of things in a different light.
I don't even know if Palin is running, I think she might prefer to sit on the sidelines and help guide things.
But if nominated, here's how Palin wins the general election:
1) Hate machine starts up again (rather, goes faster than it has been).
2) Hate includes many statements that are horribly misogynistic, just as before.
3) People also start making fun of retarded kid again (just like before).
4) Real-World feminists finally have enough of misogyny, non-Democratic women vote for Palin in landslide.
5) Disability groups have enough of hatred, tell people to vote for Palin.
6) Libertarians (independents) realize that while she is religious, she's not about forcing religion on people and is the closest thing they will ever find to a mainstream Libertarian, vote for her en masse.
With only Democrats voting against her, and even then not all the Democratic women, how can Palin lose?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey, Godwin. What took you so long? The article was submitted a whole NINE minutes ago!
The topic is about the right wing politics, and in some fields, racism isn't far off. A remark about WWII is very valid in that case.
If we cannot refer to the lessons learned in that terrible period, then we are just stupid. Of course we have to learn from our history, and therefore it is necessary to repeat what happened in that time.
The "Godwin" argument was about any random internet discussion... not about specific political racism, where it is actually near-mandatory to repeat WWII facts so that we never ever forget.
As far as I'm concerned, it's near-impossible not to Godwin. We should never forget WWII, or what caused it.
To kill an argument which correctly mentions anything about WWII just by calling it a Godwin is a Godwin in itself.
In this case, the comparison is valid. It is one of the few well-known cases in history that compares to this move by the Democrats.
There's a story from the end of the Roman republic that comes to mind.
Republican Rome had a very complicated legislative system with duplicate institutions and authority, which worked well only if "the way of the ancestors" was followed. If, on the other hand, that wasn't the case, the system was easily exploitable, but exploits could cause it to easily grind to a complete halt.
Tiberius Gracchus was the first to exploit (for a "just" cause, agrarian reform) the system successfully. He (completely legally, but ignoring tradition) sidestepped the Senate and used force to shut his opposition up.
Eventually, he was killed, but what he started lived on. The Roman republic was never the same.
In more ways than one, his action was the beginning of the Roman Revolution and lead ultimately to the fall of the Republic and the establishment of the monarchy under Octavian Augustus.
I don't think you need to worry. Gosh, aren't those famous last words? People think this is a race of Palin vs Obama in NORMAL circumstances. But what if in the week before the election something happens. Say a terrorist attack? A scandal? A mosque is build somewhere in the USA?
The likes of Palin always go up and down, and every thinks they can never recover from their downs. But the populist vote is always unpredictable and if the reason for their popularity isn't addressed (a fundemental distrust of the way the world is run) then anything can make their popularity rise again.
We got our own Palin in Holland. Geert Wilders. He wasn't a real threath as well. But he controls the government right now and despite that so far it has been a complete shambles and dropping results the REASON he was so popular hasn't been removed. And everytime an article happens like "5 youths attack young woman in train with hammer to steal phone" he gets another voter. Especially when the REAL story is that the youths had light tans (read Muslim immigrants) and this was part of a police description put out at the same time as the press release. Editing this out doesn't help at all, it just reinforces the believe that the "left" media is lying and that EVERY story about crime where race is not mentioned is done by Muslim immigrants.
Palin voters are not all right wingers in the way of anarchy style free market, they just see the houses in their street being foreclosed and nothing being done about it. They want SOMEONE to do SOMETHING. Palin's answer is that she is going to do something. Obama's answer is... well... what is it? Palin's answer is wrong BUT that is not what these people are hearing. They are seeing someone who can talk to them vs someone who can't. Obama has fallen into the trap that he has become part of the system. Might be the best way to at least get something done BUT the voter sees just another fat cat politician playing the game while the voters American Dream is falling to pieces.
Don't count Palin out yet. The source of her success is only growing. And even if she is gone, who is going to take her place.
A lot has been written in regards to Geert Wilders and 1932-1939 (Hitlers reign before WW2) but that in unfair. Geert is no Hitler BUT he MIGHT be one of the unknowns who lead the european countries leading UP to the election of Hitler. Hitler didn't create the nazi party and the national socialist agenda wasn't always the one that become best known for the holocaust. Palin/Wilders of the 1920's laid the foundation on which Hitler rose up. BUT ALSO the Obama's/Cohen's (dutch political figure who is blamed for the coddling of immigrants) they too helped, or failed to stop, the sentiment that lead to the growth of the extreme parties.
Read up on the pre-history of the nazi party and OPEN your eyes to see that it takes TWO sides to give an extreme party power. Bacteria can only grow on a nutritious surface. Do you blame rapid growith of bacteria on your kitchen counter on the bacteria or on the person who didn't clean the counter properly to stop the growth of bacteria and parasites?
Palin is not the disease, it is the symptom. You are fighting the fever, not the virus. I wouldn't celebrate when the fever goes down, the death of the patient might also be causing it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Though I do think it's highly informative, it's unfortunately quite unabashed and unvarnished in it's portrayal of the brutalities perpetrated by the conquistadors and colonists... it's more fit for the college reader, IMHO.
However, an insightful, but pleasant read that I think all high-schoolers should read is James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher told Me" . It talks about why, for example, the Indians had some power and representation in the early days of the USA, while after a while they lost it (hint: economics and trade).
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