OT - Is your vote decided?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just wondering, even with the likelihood that there'll be a flame or two work its way into the thread along the way.

For the purpose of the poll question:

1) We're talking about the U.S. Presidential Election

2) Assume nothing highly unexpected, good or bad, occurs between now & November -- finding out that one or more candidates had non-consensual sex with a goat is free to influence you to make a change

3) I couldn't care less which candidate you're planning to vote for. For the purposes of the question, it doesn't matter.

[CamEdwards]

where's the poll?

and not that it's any surprise, but yes.

[GrantDawg]

where's the poll?

and not that it's any surprise, but yes.
I knew it. Cam's voting Nader all the way, baby!

[MJ4H]

No my vote has not been decided. But almost.

edit - I guess the 60-40 option was best for me.

[Desnudo]

I'm closer to 80-20, but yes.

[sachmo71]

Yes, I'm voting for Kerry-Edwards. Pretty futile in Texas, but there you go.

[Kodos]

The boy who cried Trout? :D

[duckman]

Bush-Cheney '04

[OldSchool]

Kerry / Edwards no doubt...cant take another 4 years of Bart and Mr Smithers.

[MrBug708]

I'm writing in myself. Imagine if the FOFC decided to write in someone for President? If any of the semi-Regs voted for Jim G., imagine the push in popularity?

[SFL Cat]

Bush / whoever

[Buccaneer]

Yes and no. I am voting for the Libertarian or Constitutional candidate but I don't know which one (or really care). It's the principle of the thing.

[korme]

lets all write in sen

[Draft Dodger]

Kerry would have to really, really, REALLY blow it between now and November to lose my vote. sex with a goat still wouldn't be enough to sway me.

(that would be Kerry having sex with a goat, not me).

[ice4277]

I'm fairly certain I know who I am voting for but, I really do not like the prospects of either man in charge for the next four years.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I'm fairly certain I know who I am voting for but, I really do not like the prospects of either man in charge for the next four years.

This comment intrigues me. If you don't like either one, why would you vote for either one (assuming that you would)?

[korme]

Kerry would have to really, really, REALLY blow it between now and November to lose my vote. sex with a goat still wouldn't be enough to sway me.

(that would be Kerry having sex with a goat, not me).
agreed. i mean, for you, what is just one other goat to you anyway? only another day of work.

[NoMyths]

This comment intrigues me. If you don't like either one, why would you vote for either one (assuming that you would)?Same reason why you might not like either the toilet or the urinal in a filthy bathroom...you've still got to use one of them.

Or, like Bucc, piss in the sink. :D

[Pumpy Tudors]

Same reason why you might not like either the toilet or the urinal in a filthy bathroom...you've still got to use one of them.

Or, like Bucc, piss in the sink. :D

Yeah, but nobody has to vote. If you don't like either one, isn't it acceptable to say no to both?

[Dr. Sak]

Bush-Cheney '04

Just sent in my donation to the campaign today!

[Buccaneer]

Yeah, but nobody has to vote. If you don't like either one, isn't it acceptable to say no to both?
Yes, I did precisely that in the presidential elections of 1984, 1988 and 1996 (I think). Supporting either party means you are encouraging the lesser of two evils to perpetuate. This is the election that I can finally vote on principles instead of the lesser evil.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Yes, I did precisely that in the presidential elections of 1984, 1988 and 1996 (I think). Supporting either party means you are encouraging the lesser of two evils to perpetuate. This is the election that I can finally vote on principles instead of the lesser evil.

I know I differ from many Americans by not subscribing to the "lesser of two evils" idea. If each is an "evil," I'm not voting for either. I don't care how evil my evil is. I just don't want evil.

Is that enough "evil" for everbody? :)

[Arles]

Perot/Stock... err, Bush/Cheney

[ice4277]

I know I differ from many Americans by not subscribing to the "lesser of two evils" idea. If each is an "evil," I'm not voting for either. I don't care how evil my evil is. I just don't want evil.

Is that enough "evil" for everbody? :)
True, but, at least this way, I can have some sort of say in which 'evil' is in office. In this election, I find myself trying to figure out which candidate I disagree with less, rather than agree with more. I would love to vote for a third party candidate, but after looking at some of the party platforms/candidates, I find that they represent my POV less than either the Democratic or Republican parties. I consider myself independent but have never voted for a non-Republican candidate in a major election (president/congress/governor) but I increasingly find myself at odds with the current administration's method of handling just about everything. This is not to say, though, that I am any more in love with the Democrat's platform than I was 4 years ago.

[Leonidas]

Leaning more and more towards the Libertarian vote. The religious nuts have grown to arrogant for me to be comfortable voting for Bush and I don't think I can sleeze myself down far enough to vote Kerry. So may as well make a protest vote in the deluded hope someone will take notice that a bunch of us are voting that way because something is not quite right.

[Buccaneer]

Leaning more and more towards the Libertarian vote. The religious nuts have grown to arrogant for me to be comfortable voting for Bush and I don't think I can sleeze myself down far enough to vote Kerry. So may as well make a protest vote in the deluded hope someone will take notice that a bunch of us are voting that way because something is not quite right.
I owe you a beer.

[JonInMiddleGA]

As of 82 votes, we have truly 1.2% undecideds. (which is what I was interested in, and about what I expected the results to be).

[GrantDawg]

As of 82 votes, we have truly 1.2% undecideds. (which is what I was interested in, and about what I expected the results to be).
I would say the 60-40's are undecideds.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I would say the 60-40's are undecideds.

I disagree.

Barring some major unforeseen event (which I tried to allow for earlier) that impacts one major candidate or the other, what is going to happen that will change their 60-40 leaning?

-- I mean, it's not like either candidate is a stranger.
-- It's not like you don't have an understanding of what they (claim) to represent.
-- It's not like I expect either of them to say anything new or revolutionary, nothing that we haven't heard before.
-- It's not like the same people who believe those unrealistic promises in the past are likely to stop being gullible in the any large percentage.
-- It isn't like the same people who always ignore the pie-in-the-sky promises are suddenly going to start believing them in any large percentage.

So what -- barring a major unforeseen event -- is going to swing someone who is already leaning nearly 2/3rds of the way toward a particular candidate?
With just bare months to go before the election?

I believe the answer to that question is "nothing".

[korme]

i represent the one undecided ;)

[sterlingice]

Great poll, JIMGA. It seems to really go and illustrate a point this year.

Then again, there's a second possibility. I'd like to think that most of us have a decent sort of intelligence (I mean, this is a board for a text based football sim) so we have made our minds up on the information we have. In our minds, we've seen more than enough to see there is a substantial enough difference between the candidates and we strongly agree with one or the other. Rarely are the candidates so similar that you agree or disagree with both on about the same because they are identical, despite what the "they're identical" voters would have you believe. Similarly, it's statistically unlikely that you agree and disagree with both on almost the same number of points just because there are a number of important issues that both disagree on either on principle or to score votes and political points.

Every election year, it never fails. At the debates they always have a room full of undecideds in a swing state and I realize what Homer said "When are people going to realize, Democracy doesn't work". If it's taken this long for these people to make up their minds, they aren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. These people who couldn't get out of jury duty if they tried are the ones deciding who is arguably the most powerful person in the world for a pretty long time. If you haven't been paying attention, you don't deserve to vote. If you just don't know, you're probably just not that smart. It's just plain scary that every close election is decided by these people I wouldn't trust to do a small menial task without a majority screwing it up.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Then again, there's a second possibility. ...

I'll even offer a third (since your 2nd was pretty darned good) -- The more decided you are on the question, the more likely you are to have answered it.

It's just plain scary that every close election is decided by these people I wouldn't trust to do a small menial task without a majority screwing it up.


Amen brother, Amen.

[GrantDawg]

I disagree.

Barring some major unforeseen event (which I tried to allow for earlier) that impacts one major candidate or the other, what is going to happen that will change their 60-40 leaning?

-- I mean, it's not like either candidate is a stranger.
-- It's not like you don't have an understanding of what they (claim) to represent.
-- It's not like I expect either of them to say anything new or revolutionary, nothing that we haven't heard before.
-- It's not like the same people who believe those unrealistic promises in the past are likely to stop being gullible in the any large percentage.
-- It isn't like the same people who always ignore the pie-in-the-sky promises are suddenly going to start believing them in any large percentage.

So what -- barring a major unforeseen event -- is going to swing someone who is already leaning nearly 2/3rds of the way toward a particular candidate?
With just bare months to go before the election?

I believe the answer to that question is "nothing".

I'm a 60-40, so I can answer this. I'm a strong Bush lean, but I strongly dislike Bush. I think he mis-handled the build-up to the Iraq war, and I think he has made too many mistakes in handling his own people. The only thing the makes me hesitant about voting third party is I will always feel guilty about handing the election to Kerry (plus I have yet to see a third-party canidate that appeals to me). BUT, there is still a strong likelyhood (fourty percent is more than 1/3 btw) that I will vote third party, or maybe even not vote at all. I have a feeling many who choose 60-40 are in the same boat, and there are many variable that could push us away from that 60% lean.

[GrantDawg]

Every election year, it never fails. At the debates they always have a room full of undecideds in a swing state and I realize what Homer said "When are people going to realize, Democracy doesn't work". If it's taken this long for these people to make up their minds, they aren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. These people who couldn't get out of jury duty if they tried are the ones deciding who is arguably the most powerful person in the world for a pretty long time. If you haven't been paying attention, you don't deserve to vote. If you just don't know, you're probably just not that smart. It's just plain scary that every close election is decided by these people I wouldn't trust to do a small menial task without a majority screwing it up.

SI
Or maybe neither canidate represents them well at all and they cannot decide on which to vote for. No, they must all be stupid. I wish they were all as enlightened as you.

[sterlingice]

Or maybe neither canidate represents them well at all and they cannot decide on which to vote for. No, they must all be stupid. I wish they were all as enlightened as you.
Since all candidates, particularly, the two major parties, have to play to many interests to get the requisite electoral votes, there will always be a great many issues where you differ from one or both candidates. But name me a presidential candidate who hasn't been on the job at least 10 years where you really are in the dark about where he stands on every major issue. Is that extra two weeks of media hype going to give you some substantial new information with which to make up your mind. It's not as if, in the debates, one or both of the candidates is suddenly going to break down and completely reverse their stance on, say, fiscal policy or defense or abortion.

If you're leaning 60-40, right now then you've made up your mind but there's a chance you could switch if one candidate really does well in the debates. That's not who I'm talking about. There is a chance that some few nuggets of information will come out (maybe a candidate outlines a couple of plans you really like now but were opposed when they were just blank ideas). But that's rare to the point where I'll chalk that up in JIMGA's exception for things like a candidate getting caught in bed with goats- yes, it's that rare.

Likely waiting until the last minute, is the sign of someone waiting for the media to sway them one direction or another in the closing weeks- something about not so much agreeing with the candidate but rather "I voted for him because I wanted to vote for who I thought was going to win" or "I voted for him because the other guy said something stupid in the last week of the election" (as if the year long election season isn't filled with stupidity and this one thing put one candidate over the top in that department). It's just so statistically improbable that they're dead even after all these years in your mind.

There are a lot of things I really don't like about both candidates- that's going to be true of anyone running for office. Let's say there are only 10 major topics in any given election. The odds that any candidate agrees with you on all 10 issues (and this assumes only two possible binary solutions to an issue) is 1 in 1024. But the odds that any given candidate agrees more with you is so much higher. Sure, you may call that voting for the lesser of two evils, and these days it really seems that way, but realistically, if you really feel that you hate both candiates then it's stastically likely that you just haven't compared them enough rather than both are equally bad. A candidate who only agrees with you on 4 of those 10 issues still agrees with you twice as much as someone who you only agree with on 2 issues. So, rather than say both candidates agree with me on less than half of the things I care about, I'd still rather vote for the one that agrees with me about more stuff. Maybe you feel differently.

SI

[GrantDawg]

blah, blah, blah, mathmatics formula

SII know that on paper I agree with one more than the other, but (and this is what more people than me are dealing with) I see what Bush has actually done and he has often gone against what he says he stands for. That is why this decision hasn't been made completely, and it will not be changed by the debates or "how the media will sway me." I have to decide if I can live with my self casting a vote for him or not. That decision has not been made, and it is not as black and white as you seem to believe it is.

[Sun Tzu]

no Trout, no Vote.

[ice4277]

I know that on paper I agree with one more than the other, but (and this is what more people than me are dealing with) I see what Bush has actually done and he has often gone against what he says he stands for. That is why this decision hasn't been made completely, and it will not be changed by the debates or "how the media will sway me." I have to decide if I can live with my self casting a vote for him or not. That decision has not been made, and it is not as black and white as you seem to believe it is.
This is basically my view on the matter. From a purely philosophical point of view, I fall much more in-line with Republican views than those of the Democrats or third parties. However, I think Bush has made some very bad decisions in the way he has gone about things, and I truly cannot stomach some of the people he has in his administration right now. While I may not agree with many of Kerry's politics, I think he would fit the role better. So, for me at this point, the negatives are outweighing the positives of both candidates, making for a tough decision. It has nothing to do with me being 'uninformed or stupid'.

[Crapshoot]

Leaning more and more towards the Libertarian vote. The religious nuts have grown to arrogant for me to be comfortable voting for Bush and I don't think I can sleeze myself down far enough to vote Kerry. So may as well make a protest vote in the deluded hope someone will take notice that a bunch of us are voting that way because something is not quite right.

In a nutshell, if I had a vote, this would be my perspective. I recall a discussion long ago about a potential split in the Republican Party, between what Jon (or someone else) called the Rockefeller Republicans and the Religious Right - I find the Right as Repulsive as the extreme left, and would find myself hard pressed to support it.

[Ksyrup]

In a nutshell, if I had a vote, this would be my perspective. I recall a discussion long ago about a potential split in the Republican Party, between what Jon (or someone else) called the Rockefeller Republicans and the Religious Right - I find the Right as Repulsive as the extreme left, and would find myself hard pressed to support it.I tend to agree with this, and if there's anything that would move me away from voting Republican, it would be the Religious Right's stranglehold on the party. That said, Florida should be a key state once again, and there's no way I'd vote for anyone but Bush.

In my mind, the one person who personifies what I wanted the Republican party to be moving into the 21st century, is William Weld (who, ironically, lost to Kerry in the 96 Senate election). Fiscally conservative, socially liberal. I had high hopes for him as a Presdential candidate, but I don't think anyone in the party really wanted to back someone like him. In fact, after he lost to Kerry, he resigned as Governor of Massachusetts to pursue the ambassadorship to Mexico - and was railroaded by Jesse Helms because he supported medical marijuana. It's crap like that that will drive me away from the party. It just hasn't happened...yet.

[JonInMiddleGA]

It's crap like that that will drive me away from the party. It just hasn't happened...yet.

Then again, it's "crap like that" that made the GOP a viable option for my vote.
{shrugs}

The question is whether they'll show a net gain, net loss, or no significant change from the whole ebb & flow.

[Crapshoot]

Then again, it's "crap like that" that made the GOP a viable option for my vote.
{shrugs}

The question is whether they'll show a net gain, net loss, or no significant change from the whole ebb & flow.

Jon, which of the two potential Republican "camps" would you put yourself in ? I would have you as a hawk, but I don't know much about your stance on the religous right.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Jon, which of the two potential Republican "camps" would you put yourself in ? I would have you as a hawk, but I don't know much about your stance on the religous right.

Probably neither fish nor fowl on that divider either. Or at least not enough so that either the pro/anti religious right camps would claim me. I'll give you some info and you can decide where I'd fit for yourself.

-- I'm an adamant pro-choicer when it comes to abortion rights.
-- I'm an staunch supporter of a Constitution Amendment to ban recognition of gay marriage.
-- I believe churches are businesses & should be taxed as such.
-- I'm a supporter of the display of The Ten Commandments in public buildings that choose to do so. Ditto the reference to God in the Pledge.
-- I support student-led activities that are "Christian-oriented".
-- I'm an opponent of formal "church-organized" activities being involved with the public schools in any way.

Now, if you can figure out where that puts me on the religious right scale, feel free to share ;) Personally, I figure I fail too many litmus tests for either camp to be willing to claim me.

[Crapshoot]

Probably neither fish nor fowl on that divider either. Or at least not enough so that either the pro/anti religious right camps would claim me. I'll give you some info and you can decide where I'd fit for yourself.

-- I'm an adamant pro-choicer when it comes to abortion rights.
-- I'm an staunch supporter of a Constitution Amendment to ban recognition of gay marriage.
-- I believe churches are businesses & should be taxed as such.
-- I'm a supporter of the display of The Ten Commandments in public buildings that choose to do so. Ditto the reference to God in the Pledge.
-- I support student-led activities that are "Christian-oriented".
-- I'm an opponent of formal "church-organized" activities being involved with the public schools in any way.
Now, if you can figure out where that puts me on the religious right scale, feel free to share ;) Personally, I figure I fail too many litmus tests for either camp to be willing to claim me.

Interesting- I would think based on what I've read in the other threads, you're more of a Rockefeller Republican. Pretty much everything you';ve said there is something I agree with, with the exceptions of the Ten Commmandments thing, because I view that as a de facto state endorsement. What's your stance on gay marriage ?

[Kodos]

What's your stance on gay marriage ?

I think Jon likes you, but just wants to be friends.

[Crapshoot]

I think Jon likes you, but just wants to be friends.


I did set that one up, eh ...

[Kodos]

He also answered your question already:

-- I'm an staunch supporter of a Constitution Amendment to ban recognition of gay marriage.

[Crapshoot]

woops- cant read. In that case, that's another thing I disagree with him on, and Im curious why someone who seems so individualistic wants an amendment that relegates an entire class of people as "Secondary".

[ice4277]

Probably neither fish nor fowl on that divider either. Or at least not enough so that either the pro/anti religious right camps would claim me. I'll give you some info and you can decide where I'd fit for yourself.

-- I'm an adamant pro-choicer when it comes to abortion rights.
-- I'm an staunch supporter of a Constitution Amendment to ban recognition of gay marriage.
-- I believe churches are businesses & should be taxed as such.
-- I'm a supporter of the display of The Ten Commandments in public buildings that choose to do so. Ditto the reference to God in the Pledge.
-- I support student-led activities that are "Christian-oriented".
-- I'm an opponent of formal "church-organized" activities being involved with the public schools in any way.

Now, if you can figure out where that puts me on the religious right scale, feel free to share ;) Personally, I figure I fail too many litmus tests for either camp to be willing to claim me.
Interesting. I disagree with your position on the first two points, generally agree on the 4th, 5th, and 6th, and am not sure about the third.

I am not really familiar with the idea of churches being taxed, is this an idea that has been gaining momentum recently?

[ice4277]

dola

I am a pretty strong pro-lifer, that is usually the deciding factor for me when voting, as I tend to split the difference between the two parties otherwise. I have always been curious how many pro-life advocates vote Democratic, and vice-versa. I think a lot of politicians on both sides are just paying lip-service to this issue.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I am not really familiar with the idea of churches being taxed, is this an idea that has been gaining momentum recently?

Not particularly. What does get discussed more commonly is stricter enforcement of existing tax rules concerning churches & how they act in
ways (such as political activism) that might compromise their non-profit status.

The "treat-em-like-a-business" comment was meant to convey not only my support my tight enforcement of existing rules, but for a much stricter set of rules as well.