"Well, what's wrong with slavery?"

Ryujin · Aug 29, 2015

Umbran said:
"Radical" and "extreme" are not well-defined terms.

For example, right now, if one of the candidates tried to open a conversation on gun control, you can be pretty sure the other side would call that candidate 'extreme left'. Heck, they have called Obama a 'socialist' (which, yes, shows that the speaker knows squat-all about socialism, but the point stands).

As with Justice Potter Stewart regarding pornography I don't know that I can define those terms adequately, but I know it when I see it.

prosfilaes · Aug 29, 2015

gamerprinter said:
The question should be framed as "How many Republicans must propose (or vote for) racist policies before it can be labeled as racists, which would be answered with it's majority", not how many of it's politicians,

Any group is known by what it does, and a group formed to exert political power is going to be known for how it exerts political power. Someone who supports that party despite how it does that is saying more about themselves then the party.

since the current batch of Presidential candidates only seems to represent the extreme right of the party

That seems unlikely. A dozen candidates to the extreme right of the party could easily be felled by one candidate to the slight right of the party, since that person should logically be closer to the positions of the left half plus some of the right (and thus gain their votes) then any one of those dozen. I don't see any forces in American democracy that could pop up a dozen candidates on an extreme flank of a party and none more centrist. In the current Republican field, candidates towards the left like Bush and Rubio are doing okay in polls, and those to the left of them, like Christie, aren't doing so well, leading to the conclusion that the center of the Republican Party is at least to the right of candidate Christie.

Unfortunately in American politics today, its seems that only the extreme left or the extreme right have a chance at winning Presidential elections. Not that there's never a centrist candidate, they just never win elections.

Most people living in parliamentary systems laugh at that, since they have far-right and far-left parties that repeatedly get seats in their parliaments and have to be negotiated with to form a government. The very nature of our winner-take-all system, which is usually a race between the results of two winner-take-all systems, means that a presidential candidate can't have been seen as too far from the center (because then his opponent would have grabbed the independents and swing-vote), but had to be enough to grab the nomination. It doesn't tend to produce extremists.

Umbran said:
Not in "first across the finish line" polling, he wouldn't necessarily. ... Right now, they'd go to up to a dozen other people still in the race, leaving Trump with the only strong signal, and thus the Primary win.

Nate Silver puts the numbers at 2% for a Trump primary win.* For one, it's not a national vote; it's a series of staggered state-wise votes, where the crowd usually shakes itself down to two or three real players long before the vote is done. For another, it's not a popular vote; it is a quite complex system with a lot of power left to the influential members of the party, who don't like Trump.

* http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trumps-six-stages-of-doom/

Homicidal_Squirrel · Aug 29, 2015

Ryujin said:
Middle-aged and older people listen to AM talk radio. These people are demographically more likely to vote.

This true, which is why republicans in general get labeled as racist ad hateful. Are most republicans racist? Probably not. But unfortunately they are the real silent majority, unlike the supposedly silent majority Trump refers to. Most of these republicans don't go out and vote for politicians that are more moderate. Instead, they let the racist members of their party elect the politicians that will represent them. So when someone says that the republican party is racist or hateful or whatever, they are in a sense correct. The people representing the party are racist and hateful, and they are the ones being chosen by their voters to represent them.

This has been making the rounds lately:

The funny thing is that republicans see being called on the "casual racism,crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, and vulgarity on an epic scale" the "politically correct" crowd attacking them.

There also seems to be this anti-education feeling in the republican party. They push this idea of "elites," meaning those that have gone to university, as being the evil liberals and socialist looking down on those that don't have an education. Rick Santorum called Obama a snob because Obama wanted people to go to college. Rick Santorum also has a BA in political science¹, an MBA, and a JD degree. I tend to think that republican politicians like their voters to be uneducated. It's easier to get people to believe they should work harder for others and be grateful they have a job when they are uneducated.

[sblock=1]I know, it's a totally useless degree. He may as well just fold it up into a paper hat and ask the next customer in line if they want to make it a combo.[/sblock]

Umbran · Aug 29, 2015

Dannyalcatraz said:
I was thinking in the non-partisan political sense...

Yes, but then we are like Diogenes, in search of a non-partisan person to judge where "center" and the extremes lie.

Umbran · Aug 29, 2015

gamerprinter said:
The question should be framed as "How many Republicans must propose (or vote for) racist policies before it can be labeled as racists, which would be answered with it's majority", not how many of it's politicians..

If you vote for the politicians, you vote for their stated policies. And, since most of these candidates are or have been in office already, that means *someone* already voted for them...

Unfortunately in American politics today, its seems that only the extreme left or the extreme right have a chance at winning Presidential elections.

Even with my giving Danny a hard time about "extreme", I actually agree with him. Those who think Obama, and Clinton are "extreme" have lost some perspective on the range of possible policies, such that they have a misapprehension of where the "center" lies.

trappedslider · Aug 29, 2015

Umbran said:
Not in "first across the finish line" polling, he wouldn't necessarily. Especially in a wide field, like we currently have in the primary race. The "disapprove" numbers tell you how many folks will not vote for him, but that doesn't necessarily lead to a strong signal for a single other candidate. The 43% who disapprove of Trump don't necessarily all go to Rubio, even in a straight head-to-head matchup. Many, disillusioned, might not vote at all. Right now, they'd go to up to a dozen other people still in the race, leaving Trump with the only strong signal, and thus the Primary win.

This is a large part of why early polling in large fields doesn't really tell you who would win. There are too many variables in play.

I honestly think that at least some of Trump's numbers are due to name recognition and that once we get closer to Iowa and the other primaries the rest of the field's numbers will change. Honestly, the Republicans are currently lost in the woods when it comes to a unifying figure but that's pretty standard when you haven't been in the White House in the last eight years no matter which party you are.

On the Democratic side of things I think that all Bernie needs to do is show a strong second in New Hampshire and that should let him pick up steam along with money witch might be enough to let him hang in there to get to Super Tuesday. But that all depends on Biden, who I'm fairly sure will announce in a few weeks since the Democrats first primary debate is Tuesday, October 13, 2015.

Morrus · Aug 29, 2015

Umbran said:
Even with my giving Danny a hard time about "extreme", I actually agree with him. Those who think Obama, and Clinton are "extreme" have lost some perspective on the range of possible policies, such that they have a misapprehension of where the "center" lies.

From over here, they're both pretty right wing. They're both farther to the right than our Conservative Party. The whole US political spectrum is shifted towards right wing than most everywhere else in the Western world.

Ryujin · Aug 29, 2015

Morrus said:
From over here, they're both pretty right wing. They're both farther to the right than our Conservative Party. The whole US political spectrum is shifted towards right wing than most everywhere else in the Western world.

I was just going to type pretty much the same thing, though our own Conservative Party is taking more and more cues from their Republican counterparts, these days. Even used some of the same political advisors.

Homicidal_Squirrel · Aug 29, 2015

Morrus said:
From over here, they're both pretty right wing. They're both farther to the right than our Conservative Party. The whole US political spectrum is shifted towards right wing than most everywhere else in the Western world.

To be fair, plenty of people here in the U.S. recognize that Obama is actually right of center, regardless of all the socialist labels placed on him by republicans. Hell, the only socialist we have here is Bernie Sanders, and he is socialist-lite. Also, it should be noted consider that most people here in the U.S. don't really know what socialism is, and that republicans, in their extremism, consider anyone left of any of their positions to be a leftist, socialist, and/or communist. Any republican that disagrees with some policy being pushed by one of the party's more extreme members automatically gets labeled a RiNO.