Third Party & Independents: Archives

what’s more ironic is that election day and another holiday are the same day….it’s the official day of the dead….i’m not kidding….look in your day planner….

coincidence?

The most accurate and most depressing post I have read on watchblog in a long time. I’ll share a dejected beer with yah on election day- at least in spirit.

From- A Similarly Dejected Law Student

Thank you Misha.

It didn’t start off depressing, I don’t think. But the more and more I wrote it and rewrote it the more depressed dejected I got about the whole thing. I will be so glad when this election is over, no matter who wins, just so I can take a week long ‘political shower’, so to speak, just to get the grime off from this one.

You got me wondering, thinking about the dead politician that beat John Ashcroft. What if a dead candidate won the presidential election? What if everyone wrote in Reagan, for instance. Who would serve?

Greg- I think what would happen is that Reagan would be disqualified, and then no candidate would have recieved a majority of the electoral vote. The choice would then move the house of representatives, where each state delegation would get one vote to choose from the remaining candidates.

I couldn’t agree with you more. The politics of fear has the American electorate in its grip. Kerry seems to have learned his fear tactic from Bush, in fact.

Like I said back in September: “The current election cycle is possibly the most negative political environment we’ve witnessed. Both parties are feeding off of fear. The Repubs want us to be afraid of terrorists and the Dems want us to be afraid of the Repubs.”

Hats off to those who can rise above this mess and get involved in 3rd party politics. That’s where the real meat of politics is.

I agree, Rhinhold and Daniel. I’d like to see every conservative vote for a 3rd party presidential candidate next week.

I hope you’ll forgive the fact that I actually like and respect my Democratic candidate.

Interestingly, AP, you are in the minority on your side. From the polls I have looked at (and I think this is rather uncontravesial), Bush supporters are far more enthusiastic for their guy than Kerry supporters are for their guy. That is, most people who support Kerry do so for the only real reason i can think of to support him unless you are pretty left-wing: that is, he is NOT George W. Bush.

(i know, i know: you will list lots of reasons you like Kerry- probably, including his proposterous claim that he will somehow bring other counties to help up in Iraq. Or perhaps the many programs he has proposed which he is going to mystically pay for by taxing the “rich people we all love to hate.” But the bottom line is, in my opinion, that most supporting Kerry are only talking themselves into it because they find Bush so completely objectionable).

This is backed up by a recent Rasmussen poll today regarding undecided voters recently falling towards Bush. Of this is that 36% of the people who decided to vote for Kerry did so before a Democratic Nominee was selected.

Among voters who made up their minds in the Spring of 2004 or sooner, Kerry is favored by a 51% to 48% margin. This obviously includes some who decided to vote for anybody-but-Bush since 36% of voters made up their mind before the Democratic nominee was selected.

The candidates are essentially tied among those who made up their minds during the summer. However, those who decided in the past month favor President Bush by a 57% to 38% margin.

Our sample included 136 Likely Voters who made up their mind over the last week. These voters also appear to be breaking in the President’s direction but the small sample size prevents any definitive assessment.

There are very few undecided voters today. Those who have recently made their final decision are most likely firming up a choice for the candidate they have been leaning towards for some period of time.

At the moment, 93% of Bush voters are certain they won’t change their mind and 89% of Kerry voters say the same. Our daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that just 2% of voters remain undecided at this time (many of whom may not vote).

Rhinehold —

Order me a Glenlivet, neat, and a Rolling Rock, would you? (The combination appeals to the elitist snob and the average joe within me.)

Misha, the demographics show the Kerry supporters are more educated and better off financially en masse, thus leading me to the conclusion that they are more open minded. Open minds are more skeptical and less easily led by loyalty, and require more merit in choosing their allegiance. Hence, it is predictable that those on the left would be more reticent in throwing their support behind a candidate untested in the oval office.

Unfortunately for Bush, that also means few converts because those same folks do tend to assess merit more, and the incumbent has a record by which merit can be assessed.

Never thought I would hear a Green person correlate economic wellbeing with open mindedness!! Even a free market devote like myself wouldnt try to correlate economic wellbeing with a positive quality of that sort.

Moreover, while an interesting guess, I would like to see a study to back that up. That, is I would also like to see a study to back up your groundless claim that Kerry’s supporters skepticism is in any way linked to their economic condition. My suspicion is that Clinton had more people enthusiastically behind him than Bush’s father, and that it was basically the same demographic that currently supports Kerry. Of course that is just groundless speculation, but just like your comments.

Misha. Your seem to have misunderstood. The correlation is between higher education and income and the Democratic Party, for which their is ample research and documentation to support, some of it here at WB.

My correlation is between higher education and open mindedness, not wealth and open mindedness. I thought that would have been obvious. But, if you disagree that higher education correlates with more open mindedness than lower education, I would differ, but, I would have no research to back that opinion up with.

Might be worth searching for though if you do contend their is no correlation.

Btw, in case anyone is still reading…

If you haven’t seen the latest episode of South Park, Douche and Turd, I suggest doing so as soon as possible!

Matt Stone and Trey Parker summed up the elections in a single 30 minute episode.

If I have to choose between a Douche and a Turd, what’s the point? — Stan Marsh

David- I am far more interested in a coorelation of “open mindedness” and democratic voters. My theory is that they are as enthusiastic about their candidates as republicans, on average. That is, I think you must look to Kerry’s uninspring rhetoric, record and campaign is the reason why he has so few people excited about him.

As for higher education leading to more open-mindedness, I have spent the last 4 years of my life in very left-wing education, and I can assure you that my professor, many of whom are incredibly education, are some of the most close-minded people I have ever met. you should see the way conservatives get treated at Amherst College, for example- or the law conservatives are generally treated on so-called liberal arts colleges throughout our country.

Misha, of course I was speaking statistically. And of course there are going to be Ph.D.’s with closed minds, Ann Coulter comes to mind (actually more like tunnel minded, but, anyway). Are you going to argue that those with less than a high school diploma are just as open minded as those with a Bachelor’s degree?

Knowledge and comprehension are linked to theoretical constructs. The greater number and breadth of theoretical constructs one is educated too, the more information and data one can assimilate into a useful purpose and the more discriminating one becomes as to what data and information is useful and not, depending on one’s ability to fit it into a theoretical construct with predictive value.

In lay terms, if one has studied economic theory, one is more open to able to assimilate a broader range of information, data, and input, and make use of it to test economic theory, and economic theory to test the data, information, and input.

There is an easy test correlation to measure this. Education level and frequency of changing political party. While I have not seen the research on this, I strongly suspect it has been done. What political pollster/consultant in his right mind would not have that correlation in their toolbox, eh? Unless of course there is no correlation. That of course is not true, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in psychological literature. Just as children move from concrete operations to formal operations in their teens, leaving behind views of the world which are no longer relevant (tooth fairy, Santa Claus), adults too, with education, drop narrower and less encompassing perspectives for broader and more encompassing ones.

So, I will stand by my opinion that in general, more education leads to more open mindedness in the general population. That is not to say that too much education does not lead to closed mindedness (I suspect it does to a degree when folks view themselves as experts and researchers, because then they are busy defending their egos as much as they are trying to uncover new knowledge and remain open to possible relevance of differing views).

David, I think most of what you said is plausible enough- although I think education, especially higher education in America today, actually tends to narrow people’s minds because professors (who are an especially close-minded demo, in my experience) teach their students one point of view (their point of view) as fact rather as one viewpoint on the world. This is compounded by the fact that there is little academic diversity in our professors today.

In general, education should lead to more well-thought out positions- and often it does. But I think what is more likely is that educated people are simply better at providing reasons for instincts they have about political views, rather than reasoning to conclusions. I have found this especially with attempting to get people to re-evaluate their views on (1) abortion; (2) the structure of America’s government- educated people seem comfertable with just repeating reasons they have heard for supporting their view rather than being willing to start from foundations and consider if what they have been taught by teachers throughout their lives is correct.

Alejo:

What happened to the case of Blatz you were trying to peddle a short while ago.

Maybe the type and subjects of education matter. In my recent Politics lesson, the entire class said that they want Kerry to win, but due to a number of reasons (aka we’re all 17, and live in Britain), we’re starting to become worried about what would happen if Bush would win to the world as a whole. In a group such as mine, where we are all politically interested, and with a balanced mixture of conservatives and liberals, it is unusual that we all agree exactly. If anyone has any idea on why this must be, tell me.