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Importance of Primaries

Gunslinger

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You know, that has been proposed several times. In Parlimentarian countries--like the UK, it has happened numerous times, including now. And many states have different parties as gov and Lt gov as they run separately. Wonder how it would work in practice. Kennedy/Nixon; johnson/Goldwater; Reagan/Peanut Farmer...
 

eye95

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Right now, although he has not opted in, I like Perry the best. Perry/Bachman would be a nice fit. Gingrich has too much bagage, but would like to see him in the Cabinet--and Palin. I, too, would vote for a rock against that which sits in office today. I'd also make a campaign contribution to the rock.

Perry would be good. The field is so full of good choices, I am having a hard time making up my mind.

Although, IMO, Pawlenty lost some luster on Hannity last night. He backpedaled from his backpedaling on the ObamneyCare remark from the debate. I never minded the comment. I think he handled the badgering from the lefty debate host (who was trying to foster discord among the candidates) well. But his performance on Hannity last night revealed a lack of resolve. To me, resolve is a key character trait in a president.

Ironically, that is a trait the current president has. Unfortunately, he is resolved to unraveling the fabric of our free republic.
 

END_THE_FED

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.....How about the winner of the election gets to be president, and the loser gets to be vice president?



You know, that has been proposed several times. In Parlimentarian countries--like the UK, it has happened numerous times, including now. And many states have different parties as gov and Lt gov as they run separately. Wonder how it would work in practice. Kennedy/Nixon; johnson/Goldwater; Reagan/Peanut Farmer...


That is actually how it originally was in our republic.
 

eye95

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I would encourage you to look into Dr. Ron Paul a bit and maybe add him to your list.

I decidedly DON'T like Ron Paul, will work hard to defeat him in the primaries, but would hold my nose and vote for him against Obama. If it came down to him and Romney in the Alabama primary, I'd work doubly hard for Romney.
 

Deadcenter45

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The thing that turned me off from Ron Paul was his rabid followers on a few of the forums I frequent. You would think the sun shone out of his backside to see the fervent and fanatical support for him.

Then I read more about him, and his beliefs. I agree a lot of his positions are admirable, but there is too much moonbattery for my taste.

I feel the primaries are best for standing on principle, and the general election is for choosing the best from the options available.

Android + Tapatalk
 

PrayingForWar

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The thing that turned me off from Ron Paul was his rabid followers on a few of the forums I frequent. You would think the sun shone out of his backside to see the fervent and fanatical support for him.

Then I read more about him, and his beliefs. I agree a lot of his positions are admirable, but there is too much moonbattery for my taste.

I feel the primaries are best for standing on principle, and the general election is for choosing the best from the options available.

Android + Tapatalk

We're on the exact same page. I call him the Tin Foil Hat Messiah, since he has allowed the conspiracy nuts to attach themselves to him. He's done nothing to seperate himself from the conspiracy nuts, and they've done nothing but marginalize him.
 

PrayingForWar

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I decidedly DON'T like Ron Paul, will work hard to defeat him in the primaries, but would hold my nose and vote for him against Obama. If it came down to him and Romney in the Alabama primary, I'd work doubly hard for Romney.

Really? I think Romney represents the RINO elitist wing too much, I'd throw up in my mouth a little and push for Paul in that contest. I don't think RP will be much of an issue 12 months from now if he's relevant at all. I want to see Romney throw in the towel soon though. We need a conservative, not Bob Dole, McCain or Bush.
 

PrayingForWar

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Are you kidding? Have you read the Nevada forums anytime recently? NV is looking more like Komifornia every day.

Are anti-gun laws being embraced in Nevada that I'm not hearing about? Considering it's next to commiefornia I'm suprised that possesion of bottled water isn't a crime.
 

eye95

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Really? I think Romney represents the RINO elitist wing too much, I'd throw up in my mouth a little and push for Paul in that contest. I don't think RP will be much of an issue 12 months from now if he's relevant at all. I want to see Romney throw in the towel soon though. We need a conservative, not Bob Dole, McCain or Bush.

Romney is dangerous to some of our Liberties. Paul is dangerous to our very existence. When Romney goes after a right, other conservatives can try to hold him in check. When Paul endangers us due to inaction, it is much harder to stop him from not doing something.
 

PrayingForWar

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Romney is dangerous to some of our Liberties. Paul is dangerous to our very existence. When Romney goes after a right, other conservatives can try to hold him in check. When Paul endangers us due to inaction, it is much harder to stop him from not doing something.


I think it's a stretch to say that Romney would be a danger to "some" of our liberties. He's a lib, plain and simple. Libs are dangerous to all liberty. Romney will not undo obamacare, he won't put a leash on the ATF, EPA, FDA or any other bureaucracy that is actively engaged in restricting rights. He might retard some of the restrictions out of commercial interests, but not out of our interests.

Ron Paul would do serious damage to global security by weakening our military, and allowing despotic regimes around the world to create all sorts of havoc. We could still survive it if we actually protect our borders and airspace. However I don't think our economy will flourish if we're isolated in a world gone insane. So I'm pretty much with you there, but I don't think he would "be a threat to our existence".

If we end up with a lib RINO, we die a slow painful death. There is no question in my mind. If we end up with the tin foil messiah, at least we'll die as free men if we do indeed die. I don't think he'd be as bad as a RINO, or (perish the thought) 4 more years of a moonbat messiah.
 

Gunslinger

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Really? I think Romney represents the RINO elitist wing too much, I'd throw up in my mouth a little and push for Paul in that contest. I don't think RP will be much of an issue 12 months from now if he's relevant at all. I want to see Romney throw in the towel soon though. We need a conservative, not Bob Dole, McCain or Bush.

I agree. Although I like some of his stuff, RP is too out there for me. I think he will have his 15 minutes and then fade--especially if we get a Perry moving up. I was in the PDR when Mitt was the gov. RINO is him to a tee.
 

sudden valley gunner

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Oh I see let's not vote for the most constitutional minded in the primary because he has a few nutty followers....:rolleyes: Of course he is anti authoritarian so I understand why Eye wouldn't want to vote for him.....;)

I pointed out in another thread all the people I detest who support the main yahoo's given us as a choice.
 

Gunslinger

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Oh I see let's not vote for the most constitutional minded in the primary because he has a few nutty followers....:rolleyes: Of course he is anti authoritarian so I understand why Eye wouldn't want to vote for him.....;)

I pointed out in another thread all the people I detest who support the main yahoo's given us as a choice.

If RP was serious about getting the nomination, I would take him more seriously--as I said, I like his basic premises but he's not willing to consider his response before he throws it out there. That indicates a concession that he has no chance and knows it. I'm not saying compromise your principles, simply use a little common sense when saying something to the media, knowing they will paint it with the worst spin they can.
 

crisisweasel

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My prediction is the vast majority of voters in the two major parties will willingly pick from the approved list of crappy choices, thereby sanctioning the system completely, and then complain about how they had to vote for the "lesser of X evils" for the next 4 years.

That would be my prediction. A political form of sanction of the victim.
 

sudden valley gunner

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If RP was serious about getting the nomination, I would take him more seriously--as I said, I like his basic premises but he's not willing to consider his response before he throws it out there. That indicates a concession that he has no chance and knows it. I'm not saying compromise your principles, simply use a little common sense when saying something to the media, knowing they will paint it with the worst spin they can.

My response was to PFW, he has consistently said he wouldn't vote for the guy because of the conspiracy theorist who follow him.

I hear what you are saying, but it is also one reason that attracts me to him, he doesn't polish up for the media and play word games. He just says what he feels. I do agree that it does help others paint him as a "cook" especially when they are already of the mindset they have to vote for one of the two mainstream choices presented and fail to research for themselves.
 

Gunslinger

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My response was to PFW, he has consistently said he wouldn't vote for the guy because of the conspiracy theorist who follow him.

I hear what you are saying, but it is also one reason that attracts me to him, he doesn't polish up for the media and play word games. He just says what he feels. I do agree that it does help others paint him as a "cook" especially when they are already of the mindset they have to vote for one of the two mainstream choices presented and fail to research for themselves.

Therein lies the problem for out of mainstream (I hate that term) candidates. I remember, although was too young to vote, when Wallace ran with Boom-boom LeMay on the 3rd party. He had the BEST ads I've ever seen. "Stand up for America" was his theme. By this time, he had moderated his segregation philosophy greatly. I liked the fact that he said what he saw as the truth--and this was when VN was hot and heavy. Of course, he had no chance. But he came away from it with a new sense of validity for his views in many, non-civil rights, areas. Nixon and Humphrey did not. RP may well do the same.
 

since9

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Mathematically speaking...

My prediction is the vast majority of voters in the two major parties will willingly pick from the approved list of crappy choices, thereby sanctioning the system completely, and then complain about how they had to vote for the "lesser of X evils" for the next 4 years.

Having worked as a statistician, I feel your pain.

Statistically speaking, the only way to accurately elect the candidate most desired by the people is to abolish all parties and for all people to rank order each and every candidate. The problem is that without primaries, you'd wind up with hundreds, if not thousands of candidates!

Fortunately, there's an easy, yet effective and highly accurate statistical approach to whittle down the the number of candidates to a reasonable size. It's called a "simple random sampling."

You'd still hold a "primary," but that primary would consist of a small, representative sample of the population as a whole. The exact number of people in the sample population can be precisely determined by knowing the size of the entire population and the degree of confidence in the results, say, 99%. The result would determine the sample size needed to select the top ten candidates (or Pres/VP running mate pairs) across the board.

If you need to limit it to a subset of the population, such as "all registered voters," then you'd conduct a "stratified random sample."

Surprisingly, it would only require somewhere between a few hundred and a couple thousand randomly sampled people to simply list their top ten choices. The results will be nearly identical to what would have resulted if you'd had everyone rank order every candidate. That's important, as it's accurate and reliable while remaining straight-forward and cost-effective. Of the top ten candidates, only a few will be strongly at the top. Those towards the bottom would never have been elected by any means.

KEY: You can NOT share the rank order of the top ten candidates! To do so would grossly bias the next step:

Once those top ten candidates are chosen, then you open the polls up to everyone. To virtually eliminate order bias, you simply print each voting card with the candidate's names ordered randomly. That is, each card would list the candidates in random order. Very seldom would you find two cards listing all ten candidates in the same order.

Voters would simply rank order the candidates. When averaged, the leading candidate is the one that's elected. Fairly, inexpensively, and without the massive bias introduced by our current two-party system. You'd still have biases, including those relating to funding, cognition, emotion, and others, but the only way to eliminate these would be to limit funding and strip all identity from the candidates. That, however, would introduce severe propaganda bias, so it's best to leave that one alone.

Various consulting groups and think tanks have capitalized on this understanding, beginning in the 1970s, to facilitate group decision-making with a far higher degree of accuracy than the outmoded board-meeting.

It's high time we drag our country's grossly antiquated voting system out of the 18th Century and into the 21st Century, where it belongs. Our Country's future depends on it.
 
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DangerClose

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We're on the exact same page. I call him the Tin Foil Hat Messiah, since he has allowed the conspiracy nuts to attach themselves to him. He's done nothing to seperate himself from the conspiracy nuts, and they've done nothing but marginalize him.

Ron Paul has directly said he doesn't think 9/11 was a government conspiracy. What other conspiracies are you referring to that he hasn't separated himself from?
 
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