So I was reading through the comics today, and I find one hilarious sketch of rick perry saying "if you are over 21 then vote for me on November 12" and thought that it was so amazing that I told a friend at work. Then, unknowing to me, he told me that the events in the "comic" had actually happened. Really? A man that may one day be the leader of this country keeps making dumb mistake after dumb mistake, and nobody seems to be alarmed at all about this?

Again, this is a guy that failed classes at TAMU. Why is a guy that thinks it is alright to fail a college course thinks that he would be a good president. What about the rest of us that worked hard in college so that we would not be failing courses? Doesn't anybody care about perseverance anymore? Aren't the republicans the ones that kill you with the stories of how "hard they work to pay other peoples bills"?

Where was Perry's hard work ethic while preparing to run for prez, or better yet, while he was in college?

12/3/2011 7:28:35 PM

Perry has no chance, he just gives liberals a good chance to mock conservatives.

12/3/2011 10:38:11 PM

So after it came out that Donald Trump was going to moderate a debate, and he took yet another shot at Ron Paul, Ron's campaign manager responded:

Quote :

"“If he gets his act together, President Paul might consider getting his advice on fixing our countries financial situation,” writes Benton in an email to ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston. “We understand Donald has a lot of experience with bankruptcy.”"

Sick burn, bro.

12/4/2011 11:10:05 AM

Paul and Huntsman are having a field day with Trump right now. The sad thing is that the other candidates haven't joined them.

12/4/2011 11:13:08 AM

you misunderstood, you'd have to be drunk to vote for him and he does not condone underage drinking.

12/4/2011 12:31:18 PM

Repeat of 2004, Dems had no one to go up agains a weak W....GOP has no one other than retreads to go up against Obama...Obama wins handling by at least 5% points. Senate might got GOP, gotta keep the White House Dem...it sucks Obama has backbone (compromoise, or better yet, give in, to almost everything) for anything but better than any GOPer out there running now.

[Edited on December 4, 2011 at 8:48 PM. Reason : w]

12/4/2011 8:47:47 PM

Quote :

"GOP has no one other than retreads to go up against Obama"

12/4/2011 9:02:47 PM

Quote :

"Obama wins handling"

12/4/2011 9:45:35 PM

Quote :

"Perry has no chance, he just gives liberals a good chance to mock conservatives."

Now Bachmann, Santorum, Cain, and Gingrich, on the other hand...

12/5/2011 10:14:26 AM

Did Cain really think he had a chance?

The party known for its loyal conservative rednecks is not going to be keen on a black GOP nominee.

12/5/2011 11:36:36 AM

yes, because the key factor the majority of republicans care about is the race of the candidate.

12/5/2011 11:45:58 AM

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/197173-pelosi-plans-to-reveal-information-about-gingrich-when-the-time-is-right

i dont give a shit about newt gingrich-

but why isnt this woman so damn immature?

[Edited on December 5, 2011 at 12:52 PM. Reason : -]

12/5/2011 12:51:29 PM

nevermind, gingrich handled it as he does all of these idiots-

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/197255-gingrich-fires-back-at-pelosi-over-threat

only pelosi...

12/5/2011 3:25:18 PM

What happened to honor among thieves?

12/5/2011 3:31:09 PM

Quote :

"yes, because the key factor the majority of republicans care about is the race of the candidate."

It doesn't have to be a majority, but I'm pretty sure they'd be in a fix if the racist bloc within the party stayed home on election day...

12/5/2011 3:55:25 PM

Quote :

"nevermind, gingrich handled it as he does all of these idiots- "

It's a matter of public record:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/gingrich/report/part_i.htm

His GOPAC committee stole money from inner city kids.

12/6/2011 12:23:02 AM

^^

That's probably not inaccurate, but it's meaningless. If, say, 2% of the party met that description and stayed home for that reason, that could be a big deal.

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 2:08 AM. Reason : Cain never had a chance, but not because he's black. I wonder if black, even in the GOP, is a net +]

12/6/2011 2:07:37 AM

New Gingrich is nominated for calling in a bomb threat... to the Special Olympics, MANNN!

12/6/2011 2:29:09 AM

Quote :

"That's probably not inaccurate, but it's meaningless. If, say, 2% of the party met that description and stayed home for that reason, that could be a big deal."

Lmao I think it's a little more than 2%. We're talking about the party whose constituents changed identification because they hated the Civil Rights Act THAT much. The one that's almost entirely a regional party based in the South.

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 9:37 AM. Reason : .]

12/6/2011 9:36:16 AM

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 9:51 AM. Reason : You know what, no, even I don't think Pelosi is that cunning]

12/6/2011 9:48:43 AM

http://www.gallup.com/poll/151355/Gingrich-Romney-Among-GOP-Voters-Nationwide.aspx

Quote :

"Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney 37% to 22% in Gallup's inaugural Daily tracking of Republican registered voters' preferences for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, with all other candidates in the single digits."

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 4:30 PM. Reason : :]

12/6/2011 4:29:06 PM

Quote :

"Lmao I think it's a little more than 2%. "

First of all, I just used 2% to illustrate that your statement of "It doesn't have to be a majority, but I'm pretty sure they'd be in a fix if the racist bloc within the party stayed home on election day... is probably technically accurate but practically meaningless. We're in agreement that "it doesn't have to be a majority"; I'm pointing out that it can be a downright minute percentage, but it would still be consequential if all of them stayed home.

Quote :

"We're talking about the party whose constituents changed identification because they hated the Civil Rights Act THAT much."

Not to claim that race wasn't a big driver there, but many libertarians will point out that there were some pieces of that legislation that were legitimately questionable (and I believe that libertarians, across the breed, have pretty solid credibility on the subject of racial issues).

Far more importantly, though, that 19-60-fucking-4. The people old enough to vote back then are nearly 70 years old now. I think it's beyond a stretch to paint the present-day GOP as broadly racist based on the viewpoints held 50 years ago by some fraction of septuagenarians.

I'm not interested in getting into the business of speculating on the incidence of racism in the GOP (or any other party), even if we could come up with a concrete definition of what constituted "racist".

Quote :

"The one that's almost entirely a regional party based in the South."

What?

12/6/2011 7:54:11 PM

I like the one county in Colorado that apparently just didn't show up to vote.

12/6/2011 8:02:13 PM

probably because there was nobody from the Freak Power party on the ticket

12/6/2011 8:29:11 PM

It's interesting that mccain won in nearly every county except the ones with a bunch of whackos (coastline California) , Mexicans (south Texas), Jews (northeast, Michigan, and south Florida), and labor unions (rust belt)



It's almost as if the country generally supports America, but certain ethnicities and cultures do not and vote accordingly.

12/6/2011 10:24:09 PM

Agreed. Rural white people are real salt of the earth voters. Multicultural and dense regions of the country are the ones holding us back.

Oh, and queers. Queers, too.

[Edited on December 6, 2011 at 10:55 PM. Reason : ]

12/6/2011 10:27:06 PM

In that case, Republicans should be all for some global warming! Scenarios having sea levels raising up and could wash all of those "un-Americans" right into the ocean!

12/6/2011 10:39:12 PM

It's basically the people who feed the country vs. everyone else.

12/6/2011 11:20:14 PM

people who live out in the sticks voted for mccain. people who live in civilized cities voted for obama.

12/6/2011 11:28:59 PM

I think that we can all agree that a good bit more than the south is painted red.

12/6/2011 11:30:29 PM

yeah, but that doesn't really tell us much. You would need a spectrum of red denoting county density in order to get a better picture of that. there are entire swaths of red that have a higher population of cows and ant-eaters than they do people.


compare your red areas with this:



and the red counties are less impressive (or, that is to say, the non-south red counties)



liberals love electricity (but hate oil)

[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 12:06 AM. Reason : ]

12/6/2011 11:59:15 PM

the areas that produce tax revenue vote democract vs. the areas that consume tax revenue voting republican.

12/7/2011 12:18:21 AM

I haven't seen anything in this thread about Buddy Roemer

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8oMoAMnFczY

him, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Huntsman are the only Republican candidates anyone should be paying attention to. of course, they all get the least amount of media attention.

12/7/2011 12:28:21 AM

Quote :

"yeah, but that doesn't really tell us much."

Sure it does, it completely and irrefutably demonstrates that the GOP is not "almost entirely a regional party based in the South", which was the only reason it was posted to begin with.

12/7/2011 12:36:55 AM

Quote :

"people who live out in the sticks voted for mccain. people who live in civilized cities voted for obama."

I will resent that in a few years!

12/7/2011 12:42:52 AM

Quote :

"Sure it does, it completely and irrefutably demonstrates that the GOP is not "almost entirely a regional party based in the South", which was the only reason it was posted to begin with."

Oh I get what you're saying. I showed the satellite image and was referring to the density of the counties to show that most of the counties that vote red are in counties that are not heavily populated (excluding the south). I have no idea what the numbers are, but I would imagine that the majority of the voters that vote red are in the south. So if you took the absolute number of red voters, they would be very heavily populated in the south (and Orange County California), with the rest sprinkled across the plains, mountains, and desert.


[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 1:23 AM. Reason : NC has more counties than California. That's funny to me]

12/7/2011 1:08:46 AM

Even if you make that argument, we can look at the last few electoral college maps, and still see that it is far from a regional party based in the south.

Even if you're right, just ask Al Gore what the popular vote counts for...

12/7/2011 1:29:50 AM

You might be right about that. Still though, you can look at your map and point out every major city in every state. Those cities almost always vote blue. The counties that waffle from election to election are likely small to mid size counties that change their mind from political fatigue. I'd actually be interested in seeing those numbers and seeing what percentage of Republicans were located where during the Bush/Gore election. I'd guess over 50% were in the South, but I have no idea. Anyway, I never said that the GOP is exclusive to the South, I was just trying to break down the image you put up. That image suggests that they are more numerous in real numbers than they really are.

But you're right, the popular vote is suppressed by design. It's the very system that keeps rich land owners in power. Nothing new there.


ahh, this one's interesting: 2004 by density




and another:




rural areas vote red, urban areas vote blue, is basically what it comes down to. Suburban areas being the toss-up, likely because of the range of wealth in those neighborhoods, if I had to guess.



[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 1:58 AM. Reason : ]

12/7/2011 1:46:57 AM

I kind of like the first one here, because it recognizes the purpleness of the nation rather than the blue vs red, but each one of these tells the story of the last presidential election in a way that takes into consideration population in some way or another.

http://network.nature.com/groups/scivis/forum/topics/3451

Quote :

"Looking at the votes county by county, scaling by population, and using a red-blue color scale to represent the percentage of voters voting for a particular party (e.g. bright red = most votes were for John McCain; bright blue = most votes were for Barack Obama), we arrive at:"

http://joeyo77.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Quote :

"Proportional circle maps use circles of differentiating sizes to show the intesity or density of certain areas bases upon certain statistics. Here is a map that shows the voting patterns across the USA for Obama/McCain supporters. We see more red dots, but the blue dots are a lot bigger, hence why Obama won."

12/7/2011 2:10:30 AM

The last one you showed (bubble diagram map) was exactly what I was looking for. Good find.

Blue circles tend to be intense and tightly concentrated in urban areas, and red votes look pretty partial to the south with rural northern areas and suburbs going red as well. And Alaska looks like they pretty much sat this one out.

But, to Dukes credit, there are some big areas that went Red, it looks like. Salt Lake City, Orange County, and Phoenix. Mormons, Millionaires, and Mexican-haters?

12/7/2011 3:30:06 AM

Shit, I just brought it up as part of refuting this bundle of dumbassery:

Quote :

" Lmao I think it's a little more than 2%. We're talking about the party whose constituents changed identification because they hated the Civil Rights Act THAT much. The one that's almost entirely a regional party based in the South."

12/7/2011 9:48:10 AM

Lol pointing out that a 2-person country in Utah voted Republican doesn't make the GOP a non-Southern regional party. As has been pointed out, once you take population density into account, it's pretty clear where the bulk of GOP voters are located.

The question of "Where does the GOP base lie" asks where GOP voters are concentrated,not how they perform in farming communities in Iowa with more cows than people.

edit: And yes, there's the rural urban connection, but in the South some of the large cities even go red.

Quote :

"Far more importantly, though, that 19-60-fucking-4. The people old enough to vote back then are nearly 70 years old now. I think it's beyond a stretch to paint the present-day GOP as broadly racist based on the viewpoints held 50 years ago by some fraction of septuagenarians."

In other words, the people old enough to vote back then are now holding GOP offices and making up the party leadership. In fact, the current frontrunner is 68, and loves talking about how poor "inner city youths" have no work ethic because they have absentee parents and they only know how to commit crime, oh and also Barack Obama is "The Food Stamp President."

Do you think their children, too, are beyond influence? Do you think that the day the Civil Rights Act was passed no new racists were born? Isn't the entire thrust of social conservatism the sanctity of cultural transmission between generations? It's a stretch to pretend that 50 years, less than a single human lifetime, is long enough for a party practically defined by racism to discard that.

Seriously, the longer the GOP is in this state of denial over the racist elements in their own party, the longer those elements will influence if not control the party.


[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 10:48 AM. Reason : /]

12/7/2011 10:23:34 AM

You are a fucking dunce.

12/7/2011 11:49:58 AM

no u

12/7/2011 11:59:12 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/huntsman-reverses-stance-_n_1132156.html

GOP: the party that forces you reject science and embrace ignorance in order to advance. The sad part is this won't do anything for Huntsman, he's flushing his convictions for nothing.

12/7/2011 12:00:41 PM

Quote :

"I haven't seen anything in this thread about Buddy Roemer "

Wasn't aware of this guy, thanks for posting

12/7/2011 12:51:45 PM

LOL face I didn't know "supporting America" meant you had to be a conservative.

12/7/2011 1:01:37 PM

Quote :

"loves talking about how poor "inner city youths" have no work ethic because they have absentee parents and they only know how to commit crime"

Are you denying that there is an element of truth in this? When children grow up without a proper family, they're usually going to be worse off.

The war on drugs is, for all intents and purposes, discriminatory. Your precious Democratic party supports it just as much as the GOP. The only candidate that supports a humanitarian drug policy (you know, treating it as a public health issue, not a fucking crime) is the guy you spend your free time shitting on.

12/7/2011 1:28:55 PM

The war on drugs will never end as long as big Pharma can make a killing exploiting drug laws and selling prescriptions for $10 a pill to cure a headache that would just as easily go away with smoking a joint. Doesn't matter who's in office, or how many Mexicans die every year.



[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 4:24 PM. Reason : ]

12/7/2011 4:20:02 PM

Quote :

"Are you denying that there is an element of truth in this? When children grow up without a proper family, they're usually going to be worse off."

Oh Christ try a little harder to bypass the actual point I was making, that he managed to hit every dogwhistle buzzphrase except "urban youth" in his strong insinuation that "Niglets are lazy just like their Nigger non-Fathers." What happened to "Where at the jobs, Obama?" ? Just another case of the GOP trashing Obama on the economy until you mention the plight of liberals (occupy) or black folks, in which case their failure is due to their poor work ethic. It sounds contradictory unless you apply this simple rule: "A liberal is always at fault, always, even when this axiom leads to contradictory statements." It's Obama's fault there are no jobs, but it's also poor people's fault they don't have jobs!

Quote :

"The war on drugs is, for all intents and purposes, discriminatory. Your precious Democratic party supports it just as much as the GOP. The only candidate that supports a humanitarian drug policy (you know, treating it as a public health issue, not a fucking crime) is the guy you spend your free time shitting on."

I'm pretty sure I've remarked several times that Paul is the only sane and reasonable person when it comes to Foreign Policy and Drug Policy. Yet if I mention the things he's less than favorable on (from the progressive perspective) I'm suddenly "spending my free time shitting on him."

Most of time time spent shitting on him is pointing out the completely factual issue that he's completely unelectable among the GOP base because of those exact issues I mentioned that make him reasonable.

I mean, the mainstream GOP is making the huge mistake of nominating a candidate with little to no consideration of his appeal outside their own party. The Ron Paul folks take it one step further, and have no consideration of his appeal (or lack thereof) WITHIN the party.

For the 100th time, it'd do all you Ron Paul fans a lot of good to stop focusing on cheerleading for the sake of cheerleading. That's exactly the kind of mindless partisanship you bemoan of the D's and R's, but unfortunately it doesn't work so well when your candidate is fringe, it just makes you look like a cult. I'm not exaggerating when I say you guys make the Obamabots of 2008 look grounded and well-adjusted when it comes to treating your candidate like a messiah.

Nonetheless, keep holding out hope that the GOP base suddenly becomes aware that drugs are a public health issue, and that 9/11 is almost certainly blowback from our meddling in the Middle East. Yup, this'll happen soon, it's not like the party line for the past decade has been "They did it because they hate our freedoms! How dare you suggest the US was somehow responsible for their ire, you Al Qaeda sympathizer. Why do you hate America? Support the troops!"


[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 4:45 PM. Reason : .]

12/7/2011 4:43:41 PM