The final block of presidential primaries in the United States occurred last night. The Republican nomination has been decided ever since Indiana but the Democrats were still battling it out; however, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was defeated in four of the six states up yesterday, including in California. He is unable to win his party's nomination after those losses.
I can now reveal that I was supporting Sanders in this election. I made the decision last summer that I would be on his side. His policy positions and my political thoughts are mostly aligned and I think Sanders is a good human being in general; he would have made an excellent president and would have been transformational in a positive sense. While this only cemented my support for him rather than decided it, I have also taken the Isidewith.com presidential quiz and it informed me that I agree with him over 90% of the time (I took the test again tonight and it said 96%, which is a minor improvement from several months ago when it said 95%).
So, yes, I'm most definitely disappointed with this result. I'm also disappointed and furious about the amount of gloating I've observed over the course of the day about his defeats; I consider it to be extremely childish. As for what happens should Sanders leave the race, I'll see what course of action he takes before I support anyone else, assuming I do give any new support.
Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 June 2016
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Post-Indiana 2016
I posted this to Facebook a few hours ago:
"Non-partisan (and a bit lengthy) thoughts on the post-Indiana state of the 2016 US presidential election: The surrenders of Cruz and Kasich ensure that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. The party establishment was unwise to dismiss him as a joke and laugh him off - Trump has been successful at keeping himself relevant for years, so underestimating him was a bizarre mistake.
On the Democratic side, the establishment there has been making the same mistake of underestimating Bernie Sanders. An insurgent candidate pulling off surprise wins at this point in the race is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. Insulting/dismissing him and his supporters would be as unwise as underestimating Trump so far has been.
This is a fascinating election; Obama-Romney 2012 is increasingly looking like a sleep-a-thon by comparison."
When Donald Trump announced his campaign last year, I didn't think he was running as a joke - I thought he should be taken seriously and I was right. The Republicans who are despairing at him having defeated all of his opponents so far ought to have done more to stop him, if they were that concerned.
As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders continues to poll well and rack up wins; in fact, many of the upcoming states are favorable to him - perhaps more so now that Trump essentially has the Republican nomination, as some people who voted Trump to keep out Ted Cruz might switch to support Sanders in primaries. Regardless, it is a mistake for anyone on the Democratic side to discredit Sanders and his supporters; if he doesn't win the nomination, it won't be helpful for the Democrats for his voters to keep out of the presidential race.
"Non-partisan (and a bit lengthy) thoughts on the post-Indiana state of the 2016 US presidential election: The surrenders of Cruz and Kasich ensure that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. The party establishment was unwise to dismiss him as a joke and laugh him off - Trump has been successful at keeping himself relevant for years, so underestimating him was a bizarre mistake.
On the Democratic side, the establishment there has been making the same mistake of underestimating Bernie Sanders. An insurgent candidate pulling off surprise wins at this point in the race is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. Insulting/dismissing him and his supporters would be as unwise as underestimating Trump so far has been.
This is a fascinating election; Obama-Romney 2012 is increasingly looking like a sleep-a-thon by comparison."
When Donald Trump announced his campaign last year, I didn't think he was running as a joke - I thought he should be taken seriously and I was right. The Republicans who are despairing at him having defeated all of his opponents so far ought to have done more to stop him, if they were that concerned.
As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders continues to poll well and rack up wins; in fact, many of the upcoming states are favorable to him - perhaps more so now that Trump essentially has the Republican nomination, as some people who voted Trump to keep out Ted Cruz might switch to support Sanders in primaries. Regardless, it is a mistake for anyone on the Democratic side to discredit Sanders and his supporters; if he doesn't win the nomination, it won't be helpful for the Democrats for his voters to keep out of the presidential race.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
On the results of the United States presidential election, 2012
At long last, the United States presidential election of 2012 is over. I stayed up all night to watch the results come in, and although it was quite a nail-biter at first, President Barack Obama pulled ahead in the electoral vote when the Pacific states, Iowa and Ohio were all called for him. As I have been strongly in favor of his re-election since before his 2008 win, I am delighted at his victory.
Mr. Obama won all of his 2008 states with the exceptions of Indiana and North Carolina - the latter which he lost narrowly - and as of this writing Florida, which hasn't been called yet but he is leading there. Nate Silver, the statistician who correctly predicted the outcome of 49 of 50 states in 2008 will have a 100% success rate on the presidential level this year if Florida ends the vote counting with a win for Mr. Obama.
I watched Mitt Romney's concession. I am far from a fan of his but I give credit where it is due: I thought that the speech Mr. Romney gave was decent, polite, and gave a call for national unity and support for the president. He sounded fairly cheerful and even looked as though he wanted to be there. I can only commend him for his graciousness.
Beyond the presidential election, the Democrats have both maintained and increased their majority in the Senate, while the Republicans have kept their majority in the House with minor losses; I had hoped that the Democrats would regain the House, but that was definitely a long shot in this election. Maine, Maryland and Washington have all approved gay marriage in referendums held in those states, and Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality there. Colorado and Washington have both voted to allow the use of medical marijuana.
The other interesting referendums of the night were the two held in Puerto Rico. One referendum asked voters in they wanted to change its territorial status or maintain the status quo, and the other one asked if they wanted statehood, free association or independence. Puerto Ricans appear to have voted for change in the former and statehood in the latter. Should Puerto Rico's request be approved by Congress and signed by Mr. Obama, it will become the first new state since Hawaii was admitted to the Union in 1959.
A ridiculous amount of money was spent on this campaign: over two billion dollars was spent on the presidential race alone. Hundreds of millions more was spent on Congressional races, with some Super-PACs having spent tens of millions of dollars just to defeat one person - Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) were swamped with massive amounts of money against them but they held onto their seats. I would like to see the end of the Super-PACs and other excessive wasting of money before the next elections; too much was being spent on elections before Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was ruled upon, and now political spending is out of control.
I am mostly satisfied with the results of the election. I'm also glad that the whole campaign is finally over, and hopefully people will make the attempt to mend any fences broken by extreme partisanship. Sour moods, grudges and a refusal to work together will achieve nothing but more bitterness and political fighting.
Now that the election is finished and I've said my piece, I'm looking forward to writing some more posts about my recent visit to Suffolk and showing some of the pictures I took while there...something that we can all enjoy regardless of our political persuasions!
Mr. Obama won all of his 2008 states with the exceptions of Indiana and North Carolina - the latter which he lost narrowly - and as of this writing Florida, which hasn't been called yet but he is leading there. Nate Silver, the statistician who correctly predicted the outcome of 49 of 50 states in 2008 will have a 100% success rate on the presidential level this year if Florida ends the vote counting with a win for Mr. Obama.
I watched Mitt Romney's concession. I am far from a fan of his but I give credit where it is due: I thought that the speech Mr. Romney gave was decent, polite, and gave a call for national unity and support for the president. He sounded fairly cheerful and even looked as though he wanted to be there. I can only commend him for his graciousness.
Beyond the presidential election, the Democrats have both maintained and increased their majority in the Senate, while the Republicans have kept their majority in the House with minor losses; I had hoped that the Democrats would regain the House, but that was definitely a long shot in this election. Maine, Maryland and Washington have all approved gay marriage in referendums held in those states, and Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality there. Colorado and Washington have both voted to allow the use of medical marijuana.
The other interesting referendums of the night were the two held in Puerto Rico. One referendum asked voters in they wanted to change its territorial status or maintain the status quo, and the other one asked if they wanted statehood, free association or independence. Puerto Ricans appear to have voted for change in the former and statehood in the latter. Should Puerto Rico's request be approved by Congress and signed by Mr. Obama, it will become the first new state since Hawaii was admitted to the Union in 1959.
A ridiculous amount of money was spent on this campaign: over two billion dollars was spent on the presidential race alone. Hundreds of millions more was spent on Congressional races, with some Super-PACs having spent tens of millions of dollars just to defeat one person - Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) were swamped with massive amounts of money against them but they held onto their seats. I would like to see the end of the Super-PACs and other excessive wasting of money before the next elections; too much was being spent on elections before Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was ruled upon, and now political spending is out of control.
I am mostly satisfied with the results of the election. I'm also glad that the whole campaign is finally over, and hopefully people will make the attempt to mend any fences broken by extreme partisanship. Sour moods, grudges and a refusal to work together will achieve nothing but more bitterness and political fighting.
Now that the election is finished and I've said my piece, I'm looking forward to writing some more posts about my recent visit to Suffolk and showing some of the pictures I took while there...something that we can all enjoy regardless of our political persuasions!
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Scholastic Student Vote
For the past couple of weeks the polls for the presidential election in the United States have gone haywire. Given both the abundance of polls and how President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are continually switching back and forth in swing states and in the national popular vote, no one really knows whether to trust any of the polls or not. Do we really need yet another poll?
The results of the Scholastic Student Poll were released today, and 51% of the poll's respondent's chose to re-elect Obama, with 45% going to Romney, and remaining 4% going to other candidates. They predicted that Obama would win all of his 2008 states minus Indiana and Virginia, but would pick up Arizona and South Carolina. Only young people below the age of 18 could participate in the vote.
Why is this vote significant? After all, who cares what kids think...right? I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the result: the Scholastic Student Vote has correctly predicted the outcomes of 16 of the past 18 elections. The only two they got wrong were 1948 and 1960 - backing Thomas E. Dewey and Richard Nixon over the victors in each election; neither of these are surprising given how the polls showed that Harry S. Truman was supposed be defeated in 1948, and the 1960 election was incredibly close with John F. Kennedy winning only 0.2% more of the popular vote over Nixon.
I am glad that the vote does spark young peoples' interest in politics; with the way adults often behave, I'm inclined to trust kids more - in a variety of circumstances! Will the Scholastic Student Vote correctly predict the results for the seventeenth time? We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
The results of the Scholastic Student Poll were released today, and 51% of the poll's respondent's chose to re-elect Obama, with 45% going to Romney, and remaining 4% going to other candidates. They predicted that Obama would win all of his 2008 states minus Indiana and Virginia, but would pick up Arizona and South Carolina. Only young people below the age of 18 could participate in the vote.
Why is this vote significant? After all, who cares what kids think...right? I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the result: the Scholastic Student Vote has correctly predicted the outcomes of 16 of the past 18 elections. The only two they got wrong were 1948 and 1960 - backing Thomas E. Dewey and Richard Nixon over the victors in each election; neither of these are surprising given how the polls showed that Harry S. Truman was supposed be defeated in 1948, and the 1960 election was incredibly close with John F. Kennedy winning only 0.2% more of the popular vote over Nixon.
I am glad that the vote does spark young peoples' interest in politics; with the way adults often behave, I'm inclined to trust kids more - in a variety of circumstances! Will the Scholastic Student Vote correctly predict the results for the seventeenth time? We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
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