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2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

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Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

GrinCDXX said:
I doubt the point was that this program is a tremendous investment. More likely, it's that this program is hardly the egregious waste of tax payer money that the conservatives have been screaming about the last few years.
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Those goalposts are about to move so fast you won't be able to see them.
 
GrinCDXX said:
They should just cut the BS and move them to where they should have been all along: "we're ideologically opposed to the goals of this program".
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Personally, I'm totally fine with the goals. Technologically and economically....very, very skeptical. If their internal projection is 1%, the truth is almost certainly a loss. Couching that a a big win and saying that shows that Republicans aren't smart is a bit of goalpost moving in its own right.
 
LynahFan said:
Personally, I'm totally fine with the goals. Technologically and economically....very, very skeptical. If their internal projection is 1%, the truth is almost certainly a loss. Couching that a a big win and saying that shows that Republicans aren't smart is a bit of goalpost moving in its own right.
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Yes, cause we all know the ROI on oil subsidies is much better public policy.
 
ScoobyDoo said:
Uh, no. I said Republicans were not smart. You disagreed with that. Which public policy side are the Republicans on?
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You said that the internally projected 1.25% return over 20 years showed that Republicans are not smart. I caught you in the act, and now you're waving your arms and screaming a liberal equivalent of, "BENGHAZI!!!1!!1"

"They're not smart because A"
"Actually, A doesn't show that."
"Well, B!!!!!!!"
"I agree with you on B"
"See, I was right all along!"

Grow up.
 
LynahFan said:
You said that the internally projected 1.25% return over 20 years showed that Republicans are not smart. I caught you in the act, and now you're waving your arms and screaming a liberal equivalent of, "BENGHAZI!!!1!!1"

"They're not smart because A"
"Actually, A doesn't show that."
"Well, B!!!!!!!"
"I agree with you on B"
"See, I was right all along!"

Grow up.
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LOL.

I posted the Republicans were stupid. I didnt say why I thought they were stupid. Now that I did I need to grow up?

Youre funny. Keep it up I needed a laugh today.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

ScoobyDoo said:
LOL.

I posted the Republicans were stupid. I didnt say why I thought they were stupid. Now that I did I need to grow up?

Youre funny. Keep it up I needed a laugh today.
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My deepest, most sincere apologies. If I'd known you suffered from Tourette's and were prone to blurting out two things in the same post that you didn't actually see as connected, I would never have argued with you. I hope you get the help you need.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

This is the lamest p !ssing contest I've ever seen out here since Walrus and Fishy got into an argument over which Yanni album was his best one. :eek: C'mon you two, you're both better than this!
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

A perfect summary of punditry, both the article and the comments.

My favorite:

Writing this column every so often used to be David Broder's job, but he died. Now it's Ron Fournier's job. One day, I suppose, it will devolve to Chuck Todd, or someone very much like Chuck Todd. In any event, rest assured: there will always be someone to write this column. It will never not be written. On the last day of Earth, amidst bombs or drifting toxic clouds or mutated survivors looking like Picasso drawings, or whatever dire fate and mischance await us all at the end, a man like this will be writing a column like this. It's kind of comforting, in its own way.
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Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

It's the age-old question: are you better off edging towards the center to snip off some of the other guy's votes, or hiking out to the fringe to inspire your base?

It was only ever a question when we assumed political opinion followed a normal distribution, but if political opinion is (as I suspect) multi-modal, with two crests on the solid left and solid right and a trough in the very center, then purity politics becomes obvious. And that's not even taking into account lofo voters who don't follow issues but are impressed by emotional things like "standing tall" or "seeming weak."
 
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Kepler said:
It's the age-old question: are you better off edging towards the center to snip off some of the other guy's votes, or hiking out to the fringe to inspire your base?

It was only ever a question when we assumed political opinion followed a normal distribution, but if political opinion is (as I suspect) multi-modal, with two crests on the solid left and solid right and a trough in the very center, then purity politics becomes obvious. And that's not even taking into account lofo voters who don't follow issues but are impressed by emotional things like "standing tall" or "seeming weak."
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Since the base votes in the primaries, You gotta show them the love in order to get to the general election. BUT everybody (well 40%) votes in the general and you have to attract the middle BUT you've staked out a position in the primary that is foreign to the middle.

What do you do? What do you do?

Eliminate the primary and go back to the smoke filled room to pick the best candidate to win in November.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

joecct said:
Since the base votes in the primaries, You gotta show them the love in order to get to the general election. BUT everybody (well 40%) votes in the general and you have to attract the middle BUT you've staked out a position in the primary that is foreign to the middle.
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Except maybe there is no middle. I am more and more convinced that there are five sets of voters:

+ Motivated righties who vote on issues and vote in primaries
+ Unmotivated righties who vote on issues but only vote, if at all, in the general
+ Motivated lefties who vote on issues and vote in primaries
+ Unmotivated lefties who vote on issues but only vote, if at all, in the general
+ The Great Unwashed who only vote in the general and vote on the candidate's image

If that's the case, moving to the center for the general is bad politics. The successful play is to hold onto your extreme primary views to drive your unmotivated partisans to the polls (OHNOES! THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!! BENGHAZI!!!) but also speak in stentorian tones about holding fast to your, ahem, principles.
 
Kepler said:
Except maybe there is no middle. I am more and more convinced that there are five sets of voters:

+ Motivated righties who vote on issues and vote in primaries
+ Unmotivated righties who vote on issues but only vote, if at all, in the general
+ Motivated lefties who vote on issues and vote in primaries
+ Unmotivated lefties who vote on issues but only vote, if at all, in the general
+ The Great Unwashed who only vote in the general and vote on the candidate's image

If that's the case, moving to the center for the general is bad politics. The successful play is to hold onto your extreme primary views to drive your unmotivated partisans to the polls (OHNOES! THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!! BENGHAZI!!!) but also speak in stentorian tones about holding fast to your, ahem, principles.
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Then, my worthy opponent from the left, we are well and truly screwed.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

joecct said:
Then, my worthy opponent from the left, we are well and truly screwed.
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I think we may be screwed anyway...

... but, I don't think partisanship is always bad. The appropriate response to a crisis, for example, is not to appease the portion of the population that doesn't regard it as a crisis but to solve it without their permission, support, or input. Sometimes one side is just wrong and it needs to lose badly.

Also, partisanship may help reach useful horsetrades. People are typically only willing to give up a lot in a negotiation if they are committed to getting something specific accomplished. So maybe someday we'll get real gun control in exchange for allowing prayer in schools, or we'll get real financial reform in exchange for letting the wealthy publicly urinate on the homeless on national holidays, or whatever. I can imagine a situation where a hyper-partisan mob of Occupiers and a hyper-partisan mob of Teahadists agrees that although in every other way they are enemies, they at least can agree to string up every New Yorker earning more than $1M a year.

And that would be progress of a sort.
 
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Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

Kepler said:
I think we may be screwed anyway...

... but, I don't think partisanship is always bad. The appropriate response to a crisis, for example, is not to appease the portion of the population that doesn't regard it as a crisis but to solve it without their permission, support, or input. Sometimes one side is just wrong and it needs to lose badly.

Also, partisanship may help reach useful horsetrades. People are typically only willing to give up a lot in a negotiation is they are committed to getting something accomplished. So maybe someday we'll get real gun control in exchange for allowing prayer in schools, or we'll get real financial reform in exchange for letting the wealthy publicly urinate on the homeless on national holidays, or whatever. I can imagine a situation where a hyper-partisan mob of Occupiers and a hyper-partisan mob of Teahadists agrees that although in every other way they are enemies, they at least can agree to string up every New Yorker earning more than $1M a year.

And that would be progress of a sort.
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What about your Mets? I couldn't care less about the team in the Bronx or the basketball team playing at 34th & 7th.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part IX - How Lame is my Duck

joecct said:
What about your Mets? I couldn't care less about the team in the Bronx or the basketball team playing at 34th & 7th.
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They mostly don't live in NYC, but now you mention it, Harvey could be in a spot of trouble.
 
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