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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Joe 'The Plumber' 'appalled' with McCain

Joe 'The Plumber' 'appalled' with McCain
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goMac
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Dec 10, 2008, 01:16 PM
 
“When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen,” Wurzelbacher told Beck. “I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers…they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry.

"In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...d-with-mccain/

Ah, so angry that you just had to keep campaigning for the man?

Meantime he has absolutely nothing but nice things to say about Palin. Makes me wonder if the Palin 2012 crew has already gotten to him...
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SpaceMonkey
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Dec 10, 2008, 03:34 PM
 
I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

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OreoCookie
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Dec 10, 2008, 03:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Meantime he has absolutely nothing but nice things to say about Palin. Makes me wonder if the Palin 2012 crew has already gotten to him...
Perhaps he'll run as her VP?
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Dec 10, 2008, 03:57 PM
 
And I thought the educated pundits were annoying.
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Dec 10, 2008, 07:46 PM
 
I'm really hoping that the buzz about Palin being the "face of the future of the Republican party" is not accurate. She says "also" too much also.

Don't get me wrong, there were aspects of her bid that I found appealing, but she just didn't produce anything remotely close to the ideal of a Sarah Palin. i.e. the hype. I'm not sure she's the one to carry the future of the Republican party on her shoulders. Neither is the plumber in case they get any more dumb ideas.
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vmarks
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Dec 10, 2008, 07:54 PM
 
If goMac had bothered to read the rest of the story, Joe was asked why he continued to campaign for McCain if he was so appalled. Joe answered by saying that he feared an Obama presidency even more.

Which pretty much sums up how a lot of conservatives reacted to the McCain candidacy.
     
goMac  (op)
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Dec 10, 2008, 09:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks View Post
If goMac had bothered to read the rest of the story, Joe was asked why he continued to campaign for McCain if he was so appalled. Joe answered by saying that he feared an Obama presidency even more.

Which pretty much sums up how a lot of conservatives reacted to the McCain candidacy.
I did read that, but I found that about as swallowable as a vegetarian eating at McDonalds because Burger King is worse to animals.
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Dec 10, 2008, 09:05 PM
 
To basically take their fears which many could not articulate, and attempt to manipulate others to be inflicted with fears of their own?
     
Chuckit
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Dec 10, 2008, 09:54 PM
 
You have three options: You can support the Republican, you can support the Democrat, or you can have no say in the election whatsoever. Obviously he didn't like option C. So he was left the a choice between two evils.
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Dec 10, 2008, 10:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Perhaps he'll run as her VP?
Well, he's at least as qualified as she was.
     
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Dec 11, 2008, 12:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks View Post
If goMac had bothered to read the rest of the story, Joe was asked why he continued to campaign for McCain if he was so appalled. Joe answered by saying that he feared an Obama presidency even more.

Which pretty much sums up how a lot of conservatives reacted to the McCain candidacy.
Exactly. No true conservative would be anything other than appalled by McCain. It's only been a guise of Democrats to cast him as some right-winger all of a sudden- before the election he was one of their darlings. Conservatives have never been fooled by him- he was to some just the (slightly) lesser of two 'bads'.
     
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Dec 11, 2008, 01:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Exactly. No true conservative would be anything other than appalled by McCain. It's only been a guise of Democrats to cast him as some right-winger all of a sudden- before the election he was one of their darlings. Conservatives have never been fooled by him- he was to some just the (slightly) lesser of two 'bads'.
In what ways are McCain not conservative?
     
goMac  (op)
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Dec 11, 2008, 04:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
You have three options: You can support the Republican, you can support the Democrat, or you can have no say in the election whatsoever. Obviously he didn't like option C. So he was left the a choice between two evils.
Voting for McCain out of a lesser of the two evils is different than being the figurehead for rallies. Joe The Plumber was not just a mere voter making a tough decision.
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Dec 11, 2008, 04:42 AM
 
Why won't he go away?

My god.

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Dec 11, 2008, 06:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
In what ways are McCain not conservative?
Amnesty for illegal aliens. Supporting the bailing out of private companies. Campaign finance restrictions. Initial opposition to Bush tax cuts.
     
red rocket
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Dec 11, 2008, 09:17 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
You have three options: You can support the Republican, you can support the Democrat, or you can have no say in the election whatsoever. Obviously he didn't like option C. So he was left the a choice between two evils.
I disagree with your analysis of option C.

If sufficiently large numbers of Americans refused to vote, they could destroy the legitimacy of the election result.

Similarly, if sufficiently large numbers voted for a third party candidate, it could effectively put an end to two party politics.

Either C1 or C2 would appear to be perfectly fine choices, and the ‘throwing away your vote’ argument seems to be misinformation designed to perpetuate the two party system.
     
vmarks
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Dec 11, 2008, 09:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by red rocket View Post
I disagree with your analysis of option C.

If sufficiently large numbers of Americans refused to vote, they could destroy the legitimacy of the election result.
Untrue. Perhaps correct in the talk-on-the-street, "He had a majority, but only 1% voted in the election" observation, but legally meaningless. We have the freedom to vote, which means we also have the freedom to not vote. Exercising the negative freedom does not delegitimize elections.
Similarly, if sufficiently large numbers voted for a third party candidate, it could effectively put an end to two party politics.
True, but this happens very very rarely. Notable examples in history: The dissolution of the Whig party and its replacement by Republicans. The Bull Moose party. The Reform party of 1992. The attempts by Green and Libertarian parties.

Of those, only one stuck on a national level. The others were/are able to get votes, and even occasionally able to get votes to elect someone in local or state office - but never to put an end to two party politics.

Part of the problem is ballot access. Many states make ballot access insurmountably difficult to all but the main two - this is collusion between the main two to protect their seats. The argument put forth is commonly "people can't handle voting for more candidates on a ballot" even though we know that to be false as exhibited by primaries with more than two candidates and the California gubernatorial recall election which had over a hundred candidates and people still knew who they wanted to elect.

A second part of the problem is being taken seriously by traditional mainstream drive-by media, who colludes with the main two parties to exclude third-party candidates from debate forums.

This year, the local PBS channel broadcast a gubernatorial race debate which did have a Libertarian candidate in it. All other stations refused his admission. In years past all stations refuse to let the third party candidate participate. We've had Libertarian candidates listening to the debate broadcast outside the hall and then video podcasting their responses to the questions asked by the moderator.
Either C1 or C2 would appear to be perfectly fine choices, and the ‘throwing away your vote’ argument seems to be misinformation designed to perpetuate the two party system.
No, the realities I've mentioned above show why the "throwing away your vote" is a legitimate position.
     
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Dec 11, 2008, 02:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks View Post
Part of the problem is ballot access. Many states make ballot access insurmountably difficult to all but the main two - this is collusion between the main two to protect their seats. The argument put forth is commonly "people can't handle voting for more candidates on a ballot" even though we know that to be false as exhibited by primaries with more than two candidates and the California gubernatorial recall election which had over a hundred candidates and people still knew who they wanted to elect.

A second part of the problem is being taken seriously by traditional mainstream drive-by media, who colludes with the main two parties to exclude third-party candidates from debate forums.

This year, the local PBS channel broadcast a gubernatorial race debate which did have a Libertarian candidate in it. All other stations refused his admission. In years past all stations refuse to let the third party candidate participate. We've had Libertarian candidates listening to the debate broadcast outside the hall and then video podcasting their responses to the questions asked by the moderator.

No, the realities I've mentioned above show why the "throwing away your vote" is a legitimate position.
Now this I find really interesting.

I agree with your conclusion, vmarks (yay we agree!), but not your reasoning. You list ballot access and media representation as two reasons that the two-party system dominates our politics. I will give you that they may be reasons, but they aren't even close to being the main reason. The main reason we have a two party system is our voting system itself- the whole winner takes all thing. Check out the wikipedia page and Duverger's Law.

There are problems with all voting systems, however, so it's not immediately clear to me that we should reform our voting system to break the two-party system. Certainly I wouldn't be a "Democrat" if I had a choice between that and say, Labor or Social Democrats. I actually read though that even in a multiple-party system, people still feel that the choices don't represent their true feelings. That's interesting. Maybe the additional choices better represent their true feelings than a two party system can.

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red rocket
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Dec 12, 2008, 10:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks
Exercising the negative freedom does not delegitimize elections.
That would appear to be a matter of opinion.

Imagine you heard about some third world country on the television. They used to have a military dictatorship there, but now they are having their first supposedly free and democratic elections. Voter turnout is around ten per cent. There have been calls by civil rights activists to include a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballots which most would have been expected to pick, but the motion was rejected. Would you consider such an election valid?

Now, in the US, voters are given a ‘choice’ between voting for one of two guys who have the chance to become president, voting for a token third candidate who the propaganda system discriminates against and who therefore is unlikely to win, and not voting at all. If you had a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballots, and enough people picked it, none of candidates would be able to claim victory because they wouldn’t have the necessary majority of votes. Since there is no such option being offered, however, the only way citizens who would otherwise pick that option can express their ‘none of the above’ voting preference, is by not voting.

Since their decision not to vote does not get counted as a ‘Neither’ vote, the elections can therefore logically be considered undemocratic and the results invalid.

To illustrate, let me throw some numbers at you.

This election you just had, O versus M.

Wikipedia tells me that O got 52.9 per cent of the popular vote, M got 45.7 per cent, with a voter turnout rate of 62.9 per cent.

Quite importantly, 37.1 per cent of Americans didn’t feel like voting.

If you take that into account, the result is only valid from the perspective of those who did vote. The 62.9 per cent turnout rate is based on an estimated eligible voter population of 208,323,000.

Of those, 131,000,000 voted, 77,323,000 did not.
69,445,229 voted for O.
59,923,677 voted for M.
Combined O and M votes: 129,368,906
Other votes: 1,631,094

Didn’t want to vote for either O, M, or Other: 77,323,000.
That’s the true majority vote, the will of the American people. Since the election ‘result’ does not reflect that will, it is clearly invalid.
     
goMac  (op)
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Dec 12, 2008, 02:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by red rocket View Post
Didn’t want to vote for either O, M, or Other: 77,323,000.
That’s the true majority vote, the will of the American people. Since the election ‘result’ does not reflect that will, it is clearly invalid.
Only if voting is mandatory, which it is not. If voting was mandatory, and you could vote "None of the above", then this statement would be true.

Most people are just far too lazy to go out and vote. You'd have to actually have an option on the ballot to vote for no one.
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Chuckit
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Dec 12, 2008, 06:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by red rocket View Post
That would appear to be a matter of opinion.

Imagine you heard about some third world country on the television. They used to have a military dictatorship there, but now they are having their first supposedly free and democratic elections. Voter turnout is around ten per cent. There have been calls by civil rights activists to include a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballots which most would have been expected to pick, but the motion was rejected. Would you consider such an election valid?
I don't consider Britney Spears' new song to be good, but that doesn't seem to have stopped it selling like hotcakes. My opinion isn't binding. There are lots of governments that I view as invalid, but they still run their respective countries.
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red rocket
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Dec 13, 2008, 07:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Only if voting is mandatory, which it is not. If voting was mandatory, and you could vote "None of the above", then this statement would be true.
If it were mandatory, you would pretty much have to have that option on the ballot.

Since the option isn’t there, not voting for the candidates one does not wish to become president is the logical choice. It is basically a vote of no confidence in a rigged system.

Most people are just far too lazy to go out and vote. You'd have to actually have an option on the ballot to vote for no one.
If there were such an option, then you could indeed attribute not voting to laziness. As things stand, you cannot judge what the reasons for people not voting are, because you do not have sufficient data to justify the claim that ‘most’ are doing so because they are ‘lazy’. There are bound to be a fair number who are not voting out of disenfranchisement with the two-party+token system, for all you know they could be in the majority.

You’d have to ask all the non voters why they didn’t vote. Some of them may very well answer that they genuinely do not care which party or candidate won, or that it wasn’t worth the effort. Others, on the other hand, may say that they did not think any of the choices offered were good enough for them. I know plenty of people who fall into the latter category. What could they possibly have done to express that view other than not vote? Laziness has nothing to do with it, it is the systematic absence of opportunities for them to register their disapproval with a pseudo-choice, pseudo-change, pseudo-democratic voting system that does not want a third of taxpayers to have a say in how the country is run which has driven at least some, possibly most, of those 77 million people to not participate in the election.
     
red rocket
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Dec 13, 2008, 07:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
I don't consider Britney Spears' new song to be good, but that doesn't seem to have stopped it selling like hotcakes. My opinion isn't binding. There are lots of governments that I view as invalid, but they still run their respective countries.
And the media, as well as various international organisations, make a point to condemn those governments as invalid, not representative of the will of the people, the elections as rigged, the country being a dictatorship, and so on, and so forth. Charges of invalid election results can lead to embargoes, sanctions and military aggression against such countries.

Victor was appearing to be arguing that not voting (or ‘exercising the negative freedom’, as he called it) did not delegitimise elections. I find that disingenuous and somewhat hypocritical. If you have large numbers of people in another country who the cliques in power perceive as a threat and therefore do not offer them the opportunity to vote for anything except for a choice of non-revolutionary parties and candidates, that is usually considered government oppression, and the oppressed people who have no one to vote for, if they ever rose up, would be referred to as freedom fighters. I was therefore making the point that if even he might view the elections that are keeping the more-of-the-same/emperor’s-new-clothes government of such a country in power as illegitimate, he might want to remove his blinkers and admit the possibility that even an American election can be rightfully considered illegitimate, if more than a third of the electorate does not vote. It is not the individual exercising her ‘negative freedom’ that delegitimises elections, it is the phenomenon that even in a year with a relatively high voter turnout, the President of the United States of America has been elected by only 70 per cent of 63 per cent of the population. If that happens somewhere else, it usually gets spun as undemocratic.

Analogy: A prison offers the inmates a choice of two meals, pork and beef. Prisoners who don’t want either are told they can exercise their negative freedom and starve.
     
vmarks
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Dec 13, 2008, 10:30 AM
 
Poor analogies. Comparing a free society with a fear society engaging in fetishism for elections doesn't compare at all.

Legally, we have no national framework for a vote of no confidence in our elections system. Congress can, and that's part of the result of the US being a Republic, not a Democracy. Some states have the power to call recall elections (California gubernatorial election comes to mind) and that works as a means of expressing no confidence.

Remember, I said that not voting might delegitimise an election in the man-on-the-street-talk, but not in any legal fashion.

You can't legislate voter turnout without denying people the freedom to not vote. By declaring that you want to legislate an election invalid based on the number of people who decide to freely not vote, you're taking away that freedom.
     
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Dec 14, 2008, 12:51 AM
 
This is why voting should NEVER be mandatory. There's too many illiterate, drunk idiots out there who wouldn' have the slightest clue what they were doing in a voting booth. Leave it to the people who at least have the initiative to get themselves to the polls.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
     
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Dec 14, 2008, 12:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks View Post
Congress can, and that's part of the result of the US being a Republic, not a Democracy.
Incorrect.

A republic is a form of democracy. Citing James Madison is not evidence that a republic isn't a democracy. Encyclopaedia Brittanica says that his opinion was not shared by other founding fathers even then. And our country is certainly considered a democracy today, so your understanding is incorrect both in the past and today. I'm not citing anything because I did last time and I believe you never responded.

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red rocket
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Dec 14, 2008, 07:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by vmarks View Post
By declaring that you want to legislate an election invalid based on the number of people who decide to freely not vote, you're taking away that freedom.
Nonsense. Your voting system is rigged to ignore de facto votes of no confidence in it.
     
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Dec 14, 2008, 10:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by red rocket View Post
If there were such an option, then you could indeed attribute not voting to laziness. As things stand, you cannot judge what the reasons for people not voting are, because you do not have sufficient data to justify the claim that ‘most’ are doing so because they are ‘lazy’. There are bound to be a fair number who are not voting out of disenfranchisement with the two-party+token system, for all you know they could be in the majority.

You’d have to ask all the non voters why they didn’t vote. Some of them may very well answer that they genuinely do not care which party or candidate won, or that it wasn’t worth the effort. Others, on the other hand, may say that they did not think any of the choices offered were good enough for them. I know plenty of people who fall into the latter category. What could they possibly have done to express that view other than not vote? Laziness has nothing to do with it, it is the systematic absence of opportunities for them to register their disapproval with a pseudo-choice, pseudo-change, pseudo-democratic voting system that does not want a third of taxpayers to have a say in how the country is run which has driven at least some, possibly most, of those 77 million people to not participate in the election.
Most non-voters claim "it doesn't make a difference". They don't feel their vote matters; i.e. voter apathy. The answer to your question is the 'write-in' option. If you have no confidence, write in Fred Flintstone.
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