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FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

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Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#51

Post by derleth »

clarkmoody wrote: post #44
derleth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle road democrats of today in terms of overall platform. That's because it's correct, depending on what you mean by 'middle road Democrat'. Nixon created the EPA, created OSHA, signed Title IX into existence, ended the Vietnam war, and endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, which nevertheless failed to pass. He couldn't have done a lot of thos…

Bigger landslide in 1984[1]... Cheating there too? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...

> Cheating there too?

Since when can cheating cause a landslide?

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#52

Post by andreasvc »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #37
marshallp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider those really substantive compared to drawback of the military-industrial complex, radical increase in nasa/science funding, full free national health-care (including dentistry), overhaul of the education system (along the lines advocated by khan academy), ending the drug war, ending corporate welfare (and maybe even corporate personhood), and probably other major ones I can't think of right now.

Those issues affect me every, single day in a tangible primary fashion. The other problems, yes, are frustrating. Romney and Obama differ on how the feel towards funding that military industrial complex, and in a telling way given what you're discussing and the nature of the industrial complex. As for national health-care, education, science, etc, they very noticeably and very starkly differ as well. ... I feel like…

This is not an either/or discussion. I see what you mean, that there is a very tangible difference between the current two candidates. On the other hand, two is a very limited choice. A lot of first world countries have multi-party systems and have some form of social democracy. Perhaps if it weren't for the first-past-the-post electoral system, the US might be a social democracy as well.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#53

Post by psbp »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #32
elsurudo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that they're "the same". It's that they're the same _where it matters_. That they are both bought and paid for by the same corporate money. Where do the hundreds of millions to fund the campaigns come from? You don't think that those interests might, you know, want something in return? All mainstream political "discussion" is simply a distraction from the true issues. To think anything else is just na…

>It's that they're the same _where it matters_. Quite frankly, that's bullshit. Romney/Ryan advocate a rollback of my rights and continued (or furthered) discrimination against me. That's only one small social issue that they differ on and they differ on policies that involve much more substantive issues. Maybe you're privileged or fortunate enough to not be affected by tax rates, women's rights legislation, gay righ…

It's really frustrating to see how often they're described as the same thing. Whenever there's just one (or a couple of) issues that diverge from someone's personal opinion, they completely disregard all of the differences. I can accept that there's a lot of grey area in politics. That doesn't completely shroud the very distinct differences there would be between a Romney and Obama administration.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#54

Post by twoodfin »

derleth wrote: post #30
mbell wrote: post #17

It would be awesome if this could somehow incorporate relative positions of the parties over time, perhaps by 'waving' the center line left-right as well. For example it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle of the road democrats of today in terms of overall platform.

> it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle road democrats of today in terms of overall platform. That's because it's correct, depending on what you mean by 'middle road Democrat'. Nixon created the EPA, created OSHA, signed Title IX into existence, ended the Vietnam war, and endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, which nevertheless failed to pass. He couldn't have done a lot of thos…

The Reagan claim is nuts. By the logic of those links, Bill Clinton was too conservative to be nominated by today's Democratic party because he was for free trade, signed DoMA, passed welfare reform and substantially cut the growth of discretionary spending... sorry: "investment".

At least two of the GOP's nominees since Reagan would have been happy to sign more immigration liberalization. Bush the Elder raised taxes. Bush the Younger failed to cut spending just like Reagan, and added a new prescription drug entitlement to Medicare. McCain was instrumental in passing campaign finance reform, and Romney passed an individual mandate and state run health exchanges.

Reagan "too liberal"? That's a fairy tale. Dead conservatives were always the moderate ones.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#55

Post by drivebyacct2 »

andreasvc wrote: post #52
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those issues affect me every, single day in a tangible primary fashion. The other problems, yes, are frustrating. Romney and Obama differ on how the feel towards funding that military industrial complex, and in a telling way given what you're discussing and the nature of the industrial complex. As for national health-care, education, science, etc, they very noticeably and very starkly differ as well. ... I feel like…

This is not an either/or discussion. I see what you mean, that there is a very tangible difference between the current two candidates. On the other hand, two is a very limited choice. A lot of first world countries have multi-party systems and have some form of social democracy. Perhaps if it weren't for the first-past-the-post electoral system, the US might be a social democracy as well.

>On the other hand, two is a very limited choice.

Oh I certainly agree.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#56

Post by [deleted] »

grecy wrote: post #38
netmau5 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not. If you ever visit, it's pretty clear where each economic group lives. Practically anyone with money who works in DC lives in VA or MD. DC has the highest ghetto per capita in the world.

> DC has the highest ghetto per capita in the world. Do you have a source for that?

[deleted]

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#57

Post by Stratoscope »

_delirium wrote: post #40
Dove wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know cities tend to vote liberal, but DC has always seemed extreme to me, even accounting for that. I mean, I don't have data for how big cities vote in general, but I thought it was something like 70% liberal. A solid majority and dissenters. But DC voted 93% Democrat in 2008. 93! That's not a majority. That's a consensus.

It's on the high end, but I think around 80-90% Democratic for an urban core is fairly common. It's hard to get exact numbers because it depends on where lines are drawn. For example, Cook County (where Chicago is located) "only" voted 76% Obama, but it includes a number of suburban areas, and would be >80% if you pruned them. Here are the next-most-Democratic cities I came across in some spot-checking, with NYC boro…

> 70% in San Jose County

Santa Clara County? :-)

> LA County

Sorry, I guess we're a bit overly fussy out here. That one would be Los Angeles County. (Not that you couldn't call it LA County, just doesn't sound quite right. It's not uncommon to abbreviate the city to LA, but not so much the county.)

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#58

Post by motoford »

EvanMiller wrote: post #45
kevinnk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this is a really, really cool visualization of something that would otherwise be rather difficult to understand. I've always known about the "Southern switch" but something like this really highlights it. Alabama in particular had a almost 83% change in the vote from 1960 to 1964 and a 73% swing back in 1968! It's also cool to see the slowly cyclical nature of the elections, although the wild swings from one…

This is data visualization gone wrong. I am afraid you have drawn a wildly incorrect conclusion because the programmers were too lazy to deal with the political and historical inconvenience of Gov. George C. Wallace, the Southern Dixiecrat and presidential nominee of the American Independent Party. Alabama didn't suddenly take 73% a left turn to vote for LBJ's vice president in 1968; they, along with Mississippi, Lou…

Great explanation. I saw that wild swing and when I hovered over and saw it was Alabama, I immediately said George Wallace. He might still be winning if health (and death) not got in the way. He even got around Alabama's consecutive term limits by having his wife elected governor.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#59

Post by justin66 »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #20
marshallp wrote: post #19

Of course, none of this actually matters anymore. The corporo-verlords have bought both parties. The only way is parliamentary system with proportional representation. This isn't a political statement, just that hackers should investigate how to hack the system into that form. One clever hack is being done by John Koza (inventor of genetic programming) to do away with the electoral college http://www.nationalpopularv…

Why do people love to act like both parties are the same? Is it just errant, broad pessimism? I understand wanting more options or not liking either available option but they're not the same. They don't have the same values, beliefs, principles, policies or experiences. They have many things in common, but they're not the same and it's not useless to talk about them and their perception in the polls.

> Why do people love to act like both parties are the same? Is it just errant, broad pessimism?

On the contrary, it's not necessarily pessimism, the people who feel that way are probably just rather focused on the issues where the candidates are depressingly similar. For example if you want to see military spending massively reduced, the financial system reformed in fundamental ways to reduce systemic risk, or massively increased gasoline taxes to cover infrastructure improvements or green energy development, you probably feel badly served by both parties and their candidates right now.

On the other hand, if you're a gay man who wants to get married and start a family, or a redneck who wants to be able to carry your .357 magnum wherever you want whenever you want, or a rich guy who wants to keep your taxes as close to zero as can be achieved under the current two party system, the party differences are rather more obvious to you.

It's not really a question of pessimism, just the way people prioritize things. A person who has a lot of strong interests in the first category of issues (where the parties are rather similar, or just similarly useless) might be a lot more likely to say the parties are the same than a person whose strong interests are in the other set of issues.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#60

Post by jeffool »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #20
marshallp wrote: post #19

Of course, none of this actually matters anymore. The corporo-verlords have bought both parties. The only way is parliamentary system with proportional representation. This isn't a political statement, just that hackers should investigate how to hack the system into that form. One clever hack is being done by John Koza (inventor of genetic programming) to do away with the electoral college http://www.nationalpopularv…

Why do people love to act like both parties are the same? Is it just errant, broad pessimism? I understand wanting more options or not liking either available option but they're not the same. They don't have the same values, beliefs, principles, policies or experiences. They have many things in common, but they're not the same and it's not useless to talk about them and their perception in the polls.

I've come to see people saying that as "they are the same in areas I particularly care about." Now, what those similar areas are, is usually the same. Corporate influence. (Usually, anyway. It can change.)

The importance of those similar areas to other people is unaddressed in this concern. Key is that the opinion holder see this as a larger issue in their, or everyone's lives, even if others (you, me, anyone) may disagree.

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