Election 2018 Thread (An Adult Finally Has the Gavel)

[Kilmer17]

Here are some states that should be addressed right?

 

Maryland.  Ds 60 percent of the vote=87 percent of the reps

Massachusetts Ds 79 percent of the vote= 100 of the reps

Illinois.  Ds 53 percent of the vote= 61 percent of the reps

 

One man's gerrymander is another man's fair line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Here are some states that should be addressed right?

 

Maryland.  Ds 60 percent of the vote=87 percent of the reps

Massachusetts Ds 79 percent of the vote= 100 of the reps

Illinois.  Ds 53 percent of the vote= 61 percent of the reps

 

One man's gerrymander is another man's fair line.

 

 

Yes, Dems should make them more skewed towards themselves to counterbalance the Republican gerrymanders in other states.  

[Cooked Crack]

8 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Here are some states that should be addressed right?

 

Maryland.  Ds 60 percent of the vote=87 percent of the reps

Massachusetts Ds 79 percent of the vote= 100 of the reps

Illinois.  Ds 53 percent of the vote= 61 percent of the reps

One man's gerrymander is another man's fair line.

Sure. The Supreme Court should strike down partisan gerrymandering.

[Kilmer17]

6 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

Sure. The Supreme Court should strike down partisan gerrymandering.

I disagree, but I'm glad to see you're consistent and not defending one side.

 

The Court should strike down racially motivated (or any other protected class) lines, but political registration isnt protected.  It's easy to change.  

 

What would happen if 50 percent of GOP registered voter in NC changed their registration to D?  Would the lines be drawn to reflect that change?  

[Hersh]

11 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

I disagree, but I'm glad to see you're consistent and not defending one side.

 

The Court should strike down racially motivated (or any other protected class) lines, but political registration isnt protected.  It's easy to change.  

 

What would happen if 50 percent of GOP registered voter in NC changed their registration to D?  Would the lines be drawn to reflect that change?  

 

The entire point of getting rid of partisan gerrymandering is so that it doesn’t take into account the number of Democrats and Republicans. 

 

[Hersh]

36 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Here are some states that should be addressed right?

 

Maryland.  Ds 60 percent of the vote=87 percent of the reps

Massachusetts Ds 79 percent of the vote= 100 of the reps

Illinois.  Ds 53 percent of the vote= 61 percent of the reps

 

One man's gerrymander is another man's fair line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They only one there thats skewed is the Maryland one. Again, there is probably a percentage within the electorate in which it’s difficult to draw maps that have fair representation. 

 

53 percent of the vote getting 61 present of the reps is completely reasonable in any state 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, Kilmer17 said:

It's actually revealing your mentality on the isse.  You see every persons political belief as concrete and equal to their race.  It's one of the leftwings biggest faults.  You embrace your political leanings as your persona and assume everyone else does as well.  

 

Could you please quote the post of his where he said any of those things?  Or is this simply another case of you taking one of the straw men in your head, and claiming that it's a particular person?  

 

(You know, like you falsely did to me, yesterday?)

 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, Kilmer17 said:

If you want equality (what you call fairness) in district lines, start with the states where the Dems are represented at a higher percentage than their vote. 

 

Admiring the tenacity with which 

 

1). You continue to assert that there is some fictional rule stating that representation must be proportional to voting, despite it being pointed out that there is no such correlation. 

 

2). And continue to assert that the only state in the nation in which districts are drawn by neutral parties is Your shining example of partisan gerrymandering. 

 

3). And actually have the chutzpah to make a statement like "If you want fairness, then the Democrats (and only the Democrats) must institute an affirmative action program to give the minority political party more political power than they get in a non-partisan system". 

[Kilmer17]

Larry i admire your ability to constantly perform the same debate faux pas’ you claim I perform.  

 

 

[Larry]

2 hours ago, Kilmer17 said:

CA has 53 Congressman.  39 Ds and 14 Rs.  That's 74 percent representation for Ds.  But Ds only received 62 percent of the total vote.  If CA was "fair", it would only have 32 D Congressman.  Not 39.

 

BS. 

 

And if you make the claim another 10 times, all you'll have is more BS. 

 

Now, if you want to assert that this is a desirable goal, as far as I know, there is exactly one way to accomplish it. 

 

Get rid of districts. 

 

Its called "proportional representation", and I understand that it's practiced in several countries. 

 

I've advocated for it multiple times. I think it has lots of advantages. (The two biggest being that it would completely destroy the "two party monopoly", and completely eliminate the notion of ignoring safe districts.)

 

(You've opposed it, every time I've proposed it.)

[Larry]

5 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Larry i admire your ability to constantly perform the same debate faux pas’ you claim I perform.  

 

 

 

He said, without any support whatsoever. 

 

Just like I continue to point out that you're doing. With, you know, actual quotes in which you're doing it. 

 

But it certainly is a novel idea. 

 

Respond to someone who is pointing out that you're accusing people of things without support, by accusing the person who quoted you doing exactly that, of making accusations without support. 

 

[Kilmer17]

So you also agree that the issue is who is making representation  unfair not the fact that they are unfair?

[Larry]

1 minute ago, Kilmer17 said:

So you also agree that the issue is who is making representation  unfair not the fact that they are unfair?

 

So you also agree that Kilmer is debating with imaginary people and is either unwilling or unable to actually respond to anything people actually said?

[Kilmer17]

1 minute ago, Larry said:

 

So you also agree that Kilmer is debating with imaginary people and is either unwilling or unable to actually respond to anything people actually said?

Says the king of claiming people say something they do not so he can then attack them.  

 

Btw.  Proportional reps would suck especially in states like Florida.  Districts are so different from Miami to the panhandle that the only way to adequately represent those areas is with local reps.  Doubling or more the size of Congress is the answer. 

[Larry]

7 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Says the king of claiming people say something they do not so he can then attack them.  

 

Every single time I've "attacked" you (by pointing out that you are attacking other people), I've quoted the post in which you did it. 

 

Every time I've asked you to quote someone doing what you accuse them of, you've ignored it and responded with another attack. 

[Kilmer17]

1 minute ago, Larry said:

 

Every single time I've "attacked" you (by pointing out that you are attacking other people), I've quoted the post in which you did it. 

 

Every time I've asked you to quote someone doing what you accuse them of, you've ignored it and responded with another attack. 

That’s simply not true.  But you know that 

[LadySkinsFan]

We're way off topic here guys.

[Kilmer17]

You’re right.  Back on topic. 

 

 

[Larry]

35 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Doubling or more the size of Congress is the answer. 

 

Your "answer" does not in any way solve what you claim is the problem. 

 

Any system of winner take all districts will give disproportionate representation to the majority party, even given completely nonpartisan districting. 

 

At least I think that's a good rule. I've already proven that the assertion that "any system in which Party X received X% of the vote, and does not receive X% representation, is partisan" is false. By providing one example, the only burden needed to prove an assertion false. 

 

A state in which Party X gets a uniform 51% of the vote, will elect 100% legislators from Party X, no matter where the districts are drawn. Regardless of whether they have 4 districts, or 400. 

 

Now, there might well be other advantages to increasing the size of the House. I can even think of some. It just won't solve the "problem that isn't a problem" that you keep citing. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Going Commando]

3 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I said that because I am in a doctor waiting room on my phone waiting to get a steroid injection into my spinal cord so I'm a little busy to research it myself.  

 

Now I feel bad.  Sorry man.  I was crowing because I've had to argue against this claim before.  The answer is those states receive very few campaign visits.  The huge majority of states receive one or zero visits and the reason is because of the electoral college, not in spite of it.  Something like 75% of campaigning is done in about 12-14 states because they are EC battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, etc.  The other factor is their position in the primary season: NH and Iowa receive a ton of visits whereas later states receive none.

 

If your concern is that small states will lose all of their retail politicking during campaign season, eliminating the EC wouldn't make that worse.  It's already funneling all campaign resources into battleground states.  Eliminating the EC might actually make it better for a bunch of different states because it'd turn the presidential race into a straight up national contest.

 

Better representation increases accountability from the government.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

[Larry]

8 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

If your concern is that small states will lose all of their retail politicking during campaign season, eliminating the EC wouldn't make that worse.  It's already funneling all campaign resources into battleground states.  Eliminating the EC might actually make it better for a bunch of different states because it'd turn the presidential race into a straight up national contest.

 

Actually, I'd assert that the way to get candidates to campaign in those states is to get rid of the EC. 

 

Right now, the winner take all nature of the EC means it's a waste of a presidential candidate's time to visit, say, Oklahoma, because we already know Oklahoma's EC votes are going Republican. 

 

Only reason they visit a state like that, it's when the candidate is there to help some down-ticket candidate. If it weren't for the down ticket races, NEITHER Party would pay any attention to Oklahoma. (The Dems because they can't winit, and the R's because they can't lose it). 

 

Now, get rid of the EC and go to a popular vote President?  

 

Suddenly, picking up 100 votes in Oklahoma counts exactly the same as 100 votes in Florida. The R's and the D's both have to keep those voters energized. 

 

(And as a Florida resident, it would really break my heart if campaign spending got more equalized across the country). 

[TheGreatBuzz]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Now I feel bad.  Sorry man. 

No worries.  You didn't know.  I just wanted to say why I couldn't do it so people didn't think I was just lazy.

 

Quote

I was crowing because I've had to argue against this claim before.  The answer is those states receive very few campaign visits.  The huge majority of states receive one or zero visits and the reason is because of the electoral college, not in spite of it.  Something like 75% of campaigning is done in about 12-14 states because they are EC battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, etc.  The other factor is their position in the primary season: NH and Iowa receive a ton of visits whereas later states receive none.

 

If your concern is that small states will lose all of their retail politicking during campaign season, eliminating the EC wouldn't make that worse.  It's already funneling all campaign resources into battleground states.  Eliminating the EC might actually make it better for a bunch of different states because it'd turn the presidential race into a straight up national contest.

 

Better representation increases accountability from the government.

I'm using this sight for my info.

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/campaign-events-2016

 

Quote

Two-thirds (273 of 399) of the general-election campaign events in the 2016 presidential race were in just 6 states(Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan). 

 

94% of the 2016 events (375 of the 399) were in 12 states (the 11 states identified in early 2016 as "battleground" states by Politico and The Hill plus Arizona).

So using rough numbers, our country has 325 million people.  By visiting just the top ten cities based on population, you would reach over 20 million of the voters or 6% of the population.  And that is by visiting just those ten locations.  

https://www.moving.com/tips/the-top-10-largest-us-cities-by-population/

 

If you visited every urban area and ignored all suburban and rural voters, you would reach ~80% of the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States

 

Now obviously each candidate will not visit EVERY city.  But if I am trying to get the most bang for my buck knowing I can only campaign so much, I'm going to places with the highest population density.  

 

So now that I have given some links with some numbers and a thought out point, please explain why you think candidates would give a crap about rural areas?  

 

If your point is just that our current system is F'd up, you'll get no arguement from me.  But the fix isn't to go straight one person, one vote.  

[Hersh]

24 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

No worries.  You didn't know.  I just wanted to say why I couldn't do it so people didn't think I was just lazy.

 

I'm using this sight for my info.

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/campaign-events-2016

 

So using rough numbers, our country has 325 million people.  By visiting just the top ten cities based on population, you would reach over 20 million of the voters or 6% of the population.  And that is by visiting just those ten locations.  

https://www.moving.com/tips/the-top-10-largest-us-cities-by-population/

 

If you visited every urban area and ignored all suburban and rural voters, you would reach ~80% of the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States

 

Now obviously each candidate will not visit EVERY city.  But if I am trying to get the most bang for my buck knowing I can only campaign so much, I'm going to places with the highest population density.  

 

So now that I have given some links with some numbers and a thought out point, please explain why you think candidates would give a crap about rural areas?  

 

If your point is just that our current system is F'd up, you'll get no arguement from me.  But the fix isn't to go straight one person, one vote.  

 

Come general election time, how many presidential candidates go to rural areas? or are you saying the candidates won't talk about issues that rural people care about?