2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Admiral Yi]

We have?  I thought it should be obvious that voting and representation should be connected to one another.  What's your alternative?

Usually when you think you're being clever you're really just being tedious.

[dps]

I'd still vote for Hillary after a severe stroke over Trump, Carson, or Sanders.

I think I'd have to have suffered a severe stroke to vote for any of the 4 of them.

You can always vote third party!

I might just do that.  Don't want to, though.  I want 1 of the 2 major parties to actually nominate someone I want to vote for.

[Ed Anger]

Webb '16 - He killed a gook.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Webb '16 - He killed a gook.

President Webb here. What I need is more time! More time!

[DGuller]

Everyone's harping on Hillary's answer to that question, but Webb's answer didn't make a lick of sense.  Why would you be proud that some Vietnamese peasant was forced to square off against you, with not much choice in the matter?  And what did you do to make him your enemy anyway?  He just wanted to brag about offing someone, and probably knew he didn't have much time to do it.

[Ed Anger]

Everyone's harping on Hillary's answer to that question, but Webb's answer didn't make a lick of sense.  Why would you be proud that some Vietnamese peasant was forced to square off against you, with not much choice in the matter?  And what did you do to make him your enemy anyway?  He just wanted to brag about offing someone, and probably knew he didn't have much time to do it.

The blueberries made you soft Sergei.

[DGuller]

Everyone's harping on Hillary's answer to that question, but Webb's answer didn't make a lick of sense.  Why would you be proud that some Vietnamese peasant was forced to square off against you, with not much choice in the matter?  And what did you do to make him your enemy anyway?  He just wanted to brag about offing someone, and probably knew he didn't have much time to do it.

The blueberries made you soft Sergei.

This has nothing to do with the blueberries.  You never brag about the people you kill, that's how I was raised.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Everyone's harping on Hillary's answer to that question, but Webb's answer didn't make a lick of sense.  Why would you be proud that some Vietnamese peasant was forced to square off against you, with not much choice in the matter?  And what did you do to make him your enemy anyway?  He just wanted to brag about offing someone, and probably knew he didn't have much time to do it.

I've not seen anything but mocking or derision for Webb's answer. But he also was a crazy man candidate at that point so nothing he said mattered. It's impossible to know the background of the dude he killed or if he was forced into service or not. He was a North Vietnamese soldier, lot of those guys were volunteers fighting for a cause. He wasn't an unarmed civilian, Webb bears no shame in killing him or moral black mark. He does bear one for laughing about it and using it as a lame answer in a political debate 40 years later.

[Syt]

[Razgovory]

We have?  I thought it should be obvious that voting and representation should be connected to one another.  What's your alternative?

Usually when you think you're being clever you're really just being tedious.

Then what exactly are you arguing?

[Eddie Teach]

We have?  I thought it should be obvious that voting and representation should be connected to one another.  What's your alternative?

Usually when you think you're being clever you're really just being tedious.

Then what exactly are you arguing?

Fairly drawn districts will give Republicans an advantage due to Democratic voters tendency to cluster.

[jimmy olsen]

The markets are now favoring Rubio to win.

Even if Trump doesn't win a single state, he killed Bush's candidacy stone dead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/upshot/betting-markets-call-marco-rubio-front-runner-in-gop.html?_r=0

[Razgovory]

We have?  I thought it should be obvious that voting and representation should be connected to one another.  What's your alternative?

Usually when you think you're being clever you're really just being tedious.

Then what exactly are you arguing?

Fairly drawn districts will give Republicans an advantage due to Democratic voters tendency to cluster.

Well, if the districts are drawn in a certain way, then yes.  The idea is hardly new, but as described in the article it was rather  rather rare for the loser of an election to win up until now.  A situation that was changed by a controversial, ambitious and well know redistricting scheme.  I have a hard time describing a voting scenario where the side the gets the most votes loses so dramatically.  The argument from geography is that some people's  votes should mean less then others, and is an overt endorsement of gerrymandering.

[Eddie Teach]

Raz, if you want House results to align with overall statewide voting percentages, you should just get rid of districts and have a list, like many Euro countries do. In our system, any similarity between those two numbers is coincidental.

[dps]

The argument from geography is that some people's  votes should mean less then others, and is an overt endorsement of gerrymandering.

Not if you believe that districts should be geographically compact--and districts that aren't geographically compact are basically the most obvious sign of gerrymandering.

To draw the districts the way you seem to want--so that each district would not only be roughly equal in population, but would also have roughly the same overall party balance as the state as a whole--you'd probably have to throw out trying to have geographically compact districts in most states.  Instead of trying to simply divide the state into compact districts with equal population--what neutral redistricting commissions are supposed to try to do--you'd have to explicitly consider demographic factors and past voting patterns in drawing up the districts--which is what you do when you gerrymander.

And even then, it probably wouldn't give the result you want.  If the state as a whole voted 51/49 for a particular party, and each district in the state reflected the demographics of the state as a whole, then the same party would often win every district in the state by a 51/49 margin.

I think the real problem is that you don't realize just how heavily towards one party or the other many areas of the country skew.  The fact is, while in the country as a whole, the 2 parties have roughly equal support, when you start looking at smaller areas, in many of them one of them has overwhelming support.  I remember looking at some maps showing voting results after the 2000 Presidential election.  Of course, that election was very close in the popular vote, but there were in fact very few Floridas--states where the popular vote was close.  And when you started to look at county-by-county vote totals, the results were even more striking.  Even in competitive states like Florida, there were very few counties where the vote close.  There were hardly any counties anywhere that had anything close to a 50/50 split in the popular vote.  Most counties went quite heavily one way or the other.  Counties where one party got at least 60% of the vote were very common;  in many counties the splits were 70/30, 75/25, or even more lopsided.

I haven't looked at more recent election data in detail, but I very much doubt that there's been much overall change.