Group items tagged

I believe that the biggest part of this election is in the social and civil rights issues. This article outlines the effects of a Romney win or Obama win on the Supreme Court. One of the fews direct powers a president has is appointing new Supreme Court Justices when one retires.With with four of the nine members over the age of 70 there is a high likelihood of a few retiring in the next for years. If Romney wins he will most likely appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court and that would threaten the Roe v. Wade decision in turn effecting the rights of women. There has been lots of talk about economic issues and the impact of the new president on the economy, but I believe that this issue of appointing Supreme Court Justices is far more important and basic civil rights could potentially be threatened as a result of the election

I agree that it is important to make the connection between the election of a new president and their effect on the Supreme Court. Even though the members elected might not have a huge effect on economic issues that have dominated the election, the impact the Supreme Court will have on individuals' rights is great.

I agree that this is an important issue, but I just can't see Roe V. Wade every being overturned, yet maybe I'm totally wrong. It seems just so irrational. Luckily, we won't have to deal with this problem...

This article is about the importance of voting and how voting for a third party candidate or no candidate at all will solve no problems. Just because a candidate does not always persent the best ideas the whole picture has to be viewed. In the case of Obama-Romney many people say that Obama has not had a "good" term and will therefore not vote for him, but my feelings towards that is Romney is not going to do any better and no third party candidate will have a chance to win. The author brings up the point that even if you are in a state that will surely vote one way that you should still cast your vote. Being in California for most of us what is the incentive to vote if we know the state is going blue? I think that in this system with the electoral college it is hard for me to see the point in voting if my vote will not really count that much. Just wondering thoughts on this topic of voting.

This article is pretty interesting. I think that the "third-party debate" is an interesting one, and I don't know exactly where I stand on it. On one hand, I really do think that the two-party system and the electoral college, together, hurt the purity of the American democratic policy. On the other hand, in an election like this, I think it would be irresponsible to vote for a third-party candidate as a liberal. Romney could win, and every vote that goes to a green-party candidate is a vote taken away from Obama. It really is a bad situation for voters, but that's just how it is.

This is a little unrelated, but I see the best bet at third party happening in America is the formation of a new party for the Tea Party. The Tea Party is very different than the mainstream Republican party. Michelle Bachman is in a whole other universe than Mitt Romney politically. If Mitt Romney loses the election, I really think the Republican party has some serious thinking to do about how they want to shape their party. It is completely unhelpful to the democratic process to have people like Michelle Bachman and Mitt Romney in the same party. Michelle Bachman has basically absurd views, stating things like the number 2 to Hillary Clinton is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mitt Romney is much more reasonable. I don't know how if this will actually happen, but I could definitely see a Tea Party forming as their own party.

Here is an article just about some interesting facts about the election, Just some interesting things to think about when looking at the results of the election.

This article exposes how few candidates who run for office are from blue collar backgrounds even though most of the electorate are not white collar workers . Although I think so many election related articles focus too much on who the candidates are and not what specific policies and plans they have, the statistics and the implications Nicholas Carnes exposes are worth considering. With 90 million blue collar workers in this country, is it possible that not one former blue collar worker is qualified to run for office? He can only give two example of former blue collar workers who have been elected to federal offices. I agree with him that where you come from must influence your priorities and this means that important experiences are not being represented. Carnes says that it's unclear why this discrepancy is so huge. It could be campaign money, free-time, or party gatekeepers. Citizen United could only have made this discrepancy and the possibility of fixing it worse. Some possible solutions could include required public financing of elections, strict spending limits, and a very short election season. I wonder whether someone who tried to run for office and was be clearly cut out of the process because of job related time constraints and lack of funding could argue that his civil rights were denied. Has this been argued before?

I disagree, Cameron, mainly because of the staggering disconnection I see a lot of the time between Presidents and the people they hope to serve. Obama and Romney both try to play up their connection to the middle class. I see this as a performance, but the emphasis they put on it certainly makes it seem like an essential quality of an elected official. If blue collar workers ran and were elected, an authentic connection to the way policies play out for a huge part of our population might be possible. You seem to suggest in your article that no blue collar workers are as qualified as those with white collar backgrounds. The article suggests that, if even a fraction of a percent of the working-class population were qualified, if office "suited them," as you put it, they would "fill every seat in Congress and in every state legislature more than 40 times." No one is saying that only blue-collar workers should be elected, but it doesn't seem fair to attribute this discrepancy to every blue collar worker "not knowing as much about politics" as his or her white collar counterpart.

It seems like having wealthy politicians is just natural. Politicians have to be educated and ambitious, and someone who is both of those things typically isn't a blue-collar worker. The world of politics is also really based on connections, some through family and some though college (Harvard law for Obama) and it makes sense that most of those connections would go to the wealthy. Honestly, this article seems like it's raising kind of a silly point. Sure, there are blue collar workers who absolutely have the intelligence necessary to be president. But the educated tend to be wealthy, and so do the ambitious.

This article addresses the effect of George Bush's legacy on the current election and how it was reflected in the conventions. Clinton, in his speech at the DNC, compared the net job creation of the two parties. This article says that ultimately, not just this sentence but Clinton's entire speech came down to that point: evoking the successes of the Democrats while reminding voters of the many failures of George W. Bush. Clinton's presence, the article says, turned the race into Obama and Clinton vs. Romney and Bush. The article cites some interesting historical examples of presidents who were able to win despite the temporary unpopularity of their parties at the time, and how those candidates distanced themselves from the failed policies with concrete, factual differences in their philosophies. Romney, the article says, has failed to do so.

Great post. I really enjoyed reading this article because I do believe that the legacy of the last elected party plays a major role in future elections. If a president from a particular party succeeds in his own term, his political party gains more credibility because people will connect a president's success with his party. For example(hypothetically speaking), If a democratic president successfully relieves the U.S from economic depression, in the future if depression occurs people would begin to think a democrat is the right candidate to fix the problem.

I agree that the Republican's avoidance of anything too heavily Bush-related is not working in their favor, and like this article notes, whenever a political sensitivity makes a candidate vulnerable, ignoring it is certainly not the best course of action. But this article also shows how Romney is just not well-suited to actually addressing the past failures of Republicans, both because of the early failures in his campaign to sell himself as the type of economically-focused candidate voters want and his unclear values and opinions, and makes it clear that the Republican who will erase the legacy of Bush will not be Romney.

This article looks deeply into what we talked about last week regarding Ohio being the key state to win for both candidates. The author examines the importance of the state even more closely by narrowing in on five specific counties that have historically helped decide which party Ohio swings to. In this sense, the article is also useful as a profile of important undecided voter demographics in the country. In Wood, Ottawa, and Sandusky counties, the population is small but they serve as an indication of which candidate the entire state will vote for. Full of both elderly whites and union members/auto workers, the counties have been notoriously difficult to predict but paint a larger picture of the state as a whole. Tuscarawas serves as a bridge between the industrial, union-heavy north and the more rural south, and has gone with the winner of every presidential election in the last twenty years. Finally, Hamilton is worth watching because it has a much larger black population than the rest of the state, which the article suggests will indicate if Obama has a large turn out of this demographic. I am interested to see the results from Ohio come in on Election Day, and after reading this article, I'm going to keep a particularly keen eye out for these counties. I normally look at the enormous emphasis given to certain states as a flaw in our campaigning process, but this article is a good reminder that these states themselves are very diverse and a pretty good representation of the country as a whole. That being said, I still feel like the issues put forward by the candidates in the coming weeks are going to favor swing states like Ohio. This article was also informative to me as a California voter because I don't normally think of there being a hierarchy within the swing states, and I particularly don't consider the counties within these states. The magnification that this article takes to Ohio makes me wonder how carefully the candidates themselves look: do they fo

What intrigued me about this article was the need to examine four small counties in the state of Ohio in an effort to predict the outcome of a national election. More and more, as we've talked about, candidates are micro-targeting specific groups to hone their message to that groups specific concerns. Its become the way to win an election, but more and more it seems that it's just about convincing someone to vote for you and not about convincing them that important policies will help the country.

I like this article because it shows that Romney is finally focusing on a part of the election in which he has experience and knowledge. Voters are most concerned with the election and if Romney can show that he can fix it then he will increase his chances of winning, which is why this move is smart. I do; however, think that he should establish that he has his own economic plans and distance himself from Ryan's ideas, as those tend to scare away prospective voters and are absurd.

great post. I agree with mabel also because Romney's plan for the economy needs to be way more convincing than Ryan's for him to win the election.I think its very important that the candidates really lay out a play for what needs to be changed. I do think it is necessary for Romney to separate himself from Ryan's economic plan. Romney has taken no stance on Ryan's economic plan for severly cutting government expenses leading to believe he does not agree with this plan because if he did he would give his support.

I agree with what all of you have said about Romney needing to focus on the economy in order to win. The other night I was watching the news and they were going through different poles. One of the questions was who people trusted with the economy, and Romney was up by almost 20 points. It seems to me that the economy is the most important issue in this election, but Romney still can't seem to edge ahead. That shows to me that his campaign has made a big mistake by not focusing on the economy.

This is about how Romney was caught off guard by the Obama victory. Romney was blindly optimistic and overlooked his opposition and the voters of America. They went into election day only really thinking about what they had found in research and did not really touch on the idea of worst case senario. There is defiantly no way someone can win a presidential campaign without thinking of every possibility and how to combat them. In the end his slight unpreparedness was a factor in his loss. 

It is pretty crazy that he took the election as a given, and I tend to agree with you that it is the wrong way to approach an election. In this article, I was particularly fascinated by the way that the author characterizes the Obama ground game as "conservative": especially with the polls behind him, I thought that Obama and his team seemed just as confident as Romney. Maybe this is the important distinction: like you're saying, Romney was "blindly optimistic" and really sincere about this optimism. While I think it's smart for both candidates to act like they're sure they will win, they should always act like it's a close race when running a campaign.

     This is a kind-of-funny article about the many conservatives who are criticizing Chris Christie as being responsible for Romney's loss. They call him some funny names, and it's interesting to see this especially considering his potential for a presidential run in 2016.

It is funny to think that the Republican's need a whipping boy for the Romney loss when there's so much information about the Republican's inability to reach Latinos, women and other groups. My guess is that Chris Christie will be able to use his conduct during Sandy to his benefit. All he has to do is spin it to highlight his leadership and his ability to "reach across the aisle."

I like Chris Christie so much after his dealing with Hurricane Sandy. He clearly put his state first and did what he needed to do. I doubt this will have much weight in 2016. If Chris Christie runs for president, I doubt this will eve be on the table. He is one of the stronger candidates that the GOP has and it would be dumb of them to discredit him for helping his state in a time of need by working with the president.

* This article gets at the heart of what confused me tonight: when will we know exactly who one? The entire night, I feel like we kept getting told by various outlets that Obama had won: it was projected as a sure thing, almost as if the papers and sites were racing to see who could be the most current in preemptively calling the results. CNN, for instance, kept releasing its projection as "breaking news," rather than the real-time analysis it actually was. Ohio and Florida (which to my knowledge could have shifted the results entirely) continued to flux after these "official" announcements. I wish I had come across this article earlier in the evening: it highlights the moment that projections receive the "green light" (after polls have closed) and when they start pouring in. When I finally heard that Obama had won for certain, I still had these lingering doubts and wondered exactly when this went from projected to official. The author also suggests that the same elements that contributed to the Florida scandal in 2000 are in place tonight. This interests me, particularly because the state has been hovering around ~90% for most of the night. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to stir up controversy around it. Lastly, the article and election results leave me with the obvious big questions. Now that he's presiding in his last term, will there be a relaxation of efforts to block him? Will he find the bipartisan Washington he failed to reach in his first term? How did what news groups call his "demographic gamble" play out, particularly with the Latino vote?

This article is about the importance of Medicaid in this election. Under Romney 45 million people would be denied health insurance. These are non elderly poor people. I personally believe that a person should not go through life without a health care support system. Its clear that these people are part of the 47% that Romney does not care about. Why would the country want someone in office who has already given up on almost half the nation?

I agree with John about being in the dark about the relative costs of Medicaid. I thought that Medicaid was not as responsible about keeping costs down as private insurers. Again, this seems like an important point that should be highlighted by the Democrats as they implement the Affordable Care Act and work to improve Medicaid. It's too important that the people who receive healthcare through Medicaid continue to be covered.

From my understanding, Obamacare will make states cover people that make up to 133% of the poverty line. The idea that more people will be covered on a program that already offers shoddy coverage troubles me a bit. I know in California Medical doesn't even cover basic dental work. The only dental work a middle aged person on Medical can receive is tooth extraction meaning that the tooth will be pulled when it can harm that person. Hopefully, Medicaid can handle these new people on it, but I'm a little worried about the quality of the coverage they will be receiving.

This is an article about the last week, and kind of the final stages of campaigning for the candidates. Really interesting to read about Romney's last-ditch efforts to take Pennsylvania. It's not got a lot of substance, but it's a good read and it gets me excited for the election.

I have to say that reading this after the election reinforces my dislike for the political posturing and game playing when so much is at stake in our country. As it often does, it sounds like two boys on a playground arguing about who is stronger than the other. When you think about the way they talk about money, huge amounts of money really, that they are willing to throw into commercials in Pennsylvania in the unrealistic hopes of getting a few votes.

I concur with what John and Anna wrote. The amount of money in American politics is obscene. It doesn't really benefit anybody. People in swing states get bombarded by ads. People who spend money on losing candidates have wasted their money. And, people who spend money on winning candidates expect something in return from the candidate.

This article highlights the significance of the Benghazi attacks for Obama as the foreign policy debate looms in his future. The author presents the developments to the story in manner sympathetic to Obama, pointing to the difference between "spontaneous" and "opportunistic" in the description of the attack and the "fog of war" Hilary Clinton has used to describe the evolution of the intelligence information. The author also selects the specific points that have become "politically petty": the vocabulary used in the initial attack, whether "terror" was meant in a general way by Obama or specifically geared toward the murder of the ambassador. A new development I hadn't heard about involves House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who endangered the lives of several Libyans by releasing information about their work for the US government at the Embassy. The Benghazi discussion is fascinating to me in a train-wreck sort of way: I agree with what Dan said in class about it basically being a non-issue, and has digressed into the candidates bashing each other on things that have nothing to do with the violence itself. In my opinion, one of two things should be happening: Romney and media outlets should either accuse Obama of deliberately covering up a terrorist attack if that's what they think happened, or they should drop the Benghazi issue if they recognize that extremely complicated events on the other side of the planet evolve over time instead of being obvious immediately. Topics like Obama's drone strike program and Romney's Iran prospects are really substantive and should be talked about at length, but rehashing Benghazi over and over again seems like a distraction from a broader foreign policy debate to me. In the end, I don't feel like the article really answered the question it set forth (why Obama is being attacked on what many consider to be a non-issue). In my opinion, Romney and eager media outlets are looking for a campaign game-changer where ther

Yeah, this was a huge non-issue that I think had no effect on the election whatsoever. Whether or not Romney did a good job of hitting Obama on it, after the debate in which Candy Crowley stepped in, the issue was over. I really didn't think this would be a big deal in the election, and sure enough, it wasn't.

I know the election is over and all, but I just got back from a Speech and Debate Tournament where my debate topic was foreign policy. This subject came up a lot, as I was arguing against the current policy, and it was very effective so I can see why this topic is still dogging Obama. Overall I think the foreign policy is bad and think it should be changed.

This is a really thorough opinion piece about how American politics drift left or right. The mention of how both candidates this election have gained more support whenever they did something left-leaning, like "not until [Obama] began talking like a populist did he begin picking up steam in the polls" and Romney " taking back his promise of tax cuts for the rich and proposing instead to let people choose which tax deductions they wanted to take," is especially interesting and makes the idea that politics are likely to continue to drift rightward even more unsettling. I really enjoy this type of political writing where they talk about how each candidate's win would affect future politics, and this article does it well.

The writer of this article actually seems to think that despite the drift to the right that Obama and more particularly Romney and the Republican party were making is not a good idea. He ends the piece suggesting that whichever candidate wins the election must move away from old Reagan era positions. I agree with him.

I found this piece fascinating. It seems to me like America is moving rightward fiscally, and leftward socially. I wonder how that will look in the future. I agree with what John said about healthcare and defense spending. I think that kind of backs up my point about our fiscal conservatism. The article doesn't talk too much about social issues, but the country really voted liberally on social issues in this election.

This article discusses Obama's presidency in terms of the racial legacy he leaves behind and the front he presents to the public as well as his inner-struggle to grapple with his own race. The idea that Obama has become increasingly comfortable as the first black president, but is still strapped down by the unspoken rules about how he campaigns and supports African Americans is especially relevant to the election. I wonder what prejudice and assumptions Obama is able to deal with in 2012 that he would have struggled with in 2008, given the more serious air that he didn't have then. The boundaries Obama must abide by in order to not seem like he is giving favors to his own race are exceedingly limited and the pull he feels to leave a strong, aware legacy but to also normalize the situation is convoluted and difficult. This article talks about how Obama's public discussion of race basically mirrors his internal understanding and relationship with his racial identity and that in many ways he "feels boxed in by his blackness," an idea I am really curious about. I have read a lot about how Obama's presidency is not the indication of the post-racial society many thought it would be, but is actually a sign that the country is moving in a positive direction and this article reminds me that the expectations many carry for Obama make it difficult for him to naturally find his place as an African American and in history. Also, for those who watched The Choice, this piece is especially interesting in the context of Obama's early life.

I liked this article I thought it brought up good points. Reading it thought I realized I have never really thought of Obama as the first black president, aside from when he was elected in 2008. I view him as just another president, which is a hard thing to do for a lot of people in the country. Four years (or eight if reelected) is not nearly enough time to break down those racial barriers because these things take time. No matter how long this takes and no matter how much grief he gets for potentially being bias to African Americans Obama being elected is a step forward for this nation and four more years is only going to help more. "We have to deal with the specific problems of different groups - blacks, women, gays and lesbians, immigrants - in a way that doesn't allow people to put these wedges in,". I think that quote by Obama is the reason why he should be president for another four years. He is attempting to make us even more united as a nation and I 100% respect and support that. "To blacks who accuse him of not being aggressive on race, Mr. Obama has a reply: "I'm not the president of black America," he has said. "I'm the president of the United States of America." ".

Mabel, I agree with what you're saying about the efforts he has to go through to not "favor his own race," and I'm particularly interested in how this interacts with the presidential race and the fact that the majority of black American's are likely to vote for him. In that sense, he is not obligated to woo them in the same way that he is courting the Latino vote in Nevada, Florida, etc. I totally agree with the writing you mention that suggests Obama's election isn't the sign of a post-racial society. Frankly, claims like that seem like a shallow and easy way to treat racial discrimination as if it isn't a problem in the US. In that sense I agree with Jonah: it will take a very long time, and a very, very easy way to stall the progress on racial issues entirely is to pretend like they aren't a big deal. This is specifically where I wonder if Obama could do more. Embracing his racial identity in the moments where it is easiest (like the meetings with leaders, etc.) would be a good step.

This article is from the website of a conservative think tank, The Manhattan Institute. It's interesting to read a conservative criticize Romney for being out of touch with the American people when he focuses his economic argument on only the "four sore years" of the Obama administration. She highlights the number of times Romney referred to 4 years during the debate missing his opportunity to acknowledge that Americans know that the economy crashed well before 2009. She aptly states that Americans remember well the "white as a ghost" President Bush, "the panicked Congress", the "helpless" GOP standard bearer, McCain. She also points out that Americans are feeling like we already hit bottom and that it's not the time to focus only on the negative. Given that she seems more nuanced in her thinking, I was particularly interested to read her criticisms of Obama's reaction to the financial crisis, especially, according to her, his missed opportunity to encourage states to fix their pension and benefit problems, by bailing them out temporarily with the stimulus money.

I am glad you posted this, as it offers a different type of critique of Romney. I read an essay like this from another conservative think tank criticizing Romney's energy policies and they both have expanded my perspective, it seems that more disparaging reviews of candidates from within their parties are more productive. It's interesting to consider what Romney would be like as a more positive candidate and how he might end up like an Obama from 2008. The benefits of an optimistic, or at least more constructive, campaign are great. This article also highlights something which comes up a lot for me when thinking about the election, in which candidates really under-estimate their constituencies' intelligence. There is definitely a difference between selling the perspective you want to use to win and ignoring the reality of what people know.

After the election, it's pretty clear that "four sore years" didn't work. I wonder if there was really much else Romney could have focused on. I think Romney dug himself more holes than he holes he really dug for Obama. There were Republican governors running for reelection talking about how great the economy was while Romney was running for president talking about how bad it was. It really shows how you can spin a situation any way to suit you.

As the election approaches, some Americans are begging to wonder what stance each candidate has concerning marijuana legalization. The article points out that more than 70% of voters are in favor of medical marijuana but a reason for marijuana prohibition could be for excess use of marijuana for those who already illegally use marijuana. I believe the "black market" created by the use of marijuana in so many Americans could be used to stimulate the economy if marijuana were legal. If marijuana was controlled by the government and taxed liked alcohol the profits made would be tremendous. The millions of dollars our government spends locking people up for marijuana possession could be used on other things that would help to promote the welfare of our nation. Due to the growing support of Americans, marijuana legalization is now not so far from reach and could possibly be a deciding factor in the upcoming election. Thoughts anyone?

I believe marijuana legalization is not widely recognized as being an aspect that can stimulate our economy, but if more American's were open to the option many economists predict that the savings made by the U.S government would be in the tens of billions of dollars... PER YEAR(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/economists-marijuana-legalization_n_1431840.html). If marijuana were legal it would be one of the largest grossing cash crops along with corn and wheat. Despite Marijuana being illegal it already generates a lot of money that could be used to help pay for schools,roads,public buildings...ect instead of being an "under the table" deal for the most part. Marijuana legalization would not be just for your everyday pot-head, Hemp productions would go through the roof ranging from products like paper to clothing. Some of our founding fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, and the first draft of The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. The benefits as a result of Marijuana legalization would be tremendous for our struggling economy. In conclusion I disagree Eli, Marijuana legalization has the potential to play a big role in government relatively soon.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I can't help but agree with Eli that this may not be a key issue in the election (this one, at least). The party radicalization our group has been talking a lot about informs my opinion on this. With the growing rift between Democrats and Republicans, and the increasingly radical that are now accepted as mainstream, it seems unlikely to me that legalization will be taken as seriously as it should. Before all of the logistics that Miles brings up could even get debated, I think the issue itself would get wrapped up in a huge amount of party rhetoric (free enterprise, policing moral values, etc.) and the dialogue would get shut down. It seems like the only big topic that can get any traction in terms of debate is the economy/jobs. Even things like climate change and immigration aren't being talked about constructively, so I see legalization going the same way. I think the points you brought up about it are totally true, I just imagine the candidates losing sight of an issue like this.

This is a nice bit of Romney retrospect, investigating what I looked at as his greatest asset during the race: his past as a successful businessman. In an election where the economy is inarguably the most important issue to voters, I saw his business savvy as something that would resonate with a lot of people. These authors are suggesting reasons why business success does not always translate well to politics. A convincing one, brought up early on in the piece, is the idea that CEO's and "money men" are required to interact with people below them in their respective hierarchy in a fundamentally different way. Namely, businessmen are not as used to people telling them what they don't want to hear. Another Romney-specific point a commenter raises is that Romney is not a businessman in the same way as a manufacturing CEO or someone like that: he is a "deal-maker," less involved in leading a company than striking enormous deals with other men like himself. The idea that a country is a business, and should be run by a businessman, seems like an easy train of thought to arrive to when our economy still struggling from a recession. This article brings up some interesting contradictions to this part of the Romney campaign. While I looked at his experience (not counting his superwealth) as an asset to a man promising to fix the economy, the article pointed to ways that this can actually hurt him. An interesting one has to do with the basic dynamics of the election: where a businessman needs to sell a good product, a president has to address people and communities as the things that need to be "fixed." This is where elections become personal, and where I saw Romney struggling to connect. This kind of thinking led to the infamous 47% comment: in the eyes of a businessman, discounting a part of a company implies nothing personal. To the rest of America, he was talking about friends and neighbors. This is where I believe he failed: running a country is fundamen

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/politics/gary-johnson-the-libertarian-partys-presidential-nominee-worries-republicans.html?pagewanted=all I read these two articles in tandem and was really interested by the intersections and the role that finances play in American politics and the two-party system. Gary Johnson is a really interesting politician and I sometimes consider him a liberal libertarian. I can't see myself ever voting for him, but I think he offers a unique perspective. The idea that he could be a Ralph Nader "to Mr. Romney's Gore" is interesting, though unlikely considering Johnson's radical views. Furthermore, the idea that Democrats are supporting Johnson is pretty unfounded. The paragraphs about Johnson's limited finances and management of his campaign are especially telling after reading this op-ed piece, which details the way virtually every politician (both now and in early American history) comes from a white-collar background and how that creates these blocks in terms of understanding their constituents and making learned decisions. Two lines that I especially enjoy comparing are: "Would you like to be represented by a millionaire lawyer or a millionaire businessmen?" and "Mr. Johnson said he had no problem being labeled a potential spoiler in an election that he views as "a debate between Coke and Pepsi." (He said he viewed himself as Perrier.)" Trying to understand why there are not more blue-collar politicians around is certainly difficult ("Scholars haven't yet confirmed exactly what that is. (Campaign money? Free time? Party gatekeepers?)"), but as this article notes, determining why we are in the current situation is vastly important. The ending analogy, about the rise of female politicians since the '40s is helpful in demonstrat

Gary Johnson definitely seems like an interesting guy, and I'm all for the unravelling of the two-party system. I don't think I agree with a lot of his ideas, especially his economic policies, but I think any article written about a non-Romney/Obama candidate is a good thing. The Romney/Obama choice is a limited one, and people should obviously be able to pick a candidate who represents their beliefs, not just one who is affiliated with their party or who comes closest.

Articles like these always trouble me. How will this ever change? It is unlikely that it ever will. When we are adults, we will still probably have a two party system with most political candidates being wealthy. I think one of the issues we have in America is the small spectrum on the political scale that the two parties represent. While Democrats and Republicans have their differences, they are still philosophically the same when it comes to what the government should basically do. In other countries, they have more radical thought like liberterians and socialists.

As the election approaches, each candidate is doing anything in his power to obtain more votes. In Colorado,Florida and Nevada the Latino voting population could possibly determine who wins the 2012 election. President Obama has a "leg up" on Romney with the Latino voters, but will Romney be able to do anything to make himself more appealing to Latino voters? If not, how devastating will the outcome be for his campaign?

They are chasing the latino votes, definitely. Their discussion of this in the last debate was interesting - Obama accused Romney of considering the Arizona immigration law as a "model for the country," which as far as I can tell just isn't true. Who knows with Romney, though - he certainly has been associating with the guy who designed that law. In response to John's point, I think the Romney campaign is kind of forced to stick to the economic aspects of gender discrimination and Hispanic issues. The fact is that the Republican party has a worse record on rights for minorities, so they're playing up their statement that the improved economy under Romney would help get rid of the gender/racial inequities in the country.

It's clear now that the Republicans have a serious problem with Latino support. I wonder how they will deal with this problem in the future. I think bipartisan immigration reform could be a big deal. I see that being the big issues in the next couple years. It seems like demographically, if the Republicans can't get any support from people of color, are going to have an issue as Latinos are the largest growing population in America.