The Libertarian Party debate was on TV yesterdayFollow

So the highest support for the eventual winner of the Republican nomination process was from self-described Republicans? You don't say?!

Regardless of whether those voters were registered with the GOP or not, they're the GOP base now, in this election. So you point is both moot and also dumb.

BUT ANYWAYS this thread is about the LP injecting an element of good 'ole Constitutional sanity into the body politic and (hopefully) moving both major parties away from a common platform of "let's invade everywhere and also keep spending money we don't have".

From what I've been able to tell the people who showed up to vote for trump in the primary may not have been traditional Primary voters, but that they were people who voted GOP in general elections.

Any idea which states and/or major cities these former Democrats are mostly in?[/i]

Edited, May 31st 2016 7:20pm by Bijou

Any idea what website you gleaned that information from?

If you start with libertarian principles, and then adjust them to be workable in the real world, you do get GOP positions on those things. Is there anything specifically with the GOP positions on those things that make them less near to the libertarian side than say the Democrats? What part of "we're already a compromise party" did you not get in my earlier post?

Honestly? No clue. I think I googled something like "Who are trump voters". I suppose I could poke around and see if I can find it.



Yeah. I read that one too. I'm not sure I trust their analysis, but then I don't have the total raw data in front of me. I'm not sure if their constant reference to the number of primary voters who had "previously voted" in a general election, while not mentioning which party they voted for was just editorial oversight, with the data showing they voted Republican, or intentionally left out because a significant number previously voted Democrat. Then, there's math like this:



Hmmmm... Again, the language just says "previously voted", without saying they "previously voted Republican". But lets assume they meant to say that and just left the specific language out (every single time btw) and do the math. 95% voting in at least one of the last four is meaningless. Tells us close to nothing. But 80% voting in 3 of the last 4 is at least closer to useful data. Let's assume they voted in 4 out of the last 4 (they didn't, but whatever). Well, that's 80%. Note this is 80% of the entire caucusgoers, not "new caucusgoers". So 80% of 187 is 150. 187-121=66. 150-121=29. 29 is 43% of 66. So. These numbers show that as many as 43% of "new caucusgoers" have not voted in any of the last 4 presidential elections. Well, technically more than that, since the starting 80% only reflects people who've voted in 3 out of the 4, not all 4, so there's possibly a greater number to be had.

Point being that in this section at least, the numbers don't actually support what Politico is saying. It actually arguably supports the exact opposite of what they are claiming. Oh. And let's not forget that these numbers are also based on the assumption that when they say "previously voted", they meant "previously voted Republican". If that's not correct, then these numbers also don't include some (possibly significant) number of voters who have never voted in a GOP primary before, but have voted in previous general elections. Just as Democrats.

Uh... Which could be a problem.




Yeah. Basically, they define libertarianism as the degree to which you have super extreme limits on any form of government at any level. And frankly, while I get that, kinda, sorta, at a very small and local level, it just can't work and have a functioning federal government at all. I always get a kick when they argue for eliminating the federal military budget, and you're like "Um... So how do we avoid getting invaded by say China or Russia, or maybe a small troop of Boy Scouts?". And they they kinda stumble and stammer about how militias will magically form and save us or something.

I'll repeat my assertion that the GOP, while not perfect by any means, is the best party we have for applying libertarian concepts to the greatest degree possible, while maintaining the need for a cohesive relationship between the states via federal system of laws, and externally facing federal government to represent the states to other nations around the world. Unfortunately, the GOP gets slammed on both sides for this. We argue for small government, but it's not small enough for one side and too small for the other. Which kinda maybe means we got the balance right (or "right enough").

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I'm not sure what you're saying they should have done. For the actions of "the GOP" (assuming you mean the RNC here?) to have any effect, it has to occur within the confines of the GOP primary process. So to support a candidate at all, that candidate would have to actually run as a Republican in the GOP primary. I suppose any of a list of Libertarian candidates, having taken a look at Trump, could have done so (but waaaaay too late, a fact you still haven't grasped in terms of how primaries work), but there already were a dozen or so candidates in the GOP primary that were "more closely aligned with the GOP than Trump". How would adding another have helped?

If you're talking about actually supporting the candidate for another party in that other party's primary, that's not the job of the RNC. What you're saying is the equivalent of arguing that the solution to the Yankee's having a hard time selling tickets cause their team lineup sucks is for the Yankee's management to promote the Met's lineup. Hey. They're closer than any other team, right? Um... Not going to happen. Now, the fans can choose to do this, just as the voters could choose to flip over to another party, but that's not the same thing. No one on the Yankee's staff will tell fans to do this, just as no one in "the GOP" will do this.

Your failure to comprehend the point at hand doesn't translate into me not understanding how primaries work. Once it became obvious that Trump was going all of the way (circa South Carolina, the third GOP primary/caucus state), the options for the GOP were to either A) win the presidential election WITHOUT Trump or B) save the GOP. If your goal is the latter, then consolidating behind a well known and financial third party conservative would prevent Trump from winning the general election.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I'm not sure what you're advocating for here. In this context, who is "they", and what constitutes "working together". Be specific.

Read above. Conservatives, GOP, RNC and the anti-stop Trump movement.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

while Republicans care more about the principles they believe in.

What makes you think that the GOP candidates were fighting for the principles that they believe in and not simply trying to be president? I do recall some flip-flopping going on during the time.

Go ahead.

Ugh, nevermind. I misread something above. Need sleep.

Edited, May 31st 2016 10:45pm by Demea

I like that that one also says that "the data shows that Mr. Trump has broad support in the GOP, spanning all major demographic groups."

Nevada was the one that Trump was going to be absolutely destroyed in because of how it was both closed and a caucus and he had to rely solely on registered Republicans, right?

Bill Kristol still says that he's going to put forth an independent conservative candidate!

I comprehend the point at hand. But your point includes a complete lack of understanding of how primaries work. Hence the statement I made. Refuting it, while failing to address the points I made, is kinda pointless.



And this is why I keep saying you don't understand how primaries work. How does "the GOP" win the presidential election without Trump, starting at the point at which, by your own statement, trump was "going all the way". Assuming "going all the way" means "winning the GOP nomination", then "the GOP" has no choice to win the presidency "without Trump", since Trump is their nominee. The GOP is the freaking party. The party has rules. Those rules determine who is the party nominee to run for president. If Trump wins by those rules, then "the GOP" doesn't get to just chuck out the rules and do something else. They cease to be "the GOP" at that point.

Which brings us to your second option. "save the GOP". Um... How? How on earth does supporting a candidate in a totally different party save the GOP. That actually destroys the GOP as a party. I suppose that the members of the GOP could all abandon ship, and run off and declare themselves to be Libertarians, use their numbers to take over that party, as Trump just took over the GOP, and go from there. But that course of action would almost certainly just make things much much much worse. Now, you're not understanding how our two party system works. You get that there are Senate and House races, as well as state and local races, right? These things are tied to party lines. You don't get a majority in the House or Senate with your members split across two parties. Worse, you wont win those seats because your votes are split across two parties.

You just don't seem to understand the political process at all, which leads you to these kind of fanciful wishful thinking kind of solutions. They wont work. They're monumentally stupid, in fact.



You get that these aren't one group or one person, and can't all act in concert. If they could, then the far easier solution would have been to just have everyone pick one other candidate and vote for that person. The kind of cooperation your "solution" requires could much easier have just gotten everyone to agree on Cruz, or Rubio, or whomever. The fact that they still split votes between these other candidates, well after the SC primary shows why your "solution" can't work.

It's kind of a component of Democracy that everyone doesn't start out wanting the same thing, or taking the same actions. If they did, we wouldn't need to bother with voting, and electing representatives, and all those other things. We'd just all get together and agree that "person X" is best, and select that person. Um... It doesn't work like that. The voting bits are how we determine that, and since not everyone agrees, we don't just magically make the best choices all the time. I'm not sure how you can be an adult living in the US and not get this concept.



Do you get that words like "more" and "less" are relative terms? Countering a relative with an absolute isn't a counter at all.