Polls by Party and the Issues (February 2013)

Polls are not always litmus tests for truth and reality, but in a democratic-republic they are important. Figuring out what is important about these polls is not only important, it’s lucrative.

How Oklahoma and Georgia are Leading the Way in Education – Rachel Maddow (2/14/13)

“Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity”. Thomas Jefferson

The above quote is one of my all time favorites on any topic by any truly quotable thinker. I don’t think that Thomas Jefferson would have considered himself a socialist, even though the term hadn’t yet been invented, but I do think that he would consider this to be a nutritional necessity of our society moving forward in an ever competitive world. In this video Rachel talks about Oklahoma (which really is a wonderful place, believe it or not you who may not have ever graced her red soil), and this was a fun video to watch because Rachel is of course very liberal, and my motherland Oklahoma is not, so to hear her talk about what we’ve done right was really fun. I think that there is a lot of room for common ground on this, we just can’t allow ourselves to be overrun by the loudest voices.

If you are a teacher, especially in Oklahoma, I would really love some feedback.

The chart that most stuck out to me was the first chart below, but they each have a lot of room for discussion. I’m sure that a lot of people would like to talk about what it means that there is a racial disparity, but I think it’s very important that we approach information like that with the perspective like that of a Malcolm Gladwell from the book “Outliers”, and there are reasons why these things happen – some are not so ugly to look at and some just are. What do you think about all of this? If you’re a teacher, especially in Oklahoma, I’d REALLY like to know what you think.

Likely Voters and Swing State Polling

So at this point in regards to the popular vote there seems to be 2 options:
1. The race is virtually tied.
2. Gallup knows something that nobody else seems to know.

Gallup is a very highly regarded polling agency, and their polling usually isn’t such an outlier.

No matter the state of the popular vote we are dealing with an electoral college that is more likely than note to re-elect President Obama. How do we know? Polls. Of course they aren’t flawless, but they tend to be great predictors, especially this close to the actual vote. So let’s start with some likely voter polls.

National polling seems to be telling an almost universal story about being tied, but of course we’ll have to wait for the real popular vote tally to really know. One of the ways we can pretend to know now though is breaking down segments of the electorate, and we’re going to do that a little bit now.

And of course the gender differential between likely voters.

Now, those were all fun of course, but the real meat and potatoes at this point is the swing states, especially Ohio! So here’s a little more of a breakdown into where this election will really be decided.

There has even been talk that the campaigns have started putting resources back into Michigan because its closer than expected, and maybe “swingable” to a Republican victory (but I think it’s highly unlikely).

Last but not least, I am not a big fan of Karl Rove, but the man knows politics… On Sunday he was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and he broke down the state of the election with some common knowledge charts, and I do love him for that (I love charts). I do think he is part of the problem with our political system (aka: what he did to John McCain in the primaries against Bush, just google it…), but I’m glad to have anything complicated dumbed down for me, so enjoy these final charts.

The Map By State Voting Density

(In 2008 my home state of Oklahoma had the largest margin towards the GOP, and I’m glad to see that the Mormon vote in Utah and Idaho is going to be making us look at bit more moderate…)

And this picture could actually be important if we run into a tie 269-269 electorate (actually possible…), because in that case the House of Representatives votes on who will be President, and each state gets one vote… The crazy person in me would love to see how this shook up, but the compassionate/pragmatic person within is terrified of this… Not just because the Republicans in the House would be deciding the next President, but with all of the gridlock I think we might have an even less functional government, and less trust in anything it does if this were to happen…

Swing State Polls as of First Debate

So it’s the day of the First presidential debate of 2012. Morning Joe did some analysis of the holes today in swing states. It sounds like Ohio is a lost cause for Mitt Romney, but maybe we can make history and win the presidency without it. I don’t think that’s likely… But we will just have to see.

The three poles that they seem to find most notable were in: Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.

Republicans do not win the Presidency without winning Ohio… But everything that isn’t is a rule, until of course that rule is broken.

They also discussed Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada:

It seems obvious to me that the 2 states to consider on this list are Ohio and Florida. However, the states not on this list that probably need the most consideration are: Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The Midwest is becoming the new South in Republican politics, and therefore Presidential politics. But we’ll see if they can get a real stronghold over the next few years. I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s just get ready for this debate tonight.

Real Time – Desired Cuts in Spending By Party (Survey)

Desired Cuts in Spending By Party.

 

This above graph was on the website for the show Real Time with Bill Maher, but it was taken from Slate.Com. I saw this on the blog for Real Time, and I think that this is pretty interesting, as I’ve been asking this question about what we should cut of my conservative friends, and only sometimes do I get full answers beyond being very upset with welfare.

Not wanting to cut Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, or Defense seems to show a lack of understanding in spending. Although, younger Republicans that I speak with seem to be fine with cutting all of these, except maybe Defense spending. Older Republicans who I speak with however don’t seem to want to make any cuts in any of these things, and they are the absolute most expensive items on our budget. We continue to be more and more polarized, and in my opinion that is partially attributed to us having a very disorganized conversation, where many of us are having entirely different conversations. Do we want to talk about welfare? Ok, that’s fine, but that is not getting at the main drivers of our debt, unless if you are confusing Medicare and Defense for welfare (and I’m sure there are plenty of people who truly believe that they are). Of course I’m merely sharing my experiences, and polling could be useful in breaking down the parties and their demographics beliefs as well. But I just can’t understand what exactly the cuts that many of my Republican friends have in mind are (not to say that I don’t support spending cuts, I do).

Party Popularity Polls

These are the latest polls about the parties’ popularities. It shows that the Democratic party is slightly ahead of the Republican Party in popularity. Also, I don’t like say GOP, it just sounds elitist and misguided to me… If your opponents call you the “Grand Ole Party” that means something, but not when you call yourself that… Am I wrong? I don’t know, maybe, but I just find it indicative of where the party is heading in this increasingly diverse world, and there lack of room for that diversity…

I didn’t mean to start ranting, but like when the tea party first got rolling and gay people showed up supporting fiscal conservatism, and they were chided and abused… That happened repeatedly, and it was supposed to be a group of people who were simply wanting to talk economics. Oh, and yes, even though the Republican party is fracturing I still consider the Tea Party to be a fragment of that party, but simply because they’ve behaved that way.

It just a matter of time before they party resurfaces with a younger more tolerant leadership, and we’ll see them take over again like they did in the 90’s and in 2010. Until then though I think we’ll just see these numbers and their role dwindle.

No Labels – A Nonpartisan Movement to Change America

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

No Labels is made up of both Democrats and Republicans, so please read on.

Do you care about what happens in our government, but you are tired of both sides acting seemingly so partisan?… Well, there’s a movement for that. No Labels is a movement aimed to fight against straight party voting on candidates, but more importantly on each and every issue that the American people can come up with to talk about and take action towards.

If you are interested in getting involved here are a few links. What’s it going to hurt to try to be a part of saving the American system of Democracy?… Go ahead, just click on them and see what we’re talking about.

Facebook

Twitter

No Labels Website

The reason that I’ve decided to get involved is that this movement is not intended to push people in a certain direction. To really sum it up it is an organization aiming to create a greater level of efficiency in the exchange of information about what well agree and disagree with one another about. We all tend to think that our disagreements are so black and white, and that we are all on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Well, if anything that is due to a lack of communication, and people will be very surprised when that find out that the conversation has simply been polluted, and that we can agree on much more than we think.

This chart was built by the founder of the Libertarian Party to better explain the political spectrum in the United States than just Republican vs. Democrat, or Conservative vs. Liberal, those words don’t mean (now) the things that they were originally associated with. And even though this chart was made by a Libertarian it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t give us a chance to gain some perspective on how we might be relating to one another as long as we have these labels attached to our efforts and dreams.

This chart is not perfect, and thus we must use it more as an educational tool so that we can actually start talking about more complex aspects of our lives.

I remember growing up and hearing my father talk about voting for people he really didn’t agree with very much, but they were the one’s that he agreed with the most at that time. Well, that is a very inefficient system if that vote is supposed to indicate his support of those elected officials entire viewpoints…

I can’t stress this enough, from what I have come to know about No Labels it is not intended to change anyone’s opinions, but to better voice them (but who knows maybe some people will change their minds along the way, it’s ok to change your mind if you think it’s the right thing to do).

These pictures below show one way that the information gets so confused. We are told that we are so incredibly divided, so we believe them… It’s such a shame that we do, because we would be shocked to know the truth…

Here’s what we’re told…

But it should look much more like this…

If you’re still reading this I encourage you to watch this video, and then go back and click on the links above. This movement might not solve all of our nations problems, but we have to start somewhere. “Baby Steps”

Love,
Grady Carter

P.S.
please feel free to respond and let me know what you think, and if you are at all interested just check it out, it’s no big commitment, just see what people are doing to try to make our country the best that it can be for it’s people.

P.P.S. I wrote a paper about my ideas on how to better create a system of democracy in The United States of America for today, and it might be a complete shot in the dark, but I think that it is probably worth your time to read it if you have some free time. It is 28 pages, and I know that seems long, but if you read it I promise that you’ll at least find it interesting. I wrote it as a final project for my last Econ class to finish out my major in college, and I was in a big hurry, so I’m sorry for the gramatical mistakes, and there are a few, but I think you will get the picture 🙂

Grady’s Ideas about American Democracy and Corporate Citizenship

Ok, that’s really the end.

Still out of Love,
Grady