The Ron Paul/Gary Johnson effect?

Republican turn-out was overall down from '08. And there was a fair amount of conjecture amongst Libertarians that they would simply not vote this time around.

Any thoughts on that? Any Paul or Johnson supporters on here that did not vote at all?

Some Paul/Johnson supporters say that we NEED to go thru some deeper pain, some truly catastrophic event to rebuild from the ashes back to a constitutional principled nation and that a Romney win would have only served to kick the can down the road, where a 2nd Obama term with no "re-election" hanging over his head, would mash the gas over the cliff.

Economic cliff
Weak defense...reduced/eliminated nuclear program
Stronger/emboldened enemies (caliphate)
Global wealth re-distribution

I'm not saying I agree... Just asking the question.

Also what do you think Obama will get done in his 2nd term? A lot of talk about "legacy" already.

I don't think it had so much to do with RP and Johnson as much as Romney was not a strong enough candidate. I had this discussion with my mother-in-law (a die-hard republican) during the primaries. I didn't feel the GOP had a candidate that gave them a good chance of winning. The field of candidates was very week. Look, you had Cain...no comment needed for him. You had Santorum, who suffered one of the worst senate-election defeats of all time in 2006. You had bat-sheet crazy Bachman (who had a hard time winning back her seat last night). You had Perry, who through his own fault, waited until too late to jump into things (a la Fred Thompson in 2008) and was clearly unprepared to make a run. You had Newt Gingrich, a former speaker forced to resign. Then you had Mitt. This is the same guy that finished third to McCain in 2008 and McCain was crushed by Obama in the general election. Why did they think that Mitt was the candidate that was going to beat Obama? The GOP tried throughout the campaign to invalidate polls implying they were concocted by the president and the Democrats, when in all actuality, they were almost spot on. I tune in to Fox News from time to time and I was astounded to hear Dick Morris proclaiming that this was going to be a blow out for Romney. The evidence showed that it was going to be a tight race all along with Obama winning so I was baffled by this prediction. Yet GOP pundit after pundit cried about fixed polls and how Romney would emerge victorious. Karl Rove and his PAC pumped so much money into defeating Obama and you could just see how he didn't want to call the race last night on Fox. They had to go as far as to go talk to their "people behind the scenes" to get a clear explanation on how they were calling Ohio for Obama. I personally thought the election was over once PA was so quickly called for Obama and then WI was called. Which says another thing, Romney and Ryan were soundly defeated in MA (no surprise) and WI. This was hours after the Romney campaign felt confident they were going to probably claim WI and had a great chance of winning PA. It seems for some reason they have been duping their party followers for the past several weeks.

Bottom line, the GOP put up a crappy candidate and that is why Obama won even easier than the "mainstream media" predicted.

The two canidates were far too similar. Beacuse of that, it came down to your usual beauty contest. Obama won becuase he is cool and groovy. Romney appeared to most voters as "out of touch" and "rich" with no clear differenence on issues like foreign policy, spending, bailouts, Obamacare and civil liberties.

In order for Obama to lose there needed to be a canidate with a strong contrast who could offer alternatives to the current shenanigans going on in Washington and with Federal Reserve. That person was Ron Paul....who will it be in 2016? The liberty movement is just beginning, lets hope that it's not too late before it gathers enough steam for the R3volution to truly take hold!

Maybe the majority just found the rhetoric of the GOP just too repugnant to reward with a vote. Apparently the narrative that Obama was the worst President ever didn't sit well after a two term Republican president presided over the most significant economic downturn since the great depression. It's like switching doctors after the first one screwed you up bad. Then saying you want to go back to the first doctor because the 2nd one couldn't fix the damage fast enough.

how many elections in a row have come down to people voting for "the lesser of two evils"?
its sad that our country can only put forth two asshats like we had. the two party system has been broken for years, and has caused us to have some horrible presidents as of late.
once again, I dont regret voting for Ron Paul.

Thanks John. Thanks for the nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

Seriously though. It was not a blow-out by Obama like you're implying. The country is deeply divided right down the friggin' middle. The next 4 years will do little-to-nothing to fix that....just like the 1st four didn't.

No one has answered the last question. What will Obama achieve in the next 4? He didn't lay out much of a plan during the campaign, just spent all his time (effectively) telling people how evil Romney is.

We know he'll be raising taxes, what else from a "legacy" perspective?

Amnesty?
Cap and Trade?
What?

Snyder, I think you are forgetting about the demographics. The GOP has old white voters and that's about it. They are getting demolished among young voters and voters and color - absolutely demolished. They had a REAL chance with Latinos this time around who were generally disillusioned with Obama and completely blew it as they did with women with their ridiculous platform (this was less a Romney issue than an overall Republican strategy issue) - Obama got MORE of the Latino vote than 4 years ago which is pretty surprising.

Hoping Gary Johnson doesn't disappear. He is a far better candidate than Ron Paul.

California already raised it's taxes this election. idiots....

What did that guy in the white house promise Putin during that open mic where he said he would have to wait to be re elected?

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Jonathan Martin of Politico that “if we lose this election there is only one explanation — demographics.”

“If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts,” Graham said. “We’re not losing 95 percent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.”

Originally Posted by pesos

Snyder, I think you are forgetting about the demographics. The GOP has old white voters and that's about it. They are getting demolished among young voters and voters and color - absolutely demolished. They had a REAL chance with Latinos this time around who were generally disillusioned with Obama and completely blew it as they did with women with their ridiculous platform (this was less a Romney issue than an overall Republican strategy issue) - Obama got MORE of the Latino vote than 4 years ago which is pretty surprising.

Hoping Gary Johnson doesn't disappear. He is a far better candidate than Ron Paul.

I hope Gary Johnson is able to stick around. He spent most of his own money filing/fighting lawsuits just to get on the ballots in some states.

he got my vote. I am also very disillusioned with the two party system.

It's difficult for me to say, but I agree with Jeremy

I stopped posting on these threads weeks ago because I kinda saw the writing on the wall.

Obama is a BRILLIANT campaigner. He's by far the best campaigner that I have seen in my life time.....and I'm an old guy.

What will he achieve in the next 4 years?

a total of 20 trillion in debt

millions of full time workers reduced to part time

a reduction of our military power to the point of empowering our enemy

Iran with a nuk

another market "correction"

inflation out the wazoo

more devaluation of the dollar

more jobs lost to other countries

an increase in the national divide...hatred, racism, political polarization.....

overall quality of medical care reduced

insurance premiums on the rise.....already have been since he took over

reduction of the number of med school applicants

I'm out of time. Anybody want to help add to the list?

^IOW Deja Vu the Bush administration minus the 4500 dead soldiers.

Did you seriously think that Romney would have avoided all that? Ironically while Romney was arguably the most qualified wrt business economics, it's specifically his brand of business economics that put us where we are right now. Cost cutting by sending jobs overseas and rewarding the people who can game the system enriching themselves without producing anything.

dead soldiers? more have died under Obama than under Bush.

and yes, I think that Romney....or anybody.....had a better chance of avoiding all that I listed over Obama

Originally Posted by ord27

dead soldiers? more have died under Obama than under Bush.

Of course the fact that you just made that up is of no importance. It is probably true that more soldiers have died in Afghanistan since Obama, but the deaths in Iraq before Obama outnumber all the other figures and your statement is simply false.

I stand corrected. The website that I found before I posted said one thing. Others that I have found since, support what you said.

I do stand by my list....

http://icasualties.org/

Remember, Cliff, that a weak dollar is good for exports. Our chief complaint against China's monetary policy is that they keep their currency artificially devalued.

Which is great, except that we need to buy oil with our weak currency too.