From The Economist Back in 2008 a book came out called "The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform" which explained in detail how the parties shape the race prior to anyone voting. Everyone cited it. All the political pundits and journalists read it and preached it. And then a funny thing happened this election cycle. Scientists are well acquainted with the “observer effect”, which, in physics, for example, stipulates that the characteristics of a subatomic particle can never be fully known because they are changed by the act of measuring them. Similarly, wrote Mr Drezner, “The Party Decides” has been “the primary theory driving how political analysts have thought about presidential campaigns. It seemed to explain nomination fights of the recent past quite well.” However, in previous elections, there were no crowds of journalists citing TPD. This time, says Mr Drezner, Republican decision-makers “read smart take after smart take telling them that Trump didn’t have a chance…so GOP party leaders didn’t take any action. Except that the reason smart analysts believed Trump had no chance was because they thought GOP leaders would eventually take action.” So Jeb! sat around waiting for some invisible hand to stop Trump, like the book says should happen, instead of stopping Trump, which is what the book assumed he would do - if he hadn't read the book that says Trump will just be stopped.
Yeah, well the media completely stole the Presedency from Ron Paul in the 2012 election who could have beaten Obama. My faith in this system is dwindling.
Polls do influence results to some degree but I suspect not as much as some people have claimed in the past.
... you really want to paint that bullseye on your back? It's like you can't resist the schmuck bait.
When people can't argue a point or address a point, they turn to insults. It just shows how childish and weak minded they are. If Anna truly had something to say, then she should have said it.
It really depends on the topic and the question. A great many people are heavily influenced by what they think other people think. The East Bloc stood so long because even though nobody liked it, everyone assumed that it was popular among everyone else. When they realized the truth it collapsed within months. In this contest everyone kept saying that Jeb! was inevitable even though almost nobody supported him, they just assumed that everyone else would support him. That idea was beaten out of them as state by state everyone rejected him.
Lighten up Francis. It was neither opinion nor fact, just a touch of humor. At any rate, there are objective standards by which we might determine the veracity of Anna's statement.
It seems to me that whenever someone doesn't like or agree with something I say, they resort to calling me a child or saying it was childish or something along those lines. It has nothing actually to do with the post itself, just a dislike for the poster, therefore it's an insult.
Then you should ask her why she made the comment. My guess is that she sees a rush to judgment, something characteristic of... wait for it... immaturity.
^ This kid. Have you forgotten that abortion of a thread you started just last week? Link That's the most recent thing in a long line of fuckups as to why people think you're a kid. Hell, I even remember when you came here to Wordforge insisting that a property owner owns any body of water running through his or her property, and telling everyone else who thought otherwise that they were idiots. It's always funny how the people who are supposedly all about personal responsibility are usually the ones to start blaming others for their actions. The complete lack of introspection and self awareness are also child like qualities.
I do recall the water rights argument. I had a good long laugh at that claim because it would get someone sued and arrested. That said America does have two different systems of water rights; one for east of the Mississippi river and one for west of the Mississippi river. You do not want to get on the wrong aide of a water rights fight out west because you will get punished both civilly and criminally and the water rights laws have some stiff penalities out west.
The West uses a top-down government power system of water rights while the East uses a system that recognized private landowner rights. That's why the West is so dry. If Arizona said the government has control of rock and sand they'd have shortages of those, too.
Well where did their water go? By the way, the West used to be so wet that they still find trilobites in the rocks. And did you think all those T-Rexes just wandered around in the desert looking to eat caravans of Arab nomads?
