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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Darvi]

It's GO TIME, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Election Day 2014! If you're an American, and you haven't yet voted (and you're eligible to vote)....GET YOUR ASS OUT THERE AND VOTE.

FTFY

[FearfulJesuit]

Happy election day! Everyone else should get out there and vote. (My home district is in Massachussetts- the only national races for my House district and Senate have only write-ins for the GOP candidates. There's Massachussetts for you. And I barely live in the state except in name, so I don't know enough about the local races to make an informed decision about them- nor should I be making a decision, frankly.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I will say that most polls I've been seeing, including Nate Silver's, put Kay Hagen at having a decent but not overwhelming chance of victory. Not that I like her. She's still got those soulless eyes and shit-tier policy making, but she's still better than Tillis, who is Tea Party at least in action.

[Reelya]

That does not really explain why these things are such a problem in Europe as well... Climate change is a widely accepted fact, and environmental policies are a given for every party - the Greens are the third-most important party around here. There is no industry-sponsored anti-science propaganda either, and still we haven't stopped emitting greenhouse gasses on our own.

But your work days are roughly comparable to American's, right?  Workers still needing to drive around due to time constraints impose on them?  You still have businesses obligated to compete in the global economy against others that are not environmentally conscious, right?  And despite that, Europe's emissions are 40% lower per capita than the U.S.

Europe has pretty awesome public transport options.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/10/5-reasons-germans-ride-5-times-more-transit-americans/3510/

One thing Germany does differently than USA is urban planning of mixed-use developments. That way residential and commerical, jobs are intergrated into the same suburbs, so you don't get those wasteland residential zones with no jobs and you need a car to get anything, and the suburbs are planned and intergrated with transport options in a way America just doesn't do.

Integrated development massively reduces unnecessary travel times.

Australia is sort of halfway between USA and Europe in the planning levels so I can see the reasons why they don't properly intergrate commerical zones into residential areas there - "downtown" corporate interests want all commerce funnelled though their ultra-efficient super-shopping zones, so they don't want decentralized shopping to take away from the customer base, regardless of the strain that puts on transport networks - somebody else is paying for that - consumers who end up footing the bill in transport costs, and it saves money for the corporations, so they don't care - some of the profits goes to bribe city planners to keep things that way. I've seen that here with corrupt city management not allowing suburbs quite far from city center to have a proper shopping zone - the residents of one suburb fought for decades to get a supermarket approved. It was about a 10 kilometre drive from that suburb into the city, so you have every single resident driving into town all the time to go shopping ratther than build a supermarket near them, because of corruption and greed.

[RedKing]

I will say that most polls I've been seeing, including Nate Silver's, put Kay Hagen at having a decent but not overwhelming chance of victory. Not that I like her. She's still got those soulless eyes and shit-tier policy making, but she's still better than Tillis, who is Tea Party at least in action.

Agreed. We haven't really had a good Democrat Senate candidate since....hell, Terry Sanford. But we've had a raft of incredibly shitty Republican candidates/incumbents over the last couple of decades.

[FearfulJesuit]

Density is everything, although regulations obviously also help. This isn't really a conspiracy- Wikipedia will tell you that CO₂ emissions per capita are highest in the Mountain West and western Midwest where there's a lot of land and very few people or urban areas. One inhabitant of Wyoming counts for 14 New Yorkers. Europe does somewhat better, but the same principle applies: Finland has about the same population density as Oregon and, like Oregon, has a few major urban centers with a large hinterland. It also does a bit worse than Oregon at CO₂ emissions per capita (about 10.2 tonnes/capita/year as opposed to Oregon's 9.6). On the other end of the scale, Massachussetts has about the same density as Belgium, and their CO₂ emissions per capita are nearly exactly the same (9.9 tonnes). All data are Wikipedia.

The fact of the matter is that the US is a large country in which, for most of its history, land was cheap, and transport was cheaper. It would have just looked silly in 1960 not to build the way we did, especially since the consequences weren't apparent to anyone until decades afterwards.

[Frumple]

Y'know, I just now noticed we apparently have an iranian economist running for governor here in florida. Dude has zero chance of taking the race, but damn, that's some balls.

Given I'm not really sure whether I dislike Scott or Crist more, I may just throw away the guy a vote.

Also hey, legalization of medical marijuana on the ballot. Doesn't seem to be anything else interesting, though.

[Frumple]

Blazes if I know. I haven't noticed any ads or mentions of the guy. Most people are probably looking at the ballot going, "Who the hell is that?"

He mostly seems to want to set up a state-ran bank, insofar as I can tell from two minutes of half-arsed googling.

[scriver]

Y'know, I just now noticed we apparently have an iranian economist running for governor here in florida. Dude has zero chance of taking the race, but damn, that's some balls.

Given I'm not really sure whether I dislike Scott or Crist more, I may just throw away the guy a vote.

Also hey, legalization of medical marijuana on the ballot. Doesn't seem to be anything else interesting, though.

I wonder how many people will be going on about how he's secretly a Muslim and plans to kill us all by turning America into a commie-nazi dystopia where everyone is forced to have abortions and religion is banned.

Don't be silly - he's not black.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We have Muslim politicians, you know. Not many, but they're around.

[Karlito]

I voted like two weeks ago, but there's no Senate races in Nevada this year, I'm not in a competitive House district (thanks gerrymandering!), and the Democratic challenger for governor is so milquetoast that I don't even remember his name, but hey, I guess I'm invested in the outcome of the University Board of Regents election.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

(thanks gerrymandering!)

You know, I think that if we could obliterate this concept, the American system would actually begin to work decently, as people would have to appeal to a large group of ideas, rather than just one group where everyone is just as, if not more extreme, right or left than they are.  Maybe have them all be as close to giant squares as possible?

[Darvi]

(thanks gerrymandering!)

You know, I think that if we could obliterate this concept, the American system would actually begin to work decently, as people would have to appeal to a large group of ideas, rather than just one group where everyone is just as, if not more extreme, right or left than they are.  Maybe have them all be as close to giant squares as possible?

Relevant.

[SalmonGod]

Enjoyed this post by an acquaintance today

So I have plenty of voting friends and plenty of non-voting friends, and I see a lotta crap on both sides, and my own position is kinda moderate, so I figure I need to set it out, rather than having the same fights in other peoples' comments over and over today. Voting doesn't accomplish very fuckin' much in our system, but it doesn't accomplish zero either. The two parties/candidates are depressingly similar, and both of them represent the interests of people vastly richer than you, but they aren't entirely identical either. Not voting does NOT mean you lose your right to complain about the fucked up unjust system we live in, and voting does not mean you are endorsing all aspects of our unjust fucked up system. If you think the small differences between one party and another is enough to have a preference (as I do), and that there is some small hope of your vote mattering in your elections (as I do in some cases), then vote. If you thinking voting in your district accomplishes so little that it is better to spend your efforts elsewhere, then spend you efforts elsewhere (but don't use it as an excuse to spend NO effort trying to make things better). I feel that voting in our system is nearly ineffective, but is at least cheap and easy. It took me maybe 10 extra minutes at the grocery store last week. I can spare that on the off chance it makes a small difference. The problem has a lot to do with the math of plurality systems, and how poorly they deal with more than 2 options, and consequently how they degenerate into 2 party systems with huge vote-wasting problems. Proportional representation systems or say instant runoff systems do not have the same problems. Don't try to shame or beat up people who vote or don't vote, everyone is frustrated by our fucked up system and trying to figure out the best response and the best response is simply not as obvious as it looks at first ... If we get sucked into the emotional meaning of voting or not, instead of staring at the depressing face of the intellectual tactical issues of voting or not, we have no hope ...

[smjjames]

Y'know, I just now noticed we apparently have an iranian economist running for governor here in florida. Dude has zero chance of taking the race, but damn, that's some balls.

Given I'm not really sure whether I dislike Scott or Crist more, I may just throw away the guy a vote.

Also hey, legalization of medical marijuana on the ballot. Doesn't seem to be anything else interesting, though.

The opponent for governor here in California is of Indian descent, but he was born here in the US.

I don't really have an opinion of either Jerry Brown or Neel Kashkari.

@salmongod: Got any ideas on how to fix the current system? Besides outright anarchy.