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[smjjames]

Back on topic:

Andrew Gillum picked up the Dem nomination for FL Gov, a minor upset although not entirely untelegraphed. He will be running against hard line Trumper, DeSantis.

Arizona breathes a sigh of relief as Sheriff Joe loses badly in his Senate bid.

Rest of the night was less surprising and dramatic. Overall fun to watch though.

Yeah, one article said that the Florida Governor race is basically a microcosm of the 2018 midterms, and Florida itself is an important (some would say THE most important) swing state for Trump.

[Reelya]

I think douglas adams put it best in his HitchHiker's Guide...
<snip>
We in the US, we just keep on electing lizards.

While I do love that bit, it's too simplistic.

Presumably, every previous human political system ever thought up is a lizard-system. Saying that politicians are simply lizards implies that we can just get rid of them and replace them with non-lizard leaders, but it clearly doesn't work that way. The system inherently creates lizards.

Joe wasn't voted in because he's the right lizard for the job, he was voted in because he hates Mexican immigrants, and those common non-lizard people also hate Mexican immigrants. Replacing Joe with a freely-chosen non-lizard would probably end up with a worse populist in power than before.

[Trekkin]

Back on topic:

Andrew Gillum picked up the Dem nomination for FL Gov, a minor upset although not entirely untelegraphed. He will be running against hard line Trumper, DeSantis.

Arizona breathes a sigh of relief as Sheriff Joe loses badly in his Senate bid.

Rest of the night was less surprising and dramatic. Overall fun to watch though.

Yeah, one article said that the Florida Governor race is basically a microcosm of the 2018 midterms, and Florida itself is an important (some would say THE most important) swing state for Trump.

Do you have a link to that article? I'm curious if they found the right reason Florida's a useful model.

[smjjames]

Back on topic:

Andrew Gillum picked up the Dem nomination for FL Gov, a minor upset although not entirely untelegraphed. He will be running against hard line Trumper, DeSantis.

Arizona breathes a sigh of relief as Sheriff Joe loses badly in his Senate bid.

Rest of the night was less surprising and dramatic. Overall fun to watch though.

Yeah, one article said that the Florida Governor race is basically a microcosm of the 2018 midterms, and Florida itself is an important (some would say THE most important) swing state for Trump.

Do you have a link to that article? I'm curious if they found the right reason Florida's a useful model.

It's not really an analysis, but here you go, as requested: https://www.axios.com/2018-midterm-elections-florida-governors-race-e43df1d5-5c11-4711-b08b-ba9b763b6e0f.html

The part about Florida itself being an important swing state isn't mentioned there, but I've seen it mentioned elsewhere.

[Trekkin]

Thanks!

I guess they meant it in the sense of the ideological divide between the candidates, which is certainly important but misses what Florida can tell us demographically.

[Egan_BW]

I think douglas adams put it best in his HitchHiker's Guide...
<snip>
We in the US, we just keep on electing lizards.

While I do love that bit, it's too simplistic.

Presumably, every previous human political system ever thought up is a lizard-system. Saying that politicians are simply lizards implies that we can just get rid of them and replace them with non-lizard leaders, but it clearly doesn't work that way. The system inherently creates lizards.

Joe wasn't voted in because he's the right lizard for the job, he was voted in because he hates Mexican immigrants, and those common non-lizard people also hate Mexican immigrants. Replacing Joe with a freely-chosen non-lizard would probably end up with a worse populist in power than before.

The way I understand it, Trump got a lot of his support by claiming not to be a lizard.

[wierd]

I think douglas adams put it best in his HitchHiker's Guide...
<snip>
We in the US, we just keep on electing lizards.

While I do love that bit, it's too simplistic.

Presumably, every previous human political system ever thought up is a lizard-system. Saying that politicians are simply lizards implies that we can just get rid of them and replace them with non-lizard leaders, but it clearly doesn't work that way. The system inherently creates lizards.

Joe wasn't voted in because he's the right lizard for the job, he was voted in because he hates Mexican immigrants, and those common non-lizard people also hate Mexican immigrants. Replacing Joe with a freely-chosen non-lizard would probably end up with a worse populist in power than before.

The way I understand it, Trump got a lot of his support by claiming not to be a lizard.

Somewhat, but a good portion was "anyone but Hillary" voters-- which is just another way of putting what Adams asserted-- "the wrong lizard."

[Reelya]

Sure, but that's where the analogy breaks down. The assumption that lizards are a separate group.

Say the people who voted in Trump would have voted in Trump over any possible black person. All black people are therefore "the wrong lizard" and not just Hillary Clinton. If you picked anyone from the population at random and made them your candidate, they'd be "the wrong lizard" to more people than not. We are all the lizards.

[Egan_BW]

However strange it may seem at times, we actually share a species with politicans.

[Kagus]

However strange it may seem at times, we actually share a species with politicans.

I know, I've actually met one.

Mind, he was only a politician by accident, and never held any sort of office... But there you have it.

[Reelya]

Adam's criticisms have validity, but it misses the mark in two ways:

- it assumes the problem is with individual candidate selection
- it assumes the problem is with how individual people vote

Neither of those things are the problem. The problem in fact is in strategic voting, first-past-the-post election systems, the spoiler effect, and the dynamics of how political parties work.

[EnigmaticHat]

I love the snopes page on Sheriff Joe

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-arpaio-misdeeds/

CLAIM: Made women give birth in shackles

STATUS: Mixture.

This is the sort of thing you really want to just say "false" not "mixture".

CLAIM: Refused to investigate alleged child sex crimes

STATUS: Mostly true.

As the East Valley Tribune‘s Ryan Gabrielson reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning article in 2008, Sheriff Arpaio’s personal obsession with immigration enforcement sapped county resources and led to a sharp decline in criminal investigations and arrests. Many of the cases that fell by the wayside involved sex crimes. “By Arpaio’s own admission, the number of uninvestigated sex crime cases eventually swelled to more than 400,” Gabrielson wrote in 2017. “Many of the victims were children.”

Yeah, this guy was so obsessed with chasing brown-skinned people that he dropped the ball on prosecuting pedos.

Arpaio had a personal prison called "tent city" that used the Arizona heat as a form of punishment against prisoners.  Anyone who was held there (or their families) can sue the city of Phoenix and almost automatically win.  Its cost the city government millions of dollars.  Arpaio running for senate is like Chris Christie running for president... what did he expect to happen?

[smjjames]

Adam's criticisms have validity, but it misses the mark in two ways:

- it assumes the problem is with individual candidate selection
- it assumes the problem is with how individual people vote

Neither of those things are the problem. The problem in fact is in strategic voting, first-past-the-post election systems, the spoiler effect, and the dynamics of how political parties work.

Most of the time though, the spoiler effect doesn't actually have all that much effect and is really only paid attention to when the race is close, especially if it's close enough for the spoiler effect to come into play. Still, as you say, it's caused by the FPTP system and without some sort of ranked balloting, it's impossible to figure out what the third party votes would have otherwise been.

There's also another phenomenon called 'negative partianship' where instead of voting for a candidate, you vote against a party. So, tribalism plays a major part.

[Reelya]

While the spoiler effect isn't an active element in many elections, it has a passive effect in every election, it's the reason small parties don't grow in the first place to have that effect.

People change their behavior to actively avoid the spoiler effect being a thing, so saying it isn't an element in the election misses the point.

Instant Runoff voting is the simplest electoral reform that does away with the spoiler effect. You could then rank things such as Greens -> Democrats -> Liberterian -> Republican so you can still openly support small parties while still preserving your preference for either major party.

[Max™]

I like to think that nobody actually voted for Trump, and instead were voting against Hillary, but I also like to think that this is just a weird glitch in the sim and it'll be rectified any day now...

Not my fault most americans spend more time oogling each other in highschool than learning the mandatory geography curriculum. (shrug)

I can point out most places on a map, unless they are really obscure. (sigh)

I'm good until I get to eastern europe and the former ussr areas and I'm like "well fuck, just draw some lines and count on nobody else knowing what's going on there either" generally.