Poling the Electorate

[Hard On The Wind]

Gary Johnson needs to be included in the debates. Fiscally conservative, non-interventionist, and socially liberal. It would be nice for people to know that these features can be mixed differently than they have been traditionally in our two party system. I think it will elevate the debates and possibly save them from devolving into a personal insult-a-thon. Doesn't mean I'll vote for him.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I must have missed it; how is "mathematical chance of winning" defined?

Being on the ballot in enough states to potentially win enough electoral votes to be President. How many states depends on which ones you are on, since some get more electoral votes than others.

so you want affirmative action for the losers who haven't earned their place, because they are your losers.

gotcha.

Qualify for all 50 states, then come back, loserparty.

That's a weird question. No, I don't, and I'm not sure where you got that idea.

I also don't want to force anyone to do anything here, which is what affirmative action would do if I advocated it.

Some of us are capable of pointing out a situation that sucks WITHOUT calling for the government to correct it. That's what I have been doing. You immediately assume anyone pointing out a problem wants a government solution but that's your disability, not mine.

Pointing out that the CPD's standards suck and that they're poling the electorate isn't forcing them to do anything. It's pointing out that they suck.

The LP will most likely be on all 50 ballots by debate time. But it won't matter because not enough Americans will have positively answered a question that pre$$ corporations other than Fox do not see fit to ask them.

 

[Raz'r]

Gary Johnson needs to be included in the debates. Fiscally conservative, non-interventionist, and socially liberal. It would be nice for people to know that these features can be mixed differently than they have been traditionally in our two party system. I think it will elevate the debates and possibly save them from devolving into a personal insult-a-thon. Doesn't mean I'll vote for him.

I'm looking forward to the Hillary/Trump exchanges.

Our national politics haven't been this good since Burr/Hamilton duel.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Good for whom? Comedians, obviously, but they always get by anyway.

If pollsters bother to ask voters about Gary Johnson...

In a head-to-head general election match-up, presumptive Democratic nominee Clinton led presumptive Republican nominee Trump 43 percent to 38.5 percent, according to the poll released exclusively to The Detroit News and WDIV-TV. The survey of 600 likely voters found 4 percent saying they’ll vote for someone else and 12 percent remaining undecided.

...

When surveyed voters were offered a third choice in Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, the support for both Clinton and Trump eroded.

Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, received 11.5 percent support, while Clinton held a 4-percentage point lead over Trump, 37 percent to 33 percent.

The interesting thing is that when Johnson was included, he was beaten pretty badly by "Don't Know" and DN also increased his share dramatically when a third option was on the table.

I want to know more about this Don't Know character and his positions. He might be as good as NOTA.

 

[Raz'r]

Good for whom? Comedians, obviously, but they always get by anyway.

If pollsters bother to ask voters about Gary Johnson...

In a head-to-head general election match-up, presumptive Democratic nominee Clinton led presumptive Republican nominee Trump 43 percent to 38.5 percent, according to the poll released exclusively to The Detroit News and WDIV-TV. The survey of 600 likely voters found 4 percent saying they’ll vote for someone else and 12 percent remaining undecided.

...

When surveyed voters were offered a third choice in Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, the support for both Clinton and Trump eroded.

Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, received 11.5 percent support, while Clinton held a 4-percentage point lead over Trump, 37 percent to 33 percent.

The interesting thing is that when Johnson was included, he was beaten pretty badly by "Don't Know" and DN also increased his share dramatically when a third option was on the table.

I want to know more about this Don't Know character and his positions. He might be as good as NOTA.

politics in the US has been too above-board and, well, boring for too long. Time for some bare knuckle brawls for the Iron Throne. We don't need any weak 3rd party candidates who can't get the nod from their own guys.

 

[d'ranger]

To be fair a pretty large % of voters can't name the current VP. It's depressing to read about how ignorant the average voter (or potential voter) is. I don't know the answer.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

To be fair a pretty large % of voters can't name the current VP. It's depressing to read about how ignorant the average voter (or potential voter) is. I don't know the answer.

New ticket:

Don't Know/NOTA 2016!

 

[Raz'r]

To be fair a pretty large % of voters can't name the current VP. It's depressing to read about how ignorant the average voter (or potential voter) is. I don't know the answer.

Cage match!

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Soldiers Don't Want Warmongers

Military troops favor Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson for president over Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to a new survey.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Clock Running Out On Lawsuit

Johnson's highest national poll result so far (last week, happily enough for him) has been 13 percent, but he needs an average of 15 percent across five as-yet-unnamed surveys to be determined later by the Democrat/Republican-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates before debate season begins in late September.

...

That's why the Libertarian and Green parties filed suit last September with U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to get the 15 percent requirement waived on antitrust grounds, since the two existing market entrants have created an entity which has created rules designed specifically to blunt competition.

...

The lawsuit seeks to establish as the qualifying standard for debate inclusion getting on enough state ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning the election. And that's no small thing, Gray emphasized.

"You and I could not form a political party now and decide 'OK, you should run for president, I run for vice president, we should be part of the debates,'" he said. "Ballot access is a real formidable task. So if you're serious, then you should have your voices heard. That's the way it was when the League of Women Voters were in charge of debates, that's what the criteria was. They were frozen out, literally, by the Republicans and Democrats. And they left with the statement, We will not be part of the hoodwinking of America. Look it up, that was a public statement from the League of Women Voters, they said this was perpetrating a fraud upon the voters. And they were right."

Hee hee. Trustbusters.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

From Gary Johnson on Facebook:

Hillary will call Donald an egomaniac. Donald will call Hillary crooked.

Neither one will debate about the issues that matter to the American people.

SIGN THE PETITION to demand Gov. Gary Johnson be included in the Presidential Debates:

I would add that I agree with both Donald and Hillary. He is an egomaniac and she is crooked.

They need to update that petition page, having already surpassed their goal.

Edit to add one of the comments:

I have yet to meet one true die hard Republican/Democrat. Everyone always tells me they are voting one way or the other because of their dislike and fear of the other. If everyone who did this voted Gary Johnson, he would most definitely win.

Prisoners of habit.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Surprise, surprise.

The Fix Is In

 

[Remodel]

BS. Blaming the pre$$ is a fools errand. You would need to change the winner takes all rules. The pre$$ reflects the reality that in this system, a duopoly is the result.

BS, this is a private policy set by pre$$ corporations, nothing to do with our government's election rules.

Changing this:

According to The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)'s website, the 2016 criteria requires a candidate to be "Constitutionally eligible," to appear on enough state ballots to have "a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College," and to "have a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations"

Could be done with or without a change to government rules. Because they are in no way related.

Simlarly, pre$$ corporations who do not currently ask about non-Duopoly candidates could add a question or two to their polls without changing any rules.

Fox is the only one that seems fair and balanced to me.

Oh really? Just how much coverage has Fox given to the Green Party for example?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Debate venues planning third podium while Duopoly Debate Commission plans how to handle rejecting Johnson

The venues that will host the presidential debates are drawing up plans for a three-person forum that would provide a lectern for a third-party candidate to stand on stage next to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The directive comes from producers working for the Commission on Presidential Debates and it’s meant, they say, to force the university hosts to be prepared and not as a reflection of the state of the race.


...

Johnson is hovering around 8.8 percent in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics’ average, whereas Stein, when included in polling, is at around 3.8 percent. Despite being below the 15 percent cutoff, there might be some flexibility in getting someone like Johnson on stage. Frank Fahrenkopf, McCurry’s Republican counterpart and co-chair on the commission, told CNBC last week that the commission may “consider giving an inch” to a third-party candidate if he or she is close enough to the cutoff point.

"If someone came in and let's say he was [polling] at 14.5 percent and the margin of error in five polls was 3 points, we are going to have to sit down and look at it," Fahrenkopf said. "But right now that person would not be included."

 

[Spatial Ed]

Trump openly calling for the assasination of Hillary may give Johnson enough support to be in the debates. I sure hope so.

 

[Raz'r]

Holy Maroni!

Trumps support among blacks now down to 2%...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-in-fourth-place-among-black-voters/

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Poling the Electorate Is Not A Tax-Exempt Activity

The letter also says that the CPD can't rely on the notion that courts have upheld their 15 percent poll criteria, since "the Internal Revenue Service and the courts reviewing tax code cases apply review standards entirely distinct from those relevant to the Federal Election Commission and courts reviewing election law disputes."

Lyman's letter goes on to say:

The facts are against you. Your Commission's fundamentally educational purpose is compromised by the inherent bias or preference of your selection criteria...The 15% opinion polling criterion does not address whether an individual is standing as a contestant in the election; that would be ok. Instead, it attempts to assess which individuals are, at a given date, months before the election, projected likely to win the election; that is not ok.

There is no way you can maintain both (a) the 15% opinion polling criterion by which you make a "selection" of whom to invite to the debate stage, and ( B) your tax-exempt, charitable status, under which you are allowed only to determine who is "eligible" to participate on the debate stage. It is simply a fact – you have to choose one or the other.

Absent your timely addressing the problem of the opinion polling criterion, we are inclined to make a referral to the Internal Revenue Service about whether your Commission has violated the limitations on political activity applicable to tax-exempt charitable organizations and perhaps to seek immediate equitable relief in courts of competent jurisdiction.

It would be wonderfully ironic if the IRS saves us from another poling by the Duopoly Commission.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Gov Scott Poles Evan McMullin

The department, which is overseen by Scott, said the Independent Party of Florida could not get its nominee placed on the general election because it is not recognized as a “national party” by the Federal Election Commission.

McMullin’s camp has said it thinks the state’s decision is blatantly political because Scott not only supports Trump, but runs a super PAC supporting him. Most believe McMullin would take Republican votes from Trump, which could make a difference in a state known for tight presidential races.

What happens when #NeverTrump meets #AlwaysDuopoly

 

[learningJ24]

These third party demands ignore a fundamental reaity; there are not enough people supporting these positions to get a majority. A Libertarian was running for President and he didn't get enough votes, a Socialist was running for President and he didn't get enough votes. The history of third parties in this country is that when they get enough support, the major parties change to absorb those voters. The current deadlock is based, in part, due to the rise of a third party within the Republicans (Freedom Caucus, ie: Tea Party). If there is enough support for a position, those people will be elected. If you want to increase the influence of the individual vote (a Progressive, and later Republican, idea), two solutions would be non-partisan apportionment committees for Congressional districts and public financing of elections.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Judge Says Stop Poling The Electorate

Judge Tayna Chutkan in U.S. District Court for D.C. agreed with the L.P. and others that the FEC was derelict in its duties when it blithely refused to act on the those complaints about the CPD.

Guns.