Talk:2012 U.S. presidential election

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Editorial notes It contains unsourced statements Tagged since June 2012 someone source that blasted quote

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Palpatine's lack of entering the race

Should we add emperor palpatine's to the list of people that Looked like they were going to, but declined

here's the reference174.93.171.250 (talk) 03:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There are already three fake-candidates on the page, and for a pretty lame joke it becomes even less funny each time it is repeated.--^talk 03:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Up to a point...then it becomes funny again, sometimes even funnier than the initial joke...then it can turn into a meme, then ::squirrel!:: cliche. 03:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Contradictions about popularity

I've found two contradictory statements about the popularity of Obama and Romney [1]. Shall we do an article about unscientific polling? I'm not Jesus (talk) 14:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

It'd be better to have a talk page thread about people adding the latest things to the article without reading the rest of it first. Sophie^{because liberals} 16:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Secret Squirrel

Quit calling me an "Obama fanboy", and quit reverting my edits without a real reason. My version still includes the views; your version, however, explicitly supports them. If I was inserting my views, it would say "claims that Obama is waging a war on civil liberties and failed health care reform are false". But I did not. I merely changed two words to more neutral statements that clearly set them as the view of some individuals and not everybody.

Ironically, your changes were the ones that inserted a specific POV, not mine. I stated in an edit description why the "HCR failure" statement is an opinion not a fact. In the area of civil liberties, it is more murky as he has made both advancements and retreats in that area, and whether he is "assaulting" civil liberties (in general a vague area) depends on prioritizing of certain issues and defining intent. Mr. Anon (talk) 02:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Quit trying to tone down criticism of Obama's record. He is as bad as Bush on foreign policy and worse than Bush on civil liberties, and only marginally better on some other things. Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:30, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

That is an opinion. All I have done is set those aside as such. I have not, contrary to your claims, turned this article into simply praising Obama. The criticism of him is still there, but it is made more clear who the criticism is coming from. Mr. Anon (talk) 02:32, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I also love how you still haven't given a specific reason why you reverted my edits. You resort to strawmans and refuse to specifically address my edits. I'm not saying anything about Obama's foreign policy/civil liberties record. I'm not saying anything about what good health reform should be. I'm just saying that these are opinions, not clear stances. Obama hasn't said "I'm going after civil liberties". Obama has just made a couple of foreign policy decisions, and it is people like us that interpret them as being good or bad on civil liberties. Mr. Anon (talk) 02:36, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Since arriving here you have frequently added attacks on people like Glenn Greenwald and Ralph Nader and toned down anything critical of Obama. The Obama administration revived the government's prosecution of Thomas Drake after the Bush administration dropped it. Obama personally campaigned for the extension of the Patriot Act. The no-fly list is now over twice as large as it was when Bush left office. When Bush left office there were no full body scanners in airports, now there are. Bradley Manning is sitting in jail and Julian Assange is still facing prosecution. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for no legitimate reason, just a few days after escalating the Afghanistan war. This is just the tip of the iceberg with this creep. I'm going to stand by my view that the last if not the only decent Democrats to ever win the preisdential nomination were McGovern, Carter, and Dukakis; the only real progressive choice in 1996 and 2000 was Ralph Nader; Ron Paul - although I do not by any means support him - is a legitimate protest vote in the current environment - and Obama should be sharing a cell with Bush and Cheney.

Your continued removal of criticism of Obama and adding more attacks on Greenwald, Nader, Paul etc is no longer going to be tolerated. You are from now on a revert on sight editor. Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

None of this is relevant. This isn't a debate on Obama's record. This is a debate over literally two words that I changed in the article to clarify passages. The viewpoints are still there.

I'm willing to make concessions on my Greenwald edits, as I made those edits months ago. The only criticism of Nader I added was his apparent support of Ron Paul (indeed, in his Time article about the man he was very favorable towards him). I never attacked Nader on his 2000 election results - the only opinions I expressed on that were on the talk page. Mr. Anon (talk) 03:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, then let's clean up the Glenn Greenwald article, because right now it is in a very sorry state. Secret Squirrel (talk) 03:04, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I've restored it to what it was before I made my edits. Mr. Anon (talk) 03:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

As a clarification, ListenerX's version is perfectly fine (as I have always stated, I am not good at snark). Other versions that I would have been fine with are statements like "people on the left are discontent with Obama because of his killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US citizen, his prosectution of whistleblowers like Thomas Drake, and extension of the Patriot Act". This highlights specific issues, and is overall neutral (it is a fact that some people are discontent with him for that). Mr. Anon (talk) 03:59, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Gary Johnson

Polls 9% in Arizona. He might very will be a spoiler, helping Obama win southern states like Texas and Arizona. Already I see him as alone having the potential of getting over 5% of the general election popular vote, which will be historically significant. Backed by Ron Paul, I could see him getting as much as 15%, and if he does as well in the polls beforehand we might see him in the debates, which will be fun. A lot of ifs and mights here, but he is a formidable third party candidate, so we might as well have an article on him. Mr. Anon (talk) 01:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

But I thought Ron Paulism was supposed to be a plague to be opposed at all costs? Maybe not if it takes votes away from Romney and helps Mr. Hopey Changey get re-elected, eh? Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:11, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Paul is a racist, misogynist antisemite who denies climate change and is a defender of civil liberties by proposing private mercenaries funded by the government take down Al-Qaida. Gary Johnson, while bad on economic issues, knows what he is talking about for a change, acknowledges science, and is not completely anti-women. The latter I respect as a legitimate third party candidate (but not a valid vote for progressives) while the former is just in there to "send a message" deeply rooted in conspiracy. My deep, arguably personal, hatred of Paul is mainly due to his defenders claiming he is a candidate that he is not. Anyone who thinks he's in any way progressive is wrong. I have not heard people claim the same about Gary Johnson; he is running for the libertarian party after all. Mr. Anon (talk) 01:43, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Might be an idea to update this article properly?

I see we're all doing our fun discussion of last night's results over on CP:Talk. Maybe we'd be better moving general discussion here? DogP (talk) 01:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

there was a whole subpage on election night. Somebody keeps shunting it to RW space though. Sophie^Wilder 10:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)