Friar Bijou wrote:
Any idea what website you gleaned that information from?
Honestly? No clue. I think I googled something like "Who are trump voters". I suppose I could poke around and see if I can find it.
Jophiel wrote:
Sir Xsarus wrote:
From what I've been able to tell the people who showed up to vote for trump in the primary may not have been traditional Primary voters, but that they were people who voted GOP in general elections.
Yeah, Politico did a study of the early primary states and the main finding was that Trump wasn't really "expanding the party" in that he WAS generating more GOP primary voters but they were mainly GOP general election voters who just never previously voted in primaries.
Yeah. I read that one too. I'm not sure I trust their analysis, but then I don't have the total raw data in front of me. I'm not sure if their constant reference to the number of primary voters who had "previously voted" in a general election, while not mentioning
which party they voted for was just editorial oversight, with the data showing they voted Republican, or intentionally left out because a significant number previously voted Democrat. Then, there's math like this:
Politico wrote:
In Iowa, the Republican caucus turnout smashed its past record by 50 percent this year, jumping from 121,000 to nearly 187,000. But, according to figures provided by the state party, 95 percent of the 2016 caucusgoers had previously voted in at least one of the past four presidential elections—and almost 80 percent had voted in at least three of the past four.
Hmmmm... Again, the language just says "previously voted", without saying they "previously voted Republican". But lets assume they meant to say that and just left the specific language out (every single time btw) and do the math. 95% voting in at least one of the last four is meaningless. Tells us close to nothing. But 80% voting in 3 of the last 4 is at least closer to useful data. Let's assume they voted in 4 out of the last 4 (they didn't, but whatever). Well, that's 80%. Note this is 80% of the entire caucusgoers, not "new caucusgoers". So 80% of 187 is 150. 187-121=66. 150-121=29. 29 is 43% of 66. So. These numbers show that as many as 43% of "new caucusgoers" have not voted in any of the last 4 presidential elections. Well, technically more than that, since the starting 80% only reflects people who've voted in 3 out of the 4, not all 4, so there's possibly a greater number to be had.
Point being that in this section at least, the numbers don't actually support what Politico is saying. It actually arguably supports the exact opposite of what they are claiming. Oh. And let's not forget that these numbers are also based on the assumption that when they say "previously voted", they meant "previously voted Republican". If that's not correct, then these numbers also don't include some (possibly significant) number of voters who have never voted in a GOP primary before, but have voted in previous general elections. Just as Democrats.
Uh... Which could be a problem.
Quote:
Anyway, on Libertarianism, I took some goofy test the other week to see how Libertarian I was and it started with questions like "Do you believe we spend too much on the military?" and "Do you think drug laws are too harsh?" and quickly descended into "Should we abolish the military?" and "Should we rescind all drug laws?". If anything, it was a cautionary tale to stay away from Libertarians.
Yeah. Basically, they define libertarianism as the degree to which you have super extreme limits on any form of government at any level. And frankly, while I get that, kinda, sorta, at a very small and local level, it just can't work and have a functioning federal government at all. I always get a kick when they argue for eliminating the federal military budget, and you're like "Um... So how do we avoid getting invaded by say China or Russia, or maybe a small troop of Boy Scouts?". And they they kinda stumble and stammer about how militias will magically form and save us or something.
I'll repeat my assertion that the GOP, while not perfect by any means, is the best party we have for applying libertarian concepts to the greatest degree possible, while maintaining the need for a cohesive relationship between the states via federal system of laws, and externally facing federal government to represent the states to other nations around the world. Unfortunately, the GOP gets slammed on both sides for this. We argue for small government, but it's not small enough for one side and too small for the other. Which kinda maybe means we got the balance right (or "right enough").