I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

Yes--so I think Gary Johnson's my man.

to return to the thread's most important post...

also: http://www.thefirstrow.eu/sport/baseball.html

― dell (del), Saturday, August 11, 2012 7:54 PM

really, I need a site where you don't have to download something that will disable your PC.

On further reflection I don't think I'm actually anxious about the election. I think my brain is just producing anxiety chemicals and then I'm using contingency to guess what about.

im anxious abt the election, also im drinking more caffeine than usual

Not anxious about general election. Somewhat anxious about MN marriage amendment vote, as it's dead even now (and I want this one to buck the trend of oops, surprise, +7 in favor of gay marriage ban on election day compared to polls).

Not anxious because you're confident Obama will win or because you don't think it matters who wins?

I'm anxious thinking whether today the cafeteria will make those mashed potatoes I'm so fond of.

Do we have an anxiety thread?

Yes – every political thread.

Severe Anxiety

I bought alfred-college-mashed-potatoes at 58% but the market has crashed

youre whipped

creamed

i sold romney. it felt better than buying obama.

hah

really, I need a site where you don't have to download something that will disable your PC.

haha. i haven't been on those kinda sites in a while, but if you click strategically you should be able to avoid all the things that trigger downloads

i also put all $5000 of the play $ they give you on mike huckabee

wait no i didn't it won't let me. that is bullshit.

nate silver mentioned something about writing about intrade today. I bet the market will move a few points just on that article.

well i already made 27c, so i'm basically quitting academia as i write this

"From 9:57-10:03 this morning, someone pushed the Romney's Intrade stock from 41 to 48. Total outlay was $17.8k, and they overpaid by $1250."

https://twitter.com/justinwolfers/status/260755924493418496

brad plumer wrote about this yesterday, too

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/23/how-to-manipulate-prediction-markets-and-boost-mitt-romneys-fortunes/

being anxious about the election is playing right into mittsy's plutocratic little confidence game!

when you cash out your millions remember where this good advice came from xp

oh shiiiii i am down 27c now

is that before or after my investment advice fees

Not anxious because you're confident Obama will win or because you don't think it matters who wins?

Little of both.

ok after your fees i am down 81c.

Not anxious about general election. Somewhat anxious about MN marriage amendment vote, as it's dead even now (and I want this one to buck the trend of oops, surprise, +7 in favor of gay marriage ban on election day compared to polls).

― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Wednesday, October 24, 2012 2:54 PM (30 minutes ago)

the thing that is making me optimistic is that thx to very smart laws in mn, it has to pass the 50% mark on affirmative votes to become an amendment - so anyone who doesn't vote either way counts against it passing. so when you see a 47% to 47% split (which is what I last saw), that still means it doesn't pass, over half the total cast mn ballots have to have a yes vote indicated.

in other words, 47% vote yes, 47% vote no, 6% get confused and just chew on the corner of the ballot for a while and dont mark anything - amendment defeated 53% to 47%

same thing wrt that idiot voter id thing.

gah both of those have me in sort of a tizzy. my gf has been door knocking for the voter ID amendment. we're both pessimistic. i have myself totally convinced that enough ppl not knowing about it will get the fucking thing passed, because even though it's an insane law, on the surface it looks like something anyone would support. "huh, bring an ID to vote, makes sense" *check yes, forget* and i kinda think it's a bigger deal than the marriage amendment in that the idiot ID amendment just makes it easier to tip votes toward more hurtful idiot laws and BLURGH

47% is still too much support imo. Amendments to the constitution should require fucking 75% of the popular vote or more.

Apparently there's going to be a press conference today about how the Voter ID law would also negatively affect, among all other victimized people, domestic violence survivors.

oh eric, i agree, the fact that either of these amendments even have a chance of passing in mn is a huge embarrassment and a total disgrace (although like arby's says, the voter ID one is succeeding mostly due to dumb as fuck inattentive people)

though voter ID laws unfairly target primarily low income and minority voters (who are heavily correlated with voting Democratic), i think that people's experience of attaining a photo ID are generally so mundane (almost everyone DOES have an ID who will be voting on these measures) that it's hard to make the case that it's truly unfair. hopefully this will never become relevant to MN, but in PA where our voter ID law was merely deferred and not actually defeated, progressive activists need to concentrate on making sure IDs are readily available to everyone. i know they were working on making them available in places like nursing homes, assisted living facilities, colleges, etc before the law was postponed. voter ID laws are going to become a reality for a lot of states, i think, but there's no reason they need to disenfranchise voters w/ enough preparation. there's nothing inherently impossible about making sure everyone has an ID afaik??

the voter id law is going to cost us a shit ton of pointless money in a state that has no measurable history of voter id fraud though

If states didn't charge for voter IDs or the acquiring of one wasn't so tedious then, sure, I'd support them 100 percent.

For the record, until I learned the difficulty if not impossibility of a poor person getting an ID, I used to wonder "why the fuss?" too.

I think a lot of people find it hard to fathom that not everyone has a driver's license in their pocket

it's sorta a bubble thing - if everyone you know always has an id on them, why would it be a problem?

I think the point also is that there are valid reasons for some people to not want to be easy to find.

in 2004, 2,800,000 people voted in the mn election, and despite many more cases being brought, only 14 fraudulent votes were found.

AND THEY WERE ALL FOR DEMOCRATS ... oh wait, and Lizard People.

We also haven't done enough to combat the "Voting isn't a right, it's privilege" chant. Many people don't understand the relationship between citizenhood and voting; the burden is on the government to explain the circumstances in which you can vote.

most of the voter fraud that goes on in america is @ poorly monitored rural districts ie republicans are p cool with it

actually this is prob the best summation of why the voter id amendment in mn is particularly stupid: http://www.lwvmn.org/page.aspx?pid=777

I don't have MN state ID (don't drive or live there) and have to do the Russian roulette of using a passport as identification if I'm out drinking in the Twin Cities. Some places don't accept them, but I don't know why that is.

yeah that was basically why I got a driver's license. I think someone's manager just says 'no passports' prob because people aren't gonna know what a nigerian passport looks like and then they just follow the rule across the board.

Can't everyone just wait for the chip implant is my point.

iatee probably otm, but shit, take an american passport goddammit, this is america!!!!!

this is america, if you want to drink you better be able to drive home

I am pretty sure I told this story before but I had a gas station cashier in Portland, OR, reject my passport as valid ID to buy beer; I incredulously asked her why a valid US passport wasn't good enough to purchase a six-pack, then waved over a friend with an unexpired driver's license, gave him my money, had him buy it, picked up the six-pack and stormed out muttering about how asinine it was that a federally-issued ID was not recognized in America.

gallup lv romney lead to 3, also

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

53/42 is ridiculous - obama's got his best approval rating in 2 years and is gonna lose? what a strange polling firm