Politics (Not) As Usual - My First Year w/ Interest & Some Fun Political Stories & Facts

From the onset of 2012, this felt like a different year to me.

A year where I started to feel that standing on the sidelines as it relates to the political process was no longer an option.

Sure, it started with the trendy SOPA stuff--and from everything I've learned about politics in the past year, Congress will attempt to pass through similar legislation that could continue to threaten freedom of speech. But as I learned, sometimes it takes something relevant to an individual to say, "Wait a minute, maybe I should start educating myself on this stuff."

There are also plenty of other things I learned over the course of this year (and election season) that has me both optimistic about the future of our country and some things that have me disgusted with the process. I get that people are passionate about their politics. But please - (a) keep it civil, (b) keep it factual, and (c) keep it positive.

In too many cases, folks on both sides of the major parties could recite more negative stuff about the other guy than positive about their own. That's not a good sign for your guy if you're doing that.

Anywho, onward to the talking points:

The True 1%

While everyone was clamoring to see whether Obama would be able to survive this election season against his Republican opponent, history was made of a different kind for the bronze medalist in the presidential race.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received over a million votes (a record for Libertarians) and about 1% of the vote (just short of the party record). Considering the two big dogs spent almost 1000 times more combined than Johnson's campaign (2 billion to 3 million -> source) and got about 1000 times more coverage than former New Mexico governor, it is quite the accomplishment.

I don't know the exact number of votes he got from me and people I know, but it was at least a half dozen. Considering my circle of people isn't all that big, it's much larger than the national percentage. If Gary gives it another run in 2016, I will likely vote for him again, barring some other solid candidate would enter the race.

And no, once again, I wouldn't be wasting my vote.


Stat in the Hat

If you voted for Romney and didn't see this coming, you haven't been studying the stats.

And no, I don't mean the partisan polls on these slanted news networks. I mean Nate Silver's 538 blog, which was running on the NY Times website throughout the election.

If you haven't heard of him, Nate became a polarizing figure over the election cycle with his projections of the election through personalized statistical models, all of which showed Obama taking the electoral college by a much wider margin than expected and winning the popular vote by 2+% (both of these occurred).

Before the election, Republicans argued to no end that his statistical models were wrong and that Romney would win the election with no problem. As is the case with politics as I've found out, people get really f-ing angry when what they are reading or seeing doesn't correspond with a favorable view/rating of the person they are supporting (at least this holds up in general). If you take a look at the comments Silver got from the right, you'd think Silver just made up the stats.

Sports folks among my friend base might recognize Silver's name from his work as a sabermetrics guy and occasional author on various sports websites. In Silver's first analysis of the electoral college in 2008, he projected 49 out of 50 states correctly (he projected Indiana for McCain). He also predicted all 35 Senate races correctly that year.

I'm not sure how many swing states there were in 2008, but all things considered, missing one state in two elections shows me that this guy has a damn good statistical model going here. Stay tuned for his blog in 2016 to see what we should expect.

More Fun Political Stats

Here are a few fun political facts and figures that I found as I kept a really close eye on the Google Election Center, by far the most detailed political map that I came across as I looked for updated statistics on the election:

1. Roseanne Barr finished fifth overall in the popular vote. Yes, the sitcom star and everyone's favorite husky 1990s TV mom finished behind Obama, Romney, Johnson and Jill Stein (Green Party) in the popular vote. Barr's vote total was just a shade under 50,000, which was roughly eight times less than Stein's total. It's not like she came close to winning, but she finished fifth. Her name was on the ballot in Florida, Colorado & California. Welcome to Uhmerica.
2. "None of these candidates" is a voting option in Nevada. If you didn't want to vote for any of the candidates listed on the Nevada ballot, you can place a vote for nobody. Yes, there's an option on their ballots to vote for "None of these candidates". Interestingly enough, this "candidate" finished fourth behind Obama, Romney and Johnson. Sorry Virgil Goode - the Constitution Party candidate literally got beat by no one (None of these candidates got almost double the votes as Goode did in the state).
3. Nothing screams "I'm Fiscally Responsible" like spending billions on a presidential election. As of 10-26-12, Barack & Mitt spent over $2 billion combined on their campaigns combined (source). I'm guessing that total rose over the final couple weeks of the election. In fact, if you break it down by state, Obama spent the most in Illinois (over $39M), which is considered his adopted home state. Likewise, Romney spent the most in his state of Massachusetts ($115M). In both states, the winner was fairly well known before the election began (Obama). Why spend that much in your home states? The site doesn't break down costs, so it's hard to say what this was spent (or wasted) on. Still, it seems ridiculous that each guy would spend so much in a state whose winner was widely known before the election even began.

And one more thing...

Let's not make a mention of the 2016 election for a while. We don't need to encourage these bozos to make this a non-stop thing. My Gary mention is not included in on this - mainly because it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.

That's all I got. I hope you're as happy as I am for this season to be over. Now, time to watch the Colts/Jaguars game.

On second thought, maybe another election cycle isn't so bad to watch.

My "Useless" Vote - The Same As Your "Useless" Vote

My vote doesn't matter. At least that's what I've been told.

My guy Gary Johnson. is likely to get about 1% of the national vote, while the Siamese twin Mittrack Obamney will get the other 98.999999%. Sorry Green/Constitution Party and Independent advocates - you'll likely muster the other .0000001%, give or take ten zeros.

Your vote on either of these two really only matters in 15 states, argues political expert/doofus/moron Brian Bolek

Oh wait, I forgot about a problem with the argument that my vote doesn't matter. Yours likely doesn't either. In fact, I think we're both wasting our time debating whether our vote actually matters (at least when it comes to Illinois).

The 36 Strong

This can be said for about the 35 states (and DC, which gets 2 votes) whose electoral votes are clearly going to one particular candidate, and thus, getting all of the electoral college votes from them. These states are highlighted on this page: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/electoral-map. The definition of "clearly" would be over a 95% chance that the state will be won by that particular candidate (Here's a detailed NY Times blog that is tracking this). If you notice the state of Illinois - it is 100% certain that Obama will win this state. Therefore, I would argue that your vote, which matters none in the national vote of a candidate (since the electoral college neuters this and ties someone's vote directly to their state and their state only), is just as useless as mine if you're voting for anyone other than Obama.

(Note: there are two states that allow for electoral votes to be split between candidates - Maine and Nebraska. Both states give two electoral votes to the winner of the state, and then allow their respective state districts decide the rest. For what it's worth, all of Nebraska's "votes" will go to Romney, while Obama is likely to take Maine and both of its districts - although Mitt has a slight chance in one district. Both of these states are among the 35 mentioned above.)

Even if Romney gets 40% in Illinois (just to throw a number out there), sure, he's a hell of a lot more popular to the voting public than any third party candidate, but he gets the same number of electoral votes from Illinois as my 1% does - zero.

If you ditch the electoral college and go straight to popular vote (it'll never happen), then I argue your vote would carry more weight. But since it only matters in the state which you reside, you aren't going to influence the vote.

The 15 That Matter Most

This leaves a total of 15 states who pollsters still have some question on who will carry the state's electoral votes. Many of these states have particular leans already - some Obama, some Romney - while others are statistically up in the air until Tuesday. These states compromise 173 of the electoral votes out of the 538 total (32%). So assuming that the election plays out as it should in those 35 states where Romney and Obama have a guaranteed hold on the votes, this leaves about one-third of the nation's voters with a meaningful vote.

If you break it down based on this site's "too close to call" states (that can be up for debate, especially with the flaws that polls represent), there's at least seven of those states, whose electoral votes total 89 - 16.5% of the electoral votes. This number might be a little higher or lower depending on what data you use, but this is a good estimate.

These are the states where the candidates have been spending the most time and money on, the ones where each candidate will essentially do whatever they can to get a vote (up to and including fellatio...just guessing). I feel sorry for the ads that those states have to deal with on a daily basis - Illinois' close race ads are brutal enough, couldn't imagine the stuff that Romney and Obama have come up with in the swing states.

Those 35 states (and DC) whose electoral votes we can count already as all but certain - each campaign knows better than to waste their time pandering across those states when their vote is (near) certain.

Of course it matters

What I am arguing here, is that in spite of your non-Illinois Obama vote not really playing a role into the election at all, your vote does matter. Mine does too, even if it's only one of about 1% of the vote for Johnson. It's easy to say "Your vote means shit" when you're in a non-swing state and you're voting for a candidate who is certain to lose that state. But your vote is more than just a statistic - it's a representation of your beliefs in who will be the best person to best represent my country (or state/district/town/etc.).

Well - at least that's what it's supposed to be. I'd love to believe that the general public votes FOR candidates rather than AGAINST them (i.e. voting for Candidate A because you believe in him/her and not just because you hate Candidate B that much), but we all know that these anti-votes occur.

I digress.

When you vote, whether you vote in a swing state or not, whether you're voting on any candidate who has a legit shot or not, you are voting for your ideal representatives (unless you're a dumbass).

If you are an Illinois resident and you believe Romney best represents your views on how the country should be run, then by all means vote for him. Meanwhile, I will vote for Gary Johnson who best represents my views.

The expected three top-vote getters in the 2012 election. The guy in the middle (Gary Johnson) will get about 1/49th the votes of each of the guys (Obama/Romney) who sandwich him.

Another digression alert: (And no, my vote for him is not a vote for Obama or Romney - it is a vote for Johnson. I HATE!!! the notion that bi-partisan politics have brought upon the voting culture where you can't just vote for a third party candidate because, I don't know, You actually want to vote for that candidate! The idea that my vote is stealing a vote away from one of these guys is baffling to me. If I wanted to vote for one of those candidates, I would, you know, vote for them. My vote is not stealing a vote away from either because, simply put, I wouldn't vote for either guy if Johnson wasn't on the ballot).

Anywho, enough of this babbling. Go out and vote November 6th for the candidate(s) who best represent your views. And yes - your vote matters.

And so does mine.