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So, the Iowa caucus are almost over as I type this, Cruz won the Republican vote. Sanders is losing to clinton .2%, or rather, 22-21. What are your views? Who do you support?

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Why is this how it works? There needs to be a better way. I am an feeler of the bern, but in no way should a *COIN FLIP* be the decider of who wins in a vote.

I haven't been following politics for a while, so uh...
So Ted Cruz won overall on the Republican side, and the Democratic primary has yet to be announced?

It was essentially a tie for the Democrats, I'm thinking. When it's this close, I don't think most people are going to outright say Hillary "won" this caucus. Also, yeah, I'm not in favor of the whole coin flip thing. And neither are some other people.

I'd say this was a pretty good start for Bernie, knowing that he's likely to take New Hampshire by storm. And I think he's a likely reason for why there's been a higher turnout at Iowa this year compared to the past. He's still got a ways to go though, especially when it comes to the Southern states. I'll be glad to vote for him when the time comes in the primaries. I'm not sure if I'm more invested in the race this year because of him or because I'm able to vote this year, but I guess I'll roll with it.

As for the Republicans, I don't follow them as closely, but it'll be interesting to see how the nominations go, because from what I've heard the Republican National Committee doesn't really want to choose Cruz (I think he's too far right) or Trump (he's Trump). Feel free to correct me on that, though.

Also I heard Martin O' Malley basically dropped it, so I'm wondering where his supporters will turn to.

Side note: Thanks Raz for putting up this topic. I was wondering why there had been nothing on it yet.

I guess every non-american mainly hopes that Trump is prevented with all means. The rest I don't care much yet to be honest, I'm also not informed yet about the other contenders.

When it comes time for the southern states, I'm scared for Bernie. He does not have a strong enough lead. At least those doubting that he was electable were proven wrong.
As a New Hampshire person, I feel like the general consensus here is, you either like bernie, hate hillary, or are a republican. There is no real support for her here.

Theoretically it is said that whatever will happen in US will also affect other states aswell, but considering at the time we have our own wars and NATO wasn't war-happy currently, I think we shouldn't mind.

But mind explaining how it works for you guys? I heard the voting system is pretty complex and not exactly straightforward and I don't live in a federation to be able to spot similarities. Don't know how the caucus stuff works, but do people really attend them? And if they do, will it's results actually have an impact on the actual election, or it's merely attendion grabbing and spreading the word?

Supershroom wrote:I guess every non-american mainly hopes that Trump is prevented with all means. The rest I don't care much yet to be honest, I'm also not informed yet about the other contenders.

You know I've noticed tendencies over the internet (and outside of it, but I am sure the source of it is actually the internet) to hate a certain candidate and idolise the other. While I'm not really familiar with the matter and honestly didn't bother at all I think all candidates has it's pros and cons. There are voices claiming that Sanders is economically handicapped and his ideas, although sweet, are preposterous. In the same light, while Trump may not have the best foreign policies (or personal...views) may have a higher knoweledge of economics which wouldn't make him a total retard everyone believes he is.

A personal opinion of mine, well I don't know much about each candidate, but I believe that Sanders got stupidly popular because he was heavily backed by sites like Reddit and then it spread on the internet. Now americans it's your job to choose and vote, so if you spot one single guy that you think "hey, he might know what he is doing" despite not being in the spotlights of Reddit, CNN or so on, just go and vote for him. Don't just go "oh man, but nobody other will vote for him", just go and pretend it's just your choice that matters.

Also back on Bernie, here are some handpicked opinions I came across, feel free to redpill me if you have another view.

His "dude free ♥♥♥♥" schtick resonates especially with college-aged americans and women. If you took out $120,000 in debt to get a worthless Art History degree, you'd be looking for a way out too.

Bernie doesn't understand that flooding a trade-based market with degrees "for free" is a bad thing. College grads are having a harder time finding jobs than ever before, and specialization is increasing every day. Yet he wants to open the borders and allow immigrants to do the "undesirable" jobs (Janitors, Plumbers etc.). So that leaves an enormous part of the U.S. population unemployed.I may wand to add that, the more a thing is on the market, the less valuable it is. At least here a licence diploma after a degree is usually not enough so people shoot for Master or Doctorate. Make them more accessible, and you'll need to get a harder level degree to compensate.

So, let's raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Remember, companies don't want to lose profits if they can, since the express purpose of a business is to generate revenue. If the legislation passes for a $15 minimum wage, employers are going to ♥♥♥♥ DOWNSIZE. Your McDonald's job is gone, just like that.Also companies may look forward to other countries with cheaper working force.

Don't know, but people look at him like he's a sort of Robin Hood. Keep in mind it won't be possible for him to do all his reforms and even touching the important bits may be hard. But anyway that's none of my problem.

I'll try explaining how the primaries work to the best of my knowledge, since I've done a little research.

When it comes to primaries, you have the standard primaries and then the caucuses. The normal primaries just mean you go to the polling place you're assigned to (based on the district in which you have permanent residence) and vote for who you want in your state. But for states that have caucuses (Which is in the minority of states), people have to physically show up and get counted by hand, and to their specific assigned locations. Caucuses are more of a pain since you have to stay there a while and it can interrupt work schedules and the like, and perhaps it can be more overwhelming with the amounts of people.

As for turnout, I think the general trend has always been that it's not usually that high. This article says in 2012 only about 15% of eligible citizens went to vote. But you have to consider that there are times where everyone is expecting a certain candidate to get nominated so they probably don't even bother. The actual election day turnouts are better, ranging from high 50s to mid 70s. In either case, turnout amongst younger voters tend to be really low. Whether it's apathy for voting, or they just don't like anyone that's running, I wouldn't know. Although Iowa last night had a higher than usual turnout among youth- likely because of Sanders' movement.

Finally, yes, primaries/caucuses do affect the general election. Each state gives a candidate a particular amount of delegates in proportion to how many people voted for that candidate. AFAIK, the delegates in turn are supposed to basically represent people's interests but also decide who each party (Democrat/Republican) should nominate for their presidential candidate. You need a certain amount of delegates to be nominated. That way, you narrow down the possible Republican candidates (Trump, Cruz, Rubio, etc.) to a single person. Democrats do the same, and then on election day each states votes one or the other.

The real issue comes with superdelegates, who are delegates that can basically represent whoever they want regardless of what states vote for. So even if someone wins by a tiny majority based on state delegates, the superdelegates can swing the vote so their opponent wins.

Hopefully this clears some things up for you. If anyone has something to add or correct, please say so.

Also, I think for Bernie, one of the most appealing things about him is that he's not backed by the industry, and he has had the same opinions for all the years he's served in Congress. Can he deliver on all his promises if he's elected? Unlikely, especially considering the Republican majority in Congress would try to block any major changes. They did the same with some of Obama's policies. Are all of his policies amazing and going to save America? Probably not. But many see choosing Bernie as making a kind of statement, one that says "We're tired of the same old politicians and how they always look out for the bottom line," and even if he hasn't set out everything he wanted to fulfill, that having him is a better alternative to Clinton (with policies that change based on what's popular) or Trump (because of his fear-mongering and all the other dramatic things you see him on TV for).

Arturia wrote:You know I've noticed tendencies over the internet (and outside of it, but I am sure the source of it is actually the internet) to hate a certain candidate and idolise the other. While I'm not really familiar with the matter and honestly didn't bother at all I think all candidates has it's pros and cons. There are voices claiming that Sanders is economically handicapped and his ideas, although sweet, are preposterous. In the same light, while Trump may not have the best foreign policies (or personal...views) may have a higher knoweledge of economics which wouldn't make him a total retard everyone believes he is.

See, this is where I disagree. People don't just congregate and express their love/hate for a candidate because 'he/she is popular, or this is the popular opinion'. I'd at least like to believe there's a reason behind every human action. Have you heard Trump's speeches? He's practically a bully, and I dunno about you but I don't support bullies.

Not to mention Trump would miserably fail in the President's seat. Part of the President's job as I understand it is to be a representative of the nation, a figurehead of sorts. The President deals with world affairs and diplomacy, and given how racist and horrible Trump's attitude is, I can't see him fulfilling the role of being a successful diplomat with other world leaders.

Now I can't re-find the source that stated this so my apologies, but there was a source that listed other nations overall approval towards the United States during Obama's Presidency as generally positive. I say generally because there were a few Middle-Eastern nations that actually had lowered approval of the USA during Obama's Presidency, but everybody else was positive and gained recognition towards the USA. Now if Trump were to come into office... well you can kiss every single one of our positive outlooks goodbye.

I mean, let's be honest. The USA's economy really isn't a problem. Our problem is our education standards - they are BAAD. I speak from personal experience myself, I know how bad schools have gotten in general. I'm mostly talking about Elementary, Middle, and High Schools of course (probably the one HS I visited where I actually enjoyed being there was Pacific Collegiate School located in Santa Cruz County), but some Preschools and Kindergartens (not those merged with Elementary) are also rather poor. And although most of Bernie's education plan is geared towards Colleges, I can still see it as a benefit because it brings more people from HS into College, where if they didn't mature in HS, *hopefully* they will mature in College. I say hopefully because I will admit, it's a naive thought - If the kids aren't taught to learn in Elementary/early on, they're not going to want to learn later in their lives. If Trump were to get into office, he wouldn't really solve any actual problems, since our problem really isn't Economy to some extent (I'm not saying our economy is flawless, but it's not absolutely dire, as education would be a higher priority).

Personally I'm rather fine with Bernie even if his economic solutions seem far fetched. I find it VERY hard to believe Trump has "upsides" to balance out his "downsides". To me he's no pros and all cons.

I just want to say, an overwhelmingly vast majority of people seem to pass off Bernie's economic plans as ridiculous and impossible without even looking at what they are or how he plans to pay for them. He's had a really detailed plan laid out for quite a while now, and while some of his ideas are definitely on the radical side (both in terms of payment and what they actually do) and will probably struggle getting through Congress, he's definitely not just a dreamer.

Also, since nobody posted yet, final results for Iowa caucuses happened yesterday. Top three republicans were Cruz (8 delegates [from 30 possible], 27.6% popular vote), Trump (7, 24.3%), Rubio (7 23.1%). Democrats were really close but ended with Clinton on top (23 [from 44 possible], 49.9%), then Sanders (21, 49.6%). And someone mentioned it already but O'Malley (0, 0.6%) suspended his campaign during the caucus. RIP O'Malley, he was a guy.



Anyway, you're not really wrong about different internet communities pretty much just being echo chambers for whatever candidates (e.g. reddit and Sanders), but that doesn't mean that people are incapable of doing independent research and deciding who they support for themselves. Or maybe they are, I dunno. ISideWith.com should work well enough for most people if they take a few minutes out of their day to do it, so I guess spread that around if you know people who blindly support candidates and seem like they normally wouldn't, or something? idk.

Harmless wrote:See, this is where I disagree. People don't just congregate and express their love/hate for a candidate because 'he/she is popular, or this is the popular opinion'.

My point is that I believe most people don't actually believe in a candidate based on the research they made on them. They believe in him because everyone else does and you don't want to stand out from the croud.

Let me ellaborate. I think you met people online and in real life also saying "Oh god, so many dumb idiots have the right to vote and they'll just keep with the flock instead of thinking for themselves". [Optional "take {candidate I sympathise with} for example and find one flaw. Protip you can't." scenario] In this case, it exactly the same thing. As I said, I'm not american and I'm the type of guy like "hey, if it's not in my backyard then I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about it", but browsing sites on the internet, I couldn't notice the ammount of people sympathising for Bernie. I'm not saying this isn't a good thing, guy may have a point and hey free publicity, but I think there are a bunch of people out there thinking "Hey, I don't know ♥♥♥♥ about this guy, so just because Reddit likes him, I'm going to vote for him".

It's just me thinking that people should do research and see for themselves why a candidate is worse/better than other, rather thinking "Oh, everyone likes/hates him". "Or he is a german (saxon actually) so naturlich he will do better for us" in our case :^) bunch of biases

Also redpill me, so people vote in the preliminaries for a certain candidate so he can get X delegates and those delegates choose a superdelegate that will choose the fate in the final round and despite all the votes of the people he can go like "♥♥♥♥ you" and vote for whomever he sympathises with? I mean, I don't know, but at least here it's just go and vote {2 times, "preliminaries" after which only 2 highest scoring candidates remain after and then you choose one of them in round 2} and I say it's pretty straightforward and it is actually the choice of people.