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Monday, November 8, 2010
Regardless of how one feels about Paul LePage, Maine will have a governor for the next four years who 62 percent of the voters voted against.
Some states have a system in which if no candidate receives a majority, there is a run-off election between the top two candidates.
As strong independent candidates seem to have become a regular part of Maine's system, it seems to be important that the state adopt that process. It would be worth the extra expense and bother in order to have a leader who can claim the support of a majority of the voters.
Scott Efland, Auburn
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I'm not talking about second place, Pirate :)
Pirate, second place is just that...second place. I'm talking about first place, and first place in the "Worst" catagory belongs to a Republican. Twenty years from now George W. Bush will still be the winner hands down. :) I'll tell you, he really out did himself inorder to beat out Buchanan. Never the less, Bush did. :) Inorder for anyone else to take first place from George W. Bush, I believe they would have to bomb this very country while holding political office. There is no other damage that could out do the Bush damage, except perhaps bombing this country. I believe that is the only way any one will ever take first place from him. You won, the Republican's get first place in the "Worst" catagory...I believe they will be holding the title for many, many years to come. :) What an honor. :)
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Maine has same day voter registration, absentee ballot voting for any reason, early voting in some areas. Voters can not be stopped from voting in Maine if they live in "nontraditional residences," i.e. they are homeless. There are voting accommodations in Maine for the deaf, the blind, and for people with other disabilities. In short, for Mainers who want to vote there is no excuse not to.
Sore losers love to tout runoff elections. Ask yourself: If your candidate won with less than a majority vote would you still be clamoring for runoff elections? This November about half Maine's eligible voters voted. Think about that. With literally no obstacles to voting, half Maine's voters stayed home. If you're candidate lost on Election Day why not focus on what he or she could have done to persuade more voters to vote? That makes more sense than runoff elections.
PH
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Okay Okay Republicans did drive the "CAR" into the "Ditch"!! I'll give you that!! But I think we can all agree that building all "New Ditches" wasn't the solution either!! Let's give this NEW Governor and NEW Congress and Senate both State and National a chance to see what they can do before we Blame them for the mistakes of others!! Not all Democrats are Jimmy Carter any more then all Republicans are George W Bush!!!
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You're trying to reason with liberals, Ben...Have you ever tried picking up a turd by the clean end?
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And you have to make up stories about Turds.
Grow Up.
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Please, the change that most republicans create, is the very thing that has gotten us into this mess to begin with. Every politician's record speaks for themselves. Although we have had some lousy Democrat's and Independent's in politics too, the winner of the worst is none other than a Republican. Let's wish Mr. Lepaqe the best...and tighten our seatbelt's...I think your going to be in for the ride of your lives. Either way you voted for him so now you'll have to endure whatever is to come. Time will tell.
Worst. President. Ever.
“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”
America’s historians, it seems, don’t think much of Republican George W. Bush. Let's hope Mr. Lepage has more sense than to do to to the State of Maine, what George W. Bush did to our country!
Now in all fairness, historians should wait a while before passing judgment on a president’s who served recently, much less one still in office. But the current incumbent is a special case. After all, 81 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, believe he’s taken the country on the wrong track. That’s the highest number ever registered. The same poll also says 28 percent have a favorable view of his performance in office, which is also in Nixon-in-the-darkest-days-of-Watergate territory.
But, as George Mason University’s History News Network reports, the historians have a different measure. They want to stack him up against his forty-two predecessors as the nation’s chief executive. Among historians, there is no doubt into which echelon he falls–his competitors are Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce, the worst of the presidential worst. But does Bush actually come in dead last?
Yes. History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”
By Scott Horton
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804 Read on dear Rebublicans..read on....
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Who was the second worst, Madeleine? (Sound of crickets can be heard in the background)
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Just a few years after Nixonw as out of office he held the title of worst president ever but now the history books are changing due to his strong foreign polocy and other issues...lets give it 20 years before deciding where he or Obama or Clinton stands in history...
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Just a few years after Nixonw as out of office he held the title of worst president ever but now the history books are changing due to his strong foreign polocy and other issues...lets give it 20 years before deciding where he or Obama or Clinton stands in history...
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what about the 50% of Mainers who decided to stay home on NOV 2nd maybe if they would have got off their lazy butts ???? Maybe they now have second thoughts toooo!!! I am sure their are lots of people who regret voting for Moody and Scott that would like to now switch their votes to Cutler!! Maybe Maine should institute a "due over" clause like 10 day rescission on your vote!!! HAHA Lefty Cry babies!!! You guys can HOPE For CHANGE, WE'LL CREATE CHANGE!!!
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Good way to put it, Ben. The last line's a winner.
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You get what you voted for, that's for sure......
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The Bald One had the same plurality and, yes, a lot of the leftie boneheads called it a mandate. I don't recall a bunch of sore losers then calling for the rules to change.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.So, Veritas,...you don't
So, Veritas,...you don't think the voters got a bargain?
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And he says he's going to lower taxes. So lets see.
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I agree; let's see. Hopefully, he'll come up with a scheme that is different from lowering the income tax rate by 3%, and in the same breath, broadening the sales tax to include everything but scalp oil. The days of smoke and mirrors, and dog & pony shows are past. Time for some real CHANGE that ALL of us can benfit from.
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This country has been moving away from the two party system since it began as is evidenced by the number of candidates on the ballot with varied party affiliations and the increasing percentages of votes going to the non-traditional Democrat/Republican Parties' candidates. Some would suggest we currently we even have parties within parties in the case of the Tea Party within the GOP; it will be interesting to see if we actual end up with a party spinoff or a reunification of the GOP more to the Tea Party end of the pendulum swing on issues. The unavoidable consequence of having more than two candidates on the ballot is the likelihood which increases with each increase in the number of candidates, that the candidate receiving the most votes will not have an overall majority, just more votes than any of the competition. Personally, I don't have a problem with having any multi-option question decided by the the greatest number chosing it over the others not being more than 50% of the total voting. My observation has been that even when there is only a yes or no option and say 751 vote yes and 364 vote no as happened with Rumford voters supporting wind power development, someone from the losing side is going to pitch a B* and claim the vote was unfair and dispute it, demand revote, take it to court, etc. The people have demanded a multi-party (more than two) and now have it, with all the complications that will come with it. There remain but two options, we each exercise our one vote picking who we prefer and let the chips fall where they may, or the candidates start putting their egos aside and negotiating and widdle down the field upping the chances of someone they can live with getting elected. I believe that is what happened when Ross Perot who was a hugely popular independent candidate for President stepped aside endorsing another candidate. We may well have seen a President elected in the US with 38% of the vote that year.
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"This country has been moving away from the two party system since it began as is evidenced by the number of candidates on the ballot with varied party affiliations and the increasing percentages of votes going to the non-traditional Democrat/Republican Parties' candidates."
Your ignoring a big swath of history here. Not the least of which being that there were more third-party candidates, and third-party voters (by %), in 1934 than in 2010. But the fact that the Republican party is only 150 years old (while the country is over 200) also throws some doubts on your claims of us "moving away" from them and the Democrats "since [we] began".
The truth is, we have a two-party political system because we have a two-party voting system. What I mean by that, is that plurality voting CANNOT fairly adjudicate an election with more than two strong candidates, it will always be messy and confusing and a cause for resentment. And so, we usually take the easy path and fall into a rhythm where we guarantee we'll only have to pick between two options. But there are times (1934, 2010) which remind us of the downsides of that strategy.
Runoffs are a rather effective, but obviously time-consuming, way to improve on plurality elections. But there are better (and cheaper!) ways as well. I recommend the very-readable "Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair And What We Can Do About It" by William Poundstone. (Or, here's a page from his conclusion: http://rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig.html ) He looks at a number of solutions, but one of the better ones is called approval voting. It's very simple: rather than being allowed to vote for just one candidate, you can vote for as many (or as few) as you want, and whoever gets the most votes wins. This system doesn't suffer from the same inevitable two-party domination that plurality voting does, and so really would allow for more choice while fairly assessing every voter's ballot.
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Another sore loser, funny how it didnt bother you 4 years ago when baldacci got 38% of the vote....no call for a runoff there huh? Oh and Lepage got 39% which is more than baldy got...
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Efland, Scott, is a private company categorized under Social Service and Welfare Organizations and located in Auburn, ME. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of less than $500,000 and employs a staff of approximately 1 to 4.
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Sore looser, get over it.
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LePage wins with 38% of the vote, and many of his supporters are calling it a mandate.
Laughable.
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Abraham Lincoln was elected with 39.8% of the vote. But now he's considered one of our greatest presidents ever.
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Okay, I can understand being upset by these facts, but how can you DISAGREE? Lincoln WAS elected with 39.8% of the popular vote, and now he IS considered one of our greatest presidents.
Words have meanings. "Disagree" does not mean "dislike".
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Equally laughable was oBAMa's 52% "mandate". And he only had to overcome ONE opponent.
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Think of it this way: if you put 100 people in a gym, and 62 say "not this doofus", and the other 38 say "he's our hero", that constitutes an overwhelming republican mandate.
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If you put 100 people in a gym and give them three choices, two of them liberal, then the "doofus" is really you for splitting up the vote.
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LIl, seems how quickly you forget 2006 when even less people wanted Baldacci, your patron saint...nice try but lets at least be fair...for once...
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You must've got that from Fox News, lilly.
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It does when the other 62 have their "he's our hero" declarations scattered out among 4 or more other people.
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Did you make the same suggestion in 2006 when Baldacci became Governor 38? Or was it 39? I forget. When a Democrat wins, it's just fine and dandy; when a Republican wins, it's a horrendous assault on our democratic (lowercase) principles.
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Even the parrot was able to figure it out. "If you can't win by the current rules; change the rules so that you CAN win." Typical democRAT tactic.
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You are putting your words in Mr. Efland's mouth.
Nice try.
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