Friday, November 2, 2012

What's going on?

Go to one of these websites, pick and article that is interesting to you (it must be about politics!) and tell us about it.

It's All Politics: NPR
News and Politics- Slate

23 comments:

  1. The ad I read was about how much money is being spent on political ads. I found this ad to be a little shocking because there is tons of money being spent on these ads. I feel like this money should go towards something way more important than just commercials that are being aired more than 64,000 times. That just seems a little over the top in my opinion. The article said that there had been over 5 million dollars spent on TV ads in just Ohio alone. That is just ridiculous. That money needs to go to something way more important than just TV commercials.

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  2. The article I read was called What Romney's Run Means for Mormonism. I thought that the article was very interesting. It said that the general public is becoming more educated about the religion, and many more people are becoming ok with it. Also, many more people of the Mormon religion are feeling more welcomed in society because of Mitt Romney running for president. Because many more people are becoming educated about the religion, many of the myths and stereotypes are have worn off. I found it interesting that Mormons only make up 2 percent of the population in America. The article said that this number is expected to increase, however. Also, nine other politicians have been been Mormon. I did not konw that Mitt Romney was a Mormon until I read this article. I found it very interesting because it was completely new information.

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/164101548/what-romneys-run-means-for-mormonism

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  3. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/164110107/if-presidential-election-held-today-clint-would-beat-oprah

    This article was all about swing state voters and how they viewed the election. They were polled and asked who they would vote for in fictional elections and 42-38 percent would prefer a President Clint Eastwood over a President Oprah Winfrey. hence the title. It pulled out ridiculous comparisons like: swing state Republicans are more convinced than Democrats that civilization "will be doomed or America will cease to be a great nation" if their candidate loses next Tuesday. It also talked about people selling their votes and voters wanting to suppress other voters. It was an entertaining article. I was something completely different from what I'm used to reading.

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  4. I read an article about how the newspapers were endorsing Mitt Romney because would "appease GOP extremists" the argument is that there are many editorials and columns in the paper that are "rewarding bad behavior". They state that from a young age we're told not to be rewarded for bad behavior yet they are saying that the "worst of politics" are being rewarded during this election. They even make the statement that if you read the De Moise Endorsement of Romney it's logic is closely like the logic presented in Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazi's.

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  5. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/11/romney_and_congress_the_republican_argument_for_using_your_vote_to_punish.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

    This article talks about how agreement between parties in Congress and president is important. What is meant by this is that with a majority of COngress being republican and the president being republican to get the best agreement. Then the article gives an example of how we are handling somer oversea affairs. In order to reach agreements with oversea nations, we are having to pay which is looked at with a question mark. Not many agree with this method.

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  6. I read about Romney and how he has been so successful. In this article, it focuses around him ignoring the conservatives, and why that's getting him the votes. Most of this article was pretty boring and confusing, just because it was difficult to understand. It said he recieved advice from other respected officials, and they told him he needed to put out bold ideas, because "not being Barack Obama" was going to work. So, that's exactly what Romney did, and he's obviously come pretty far in the election. He had to somewhat change what his views were to obtain more of the democratic voters, because they all obviously want Obama to win.

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  7. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money

    The article that I read had to do with the importance of states when it comes to voting. It showed a variety of maps that were disproportioned. The maps were campaign maps, morphed by money. They were adjusted according to what it was representing, such as electoral votes, ad spending per states in millions, & ad spending per states in dollars. Essentially, the more important a state was, the bigger it was proportioned on the unrealistic maps. The article states basically only 12 states matter when it comes to an election & those are the states that the candidates aim to please.

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  8. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/presidential_election_mitt_romney_may_win_the_race_because_he_ignored_conservatives.html

    I read the article about the secret behind Romney's success. It basically stated that he could not run as a conservative candidate if he wanted to win. He was going to have to run a another Obama in order to beat Obama. They said that majority of voters would not vote for him if he was a conservative and supported conservative ideas. They also talked about how this changed when he picked up Paul Ryan. Ryan supported the same conservative ideas that Romney did. Ryan was campaigning about plans that were called "toxic" by republicans when Bush was campaigning. Romney is campaigning with conservative ideas that many say he will not follow through with.

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  9. The article I read talked about how the citizens in Oklahoma City vote on whether or not to raise taxes. The extra money the government would get goes to projects in the city such as restoring downtown and cleaning up the riverfront. The mayor says that the people feel better about levying taxes themselves instead of the national or state officials. The citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma now have a choice to do the same. Tulsa's mayor is also pushing for a raise in taxes after seeing how it helped Oklahoma city. The state governor however wants a tax cut which was not successful.

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/164131240/in-oklahoma-republicans-take-two-views-toward-taxes

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  10. The article I read was called "The Secret to Romney's Success". It was talking about how he has won more voters by not focsing as much on beign conservative. While he is still attracting the more conservative people with some of his ideas, he has also reeled in many democrats by saying some things to get them to agree with him. He already has no problem getting conservative votes, so he has decided to change his views to get the more democratic voters. He was first told to just campaign as a conservative, "loud and proud", however, after primaries he seemed to reject that idea. Although he seemed to be prominently conservative in choosign Ryan as his vice, he has since proven back to his changed-views strategy.

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  11. This article is about UN inspectors coming in and observing our elections. This seems really odd to me because the United States is the largest and oldest democracy in the world. Why would we want foriegners coming in and telling us how we should run our elections? It is my opinion that international orginizations have no right to observe our elections because we were a democracy before them and they might mess it up if we let them in our system.
    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/11/election_monitor_controversy_2012_can_iowa_and_texas_legally_bar_osce_observers.html

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  12. I chose the article about polls and percentages. First off, I was interested that Clint Eastwood was a politicianm, but that is irrelephant to the article. The article mostly gave statistics on how swing state voters have said they would vote. For example, most would prefer President Clint Eastwood over President Oprah Winfrey. Republican swing voters are more likely than Democrats to believe that the United States will no longer be a world power if his or her candidate loses the election. The most interesting statistic given on the page was, in a certain poll by Public Policy Polling, the presidential race seemed to be split evenly with 47% for Obama and 47% for Romney. Hmmm..... close election this year?

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  13. In the article "Obama Returns To The Campaign Trail Post-Sandy," it tells how Obama, after spending several days over seeing the federal response to the Superstorm Snady, returns to the campaign. With it being five days before election Obama goes to Green Bay, Wisconcin. Here he tells the citizens that they should elect him because they know who he is by now after his years in the office. He explains that they may not approve of every decision he makes but they know where he stands and what he believes. Following he then tells the people Romney's plans of change are just to bring back the polocies that they have been treying to clean up for the past four years and that it is not change. This was his first stop on a trip to states where he only has a narrow lead just beofre the last weekend before election.

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  14. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/richard_mourdock_questions_about_rape_and_abortion_have_become_a_problem.html

    The article that I read was titled "Why the 'Rape Thing' Haunts Republicans". The article was about something that Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said during a debate. During the debate, Mourdock said, "Even when life begins during the horrible situation of rape, it is still something that God intended to happen." This is a quote that has given Mourdock a lot of flack, and is also a quote that has given the Republican party a lot of flack. The article also talked about other instances where various Republican candidates have joked or made comments about rape, that could potentially cost the said candidates their races. Personally, I do not see how Mourdock could have been naive enough to say this. I don't really have an opinion on abortion, I think that people should be able to decide for themselves, but I do think that saying what he said is a good way to infuriate the voters.

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  15. The article I read was about two men from opposing political parties, President Barack Obama and Governor Chris Christie, coming together in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and what this means for possible bipartisanship in the future. The author merely discussed how many people had noted how Christie had been one of Obama's biggest critics but praised him openly for his response to the destruction on the east coast. It also mentions how everyone is buzzing about the bipartisanship going on between the two. Many people think it's merely temporary, but many other people think that this is an important sign for politics. There are also polls stating that many people like political leaders who are able to make compromises to do their jobs. In my opinion it shows that in the wake of tragedy, politicians are able to put aside their differences and come together to preform the jobs they were elected for. I think it's nice to see something like this occur during such a fierce election season too.

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  16. The article i read was the Final Pre-Election Jobs Report Can Be Spun By Both Obama And Romney. This article began to talk about how the month of October has significantly more jobs created than in the last 8 months. This was a great point for Obama's campaign, but Romeny had to put his fair share of spin on the argument. Romney talked about how Obama hasnt lowered the unemployment rate a great percent like he promised to. Fact checker sites talked about how the voters have pretty much made up their minds, yet that Romney is still trying to spin the unemployment rate higher than it actually is. The article talks about how many people still do not know about the truth of the election and dont seem to care at this point. It also talks about how the economy takes a while to decrease and show significant numbers such as when Obama stepped into office. This fact checking sites also make voters aware of how the actual damage was done when Bush was in office but has taken a significant number of years to actually show in the economy. This is otherwise when Obama was in office, which makes it seem as if he has not done much as president. Even though he has, the economy has started to get better with Obama in office, even though his term will be ending soon.

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  17. in Oaklahoma there is adebate going on about wether sales tax should be extended or not. In this article it expalins that many people such as the mayor of Tulsa, Oaklahoma, along with other GOP leasders support the idea of extending taxes. Then there is the govenor who wants to cut taxes. This govenor believes that cutting taxes would help the economic growth of Oaklahoma. Basically two opposite things are trying to happen throughout Oaklahoma, so there is a dispute on which one will actually take palce in order to help Oaklahoma with its economic growth.

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  18. Every day until the election, Slate offer one reason to be optimistic per candidate. While Obama has blamed Republican obstruction for gridlock in Congress, a new poll shows that his strategy might be backfiring. According to an Associate Press survey, voters think Romney would do a better job of "breaking the gridlock in Washington". While forty-seven percent who took the survey believed Romney could foster more bipartisan cooperation, only thirty-seven percent believed Obama could do so in his second term. Slate provides a positive side for both candidates daily, which I find refreshing after all of the negativity spurring about right before the election.

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  19. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/164116733/superstorm-sandy-may-have-blown-in-fresh-breeze-of-bipartisanship

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  20. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/presidential_election_mitt_romney_may_win_the_race_because_he_ignored_conservatives.html

    This article discuessed Mitt Romney and his campaign tactics. The article discusses how Romney is running a conservative campaign but isn't expanding fully on his conservative ways. The article talks about how he was advised from some of the top conservative politicians and was told to not run a cut throat conservative campaign. This was to help win over those who were unhappy about Obama's last 4 years as President and help him win the election. Instead of fully discussing all his conservative ideas, Romney is merely attacking on Obama's way of handling the problems and giving the basis of his plan without going into great detail. This is a more pragmatic way of going about things, not ideologically. However, this smart move could help him win the election.

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  21. I read an article that talked about the the employment rising in October. In the past month over 171,000 were hired at different companies. This was good for both a Obama and Romney. For Obama it showed that his economic ideas were somewhat working, but it helped ROmney at the same time too because it showed the increase, but the unemployment percentage was not up to what Obama said he would get i to. This poses both a threat and helpful notion to both candidates when it comes to economical and bussiness growth. I do not think this instance will change the voting to much because, like i said, it did help and hurt them both. At this point I, as well as mot other people, do not know the possible outcome of this election.

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  22. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/10/31/163950264/presidential-race-what-if-there-are-two-winners
    I read an article about the Electoral College and what might possibly happen if the candidate that won the popular vote didn't win enough votes in the Electoral College. This would mean that whatever candidate that actually had the majority of the votes would lose. To me this system is flawed. I can see how a hundred years or two ago it might have been a nice system, but in this day and age when it's hard to come across US citizens that aren't educated I think it is useless. I agree with the article when it talked about how if the majority of people voted for candidate #1, but candidate number 2 won this would be like the people did not even get a say in their government(which violates our Constitution).

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  23. The article I read just talked about a few meaningless statistics and surveys. The first sentenced actually said how unimportant the article was to anything. It said that Clint Eastwood would beat Oprah in a presidential election between swing voters and said that republic swing voters would choose Colbert over Stewart who both own political comedy shows.

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