How's your family voting?

[angus]

The wife is not a registered voter.  She won't vote.  The boy is 7.  If he could vote, he'd be voting for more TV, a later bedtime, and violent video games.  There's also a hermit crab who lives here named Mister Frederickson.  We bought him at Petsmart about a month ago for my son.  He came with a two-week warranty.  He has outlived his warranty by at least 15 days.  To my knowledge he is fairly apolitical as well.  All of which means that 100% of my immediate family will vote for Mitt Romney.

[angus]

100% of my immediate family will vote for Mitt Romney.

You're kidding, you're actually voting for Romney?  Why on earth?

As for my family everyone is either out of the country or mad as march hares, so I don't expect much meaningful voting.

I voted for Obama in 2008 and it's raining today.  Obama's fault.  

No, seriously, mainly because we only have one shot at overturning the medical insurance bill passed in the last congress.  You know I'm normally a fan of divided government.  If I think the congress will be Republican, I want a Democrat president and vice-versa.  But this year we need a Republican president and a Republican congress.  Even that's no guarantee, but all the conservative think tanks and all the right wing lobbyists, in the event that the GOP controls both elected branches of government, will put tremendous pressure on them to Repeal and Replace.  Or, better yet, just Repeal.

Beyond that, I'm still a fan of having the two elected branches of government controlled by different parties.  Gridlock is good.  If they can't pass laws, then at least they're not fucking everything up.

Also, Obama's foreign policy still suits me, and some of his domestic agenda does.  If he wants to pull a Grover Cleveland and come back in four years, after a mediocre one-term Romney presidency, then I'd consider supporting him again.

[angus]

...mainly because we only have one shot at overturning the medical insurance bill passed in the last congress.

You consider that a big deal?  Can't imagine why.  

I guess if we're doing extended families here I should hazard a guess that most of those awful racist intolerant people will vote for Romney.

I'm still thinking that a federal debt that is greater than 100% of the GNP is probably our biggest problem.  Well, that and the fact that we're unnecessarily paranoid.  I think the latter is a more systemic problem with a tougher, longer-range solution, but the former, although also a systemic problem, is more easily mastered.  

But I'm not going to argue about it.  I've argued with Beet and others about the medical bill, and we all admit that we really don't yet know its cost.  My gut feeling is that it is bad legislation, passed with secrecy and in ignorance--most legislators openly admitted that they did not read it--and that it will exacerbate the debt problem.  It is a patchwork solution to a terrific and pervasive problem.  If we want to tackle the problem of rising health care costs, we should, but having this bill looming over us inhibits any meaningful efforts.

[angus]

I'm still thinking that a federal debt that is greater than 100% of the GNP is probably our biggest problem.

That's caused by under-taxation of the wealthy - it has nothing to do with spending.

Precisely the tax policy that Obama has pursued in order to remain popular. 

I would agree that you either need to decrease spending or increase revenues.  (There's some argument that lower taxes increase revenues indirectly, of course, since lowering the tax rates spurs investment, etc.  I guess that's supply-side economics.)  Either way, this bill will only have the affect of increasing both the percent of GDP that we spend on health care, and the number of dollars spent, so it seems less like an amelioration than an exacerbation of the problem. 

Your tacit assumption may also be a right:  with the GOP in control of both branches, the debt crisis may worsen, and it's why I generally prefer divided government.  Our best years were the period from 1994 to 2000.  Growth and surpluses.  Assuming that we ignore the looming mortgage crisis that started with the housing boomlet during that period, and credit crunch that resulted in the following decade, those were good times.  Fine, we can throw the bums out in 2014.  Romney with a Democrat congress would be a good setup.

[angus]

Not to interrupt, but how does everyone know who their family voted for so well?

Depends upon your family.  I'm certain my wife is not a US citizen and I'm certain my son has many years till he will be old enough to vote.  Of course, I never discuss politics with them, but I'd be willing to bet my left nut that neither of them vote.

As for my family, growing up, I'd be equally willing to bet that 100 percent of them voted for George McGovern, then for Jimmy Carter, and then for Walter Mondale, etc.  I don't discuss politics with them, but I know my parents were Democrats.  I grew up thinking that Nixon was a dirty word.  Seriously.  And that Reagan was an even dirtier word.  I was so screwed up.  We all get brainwashed like this.  It takes you till you're about 30 years old to figure sh**t out.  Till then, you just basically vote for who your parents voted for.  This is why I voted for Dukakis in 1988 and for Clinton in 1992 and in 1996.  Just didn't know any better.  I'm pretty sure that not all families are like that, but that a majority of them are.  Your parents don't try to harm you.  They love you.  But if they're both Democrats, it just doesn't occur to them that they're brainwashing you when they always badmouth Republicans.  And if they're both Republicans, it just doesn't occur to them that they're brainwasing you when they always badmouth Democrats. 

Now, if one parent is of one party affiliation, and the other parent is of another, it is probably a bit more interesting.  This is how it is with a small minority of people.  I was never in that position, but my son will be.  FWIW, I'm generally centrist but I align slightly with the GOP, so for all practical purposes, my son can think of me as a Republican.  My wife, on the other hand, although neither a registered voter nor a US citizen, is very sympathetic to the communist party, and generally is greatful to the communist party of the PRC for putting her family in a position that one day would enable her to study in the USA and find a nice job in the USA.  So my son will have one parent who is a Republican, more or less, and one parent who is a communist, more or less.  Maybe he and I will discuss politics, at some point, when he's older.  He's already asking questions like, "Daddy, why can't we carry liquids more than four ounces on an airplane?"  And I have to answer honestly, "Because we're a paranoid society, son."  Of course, he then asks me what paranoid means, and I have a tendency to give lengthy answers, and by the end of it he forgets what he asked in the first place, but nevertheless, we have evidence that he is already asking, and I am already answering, political questions.  Maybe he'll be more balanced and less brainwashed than children whose parents were of the same political persuasion. 

[angus]

The CPC doesn't really have an ideology besides self-enrichment.

And how does that differ from the GOP?  Or the Democrats?  Or the SPD of Germany?  Or the PAN of Mexico?  Basically, if you can show me someone who is convinced that his party's bosses aren't interested self-enrichment, then I'll show you someone who really has been brainwashed.

Also, it is true that the PRC doesn't allow dual citizenship.  It is one of the few policies of that government that I greatly respect.  I wish ours did not either.  But that's a diatribe for a different thread.

[angus]

Now, the interesting question is - is this a false dichotomy?

I guess it would be, in the sense that it excludes other options, if you had claimed that there could be no other possibilities.  You didn't make such a claim, though, so it is not a false dichotomy.

It may be more of a false distinction, if you will, depending upon your own views.  I'm sort of Kantian in my thinking about these things, so I see a real distinction between the two.  In my humble opinion, the former is operating on a higher sociological order than the latter.  

My parents may be described by your analysis as well.  My father voted for Democrats because his parents did.  He was actually fairly apolitical, but always voted and even held elected office (two terms city council).  My mother, on the other hand, talked to me at great length about things like public education, workers rights, capital punishment, wealth redistribution, and the like.  She voted for Democrats because she genuinely believed that they were more likely to share her views.