HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sdavis@laforge.ksc.nasa.gov (Steve Davis)
Subject: Re: Hold on to your wallet!
Organization: NASA
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 19:59:47 GMT

Christopher J. Born writes
> Richard Mulac writes:
> > What do you and people making over $200,000 a year have in common?
> > You'll all be paying more in taxes during a Clinton administration!

> Hey Richard, who pays for your funding?
> 
> I just can't stand people who are on the dol(sp?) who complain about taxes.
> Being on the dol(sp?)  includes the president, people who work for NASA,
> a member of the military, a county garbage collector, a teacher, etc...

  Excellent point.

  On a somewhat related note...  Call me crazy, but I think the deficit should  
be reduced, in part, by raising taxes on people like me.  I've been a NASA  
engineer for two years, I'm young (25 is young, right? :-), and I'm single.   
Although my salary isn't terribly high, several of my coworkers are supporting  
their families on the same income.  (Mr. Mulac can pull out his pay schedule to  
figure out how much I'm making. :-)  I dare say I could afford to be taxed  
more.

  Now, one could argue that I'd just rather pay a little more in taxes (along  
with everyone else) than risk losing my job to budget cuts.  (One would be  
partially right, of course. :-)  But if the almighty dollar had been the  
deciding factor, I never would have taken this job in the first place; my job  
is a result of my enthusiasm for the space program, not vice versa.

Regards,

Steve
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Steve Davis                      | sdavis@laforge.ksc.nasa.gov |
| NASA, DL-DSD-32                  | (NeXT Mail preferred)       |
| Kennedy Space Center, FL  32899  |                             |
| (407)867-7582  fax:(407)867-2173 | #include <disclaimer.h>     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: lintz@buster.cis.udel.edu (Brian Lintz)
Subject: Re: Winning with a small % of the popular vote (was Re: New poll results)
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 20:08:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.215454.17091@beaver.cs.washington.edu> greg@cs.washington.edu (Greg Barnes) writes:
>
>Another technicality that could get you elected with 0 popular votes is if
>your opponents' electors in the electoral college decide to give their 
>votes to you instead.  There's nothing that binds the electors to vote for
>who they're supposed to vote for.

Not on the federal level, no. But I believe that many states have requirements
on their electors. I'm not sure which states, and what the penalty is, but
I'm almost sure that at least half makes the electors pledges binding.

Brian Lintz
lintz@udel.edu
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:12711 alt.politics.marrou:1094
From: king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.marrou
Subject: Re: Previous Libertarian showings (was Re: New poll results)
Summary: a clarification of the electoral vote issue
Keywords: electoral vote, electoral *votes*, tiny error.
Date: 9 Sep 92 21:43:58 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.elections
Organization: University of California, San Diego

jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp) writes:
>jking writes:
>>The American Independents under
>>Wallace were the last third party to win electoral votes...
>
>It must have been a maverick elector, but I notice that the Libertarians
>garnered 1 electoral vote in 1972. So when it's all said and done, at 
>least it won't be a shut-out. But mark it down as an error, not an RBI.

Well, I *could* quibble and say I had said electoral votes, plural, but
that doesn't seem fair.  For whatever it's worth, my almanac only noted
the maverick elector in a footnote, and didn't list a party.  I take it
that John Hospers and Theodore Nathan were the people on the Libertarian
ticket that year?  For what it is worth, the elector came from Virginia.

I'd probably mark it down as pinch runner scoring from third on a
sacrifice fly.

jking
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp)
Subject: Re: Electoral College
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:37:41 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.174738.21276@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fusco@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Andrew Fusco) writes:
>jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp) writes:
>
>
>>This appears to give very small states an advantage in terms of number of
>>electoral votes per capita. However, there is another effect that favors
>>large states and largely wipes out any small state advantage. I don't
>>know if I have this exactly right, but it's something like the swing vote
>>in each state has fewer electoral votes per capita than say, Wyoming, but
>>those voters "control" a much larger block of electoral votes that move as
>>a unit. Anyway, the way it works out is that the importance of a state in
>>terms of where to allocate campaign resources is proportional to the 3/2 power
>>of its number of electors. So, for example:
>
>>      EV      EV^3/2   popul.    EV per 100K pop  EV^3/2 per 100K pop
>>      ==      ======   =======   ===============  ===================
>>CA    54      397      29.8mil        0.18               1.33
>>WY     3      5.2      0.45mil        0.67               1.16
>>NY    33      190      18.0mil        0.18               1.06
>>NH     4      8.0      1.11mil        0.36               0.72
>
>>So candidates would do well to spend almost twice as much per capita in
>>CA vs. NH.
>
>So, where does this crazy "3/2" power come from, and how is it justified?

I got it from the book "The Presidential Election Game," by Steven Brams,
which is a game-theoretical treatment of presidential campaigns and
elections. I can only refer you to that, because I can't say I understand
a lot of it. I think it's at least partially empirical. For example,
one assumption is that the number of uncommitted voters in a state is 
proportional to the number of EVs in that state.

---
Joe Knapp    jmk@cbvox.att.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: rdetweil@boi.hp.com (Richard Detweiler)
Subject: Re: A guess at the electoral votes (Idaho poll)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:25:49 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise Printer Division 
Keywords: electoral college, electoral votes, poll, polls, states

In article <1992Sep10.224029.11543@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fusco@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Andrew Fusco) writes:
>king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King) writes:
>
> [some deleted]
>
>>You might be right about NM; I forgot that was so close.  SD and MT
>>would still really surprise me (although somebody just posted that the ID
>>poll now shows a *dead heat* there; this is getting really weird).
>
>That is strange, considering ID has the highest percentage of millionaires,
>I hear. :)
>
> [some deleted]
>
>>(And what *is* this insurrection we're hearing about in ID? :-))
>

Okay, I tried to go back and get the paper the numbers were in but, alas, it
was gone (chalk one up for zealous recycling).  But it was a statewide poll
mentioned in the Idaho Statesman, Boise's newspaper and the biggest one in
the state (not that that says a whole lot).  The poll was taken at the end of
August and the results were both Clinton and Bush in the low to mid 40's with
Bush a hair ahead but well within the margin of error.  I guess the GOP is
concerned enough about it to send some big (?) artillary.  The Dannster 
himself will be in Boise Monday for a rally downtown and his wife was here not
too long ago.

>Hell, why not a comprehensive state by state list of polls? 
>That's what we'd all like to see, I think.
>
>-ACF

I like this idea a lot.  I promise to post all the statewide polls I see in the
paper from now on or any other news which might give a hint at what's happening
in Idaho.  There's some incumbent congresscritters running and a close Senate
race as well.  How's about other places?  Any volunteers?  How about someone 
central we could mail these to and then have them consolidated and then say,
a weekly post with a run down of all the states and the latest poll results?
Any takers?


Regards,

Dick Detweiler : rdetweil@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality,soc.motss
From: thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu (John Dorrance)
Subject: Re: NEWSWEEK-GALLUP Poll on GAY RIGHTS in America
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 03:10:45 GMT

buckmr@vccnw03.its.rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire) writes:

>VOTE, BABY, VOTE! (ARE YOU REGISTERED, BABY?)

Yes, baby, yes! Love that disc. Wondrous ballads, eh?

--
John Dorrance  * Don't fuck with Ms. Congeniality *  thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu

	Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders
	     what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of
From: rdetweil@boi.hp.com (Richard Detweiler)
Subject: Uh oh! (was Re: Electoral College)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:52:43 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise Printer Division

In article <BuL3D9.49p@unx.sas.com> saslpo@stevens.unx.sas.com (Len Olszewski) writes:
>
>In article <Sep.14.13.48.39.1992.22608@gandalf.rutgers.edu>, shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>|> elendil@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Edward J. Branley) writes:
>|>
>|>  [lots of stuff deleted]
>|>
>|> Well, I don't think thats such a good system.  Instead of leaving them
>|> out, they get a token vote that really doesn't mean anything in the big
>|> picture?  Whats 3 electoral votes compared to 25?  The big states still
>|> overwhelm the small ones and so the interests of the highly populated
>|> states still get more attention.  Or don't I understand this process?
>|>
>
>You're right that the larger states receive more attention than the 
>smaller ones. With the EC, though, candidates must pay at least *some* 
>attention to the smaller states, especially in years when they need 
>every electoral vote they can get. Why would a candidate spend any time 
>at all in Wyoming, for example, if all s/he would get was perhaps 50,00 
>votes out of a national pool of 80 million? What if the candidate needed 
>those three electoral votes to go over the top? Without the EC, poor 
>Wyoming (or lucky Wyoming 8-) never gets to see a candidate. With the 
>EC, they get at least get some attention. This example works better in 
>states that are "on the fence". In this election, states like Colorado 
>(8 electoral votes) and Connecticult (8 votes) will be receiveing plenty 
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^
			 !!!!!!!!!!!!

>of attention. Not necessarily if there weren't any EC at all. Not that 
>it's a perfect system, but this is what it was designed for.
>
><-------------------------------^------------------------------------->
>|  Len Olszewski                |  "Verbosity leads to unclear,       |
>|  Technical Writer             |   inarticulate things."             |
>|  saslpo@unx.sas.com           |                                     |
>| "Have cursor, will curse."    |    - Vice-President Dan Quayle      |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
>| Opinions this ludicrous are mine. Reasonable opinions will cost you.|
><-------------------------------v------------------------------------->


OH NO!  Does Pat Robertson know about this yet?!?!?!

"Dan, Marilyn, Come On! We've GOT to get up to New Haven to save all the good
people there.  Evil Spirits - OUT!"
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp)
Subject: Re: Some state polls
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 15:38:23 GMT

ncovey@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (neil covey) writes:
>Some state polls I've seen over the weekend:
>
>Indiana  Bush 50%  Clinton 41%
>Ohio     Clinton 48%  Bush 38%
>Texas    Clinton 44%  Bush 42%
>Connecticut  Clinton leads Bush by 4 points according to one poll; I
>think it was 42% 38%

One more I heard about: in Tennessee, Clinton/Gore only lead by 4 points.
Kind of surprising in Gore country. Could be a fluke.

>I see all these polls as good news for Clinton.  Closer than expected in
>Indiana, with perhaps a small chance of actually winning.  Bigger than
>expected lead in Ohio--a state which the pundits say Bush must win.

There had been some rumblings lately that the Bush Campaign expected that
Ohio would return to the fold eventually, and the do-or-die battleground
would be Michigan and Illinois. I suspect the recent Ohio poll indicates
that that is wishful thinking and Bush will be fighting for his life there
too. The situation is the reverse of the so-called "electoral lock" that
until now the Republicans have enjoyed: Bush must make no mistakes by losing
in even one of the battleground states; if Clinton comes through in a couple
of Rust Belt states or certainly in Texas or Florida, George and Bar will 
have a lot of time for cookouts, bass fishing and the grandkids next year.

Re: debates
>                          ...Could it be they're actually afraid of Bush
>going one on one with Clinton?

Maybe they are staking everything on creating a bogeyman image of Clinton
that won't hold up if people actually see him sparring with their hapless
candidate? I suppose they could attempt to win on the issues, but the
public seem to be not responding to their rallying cries. Survey said:
the #1 issue is the economy (stupid). 

---
Joe Knapp     jmk@cbvox.att.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: fusco@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Andrew Fusco)
Subject: Re: Electoral College
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 17:47:38 GMT

jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp) writes:


>This appears to give very small states an advantage in terms of number of
>electoral votes per capita. However, there is another effect that favors
>large states and largely wipes out any small state advantage. I don't
>know if I have this exactly right, but it's something like the swing vote
>in each state has fewer electoral votes per capita than say, Wyoming, but
>those voters "control" a much larger block of electoral votes that move as
>a unit. Anyway, the way it works out is that the importance of a state in
>terms of where to allocate campaign resources is proportional to the 3/2 power
>of its number of electors. So, for example:

>      EV      EV^3/2   popul.    EV per 100K pop  EV^3/2 per 100K pop
>      ==      ======   =======   ===============  ===================
>CA    54      397      29.8mil        0.18               1.33
>WY     3      5.2      0.45mil        0.67               1.16
>NY    33      190      18.0mil        0.18               1.06
>NH     4      8.0      1.11mil        0.36               0.72

>So candidates would do well to spend almost twice as much per capita in
>CA vs. NH.

So, where does this crazy "3/2" power come from, and how is it justified?

-ACF
.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:12635 talk.politics.misc:44216 alt.activism:16059
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: Re: "Lies Work"
Date: 8 Sep 92 20:33:55 GMT
Organization: Oracle Corporation
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <JYM.92Aug31090812@remarque.berkeley.edu> jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:
>=o= Please note the new and improved "Newsgroups" header.  When
>a thread has nothing to do with activism, there's no reason to
>cross-post it to alt.activism, even if it started there.  Folks
>in talk.politics.misc should, out of rather basic courtesy, make
>sure that they're not cross-posting inappropriately.

Sorry Jym, but many of us disagree with your definition of what is
appropriate for alt.activism.  Also, please don't delete attribution
lines. 

>>> Bush makes invalid claim about Clinton raising taxes 128 times...
>>> Clinton responds that by same criteria, Bush did it 327 times...
>>> Third party says real score is Clinton 59, Bush 78...

>> Excuse me, but don't you think 327 vs. 78 is significant?  I
>> just love the way the Clinton weenies bend over backwards to
>> pretend that their idol always tells the truth.

>=o= Read it again.  The 327 figure is *by* *Bush's* *criteria*.

Well, that's where Slick Willie's lying.  By Bush's criteria the
number is 78 for Reagan and Bush combined.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE POLLS 6%
From: f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin)
Date: 6 Sep 92 00:50:48 MST
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
Nntp-Posting-User: f67700241

In article <cB9LqB1w164w@cellar.org>, toad@cellar.org (Tony Shepps) writes:
> f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin) spews forth:
>> In article <4edX6Ee00h5yM1UQJM@andrew.cmu.edu>, Conrad Poelman <conradp+@CMU.
>>> Greg Franklin@violet.cci (2271) writes:
>>>> I've seen the Libertarians pull this kind of dishonest trick before (who
>>>> remembers "We won Dixville Notch"?), and it really does damage to their
>>>> reputation, IMHO.
>>> 
>>> You call this a "dishonest trick"?!?  This is only minor "spin control"
>>> compared to what the major political parties do!  Dixville Notch was not
>>> a "dishonest trick", they actually won the election there!
>> 
>> No, except Andre Marrou spews out "We won Dixville Notch, we won Dixville
>> Notch" and puts GREAT significance on it when he's asked if the LP is
>> growing.
> 
> So the Libertarian party DID win the election there, and they're telling
> the world that they did; and you're saying that this is a dishonest trick?

OK, I *won't* say it's a dishonest trick.  It is an indication that Marrou
either is stupid (for thinking that the D.N. results truly measure the LP's
influence) or thinks we're stupid (i.e. you don't know how truly unrepre-
sentative Dixville Notch is of the U.S., and thus it's OK for us to pretend
that it's important).  The same thinking went into the reporting of the
Compuserve poll data, out of which this whole thread came about.

Anytime a pol does that, it makes me instinctively not want to be
led by him.  He is likely to be dishonest and tricky.  :-)

> You got something against the party ideologies, Greg, bring it out, discuss
> it, let people make up their minds in an open and intelligent way.  But
> don't try to pull this kind of lowball crap.

As a matter of fact, I do disagree with the party's ideology (as outlined
partly in my message to Jules).  But the whole meta-psychology of the LP,
as outlined in this relentlessly cheery series of articles out of their camp,
makes it unlikely that they will attract new supporters to get themselves
out of the rut they're in.  THAT was the point I originally wanted to
emphasize, not my reasons for opposing the LP ideology.
-- 
Greg "Mockingbird" Franklin      Interviewer: "Sir, how do you spell relief?"
f67700241@ccit.arizona.edu               Dan: "R-O-L-A-I-D-S-E."

"[George Bush is] the most ruthless white man in the history of the planet."
	-- Richard Ben Cramer, author of _What It Takes_
From: JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Clinton's Views on Government Mandates
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:05:55 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs

Bill Clinton (1969): "No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary
democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die
in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war in
which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of
the nation."

Bill Clinton (1992, running for Presidency): "The first thing I'd do is bring
in air strikes." (referring to the action in Bosnia and surrounding areas)

So, I guess, it's okay to attack Serbians even though "it does not involve
immediately the peace and freedom of the nation".

Oh, you might say that he's talking about the draft only in the earlier
passage.  But that does present a sort of floating judgment system.  It
is apparently okay to bomb Serbians if the pilots aren't drafted, but
anyone who is drafted shouldn't have to obey the commands of the
commander in chief.  Well, I don't believe in the social security system,
Bill.  Mind if I disobey the law and don't pay it.  After all, no
government should have the right to force its citizens to starve their
own family.  I pay $8000/year, my work lifetime should be about 45 years,
that makes it $360,000 over my lifetime, of which I might get a small
percentage back.  No, thanks.  I'll just keep it, thanks again for
pointing out to me that my government - my parliamentary government,
according to you - has no power to mandate things I disagree with on moral
and ethical grounds.  See you and Hil in court.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel)
Subject: Is America Going to Be Bushwhacked TWICE???
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 23:24:18 GMT
Organization: DAFCO: OS/2 Software Support & Consulting

God Help Us if it actually happens.
-- 
Dave Feustel N9MYI <feustel@netcom.com>
 
RE Drug Warriors who enjoy making a "good" bust: I'm sure the Salem
Witch Hunters enjoyed their law enforcement achievements too.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,alt.politics.correct