Hi guys- new member, long time reader. Loooong time, pre-Internet.
So here’s the thing- Republicans could have won and threw the election away.
It’s not that Obama voters are pot smokers (almost said “dopers”), though many are.
And it’s not that hippies vote Dem, though of course many do. (I voted for Johnson just on principle.)
The point is, that legalization of marijuana should have been a Republican war cry.
It’s about personal freedom of choice, and about states’ rights.
(Colorado voters have decided marijuana should legally be treated like alcohol, a decision which seems quite reasonable here.)
If Mittens had said “I think you’re dumb if you toke, but hey, it’s your choice. I’m not going to spend one cent of federal money on the issue” he’d have won.
Instead, both parties stated they’d do everything in their power to prevent it. And the Republicans seemed scarier than the Dems.
I’d dearly love to read any rational opinions on the matter.
The part of the party base that thinks states should manage their own affairs without interference from Washington, and also the part that thinks (adult) individuals should be free to make choices for themselves.
Am I wrong in thinking these are Republican values?
Edit- also the part of the base that abhors spending tax dollars busting people in far-way places.
Why should anybody in Texas or Wyoming care what’s growing in my spare room?
Can the President speak out in favor of legalization without implying there should be a change at the federal level, i.e., interference from Washington?
Ethilrist, I’m not sure I understand your question.
I mean, I suppose the President (or a candidate) “can” speak on any topic.
But their words are necessarily political and have repercussions during an election.
Saying “I’m in favor but I won’t change the status quo” seems non-productive.
Yes. Republicans are only for “states rights” when it means “the state will allow or ban something that social conservatives are for or against, respectively.” When states try to express the “right” to, say, allow gay marriage, talk immediately starts about a federal constitutional amendment to ban it, or a DOMA gets passed to make sure no state might have to respect the decisions of another. And for most liberals, I think “states rights” was forever poisoned by conservatives trying to use it to undermine desegregation.
More to the point, though, I don’t think weed legalization is even all that important to most people. Everybody’s probably for or against it at some level, but I doubt it’s a vote-deciding issue for very many. Heck, only three or four states even had it on the ballot this year, and only one of those was a battleground. I can’t see any evidence that this cost or won anyone an election.
I may have misinterpreted your question, and your answer to ultrafilter’s question. It looked to me like you were seeing a connection between Romney failing to get enough votes because he didn’t speak out in favor of (federal-level) legalization, and failing to get enough votes because he didn’t appeal to the people who wanted states to be able to make their own (state-level) decisions. In other words, he lost some votes because he didn’t say the feds were going to get involved, and he lost others because he didn’t say they wouldn’t.
I’m just thinking that, seeing as how that’s how he ran his entire campaign, that basic no-answer strategy is what actually cost him the election, and legalization was just one of the facets of the situation, not the situation itself.
I think it’s wrong to call it a value. It’s an ideology that may or may not hold up depending upon the particular value in play. With abortion, for example, it seems the vast majority of the party don’t want a Federalist solution–they want the procedure banned outright, presumably by national fiat. It appears to be the same with gay marriage at the moment. The population segment who are Federalists on every position, regardless of how it might conflict with their own desires and believes, doesn’t seem like enough to sway the election. That’s a pity. I’m glad Obama won, and I was happy to vote for him again, but I’d really like to see a “50 test tubes” approach to policy on a range of topics. I don’t see the Republican party offering that opportunity.
This presumes that conservative principles are consistent, and they seek to apply them equally from one issue to another. This is false. Conservatives are only in favor of states rights for those issues consistent with their dogma; for instance, conservatives want to take away the authority of the states to regulate health insurance so that consumers could buy insurance across state lines. States rights are not an immutable conservative principle, and are easy cast aside to serve a greater agenda.
In any case, I think your vastly overestimating the number of people for whom this is an important issue, one way or the other. I doubt anything Romney would’ve said on the issue would’ve really moved enough voters to change the election result.
The small percent of us who register Republican but lean Libertarian / small government. The small, and way too quiet group of voices regularly shouted down by the social conservatives out there. The Buckley, Friedman wing.
Not legalization, that’s only important to about 5%.
An important 5%, but still a small margin.
I’m saying that adherence to their own values, or the lack thereof, hurt the Republicans.
“Obama wants to take your guns” was a real sentiment in my state 4 years ago.
This year, we re-elected him. What changed besides Amendment 64?
Obama won Colorado in 2008 and 2012, and it was closer this year than it was in 2012. No, this issue didn’t cost Republicans the election. It was (and pretty much always has been) pretty far down the list of priorities for most people. That’s why it’s still illegal. A lot of people agree it’s no big deal, but it’s much less important to most voters than the economy and other issues. If presidential candidates felt they could win a lot of votes by taking a stand for legalization, they would do that. The issue of marijuana alone would not have swung millions of voters from the Democrats to the Republicans in light of the parties’ overall platforms.
Ron Paul didn’t propose legalization, but he said the federal government should end its ban and let the states regulate marijuana (in which case it would get legalized in some states for sure). He did not come anywhere close to winning the nomination in 2008 or 2012. That ought to tell you where that issue rates with Republicans.
Completely missing my point.
What if a party stands for personal freedom and states’ rights over federal authority?
Shouldn’t that win an election?
Edit- Ron Paul is a red herring. Pure libertarianism hasn’t been feasible since Jefferson invented it.
TJ himself couldn’t have been a libertarian if he didn’t own hundreds of slaves.
I’m a huge fan of Jefferson, but we live in an interdependent society.
So if the Republicans supported legalizing marijuana, they would be the party of personal freedom and states’ rights - no matter what positions they took on other issues? Or is this maybe a little more complicated than you are letting on?
More subtlety, I suspect there are a fair number of voters who support legalization in the abstract, but would distrust a public official who pushed it. It smacks of hedonism and permissiveness.
I can’t tell if you are trying to troll me or are just obtuse.
That’s the mark of a good troll, by any measure.
I’m not saying that legalization = states’ rights.
I’m saying the party that supports states’ rights should support the right of the states to decide internal matters.
Personal possession by an adult within state boundaries is a local issue.
A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds.
But foolish inconsistency cost the Republicans this election.
…that’s what I’m saying.
@measure for measure: certainly no more problematic than alcohol. And treating the two differently makes zero sense.