Whatching Bill Maher a few weeks ago. He had on that guy, I forget his name, but he was basically the driving force that got pot legalized in Colorado.
He did so largely in part by educating the masses how relatively harmless pot is when compared to alcohol. It took an ass load of money to do this, but he did it.
Here’s a good point he brought up: The legalization of pot is a platform that is completely up for grabs. Either party can take this and run with it. This platform becomes even more of a golden goose if the states that legalized it can show that it has saved them signifcant amounts of money, and maybe even [gasp] brought in some taxable revnue.
Considering the state of the GOP these days, I’d run with this platform and never look back.
Please familiarize yourself with the rules of this forum. You’re not allowed to insult other posters or call them trolls. You can do that in The BBQ Pit, but not Elections or other forums.
According to that logic, yes, they should. But that’s not the reason they lost this election. Marijuana and “states rights” issues of that type were much less important to voters than other matters, especially the economy.
In Colorado, the state that decided the election, marijuana legalization got a better share of the vote than Obama did. Polling indicated that the opposition to the amendment was correlated to age but not party. The only group that was solidly opposed were those aged 65+, and that includes those who self-identified as Tea Party supporters.
Plus, Obama would have won the election even if he lost both Pennsylvania and Colorado. I don’t see how embracing legalized pot would have won Republicans the election. Could the OP spell it out?
Well, if Obama had lost Pennsylvania and Colorado it would have meant he was probably doing badly among some important groups of voters for his campaign and he probably would have lost the whole thing. But I am wondering if the OP thinks most people would vote for a hands-way-way-off federal government libertarian-type candidate given the chance. The evidence says they wouldn’t.
What do you mean by “should”? Do you mean that it would be better for such a position to win elections, or do you mean that you would expect that it actually would, in this imperfect world?
In my experience of voting since the Reagan era, the Republican party supports States rights only when it is expedient for their masses. It is not and never has been about supporting “States rights” over the Federal government.
Well, sure. But I thought the OP meant that there were enough single issue pot people in Colorado (and Pennsylvania?) that Romney’s embrace of legalization would have won over those states.
Colorado was the state that put Obama over 270 EV’s when all the media called it. The Ohio drama came shortly thereafter, but it was a moot point, Obama had already won.
I can see a room full of angry old men (with red ties on) discussing the need to become pot smoking liberals in order to win win the upcoming presidential election.
And surely a Mormon candidate would be the one to choose, if that were the case, given their religion prohibits alcohol and smoking.
You should try reading the Republican platform some time. Republicans don’t have the positions you think they should have. Not to mention that even if they thought it was up to the states to choose, that doesn’t mean they’d be for legalization.
Neither candidate thought this issue important enough to comment on, which I agree with.
Perhaps the Republicans can have a hearing about marijuana. If they do it like they do women’s reproductive rights, all members and all witnesses would never have even seen a joint in their entire lives.
Probably wouldn’t win over black people who’d be sitting at the back of the bus and not able to eat at the Woolworth lunch counter without a Supreme Court smack down of states rights, or gay people, or women who used to have to get their husbands to sign off on contracts, or Hispanics that don’t want to be asked for their papers every ten minutes if they look too dark.
Yeah, I was trying to make a joke.