France 2012: the official thread

[Leftbehind]

Well it may be true he can't win, but then neither can Le Pen and yet Sarko's desperately trying to court her vote; so hopefully Mélenchon can at least have that effect.

...so that Hollande is forced to look like an extremist, loses votes to the centre and allows Sarko to win. Great idea.

"Hollande is forced to look an extremist" = appealing to the Left. If he did that to the point he'd be alienating centrist voters, he'd inevitably gain those Left voters, making it nowhere near the losing strategy you purport it to be and one where the Left doesn't overly worry itself about appealing to the centre - I do think that'd be great, yeah.

[Senator MaxQue]

We need a strong Left Front in the Legislative, to force Hollande to really rule from left, not to be some awful centre-leftist.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

Well it may be true he can't win, but then neither can Le Pen and yet Sarko's desperately trying to court her vote; so hopefully Mélenchon can at least have that effect.

...so that Hollande is forced to look like an extremist, loses votes to the centre and allows Sarko to win. Great idea.

"Hollande is forced to look an extremist" = appealing to the Left. If he did that to the point he'd be alienating centrist voters, he'd inevitably gain those Left voters, making it nowhere near the losing strategy you purport it to be and one where the Left doesn't overly worry itself about appealing to the centre - I do think that'd be great, yeah.

Really ? He already called for a 75% marginal tax rate - what I had done in Atlasia and which was ridiculed by everybody, even the most leftist people. How do you want him to be more left-wing without scaring every single centrist and push them back in Sarko's hands ? I'm sorry, but this is not going to work. Whether or not we like this, there are centrists too and we can' win without attracting some of them. That doesn't mean we should become like them, but we can't spend all our energies hunting for extremist votes either. Your strategy is part of the reason why the left loses so often.

[You kip if you want to...]

Merkel calls it for François Hollande as she prepares herself for his "eventual victory".
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/03/24/merkel-hollande-sarkozy-allemagne_n_1376843.html?ref=france

Although, I hope President Hollande makes it as awkward for these right-wing governments (Cameron, Merkel, Rajoy, etc.) when it comes to their reelection bids as they've made it for him.

[Sam Spade]

Well it may be true he can't win, but then neither can Le Pen and yet Sarko's desperately trying to court her vote; so hopefully Mélenchon can at least have that effect.

...so that Hollande is forced to look like an extremist, loses votes to the centre and allows Sarko to win. Great idea.

"Hollande is forced to look an extremist" = appealing to the Left. If he did that to the point he'd be alienating centrist voters, he'd inevitably gain those Left voters, making it nowhere near the losing strategy you purport it to be and one where the Left doesn't overly worry itself about appealing to the centre - I do think that'd be great, yeah.

Really ? He already called for a 75% marginal tax rate - what I had done in Atlasia and which was ridiculed by everybody, even the most leftist people. How do you want him to be more left-wing without scaring every single centrist and push them back in Sarko's hands ? I'm sorry, but this is not going to work. Whether or not we like this, there are centrists too and we can' win without attracting some of them. That doesn't mean we should become like them, but we can't spend all our energies hunting for extremist votes either. Your strategy is part of the reason why the left loses so often.

The problem with a 75% rate at any level of income above the bottom is that one of two things occurs:

1) Those who can get their income below that level use whatever means possible to do so (whether it be loopholes or making less income or whatever).
2) Those who can't, leave.

Therefore, irregardless of the outcome, your tax revenue actually goes down due to the above factors (or at best does not change).

When the US had the opebo rate (95%, then 70% above a certain number) from World War II to 1981, I can guarantee you that no one ever paid it unless they were idiots (like the Beatles in 1960s in England, which also had the 95% rate).  What happened was that income got pushed into expenditures like pensions and health care, which were cheap at that time, but ballooned later (a lot of today's problems in these areas are precisely due to this earlier misallocation of resources), or people used the loopholes to shelter money to ensure that taxable income was never above the danger level. (pre-1986 tax code in US was just insane in this regard - all interest could be written off, same with real estate expenditures, there were so many other loopholes, was just hilarious)

There's a little debate as to what the best level is for taxes where you don't see the above occur - I personally think it starts to level off at 55% total (not just marginal rate, but all taxes).  Torie thinks 60%.

[Lіef]

Is Sarkozy seriously getting a bump from this Mohamed Merah thing? What a dumb bunch of terrified little xenophobes the French apparently are.

[You kip if you want to...]

Any debates scheduled yet?

[Formerly Californian Tony]

Any debates scheduled yet?

TVs don't do debate before the 1st round, because they would be legally obliged to have all 10 candidates participate and let them talk the exact same amount of time (which they don't want by any means). There is THE debate, which happens between the two rounds, and usually a couple days before the vote. It is unclear whether a debate has ever changed the outcome of an election (there might be a case for 1974).

[rob in cal]

I was pleased to learn that Sarkozy, Hollande and I'm guessing Le Pen as well, all support the reintroduction of proportional representation to National Assembly elections.  I'm wondering if the issue is being brought up much in the campaign and how people are responding to it.

[big bad fab]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #47 - 26 March 2012   

The weighting is now diminishing each week as follows: 1 / 0.6 / 0.2   

      

Hollande   28,20
Sarkozy   27,69
Le Pen   15,69
Bayrou   12,49
Mélenchon   11,06
Joly   2,38
(Villepin)   0,47
(Lepage)   0,21
Dupont-Aignan   0,91
Arthaud   0,41
Poutou   0,45
Cheminade   0,04


Hollande   55,04
Sarkozy   44,96


In 6 months, it'll be OK for Sarkozy: he'll be above 50

[redcommander]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #47 - 26 March 2012   

The weighting is now diminishing each week as follows: 1 / 0.6 / 0.2   

      

Hollande   28,20
Sarkozy   27,69
Le Pen   15,69
Bayrou   12,49
Mélenchon   11,06
Joly   2,38
(Villepin)   0,47
(Lepage)   0,21
Dupont-Aignan   0,91
Arthaud   0,41
Poutou   0,45
Cheminade   0,04


Hollande   55,04
Sarkozy   44,96


In 6 months, it'll be OK for Sarkozy: he'll be above 50

Don't give up!!!!! Sarkozy can still win.

[asexual trans victimologist]

This is Sarkozy after/during a surge, and I highly doubt he'll be able to sustain that for the next month.

[You kip if you want to...]

Unemployment rate's fallen! SARKOMENTUM!

[big bad fab]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #47 - 26 March 2012   

The weighting is now diminishing each week as follows: 1 / 0.6 / 0.2   

      

Hollande   28,20
Sarkozy   27,69
Le Pen   15,69
Bayrou   12,49
Mélenchon   11,06
Joly   2,38
(Villepin)   0,47
(Lepage)   0,21
Dupont-Aignan   0,91
Arthaud   0,41
Poutou   0,45
Cheminade   0,04


Hollande   55,04
Sarkozy   44,96


In 6 months, it'll be OK for Sarkozy: he'll be above 50

Don't give up!!!!! Sarkozy can still win.

As a voter, I never give up

[Tender Branson]

Sarkozy seems to have settled on 46% right now, unable to break 47%.

Which is what the new Ipsos and IFOP polls say.

[Tender Branson]

IFOP's latest breakdown on how the support goes from the first round candidates to the second round candidates:

Intentions de vote au premier tour en %   François Hollande   Nicolas Sarkozy   Ne se prononcent pas

Jean-Luc Mélenchon    79   5   16
François Hollande    99   –   1
Eva Joly    68   11   21
François Bayrou    32   43   25
Nicolas Sarkozy    2   95   3
Marine Le Pen    31   39   30

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Politique/Actu/Sondage-Ifop-Fiducial-Paris-Match.-La-double-incertitude-385387

Currently, it looks like Sarkozy is slightly winning Bayrou's and LePen's voters, but many would also stay at home.

If he can appeal to them, maybe he can close the gap in round 2.

[Insula Dei]

Unemployment rate's fallen! SARKOMENTUM!

Actually wasn't there a slight bump?

[Senator MaxQue]

Unemployment rate's fallen! SARKOMENTUM!

I pretty sure I read yesterday than unemployment raised for the tenth month in a row in France.

[big bad fab]

IFOP's latest breakdown on how the support goes from the first round candidates to the second round candidates:

Intentions de vote au premier tour en %   François Hollande   Nicolas Sarkozy   Ne se prononcent pas

Jean-Luc Mélenchon    79   5   16
François Hollande    99   –   1
Eva Joly    68   11   21
François Bayrou    32   43   25
Nicolas Sarkozy    2   95   3
Marine Le Pen    31   39   30

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Politique/Actu/Sondage-Ifop-Fiducial-Paris-Match.-La-double-incertitude-385387

Currently, it looks like Sarkozy is slightly winning Bayrou's and LePen's voters, but many would also stay at home.

If he can appeal to them, maybe he can close the gap in round 2.

Beware !
For IPSOS, it's
Mélenchon 84 - 3 - 13
Bayrou 32 - 28 - 40
Le Pen 13 - 52 - 35 (pretty in line with a BVA poll last week; whereas, for Bayrou, BVA was more in line with IFOP).
I'll publish the numbers tonight (but on my blog, sorry).

So, it's unclear where Sarkozy will win in the second round: more on Bayrou or more on Le Pen ?
Logically, these 2 "stocks" of voters exclude each other and Sarkozy can't gain on each front.
Except if he is more convincing than Hollande overall, which is highly doubtful.

[wormyguy]

What's with Sarkozy/Hollande voters?  Just statistical noise?

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

What's with Sarkozy/Hollande voters?  Just statistical noise?

There's always been in most runoffs 0-2% of voters who claim to have voted for a candidate qualified for the runoff only in the first round and then voted for his rival in the runoff. I don't know who these people are, if they actually exist and why their voting habits are so weird. I would guess some really fickle people who have a Josh-Winston like change of ideology, or undecided voters who have a genuine change of mind, people who like to fool around, people who like Sarkozy but don't want him to win (or people who like Hollande but don't want him to win) or people who take this field of joke candidates as they are: jokes.

[Formerly Californian Tony]

IPSOS uses to be quite favorable to Hollande, and it has him at 54%... You can understand my concerns.

[Vasall des Midas]

If you look over precinct-by-precinct results, you realize that some such people do exist.

[big bad fab]

IPSOS uses to be quite favorable to Hollande, and it has him at 54%... You can understand my concerns.

Read my latest article on vote transfers and you'll be even more worried

Though I can understand that you can be a bit febrile (is it correct in English ?)
But, well, there is still a comfortable margin, eh ? we are the 27th day of March, remember ?

[PASOK Leader Hashemite]

If you look over precinct-by-precinct results, you realize that some such people do exist.

There are certainly a bunch of FN voters who don't vote for the FN candidate(s) qualified in the runoff either because they're lucid enough to realize that it's useless to vote FN in all but a few areas because they can't win; or because their first round vote was a protest vote and they vote seriously in the runoff for a guy who can win/least worst option.

But afaik, for the mainstream parties, in the few modern cases where they poll lower in the runoff than in the first round, it is usually due to changes in turnout resulting from changes in mobilization of voter bases or local factors.