French Presidential Election: First Round (April 23, 2017)

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Having neoliberal Macron as their best hope to defeat Le Pen speaks volumes the Europeon establishment haven't learned a damn thing.

[MAINEiac4434]

Having neoliberal Macron as their best hope to defeat Le Pen speaks volumes the Europeon establishment haven't learned a damn thing.

He's the only one not right-of-center that's polling above 15%.

The Socialist Party is damaged because of Hollande and Melenchon is considered a lunatic.

[Phony Moderate]

Having neoliberal Macron as their best hope to defeat Le Pen speaks volumes the Europeon establishment haven't learned a damn thing.

He's the only one not right-of-center that's polling above 15%.

The Socialist Party is damaged because of Hollande and Melenchon is considered a lunatic.

And yet, ironically, Macron is the closest to being a continuity candidate.

[ApatheticAustrian]

macron is the "normalcy outsider". just what we need atm.

[President Johnson]

Macron. By far the best choice.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I like Windjammer's ranking, which is almost identical to Nathan/Antonio's. Whether to support Le Pen over Fillon - or not vote between the two, I suppose - is the most difficult choice here. On the whole I think i would feel more guilty about a vote for Fillon or even not voting.

If that's the runoff, I intend to cast a blank ballot (but if I did cast a valid vote, it would never be for Le Pen).

[DavidB.]

Oh, mine would be Le Pen, Fillon, Macron, Melenchon, Hamon, I think.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Oh, mine would be Le Pen, Fillon, Macron, Melenchon, Hamon, I think.

and you are sure, there would be a lot of france left after 1-2 periods of president le pen?

[America Needs R'hllor]

[1] Macron (very enthusiastically)

[2] Hamon

A goose

[3] Fillon

A dead goose






[4] Melenchon

Literally anything


[5] LePen

[Kingpoleon]

1. Macron


2. Hamon
3. Fillon


4. Hitler/Stalin/Mussolini

5. Melenchon/Le Pen

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I've sourced on Macron, but I don't know if I've soured quite enough to drop him below Le Pen into 4th. I'd enter that undecided at the moment. Still standing strong with Hamon however.

[Tintrlvr]

1. Macron
2. Hamon, I guess?
3. Probably spoil my ballot or some minor candidate if there's anyone tolerable, but it looks like there won't be. The choices go downhill really, really fast.

[mencken]

Ideally DuPont-Aignan. However, I would strategically vote for Fillon.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I like Windjammer's ranking, which is almost identical to Nathan/Antonio's. Whether to support Le Pen over Fillon - or not vote between the two, I suppose - is the most difficult choice here. On the whole I think i would feel more guilty about a vote for Fillon or even not voting.

If that's the runoff, I intend to cast a blank ballot (but if I did cast a valid vote, it would never be for Le Pen).

I understand the feeling, but I'd still hold my nose down and vote against MLP. Even for f**king Fillon.

[Hash]

April R. Ludgate

[Vosem]

My rankings of the top five candidates...
[1] Macron
[2] Fillon
[3] Hamon
[4] LePen
[5] Melenchon

This looks about right. Fillon might be better on some issues than Macron, but Macron is a better candidate, and it's nice to see an independent break through the system. It's too bad France never seems to have a viable classical liberal option.

Over the course of the campaign I've gone from un-enthusiastically leaning towards Fillon over Macron to backing Macron quite intensely.

Having neoliberal Macron as their best hope to defeat Le Pen speaks volumes the Europeon establishment haven't learned a damn thing.

This is rather silly since it is the French voters who chose Macron rather than the French establishment. Benoit Hamon is also running a serious campaign in this election and he is the incarnation of everything left-anti-neoliberals want to see in a candidate, with his emphasis on left-wing economic issues. It looks like voters respond to neoliberalism more strongly, at least in this instance.

[Del Tachi]

Fillon (non-enthusiastically)

[Anna Komnene]

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Macaroni it is.

[DC Al Fine]

Fillon (non-enthusiastically)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This is rather silly since it is the French voters who chose Macron rather than the French establishment. Benoit Hamon is also running a serious campaign in this election and he is the incarnation of everything left-anti-neoliberals want to see in a candidate, with his emphasis on left-wing economic issues. It looks like voters respond to neoliberalism more strongly, at least in this instance.

I'd contest that takeaway because of the number of candidates running. Voters who might be sympathetic to left-anti-neoliberalism but are also racist (and it does us left-anti-neoliberals no good not to admit that many such people exist) are flocking to Le Pen, voters who are more hardline in their leftism to Melenchon. Voters who might actually prefer Hamon are instead going for Macron to stop Fillon and Le Pen, because the top-two runoff is a terrible terrible system. And so on. We're not seeing a "fair fight" between one left-anti-neoliberal candidate and one candidate of the technocratic center.

[DavidB.]

Oh, mine would be Le Pen, Fillon, Macron, Melenchon, Hamon, I think.

and you are sure, there would be a lot of france left after 1-2 periods of president le pen?

I'm pretty sure there will not much be left of France, its dominant culture and its sovereignty after 1-2 terms of another president.

[ApatheticAustrian]

I'm pretty sure there will not much be left of France, its dominant culture and its sovereignty after 1-2 terms of another president.

well, whatever makes you feel at home - i prefer not giving my car keys, life insurance and nuclear codes to moscow.

[DavidB.]

I'm pretty sure there will not much be left of France, its dominant culture and its sovereignty after 1-2 terms of another president.

well, whatever makes you feel at home - i prefer not giving my car keys, life insurance and nuclear codes to moscow.

Her views on Russia are certainly most unfortunate. However, I think that in the long run, mass immigration and European integration pose a much bigger threat to European nation states' sovereignty and independence than Russia, even if Russia, too, should absolutely be considered a threat.

[ApatheticAustrian]

However, I think that in the long run, mass immigration and European integration pose a much bigger threat to European nation states' sovereignty and independence than Russia, even if Russia, too, should absolutely be considered a threat.

well, would you say, there is...for example..no texan culture? or a californian one? Isn't it in fact the truth, that  the EU in many ways helps the member countries to preserve the parts of their culture, which the countries themselves can't save themselves cause of financial or political ....differences?

Mass immigration on the 2015 levels is surely a big problem on many many MANY different levels, which is why i would propose to allow the EU to create a real outer border, instead of hoping on the goodwill of single nations which love "sharing" their problems with their neighbours.

And i really don't like to use this as a "gotcha"-argument like others do, so i am not trying to be morally superior in ANY way but.... i am of the opinion - other than the neo-culturalist wilders people - the russian administration in general doesn't have a lot of love for sub-cultures, like for example the jewish people, outside of israel.....instead the current regime seems to follow the tradition of the zarist faking since "the elders of zion" and blames jews, like most other assholes, for all "globalist" problems at all. if those people attack "capitalism", "multi-culturalism", "global banking system" and other similar institutions, you don't need much imagination to see what they are pointing at.

to fulfill this circle with the topic....it's not a coincidence that macron was called jewish and a rothschild ally by the wikileaks crowd.

[Vosem]

This is rather silly since it is the French voters who chose Macron rather than the French establishment. Benoit Hamon is also running a serious campaign in this election and he is the incarnation of everything left-anti-neoliberals want to see in a candidate, with his emphasis on left-wing economic issues. It looks like voters respond to neoliberalism more strongly, at least in this instance.

I'd contest that takeaway because of the number of candidates running. Voters who might be sympathetic to left-anti-neoliberalism but are also racist (and it does us left-anti-neoliberals no good not to admit that many such people exist) are flocking to Le Pen, voters who are more hardline in their leftism to Melenchon. Voters who might actually prefer Hamon are instead going for Macron to stop Fillon and Le Pen, because the top-two runoff is a terrible terrible system. And so on. We're not seeing a "fair fight" between one left-anti-neoliberal candidate and one candidate of the technocratic center.

Sure, Macron has certain advantages over Hamon because of the system, which I note ("at least in this instance"), though virtually every election is distorted to some extent by the system used (which can be deeply frustrating when candidates like Trump pass through both a nomination and a general election process at which most voters oppose them and still win). This is still probably among the clearest-cut examples of a non-authoritarian left-anti-neoliberal party directly competing with neoliberals today, and the margin between Macron and Hamon is not particularly close; and less clear-cut examples from other Western countries seem to paint a similar story. You see a similar effect in the Netherlands, where the left-anti-neoliberal Socialist Party (who are perhaps a bit more out-there than Hamon, but which have been taken seriously enough to lead national polling as recently as 2012) trail the neoliberal Green Left (though Klaver is perhaps less blatant than Macron). Justin Trudeau out-competed Thomas Mulcair (though Mulcair tried to steer his party to the center), and in a close-to-open primary Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders by double digits. The only obvious example of left-anti-neoliberals beating Third Way-types in recent years has been the victories of Jeremy Corbyn, and those were conducted in a very small and unrepresentative electorate.

Sorry for the bit of a rant, I'm very tired after this week...but it seems to me that there's a lot of hand-wringing by people who'd like for left-anti-neoliberals to be more successful who've convinced themselves that they've gained support in the last few years, or would be more effective candidates against right-populists, when there seems to be very little evidence of that suggestion.