if neither barack obama or mitt romney had campaigned at all, would this election have been any different?

last week i saw someone -- i think greenwald -- RT a tweet asking this question. it stuck w/ me and now with these results, i think it's an interesting thing to think about. if obama and romney had announced their candidacies on june 1 and then just gone about their normal life business until last night, does anyone think the results would have changed in any significant way? i'm inclined to say no... which definitely puts all the "big moments" of this campaign (first debate being the main one) into perspective and says a lot about mitt romney as a candidate/person imo.

I think far fewer people would have voted.

Maybe as few as two.

i think obama would've won by a wider margin, yeah.

although your general point, that the campaign season never changed what anybody thought, is basically true.

http://www.annyas.com/screenshots/images/1954/theres-no-business-like-show-business-trailer-title-still.jpg

That's how things were until the early twentieth century.

McKinley sat on his porch and let people visit HIM.

Friendliness didn't exactly work in his favor though.

yeah it wouldn't be surprising that someone like greenwald - who looks at politics without the politics - would think that this could even make sense as a theoretical

I mean, what's 'campaigning'? are we assuming that nobody talks about mitt romney on tv ever? how are people going to be informed about the gop candidate in any sense? how does gotv work in a world with no campaigns? etc.

i think j0rdan is just saying what if elections happened right after mitt got the gop nomination?

in a world where that happened the period before the gop nomination would turn into the regular campaign

i think j0rdan is just saying what if elections happened right after mitt got the gop nomination?

― Citizen Ship (some dude), Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:54 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

sure, this is another way to look at it

what if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?

hey i'm just trying to help your idea make sense, because the idea of 5 months of them 'going about their business' sure doesn't, especially since Romney wasn't holding any office.

http://littlelostrobot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/capn1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ab/WhatIf1.jpg/250px-WhatIf1.jpg

ILX has already simulated that contest.

Aimless, I kiss you

McKinley sat on his porch and let people visit HIM.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 7, 2012

i love this.

Only way to campaign.

"well, come on up. you need anything? i got water, i got iced tea. ida, some rubes are here. put out some sandwiches."

Lots of candidates (not just McKinley) ran front-porch campaigns back in the day.

some dude is here, put out some sandwiches