Talk:2012 Republican Party presidential primaries/Archive 5

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What criterion is being used to sort candidates the declared candidacy?

I ask because I am wondering why Romney is being listed first. I know the media is calling him the front runner, but I really think that depends what poll you are reading. Michele Bachmann just won the Ames Iowa poll. I think to avoid suggesting one is doing better than an other they should either be alphabetical or chronological according to the date they entered the race. --Diamond Dave (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

It should be in alphabetical order and had been since this page was created. I don't know how it ended up the way it is now, but I think it should be changed back.--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I have just sorted the candidates by date of declaration, and then saw this after. I actually think this makes more sense, as you can simply add people on if more declare, and it gives a quick visual impression of how the race developed. Either way, any ordering is better than just random, so I'll leave it like it is, and if anyone wants to resort the whole thing into alphabetic, then go ahead Wikiditm (talk) 10:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not opposed to ordering by declaration date, however, they didnt appear to be sorted like that. Fred Karger and Jimmy McMillan were the first to announce and Rick Perry was the most recent. The order that had been up had Romney first which would not be correct. --Diamond Dave (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.207.104.232 (talk)

Where's the sidebar?

One of those nifty "Part of a series on" navboxes with candidate articles, Political positions of... articles, primaries, debates, timeline, etc. – Lionel ^(talk) 05:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Some editors seem to like them, others not. Someone made an attractive one for Sarah Palin-related articles here: Template:SarahPalinSegmentsUnderInfoBox; yet, here: Template:Mitt Romney series--is the less-nicely designed one for Romney-related articles, which editors of the main Mitt Romney page removed from that page, apparently, as superfluous.

For what it's worth, here's a breakdown compiled from Category:Public image of American politicians:

1. Public image of George W. Bush - not used
2. Cultural and political image of John McCain - used
3. George McGovern in popular culture - not used
4. Public image of Barack Obama - used
5. Public image of Mike Huckabee - not used
6. Public image of Rudy Giuliani - not used [Note: It's since been placed there.---Ed.] (Template:Rudy Giuliani series removed some places once appeared)
7. Public image of Sarah Palin - used
8. Public image of Mitt Romney - used (but not on all Romney-related articles)
9. Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt - not used

--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 18:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 23:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that we could add a sidebar for the evnentual nominee when the primaries are over. SOXROX (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Note: Template:US 2012 elections series is now sidebarred on 2012 elections-related articles.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 02:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Great work! – Lionel ^(talk) 09:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Poll leaders timeline

From a historical prospective, I think the volatility of this primary is noteworthy. I just read the article below that pointed out 10 individuals have led in at least one poll in 2011: : Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee. Link:

Perhaps some sort of timeline showing candidates popularity peaking and fading would be a good way to display this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.170.21 (talk) 19:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Pulling backl to a less granular focus, the race has only had two front runners so far, with Cain well positioned to become the third. Which is to say, more conservative barometers of opinion such as RealClearPolitics's poll-of-polls haven't featured leads by other then Romney and Perry (see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html). According to the RCP av, as of today Cain still trails Romney by 7% (yet of course Cain leads Romney by 20%, currently, according to Zogby). Per the RCP, Romney lead Nov. 3, 2010 – Aug. 23, 2011; Perry, Aug. 24 – Oct. 3, 2011; Romney, Oct. 4, 2011 – present--and Cain won't take the overall lead (as I project he will) on the averaging chart until a few more polls come out.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

As of today, Oct. 20, 2011, the RCP (poll-of-polls) Average has Cain ahead by 0.5%.[1]--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Pawlenty drop-out sentence in header

"Her win in the Iowa Straw Poll, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul's close second place, reduced Pawlenty's support to the point that he withdrew from the race."

The link doesn't mention Ron Paul at all, and he is mostly irrelevant in the story of who will win the election, so any mention of him doesn't really belong in this sentence.. Maybe something like "Pawlenty's disappointing finish in the Iowa Straw Poll, which Congresswoman Bachman won, led him to drop out the next day" or whatever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.176.174.109 (talk) 23:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Ron Paul is far from irrelevant in this election, as the many sources saying otherwise prove. His impact on this race has already been shown by his support, and whether or not he will win the nomination he is proving to be a powerful force. As for what the link says, if it doesn't talk about Paul then maybe we can find a new link that does, but there's no reason to take it out. Kessy628 (talk) 03:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Paul is more important in the election than Pawlenty is, if anyone is removed from the heading it should be him.Thunderstone99 (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

New Hampshire Primary Date

I'm not so sure that New Hampshire has actually moved their primary date yet. It is likely, even probable, with the NV move, but it is not official and the calendar section should not reflect it as such. Jtodsen (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

NH announced it and finalized the date this morning, so I took out the "(expected)" designation.--→ talk page (JakeBathman) 15:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

endorsements

I have created a new page for the endorsements of the presidential candidates. I have no idea how to work the table, as I would want a collapsible table that states the number of endorsements, but also allows a reader to click in an check the endorsements in each cell. I believe this will settle a lot of the discrepancies in endorsements between candidates, and it can even be made into a featured article if the table and its information are well-written. In any case, please let me know your thoughts, help out however possible, and see me on the page Endorsements for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012 because I am struggling to make the table correctly.--Screwball23 talk 17:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think the declaration date would be best, however I was looking through previous years pages, and noticed they're all in alphabetical order. For the purpose of consistency, it would probably be best to keep the candidates in alphabetical order. Kessy628 (talk) 18:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawn Candidates

I noticed that Tim Pawlenty was removed from the list of candidates, as he should have been, when he dropped out of the race, however I feel that removing him completely from the page is not the way to go. Would it be possible to have a list of candidates that have dropped out of the race, that can be added to as the race goes on and more candidates drop out, much as the page Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000 has? Kessy628 (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The 2000 page is probably the ideal model for this page. Pawlenty should be removed from a list of active candidates, but should not be removed from the page entirely, as he has been. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:28, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, there was a bit and it will be returned shortly. The problem is that the running candidates have been ordered twice today. Firstly by me into chronological order (which I still think is better, unless it is clear in wikipedia guidelines that this is wrong) and then by Newbreeder into alphabetic order by last name. Unfortunately, due to mistakes in this second reordering, the bit on Pawlenty has disappeared, and the bottom of the table seems to have been lost also. I'm going to revert to the previous, less error-containing version, until someone can reorder the candidates without having such an effect on the page.Wikiditm (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Photo of Pawlenty has been restored along with "Withdrew candidcy" column. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NextUSprez (talk • contribs) 17:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan has been added to the list of speculative candidates, however I noticed that the second source cites and is based on the first source. Furthermore, in a quick Google search, I've only found the Weekly Standard source as a unique, reliable source; most of the other links either cite the Weekly Standard or are blog posts. Personally I'm of the opinion that the only source that says he's mulling a run is the Weekly Standard, which has been calling for him to run for a while now, and therefore he shouldn't be on the list, but I'd like to hear some other editor's opinions. Kessy628 (talk) 17:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right about TWS, but since reliable publications such as USA Today cite it, I think it's credible. NYyankees51 (talk) 17:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

That's fair enough that TWS is credible, however the issue still remains about needing 2 unique sources. Kessy628 (talk) 17:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Daily Caller DC article may be may be based on TWS article, but it is not a re-hashing, as it has much "independent" content, such as quoting Karl Rove on Hannity on the issue, as well as Bill Kristol, who isn't mentioned in the TWS article. So I think the two citations suffice.--JayJasper (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, this Washington Post article would be better as a second source. Though it quotes from the TWS article, it has quotes from other sources as well as the author's own analysis on the subject of Ryan's potential presidential candidacy.--JayJasper (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced the DC article with the aforementioned WP article, which should satisfy the "two unique sources" criterion.--JayJasper (talk) 18:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Makes me a bit happier, though the fact that the Post article is a blog means that there's grounds for a future battle over it. But for now I'm indifferent enough to say the Post article works for a second unique source. Kessy628 (talk) 19:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I support the current sources. You're not going to have better, until he makes his intentions known. --Smart (talk) 05:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable source examples#Are_weblogs reliable sources?, paragraph 2. I believe WaPo article meets the standard, given that its author, Jennifer Rubin, is a notable journalist.--JayJasper (talk) 19:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

fluff lead

The Republican Party presidential primary elections and caucuses for the United States presidential election of 2012 are slated to be held in the 2012 calendar year as a means of determining the presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

This lead sentence has been up for too long. It may have been good a year or two ago, but right now, the campaign is underway. In fact, it's been underway for months now. It's time to add information, not fluff. We've already lost about 4 months of developments in the race because editors have not documented any of the action. Furthermore, this lead is outside of convention. Both the republican and democratic campaigns from 08, 04, 00, 96, etc, etc, have information in the lead, not some lengthy 20-word explanation of what it is slated to be. This lead doesn't even make sense. Slated to be held in the 2012 calendar year? Really? So 2011's developments don't matter? It is a means of determining? Really? Is this the only means, or one of many? What other means are there?--Screwball23 talk 18:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Not denying that we need to put more info in the lead, but this is the first paragraph from the Democratic primary 2008 page:

"The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party of the United States chose their candidate for the 2008 United States presidential election. The Democratic Party candidate for president was selected through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2008 Democratic National Convention held from Monday, August 25, through Thursday, August 28, 2008, in Denver, Colorado."

Just to throw that out here. On the other hand, as Screwball says, 2004 and 2000, along with the republican pages for 2008, 2004, and 2000 (didn't check back further) don't have the fluff in the lead, which makes me think the 2008 dem page is a abnormality, vs. a guide for this. Kessy628 (talk) 19:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean, Screwball, but we at least need links describing what the primaries are. NYyankees51 (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

No, I completely agree with that. I can be happy with an embedded link to something like primary and I know full well that the lead will change as the race shapes up. But please remember the readers here. Someone can search through the presidential primary pages for the last few decades and run into historical info. Or they can be forced to read some whacked out explanation again and again, without any real information. It's an insult to someone's intelligence to put out a long, winding definition of what a primary is (or is slated to be) and then put hyperlinks to primary and election just so they can read it again and again. That was the path this page was headed down, and I want to make it clear that this is an encyclopedia. People come here for info on topics they search for. The buzzwords and excessive hyperlinks do not add value to the page, and any good encyclopedia entry would focus instead on the already 4-month history of this race.--Screwball23 talk 19:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right. My only issue with your version is the use of past tense; it's awkward and that too doesn't help the reader. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I reworked the lead, let me know if you have any issues with it. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:17, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Good job, NYyankees51, your re-worked lead is consistent with WP:MOSBEGIN which states "The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific". I think you nailed it.--JayJasper (talk) 20:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Much better.--Screwball23 talk 20:22, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. As Screwball said, it will change as the race moves forward but we can use the current version as the starting point. NYyankees51 (talk) 20:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Ron Paul?

Why is Ron Paul not mentioned anywhere in the article save his picture? Given that he practically tied in the Iowa Straw Poll, I would certainly think that he deserves at least as much of a mention as Rick Perry does. I know that the format of this is messed up, but I don't understand how all of this works. I just came here to find the date of the primaries and was struck by what seems like some serious unfairness, given that he is clearly a powerful contender, as he places in the top three in nearly every poll between GOP candidates, and wins by a large margin in many of them as well. - Unsigned by an Incompetent. 24.125.6.60 (talk) 01:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

He gets the same amount of focus on this page as every other candidate. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Add some info on him. He's definitely making a stronger impact than he did in 08, and his status as "intellectual grandfather" of the Tea Party certainly gives him a solid position on the page.--Screwball23 talk 01:10, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I also added a really small change into the lead on how he came incredibly close to beating bachman in the straw poll. Kessy628 (talk) 01:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Kessy - that looks fair to me! -Unsigned by the same Incompetent. 24.125.6.60 (talk) 05:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Paul Ryan not running

Paul Ryan not running --Smart (talk) 20:08, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It was unfortunate that the IP's making the edits moving Ryan from "speculated" to "declined" didn't use sources or edit summaries to convey what they were doing. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I only did three edits: 1. Remove him from Speculated, 2. Remove him from the bar at the bottom of the page in the "Potential Candidates" section, 3. Removed him from the main page --Smart (talk) 06:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Criteria for Inclusion

There is a discussion going on above about the criteria for inclusion into this and other similar articles, and I figured I would make a new section that was on the topic. According to User: William S. Saturn, the criteria for inclusion, as developed by an earlier consensus, is the basic notability standard; mainly, that the person has a wikipedia page on them. I personally think this is too broad, as it leads to candidates like Sharkey, who is notable enough due to his wrestling career, however is by far not notably running for president. Therefore, I propose to change the criteria, and I'd like to solicit opinions on what to change it to/add to it, and on whether it should be changed. Kessy628 (talk) 13:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

This is my proposal...

A- Candidate must have filed with the FEC. B- For third parties, only the nominee should be listed, and all independents as long as they have a Wikipedia article. C- If running for one of the two major parties, they should have at last 1% of the vote in the polls (we would just have to decide on the minimum number of polls- I 'd say 3 to 5) or have participated in an official debate.

For the Republican section, this would list Governor's Perry, Romny, and Johnson, Senator Santorum, Reps Gingrich, Paul and Bachmann, plus Cain and Karger (who has garnered 1% in a few polls).

Under this criteria, Sharkey, Moore, Martin, and McMillan would have to be removed. Sadly, former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer and Rep Thad McCotter would have to be removed because they don't have 1% in enough polls.

So that's my proposal, what do you guys think? SOXROX (talk) 13:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely not. We are not going to go through some nonsense polls and determine who has 1% based on hypothetical polls. The polls are usually bogus, and we are not tools for some political operatives, eliminating people just because they didn't make 1% on some push poll. That being said, I don't like the idea of removing Thad McCotter and Buddy Roemer because both have garnered attention on Politico.com and Fox news. Both of their candidacies were explored on the New York Times website, and Roemer's run has its own page. They are serious candidates, and they have serious media following them. I don't know what attention Moore's candidacy has received, but I know for a fact that McMillan was interviewed on Sean Hannity and made a few public appearances with leading candidates, including at CPAC 2011. The reason I do not support the addition of Sharkey is because he is not significant to the events of the race. He has very, very little media attention on him. The sources I've seen don't make it clear that he's running for the Republican nomination, and on Politics1.com, I see him alongside dozens and dozens of other non-notable candidates. It just doesn't make sense to add Sharkey, considering how many other 3rd and 4th tier candidates are not included, and might have even more media attention on them.--Screwball23 talk 15:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

What if instead of a polling requirement, its required that they have X number of national media sources. For instance, Roemer and McCotter were featured on Politico and Fox news; that would fit. Sharkey, on the other hand, has only had local media coverage from what I know, or very limited if any national coverage, and wouldn't pass this muster. Just another idea for thought. Kessy628 (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Nah, I'm not too crazy about that either, because I know how policies are misinterpreted here on wikipedia. Someone with enough time on their hands will wait and collect enough obscure references to make a candidate appear on the page, and a perennial candidate might meet the requirement simply because they went through a few election cycles. There's also the headache of what constitutes national coverage, considering the fact that most people get their news from the Internet. That being said, I think the best solution would be to include major campaigns with sustained major news coverage first, and the 2nd and 3rd tier ones can be decided case-by-case.--Screwball23 talk 17:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The only issue with case-by-case basis decisions is there's a lack of consistency. It would allow people to use "oh X made it on the list, so why cant Y?" sort of excuses. As for meeting the requirement from multiple election cycles, it could be limited to only articles from the most recent cycle (candidate Z can't use news articles from his 2008 run, for instance). Kessy628 (talk) 17:42, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

We should go with coverage in reliable sources instead of polling. How about, the candidate must receive consistently substantial coverage in national media. That is vague, but I think it's enough. If not, we could come up with something like x-amount of articles in reliable sources per week. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:30, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

This conversation should probably be taking place on Talk:United States presidential election, 2012 since that's the talk page for the central election article which affects the others. Also, you'll probably get more input there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NextUSprez (talk • contribs) 18:42, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The questions of who is and who is not a major candidate leads ultimately to the question of notability. Many here are failing to realize that there is no political elite to choose from when noting who runs for president. Polling or national media coverage are very complex solutions to a problem that does not exist. Discussions like this go in circles and do not reach a resolution, that is why the current standard is used.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:22, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

And what is the current standard? To add anybody with an FEC filing, add anybody speculated of running, and add people who are not running? Because that is what I see on the page currently.--Screwball23 talk 20:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturn I went through the archives you mentioned on the 2012 page and found the consensus you're talking about. What you're failing to mention is that the consensus developed due to a reversion of an attempt to fix this very problem, an attempt that was determined to be too complicated, and that said consensus was primarily developed with 3/7 editors commenting undecided. That to me may be consensus, but it is not strong enough to give reason against reopening the question of what the criteria should be.

Also, I have another idea: instead of using the candidate's article as a notability guideline, why not use whether they have a "XXXX presidential campaign" article. If they have that article, it means that their campaign is notable enough to have been talked about, that it has enough reliable sources, and that it is verifiable. Kessy628 (talk) 20:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

that's even worse. There is no reason to write campaign articles about non-notable candidates just so they won't be deleted. The explosion of campaign articles is a major pain, and I see it as a crumbling of discussion on wikipedia. Rather than work together to put one campaign article together, it seems that people would rather go into closed-minded little groups and cover one candidate they like. Let me decipher the proposals and we'll talk through a discussion on this. I see this diverting from Jonathan Sharkey, so if you would rather have this thread somewhere else, please give me the link.--Screwball23 talk 20:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstood what I meant. Not that we make the articles for the candidates, but that the articles 'are' the standard for inclusion. Those articles, if not properly sourced and proven to be notable campaigns, hopefully would be deleted; the ones that survive would most likely be the ones that are notable campaigns.

You are right, though, about this diverting from Sharkey. I'll bring it up on the 2012 presidential campaign page, link to here, and summarize/quote the proposals. Hopefully that will not only give this debate better placement in terms of where it should go on, but it should also solicit new responses. If no one complains, I'll do it later tonight/sometime tomorrow. Kessy628 (talk) 20:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea, however, we need a standard that can work across all presidential election pages. There is no George H.W. Bush presidential campaign, 1988 or even Bill Clinton presidential campaign, 1996, so if this idea applies to those pages as well, then the candidates that won election would not even be included.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing it would be bad to say as a "going forward" sort of thing, or even starting with the 2008 pages? I mean, if a new consensus is created in general, it would be hard for former year's pages to conform to them; since there's no new info coming out, I'd say that they should stay as is, or include a specific note on the talk pages about them conforming to an earlier consensus. I do see your point here, however. Kessy628 (talk) 21:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Screwball, the individuals are not thrown together as you mischaracterize above. There are clearly defined sections on this page: the actual candidates, which have announced their intentions or filed with the FEC and have reached wikipedia's standard of notability; the speculated candidates, whose intentions the media have discussed in two sources; those that have declined to run; and those who once but no longer receive speculation for a run. --William S. Saturn (talk) 20:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I have asked for input from WikiProject United States presidential elections.

Because of that, I take back my intent to move the discussion, if only to relieve the difficulties of uninvolved editors having to link jump to find the current discussion. Kessy628 (talk) 21:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment moved to its own topic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.125.6.60 (talk) 01:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I know I've made this suggestion before and been mocked, but I do not see why a list under the gallery of "minor candidates" can't be included--that way your pat paulsen, morry taylor, jimmy mcmillan and jon sharkey's of the world can be listed for the sake of completeness (people notable enough to be listed, but not notable enough to be contenders)without muddying the waters of the article...68.51.172.204 (talk) 13:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to work with tables super well, but that sounds like a fair idea and a smart way of working out this whole issue. Kessy628 (talk) 19:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

What constitutes a "minor candidate"?--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Meteoric rise for Michele Bachmann

There seems to be some issue with the campaign developments section. The campaign developments section is a history of the campaign. It is a bad precedent to just remove the events and put someone's name down. How can someone understand a history book, for example, if no one put down George Washington achieves victory and instead put George Washington as a title for a historical reading on his winning battles? I have multiple sources for "meteoric rise".[2] I also am open to discussion on the issue here.--Screwball23 talk 19:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

At User_talk:Muboshgu#2012 gop primaries, which I see you haven't replied to, I commented that based on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch, the phrase "meteoric rise" might violate any and all of the following: puffery, unsupported attributions, and/or editorializing. You have several editors reverting your attempts to reinsert that language. Please stop. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Come on, you see the news sources just like I do. Again and again, I have news articles that use and verify the statement. I also don't see your rationale. You say it "might violate" something, and I don't see any reason why the title could be no good. it is supported, it is not puffery, and it is clearly in the sources. Do you have a rationale of why it might violate something, because you have to understand where I'm coming from. I'm putting up information, and I have people saying it has "extra verbiage", "there's several editors against it", "it might violate A,B, or C policies". That type of argument just isn't constructive. Please give me an idea what you believe is the issue.--Screwball23 talk 20:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Just because newspapers use certain phrases doesn't mean we copy them. They are in news, we are working on an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is to remain neutral and objective at all times. "Meteoric rise" is a subjective, puffy term that can mean different things in different contexts. Saying she rose in the polls is objective and verifiable. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:26, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

We still should talk about her rise though. Honestly, on June 1, no one took her seriously as a candidate. It's a little like Obama 4 years ago, only to a bigger extent, because Bachmann was polling in the low single digits. The article definitely should elaborate on that. SOXROX (talk) 03:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Soxrox. You have to understand, and this is key : she declared in late June, received huge media coverage, notability, and surged to #1 in the Ames poll by mid August. That's 2 months. Single digits to #1 in Iowa in 2 months. That is undeniable and it is not subjective. She was featured in Newsweek and The New Yorker. That again is not subjective. The entire idea that it is subjective is just nonsense. It is verifiable. I showed you a link with multiple sources saying she had a meteoric rise. So it's verifiable. Now, as for "rising in the polls". That's not very objective. I can find instances where gingrich rose in the polls, where herman cain rose in the polls, where rick perry rose in the polls, etc. The point is, if you wanted to, you could find a rise in the polls for anyone. Remember, wikipedia policy states that it has to be notable and encyclopedic. Saying she rose in the polls is not useful, notable, or encyclopedic. If anything, it insults the reader. I mean, if you read section after section saying, "Herman cain rises in the polls", "bachmann rises in polls", would you learn anything qualitative? Would you understand if it was a fast rise, slow rise, mild rise, minor rise, etc. And what about the media coverage? Her political profile rose as a whole. Forget polls. Wikipedia is not about some horse-race polling. It's not about following some hypothetical polling like some tools for a political operation. This is about being encyclopedic. And if something is verifiable, informative, and encyclopedic, it deserves its spot. But don't take my word for it. There are people who think that something, anything, that can be subjective, must be removed. But look at the Glorious revolution. Why is it called that? Well, there are a lot of references for that. There is no policy that says Wikipedia should remove information that is well referenced. Polling, and yes, I will repeat this, polling is subjective. It requires a person to look at select polls over select periods of time. It doesn't even make sense, considering the fact that polls included Sarah Palin and Donald Trump at times. It doesn't help anyone to just follow polls either, because a field of candidates that lacks name recognition can have really skewed polls.--Screwball23 talk 14:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but terminology like "meteoric rise" still violates a whole bunch of Wikipedia principles and guidelines. We can talk about her emergence, but not in a way that violates NPOV. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

"A whole bunch"? How does it violate NPOV?--Screwball23 talk 20:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Because it's subjective and puts forward a point of view. And yes, "a whole bunch", the ones I've already referenced. I'll list them again: WP:PEACOCK, WP:WEASEL, and WP:EDITORIAL. I don't disagree with you or SOXROX that her rise in the polls should be documented, but I wholeheartedly object to the phrase "meteoric rise". I think it's fine as it presently is. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

You have to understand that this is not just "a rise in polls". That was never the issue. We could follow polls and reduce an article to garbage. It is not about finding "newt gingrich rises in polls", "donald trump rises in polls" as a means of writing the article. The concept of polls as a means for writing the article is not helpful, substantiated, or notable. If someone wanted to write about polls, they could write a month by month horserace. That isn't the goal of this encyclopedia and that should not be your goal. Let's set a higher standard for ourselves. We want to be clear, grammatically correct, follow verified sources, and stay on-point. Michele Bachmann experienced a meteoric rise in the race. It was documented as such. As long as you understand wikipedia's policy of verifiability, you can understand that. It simply doesn't make sense to have a title like "rise in polls". It's one of the most subjective things anyone can write. It involves selecting polls over selected periods of time. It's also highly misleading and faulty because these polls were conducted with "likely republicans", different sample sizes, and by different organizations that may or may not be leaning certain ways. You have to remember that polls are biased by name recognition too. At this stage in the game, a lot of people aren't all that familiar with the candidates, and that's why it's important to list substantiated information like her profiles in Forbes and the New Yorker. A title like "rised in polls" would demean all the content in the section. It's not about the polls, it's about the rise in political profile.--Screwball23 talk 21:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Then lets title it "Emergence of Michele Bachmann". SOXROX (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your help, but that doesn't make sense in this case. Emerged from where? It's not like she was in some hole and emerged. It has a really bad connotation too, as in "maybe Gaddafi will emerge from his hiding spot". Maybe the boogeyman will emerge from the darkness.--Screwball23 talk 21:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

"Emergence" makes sense, as she emerged from a niche to a nationwide stage. If you continue to revert to your unacceptable language, which you have yet to defend, I will report you for edit warring. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks my friend. You won't win your edit wars through threats and a refusal to listen. I have defended my view thoroughly, and am pleased to do so. I see no reason why the sources are being disregarded. I want more editors in on this discussion, and I think a fuller group of editors will bring a much needed open-mindedness here. --Screwball23 talk 01:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I see no personal attacks here, just empty accusations, so let's just stick to the issue. Agreed that the language "meteoric rise" is unnecessarily strong language and violates policies like WP:NPOV and WP:WEASEL. Why not just call the section "Effectiveness of Bachmann Campaign" or "Growing popularity of Michele Bachmann"? These are verifiable statements, are supported by events like the Forbes rating, winning the Ames straw poll, etc. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 03:42, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I like "Growing popularity of Michele Bachmann". Per I, Jethrobot, it is accurate & verifiable. Not to mention more neutral & encyclopedic.--JayJasper (talk) 03:54, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Screwball, while I concur that her rise should be referenced, we need to use encyclopediac wording. Otherwise the sentence sounds like something out of a magazine. SOXROX (talk) 04:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Kinda shows in that I originally changed the wording to Soxrock's but I concur with the general consensus as said above. Kessy628 (talk) 04:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Hello. There was a request for a third opinion made - while it looks as though a consensus seems to be forming now, I'll chip in anyway. I agree that the term 'meteoric' is not very encyclopaedic - it is a subjective term. The fact that the media uses it does not change that, and it is likely that pro-Republican media will use it more than pro-Democrat, for example. I think the best suggestion so far comes from I, Jethrobot with "Growing popularity of Michele Bachmann". The rise can then be documented more extensively and objectively in the body of the text, with sources as appropriate. I hope this helps.—ῤerspeκὖlὖm in ænigmate(talk)(spy) 05:49, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Definitely agree that "growing popularity" is way superior to the subjective "meteoric rise" as a section heading.--Rollins83 (talk) 13:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the third party opinion, and agree that "growing popularity" is superior to "meteoric rise". – Muboshgu (talk) 15:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree. I will accept the opinions of the third parties who participated here. Thank you for your resolve in hearing both me and Muboshgu. Please understand, it was disappointing for me to be in an argument where I was not being heard. I was also being accused of violating 4 or 5 policies at once without any clear rationale why. I don't want to beat this to death, but I certainly was not going to accept "rises in polls" or "emerges". I think "growing popularity" works, and I appreciate your help in bringing your solutions. Thanks.--Screwball23 talk 21:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Sharkey

There was NEVER any reason why this guy was added to the list of candidates. He filed an FEC report, but it did not state that he was a republican. Also, the article that listed his candidacy also listed 77 other people who filed reports as well. Those people are not guaranteed placement on wikipedia, so why is he even put up here? I'm not knocking his wikipedia page, because my understanding is, he's a wrestler and he had beef with George Bush, so he is notable enough to be on wikipedia, def, but not relevant to the republican field. --Screwball23 talk 18:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. He is trivial and won't appear in any debates, so he shouldn't be on here. NYyankees51 (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Believe me, I agree with you. At the election talk page we had a huge argument about it here. No matter how much this is contested, I fear that will be defeated. People like you and me are fiercely for his inclusion, and others are fiercely against it. What troubles me is that on pages for past elctions, no perennial candidates appear on the lists of candidates. I invite you to bring it back up for serious discussion, but my legitimate fear is that it will be rejected, again. SOXROX (talk) 19:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems like the "consensus" mentioned above to keep him in was a vote that, if I'm counting correctly, went in the order of 8 in favor and 7 against, with 2 of those in favor's being a weak yes calling for a revision of the criteria for inclusion. That to me says its about time to reopen this argument, and form a new consensus for inclusion. Notability should not be a criteria for inclusion because you get cases like this: Sharkey is notable enough for inclusion to wikipedia as a wrestler, not as a person running for office. Kessy628 (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You can't just vote to exclude somebody. He fits the page's criteria built from years of consensus and based on wikipedia's principles. I do remember one that was quite explicit, but don't have time to dig it up right now.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that he doesn't fit the criteria as it stands. What I'm arguing is that if he fits the criteria, the criteria needs a new look. I'm open not only to removing him from the page but more so to relooking at the original consensus on criteria for inclusion. If you could find the original consensus I'd personally be interested in seeing it. Kessy628 (talk) 00:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Hold it, I want to make it very clear that there is no evidence that he is a Republican running in the Republican primaries. That alone should disqualify him. Also, and I want to make this very, very clear - he is among 77 candidates that have filed FEC reports, none of whom are on wikipedia. The only reason he is on this page, I suspect, is because he already had a wikipedia page linked to his wrestler profile, and since he had a picture and sizable content on his page, people just thought it was a legit candidacy, without questioning why it was on the GOP 2012 field.--Screwball23 talk 04:18, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I propose another request for comment. The emergence of three new editors that are opposed to the standards signal that it should be brought up for discussion a second time. So how is this question- Should the criteria for inclusion in United States presidential election, 2012 be changed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soxrock24 (talk • contribs) 04:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what the criteria is, so we can start up there :->. What I do know, and yes, I want to get this off my chest, what I do know is the fact that wikipedia is not a who's who. The reason the older elections do not contain many of the minor candidates is because historians, and encyclopedia writers, are not crazy enough to include dozens of people who were "not running". History books do not lose value because they neglected to include some longshot candidate who competed with Thomas Jefferson and won 3 votes. If someone bothered to include something that insignificant and unimportant, the history book would lose value to the reader. I think the idea of including all the names of people who are "not running" is absolute stupidity, and is a complete violation of wikipedia's Wikipedia:NOTNEWS policy. I mean, who in the hell is going to read this page in 50 yrs thinking, hey, I want to make sure that Allan West was not running in 2012? I don't even think people are going to care to read the campaign pages on each of the candidates, either. Honestly, they are so badly written, I feel bad for the people who are reading them now :->. I can't understand why no one has included the actual developments of the race. I mean, there is no summary, no history of the race, I mean, absolutely nothing. The energy that has been wasted on this page is absolutely staggering. People have updated gallery photos again and again, posting news factoids about people who are speculated to run, I mean, why the hell are we going to write rumors on who's speculated on running when the primaries have been on for months now? --Screwball23 talk 05:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

If you disagree with Wikipedia's policy of notability then maybe you should attempt to change the policy. Nevertheless, this page is based on that concept, not on personal opinion. There is no elite class in American politics, any individual can run and if that individual fits wikipedia's policy of notability then they will be listed on this page.--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturn you're not addressing the actual argument here. You're saying that a consensus was developed that the criteria for inclusion was that the person was notable enough to have a wikipedia page about them. Well three of us now are going further than Sharkey, and asking whether the criteria needs to be looked at again. Just cause someone is notable enough to have a wikipedia page about them does NOT mean that they are a notable candidate for president. I'll make a new section about this for now to make sure we stay on topic. Kessy628 (talk) 13:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Again, just because he has a wikipedia page does not make him notable to the presidential field.--Screwball23 talk 02:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Screwball while I'm in favor of taking him out, Difluoroethene is right. Until this debate is resolved we should keep the original version, the one that had Sharkey on the page. If (and hopefully when) we can get a consensus for removal and/or a change in criteria then we can remove him. Until then, just leave him, if only to avoid a major edit war. Kessy628 (talk) 02:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That's against policy. It's flat-out wrong to do this. If something does not belong on a page, it is the burden of the person adding it to defend its inclusion. So far, I've seen User:William S. Saturn side-step the issue, saying this is a case for AFD (an obvious run-around) and I see Difluoroethane hasn't even joined the discussion. And believe me, for as long as they get their way, they won't bother to discuss it here.--Screwball23 talk 02:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

While I agree it doesn't belong, and I agree that Saturn has been sidestepping the issue, the way to go isn't to edit war it off the page. If they don't discuss it here, or continue to just sidestep the arguments presented, it bolsters our argument if we go further in the dispute resolution chain. If they do, then we're where we want to be, discussing the issue. Kessy628 (talk) 03:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Screwball is mistaken about policy. As things are discussed the consensus version should remain in place. Consensus has not changed because there is no clear criteria agreed upon in this discussion.--William S. Saturn (talk) 06:24, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

First, a clarification on Saturn: not the consensus version (which implies the entire debate is moot), but the pre-arguement version (the version that was there before the issues about Sharkey and the criteria as a whole were raised). Anyway, part of the reason there is no clear criteria is because there hasn't been a full discussion. The issues stated by Screwball, me, and others have been sidestepped or ignored. I agree with the outcome (that he stays until consensus is developed on a new criteria), however you must actively discuss it first. Saying "consensus has been X, and that's what it is" ignores our arguments; I still haven't gotten an answer to my last post on my idea (the one that you said was an interesting idea). TLDR: leave Sharkey on, but make sure you (as in all editors) engage in an active, open-minded discussion; if you can convince me that the current consensus is the best move, I'll be the first to change my mind, but that onus is also on you. Kessy628 (talk) 12:06, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturn this is never going to go away if you keep sidestepping the issue. Personally, I would go along with any changes Screwball makes as long as Sharkey is not included! You seem to think you are the "leader" of election pages, but even if you are, you have to compromise and discuss! Since you can't stop mentioning consensus, it wikipedia consensus that there should be active discussion on the talk page into compromise is made. We need a request for comment. SOXROX (talk) 12:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Before we open up a RfC I'd like to wait for some outside opinions from [[3]]. Hopefully we can get some opinions from some other editors and reach a conclusion before having to go through the entire RfC process. Kessy628 (talk) 12:18, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

There has been no further discussion on this, including comments from uninvolved editors. Therefore, I'm removing Sharkey as per the specific consensus reached here (I see at least 4 editors for removal and only 2 opposed). If people wish to start a RfC, I'd be happy to start it, however I do think that for now we don't need to bother. While a consensus says one thing, consensus can also make exceptions to prior consensuses, which is what's been done here. Kessy628 (talk) 20:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

 – The decision was to remove Jonathan Sharkey from the gallery of candidates. --Screwball23 talk 20:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Under what criteria? Please remember that wikipedia is not a democracy. We can't just vote candidates off this list.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right. But wikipedia is based on the idea of consensus. Consensus is to remove him from the list because he's notable for being a wrestler, not for his presidential runs. Kessy628 (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No. Current consensus is to include all notable candidates.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

And current consensus is that Sharkey is an exception. I've seen 4 against inclusion and 2 for. Unless you can sway 2 people, he stays off. Kessy628 (talk) 20:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

That's complete nonsense. In what world is it NPOV to exclude notable candidates? Do you feel that if we hold a poll and get a "consensus" to remove Bachmann, that we should then remove Bachmann? --William S. Saturn (talk) 20:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

What's nonsense is you refusing to accept consensus. You haven't commented at all about changing the criteria since we let it wait a bit to see if anyone posted. Then, when a waiting period is done and we decide to accept the consensus and remove him, NOW you come back and fight it. It's not NPOV at all to remove someone who's notability and presidential run are completely separate and nonrelated issues. Kessy628 (talk) 20:31, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Then explain to me what Sharkey is notable for. He certainly is not notable for being a wrestler. And even if he was, the fact that he's a notable individual is enough to include him on this list. Anyone in the U.S. can run for president. It's not reserved for an elite few.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

He's notable for being a wrestler and for his comments about Bush, hence the weight they have in his article. And no one is saying that running for president is reserved for an elite few. But then by that logic why is everyone else running not on the list? All 87 or so of them. Because they're not notable candidates, that's why, and neither is Sharkey. Kessy628 (talk) 20:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No. The others are excluded because they are not notable individuals.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:43, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

How is he notable? If that can't be addressed, there is no hope for discussion here.--Screwball23 talk 20:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

He's notable because countless AFDs have said so. He receives coverage in reliable sources. I voted to delete his article, but I abide by consensus.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Wait, you voted to delete his article, and now you're edit-warring to put it on here? ...wow, that's something... I still don't get your connection here. How is that relevant here?--Screwball23 talk 20:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Can't fault Saturn for that, its unrelated to the issue at hand. I'll stop reverting for now, if only so I don't break 3RR, but this isn't settled. Unless anyone objects by tomorrow morning, I'm gunna open an RfC on the criteria itself, forget Sharkey. There needs to be a way of differentiating a notable candidate and a notable person on wikipedia, and as of now they're 1 and the same, which is just not true. Kessy628 (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'm getting the gloves off. I have at least 3 policies that immediately disqualify Sharkey's candidacy from the page.

• WP:INDEPTH - An event must receive significant or in-depth coverage to be notable.

The coverage of Sharkey was only mentioned within the context of other candidacies, and I can go to politics1.com and find 100+ more of the same.

• WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE - Notable events usually receive coverage beyond a relatively short news cycle.

In this case, the event of his candidacy just doesn't cut it. It hasn't been an enduring news story, and it has no long-term effect on the page.

• WP:DIVRSE - Significant national or international coverage is usually expected for an event to be notable. Wide-ranging reporting tends to show significance, but sources that simply mirror or tend to follow other sources, or are under common control with other sources, are usually discounted.

Sharkey wasn't even interviewed by multiple sources, and the coverage he got certainly was not wide-ranging or national by any means.

• Wikipedia:Let the dust settle - This is going to be for history, not for news. Readers of this page will not come here to find out the schedule of debates with their local TV listings, and the policy states clearly that an individual or event must last beyond the 15 minutes of fame to be notable. Sharkey didn't even receive 15 minutes of fame, and I think we've probably spent more time debating this on wikipedia than he's even spent on the campaign trail. It just doesn't make sense why someone would waste so much time in their precious life to argue for the inclusion of a candidacy that wasn't even significant enough to gain national coverage.--Screwball23 talk 04:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Then nominate the article at AFD. I am simply upholding the current consensus on the matter.--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

We have said REPEATEDLY that he is notable Saturn! It's just that he isn't notable to this campaign. If we were being biased against an "elite" class, wouldn't we want to remove martin and mcmillan too? In the May discussion, it was decided that there was NO CONSENSUS! Read the bottom of the discussion again. There was never any consensus given on new criteria. So therefore you're upholding, basically, you're own opinion since we may have found a consensus here. SOXROX (talk) 11:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Basically Soxrox said everything I would have said. He's notable, just not for the campaign. That's what we've been saying for a while. You keep talking of consensus, but all I see is you going AGAINST a consensus developed here in favor of an earlier consensus. Kessy628 (talk) 16:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no consensus from this discussion of just a few users. Further, the few users here cannot even agree to a criteria and resort to simply removing candidates that have already been judged by the community as notable. Why are you singling out Sharkey when Martin, McMillan, Karger and Roemer are ignored by the mainstream media just as often?--William S. Saturn (talk) 17:49, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That's bullshit.

• Andy Martin - LA Times article[4]
• Jimmy McMillan - spoke at CPAC, interviewed on Fox News[5]
• Fred Karger - LA Times[6], Huffington Post [7]
• Roemer - NY Times[8]

Don't say something you can't defend, my friend. it took me a few minutes to find these. This is what makes a candidate suitable enough to be included on the page. Edit-warring does not.--Screwball23 talk 18:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Also to go along with that, a quick search of ny times, la times, boston globe, politico, washington post, and the huffington post turned up nothing for sharkey. Just saying. Kessy628 (talk) 18:28, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh and also Saturn, your "consensus" you keep talking about was 7 editors, 3 of which voted unsure. This consensus you keep denying exists came from 6 editors, 4 opposed to his addition and 2 for his addition. So don't say that your consensus came form the community and ours is a few users, cause that's a load of bull. Kessy628 (talk) 18:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing for Sharkey can also be found. Check the references on this page. He passes the two source minimum standard. Moreover, consensus was developed over time and for Sharkey through AFD.--William S. Saturn (talk) 18:41, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Since when did anyone say there was a 2 source minimum standard? And why do you keep insisting that consensus was developed through time? WP:Consensus can change And what importance do those sources have on this page, which is about a candidate running for office? Even Andy Martin has run TV ads[9] and had news outlets pick up his candidacy because of his birther issue[10][11] And come on, the Washington Times and the Seattle PI are pretty good sources. I'm not going to toot Andy Martin's horn, but his birther issue, which he argued for throughout 2009 and 2010, actually became an influential topic in the campaign - prompting Obama to release his birth certificate. McMillan has been to nationally-publicized political events like CPAC 2011, and he's been on TV, interviewed on Fox News. Fred Karger has significant coverage in California news sources, and his influence on same-sex marriage issues is comparable to Duncan Hunter and immigration in 2008. When the caucuses start up next year, you will see some candidates receive delegates votes and others will not. That's when the call for obscurity that you've been fighting for will really start to show. Here, let me make this simple. Listen to me closely, Saturn. And think deeply about this, because you have been losing time and effort that you could be spending elsewhere. Forget the AFD discussions you've had, because those are not relevant. Forget the "established consensus" arguments. Tell me, how is Sharkey notable to this page?--Screwball23 talk 19:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

He meets the two source minimum standard established several years ago.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That's garbage. The sources cover 4 other candidates at the same time, saying there's 77 others as well. And you continue to neglect my question. What about the notability standard? And how did he even run as a candidate? There are around 100 FEC reports filed by presidential candidates and wannabes. His didn't even say he was a Republican. Now, according to his "withdrawal", he never even had any donations or contributions to this campaign. I know you are from the wikinews crowd, but this is an encyclopedia. We are writing for history, not news. Why would anyone read an article on a presidential election years from now to find a photo on a guy who didn't have any influence on the election, didn't receive a single vote, didn't have any contributions or expenditures, and never even ran a campaign aside from getting someone at the bank fired?-[12]--Screwball23 talk 19

52, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to have to administer the WP:10 year test to this ridiculous argument. Flash forward 10 years. It is August 27, 2021. Johnny Smith is bored. School starts in a few days, and Johnny has nothing to do. Going to the super-computer-that-will-be-out-soon-I-hope,, he looks up the 2012 election as a random search. Looking at the Republican candidates, who should he see? The obvious ones would be Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul, while Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich would also be fairly important. But then who should the minor ones be? Should it include former Governors Johnson and Roemer, who recieved no support? Should it include Martin, a leader of the birther movement that took the nation by storm in spring 2011? Should it include McMillan, the perennial candidate who participated in several interviews and spoke at a major Republican forum? Should it include Karger, the first openly gay candidate ever to run for the nation's highest office? Should it include Sharkey, an oddball who has been arrested several times, threatened our President, and claimed to be a Vampire?

For Roemer, and Johnson, the answer is of course. For Martin and Karger, the answer is also a pretty definitive yes. While McMillan is debateable, I would consider that to also be a yes.

Now consider Sharkey. For the other five that receive minimal coverage, the descriptions given make them seem notable (McMillan to a lesser extent) for this election. But Sharkey's description sounds like, well, you get the idea. Saturn, I just don't undersand why you won't budge on this. There was not any consensus on the last debate, and there is now. SOXROX (talk) 19:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

As I said I would, I've opened an RfC on the criteria of inclusion. We need to get to the root of this problem, and the criteria is the issue here. If the criteria is tightened to stop candidates such as Sharkey from being considered notable, this discussion becomes moot. Kessy628 (talk) 21:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No it won't. I can tell from Saturn's disregard for wikipedia's other policies that his scorn is far from over. You think you can draft a set of foolproof criteria that everyone will agree to so that people, all people, all editors, from now on, will continue to use those and will respect them and end all discussions from then on? You're getting delusional, my friend. I can promise you that this discussion won't stop here, or in 2016, or anywhere else. The long-term importance is important, not some bullshit criteria. I know how administrators on wikipedia work too, and they abuse policy all the time. The idea that you can make a quantifiable policy that will work 100% of the time just isn't true. And I'm surprised you would even believe in this idea of a "criteria" based on the fact you know already how it was never fully-accepted anyway.--Screwball23 talk 23:03, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Marriage Vow

Why does "Marriage Vow" link to the article on Bob_Vander_Plaats? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcus Licinius Crassus (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean? SOXROX (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Marriage Vow under the pledges section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcus Licinius Crassus (talk • contribs) 20:23, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I got what you mean. I took out the link temporarily. You can see my edit note, but basically I can't find a page for the organization that the marriage vow is with, The Family Leader, so for now I just took out the link. If people can think of another page to link to then fine, but linking to a random person is just... well, random. Kessy628 (talk) 20:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Sharkey Withdrawl

Jonathan Sharkey withdrew from the race yet has not been added to the withdrawn candidates section. We never came to the consensus of removing him based on the notability of his candidacy, thus he should be added to the withdrawn candidates section. David copperson (talk) 17:34, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

There was never a consensus for his inclusion. Please see the lengthy discussion above. And don't forget the burden of proof is on the person adding the content.--Screwball23 talk 18:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, but the page is now locked because of the Jonathon Sharkey dilemma.David copperson (talk) 01:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

presidential primaries, 2012 - topic bans

Hi - as this is going to clearly be a disrupted topic area - The last primaries was as I remember extremely contentious disrupted area. I suggest users edit warring and contributing in an unduly partisan or pointy manner should be reported with a topic ban request at the earliest appearance of the disruption at WP:ANI, first request a warning then and a topic ban if edit pattern is repeated. Off2riorob (talk) 00:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Ron Paul Section

There are individual sections dedicated to the growing popularity of Michele Bachmann and the entrance of Rick Perry because these events are influential to the Republican race. Should there not also be a section dedicated to the strong and enthusiastic support for Ron Paul and how it has been shaping straw polls throughout the race. Also a section dedicated to the alleged media's treatment of Ron Paul, which has been dominating media headlines for some time?David copperson (talk) 18:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the media attention to his lack of attention has been gaining, and it's been on mainstream stories. I support the addition of that material, and I have mentioned it. However, the straw polls idea is not something I've seen much of. It's also going to be months and months before we see all the straw polls come through, and aside from CPAC and Ames, I don't know what importance those polls have in the long term. Please remember that the caucuses will begin next year, and when delegates start piling in, the relevance of a few straw polls will be moot.--Screwball23 talk 18:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but Paul's performance at Ames is 1 of the factors that pushed Pawlenty out. I know there's 1 sentence in the Bachmann section that talks about Paul coming in a close second to Bachmann, but if a Paul section was made that would deserve at least a sentence or 2 there. Kessy628 (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll author a Ron Paul section and post it here, since the page is now locked. An admin can add it, or I can add it if the page becomes unlocked.David copperson (talk) 01:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If there's gonna be a Ron Paul section there should be a Herman Cain section as well. Especially, since according to Fox News's Focus Group Herman Cain won the first debate. Any time any candidate stood out in the media that should be posted here. That debate was one of those times. As you described above Bachmann and Paul caused Pawlenty to drop out after Ames, another reason to mention names. Any time a name is standing out in the news it should be discussed here. --Diamond Dave (talk) 17:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The reason for the Ron Paul section is because of both the increase in standing he's enjoyed since 2008 and because of the fact that his views, once considered extreme/fringe, have become mainstream for Republicans. A Herman Cain section would be going overboard in my opinion, however his "winning" of the first debate should be mentioned. Kessy628 (talk) 01:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, it should at least mention that Cain "won" the first debate. It was a notable event during the campaign. Perry and Bachmann's entrances were notable events during the campaign. Romney had been considered the front runner, until Perry jumped in, so it changed the field. I don't know if Bachmann's entry was as significant, good to point that she announced during the second debate though. More I think about it, we should be writing about specific candidates, but about the campaign in general and moments when certain candidates stand out. Cain winning the first debate, Romney considered the front runner, Bachmann considered VP material after announcing in 2nd debate. Tim Pawlenty drops out after losing Ames Poll to Bachmann and Paul. Perry considered the front runner. But then recent gallup polls show Cain in the lead. It should be driven by who being discussed in the media and why. Because I think it becomes original work when we start picking and choosing sections for each candidate. --Diamond Dave (talk) 12:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

FEC a RS?

Why is the FEC considered a RS? Are filings considered 1st or secondary sources to the candidate? Just citing the FEC filing smacks of being original research. Fasttimes68 (talk) 14:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think its the reason for this argument. With the FEC considered a reliable source. It has caused edit wars and controversy. Not only has Sharkey caused problems, but so has people adding Ole Savior, John Davis, and Ken Grammer. If the FEC is removed as an essential source, it dcreases the potential for arguments like these. SOXROX (talk) 14:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

An FEC filing report should be considered a primary, not secondary source, IMO, as it filled out directly by the person in question (or by a staff or assistant of that person). Also, filing with the FEC should not be an absolute prerequisite for being listed as a candidate on a Wikipedia page because

1) As the FEC does not require candidates to file until they have $5,000 in campaign contributions, some candidates hold off on filing and/or fundraising activity for weeks or months after formally announcing thier candidacy. Then there are cases like Ralph Nader's 1996 presidential campaign in which he deliberately limited his total campaign budget to $5,000 so he wouldn't have to file paperwork w/ the FEC. If candidate listings on Wikipedia articles were strictly limited to candidates having FEC filing reports on record, then Nader - who was the Green Party nominee in '96 and had the 4th highest vote total that year, would have to be removed from the 1996 presidential election page & template.

2) If I'm not mistaken, candidates who completely or predominately finance their own campaigns are not required to fill out the paperwork. Very notable case in point: Ross Perot financed his own campaign in 1992. Look up Perot in the FEC candidate database search and you'll see that he filed for his 2nd campaign in 1996, when he spent considerably less of his money and accepted contributions from outside sources, but there is no listing for his '92 campaign. Again, if we were to limit candidate listings to only those w/ FEC filing on record, Perot would have to be removed from the '92 election page & template, thus erasing one of the most historically significant independent presidential campaigns in modern history and leaving 19% of the popular vote in that election unaccounted for.

3) If you look at any candidate's filing on the FEC database, you will see this: "Candidate listings may appear here as a result of draft committees or independent expenditure committees registering with the FEC." This happened in 2008 when a group of Michael Bloomberg supporters managed to get him listed with the FEC in that election cycle even though Bloomberg did not run in '08, even for five seconds. So there is the potential for being misled into thinking a person who is not a candidate is, if you don't read the fine print.

So while an FEC filing is to be preferred, it should be clarified that the inclusion standard is: FEC filing, or formal announcement of candidacy, with of course two reliable secondary sources.--JayJasper (talk) 21:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Criteria for Inclusion

A large discussion has gone on about the criteria for inclusion of a candidate, specifically what makes a candidate "notable." Currently, the only criteria is that the person has filed with the FEC and is notable enough to have a wikipedia page. The issue occurs from candidates such as Jonathon Sharkey, who is notable by wikipedia standards, however his campaign is not notable. Recent proposals have included the candidate meeting a certain polling in a certain number of national polls, the candidate's campaign being notable enough to have a wikipedia page, or the candidate being talked about in a certain number of national newspapers. This RfC is to attempt to get an outside opinion on the issue and hopefully create a new consensus. Kessy628 (talk) 21:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No, the idea of creating a criteria is not the most intelligent way of doing this. I don't mean that anyone here is a little unintelligent (...ahem), but if the criteria is laid out, someone will use the criteria somehow, someway, to add an insignificant candidate. There is no other way around it. The 10-year test, the notability of the campaign, the activity and influence of the campaign, all of these just can't be quantified in # of news stories. If someone put out a threshold, it would allow people to think less and it unburdens them from the principles that wikipedia stands on. So instead of a person thinking, "I'm editing a page on the 2012 race", they suddenly look at rules on how many sources a person needs to be on the page, and then they can fight for an unimportant piece of trivia that no one will care about in 1 yr, let alone 10 yrs. This is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Information has to be notable and cited in good sources. It needs to be history, not news. Those are the principles that stand. The criteria is a failure from the start. Even if you could draft a set of criteria, they would have to be enforced just like the principles. And that's assuming you can get the criteria set. Don't forget, wikipedia's policies change all the time. Long stroy short, you're wasting your time, and I think if you want to have a productive time on wikipedia, you will want to move towards the principles SOXROX and I have cited instead of arguing about arbitrary criteria with people like William S. Saturn.--Screwball23 talk 22:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

^Seconded^ SOXROX (talk) 22:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The lack of a clear criteria will result in a constant edit war. This page will be locked and updating would be nearly impossible. If there wasn't a criteria, how could anyone explain to Ken Grammer (the non-notable candidate that tried to put himself on this list) that he couldn't be listed? The current criteria works. Let me now explain it further to avoid any confusion. It includes three parts:

1. FEC registration or announcement of candidacy
2. Notability established per wikipedia standards (survived AFD)
3. Two source minimum coverage of the candidacy

I saw an interesting suggestion above of separating the candidates into "minor" and "major", but what constitutes "minor" or "major"? That requires a criteria as well.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:20, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The main reason I'm pushing for criteria is for stability. One thing I will agree with Saturn on is that the lack of some sort of criteria will result in unnecessary edit wars. Furthermore, I agree with what you've said in principle Screwball, but those policies can be read in multiple ways. Using those policies alone will result in needless problems on who does and does not fit into those. In short, I agree with you, but in reality it just wouldn't work in my opinion. Kessy628 (talk) 22:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of minor and major Saturn I made that suggestion months ago. Sigh.... But anyways, I have to say if we do that, and we probably shouldn't it would have to be based on who participated in the debates. However, I think it should be very easy to determine who's relevant to an election. I know you'll bring up third party candidates, too, but you'll (hopefully) notice that in United States presidential election, 2008, there is a section titled 'Other Candidates' that mentions four third party candidates- Independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr Green party nominee Cynthia McKinney, and Constitution party Chuck Baldwin. Why not do that here? We already have an article on 2012 third party and independent canddates, so we can do the same there. As for the major parties, we definitely should be able to tell the difference between a serious nominee and a not so serious nominee. I'm telling you, one day, future Wikipedians will look back in this archive see this discussion, and laugh. It's that pointless. SOXROX (talk) 22:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The only third party candidates included on the 2008 page were those that achieved ballot access in enough states to possibly win a majority of the electoral college. On this page, perhaps you could section "Candidates that participated in debates" and "Other candidates", but you would then have to account for the withdrawn candidates. Each section would need a section for withdrawn candidates, resulting in four tables. This seems unnecessary since we're not dealing with large numbers here.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

But why? Don't you understand the policy of WP:RECENTISM? Why are you wasting time from your busy life (...I'm taking a wild assumption here) to keep putting up non-notable candidates that have no short term or long term importance?--Screwball23 talk 22:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what recentism has to do with anything in this discussion. However, I do see it in the excessive emphasis and detail in the ill-conceived Fox News section.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you out of your mind? Fox News is one of the higher rating cable networks, is highly political, and in this election, 4 of the leading GOP contenders worked there, and Palin continues to work there. Palin is under contract to the network and can't even appear on other news sources for interviews. The sources on this are from the NY Times, Politico, Huffington Post, etc., etc. Furthermore, I definitely passed your minimum 2 references for something to be notable. I want an apology from you. You actually deleted the section because, according to you, it's "completely irrelevant". That means, in plain English, you completely eliminated history from readers of wikipedia, because you want to spite me for following wikipedia policy against your ill-conceived "consensus established 2 yrs back". Your ignorance is unbelievable.--Screwball23 talk 23:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Lets not reduce ourselves to personal attacks guys. And at this point, I'm VERY close to removing Sharkey from the page due to the consensus in the discussion. Only the RfC holds me back. SOXROX (talk) 23:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Come on, the burden of proof is on Saturn to support its inclusion. We've established consensus on this, and I'm all for third party comments, but let's pull this and work on advancing the page. Its not to anyone's best interest to wait for another comment to take action - any more time on this and we'll all probably end up drinking blood. :-) --Screwball23 talk 02:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

So what is the alternate criteria proposal? I say that we simply look to see if they are on any of the polls on the national polling page, and if they are on at least 2-3, then they could be included in the gallery. However, for minor candidates I think should still be listed on the page if they have a wikipedia article, just not in the gallery and in their own separate section. If they dropped out, we would just italicize the name, not create a "dropped out minor candidates" section. Thunderstone99 (talk) 04:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Filing with the FEC or filing with their state government makes someone a candidate doesn't it? The idea of notability is reserved for standalone articles, not each piece of information added to an article. I would say an absolutely clear standard would simply be "They have filed with the FEC or their state", and leave it at that. Anything beyond that is open to too much interpretation. -- Avanu (talk) 20:09, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

And at this point, I'm VERY close to removing Sharkey from the page due to the consensus in the discussion-- Not sure what "consensus" you are talking about SOXROX, considering there were only three participants besides the nominator in the RfC. So far, this discussion has been about creating separate tables for supposed major and minor candidates. Creating a "minor candidate" table seems like it would be too contentious and trying to figure out appropriate criteria would be troublesome. I'm not seeing a big issue about listing Sharkey as a candidate who withdrew in the same section as all the other candidates. This has nothing to do with his campaign, and merely reflects that 1) He filed the FEC paperwork and 2) that he is was a notable candidate by WP standards, and 3) that he announced he withdrawal. I support keeping Sharkey in the current Withdrew candidacy section with everyone else who has/will withdraw. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 20:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jethrobot, but if having Sharkey/McMillan/whoever in is too much of an issue for some people (I don't see why people are so upset over this) I support my idea of keeping minor candidates on the page on their own, non-gallery list. Thunderstone99 (talk) 20:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I could support that. My main problem with Sharkey appearing as is is due to WP:DUE. Sharkey's campaign was nonexistent; he filed and that's all. To give him the same treatment as Rick Perry or Mitt Romney is giving him undue weight in my opinion. How about this proposal: candidates that have appeared in a major, official debate are counted as major candidates, while those that haven't are minor. This would mean that the following candidates would be counted as major by my count (and the debate main page): Cain, Romney, Perry, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Huntsman, Bachmann, Paul, and Santorum. Johnson also would be included, as he participated in the first debate back in May, as would McCotter, who has been invited to the CNN debate in September. Minor candidates would be everyone else who meets the current criteria, as Saturn described above, which would include everyone from Roemer and Karger to Sharkey. By doing this, there's set criteria for inclusion as a major candidate, however there aren't really any arguments on who is counted as an actual candidate. Any complaints about this idea? Kessy628 (talk) 21:30, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

That seems good, as long as the minor ones are still on the page, just not with their own gallery. Also, if a minor candidate drops out, we should just italicize the name, not create whole new table. Thunderstone99 (talk) 21:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I think Kessy's idea definitely is the best solution. And yes Thunderstone, we shouldn't give a gallery to minor candidates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soxrock24 (talk • contribs) 21:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah just a listing, no gallery needed. And I agree with Thunderstone, just italicize the minor candidates who drop out, vs. making a new list/gallery/table/whatever. Kessy628 (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The proposal seems reasonable, but I don't quite see why the minor candidates cannot be presented in a gallery. Every listing on this page comes in the gallery form.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:DUE is why. Having the minor candidates as prominent as the major ones is giving undue weight to them, and then there's no point of having minor and major candidate listings separate. Kessy628 (talk) 22:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

So individuals such as Gary Sinise that only received speculation should be presented in a gallery, but not actual candidates? The undue argument doesn't make much sense since the so-called "minor candidates" will already be separated.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume that only the major candidates would be on the main page for the election, with the minor list being on this page only. Thunderstone99 (talk) 22:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that this gives undue weight to Sharkey's campaign, because this isn't about his campaign. It's about his candidacy in the primary, and he was a candidate just like all the others. The fact that his campaign is minimal shouldn't matter when it comes to simply moving him from a "current candidates" to a "withdrawn" table. The fact that his picture is there also isn't giving undue weight, because his picture alone isn't representative of campaign-related content. It only serves to identify the candidate. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 22:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Fine, keep the picture. Personally I think a gallery should really only be important for major candidates currently running or having withdrawn, and everything else (minor candidates, speculated candidates, declined candidates, and previously speculated candidates) could just be lists, or at least galleries hidden by default (though that I don't know how to do wiki-code wise). What matters more to me is making the distinction between major and minor candidates as per a criteria. Kessy628 (talk) 23:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

@Saturn: Actually, I was wondering if reducing the declined/ceased speculation lists to just lists, not galleries (if not deleting them altogether) might not be a good idea for space reasons. How many other presidential articles have lists of this sort? In the 2008 one, only Cheney and Rice are mentioned as declining to run. Thunderstone99 (talk) 23:06, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

You can't just delete the speculated candidates. As I've said time and time again, this is not a scoreboard. If space becomes a problem (and it may if Screwball continues to add minute details), then the speculated candidates could be moved to a separate page. I see no valid reason to not illustrate candidates, especially when we have pictures for them.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Speculated, I agree, should be kept. Declined and previous candidates could probably be turned into lists or deleted, as they're known to not have anything to do directly with the campaign anymore. Kessy628 (talk) 23:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The declined candidates were once speculated candidates.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

No disagreement there, but key word is once. If they're speculated to enter the race (as Perry and Paul Ryan were), they can be readded, but to keep them now is just unnecessary in my opinion. Still, at this point I'm open to compromise, if only to get this whole thing finally finished. Kessy628 (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Speculated candidates are only important because they may enter the race later. Once they decline/speculation ceases, they no longer can affect the race any more than any other prominent politician. There are only three speculated candidates left, they'll declare or deny within the month I bet. Thunderstone99 (talk) 23:31, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems you're looking at this as if it's a scoreboard. That is the wrong perspective. This is an historical article. In the matter of historical interest it must be noted that certain individuals were speculated to run and that said individuals chose not to run. It's more or less a reflection of the media and modern society's taste in candidates.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so turn it into a list. Fine as a historical perspective maybe it would be of interest to have that in it. But also as a historical perspective the primary focus should be on the actual campaign and those in it, not those who were speculated to enter but didn't for whatever reason. Make it a drop-down list sort-of-thing, but it doesn't need to be a full gallery; that's just unnecessary. Kessy628 (talk) 23:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter to me how they are listed, just so they are listed. In no way should it detract from the primary focus of the article or include excessive, overly detailed prose as in the "Fox News" section. It should just be noted. As in every presidential election, nearly all coverage was speculation until the candidates started announcing earlier this year, and speculation still continues.--William S. Saturn (talk) 00:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Saturn, are you for real? You want to come here, disregard everything that was said about the 10-year test and the fact that this is history, not news, and suddenly you want to play the angle that Jonathon Sharkey was a historical figure that reflected the media and modern society's taste in candidates? that is absolute delusion. I don't even think you believe what you're writing. I think you just hate losing arguments and have ownership issues. And I have no idea how you of all people can even claim that I am adding minute details. I mean, look in the mirror. The fox news section is absolutely important, and you wanted to delete that because it was "irrelevant". But suddenly, candidates like Jonathon Sharkey are "history" and a reflection of "modern society's tastes" Give me a break. You're full of shit and you know it.--Screwball23 talk 00:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Screwball23, your comments are inflammatory. Discussion like this is unhelpful. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 00:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think he's just confused. Many issues have been discussed here and he seems to be mixing them all up. The historical comments were made in reference to the speculated candidates, which Sharkey is not. Screwball is having trouble understanding that this discussion is not even about Sharkey, but the inclusion criteria for candidates. For Screwball's sake, I'll repeat the situation with Sharkey: The wikipedia community determined that Sharkey is a notable individual through several AFDs. He filed with the FEC for president as a Republican and his run is mentioned in two reliable sources. The current page protection is the result of the mindset that we don't need a criteria and that we can remove candidates by "voting them off" on this talk page. Let's be reasonable.--William S. Saturn (talk) 00:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL Screwball, the candidate you are disparaging is up for a Good ariticle nomination that I'm reviewing and Difluroethene nominated. But anyways, lets not reduce ourselves to personal attacks, please. You know you're always gonna be against Sharkey's inclusion, and Saturn for his inclusion. And believe me, I'm on your side here. But we need to be compromising like Kessy has been doing this entire time. SOXROX (talk) 00:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Compromise Proposal

Ok, so the idea I proposed seems to have gotten some traction. Since the page is protected now, I'd like to get a vote going on people's opinions on the matter, keeping discussion going above as needed. If enough people agree to change the page to the proposal given, or modify the proposal, or whatever, we can change this area to an edit request, or get an administrator to change it, or whatever. The current proposal is this:

• Candidates will be listed as "major candidates" and "other candidates"

• Major candidates will be candidates who have appeared in 1 of the official, national debates. As I listed above, this would include the following candidates: "Cain, Romney, Perry, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Huntsman, Bachmann, Paul, and Santorum. Johnson also would be included, as he participated in the first debate back in May, as would McCotter, who has been invited to the CNN debate in September."
• Other candidates will be any other candidates who meet the current criteria: they are notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, they have 2 verifiable, reliable sources talking about them, and they have filed with the FEC (Saturn if I misread your writing of the current criteria, you have my permission to change this to what it actually is).

• A gallery will be used to display the major candidates, along with the withdrawn major candidates. It will also be used for the speculated candidates section, with the same criteria for that section staying (2 independent, verifiable sources less than 1 month old if I'm remembering correctly).
• A list format will be used for all other sections (other candidates, declined candidates, and previously speculated candidates). Minor candidates who drop out will have their names italicized.

Let me know if I mixed anything up, and lets get this over with already. Kessy628 (talk) 00:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, obviously I Support this, just to make it clear. Kessy628 (talk) 00:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the "major" and "minor" labels. Rather you should use "Candidates that participated in debates" and "Other candidates". This will prevent edit wars.--William S. Saturn (talk) 01:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The way I see it in my mind, the criteria would be listed kind of as it is under the Speculated Candidates section; something such as "Major candidates are those that have participated in an official, national debate." and "Minor candidates are those that have filed with the FEC or announced their candidacy, but have not gained enough notability to be featured in a national debate." Sort of like that. Kessy628 (talk) 01:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I will support this as long as the difference between major and minor is noted. I would prefer a gallery for the minor candidates for aesthetic purposes, but that will not affect my support.--William S. Saturn (talk) 01:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Support the proposal, either with "major" and "minor" or with the specific titles that William S. Saturn has suggested. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 01:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Support With only the major candidates/dropped out major candidates having galleries. Thunderstone99 (talk) 01:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Support per Kessy. By disticting major and minor, it would provide a good precedent for future articles. That way we don't have more messes like we are having right now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soxrock24 (talk • contribs) 01:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Per David Copperson below, I suggest renaming minor candidates other candidates. SOXROX (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Support I couldn't support this proposal any more. I would not support a gallery for minor candidates, or whatever they end up being called, though; they should be kept in list format.Gage (talk) 03:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose The Wikipedia notability clause is not relevant. If the candidate has an RS backing them up, they should be included.m However I could support a 3rd tier of non-notables if they are sourced. Fasttimes68 (talk) 03:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the FEC filing of a candidate is a RS, meaning that by that every candidate could be included. Hence why there is some criteria for inclusion. Kessy628 (talk) 04:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I could support this with at least one RS that is not the FEC, eg > 1 RS. But the notability clause needs to be removed to avoid confusion. But if a non FEC RS publishes the whole list this would coung for inclusion. This is why i suggesged a 3rd category of non notables, Fasttimes68 (talk) 13:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Support Change the name of the "minor" candidates to "other" (as to not denote inferiority) and I'de fully support it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David copperson (talk • contribs) 22:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Now that is a really good suggestion. I defintiely endorse this change. SOXROX (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Already made the change. Like I said below, I agree, and I can see this change being uncontroversial enough that it wouldn't change any of the current support votes. Kessy628 (talk) 23:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

5 Supports and 1 oppose... Should this be implemented now? (well, sent to an admin to implement because the page is locked)Thunderstone99 (talk) 22:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC) Well?Thunderstone99 (talk) 21:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The page protect has worn off, so we can add it. I don't really know how to work with tables, though, so if someone else can implement it mostly I can do minor adjustments. Also, as a sub-consensus, it seems that Saturn is the only 1 in favor of keeping a gallery for minor candidates, with at least 3 people looking to just have them in list format. Kessy628 (talk) 23:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It has been done! Thunderstone99 (talk) 02:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

! Thanks to all participants, and especially Kessy for his excellent compromises. The next "Great Compromiser"? :) SOXROX (talk) 03:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Preciate it. I'm just glad to be of help. Hopefully I can keep this up in the future haha. Kessy628 (talk) 04:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Alternative Compromise Proposal

Candidates

• Major Candidates (meaning those who have filed with the FEC, or their state, and have either participated in at least 1 debate or raised over $100,000 in campaign contributions)
• Other Candidates (meaning those who have filed with the FEC, or their state, and not participated in a debate)

Speculative

• Speculative (other people that seem to be newsworthy or notable)

The term 'minor' candidate could be percieved as saying a candidate is 'inferior' somehow. Also, notability is not required for items in articles, just article topics themselves, so as long as they have filed with the FEC or their state, I say they meet the standard of being mentioned as a candidate. Also, before any debates have started, Major and Other would simply be combined and you would have either Candidates or Speculative. -- Avanu (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The issue of notability is for the reason of quality control. By your standard, we would have to list all 100+ of the candidates who have filed with the FEC as Republicans, when the vast majority have only 1 RS available for them: their FEC filing. That's the reason for them having some notability: to keep the article from being a copy of the FEC database.

The other ideas you mention, I agree with. Changing "minor" to "other" is much more NPOV and better wording, and for future campaigns having "candidates" and "speculative" categories would be necessary for the pre-debate campaign. Kessy628 (talk) 05:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem including all FEC filers. I don't agree that quality means we only mention 'the best' candidates in the article. To me, completeness would be a better measure of quality in an article such as this. However, the the vein you describe, we could easily say people in the 'Other' category don't get a picture maybe, then it would just be a much smaller and simpler thing to maintain. -- Avanu (talk) 06:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOT and WP:DUE I think are/were the arguments used against including every single filer, and hence the way of differentiating who was notable enough for inclusion. I think notable is a bad wording for this: personallly when I say notable, I'm not referring to WP:NOTABLE and such, but more so to a level of notability that a person would have where his inclusion isn't undue weight for a super unknown/minor candidate. If I'm reading this wrong, by all means correct me, as I've only been here for a month or so and do really want to learn, but that's my current reading on those policies and how they fit into this situation. Kessy628 (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the first idea first, however, this one is OK as well. Thunderstone99 (talk) 01:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Like I mentioned earlier, I see no real problem with having a complete list, but I do not mind adding additional standards as long as we are not inadvertently being 'partisan' in our listing. We shouldn't be excluding people because the pundits say so, or because some political strategists say so, but based on something that is as objective a standard as we can come up with. That might be difficult, but we're an encyclopedia, not a political blog. -- Avanu (talk) 01:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Add some info about the debates

First of all, why is the page blocked from editing? Does anyone know? Secondly, anyone who can edit, I really think there should be details about the Debates on this page is goes into a lot the campaign details that are listed there. Can someone add this information or what needs to be done to allow people to be able to edit the page? --Diamond Dave (talk) 17:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems that the page was blocked because of excessive edit warring. As for more details on the debates, there is this article: Republican Party (United States) presidential debates, 2012. What details do you think should added on this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NextUSprez (talk • contribs) 17:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It would be good if some of the debate details from Republican Party (United States) presidential debates, 2012, particularly that Herman Cain won the first debate according to the Fox New focus group as at the time, it did temporarily paint Herman Cain as a front runner, until of course Romney entered the race. The debates in general are an important part of the changes of the campaign. The article does mention Pawlenty dropping out after losing the Ames Poll to Bachmann and Paul, but it should also be mentioned that Pawlenty and Bachmann had a heated exchange in the third debate that also lead to Pawlenty's withdrawal. But some of that debate content from Republican Party (United States) presidential debates, 2012 should be included here and a link to full page included as well. Thanks --Diamond Dave (talk) 12:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

FYI, there is a link to the debate article under the sub-section Debates and forum.--Rollins83 (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but info about the debate should still be mentioned this article as they do play a significant effect on the campaign trail as well. --71.174.129.210 (talk) 22:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Other candidates gallery

Why not give the "other candidates" a gallery? We have images for them. Wouldn't a gallery be better for the readers than a list?--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I strongly oppose that proposal. Gage (talk) 05:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Why?--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I support the above compromise proposal, which states that all minor, or other, candidates should be listed in list format. Gage (talk) 06:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It takes up space, it give them undue importance, it is against the compromise. In the 2008 election article, only the candidates that had ballot access in enough states to win had pictures (well, except Alan Keyes, but his picture was from when he ran as a Republican). Brian Moore, Glorio La Riva, and Ted Weill all had pictures, but they weren't put on the page because they were not as important as the others due to their lack of a chance to win. Thunderstone99 (talk) 21:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing pages. This thread is discussing this article. The problem with weight (which does not exist) is already resolved with the reorganization. To not include the photos when we have them is just a disservice to readers.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you're confusing the issue. The problem with weight doesn't exist because of the change. If we give them pictures, then truth be told there's no reason to have separate galleries. Keep it as is. Kessy628 (talk) 23:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

How does a gallery give more weight to something? Its only function is to provide a visual for the reader.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It makes them big and take up as much space as major candidates. There is a reason why only really major candidates' campaigns are talked about here, that is because having a paragraph on every one's campaign, giving them lots of space, makes them seem more important. The Picture topic is valid, I was showing that just because we have a picture, we don't need to include them it in the article. Thunderstone99 (talk) 03:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Denying ACTUAL candidates a picture gallery while providing a picture gallery to people who are merely speculative or even declined/denied seems like a bigger violation of WP:DUE. Let's have some consistency in treatment at least. -- Avanu (talk) 04:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

In my proposal above, I had said that declined and formerly speculated would be in list form. That should be changed for in my opinion. I just think that its a waste of space on the page and brings more attention than is due to the other candidates, however a majority of the people who responded to the above proposal had said to keep the candidates in a list. If people want them in a gallery, though, then put a gallery in; all I know is that this needs to be finished so that we can get on with the important part of the article: fleshing it out and adding in important information. Kessy628 (talk) 04:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Or the rest of the people could be in a list. Doesn't matter to me, just have consistency. A not-running seems to merit less than an actual-running. -- Avanu (talk) 05:17, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Honestly I think that the major candidates can be in a table, and everyone else can be in a list, the reason being that these are the candidates most influencing the race. As said above, though, I'll go along with whatever the consensus is. Kessy628 (talk) 05:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather remove all of the galleries for the declined/previously speculated candidates then give one to the minor candidates. Especially since some of them would have been minor candidates anyways. Thunderstone99 (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Using the term "perennial candidate"

Typically we see the term "perennial candidate" used in a derisive way to indicate that the candidate in question has run many times. Is it proper for the article to make reference to some candidates as "perennial" and, if so, what is the standard for indicating someone is "perennial"? Run for office 4 times? Just because a source says so? Comments please. -- Avanu (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

That is the best description for Jimmy McMillan, whose sole notability is running for Mayor and Governor of New York multiple times. However, Andy Martin is more a political activist, because his notability is the Obama Birth Certificate controversy. I don't know what to classify Sharkey as...Thunderstone99 (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Sharkey could either be perennial candidate (for his various runs for office), political activist (for his comments about Bush and for founding his own party), or professional wrestler. I think any would fit him. As for others, I think the best thing to do would be to use a title that explains why they're notable. Therefore, I agree with Thunderstone for Martin and McMillan's titles. Kessy628 (talk) 20:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Kessy, your approach seems to be more in line with WP:DUE and BLP, and seems like a reasonable standard. So, we would only use "perennial" if there is no other notable title. It is still a bit vague, but approaches a reasonable method. -- Avanu (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If you look at their individual articles, Martin is a "American perennial candidate for political office and recurrent litigant", McMillian is a "American political activist, perennial candidate, Vietnam War veteran, self-proclaimed karate expert, as well as a former postal worker and private investigator from Brooklyn, New York." and Sharkey is a "American actor, director, professional wrestler and perennial candidate". These three are supposedly notable for perennial candidate so I think we should stick with that for all three or change all three. I don't agree with calling one a perennial candidate and not the other two.ObieTalk (talk) 21:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Page protection

I requested page protection because all of this Sharkey business needs to develop consensus here. I apologize if this prevents newer sections from being improved for the next few days, but this edit warring has got to stop. Get your act together, folks. And don't even think about sidetracking the RfC with "it's the wrong version" crap. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 20:31, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This is bullshit. Nowhere, ever, anywhere, in any history book, encyclopedia, anywhere else would this happen.

This is a candidate who didn't even receive a vote, who filed paperwork that didn't even state "Republican" on it, had absolutely no campaign activity of note, and his only sources were either self-generated (his own FEC filing), or from local, non-notable sources. The fact that he won't even appear with ballot access on the Republican Party is important. The fact that he was never in a single straw poll, campaign event, political debate - which included him only in passing while mentioning other wacky candidates. Not a single notable source mentioned him, he had no continued coverage, and his link to the Republican Party is not even clear. I'm also suspicious about the fact that the image taken of him was self-uploaded.

This is against wikipedia policy too. If a plane crashed, would a gallery of every single person who died on the plane be listed? Is there a gallery of every single person who died on 9/11? I think that would be notable. I mean, someone dying during a national tragedy had a lot more to do with the event than a person who ran for office by filing papers with some government office, only to rescind their paperwork months later. I would love to know how many people file each year for office, because the WP:RECENTISM violations that would occur would be off the charts if every single FEC report was mentioned here. We're opening up the floodgates to hell, and not just because Sharkey is a vampire. (I'm joking) I'm talking about the 100s of people who file FEC reports every year to run for Prez. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's not Trivia. We don't get paid to copy and paste brainless info for some office. We certainly are not responsible for posting indiscriminate information here. This is not even a newspaper. We are writing for history. And this doesn't even meet the 2 week test, let alone the 10 year test. In 10 years, a person will not learn about our society or the Republican Party's primaries from this page. Saturn is absolutely bonkers if he thinks that the fact that 4 candidates worked for Fox News was "irrelevant" while he wasted days, weeks of his life to edit war me on some candidate like this. People who read this article years from now will not learn history from Sharkey's candidacy. They won't learn, as Saturn is trying to say, "modern society's tastes". They will learn how stupid wikipedia was, and how much cruft and arrogance its editors used in their boring lives to place candidates with undue weight on the page. I don't even see how people bothered to post the day-by-day speculation of candidates on the page. That doesn't make sense either, but I digress...--Screwball23 talk 00:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And where is the precedent here? Larry Flynt ran for Prez in 1984, but that doesn't mean it has to be on the 1984 election page. I know for a fact that a ton of candidates ran in California's recall election in 2003, but that doesn't mean we need a gallery of all the hundreds of candidates that ran. I see this as the height of wikipedia's cultism. Rather than follow the principles that wikipedia was founded on - being encyclopedic, etc. - it looks like people are just going to use it for self-promotion, editwarring, and trivia.

I want to make this clear, because up until I came to this page, this page was dominated by speculation, possible speculation, day-by-day speculation, and people were just updating this page day to day with no idea that this is an encyclopedia. I added historical information to this page, which is what every single other primary and election page looked like before this one, and I took flack from those same douches who wasted the last few months doing nothing for this page other than speculation, rumor, and trivia. I think that's disgusting. I want some admins and some higher-ups to see the kind of nonsense that seems to be winning out here. It's crap like this that scares people off wikipedia. People who make up nonsense policies and criteria (2 yrs ago in this case, and without full consensus). People who add trivia, claiming that everything and anything is notable.

And now, I can't even edit the page. It's locked, and it's locked from any editing. I want the admins who completely blocked this page to look at its history and the talk page to see the facts. I've added valuable info. All Saturn has done has been editwar and display ownership to anyone who stood between him and Sharkey.--Screwball23 talk 00:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

As you hopefully can see, we are addressing this issue by making a new consensus, instead of just edit warring like you were doing. Yes, you were edit warring too, instead of actually working with the group of people, Saturn included, who are attempting to make a new consensus that will reduce Sharkey's presence, and the presence of other minor candidates, on the page. Also, I would like to ask how you achieve your ten year test. Do you possess a time machine? Sharkey is not a hundred years old, he could very well do something significant in the next ten years that would make him more significant, and make his candidacy be more history-worthy. Thunderstone99 (talk) 01:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That makes no sense. That's the logical equivalent of starting a wikipedia page on ourselves as potential billionaires or putting a mom and pop shop into a page on fortune 500 businesses because they have the "potential" to perform so in the futrue.--Screwball23 talk 04:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly! We can't see the future, so it is pointless to judge now whether or not someone will be important or not later. The logic of not including or including someone for that reason is senseless. Thunderstone99 (talk) 01:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Huh? I have no idea where you are going with this.-Screwball23 talk 21:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Creation of a new article

I propose the creation of an article titled Republican Party (United States) presidential candidates, 2012 (which currently redirects to this page). On this article, all notable candidates would be listed in a format similar to Democratic Party (United States) presidential candidates, 2012. I propose that all the speculated and denied candidates be moved to this new page and removed from this page.--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support: I feel like this should have already been made. This article really only needs candidates running or withdrawn, not candidates that were never in the race. Kessy628 (talk) 05:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support - 100%. Agree w/ Kessy, a long overdue move.--JayJasper (talk) 05:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support: If it's been done with the Democrats (who have far fewer candidates, of whom Obama is virtually guaranteed the nomination anyway), there's no reason not to have a similar article for the GOP. In fact, both parties had candidate list articles in 2008 (see Republican, Democratic), so having ones for 2012 makes perfect sense. --Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 09:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support per above. SOXROX (talk) 11:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support It is unnecessary to have all of the declined and formerly speculated about people on this page. Thunderstone99 (talk) 15:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support although, as I explained on Talk: United States presidential election, 2012, I'd support a list of all candidates, not just Republicans (that way, we could include third party candidates, such as Jack Fellure, too). I think a criterion of two secondary sources (in addition to the FEC) might be a good idea to set in place as a standard for inclusion. That way, candidates such as Ole Savior, Raphael Herman, Thomas J. Miller and John Davis could be included (since they, at least, have been verified as real persons and have received external coverage), while candidates such as President Emperor Caesar (who may or may not even be a real person) could be excluded. Difluoroethene (talk) 23:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support I agree as long as have a section in this briefly discusses some of the big names that were speculated between November 2008 and the present. Mark Sanford particularly among others should be mentioned in the article as he was discussed many times as a potential candidate until his scandal took him out of speculation. John Ensign I would mention for the same reasons. Bobby Jindal as he was strongly considered up until his speech in December. Dick Cheney is important to mention has many of his attacks on Obama during the pre-election period made him speculated by many. Chris Christie as many in the media keep indicating they want him. Same for Allen West and Mitch Daniels. Mike Huckabee, Jim Demint, amd George Pataki as well. Also, Scott Brown should be mentioned as his special election Massachusetts had played a serious part in the events leading up to 2012 and caused some speculation as to whether he would run or not. Then a link should be included directing them to Republican Party (United States) presidential candidates, 2012. Not sure a criteria for deciding who is in the brief article, but there are some people that came in and out of the speculation since this article was created. It might be worth noting who stayed throughout, who came, went, and came back. --Diamond Dave (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The article has been created: Republican Party (United States) presidential candidates, 2012.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Remover galleries for declined/ceased speculation

I think that, in order to save space, we should remove the galleries of people who were previously speculated about and who declined to run. The prospective gallery can stay, as Palin and Guiliani could still conceivably affect the race if they joined. Those who said they aren't running, or never said anything, can't effect the race any more than the average prominent politician can, by endorsements. Therefore, I think that those two galleries should just be reduced to list format. Thunderstone99 (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Second:I had put forward this idea back when the original compromise proposal was put put, and I still report it. Kessy628 (talk) 13:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that should be done until the article suggested under the discussion for "Proposal: Creation of a new article". Then a brief section should be included in this article mentioning some of the names like Mark Sanford, Mitch Daniels, etc. with a link to the larger article that will have all the candidates on it. --Diamond Dave (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The title of the section is slightly misleading; the idea isn't to 100% remove the candidates from the page, only to reduce it from a picture gallery to a list format, much like in the other candidates section. Kessy628 (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it would be a long list, but I think it's best to have the images, until another page is created. Then we can remove the images and replace it with brieft section that connects to the other page that briefly discusses some of the previously speculated candidates. --Diamond Dave (talk) 17:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Extended content

Where's Rick Santorum on the Infobox at the top? I can't figure out why Rick Santorum isn't displaying on the Info box. I looked at the code in the background and set correctly, but I can't figure out why Santorum's info isn't showing. I tried manipulating it and still can't figure out why Santorum won't appear. Any ideas? --Diamond Dave (talk) 01:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC) Maybe 9 people is the highest number that will fit. Thunderstone99 (talk) 02:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC) Do we really need the candidates photos in the infobox? If all the major candidates can't fit into it, then none should be listed, lest it give the appearance of bias. Besides, they are all erroneously identified as "nominee" which is misleading and potentially confusing to readers.--JayJasper (talk) 03:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC) This is a problem - I'm not good with code but we need to fix this ASAP. NYyankees51 (talk) 03:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC) I changed the wording from "nominee" to candidate", but there's still the problem of not all candidates showing up in the box. Agree w/ NYyankees51 that this needs to be fixed ASAP. If it can't be, the images should be removed from the infobox until such time that it can be fixed.--JayJasper (talk) 03:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC) I could go either way, either we eliminate until the primaries begin, we make sure they are display, and change nominee to candidate, but also is John McCain really considered the incumbent nominee? Is he still considered the Republican Nominee until someone new declared at the convention? --Diamond Dave (talk) 04:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC) I would not consider McCain the incumbent nominee. That title severed from him upon his loss to Obama in 2008. Right now, no one should be considered the incumbent Republican nominee. McCain is now just the "previous" or "most recent" nominee. As for the infobox, according to the documentation of {{Infobox election}}, the maximum number of candidates supported is nine. I think to appear as neutral as possible, no candidates should be featured at present. When the primaries eventually conclude, the top three (or so) in delegate/vote count should be featured, as was done in 2008. --Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 07:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC) I agree w/ Sgt. R.K. Blue that McCain should not be listed as the "incumbent" nominee, as the term incumbent refers to the current holder of an office, not a previous holder of a title. I tried to change it on the inbox to "most recent" but it appears to have a default setting that automatically posts the word "incumbent", and I don't know how to deactivate it. If someone knows how, please feel free to make the change. As for the candidate listing in the infobox, it was removed by User:GageSkidmore, a prudent move per Gage's edit summary comments and Sgt RKB's and my own comments above.--JayJasper (talk) 04:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC) After trying out a few options, the best I could do was this, which still isn't the greatest way of describing John McCain ("Most recent Republican nominee before election"). Unfortunately, there is no way to have McCain list as just "Most recent Republican nominee" without changing the {{Infobox election}} template, which is beyond my expertise. --Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 07:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC) Ownership issues User: William S. Saturn, who has expressed strong ownership issues over this page for weeks now, has recently been editwarring on the title of major candidates, which he believes is subjective despite the fact that the criteria was well-established, is restated multiple times on the page, and has been clearly defined by consensus on this talk page. He has taken the extreme view that it is his right to edit war on the issue and that does not have to take this to the talk page. I'm laying out the issue here, because I know from experience that it's 100% guaranteed to be a waste of time talking with him again.--Screwball23 talk 04:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC) It's best to use descriptive titles, otherwise, it may led to confusion. Regardless of the definition assigned to it by wikipedia users, the term "major" will always be subjective.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC) Screwball's right that you are trying to own the page, Saturn. SOXROX (talk) 10:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC) There's no confusion Saturn. Right under the title it specifically says what defines a major candidate. Consensus was specifically developed to use the titles "major candidates" and "other candidates," and at this point you definitely are violating WP:OWN and trying to impose your specific view over the almost unanimous consensus developed on the page. To quote the first example given on the WP:OWN page: "An editor disputes minor edits concerning layout, image use, and wording in a particular article daily." This is exactly what Saturn is doing at this point. He fought the changes to the article, agreed with consensus when a compromise was proposed, and now is attempting to violate said consensus by changing the wording without any sort of discussion or attempt to follow the compromise. Kessy628 (talk) 14:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC) I didn't know the change would be this controversial. I apologize.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC) Let's be clear here. If you feel sorry simply because you didn't want to stand some "controversy", that apology is not coming from a good place. I say this because we are now in the middle of yet another block on this page, and if you weren't so skilled at getting unblocked, you would probably be blocked from editing right now. Count your blessings, my friend, and remember that Wikipedia's editing is supposed to be controversial. I don't think there has ever been a wikipedia article written by anyone at anytime, that every single person on our planet would find perfect. I'll be the first to admit that I see a lot of bad info here on wikipedia, and I've seen a lot of garbage slip through the cracks because of talented edit warriors. But when an individual starts to assert ownership on a page, and says that their edits are not subject to discussion, that is absolutely unacceptable.--Screwball23 talk 20:50, 6 September 2011 (UTC) I find it more than a little ironic that Screwball is setting himself up as some kind of high-minded crusader against "talented edit warriors", when he himself has been repeatedly warned (and blocked multiple times) for edit warring and 3RR violation. Recently, there was an ANI thread on his behavior, in fact. While Screwball hasn't been officially topic banned from presidential election articles (though the ANI discussion seemed to be trending in that direction), I think he should voluntarily recuse himself from editing this and similar articles for at least a month and stop trying to pick fights. Difluoroethene (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC) Screwball didn't pick this fight. Saturn was the one who attempted to go against a consensus developed less than a week ago. Screwball is simply the one who brought up the issue. While a recusal wouldn't be a bad idea, to say he is picking fights is a personal attack and just a false statement. Kessy628 (talk) 21:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC) Seriously? Saturn just walked free with a blatant 3RR violation. He expressed blatant ownership on this page, and I was the only one to stand up to him. Even the administrators did nothing, and didn't block him despite his refusal to discuss the matter. He practically said his edits were exempt from discussion. If that's not ownership, I don't know what is. And now, you want to target me? You think I should be banned? It's bad enough this page has been blocked. Tell me, how does that make sense? I report the truth to an administrator, and instead of Saturn getting banned, we all have to suffer and can't edit the page. And you think I should be banned?--Screwball23 talk 21:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC) It was a mistake on my part. I apologize. I didn't know changing to a more descriptive title would be met with such opposition. I felt that Screwball was being unreasonable, but I made an err in judgment.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC) Saturn no offense, but you've been here long enough to know that's bullshit. You violated WP:3RR as mentioned above, violated WP:ASG by assuming Screwball was being unreasonable, violated WP:BRD by not bringing it to the talk page as soon as the first revert and signs of a conflict occurred, and blatantly showed ownership of the page. I'm sorry, but saying "I apologize" isn't enough to cut it in this case. Kessy628 (talk) 22:46, 6 September 2011 (UTC) I really could care less what "cut[s] it" for you. If I truly believed I owned this page, I would do a lot more than just change the title of a section. The article is so poorly written, I have no desire to own it.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC) WHOPPER ALERT!!!So you're saying that ever since consensus reversed all the changes you had in mind for the article, that it is poorly written? That, my friend, is evidence of attempting to own a page. SOXROX (talk) 23:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC) No. The prose in the article is atrocious. I have not touched it.--William S. Saturn (talk) 00:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC) Not knowing anything about anyone's behavior, as I wasn't on my computer this past weekend, I do disagree with the title "major candidates", as that's subjective and not defined in the text. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This section is improper on this talk page - it is a blayant personal attack where any WQA issues ought to have been brought up on the WQA noticeblard and not here. Cheers.

Roy Moore Exploring

Resolved

See bottom of thread and topic on disruptive editing below this one. If anyone wants to continue the discussion on this, just relist it with a new section. SOXROX (talk) 21:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Currently Roy Moore is exploring a candidacy. Should he get a gallery? It seems as if he were to declare he was running he would be placed with the "other candidates". He also, I know it's subjective, doesn't seem to have gotten a whole lot of media interest.

It would seem to be it would be more appropriate to make a list for him (even if it is a list of one), rather than a gallery.ObieTalk (talk) 18:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the gallery was left from when candidates such as Romney or Pawlenty were in a formal exploration state. I'd be fine with the gallery turning into a list, but I'm also fine leaving it as is. The entire candidates area just has had too much controversy in the past couple weeks over how to format it for me to argue one way or another. Kessy628 (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, he needs no gallery, especially since he doesn't even have a picture to go in it! Thunderstone99 (talk) 20:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

It is highly misleading to post Roy Moore as a candidate. He is still a prospective candidate, and exploratory committee or not, it doesn't matter. Michael Bloomberg had exploratory committees for Prez before, but that never made him a candidate. For the sake of honesty, I am putting his candidacy in the speculated gallery, where it rightfully belongs. Gage Skidmore may disagree, and there are plenty of people here that disagree with me just because they hate being proven wrong, but the fact is that Roy Moore has been leaning towards the Constitution party. That by itself shows that the entire "formally exploring candidacy" section is nonsense. It is just a hyped up way of saying someone is a prospective candidate. If you disagree, please discuss this on the page before editwarring on the issue. Thank you!--Screwball23 talk 23:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. While he may be leaning towards a run on the Constitution Party line, he still formed an exploratory committee for the Republican nomination (right? I'm assuming so at least considering how long he was left up there). It's not our job to parse his intentions; that's the whole point of WP:NOT#OR, though I'm obviously applying this broadly. If he formed an exploratory committee for the Republican nomination, until he declares otherwise he belongs in a formerly exploring candidacy section. Whether or not pundits say he is running for the Republican nomination or the Constitution Party nomination, he formed an exploratory committee for the Republican nomination, so he belongs. Out of respect and in order to avoid starting yet another edit war, I won't revert Screwball until there is a full consensus, but that's my personal opinion on the matter. Kessy628 (talk) 00:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Screwball, Exploring candidacy isn't that different from saying that you are considering running, just officially. Palin and Guiliani have said they are considering running, but they are listed under prospective. Thunderstone99 (talk) 02:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference, that is an exploratory committee is a legal entity. For months we have regarded the formation of an exploratory committee as a notable step and this should not be changed without discussion. My concern with Moore was that he was not notable enough for a gallery, not that he exploratory committee was not notable enough to be mentioned.ObieTalk (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC) We also did not call him a candidate we said he was "formally exploring candidacy".ObieTalk (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with ObieGrad. An exploratory committee is different from being a speculated candidate; said candidate has filed paperwork with the FEC to set up the committee, and the committee is a legal entity. To treat it as the equivalent of a speculated candidate would be misleading and a wrong characterization of what the committee means. Kessy628 (talk) 02:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I've read article after article on Roy Moore's supposed candidacy lately and it's clear he's just trying to get on the Constitution Party. It is highly unlikely he'll run as a Republican according to the news sources, but more importantly is that he's received less recognition than Thad McCotter, and has attended zero debates, etc. It's not hard to say "I'm running for Prez", and sure isn't hard to say "I'm exploring a run for Prez." In his case, the exploratory committee has been written for most of the year, with more progress towards leaving the GOP than going in.

I'm all for recognition of his exploratory committee. The only difference is the section and the placement. The facts are simple. He's a speculated candidate. It's not complicated, but people seem to make it that way for some twisted reason. I mean, if he was "formally exploring a candidacy", as you believe, why is he going to Constitution Party events? [13] And how formal is this candidacy? Sharkey had a full-out FEC filing, so does that mean we need to put a section on "legal entities" up there? that sounds like a terrible precedent. Can you imagine in 20 yrs reading about "legal entities" of people who didn't run for Prez, but could have if they weren't considering a third party, and ended up doing 3rd party events.

Think in the long run, and yes, I'm talking about the 10 year test, will he still be "formally exploring a candidacy"? It's the same convoluted logic editors used to keep Sharkey on the page. I mean, sure Moore is considering a run, but does the info on him have historic notability for the election? Is it history or news? or it so important that it has to be placed into its own section, for months and months and months, when it is just as speculative as a Palin candidacy?--Screwball23 talk 02:55, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

So make a heading "Exploratory committee formed" and put it under the prospective candidates label. All I'm saying is that Moore is in a different position than Palin and Guliani due to the committee. I agree that it's not a major step in this day and age, but it still is a step ahead of the other 2. Kessy628 (talk) 03:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Why? Why is this such a big issue that it can't be recognized as a possible campaign - which it is? Please keep in mind the notability of this issue. If he was gaining a lot of attention and campaigning tirelessly, then this might be a different story. He's filed some papers that say he may run, or he may not, with no repercussions either way. It's a nice news flash, but it's not historic or notable. And the truth is, it's going to be a waste of time because there is still speculation on him currently, and accuracy will trump over any supposed section for "months-old speculation regarding a formal candidacy on a candidate who is unsure which party he will go into".--Screwball23 talk 03:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I really don't want to argue this. All I'm saying is, this is Sharkey 2.0, and we should follow the format we followed with Sharkey. I may not agree with 100% of the compromise I fashioned, but I'm willing to abide by it. But whatever, do as you wish. I'm more so playing devils advocate here in the sense of neutrality tbh. Kessy628 (talk) 03:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

For the sense of neutrality? Come on, you know I am all for keeping informed on the candidate. I just want to avoid misinforming readers who will come to this thinking of Roy Moore as a "candidate" when his candidacy is a matter of speculation. He didn't come out and say, "I'm running". And here, it's just a simple matter of placement at this point. For months, he's been "formally exploring a candidacy". We don't need rhetoric. We're not some tools for a political campaign, hoping to gain media attention. We're not William Saturn, trying to be useful in some desperate way that requires the most minor or minor edits again and again. What we're doing is writing historically relevant facts pertaining to the presidential election. --Screwball23 talk 04:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This kind of nonsense is a good example of why Screwball should be banned. We've already determined through years of discussion that an exploratory committee = candidacy. To place an individual with an exploratory committee under a "Speculated candidates" heading is bad enough, but to edit war over it is laughable. Add reverting a copy edit and this insightful comment and you complete the trifecta of disruptive editing. Wikipedia requires competence and the current state of this page proves it.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so you want to troll my edits? Believe me, you don't even want me to dig up your dirt sheet. For a person who broke the 3RR and weaseled their way out of it, you shouldn't even be pointing the finger. And I want you to understand something. Consensus can change. I tried teaching that to you before, when Jonathan Sharkey was up for discussion. Rather than understand that, you argued, somehow, someway, that the fact that his article page passed an AFD, that he was notable enough to be placed as a Presidential candidate among all the others. And now, your notion that an exploratory committee = candidacy is just as bad. I mean, do you believe what you just said? You can't even be on the ballot with an exploratory committee. Even with an FEC filing, a candidate will not be on a voting ballot automatically. And an FEC filing doesn't even make something notable. I mean, how many people had FEC filings? Did you check politics1.com? And those were official candidates who were declared as running. Why on earth would someone fight for a separate section for one individual whose candidacy was always a matter of speculation and now he's thinking about going for a 3rd party? I mean, if that's not speculation, what is?--Screwball23 talk 04:59, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, I never broke 3RR on this page. Please read WP:3RR for further information. Secondly, I compel you to go through four and a half years of my edits to find something as egregious as what I found in just your last 50 edits. Thirdly, yes, consensus can change, but that change occurs on the talk page and there is no indication that the current consensus will change. Lastly, the creation of an exploratory committee is a major step in the process and an actual indication of movement on the part of the individual rather than mere newspaper speculation.--William S. Saturn (talk) 05:15, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Really I think the question here is whether an exploratory committee is something different than a speculated candidacy and is something different than a candidacy. I believe the three are distinct for a number of reasons:

1. A position as a speculated candidate does not require the candidate to do anything. Just saying "I am not ruling out a run" is enough to be speculated.

2. An exploratory committee is designed so a candidate can solicit money to pay the expenses required to seriously consider a run. A person could give money to Roy Moore, they could not give money to Palin. This financial component I believe further takes exploratory committees beyond mere speculation.

3. A candidate with an exploratory committee is now eligible (subject to other criteria) to participate in most debates. Typically a candidate without one can not participate. This is why Gingrich was not in Fox's first debate.

4. We have been considering exploratory committees important thus far.

I think we should really answer this question, is an exploratory committee important enough to warrant separate distinction on the page? If it is, then should Moore be given a gallery or be on a list. If it is not, then we can move Moore to speculated. We don't need to make this Sharkey 2.0, let's just decide this point.ObieTalk (talk) 14:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Again, we're falling into the trap of "what is an exploratory committee?" and "how important is it?". The question is how important is it - here? We write history, not news here. The speculation of a candidacy is news, plain and simple.--Screwball23 talk 15:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The above is another example of Screwball's incompetence. "The speculation of a candidacy is news, plain and simple". In what world does that support the argument that a candidate with an exploratory committee should be listed as a "speculated candidate"? Once a bid is formally explored there is, at that moment, concrete evidence of a movement toward candidacy. We've always listed such individuals as candidates, even on this page. Rick Santorum actually participated in a debate with just an exploratory committee, and at that time he was listed on this page as a candidate, though separate from those that officially declared.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm incompetent? Coming from the guy who said exploratory committee=candidacy, you should talk to your doctor and see if you're qualified to call someone incompetent. Learn to have a civil conversation with someone, because you sucked a lot of good energy from this page on your Sharkey editwarring and I still see immaturity. I'll tell you right now, your argument that "we've always done it this way" is not relevant. The big issue is you just don't get the fact that WP:consensus can change. It's so obvious. I'm not even going there. Furthermore, the idea that a candidate's steps can be interpreted as "concrete evidence" is absolute speculation. By that logic, Donald Trump and all the big speakers from CPAC could be listed as candidates. Palin had a One Nation bus tour that some would call concrete evidence of a run. And why is this such an issue anyway? I'm all for listing info on him. I can't understand why someone has to fight for a full-out gallery for every single candidate, non-candidate, and speculated candidate. Spend your life on more fun activities, my friend.--Screwball23 talk 05:29, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes you are very much incompetent. Just look at the walls of badly written text that you've added to this article, which have very little to do with the Republican Party presidential primaries (which have not even happened yet). Just look at the poorly constructed arguments that you've made on this page, which make no logical sense. Look at the blatant personal attacks and discussion of matters not even related to this article, "Spend your life on more fun activities, my friend." But let's put that aside for now and discuss the issue at hand. How in the world can you equate a bus tour or a speech with a legally binding expression of exploration of candidacy? Why did you just ignore the fact that Santorum actually attended a debate with just an open exploratory committee? Why do you mention a gallery, when you reverted the listing of Moore under an exploratory committee heading, to add him to a gallery where he does not belong? How is speculation that Moore may seek the Constitution Party nomination, speculation that he will run for the Republican Party nomination, when he currently has an open exploratory committee as a Republican? --William S. Saturn (talk) 21:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest you shut up Saturn and address your comments on the discussion below. Yes, Screwball has been ridiculous, but you have provoked muost of his nastiness. SOXROX (talk) 21:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

How about you let him answer the questions? Or better yet, try to answer them yourself.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

(od)I suggest urgently that you redact your intemperate renarks here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Per this altercation, er discussion, I'm making a new section on the conduct of both parties below. SOXROX (talk) 15:25, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I declare this discussion

Resolved

because I know that the rest of the community will not tolerate these slandering attacks by both parties. his thread is hereby closed. SOXROX (talk) 21:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Field settled?

Stories have propped up saying that the field is settled. I don't know much about the deadlines, but it sounds like the end of September is more or less the end. Any news on this?--Screwball23 talk 12:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Until the candidates receiving speculation deny, I'd say the field isn't settled. Particularly, I've seen a lot of reports saying that Palin could come in late and still run a strong campaign due to her unique support. Kessy628 (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think there are any deadlines to get in the race, though each state has its own rules about how to get on the ballot. Palin could technically declare her candidacy the day of the Iowa caucus if she wanted to drag it out until the last minute and still be included. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:58, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Projections

Extended content

The PollyVote provides predictions of the 2012 Republican nomination winner by combining forecasts / projections from three methods: Intrade's 2012 Republican nomination prediction market, the RealClearPolitics poll average, and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. The Bio-index model predicts the outcome of U.S. Presidential Elections based on information about candidates' biographies. According to the model's forecast, among all Republican candidates, Rick Perry has the highest chance to defeat Barack Obama in a potential 2012 showdown.

The projections section, although interesting, has been removed because it reeks of self-promotion and bias. It clearly interferes with WP:CRYSTALBALL, and I believe it should remain out of the article. I want to thank User:Seleucus for taking it down. Any thoughts on the matter are welcome--Screwball23 talk 17:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

debate season

Politico and other sources have stated that this is the debate season. I understand the first debates began in May, but now they are really ramping up. Starting in September, there are 5 debates in 6 weeks, followed by the February caucuses. The title is accurate and covers the content well; it is not just scientific issues that are being discussed here, the context of the debates should be covered. There are also debates surrounding foreign policy that are springing up as well, and just about any topic that comes up for debate that is notable will change the title.--Screwball23 talk 14:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess you're right on that, however, I still separated that last paragraph from the Rick Perry section because not one word of it is any more related to Perry than it is to any other candidate. A better subtitle may be needed though... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thunderstone99 (talk • contribs) 21:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

When the field settles, (which I believe it has) I will put a header on that section such as "Rick Perry enters race; field settles" or something to that effect. For now, the section you placed is fine, don't worry about a thing. The major purpose I want to bring out is that now is a time of debates for the candidates and there will be a lot of newsworthy exchanges from now thru november. I am unsure what will happen if another candidate enters, and a new candidate could still be up for entry. However, the debate season could see a shift in candidates' popularity, and has been on more than just science, so I want a section to mark that accordingly. I will keep the race updated, but when notable debate events occur, we are all open to add information and I welcome new info.--Screwball23 talk 22:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

McCotter in Gallery

We have had McCotter in the galley, however the debates article no longer considers the twitter "debate" he participated in a debate and he was removed him from the table in that article.

Should we remove McCotter from the gallery and move him to the list, or what is the criteria for a debate? Does the Twitter debate count?ObieTalk (talk) 17:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Remove as per that. If it's not considered a debate then he doesn't meet the criteria to be listed as a major candidate. Kessy628 (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Remove I was one of those who advocated the removal of the Twitter debate, and I think that if you are not going to include Buddy Roemer, you can't include McCotter. Their candidacies are identical- name politicians who have gotten into no debates and have little support. Johnson is like them, but he was in one of the debates, so he should remain. SOXROX (talk) 18:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Remove The criteria is clear: to be in the gallery you need to be in a real debate. Thunderstone99 (talk) 21:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

As no one has come forth in favor of keeping him in the gallery, I've moved McCotter from the major candidates gallery to the other candidates list. Kessy628 (talk) 21:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to find the source again, but he withdrew on September 22, the day of the debate and endorsed ROmney as a matter of fact. --Diamond Dave (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Confrontational Behavior of User: Screwball23 and User:William S. Saturn

I propose that you to make a mutual treaty of peace. My suggestion would be that you do not participate in the same topic. That way, we can make consensus without personal attacks being thrown around and causing a distraction. SOXROX (talk) 15:24, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Second. Failing that, find a non-involved mediator to mediate your issues. But stop the edit and talk page warring. Kessy628 (talk) 17:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The two of them can't debate anything without calling each other incompetent and threatening each other with mod action. Thunderstone99 (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm willing to discuss this without confrontation. It doesn't help that Saturn is calling me "incompetent", ripping on the entire campaign developments section of the page (which, by the way, is perfectly in-line with the 2008 and 2004 primary pages), and now I have SOXROX saying that I've been "nasty" or "ridiculous" for being accurate. I will make my case again. The exploratory committee, first of all, is not a binding legal agreement to run. A person can easily start one and never run. Donald Trump had an exploratory committee in 1999, and numerous non-candidates have done similar over the years. It would be a poor practice to list every single candidate who filed an exploratory committee, which is non-binding, while neglecting many of the 3rd and 4th tier candidates who went a step further and declared "as candidates" with the FEC.[14] Also, the idea that the exploratory committee is a requirement or first step to run is arguable. Many, many candidates have run for Prez without starting an exploratory committee first. It is not a requirement, it doesn't indicate any guarantee, it is not "legally binding" and some have even gone to call it a media stunt. Just as an example of how non-binding it is, a person can collect funds with the exploratory committee and doesn't have to declare any of that fundraising with the FEC.[15] Down the road, it's theoretically possible for someone to run, campaign, declare, and be fully-recognized by the FEC, but not make it to the state ballots, which each have individual criteria. The FEC is so vague in its criteria that a person can spend over $5,000 on their candidacy for Prez, never file, but the moment they do that in local races, they would be obligated to do so.[16] The lines are fuzzy because Sarah Palin, for instance, has a Political Action Committee that has been receiving funds in the millions, and her media attention, trips to primary states, and One Nation bus tour that could easily be interpreted as "concrete evidence" of a run, whereas Roy Moore's exploratory committee is unclear because he is leaning towards the Constitution Party as well. I am not sure what the registration requirements are, but I don't know if he even had to register as a Republican on his filing. Also, to address Saturn's counterexample more directly, the fact that Santorum attended a debate with just an exploratory committee is true, and he ended up declaring. However, according to an article I found in the LA Times, he had a "testing the waters" account but the debate organizers wanted him to have an exploratory committee, so he did it.[17][18] It could be argued from there that the debate organizers' criteria that the exploratory committee carried weight. But if he debated and decided never to declare, would that have made him a candidate? Would it even matter in the greater scope of this campaign? He attended the debate on May 5th and didn't declare until June 8th. Even after the debates, he could have just said that he tried campaigning, didn't do well, and gone back home. So, he participated in a nationally-broadcast debate and was not required to "officially announce a declaration". He could hypothetically have campaigned further for months and months, collected funds and still, the FEC would not have required him to declare by law, so these are all things to consider. Keep in mind, the debate in question was actually pretty desperate too. Fox News invited many candidates who didn't even have testing the waters accounts, and they still didn't want to attend.[19] The so-called "minimum criteria" Fox News used to take Santorum was an exploratory committee, but it refused Fred Karger then and in August 2011. In August, the "minimum criteria" was raised to having one percent in recent polls,[20] so even they weren't consistent in their criteria. In the larger picture, I can't tell what Roy Moore will do, and neither can anyone else on wikipedia. If we keep him on the speculated candidates list, news will follow that can indicate his next course of action. If we put him back on the "formally exploring" section, we are misleading readers. I just don't see why it is a priority to do this when we'll know sooner or later where he's going.--Screwball23 talk 22:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

"if he debated and decided never to declare, would that have made him a candidate?" Yes, of course, non-candidates do not participate in debates. "If we put him back on the "formally exploring" section, we are misleading readers." How? Does he not have an open exploratory committee? It's misleading to list him as having received speculation for running for the Republican nomination, when the speculation given refers to the Constitution Party nomination. "In the larger picture, I can't tell what Roy Moore will do, and neither can anyone else on wikipedia." What's your point here? Why does this justify mislabeling him?--William S. Saturn (talk) 01:13, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like Trump withdrew from the race for Republican. That has been proven in several reputable sources, not to mention, several that sound like he is not interested in running as a Republican at all. Roy Moore is still in exploratory, no sources shows he is withdrawing or not interested in running as a Republican either. As for Republican Page, Trump should be listed Shermanesque, but on the Third Party, shown as speculated or exploratory on that page under Constitution or wherever he is being speculated. Sources show whatever Trump is doing, he is not doing them as a Republican. Everything he did do as a Republican has passed and can be mentioned on this page. Everything he has done since as non-republican, should not be on this page. --Diamond Dave (talk) 12:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Although I do see the issue of Moore having a space for himself. Maybe we could put him in with the declared and put some notation that he has only declared an exploratory committee. I don't know, I wonder from the beginning of the exploratory committee if something like this would happen. Is Moore being discussed in sources at all. I wonder if we could put him down there, mention the exploratory committee, but treat him as if he is being discussed. I would think if he is not being discussed in the media, his exploratory committee is not doing him too good. Not too mention, I am finding plenty of sources showing Moore is likely gonna dump the Republicans for the Constitution Party. I say eliminate the exploratory committee section for the Republican, because they are Presidential exploratory committees not Republican. There's nothing state whether or not Moore intends to run as a Republican. We really should move him into the mentioned Reputable Sources section and let him fade away as discussion subsides for him to be a REPUBLICAN nominee--Diamond Dave (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Protect this page from Anonymous users

Recently, several anonymous users have edited this page, one to bias it for Perry, the other to spout ridiculous claims that Donald Trump already won the nomination. Although it is a good thing that registered users can edit again, I think that this page should be semi-protected to prevent new and unregistered users from editing, to stop vandalism. Thunderstone99 (talk) 01:21, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It's time to semi-protect this page, as has been done with the main election article.--JayJasper (talk) 04:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Support per above SOXROX (talk) 13:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Support as above also. Kessy628 (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Support. Long overdue, too much vandalism from IPs.--Rollins83 (talk) 14:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Support. A divided article this should only be edited by registered users. --Diamond Dave (talk) 12:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Section about Mark Sanford, Jon Ensign, and other candidates that were discussed a lot

During the history of this page a lot of people came and went from it. Some came back and forth and many had reputable sources make some really well thought out endorsements of people like Sanford, Ensign, Dick Cheney, and others too probably, if we look back. I think we really need a section that mentions that. Unlike other years, I don't think there was ever this much discussion of an upcoming election so early on. The Media was talking about people running the day after the 2008 election. Also, when Sanford's scandal hit, it was ran as the Governor Sanford Scandal, it was Potential 2012 contender Sanford's scandal. Since the healthcare debate and foreign affairs played such a big part, names like Dick Cheney received a lot of speculation. I think it's important to mention that. I'm thinking at least something about Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, Jon Ensign, and Dick Cheney. There may be more people, but we should consider adding an article that discusses these events. They certainly made good debate here as for whether or not people should be included. --Diamond Dave (talk) 13:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Intermittent swells of Christie-mania don't subside, well past 2012 Labor Day

FWIW I think that the fact that the media continues to cover such rampant spec by opinion leaders/money folks about a Christie draft, despite all CC's Shermanesque denials, should be touched on in the article somewhere.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 23:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

If he ends up entering, maybe, but for now his mention in the Potential Candidates Decline to Run section is satisfactory. Kessy628 (talk) 00:29, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean CC needs to be listed somewhere else, just mentioned in the two-man dynamics: a la the NYT's observation (dateline this Sunday morning, Michigan's Mackinack Isl. strawpoll) that "The animosity between Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney has deepened as they compete for contributors, endorsements and, ultimately, the soul of the party. But the prospect of a two-man race has only intensified the thirst for more options, including new calls for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to reconsider a candidacy."--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 01:34, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The idea that "new calls" for Christie are coming is probable, and I believe you. However, he's been contacted by fundraisers, political activists, and even potential contenders like Mitch Daniels for months now, but hasn't budged. I personally think he would be in a tough situation now that he turned down speculation and even said he wasn't ready for the presidency. But again, I'm not the one writing these stories. The news articles I've seen are written as if voters are developing a new "thirst", but in reality, the race started wide open and now there are probably about as many sources saying it's "crowded" as "open", so let's be careful with the implications of that language here. If we had a situation like a George McGovern candidate, then it would be fair to say that the field sucked and people wanted someone new. But I don't see that now, and honestly, I see plenty of sources saying they're growing more pleased with the candidates, that time is running late for new entries, and that more candidates will soon slough off when they have to risk losing congressional seats (McCotter for ex.) or put themselves into challenging debates and unfriendly caucus states.--Screwball23 talk 04:56, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Good analysis, Screwball23.

Bill Hader in last night's on Saturday Night Live skit said, "As a reminder to Chris Christie, it's wide open buddy." Maybe we can include a sentence about it in the summary of the campaign's early phase (despite the fact CC isn't going to enter in actuality), throwing in the draft efforts previously directed toward Paul Ryan and even Jeb Bush while we're at it. Then, if in hind sight this becomes overwhelmingly obscured by subsequent developments, it could simply be snipped, of course..--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:09, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate your bringing this up, because Christie is starting to reconsider. I also have to thank User:GageSkidmore for bringing news on Christie's speculated run to surface. I am not sure what the Party bigwigs told him, but apparently Christie heard some really good prospects from them and seems to have a fundraising network at the ready. I remember when Perry was being drafted, he was making hundreds of phone calls and worked very hard to bring up support. Now it looks like the media has chewed him up and now he's fading away. Anyway, I'm a little surprised to see how the GOP has focused so much on Christie, who has done nothing but turn them away for months. Unless we get a final decision or some significant news appears on this, I do not believe we should start putting up SNL references and off-phrases to Christie. Unlike Palin, I expect Christie will give a definite yes or no, so it might actually be worthwhile to revisit this in 2 or 3 weeks.--Screwball23 talk 02:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I'll be honest, I didn't realize Christie was again receiving so much speculation. I take back my comment before. Kessy628 (talk) 15:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Over-sectioning

I know everyone is working hard on this article. The attention that has been paid to candidate-by-candidate news is not helpful and traps us into small sections without any good flow of information. For instance, should Gingrich, Cain, and Johnson all experience a surge in publicity in the next week, an editor may think it helpful to put in a section for Gingrich, one for Cain, and one for Johnson - completely ignoring the fact that only a week passed. The recent section for Herman Cain is unwarranted in my opinion, and a section on Trump or Palin also would be a complete black hole of time and energy. This page is on the race as a whole, and each candidate has their own campaign article as is. For us to go against longstanding conventions and turn this into a 12-section article with 3 sentences each - dedicated to candidate news based entirely on polls would make this a political horse-race page, and we are better than that.--Screwball23 talk 17:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. It's our place to be presenting a narrative on the campaign. Donald Trump has his moment where he was the guy. Michele Bachman had her run as the, um, girl. The section on the search for a "savior" is needed. However, it's possible that the section on Cain was premature. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Hold on. Please understand, if a candidate warrants attention, then we will add it. That's perfectly fine, and I agree that we should keep a good narrative on this. However, we have to remember that not all information warrants an entire section. Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin didn't even run. I put photos because we all know that they dominated headlines for some time. But if you look at the content and long-term notability, they don't match up to that of the actual candidates. In 2004, the draft for Mark Warner was huge, and that wasn't even covered in the Democratic primaries article. The idea that every single person that hits headlines for a few weeks suddenly becomes "the" guy or girl is absolute disaster for this article. We are not even through the caucuses yet and this page is larger than the Democratic primaries from 2008 and 2004, and it certainly has a lot more news than long-term history. Remember too, that Santorum won a straw poll in pennsylvania, and Paul won a number of straw polls. There simply is no such thing as a 2 yr primary where there is not some volatility and movement in polls.--Screwball23 talk 17:30, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I lean toward Screwball's reasoning on this. Let's keep a "big picture" prospective when editing this article and bear in mind that the article is supposed to give the reader a general overview of the primaries and campaigns, not in-depth coverage of each and every development. Giving hyper-coverage to individual candidates and events tends to make the page WP:TOOLONG, which can be a turn-off for readers. Doing so also runs the risk of running afoul of WP:RECENTISM. That being said, I agree with Muboshgu that the current content on Trump and Bachmann is warranted, given the massive amount of media coverage both received during their respective "heydays".--JayJasper (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• comment - The title of this section gives away what's wrong with recent editing on the page. Obviously the Cain development puts the Perry story into perspective, as do recent, unsuccessful efforts to draft CC. Per basic editing guidelines, especially in section about preserving appropriate, sourced content, any overstatements of recent important developments should be recast or pared to remove unsupported phrasing (or formatting, such as its being contained in its own sub-section, etc.), rather than its simply being removed wholesale. Political observers know that at this stage of a primary race, poll positions are often pretty transitory. That said, what major movements transpire are a part of the objective history of the race and all of them should be mentioned for its full encyclopedic accounting or else none of them should be mentioned; thus, leaving everything out subsequent to the fact that Perry's "entry on August 14, 2011, garnered tremendous publicity and made him an instant top-tier candidate" -- is, ironically, itself guilty of recentism run amok, not to mention POV.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 18:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment- Also, remember the WP:10 year test. Cain winning one straw poll will not matter then if he does not win the nomination. SOXROX (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually not necessarily married to there being mention of the Florida straw poll, at all; however, the fact that Dr. Paul has won certain straw polls is arguably a part of the history of the race and mention of such granular details would not be totally out of place in the article, in my humble opinion. I just thiink that the article's current wording @

During the debates, Herman Cain pushed his “9-9-9” economic plan and a Chilean-inspired model for reforming Social Security, receiving lively applause. Gingrich also received favorable responses from audiences during the debates, leading to an uptick in volunteers and fundraising. He said the new funds allowed him to increase his ground operations in early caucus states.

--could be improved upon, 'at's all. Although I personally like the coverage given to former-Speaker Gingrich here and think it is reasonably appropriate (with the caveat that it later can be snipped if it turns out ultimately to be not that important), I think it's a little unbalanced to give the coverage of Mr. Cain's recent momentum such short shrift. Indeed, in the last day or two Mr. Gingrich has impressively gone up in polls to reach or nearly double digits (9% or 10%, see RealClearPolitics's famous poll-of-polls here); yet, in a national opinion poll just released today, Mr. Gingrich's support has leveled off a bit to 6% (albeit with the statistical so-called "margin of error" for the overall survey at +/- 2.2%) whereas Mr. Cain's support registers at, um, 28%.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 21:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

On that poll, though, Zogby's methodology is highly suspect. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:38, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Muboshgu, it's a given that this was just one poll. But consider that from yesterday (Monday) morning till today, I speculate, Rush Limbaugh et al have been crowing over the Florida Straw Poll result; and I'd further wager (say, picking up the tab for lunch?) that the Zogby result is no mere one-off hiccup and that the next few days' polling by the likes of Rasmussen will post Cain at going on or over 20% support by the prospective Republican electorate. (Btw, for this so-called "interactive" survey, Zogby selected 2,088 participants from out of its proprietary, several-hundred-thousand-people-strong panel of respondents to send the polling questions, then telephoned 4% of these respondents to help ensure, somewhat, this Internet-based polling system. Per Wikipedia: "In a review of the performance of polling firms during the 2008 elections, the Wall Street Journal noted that 'Zogby International polled in eight states in the last week, including six of the closest races, and missed the final margin by an average of less than two points -- as accurate as the poll aggregators such as Pollster.com.'"^{Wall Street Journal}).--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 22:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, a bunch of the stuff that pertains just to one candidate and no others could be moved to their own campaign articles. Thunderstone99 (talk) 23:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Although we have to wait a couple of weeks for Rasmussen's next Republican primaries standings poll, reading the tea leaves within their latest poll released today indicates that Cain has shot into the top tier, it showing that although Cain continues to trail Obama by 4% in head-to-head preference match-ups, generally, nonetheless--- "Republican voters tend to see three top candidates as qualified [with Cain at 49%; yet, among all voters]: ...43% believe Romney is qualified.... ...Perry...is seen as qualified by...30%.... of voters. Cain, a Georgia businessman who performed well in last week’s GOP debate and won a decisive straw poll victory in Florida, now ties...with 30%... ...a 12-point jump from June." --Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 16:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, we guess Mr. Zogby knows something about the science of opinion polling after all. (Muboshgu, my tastes aren't expensive, so my lunch won't cost you much. I'm vegetarian so like Indian food. I know a great buffet that isn't too expensive. When can I collect? Thanks.) <clears throat> Aneehoo,, from [ttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/29/cain-and-gingrich-benefit-from-perry-swoon/#ixzz1ZNZBZw7x today], "Cain and Gingrich Benefit from Perry Swoon. The latest FOX News poll shows that the ‘Herm-entum’ is for real.[... ...N]ow another debate has launched [Cain] forward again. Cain’s support among Republican primary voters[...]rose from 6 percent in the August FOX poll to 17 percent in the September sample."--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 21:36, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Where's the sidebar?

One of those nifty "Part of a series on" navboxes with candidate articles, Political positions of... articles, primaries, debates, timeline, etc. – Lionel ^(talk) 05:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Some editors seem to like them, others not. Someone made an attractive one for Sarah Palin-related articles here: Template:SarahPalinSegmentsUnderInfoBox; yet, here: Template:Mitt Romney series--is the less-nicely designed one for Romney-related articles, which editors of the main Mitt Romney page removed from that page, apparently, as superfluous.

For what it's worth, here's a breakdown compiled from Category:Public image of American politicians:

1. Public image of George W. Bush - not used
2. Cultural and political image of John McCain - used
3. George McGovern in popular culture - not used
4. Public image of Barack Obama - used
5. Public image of Mike Huckabee - not used
6. Public image of Rudy Giuliani - not used [Note: It's since been placed there.---Ed.] (Template:Rudy Giuliani series removed some places once appeared)
7. Public image of Sarah Palin - used
8. Public image of Mitt Romney - used (but not on all Romney-related articles)
9. Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt - not used

--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 18:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 23:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that we could add a sidebar for the evnentual nominee when the primaries are over. SOXROX (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Note: Template:US 2012 elections series is now sidebarred on 2012 elections-related articles.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 02:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Great work! – Lionel ^(talk) 09:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Poll leaders timeline

From a historical prospective, I think the volatility of this primary is noteworthy. I just read the article below that pointed out 10 individuals have led in at least one poll in 2011: : Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee. Link:

Perhaps some sort of timeline showing candidates popularity peaking and fading would be a good way to display this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.170.21 (talk) 19:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Pulling backl to a less granular focus, the race has only had two front runners so far, with Cain well positioned to become the third. Which is to say, more conservative barometers of opinion such as RealClearPolitics's poll-of-polls haven't featured leads by other then Romney and Perry (see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html). According to the RCP av, as of today Cain still trails Romney by 7% (yet of course Cain leads Romney by 20%, currently, according to Zogby). Per the RCP, Romney lead Nov. 3, 2010 – Aug. 23, 2011; Perry, Aug. 24 – Oct. 3, 2011; Romney, Oct. 4, 2011 – present--and Cain won't take the overall lead (as I project he will) on the averaging chart until a few more polls come out.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

As of today, Oct. 20, 2011, the RCP (poll-of-polls) Average has Cain ahead by 0.5%.[21]--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:32, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Pawlenty drop-out sentence in header

"Her win in the Iowa Straw Poll, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul's close second place, reduced Pawlenty's support to the point that he withdrew from the race."

The link doesn't mention Ron Paul at all, and he is mostly irrelevant in the story of who will win the election, so any mention of him doesn't really belong in this sentence.. Maybe something like "Pawlenty's disappointing finish in the Iowa Straw Poll, which Congresswoman Bachman won, led him to drop out the next day" or whatever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.176.174.109 (talk) 23:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Ron Paul is far from irrelevant in this election, as the many sources saying otherwise prove. His impact on this race has already been shown by his support, and whether or not he will win the nomination he is proving to be a powerful force. As for what the link says, if it doesn't talk about Paul then maybe we can find a new link that does, but there's no reason to take it out. Kessy628 (talk) 03:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Paul is more important in the election than Pawlenty is, if anyone is removed from the heading it should be him.Thunderstone99 (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

New Hampshire Primary Date

I'm not so sure that New Hampshire has actually moved their primary date yet. It is likely, even probable, with the NV move, but it is not official and the calendar section should not reflect it as such. Jtodsen (talk) 14:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

NH announced it and finalized the date this morning, so I took out the "(expected)" designation.--→ talk page (JakeBathman) 15:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

endorsements

I have created a new page for the endorsements of the presidential candidates. I have no idea how to work the table, as I would want a collapsible table that states the number of endorsements, but also allows a reader to click in an check the endorsements in each cell. I believe this will settle a lot of the discrepancies in endorsements between candidates, and it can even be made into a featured article if the table and its information are well-written. In any case, please let me know your thoughts, help out however possible, and see me on the page Endorsements for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012 because I am struggling to make the table correctly.--Screwball23 talk 17:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)