2016 Election Thread

[Bark's Lounge]

 

She should stay in Congress. She can do a lot more for progressives there. I'm already smiling inside thinking about her tearing trump apart for the next 4 years.

538 has an article about this very subject. However, in the article the commentors claim the democrats have a lack of upcoming talent. I have to completely disagree after watching the dnc this summer.

They have a handful of people that are talented, but the top dogs of that talent are kicking on 70 or are in their 70's.

 

I like Keith Ellison for head of the DNC. I believe he can find new candidates in a grass root movement that are diverse, but are at the same time, striving for the same thing, even with some ideological differences. The "Clinton" Democrat is a dead end road and is over with... from my POV. I wouldn't vote that way again, and it does not serve me well as a person and my struggles.

 

The old way is dead for the Dems - people like Schumer or Pelosi are not the answer. I hope the D's make the right move.

[Brock Beauchamp]

He's considering Mitt Romney for Sec. of State eh?

 

Surprising. And interesting.....

I'm not a praying man, but... Yeah, I'll go ahead and pray this happens.

[Badsmerf]

I don't think Romney would be a fraud. I actually like him in that position a lot more than Rudy. At least with Romney he won't be a complete disaster, or a compete embarrassment.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I'm not a praying man, but... Yeah, I'll go ahead and pray this happens.

 

The more sane, reasonable, even keel people that are in his cabinet the better I'll feel.  Especially for THAT position.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Romney is a complete fraud, like Cruz proved to be, if he works for Trump after all the stuff he said about him.

 

Yes, he'd be a fraud, but the alternative sounds like Guiliani or Gingrich.

 

So....fraud away Mitt!  Please!

[Brock Beauchamp]

Yes, he'd be a fraud, but the alternative sounds like Guiliani or Gingrich.

 

So....fraud away Mitt! Please!

Yeah, exactly.

[Badsmerf]

Friends close and enemies closer.

[Mr. Brooks]

Yes, he'd be a fraud, but the alternative sounds like Guiliani or Gingrich.

 

So....fraud away Mitt! Please!

Oh, I agree. I think our foreign policy is in better hands with Mitt. I mean the thought of Giuliani in that role is downright scary.

I just wish one of these politicians would for once have some principles.

[ashbury]

He's considering Mitt Romney for Sec. of State eh?

 

Surprising.  And interesting.....

If this means he's out of the running for Secretary of Leveraged Buyouts, it's a good move in my book.

[Badsmerf]

Oh, I agree. I think our foreign policy is in better hands with Mitt. I mean the thought of Giuliani in that role is downright scary.

I just wish one of these politicians would for once have some principles.

And what would that look like? The American voters obviously didn't listen or agree with Romney about trump. He isn't joining forces, he would be accepting one of the most important jobs in the cabinet.

[nicksaviking]

She represents a lot of the resentment towards the left. She wouldn't have had a prayer of appealing to the voters that swung this IMO.

 

Most people didn't have a problem with the left, they had a problem with the establishment and Clinton.

 

Abd by most, I mean less than half.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Most people didn't have a problem with the left, they had a problem with the establishment and Clinton.

Abd by most, I mean less than half.

 

"Most" voters had their mind made up before the primaries.  We're at a point where a narrow set of voters decide the election because of how polarized so many are already.

 

Warren wasn't going to expand the left's base much IMO.

[nicksaviking]

"Most" voters had their mind made up before the primaries. We're at a point where a narrow set of voters decide the election because of how polarized so many are already.

 

Warren wasn't going to expand the left's base much IMO.

Well she's likable which most undecided voters said both Trump and Clinton were not. Also as the nations leading consumer advocate she likely would have played very well with the Rust Belt unions.

 

She didn't need to expand the Dem's base, the Dem's base was good enough to win, ask Obama. She needed to keep it from shrinking. The working class would have backed her more than Clinton now that we know experience was not required.

[TheLeviathan]

Well she's likable which most undecided voters said both Trump and Clinton were not. Also as the nations leading consumer advocate she likely would have played very well with the Rust Belt unions.

She didn't need to expand the Dem's base, the Dem's base was good enough to win, ask Obama. She needed to keep it from shrinking. The working class would have backed her more than Clinton now that we know experience was not required.

Maybe. I see this as being about change and something different. Warren is great, but isn't something clearly different in presentation and has a far more limited profile with many of Obama's voters. I get why people want to think she would have been better, but I'm not even sure she could match Bernie's effort in the primary much less as a national candidate.

[flpmagikat]

The more sane, reasonable, even keel people that are in his cabinet the better I'll feel.  Especially for THAT position.

Easily the best thing trump has done(even if it's just talks at this point) since home alone 2. The local media and political groups are pretty surprised but real encouraged. Where does sos fall on chain of command if everything goes to ****...

[glunn]

 

Wow. I can't imagine what fights are like with two of the most politically powerful people on the planet.

I'm pretty sure everyone on this thread (outside of chi... Sorry chi) saw this flaw very early in her campaign. It's a shame really. Her team was completely out of touch with the voters. The scandals hurt, but were nothing in comparison to what trump endured. Hopefully the party can put together a new message that reaches out to more than simply social liberals.

In 2008 I was pressured to go to a fundraiser at Rob Reiner's house for Hillary. I agreed to do it with a promise that I could probably meet with her for 2 or 3 minutes. My plan was to try to persuade her that many voters would love it if she would propose a credible plan for reducing waste and inefficiency.

 

It turned out that I got to meet Hillary for purposes of a quick photo, but that was all. I was prepared for this, and gave her aide a letter setting forth a strategy for saving more than $100 billion per year. I never got any response from Hillary (despite the fact that I paid a LOT to go to the dinner and there were very few female movie stars present to worship), and I voted for Obama in the primary.

 

I agree that the Democrats need a platform that addresses all important issues and I think that Bernie covered a lot of them.  Items that I would add include:

1. Making the government efficient so that more good can be done with fewer dollars.

 

2. Seeking an agreement among the top 10 or 15 military powers to reduce their defense budgets by 2% per year for 20 years, and aggressively seeking peaceful resolution of the underlying conflicts around the world.

 

3. Guaranteeing employment for anyone who is willing to work hard, and at a wage that will allow a decent lower middle class lifestyle. Anyone who is willing to work hard should be able to afford decent, safe housing, nutritious food and reasonable access to health care. We could achieve this by saving $100 billion per year in government waste, gradually cutting our defense budget while making the world safer and by putting people to work on stuff that will improve our overall economy, such as infrastructure, teaching, job training, child care, community policing, social work. People who work hard should not need welfare or food stamps, and it pisses me off that I work 60 hours or more per week while unemployed people could be out there working at least 40 hours doing the types of productive things that I listed above.

 

When I ran for local office, I had a ten point platform. I found that voters liked ideas that made sense. I think that the Democrats would benefit greatly from a detailed platform that makes intuitive sense to all groups.

 

Finally, with respect to the EC, my sense is that it minimizes participation. When I ran for office, I felt that I would do very well in the south central part of town and the southeast, which were the less affluent areas. If there were an EC, I would have focused my efforts on the other areas, knowing that I would win my home base. But there was no EC for school board and a vote from the south was just as important as a vote from the north so I campaigned everywhere. My sense is that absent the EC, both candidates would campaign in all states, because a red vote in California would be just as valuable as a blue vote in Utah, and vice versa. As things stand now, there is no incentive for either party to campaign in the 40 or so states that are solidly red or blue and this seems to me to be about the worst possible system that could be devised that does not involve animal entrails.

 

 

[Craig Arko]

Another viewpoint. Not necessarily the same as mine. On the other hand no animal entrails are involved. So that's a plus.

 

http://forsetti.tumblr.com/post/153181757500/on-rural-america-understanding-isnt-the-problem

[nicksaviking]

 

2. Seeking an agreement among the top 10 or 15 military powers to reduce their defense budgets by 2% per year for 20 years, and aggressively seeking peaceful resolution of the underlying conflicts around the world.

 

Great stuff, this is what is hard to grasp for me though. People want an end to wasteful spending and yet many of the same people who call for it, also call for increased defense budgets even though the US military is the most heavily funded expense on the entire planet and it dwarfs every other country's expenditures.

 

I'm more than OK ending overseas military activities of any kind even if it's just to save money, not for the altruistic reason of stopping conflict.

 

 

[USAFChief]

 

Easily the best thing trump has done(even if it's just talks at this point) since home alone 2. The local media and political groups are pretty surprised but real encouraged. Where does sos fall on chain of command if everything goes to ****...

SecState is fourth on the succession order, behind the VP, Speaker of the House, and President pro tem of the Senate.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

SecState is fourth on the succession order, behind the VP, Speaker of the House, and President pro tem of the Senate.

Can we just go ahead and flip that for four years?

 

I'm a lot more comfortable with Romney, Ryan, Pence, Trump than the inverse.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Can we just go ahead and flip that for four years?

 

I'm a lot more comfortable with Romney, Ryan, Pence, Trump than the inverse.

 

Communist.

[Squirrel]

Jeff Sessions as AG? Okay ... no words ...

[ashbury]

Most people didn't have a problem with the left, they had a problem with the establishment and Clinton.

That's how it looks on the surface only because the alt-right never trained their sights on Sanders, Warren, and the like. Indeed the progressive/socialist wing was seen by the alt-right as a useful tool to further weaken Clinton for the general election; she could not tack toward the middle after the convention, lest the Bernie bros rise up and smite her some more. So the attacks from the right on the progressive candidates (I include Hillary in this group for this purpose) were not symmetric or evenly distributed, but all trained upon one candidate.

 

Had Bernie somehow shocked the world and upset Hillary for the nomination, the alt-right would have quickly found ways to chip away at Bernie's likeability. In the minds of middle America he's just as elitist as Hillary; he comes across as a rumpled college professor, which the far left loves and the vast middle detests. And this is apart from the main message the Trump side would have adopted, that the election was now a referendum on free enterprise versus socialism.

 

The character assassination of Hillary Clinton was achieved over many years, so that by the end the idea of anyone even having a "private server" was somehow equivalent to treason. But the main concepts of doing so would have carried over just fine if a different candidate had emerged.

 

As an aside, my recollection is that Trump rarely used the term "rigged" until Clinton had the nomination locked up. It was useful to let Sanders deliver the body blows for as long as possible. The most Trump ever had to say about Sanders was "crazy", in an amused tone. After a while, he started to add, "but he's right about one thing..."

[flpmagikat]

Can we just go ahead and flip that for four years?

 

I'm a lot more comfortable with Romney, Ryan, Pence, Trump than the inverse.

You forgot yertle McConnell but even with him, yep.

[ashbury]

Jeff Sessions as AG? Okay ... no words ...

(...)

 

 

 

[Squirrel]

 

(...)

 

 

 

I, personally, would leave off the smiley face.

[Shane Wahl]

 

In 2008 I was pressured to go to a fundraiser at Rob Reiner's house for Hillary. I agreed to do it with a promise that I could probably meet with her for 2 or 3 minutes. My plan was to try to persuade her that many voters would love it if she would propose a credible plan for reducing waste and inefficiency.

 

It turned out that I got to meet Hillary for purposes of a quick photo, but that was all. I was prepared for this, and gave her aide a letter setting forth a strategy for saving more than $100 billion per year. I never got any response from Hillary (despite the fact that I paid a LOT to go to the dinner and there were very few female movie stars present to worship), and I voted for Obama in the primary.

 

I agree that the Democrats need a platform that addresses all important issues and I think that Bernie covered a lot of them.  Items that I would add include:

1. Making the government efficient so that more good can be done with fewer dollars.

 

2. Seeking an agreement among the top 10 or 15 military powers to reduce their defense budgets by 2% per year for 20 years, and aggressively seeking peaceful resolution of the underlying conflicts around the world.

 

3. Guaranteeing employment for anyone who is willing to work hard, and at a wage that will allow a decent lower middle class lifestyle. Anyone who is willing to work hard should be able to afford decent, safe housing, nutritious food and reasonable access to health care. We could achieve this by saving $100 billion per year in government waste, gradually cutting our defense budget while making the world safer and by putting people to work on stuff that will improve our overall economy, such as infrastructure, teaching, job training, child care, community policing, social work. People who work hard should not need welfare or food stamps, and it pisses me off that I work 60 hours or more per week while unemployed people could be out there working at least 40 hours doing the types of productive things that I listed above.

 

When I ran for local office, I had a ten point platform. I found that voters liked ideas that made sense. I think that the Democrats would benefit greatly from a detailed platform that makes intuitive sense to all groups.

 

Finally, with respect to the EC, my sense is that it minimizes participation. When I ran for office, I felt that I would do very well in the south central part of town and the southeast, which were the less affluent areas. If there were an EC, I would have focused my efforts on the other areas, knowing that I would win my home base. But there was no EC for school board and a vote from the south was just as important as a vote from the north so I campaigned everywhere. My sense is that absent the EC, both candidates would campaign in all states, because a red vote in California would be just as valuable as a blue vote in Utah, and vice versa. As things stand now, there is no incentive for either party to campaign in the 40 or so states that are solidly red or blue and this seems to me to be about the worst possible system that could be devised that does not involve animal entrails.

 

YES. I like this. I would add something significant about climate change. Cutting waste is often a garbage, yet easy, claim to make, but your 100 billion total is probably easily achieved.

[ashbury]

I, personally, would leave off the smiley face.

I, personally, would leave off tea-party activist and Benghazi nut Mike Pompeo as CIA director too, but it's not up to me.

 

Just put Hillary in jail and get it over with. I'm done with this country.

[TheLeviathan]

The appointments so far seem to indicate the positive news is lipservice.  Ugh.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

The appointments so far seem to indicate the positive news is lipservice.  Ugh.

Just sit back and enjoy the show. It's not every day we get to watch a swamp turn into a landfill in real time.