2016 Election Thread

[Squirrel]

that has not been Hillary's message at all. Not even a little bit. I don't love her stance on a few business/labor things, but her message has not been "we have to beat Trump".

Oops, we said basically the same thing. Should always read posts before hitting quote and reply.

[Squirrel]

She has been making a big deal of "we don't need to make America great again, we need to make America whole again," which is a direct reference to Trump's campaign.

But that is recent. She knows he's likely to win the nom and so is she. She has taken the offense against who will likely be her opponent. But that has hardly been her ongoing message.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

According to 538, trump is nowhere near a lock yet.

True, he's not, regardless of how many of us characterize it.

[nicksaviking]

 

To me, it's almost worth a roulette pull (Donald Trump) to maybe try to break this system up. I guess I don't know enough about how to get this fixed the right way and some days I might wake up and take my chances. I really have no idea. There is no way to predict where this goes as long as Trump is in the race.

 

Trump is a Russian Roulette pull with all six chambers filled. There isn't even a slight chance that he would accomplish anything positive for anyone other than himself.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Sure they do.......Cruz wins the most delegates. Which, frankly, is slightly possible.......

 

Most of the states Cruz had the best chance to win in - he already lost.

 

This thing is over unless they pull something shady.

[nicksaviking]

 

Sure they do.......Cruz wins the most delegates. Which, frankly, is slightly possible.......

 

And equally frightening.

 

Either way the Republicans cut it, Trump will be on the November ballot even if he's party affiliated or not.

[nicksaviking]

 

 

But that is recent. She knows he's likely to win the nom and so is she. She has taken the offense against who will likely be her opponent. But that has hardly been her ongoing message.

 

Yeah, and it's smart to trash Trump now in the primaries where it will play well with liberals, and then take the high ground and ignore him as much as possible when they go head to head and she needs to convince Independents and the level-headed Republicans who end up going to the polls that she's not childish and petulant like he is.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Does it matter? Given the polarization currently rippling through the GOP, it's not likely Cruz/Rubio/Kasich voters - people who seem to largely despise Trump - are going to jump ship and vote for him just because the GOP wants to see him lose.

 

If anything, they'll applaud and continue on, as it allows "their guy" to stay in the race and possibly steal the nomination in an open convention. The only person who loses is Trump, a guy those voters didn't like enough to vote for in the first place.

 

It's possible the strategy could backfire for the party but it's also possible enough people want to see Trump out of the race (but are unwilling to part from their preferred candidate) to make it work.

It matters to Trump voters, who have been a solid plurality so far.

[Craig Arko]

http://www.theonion.com/article/gop-statisticians-develop-new-branch-math-formulat-52463

 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

That is not and has not been Hillary's priority or message. How you can say that she will prioritize Wall Street and then say you might as well vote for Trump in that case just shows how much you have bought into her vilification. Is she perfect? Not by a longshot. But she is by far the best qualified in the field of choices.

I don't feel like I am vilifying her. I just don't think there's anything special about her as a presidential candidate. She generated a lot of enthusiasm years ago, including from me, but the intervening years have given us a clearer look at her time as senator. Is she the best qualified candidate in the race? Yes, by far, I agree.

[Mike Sixel]

 

And equally frightening.

 

Either way the Republicans cut it, Trump will be on the November ballot even if he's party affiliated or not.

 

This is true, I think.

[DaveW]

 

Cruz doesn't play with large segments of the voting population. He does well in select blocs but I don't see him gaining enough momentum to win the nomination. Sure, it's possible, though.

 

Ultimately, I don't know if it matters. Cruz, like Trump, is going to struggle to rally moderates around his cause.

Hilary would eat Cruz for lunch. The main difference between Cruz and Trump is that Cruz honestly believes in the awful **** coming out of his mouth.

[Mike Sixel]

 

http://www.theonion.com/article/gop-statisticians-develop-new-branch-math-formulat-52463

 

The best line is the last....

[DaveW]

 

Trump is a Russian Roulette pull with all six chambers filled. There isn't even a slight chance that he would accomplish anything positive for anyone other than himself.

Trump would be impeached within 9 months of entering office. Also, I really don't think he even wants the job. He can just coast along, lose the GE and then appear on TV every other week pissing and moaning about politics.

[TheLeviathan]

 

http://www.theonion.com/article/gop-statisticians-develop-new-branch-math-formulat-52463

 

Yup, you seriously have to ignore basic math to not see his nomination as anything but a given at this point.

[stringer bell]

I think the deal is closed if Trump wins both Ohio and Florida. Both are winner-take-all states and a loss in Florida would effectively end Rubio's campaign.

[Hrbowski]

Fox is a JOKE.

[Badsmerf]

I stopped watching that circus half way through. The only reason to continue was to keep watching Megyn Kelly.

[Craig Arko]

 

His first Presidential endorsement in 50 years. And a warning.

[TheLeviathan]

I can't believe people actually think Ted Cruz can win anything.  I sort of hope he does steal the nomination and loses by a laughable amount.

 

That's the element of the right we need to smash to get progress.  

[DaveW]

I'm surprised it took this long for Trump to talk about the size of his penis in a debate.

[Brock Beauchamp]

This is too wonderful not to post.

 

Trump in last night's debate:

 

"He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands, I've never heard of this one before. Look at these hands. Do they look small to you?"

 

Last week's John Oliver. I'll just skip to the good part. Click the link. It's beautiful.

 

https://youtu.be/DnpO_RTSNmQ?t=5m58s

[nicksaviking]

 

His first Presidential endorsement in 50 years. And a warning.

 

Sanders' words may be the last I ever hear?!? Is that a threat?

 

Man, if Bernie is going to outlive us, the apocalypse is surely upon us. Why bother with this election at all?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just watched Cruz speak for an hour-plus at CPAC.

 

There is a weird duality in the GOP I cannot understand. Cruz spent half the hour talking about how he will never compromise and the other half of the hour praising Ronald Reagan, a man who compromised constantly to accomplish a goal. He talked about Obama saddling us with massive debt and then literally flipped around and talked about Reagan immediately afterward.

 

Are these audiences really that stupid? They can't all be this ignorant of recent history, can they?

 

I just... I just...

 

[Craig Arko]

Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

 

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/03/04/exp-jesse-ventura-2016-election-intv-ctn.cnn

[PseudoSABR]

 

Are these audiences really that stupid? They can't all be this ignorant of recent history, can they?

I think it's willful blindness more than stupidity.  When conservatives spend, they just go back to the notion that if entitlements were cut, their spending would be within the budget.  Conservatives romanticize the past and believe that they never had the chance to really enact a pure conservative policy, always being held back by liberals or regulation. ("We never gave free market a chance.")

 

Cruz says some things crazier than Trump.  Getting rid of the IRS? Carpet bombing ISIS? Refusing to compromise?  

 

"As president, I promise to VETO EVERYTHING!" - Cruz

[nicksaviking]

Just watched Cruz speak for an hour-plus at CPAC.

 

There is a weird duality in the GOP I cannot understand. Cruz spent half the hour talking about how he will never compromise and the other half of the hour praising Ronald Reagan, a man who compromised constantly to accomplish a goal. He talked about Obama saddling us with massive debt and then literally flipped around and talked about Reagan immediately afterward.

 

Are these audiences really that stupid? They can't all be this ignorant of recent history, can they?

 

I just... I just...

 

Reagan has simply been turned into a mailable deity who gets molded into whatever the occasion calls for for the conservative talking heads.

 

To be fair though, he has probably become more demonized by the left over the last decade than he probably deserves. That's probably mostly reflexive pushback due to the other side making him a golden calf.

[DaveW]

Reagan should

Have been impeached within his first 6 months. **** that guy

[nicksaviking]

Reagan should

Have been impeached within his first 6 months. **** that guy

That might not have played too well with the public, considering he'd just been assassinated and all.

 

I mean Hinckley would have had your back but....

[glunn]

My sense is that many voters across the spectrum feel that Washington is corrupt.  For example, it is well known that we waste hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that are clearly not worthwhile, because Congress doles out pork in exchange for campaign contributions.  

 

Maybe we will be better off in the long run if all of the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.  It took the Great Depression to pave the way for Social Security.  Perhaps we need some extreme, widespread suffering to get more people to appreciate the folly of having a government controlled by elite coalitions of special interests.  There are obvious solutions, such as attacking gerrymandering and overturning Citizens United, but until there is more widespread suffering it seems unlikely that enough people will push for change.

 

I suspect that Trump could be the best change agent.  If he crashes the economy with trade wars and guts the Affordable Care Act, lots of people will suffer, especially the average Trump voter.  And he might even get us expelled from the United Nations, which would be embarrassing.  Sometimes countries need to hit bottom before resolving to make major changes, and Trump seems like a good bet to take us there.