2016 US Presidential Election Thread Part V

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If Hillary or Bernie gets 269 and and Bloomberg gets 1 or 200, GOP is golden.

But which stable of super PACs will be able to drag their candidate out of the primaries and into the general?

Bernie's or Mrs. Clinton's?
 
It's really hard to think of anyone more loathsome than Ted Cruz in American politics today. The guy is that much of a disaster. Even Ass Juice and Sarah Palin are marginally better, which is really saying something.

The entire candidate field is really really bad this time around. To hear the GOP tell the story; Romney and McCain were too moderate or RINO's, while people like Cruz and Ass Juice are/were good solid conservatives cut from the Reagan cloth. That's completely laughable because i highly doubt Reagan would even be nominated in today's GOP...he would be deemed a RINO by the extremists who have hijacked the party.

Regarding Palin, a friend of mine remarked recently that the only Palin offspring who hasn't gotten into some kind of trouble with the law is the special-needs child. Of course even i couldn't resist.... "give it time" i said. Sad....but possibly true. Obama really has it out for those Palin's....so im sure he will figure out a way to get the child to do something awful just like the older siblings.

The Democratic side of things is no pancake breakfast either. Hillary (whom i have stated i would vote for) is considered by many to be fake, untrustworthy, dishonest, and many of the other things you would normally associate with her opponents in the GOP. The more people see of her the more people really just don't like her. Bernie seems like a decent guy and very authentic (unlike Hillary), but some of his proposals are a bit of a stretch and i don't see him winning the White House. This all sets up nicely for the GOP if they had the right candidate. Yet in typical GOP fashion, of course, they don't!

So while Ole Joe kicks himself daily and Elizabeth Warren second guesses herself, and all of the other FBI investigation noises surfaces or fades-whichever, one has to wonder if Obama were somehow able to run for a 3rd term (i know that he can't - Captain Obvious)..... just how big of a margin would he win by? Landslide?
 
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I suspect there is more than a little stirring-of-the-pot going on in this thread right now. Anybody who's serious about claims their chosen candidate will receive some special form of divine guidance has clearly gone off the deep end.

Interesting. In the US cash is needed to purchase blocks of commercial advertising in different media markets. Rates vary based on city size and time of day that an ad airs. That's where most of our money goes. Add to that jet travel across a large country. It's the model of our system here, not sure how much it resembles yours.

We have the same considerations here - keep in mind this is a massive country too, and primetime telly doesn't come cheap - but there is very little culture of private individuals donating to parties. Most parties raise their funds via corporate or union donations, which is becoming troublesome but not to the extreme in the US, and public finance to all parties that achieve at least 4% of the vote ameliorates some of the need to fundraise. No doubt part of this is a result of rather different electoral systems: election campaigns here last only about six weeks, and each party already has a leader, chosen by the parliamentary party room rather than this months-long campaign/primary system of yours. There is also no need to "get out the vote" since voting is compulsory and elections must be on a Saturday.
 
It's a big part of it, yeah.

One of the reasons Bernie Sanders has endeared himself to some is that he's a staunch supporter of publicly funded elections that theoretically eliminate private donations/bribes. But honestly, that's only half the battle. The fact that individuals are spending multiple billions on their campaigns is wasteful. We need to implement a strict cap on campaign expenditure. Even counting inflation, campaigns were never anywhere near as expensive as they are now.

This outlines my two problems with it. 1) the fact that prospective presidents are driven by obscene amounts of donation money is completely fucked, I mean everyone complains about money not being spent in the right areas, is it just me or is disgustingly ironic that everyone's complaining about money and the people who are running for president saying they'll do something about it are only doing so because people are pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to them?! Am I insane?! Or is that COMPLETELY fucked? think of where the billions of dollars could go if you had a better system? Fuck me. and 2) the fact that if you don't have enough monetary support your campaign's dead in the water to begin with. You could be an incredible candidate but you're fucked if you can't attract enough money, and your competitor just wipes the floor with you because they have more support? it's fucking insane to me. insane.

Ax knows how Aus politics works much better than I do but I don't think our prospective prime ministers even need money to run for office..? I honestly think the only money that gets spent by politicians in election time is on active campaigning, so ads, getting to places to speak, pamphlets to send out, etc. I don't think you actually need money just to fucking live another day.
 
I was thinking about this same tweet earlier. Shame that sort of attitude has made its way onto FYM too.


It really is a shame that the nation's socialist tradition was basically destroyed by the Reagan Revolution. I don't think many people realize that compared to all of American history, Bernie isn't really that radical. He's pretty much FDR reincarnated.


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I mean everyone complains about money not being spent in the right areas, is it just me or is disgustingly ironic that everyone's complaining about money and the people who are running for president saying they'll do something about it are only doing so because people are pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to them?! Am I insane?! Or is that COMPLETELY fucked? think of where the billions of dollars could go if you had a better system? Fuck me.

:up: and :applaud: times infinity.
 
Ax knows how Aus politics works much better than I do but I don't think our prospective prime ministers even need money to run for office..?

Oh no, you do. Money tends to come straight from the central party; in theory individuals can also spend their own money on their local campaign (there used to be a cap on that but I think it was abolished), but that rarely happens, at least not in any of the notable parties, since the use of central funds bypasses reporting requirements for individuals.

The ALP has a bit of a long-term problem on its hands because the money that underpins its campaign spending comes predominantly from unions, and union membership has been persistently declining for decades. Plus some of the more left-wing unions are now diverting funding to the Greens. You'll definitely also see the Greens ask their supporters for a bit of cash (mainly for primetime TV ads) to try to make up some of their shortfall relative to the ALP and the Coalition, the latter of whom enjoy a considerable windfall from big business and as you know a favourable run in the News Ltd papers.

The main differences are cultural and the much decreased length of the campaign. I doubt we would see this madness in the US if their campaign were compressed to 6-8 weeks in length.

This article is really illuminating on how deeply flawed Australia's system actually is: https://theconversation.com/think-the-us-electoral-system-is-flawed-check-out-australias-10536 (All that keeps things in check is that there's less at stake here than in the US and the shorter campaign!)
 
It really is a shame that the nation's socialist tradition was basically destroyed by the Reagan Revolution. I don't think many people realize that compared to all of American history, Bernie isn't really that radical. He's pretty much FDR reincarnated.


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Hell, could you imagine someone like Debs gaining prominence in this point in time? Any criticisms aimed at Sanders would seem ridiculously minor by comparison!
 
Anybody else play around with www.predictit.org ?

It was crazy to watch the Rubio stock soar after Iowa and then start crashing during the debate.

I'm holding tons of Biden shares for the Dem Nomination. Along with Warren and a few on Jerry Brown. Just in the event of a Hillary implosion or rumors of one.
 
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I'm agreed on Al Gore. Nader, I didn't think much of him running the way he did, but I've come to the view that if it was that close that Nader's role reduced the world to waiting on a supreme court judgement over hanging chads or whatever the fuck you call them, then it was too close. Gore campaigned like the inevitable candidate, only he ran like Julia Gillard (Australia) in 2010; with the administration's history amputated from his pitch (since Clinton's personal scandals were not something he wished to be associated with).
 
I'm agreed on Al Gore. Nader, I didn't think much of him running the way he did, but I've come to the view that if it was that close that Nader's role reduced the world to waiting on a supreme court judgement over hanging chads or whatever the fuck you call them, then it was too close. Gore campaigned like the inevitable candidate, only he ran like Julia Gillard (Australia) in 2010; with the administration's history amputated from his pitch (since Clinton's personal scandals were not something he wished to be associated with).

Gore....Mrs. Clinton?

Nader....Bloomberg + a billion ?
 
Hey it's the Nader cost the election fallacy!

More democrats voted for George Bush in Florida than they did for Nader.



Al Gore being an awful candidate cost Al Gore the election. Blame him.

The two party system is a sham. It's time to die a quick and utterly painful death. The candidates for both parties are absolute jokes.


It's not just Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire are two more states that Bush won very closely where Nader had 2+% of the vote. We can't know for sure if either of those states would've flipped, but you can't completely discount it.

And even if Nader didn't cost anything, it doesn't change the fact that Bloomberg poses a threat to the Democratic nominee, especially if it's Bernie.

He is not going to win. His potential candidacy concerns me,

And I strongly disagree that the Democratic nominees are jokes. But then I'm a life-long progressive, so that shouldn't be surprising.




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I also get a bit tired of the Nader vilification. Al Gore would have one had he simply WON HIS OWN HOME STATE. He couldn't even do that much.
Tennessee is a red state. If Romney had lost by one state and not won Massachusetts it would be silly to say he should have won his home state. Nader aside there are more credible issues with 2000 and the stealing of that election .
 
i do see it, and while i agree that it is a small number of people, it's not something that i can remember being a part of democratic politics up until now, but it IS something that we saw in 2010 in GOP politics. i don't see policy positions that are the left wing equivalents of the Tea Party (not even sure what that would be), but i see the same structures at play. several people in here have commented on the aggressiveness of Sanders supporters, so this isn't coming out of nowhere. we can ponder the scope, but we cannot argue that it is or isn't "a thing."

not sure if you're addressing me in particular, but i haven't been all that critical of Sanders, and in fact have openly pondered who to vote for. i don't think i've actually "ripped" Bernie himself anywhere, and have consistently done what you say i haven't -- debated the viability of his economic policies and my concerns about his grasp on foreign policy. i don't think it's fair to take a small issue and present that as if that is the only thing i've offered.

you know, that's fine. my beef, as stated, is the growing strain of ideological purity that has so far not had much voice in the Democratic party -- when you have to sew together a broad coalition of blacks, gays, single women, labor unions, etc., you have to make compromises and often settle for least worst options in order to win office. what i am seeing amongst a small but real section of Sanders supporters feels more at home in the GOP of 2010 and 2014 than in the Democratic Party i've known. i'm not going to not comment on it in a discussion forum.
I did not mean to imply that you have not talked about the actual issues here, and I admit that I'm probably taking a bit of overall frustration about this on you because you're just the latest person I've seen talk about it.

As far as this whole Sanders vs. Clinton thing is concerned, I think the whole "compromises versus not compromises" thing would be a lot more valid if he were running against Obama in 2012. You have eloquently stated so often that some on the left are underselling his accomplishments over the last eight years because they are unwilling to accept the slow speed of the American political process. And if all of this rhetoric was Sanders vs. Obama, I think everything you've said would be dead on, and it would reflect poorly on Sanders' supporters. But as much as she wants to be, Clinton is not Obama. She's farther right than he is. It's one thing to have a leftist position and meet somewhere in the middle. It's another to already be there and knowing that it means the compromise will be even farther right.
 
Tennessee is a red state. If Romney had lost by one state and not won Massachusetts it would be silly to say he should have won his home state. Nader aside there are more credible issues with 2000 and the stealing of that election .

You say this as if Al Gore was some kind of socialist carpetbagger rather than a member of a well-known and liked Tennessee political family dynasty.
 
And I wouldn't use "very sane and levelheaded" to describe anybody who is either libertarian or anti-vax.

Also repeating myself, but Rand's anti-vax thing is about as disappointing to me, on a personal level, as his father's racism.

One of the reasons Bernie Sanders has endeared himself to some is that he's a staunch supporter of publicly funded elections that theoretically eliminate private donations/bribes. But honestly, that's only half the battle.

Publicly funded elections are a HUGE part of the battle. I wish all of these so-called angry young republicans, tired of the system, and turning to Trump out of desperation could see that.
 
Publicly funded elections are a HUGE part of the battle. I wish all of these so-called angry young republicans, tired of the system, and turning to Trump out of desperation could see that.

If the public is funding ludicrously expensive two-party elections, that doesn't solve everything.

We need to level the playing field across the parties so new voices can make a legitimate impact.
 
There is a whisper campaign going on in South Carolina that Rubio has an out of wedlock black love child and that his wife is a prescription drug addict
 
If the public is funding ludicrously expensive two-party elections, that doesn't solve everything.

We need to level the playing field across the parties so new voices can make a legitimate impact.

That's why a spending cap is also a good idea - everybody has to get their message out with the same amount of money. But public funding isn't unrestricted anyway. I think in Australia it's around $1.50 per vote that a party receives, as long as they get at least 4% of the vote (so they actually spend first and get paid later according to how good their results are). It's an imperfect system and it disproportionately benefits parties that are already successful. But it means candidates aren't out there with a begging bowl.
 
Who says that? Trump? Republican establishment? Liberals? Of course they do. Everyone in Washington hates him because he's taking the Washington machine head on and winning. We would be blessed as a nation to have Ted Cruz as our next president.


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Your savior doesn't like him. Ron Paul says he's owned by Goldman Sachs. How does that sit with you?


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Cruz is a calculating sleazeball with a thin facade of humanity. He's also literally in bed with Wall Street. That fucker has to be my least favorite of the remaining GOP candidates and that's saying something.

Even Rubio, a babyfaced automaton that gets bullied by the likes of Chris Christie, is more appealing to me.
 
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