2016 US Presidential Election Thread XIII

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I don't see why any of that makes criticizing the pneumonia thing okay.

What she did -- you or I probably would've done. If you want to criticize her on other talking points, and say she isn't open about things, go on and do that. But you don't get to just lump this in there. This isn't somehow "proof" of your point, if it's normal behavior.
 
It's the lack of transparency that opens up the possibility that they could hide a bigger issue from the public, just as her e-mail response continually changed with the public's growing knowledge of what happened.

But the thing is, she is fairly transparent. Certainly more transparent than Trump, likely more than Stein, Johnson (and also Sanders) too. About her whole life is made public, including tax records, health records, policy records, work schedules, etc.
This was also remarked in an article a few days ago: Trump is secretive, too. Why do we only hear about Clinton’s secrecy?

Only, with about 25 years of being told she is/must be hiding something and spreading some outright lies about her I have the feeling her opponents have succeeded in what they were trying to achieve. No-one is believing Clinton anymore.

It's just so much work. Making Hillary the nominee is like picking the dog from the shelter with an abundance of issues to deal with...this would have been a lot easier with someone that brings in millions like Bernie or someone safe like Biden. But people are in such a rush to elect a woman. My response? Baby steps.

It's more like that she's likely the best dog you can get from the shelter. Only, you've been told all the time that there are an abundance of issues to deal with. Not that there are many, but you're led to believe that way.
With Bernie, it's a cute old dog, but without any information of the many issues he might have ('But he looks soooo cute!'). Biden is the friendly dog, that unfortunately was hiding in the back for too long until the persons picking up a dog from the shelter were already away.
 
I think you're going for a stretch there on Stein and Johnson.

Typically, third party candidates rely on being open and relatable. They're going to be the most out-there candidates known.
 
It's more like that she's likely the best dog you can get from the shelter. Only, you've been told all the time that there are an abundance of issues to deal with. Not that there are many, but you're led to believe that way.

Right. So the best Democrat that could have been the nominee and in the most favorable environment ever for Democrats with a high approval rating sitting President, a great economy and a historically massive demographic advantage is the woman who can't even clear 45% in the polling averages? The one who in four-way polling is now merely two points ahead of Donald Trump - the lowest polling Republican since Goldwater?

Not to mention that a great share of the third party vote is in fact a reaction to her candidacy (usually harming her more than Trump in the polls) or that there's at least a few million young Democrats that won't even vote for her according to a recent FiveThirtyEight article.

No, she's absolutely a weak candidate when it comes to campaigning. Historically terrible, in fact, for this party.

And of course it fucking matters. It's all about getting people to the polls and the many down ballot elections and propositions that are occurring across the country. Clinton is muting enthusiasm and could cause millions of those on the left to not even show up. But I guess we should just ignore the ample evidence of how general voters, the public and left-leaning minds feel and act like she's some legendary political figure that everybody secretly loves.

Again, being the nominee does not make you the strongest candidate. I can't begin to understand why people can't wrap their head around that logic.
 
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Did you think, in a time like the current one, with the state of current media, that somehow the polarity of red v blue was going to change?

Seriously? It should have, and did, get worse. National polls will be closer than ever I imagine. I still expect the current state of the electoral college and political map to favor democrats. That's ultimately why the term "landslide" gets thrown around.
 
awesome, let's talk some more about bernie sanders and the primaries! we haven't done nearly enough of that here.


You know he would have slaughtered Trump right? He would have made the blacks stay in at night and quiet as well.

And the messiah never gets sick. We had the perfect candidate and threw it away.


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The public likes what it doesn't like and they don't like Hillary. Should have went with someone they like more, like anybody else with a (D) in front of their name. :up:

But that's the Democratic establishment for ya. They just don't understand what Americans really want.
 
No, she's absolutely a weak candidate

[...]

Again, being the nominee does not make you the strongest candidate. I can't begin to understand why people can't wrap their head around that logic.

I actually agree with you on this. Clinton is a weak candidate. Though she's the best for the job. It's just that doing the job and getting chosen for the job are two different animals.
I've seen it being argued that campaigning is a very male activity, with all the shouting, the bluster, the showmanship, trying to upend the other. Whereas Clinton's female actions (the listening tours, among others) don't translate well to overall voter enthusiasm (not to mention the 25-year smearing campaign which now lead many to believe she is pure evil). Plus, her campaigning is not as exciting as Trump's.

I think during the primaries the Democratic voters looked more at the contents, at what a Clinton presidency would be like. Whereas in the general campaign it's more like what Clinton looks like right now (as shouted out by Trump). Which is not presenting her in her best light.
 
The public likes what it doesn't like and they don't like Hillary. Should have went with someone they like more, like anybody else with a (D) in front of their name. :up:

But that's the Democratic establishment for ya. They just don't understand what Americans really want.

right, you're the only one who really knows what americans want :rolleyes:

narcissist, delusional, closed-minded, sore loser, bigoted (i toned this last one down, for the record)...ya know, for someone who claims to hate labels so much you sure do a bang-up job of making them stick to yourself.
 
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I think during the primaries the Democratic voters looked more at the contents, at what a Clinton presidency would be like.

Eh, that's giving too much credit to voters (regardless if they voted for Sanders or Clinton). Most people don't pay much attention to politics or make a choice on some emotional reasoning or a scant bit of knowledge. Case in point, the polling that found that most Clinton supporters couldn't even name a single policy platform.

There's plenty of well informed people and many in this thread that supported Clinton because of her experience and/or policies, that's certainly true. But Clinton really had a built in win from the start between black voters that saw her as an extension of the Obama Presidency and moderate (and sometimes slightly racist) white voters that supported her in 2008.

Clinton has her own issues with generating excitement, but I don't really see that as the problem at all. Being too defensive and inadvertently playing into the image that a large swathe of the public has of you (sometimes based on false smears, sometimes based on the truth) is what has really harmed her candidacy. She won't take a stance on anything risky, she'll go for months without answering media questions, the campaign will try to say that something never happened and then keep changing their statements when more evidence comes out - whether it's her health, e-mails, etc.

And on top of all that, the campaign became exactly what we all feared and what many of us expected given her high unfavorable ratings. It's merely an attack on Trump for being a bad man who says bad things rather than about what Clinton can do for the country. And it's the latter, a positive image for the future like Obama in 2008 that actually gets people to the polls, not a lot of negativity about the other guy. See how well that worked for John Kerry in 2004.
 
A vote for Hillary is a vote for racism.

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As for the debates it's going to be a farce. Trump will be applauded when he can spell cat, after having been supplied with the letters c and t. Clinton will be lambasted for not being able to solve the Riemann Hypothesis.

:lmao:

But if she knew she was terminally ill and had two years to live, would she actually tell us? I think we all know the answer is no. It's the lack of transparency that opens up the possibility that they could hide a bigger issue from the public, just as her e-mail response continually changed with the public's growing knowledge of what happened.

But if she knew she was a lizard person, would she actually tell us? I think we all know the answer is no. It's the lack of transparency that opens up the possibility that they could hide her true lizard form from the public, just as her e-mail response continually changed with the public's growing knowledge of what happened.
 
We actually had a politician run and nearly win in Canada though he knew he was terminal and died only a few months after that election. Which again, he could have won. He remains one of the most beloved figures in polls regardless of the fact the public knows he wasn't forthright.

(No, I don't think that Hillary is one foot in the grave.)
 
But if she knew she was terminally ill and had two years to live, would she actually tell us? I think we all know the answer is no. It's the lack of transparency that opens up the possibility that they could hide a bigger issue from the public, just as her e-mail response continually changed with the public's growing knowledge of what happened.

It's just so much work. Making Hillary the nominee is like picking the dog from the shelter with an abundance of issues to deal with...this would have been a lot easier with someone that brings in millions like Bernie or someone safe like Biden. But people are in such a rush to elect a woman. My response? Baby steps.

Right. So the best Democrat that could have been the nominee and in the most favorable environment ever for Democrats with a high approval rating sitting President, a great economy and a historically massive demographic advantage is the woman who can't even clear 45% in the polling averages? The one who in four-way polling is now merely two points ahead of Donald Trump - the lowest polling Republican since Goldwater?

Not to mention that a great share of the third party vote is in fact a reaction to her candidacy (usually harming her more than Trump in the polls) or that there's at least a few million young Democrats that won't even vote for her according to a recent FiveThirtyEight article.

No, she's absolutely a weak candidate when it comes to campaigning. Historically terrible, in fact, for this party.

And of course it fucking matters. It's all about getting people to the polls and the many down ballot elections and propositions that are occurring across the country. Clinton is muting enthusiasm and could cause millions of those on the left to not even show up. But I guess we should just ignore the ample evidence of how general voters, the public and left-leaning minds feel and act like she's some legendary political figure that everybody secretly loves.

Again, being the nominee does not make you the strongest candidate. I can't begin to understand why people can't wrap their head around that logic.

BMP, you are making assumptions and generalizations.

You keep going on and on about how everyone is in a hurry to elect the first female president and that's the only reason Hillary is the nominee, but I'm not sure you realize how reductive that is, how insulting it is to so many people who are supporting her. As though it can't be any other reason.

Furthermore, if we're just talking about the Democratic political establishment, the elected class, I would argue that if there's a strong bias towards Hillary - and there is - it's not simply because she's a woman, it's at least as much, if not more so, because she's center-left and Bernie isn't. The party has seemed to be hellbent on retaining its centrist credentials in recent years. I mean, it's been centrist for the better part of forty years, but under Howard Dean's chairmanship, it seemed to be drifting leftward - we had the 2006 waive elections where we gained control of both houses in Congress and Pelosi, a native of San Francisco, one of the cradles of progressivism in America, became the Speaker of the House(and yes, the first female one), and we had the 2008 election where Obama became a phenomenon.

And then Dean's term ended, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz became chairperson, and the party has seemed to want to correct its leftward lurch. So if you want to make generalizations about an institutional bias towards Hillary, it might be more appropriate to make it about the DNC being afraid of being too leftist than making it solely about wanting to elect the first female president(though I'm sure there isn't a Democrat or a Progressive who doesn't like that idea because, frankly, we should all want to break that glass ceiling).

Another generalization you're making is that all Hillary supporters - whether originally Bernie supporters or Hillary from the start - thought she was going to have an easy campaign. I can't speak for everyone, but I've always felt that a Hillary Clinton general election campaign would be brutal simply because I'm not sure I've seen an institutional hatred for a political candidate as ugly and fierce and relentless as the hatred the Republican Party and the right-wing have for Hillary in my lifetime(only ones that come close are Bill Clinton and Obama). It's one of the reasons I was so happy for Obama to come along in 2008, because I knew the GOP would make a Hillary general election campaign unbearable.

Now, this is the part where you say, 'but we could've had Sanders this time', but what you seem to refuse to want to admit is that a Sanders general election campaign would've been unbearable too for different reasons. We would've heard the words socialist and communist approximately 1000 times a day, and Bernie did not, from my point of view, give any indication during the primaries that he could adequately combat that line of attack. I mean, he wasn't even asked the question enough, but the few times he was, his response was too broad, too gentle, and too bland. He would just go into his, 'you know, if you poll people policy by policy, they actually like the sorts of policies we're talking about', and 'we already have socialism here, medicare is socialism, public education is socialism, the post office is socialism, etc etc'.

The GOP's socialist and communist attacks would have been vicious and relentless, and I wanted to see him be able to combat that by saying, listen, in a soviet-type communist system, the government owns everything, there is no freedom of the press and freedom of speech is very limited. We would have to repeal several amendments from the bill of rights including the first amendment. And do you seriously think this is what I want? Do you think I want to take away your freedom of speech, have you live in a society where the only news you get is the news the government produces, where every good you buy is manufactured by the government, etc etc, is that really what you think I want? That's ridiculous! All I want is for everyone to have healthcare, for the minimum wage to be higher, and for quality education to be available to everyone, that is it!

I wanted to see the ability to mount that kind of a vigorous counter-attack on the inevitable socialist/communist attacks and I didn't see it.

So either one of them would've given us a brutal general election campaign and to say that it would've been easy-peasy if we'd just nominated Bernie is just denial. I mean yeah, we wouldn't talking about the nominee's unfavorables or e-mail or pay-to-play every day, but we'd be buried in other nonsense about how electing Bernie would mean the end of our country as we know it.
 
Jack Layton.

ah right. i was thinking of the liberal mp (mauril bélanger) who had als and died just this past summer, but was confused because your description didn't match, didn't even think of layton.

and to be honest i don't think that comparison works very well. layton was already the incumbent mp, leader of the national ndp party, and absolutely adored in his riding. he publicly announced his diagnosis well over a year before that election and only really took a turn for the worse a couple months after the election (the election was in may, that was the "orange crush" election where they became the official opposition if you recall, and it was july before he became unable to work anymore), and only a month before he died. he certainly did not know he was terminal before the election, and i strongly suspect that if he had known he wouldn't have run, and simply lent his support and name to campaigning for the ndp as much as he could before the end.

he won his seat and his party made enormous gains at the expense of the incumbent opposition party, but he didn't come anywhere close to "nearly win(ning)" if you're referring to becoming prime minister. the conservatives won an easy majority.
 
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But if she knew she was terminally ill and had two years to live, would she actually tell us? I think we all know the answer is no.

1510086725293064230_zps1zdjqu55.gif
 
It's been two years since I left Iowa, and I can now see why Trump and Clinton are neck and neck....

I don't recall it being this rural.....maybe SoCal has finally rubbed off on me. With my tan, unlimited supply of tank tops, and craft beers

Seriously tho, how is Trump leading my home state?


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How is Trump doing any of this? The guy is only trailing by about a point in the two-way and four-way polling aggregates at the moment and things are starting to look very good for him in places like Ohio.

He's being outspent and is disliked by a far wider margin, but none of that really matters when the J.V. candidate faces off against the professional when they're in a wheelchair. She really is the Glass Joe of politics.

The first debate is what is going to sort everything out. Either she'll make him look like the man-child that he is or he'll insert a couple "there you go again" remarks and we can look forward to a Republican President and Congress in January.
 
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Lots of deplorables in Iowa


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and to be honest i don't think that comparison works very well. layton was already the incumbent mp, leader of the national ndp party, and absolutely adored in his riding. he publicly announced his diagnosis well over a year before that election and only really took a turn for the worse a couple months after the election (the election was in may, that was the "orange crush" election where they became the official opposition if you recall, and it was july before he became unable to work anymore), and only a month before he died. he certainly did not know he was terminal before the election, and i strongly suspect that if he had known he wouldn't have run, and simply lent his support and name to campaigning for the ndp as much as he could before the end.

I don't think he knew when the election began but he found out during the course of the campaign and nevertheless proceeded as if he was still in remission. When you say he publicly admitted his diagnosis - yes, but he also publicly announced he was in remission. Imagine if he had won, he would have died before the Parliament sat again. Now imagine if that was the case with Stephen Harper - he'd have been branded a liar and most people would be outraged that he'd kept this piece of news to himself. I think because Layton was generally liked by the public, people were much more willing to look beyond this.

Back to the topic, the Dr. Oz show was ridiculous.
 
How is Trump doing any of this?

First off. The Democrats basically promised the nomination to Hillary. The machinery of the party apparatus went into overdrive to get it done. They ignored the baggage she carried with her . . . Private Server, Benghazi, Health, General Unfavorability. Some of you will dismiss this as Hyperbole, but in the era of computer hacking and leaks it is coming back to bite her in the ass. With exception of Bernie, nobody was willing to mount a realistic challenge to her in the primary. The Clinton's lust for power and hubris, squashed any questioning of "Is she the right fit for 2016?". Reminds me of Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

In the meantime, out in the hinterland, away from the cosmopolitan power nexus of the DC-media elites, the people were growing restless. Many had faith that Obama would bring the hope and change he promised. Instead the past 8 years has seen economic stagnation in the paycheck department for the average worker. The ACA was a saving grace for those who could not be insured, but the blowback was premiums skyrocketing out of control with less bang for your buck for a good chunk of the population. They first turned to the GOP taking back both houses of congress. They sent their Congressional reps to DC hoping to be a check against the administration. They were then co-opted into the Beltway mentality of cronyism and not rocking the boat for fear of a government shutdown if they decided to use the "power of the purse" as outlined in the Constitution.

With seeing the Federal Government as a broken mess with parties to blame, people were open to an outsider. Along comes Trump and he catches fire. Taps into the feelings of disdain for politics as usual and quickly dispatches the favorites of the GOP establishment in the Republican primary.

Fast forward to the past several weeks. His previous gaffes have been muffled by hybrid-prompter speeches. More people are seeing him as a viable candidate and less the braggadocios Reality-TV Mogul. Hillary has had rough couple weeks. Absences from the campaign trail, health questions, a the constant drip of leaked emails which confirm to many that she is not trustworthy and is the poster child of everything that is wrong with the DC insider mentality. She picks the most boring VP since Quayle. There is general lack of enthusiasm for her even amongst liberals (many who supported Bernie). She is reliant on the campaign playbook of the past (ground game, friendly media, TV ad buys, reliable go-to demographics) and the Blue Wall to get her to the finish line.

Trump has essentially shredded the Republican playbook. Has enough gas in the tank to do multiple rallies in 48 hours, calls into various media at the drop of a hat. He's starting to chip away at her weaknesses on the margins by engaging with the African-American community. His efforts seem to be bearing fruit, as recent polls have had him peaking with 23% of the African-American vote. Even if she still pulls 85% of the African-American vote it will still hurt her badly in Virginia, North Carolina, and the metros scattered across the battleground states. With Obama not on top of the ticket the turnout for Hillary among these voters will be markedly lower.

Trump has been hamstrung by Never-Trumper Republicans keeping his GOP polling support in the high 70s. It appears that voting block is beginning coalesce around him in recent polls. High profile critics of Trump like Mark Levin and Carly Fiorina having recently cast their lot with him as a means to stop Hillary.

That's how Trump is doing this.
 
First off. The Democrats basically promised the nomination to Hillary. The machinery of the party apparatus went into overdrive to get it done. They ignored the baggage she carried with her . . . Private Server, Benghazi, Health, General Unfavorability. Some of you will dismiss this as Hyperbole, but in the era of computer hacking and leaks it is coming back to bite her in the ass. With exception of Bernie, nobody was willing to mount a realistic challenge to her in the primary. The Clinton's lust for power and hubris, squashed any questioning of "Is she the right fit for 2016?". Reminds me of Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

In the meantime, out in the hinterland, away from the cosmopolitan power nexus of the DC-media elites, the people were growing restless. Many had faith that Obama would bring the hope and change he promised. Instead the past 8 years has seen economic stagnation in the paycheck department for the average worker. The ACA was a saving grace for those who could not be insured, but the blowback was premiums skyrocketing out of control with less bang for your buck for a good chunk of the population. They first turned to the GOP taking back both houses of congress. They sent their Congressional reps to DC hoping to be a check against the administration. They were then co-opted into the Beltway mentality of cronyism and not rocking the boat for fear of a government shutdown if they decided to use the "power of the purse" as outlined in the Constitution.

With seeing the Federal Government as a broken mess with parties to blame, people were open to an outsider. Along comes Trump and he catches fire. Taps into the feelings of disdain for politics as usual and quickly dispatches the favorites of the GOP establishment in the Republican primary.

Fast forward to the past several weeks. His previous gaffes have been muffled by hybrid-prompter speeches. More people are seeing him as a viable candidate and less the braggadocios Reality-TV Mogul. Hillary has had rough couple weeks. Absences from the campaign trail, health questions, a the constant drip of leaked emails which confirm to many that she is not trustworthy and is the poster child of everything that is wrong with the DC insider mentality. She picks the most boring VP since Quayle. There is general lack of enthusiasm for her even amongst liberals (many who supported Bernie). She is reliant on the campaign playbook of the past (ground game, friendly media, TV ad buys, reliable go-to demographics) and the Blue Wall to get her to the finish line.

Trump has essentially shredded the Republican playbook. Has enough gas in the tank to do multiple rallies in 48 hours, calls into various media at the drop of a hat. He's starting to chip away at her weaknesses on the margins by engaging with the African-American community. His efforts seem to be bearing fruit, as recent polls have had him peaking with 23% of the African-American vote. Even if she still pulls 85% of the African-American vote it will still hurt her badly in Virginia, North Carolina, and the metros scattered across the battleground states. With Obama not on top of the ticket the turnout for Hillary among these voters will be markedly lower.

Trump has been hamstrung by Never-Trumper Republicans keeping his GOP polling support in the high 70s. It appears that voting block is beginning coalesce around him in recent polls. High profile critics of Trump like Mark Levin and Carly Fiorina having recently cast their lot with him as a means to stop Hillary.

That's how Trump is doing this.

First off, the right wing has engaged in a smear campaign - unique in its prolonged decades-long nature and virulent intensity - against Hillary Clinton, going all the way back to the freak-out over her saying, during Bill's first run for the White House in 1992, that 'I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies, and had teas', and continuing through countless other things. The Whitewater affair, where there was never sufficient evidence to prosecute. The accusations - by people who wouldn't be privy to whatever really went on in her private life - that she didn't handle her position as a cheated-on First Lady properly. The unsubstantiated accusations that Vince Foster's suicide was actually a murder and that the Clintons were behind it. The seven investigations - led by the endless House Committee hearings - of the Benghazi attacks which hounded the issue of Clinton's wrongdoing for years but ultimately found no proof of anything. The freak-out over her use of a private e-mail server when she was Secretary Of Sate, investigations into which cleared her of any legal wrongdoing. And most recently, her health, more precisely the accusations that because she hit her had and had a concussion a few years ago and because she's a few coughing fits and, now, because she had the gall to come down with pneumonia for a few days, that means she's hiding a big secret illness that would disqualify her from holding office.

This stuff has stuck, people who only get their new from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are predisposed to believe it, and Trump takes advantage of this and fans those flames in public, most pointedly with the moniker 'Crooked Hillary'.

Parallel to all of this, our nation has always had a nasty history of racism and increasingly in recent decades, there has been an equally nasty strain of anti-immigration isolationism. The impulse to blame the other and be angry with the other is often more pronounced in times of economic strife. Angry about your economic situation and that of people you know? Blame the immigrants, the brown people, and the black people. This is how Hitler rose to power. And Trump has spent over a year now attracting all these types. There are audio recordings of the things people are saying at these rallies, and listening to them is truly chilling.

Additionally, the frustration with both political parties, and the desire for a viable alternate, are real. Unfortunately, there are too many whose education has failed them, who think if a guy says 'hey, these other guys are all crooks, I'M going to change everything, it's all going to be different now', that means he's going to do it. Who don't see that he's one of the most ruthless, narcissistic pragmatists of our time, who cares only about acquiring more wealth and power for himself and his family, and that all of these fanatical supporters of his mean nothing to him, are the gum on the bottom of his shoes.

All of these things add up for him.

There was a post-convention bounce for Hillary, but we're on the backend now of the better part of two months in which there haven't been any major events in the campaign, where it's all been just regular campaign stops, and where Hillary for whatever reason decided not to have so many stops. The result is that for the better part of that two months, the media coverage has been essentially 100% Trump. 100% Trump re-enforcing everything above. So the post-convention bounce for Hillary is coming back to Earth.

That's how Trump's doing this.

See, I can do it too.

Honestly though, the thought of a Trump presidency is terrifying and this one Colorado poll where he's up for the first time has me legitimately concerned for the first time. I've resigned myself to him winning Florida and, sadly, my state of Ohio, but I've been able to sleep at night because as long as Hillary keeps Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado, she should be in good shape. But if any of those states slips...
 
“He was asked one more time where was President Obama born, and he still wouldn’t say Hawaii. He still wouldn’t say America,” she said to the crowd of mostly Latinos.
“This man wants to be our next president?” she asked. “When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry? Now, he’s tried to reset himself and his campaign many times. This is the best he can do. This is who he is.”

:love:

And more:

Trump campaign, but not Trump, says Obama was born in the US - CNNPolitics.com
 
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