2016 US Presidential Race - Mod Warning in OP

MadYaker

MadYaker wrote: »

If think if Trump gets the nomination he's going to tone down a lot of his hyperbole. He isn't a stupid man and he knows that he won't win if deliberately alienates women and minorities.

Still don't think he'll get it though the other candidates really aren't trying to stop him yet.

Brian?

Akrasia wrote: »

Brian? wrote: »

Add your reply here.
Bush had actual experience of governance and was comparitively moderate compared to Trump.

And yet he was still the worst and most dangerous U.S. president in living memory

Add your reply here.

He looks like a genius compared to Trump. I did not make that point well.

Brian?

MadYaker wrote: »

If think if Trump gets the nomination he's going to tone down a lot of his hyperbole. He isn't a stupid man and he knows that he won't win if deliberately alienates women and minorities.

Add your reply here.

It'll be too late IMO. it's the standard GOP tactic to swing right for the primaries and back towards the centre for the general. The problem is Trump has flailed wildly at everyone and everything around him. He won't be able to run away from that

Akrasia

Sanders has just released a new online ad featuring Erica Garner

It could go a long way towards increasing his support amongst minorities

It's a very powerful ad

Hande hoche!

Jim Gilmore seems to be dropping out.

PopePalpatine

I guess he's finally realised he was still in the Republican race. :pac:

Hande hoche!

A dozen voters in Iowa. Wonder how much longer Carson is in it for?

Black Swan

Watched the PBS hosted Democrat presidential debate between Clinton and Sanders yesterday, and noted that, although they were in obvious competition for the 2016 presidency, and differing on several issues, they were quite civil towards each other. Ironically, Sanders complimented Clinton 2 or 3 times. I found the tone and content markedly more civil than the GOP debates (i.e., not "debates," per se, rather hosted moderator led interactive questioning sessions). When it came to foreign affairs, Clinton did have more precise answers than Sanders, which Sanders needs to improve upon during the course of his campaign.

Manach

But on foreign affairs, this rarely leads to electoral advantage? For instance I was reading 'Last Empire' by Plonkhy on the end of the non-Cultural Marxist empire of the USSR. He writes of Bush's adroit handling of what could have been an extremely volatile situation - but he also pointed out that it was Economic issues as opposed to winning the Cold War that determined Clinton I victory.

RobertKK

So Trump might be suing Ted Cruz over his citizenship, while Ted Cruz removed one of his campaign ads due to a porn actress being in it.

MightyMandarin

RobertKK wrote: »

So Trump might be suing Ted Cruz over his citizenship, while Ted Cruz removed one of his campaign ads due to a porn actress being in it.

Just your average day in the republican race so...

LuckyLloyd

new Morning Consult National Poll has been released (sample size of 710, margin of error 3.4%)

http://morningconsult.com/2016/02/do...ional-polling/

Trump’s support comes disproportionally from independent voters (47 percent), those who characterize themselves as something other than conservative (47 percent) and those without a college education (49 percent). Nearly half of voters who say their top priority is national security choose Trump as well.

Cruz draws most heavily from conservatives, and from evangelicals. Rubio does best among Republican voters who make more than $100,000 a year; 18 percent of those voters back the Florida Republican.

More than six in 10 Republicans have favorable views of Trump (67 percent), Rubio (62 percent) and Cruz (61 percent), the poll found.

Akrasia

Black Swan wrote: »

Watched the PBS hosted Democrat presidential debate between Clinton and Sanders yesterday, and noted that, although they were in obvious competition for the 2016 presidency, and differing on several issues, they were quite civil towards each other. Ironically, Sanders complimented Clinton 2 or 3 times. I found the tone and content markedly more civil than the GOP debates (i.e., not "debates," per se, rather hosted moderator led interactive questioning sessions). When it came to foreign affairs, Clinton did have more precise answers than Sanders, which Sanders needs to improve upon during the course of his campaign.

That's been the tone for all the Democrat debates. Clinton and Sanders are not attacking each other

Clinton loves the foreign affairs questions because as secretary of state she has loads of indepth information and can speak with authority and knowledge.

Sanders could take advantage of this by offering her a role as secretary of state in his future administration thereby nullifying her advantage in this area. That would be pretty cheeky though.

RobertKK

Akrasia wrote: »

That's been the tone for all the Democrat debates. Clinton and Sanders are not attacking each other

Clinton loves the foreign affairs questions because as secretary of state she has loads of indepth information and can speak with authority and knowledge.

Sanders could take advantage of this by offering her a role as secretary of state in his future administration thereby nullifying her advantage in this area. That would be pretty cheeky though.

The problem with Clinton is she wanted a full war against Assad, which would have made Syria another Libya.
She was all for the war in Iraq.
She supported the removal of Gaddafi who was far better than what Libyans have now.
She supported the regime change in Egypt and supported Morsi who with the Muslim Brotherhood had links to terrorist groups.
She stayed silent when Bahrainis were rising up because Saudi Arabia didn't support it showing her double standards.
Herself and Obama laughed at Romney when he said Russia was the main threat, within a couple of years a part of Ukraine was annexed.

HIllary Clinton has been a disaster on the world stage, she got call after call wrong and is one of the people responsible for the rise of Isis by her policy to support regime in countries that were not equipped to move to a democracy.
Her calls have caused the migrant crisis, and the rise of terror.
She would be an awful president given her judgment has been so poor when it comes to international politics.

hatrickpatrick

Exactly. People go on about Clinton's "foreign policy experience", but when the vast majority of that experience has been disastrous and Republican-esque neo conservatism, that's not a positive thing. Sanders' inexperience essentially means his foreign policy credentials are neutral, Clinton's are negative because her decisions have been bad ones.

For Clinton to use the "I have more experience in foreign policy" argument and try to paint that as a positive thing, is like Fianna Fail saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with banking crises" or Sinn Fein saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with terrorists". :pac:

Akrasia

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Exactly. People go on about Clinton's "foreign policy experience", but when the vast majority of that experience has been disastrous and Republican-esque neo conservatism, that's not a positive thing. Sanders' inexperience essentially means his foreign policy credentials are neutral, Clinton's are negative because her decisions have been bad ones.

For Clinton to use the "I have more experience in foreign policy" argument and try to paint that as a positive thing, is like Fianna Fail saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with banking crises" or Sinn Fein saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with terrorists". :pac:

The American electorate are woefully uninformed on international issues. Clinton can easily bamboozle the voters on this issue. Sanders should keep the debate focused on domestic issues where he has huge popular support

MadYaker

Ah she can't have been that bad or Obama would have been forced to remove her from the position. Anyway it's not like she went on a solo run making all her decisions by herself, she implemented the policies of the Obama administration.

Call Me Jimmy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

For Clinton to use the "I have more experience in foreign policy" argument and try to paint that as a positive thing, is like Fianna Fail saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with banking crises" or Sinn Fein saying "we have a lot of experience dealing with terrorists". :pac:

hah well put!

hatrickpatrick

MadYaker wrote: »

Ah she can't have been that bad or Obama would have been forced to remove her from the position. Anyway it's not like she went on a solo run making all her decisions by herself, she implemented the policies of the Obama administration.

Obama himself turned out to be far more of a hawk than many expected in terms of national security and foreign policy, so for people wanting a more left wing policy in those areas, that's not exactly a glowing endorsement.

If Bush hadn't pushed the envelope of "batsh!t insane" so much as president, Obama's policies would have been seen as very right wing. NSA surveillance expanded under Obama. Torturers escaped prosecution under Obama. Foreign dictators were supported both diplomatically and financially under Obama. Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers during his presidency than literally any other president in the history of the United States.

He's no Republican, but he's certainly no liberal. And Clinton is a lot more right wing than Obama.

Overheal

Justice Antonin Scalia has died of natural causes during a hunting trip.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/breaking-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-has-reportedly-died/

The Internet is a vitriolic place: anyone talking about his replacement is jumped on of course..

But it's an important issue. Scalias seat is now left open. will they wait to fill it, will appointments be filibustered, will Obama appoint someone during the recess?

BoJack Horseman

Scalia was one of the more conservative Supremes wasn't he? (Maybe Clarence Thomas being more conservative).

Obama may be fortunate (if that is the right word) to nominate 3 new Supreme court justices.

Manach

Justice Scalia was one of the key thinkers behind the concept of originalism. His wit was at time acerbic, but he had a good turn at legal education for instance in his "Making Your Case" text.

InTheTrees

Overheal wrote: »

But it's an important issue. Scalias seat is now left open. will they wait to fill it, will appointments be filibustered, will Obama appoint someone during the recess?

Well thats a surprise. I was fairly sure his seat would become available during the next presidency just because of his age and lifestyle. This really shows the importance of supreme court appointments to a president legacy.
If the replacement justice is a liberal this could start to substantially change the direction that the courts decisions take.
The days of Citizens United may be close to an end.
There will be a lot of questions about the decisions the court is about to start handing down in the current term starting in the next few months. There's four or five cases that were expected to be decided in favour of the conservatives but may now be tied at four. Affirmative action in some schools, there's an access to abortion case, and a few others that haven't even been argued yet.

Black Swan

Overheal wrote: »

But it's an important issue. Scalias seat is now left open. will they wait to fill it, will appointments be filibustered, will Obama appoint someone during the recess?

More than likely the Republican controlled US Senate will stall appointment nominations by Obama until after January 2017 new president assumption of office. If a Republican president is elected, and the GOP continues to control the Senate, they will then begin to stack the US Supreme Court with justices favourable to the Republican political agenda.

Ozymandius2011

Black Swan wrote: »

More than likely the Republican controlled US Senate will stall appointment nominations by Obama until after January 2017 new president assumption of office. If a Republican president is elected, and the GOP continues to control the Senate, they will then begin to stack the US Supreme Court with justices favourable to the Republican political agenda.

Perhaps but Senator Mark Sanford of SC last night was saying that while it should be for the next president to decide, it would be hard to keep a block going for a year. There are also still one or two moderate Republicans left in the Senate, like Susan Collins in Maine and Mark Kirk in Illinois. Kirk is facing an uphill struggle for re-election in a very liberal state, though he's been narrowing the gap in the most recent polls last year. If hes too obstructive he could put up moderate voters in November. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin also faces an uphill battle.

whatawaster

The Republicans are really shaming themselves over this Supreme Court appointment.

What they are essentially saying is that with 25% of his term left, Obama should not be making big decisions. These should be left to the new president. And the Supreme Court should just wait ...

hatrickpatrick

Unfortunately this will play right into Clinton supporters' hands, they will start spreading alarmist propaganda that since Bernie is "unelectable", not voting for Clinton in the primary means automatically getting a Republican rigged SCOTUS.

How the fact that according to pretty much every poll, Clinton is actually less electable against the Republican front runners than Sanders, is escaping these people (or perhaps, how they're getting away with deliberately ignoring it when canvassing) is beyond me.

hatrickpatrick

Unfortunately this will play right into Clinton supporters' hands, they will start spreading alarmist propaganda that since Bernie is "unelectable", not voting for Clinton in the primary means automatically getting a Republican rigged SCOTUS.

How the fact that according to pretty much every poll, Clinton is actually less electable against the Republican front runners than Sanders, is escaping these people (or perhaps, how they're getting away with deliberately ignoring it when canvassing) is beyond me.

ECO_Mental

What planet are the Reps on saying that Obama can't nominate someone for the supreme. What god given right have they to tell a president who has nearly a year left that he can't. Apparently Mitch McConnell put out a tweet saying this even before the supreme court officially announced he was dead. I know Scallia was a hero for them and a Regan nom but come on...i think they are under the illusion that they win the POTUS...

Fr Tod Umptious

whatawaster wrote: »

The Republicans are really shaming themselves over this Supreme Court appointment.

What they are essentially saying is that with 25% of his term left, Obama should not be making big decisions. These should be left to the new president. And the Supreme Court should just wait ...

I could see the Dems do the very same situation if the GOP had the presidency.

Political situations can change very quickly.

Reminds me of the late Ted Kennedy and the MA senate seat.
Back in 2004 Ted sponsored a changed in MA so that a election had to be held if Massachusetts senate seats became available, rather than the seat being filled by a nominees of the governor.
His thinking was that sitting senator John Kerry would win the presidency and MA governor Mitt Romney would then nominate a Republican.

Well Kerry did not win the presidency and poor old Ted died a few years later, at which point his seat was won by Republican Scott Brown in a special election.
Had the law not been changed sitting Democrat governor Deval Patrick would have nominated a Democrat.