2016 US Presidential Race - Mod Warning in OP

Skylinehead

RobertKK wrote: »

They have Clinton as favourite for the presidency, but I don't think Clinton is that likeable. She was the big name in 2008 and Obama easily beat her.

You're rewriting the history books here Rob, it was anything but easy. I think Clinton actually got more votes in the primaries.

spiralism

South Carolina is Trump territory and it's terrifying

Some of this is absolutely staggering.

70% think the Confederate flag should still be flying over the State Capital, to only 20% who agree with it being taken down. In fact 38% of Trump voters say they wish the South had won the Civil War to only 24% glad the North won and 38% who aren't sure. Overall just 36% of Republican primary voters in the state are glad the North emerged victorious to 30% for the South, but Trump's the only one whose supporters actually wish the South had won.

By an 80/9 spread, Trump voters support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. In fact 31% would support a ban on homosexuals entering the United States as well, something no more than 17% of anyone else's voters think is a good idea. There's also 62/23 support among Trump voters for creating a national database of Muslims and 40/36 support for shutting down all the mosques in the United States, something no one else's voters back. Only 44% of Trump voters think the practice of Islam should even be legal at all in the United States, to 33% who think it should be illegal.

RobertKK

Skylinehead wrote: »

You're rewriting the history books here Rob, it was anything but easy. I think Clinton actually got more votes in the primaries.

But each state is like a separate country, so more votes don't matter if the most votes comes from the most populous states.
Anyway, she was beaten by a person who had more charisma than she had.

ECO_Mental

I said a couple of weeks ago trump will never get the GOP nom not to mention get anyway near the pres how wrong I was. At this stage who knows what's going to happen I think he will get it....:( I do think Clinton will beat him easily as Trump has alienated to many minorities and majorities (women) and when he actually has to explain and put meat around the stuff that falls out of his mouth e.g." The Wall" and the comical idea on how he is going to get the Mexicans to pay for it he will be found out. But I have been wrong before....

I always have a read of fox news every now and then to see what going on and if you read the comments after the articles you can get a good idea of who he is appealing to. One common theme is that the Muslims are taking over the US and "we have to win our county back". Trump is doubling down on this crazy idea. I think Goebbels and his crew did the same thing saying that the Jews were taking over the country and were to blame for all the problems. Sad stuff really

Zascar

Disappointed that Bernie lost in Iowa and Nevada, I was hoping he'd just clinch it and a storm would follow. Hilary is getting killed with the younger generation. Lets see what happens on Super Tuesday. I do think Trump has a serious chance of winning it now. A lot of people are going to feel disenfranchised if Bernie doesn't get the nomination, and they built up a hatred for Hilary and might not vote at all, so Trump could steal the show. It would be terrible to think that a lot of Democrats may vote for Hilary as they think shes move electable, but in reality not nominating Bernie could cost them the whitehouse

Manach

Well some libertarian groups have been high lighting the problems of Obama care for the young voters that is hitting their wallets to subsidise the system would seem to auger better for Sanders than for Clinton who seeks to inherit the Obama mandate.

Thargor

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/20/11080952/jeb-bush-please-clap

What an utterly disgraceful waste of money. Though he comes across as a very decent and human man it must be said.



Trump continues to spend relatively thriftily while still winning.

That article is tragic...

Canadel

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Zascar wrote: »

It would be terrible to think that a lot of Democrats may vote for Hilary as they think shes move electable, but in reality not nominating Bernie could cost them the whitehouse

There's a reason Permabear there posted an article about the Koch brothers supporting a Sanders' nomination. The cocks don't care about the average American. They do care about a Republican controlled white house which they will benefit from. A Saunders' nomination is their best chance of that. Saunders' simply does not win a national election. Hilary is the only winner here.

eire4

Hande hoche! wrote: »

There does seem to be more enthusiasm. Of course the flip side of that, is voters might stay home in November if "their candidate" isn't the nominee. Certainly an interesting year all things considered.

Well certainly when turnout is typically in the mid 50's range percentage wise it is the norm for a large chunk of the US population to stay at home and not vote. I think in more recent times there has been a deeply felt growing disatisfaction with the system of governmnet which clearly does not operate with the best interests of the vast majority of Americans in mind. The dreadful citizens united and mccutcheon supreme court decisions have seen unprecedented sums of money flowing into campaigns and has combined with a gerrymandered house produced a washington power structure that is clearly corrupted and dysfunctional.

Inquitus

Establishment GOP now rallying around Rubio, I think one on one Rubio beats Trump, but in a 3 way race Trump's @35% gives him every chance of garnering the nomination.

KingBrian2

Manach wrote: »

Well some libertarian groups have been high lighting the problems of Obama care for the young voters that is hitting their wallets to subsidise the system would seem to auger better for Sanders than for Clinton who seeks to inherit the Obama mandate.

Liberals don't regard Obama as going left enough so they see Bernie rightly as the favourite option and if you look at the range of options provided by the GOP we have candidates that have failed miserably to connect with young voters and a disillusioned public.

Overheal

Canadel wrote: »

There's a reason Permabear there posted an article about the Koch brothers supporting a Sanders' nomination. The cocks don't care about the average American. They do care about a Republican controlled white house which they will benefit from. A Saunders' nomination is their best chance of that. Saunders' simply does not win a national election. Hilary is the only winner here.

Are ya sure about that? Most recent poll from fox shows him leading and many other polls have yet to refresh. He's closing ground nationally

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary

In heads up polling he also has consistently performed better than Hillary against republican nominees

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/17/usa-today-suffolk-poll-whos-more-electable/80452560/

But let's assume Clinton wins the nomination. What will happen is the GOP will run the email scandal into the ground and run millions of dollars in PAC ads attacking her credibility. Conservative elements in the justice department may even get that indictment they want, and watch it happen shortly after her nomination, or, shortly before the election itself.

Overheal

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Liberals don't regard Obama as going left enough so they see Bernie rightly as the favourite option and if you look at the range of options provided by the GOP we have candidates that have failed miserably to connect with young voters and a disillusioned public.

Obama continued the neocon foreign policy to an extent. We keep brewing enemies with drone strikes under him.

eire4

Overheal wrote: »

Obama continued the neocon foreign policy to an extent. We keep brewing enemies with drone strikes under him.

No doubt about it. Obama did nothing to reign in the military budget while so many programmes that badly needed funding within the US for its own citizens were underfunded and cut. The mess that is the middle east in its current incarnation was a result of Bush opening Pandora's box in the middle east and Obama has in many ways just carried on that overly militarized outlook on solving problems. His high usage of drone strikes has killed so many civilans for instance.
The fact is both the Republicans and the Democrats are to a very large extent to blame for making the world a more danderous place not just for Americans but for us even too. They just don't seen to get it that constantly bombing and killing people just causes more problems.

KingBrian2

eire4 wrote: »

No doubt about it. Obama did nothing to reign in the military budget while so many programmes that badly needed funding within the US for its own citizens were underfunded and cut. The mess that is the middle east in its current incarnation was a result of Bush opening Pandora's box in the middle east and Obama has in many ways just carried on that overly militarized outlook on solving problems. His high usage of drone strikes has killed so many civilans for instance.
The fact is both the Republicans and the Democrats are to a very large extent to blame for making the world a more danderous place not just for Americans but for us even too. They just don't seen to get it that constantly bombing and killing people just causes more problems.

The good news is the reopening of relations with Cuba but even that is opposed by all the Republican leaders.

Overheal

I wouldn't say he did nothing though. There are sequestration cuts and caps.

http://m.military.com/topics/sequestration

So he did stop spending from going wildly out of control. However the miltary still has systemic problems, like the spiraling push for more sophisticated tech that is driving down the total size of the miltary (F-22s F-35s drones etc) the joke is eventually the whole military will have one plane some day that costs a third of the military budget that the marines, navy, and air force have to share like a divorced couple.

KingBrian2

The economic argument has not come up yet most of it has been around National Security and Immigration all Republican areas of concern and they score high on these areas. When it come to the economy do most Americans feel better under a Democratic Presidency or a Republican Presidency. The vision will be does the country want to give big business more say in the running of the country.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Black Swan

KingBrian2 wrote: »

The good news is the reopening of relations with Cuba but even that is opposed by all the Republican leaders.

Last July Hillary Clinton stated "The Cuba embargo needs to go, once and for all," so it appears that if elected she will continue to foster better relations with Cuba.

Methinks that the GOP caters to the Cuban-American ancestry segment of the Hispanic vote, many of whom want all that they lost back a half century ago from Fidel & Co before normalising relations with Cuba. But this segment proportionately has been declining over decades in both swing state Florida and nationally, so it's today's dying cause that the GOP has held for so long.

And for Republican presidential candidates to say that Americans cannot have normalisation with Cuba because they are Communist, is a complete contradiction with the "Most Favoured Nation Status" given to PRC, the biggest communist nation on Earth. Republican president Nixon opened the door, and Democrat Bill Clinton blessed it. What a craic!

Manach

Well given the Chinese state now embraces the Capitalist model at its most 19thC red in tooth and claw level whilst the Cuba regieme embraces a top down command driven statist model, it should not be a surprise that various branches of the America political classes embrace both. However the expansinist tendencies of the former (echoes of 1900 America) might mean having someone with some foreign experience should figure amongst the voters - so Clinton's experience at State should benefit her.

Black Swan

Manach wrote: »

Well given the Chinese state now embraces the Capitalist model at its most 19thC red in tooth and claw level whilst the Cuba regieme embraces a top down command driven statist model, it should not be a surprise that various branches of the America political classes embrace both. However the expansinist tendencies of the former (echoes of 1900 America) might mean having someone with some foreign experience should figure amongst the voters - so Clinton's experience at State should benefit her.

The infamous Republican president Richard Nixon opened the door to China before resigning presidency (due to WaterGate), so perhaps the door needs to be officially opened to Cuba for it to "embrace the Capitalist model at its most 19thC red in tooth and claw level" by the new 2017 president and Republican controlled US Congress? China had its Mao, and now has its Most Favourite Nation Status. Cuba its Fidel, and if offshore profits drive presidential and congressional decision-making in the slightest, it would be easy under Fidel's brother to go back to the good old days of graft and corruption of Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar's Cuban version of capitalism only a few miles off Key West.

Anecdotally speaking, the loudly proclaimed disputes between USA and Cuba have been a sham, used to draw American-Cuban ancestry votes for Republican candidates, mostly in swing state Florida. For example, my former university sent their NCAA baseball team and over 200 USC students and alumni "missionaries" to play Cuba's national team in 2004. One of my cousins went, who was a USC alumni, JPL scientist, and atheist. USC is private, non-religious, grew substantially in students and buildings during the Great Recession, and if those that went to Cuba preached anything, it was their faith in baseball as a sport. Thanks to Obama, US citizens can now visit Cuba to participate in a sport, along with a host of other "self-license" excuses that can be made up with little substantiation; e.g., "professional research, participating in an athletic event, performing in a concert, working on a humanitarian project or taking part in educational activities." But today "Cuba remains the only country in the world off-limits to U.S. tourists." Oh, they can visit communist China, or communist Vietnam, but not Cuba? What a craic!

Black Swan

"Torture works," states Trump several times during an interview (Bluffton, South Carolina CNN). If elected he would bring back waterboarding and worse, and the worse part he emphasized. The US military does not want torture reintroduced, because if their personnel are captured, the enemy, whomever they happen to be at the time, may act in kind using Trump Torture policy as justification.

A vote for Trump, is a vote for torture.

J Mysterio

Also worth noting was Trumps glee in recounting the (actually debunked) tale of 49 Muslims being executed with bullets dipped in pigs blood.

Black Swan

J Mysterio wrote: »

Also worth noting was Trumps glee in recounting the (actually debunked) tale of 49 Muslims being executed with bullets dipped in pigs blood.

Not sure why this debunked item was offered, because the "torture works" statement by Trump is very real, as reported by several credible sources, including several US national news networks, as well as captured by vid. Trump does not deny it, rather he continues to support his "torture works" proposed presidential policy if elected.

A vote for Trump, is a vote for torture (worldwide).

Sources:
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/donald-trump-torture-works/
NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-torture-works-n520086
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-torture-works/
Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/cia-would-refuse-trump-torture-426012
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/17/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-torture-works/
The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/contra-donald-trump-torture-does-not-work/463293/
The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/10/donald-trump-ted-cruz-torture-republican-sleep-deprivation
The Hindustantimes: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/torture-works-trump-says-as-south-carolina-primary-looms/story-ajGSN7mmv6ic9ghiDjE3MJ.html
(and the list goes on and on and on worldwide)

LuckyLloyd

spiralism wrote: »

South Carolina is Trump territory and it's terrifying

Some of this is absolutely staggering.

A good thing about the Trump campaign is it draws attention to the undesirable part of the Republican base. But it would be a mistake to think that's the only cohort Trump is appealing to. New Hampshire is different territory to South Carolina which are both very different to Nevada. If he does as well in Nevada tomorrow as polls have suggested the question / required analysis is really trying to understand his support - because it's either more than dumb, white racists; or America has more dumb, white racists than previously imagined.

Overheal wrote: »

Are ya sure about that? Most recent poll from fox shows him leading and many other polls have yet to refresh. He's closing ground nationally

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary

In heads up polling he also has consistently performed better than Hillary against republican nominees

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/17/usa-today-suffolk-poll-whos-more-electable/80452560/

But let's assume Clinton wins the nomination. What will happen is the GOP will run the email scandal into the ground and run millions of dollars in PAC ads attacking her credibility. Conservative elements in the justice department may even get that indictment they want, and watch it happen shortly after her nomination, or, shortly before the election itself.

Two points:

1) Clinton already has ~20% of the Delegates required to secure the nomination and has taken a majority of the delegates voted for thus far. This isn't about Sanders closing polling gaps and picking up a few states, he needs to pass Clinton and start sprinting away through the finish line in order to get nominated
2) If Trump wins the nomination it really remains to be seen whether the GOP will rally around him. He hasn't spent a dollar in Super PAC money thus far and has not kissed a single establishment ring to this point. Yeah sure, they hate Hillary, but there could be super salty elements of the GOP that decide to take their chances on letting Trump get annihilated in the general feeling they can retake control of the message and take on a hated HRC four year's hence. They might feel they could withhold it and impeach her with it a few months into her presidency

I personally feel general election scenarios are as follows:

Clinton >>> Trump
Clinton > Cruz
Clinton < Rubio
Sanders << Rubio
Sanders < Cruz
Sanders ? Trump

And then there are potential wildcards around like a third party Bloomberg run or Trump getting ****ed by the GOP come convention and pleading with his supporters not to turn out (it will be too late for him to get on the ballot if he hangs in as a GOP candidate through the Convention) that might be unpredictable, but they serve to weaken the Republican nominee in each case, whoever they are.

Overheal

The super delegates she has are free to change their mind any number of times up until the actual nomination process. The last time super delegates selected a candidate that was contrary to the popular vote, democrats disenfranchised their voters and lost the election to Ronald Reagan in a colossal landslide.

Inquitus

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I personally feel general election scenarios are as follows:

Clinton >>> Trump
Clinton > Cruz
Clinton < Rubio
Sanders << Rubio
Sanders < Cruz
Sanders ? Trump

Polling was done on the matchups last week and believe it or not, Bernie matches up much better than Hillary against the potential GOP Nominees.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/02/17/usa-today-suffolk-poll-whos-more-electable/80452560/

J Mysterio

Black Swan wrote: »

Not sure why this debunked item was offered, because the "torture works" statement by Trump is very real, as reported by several credible sources, including several US national news networks, as well as captured by vid. Trump does not deny it, rather he continues to support his "torture works" proposed presidential policy if elected.

A vote for Trump, is a vote for torture (worldwide).

Sources:
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/donald-trump-torture-works/
NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-torture-works-n520086
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-torture-works/
Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/cia-would-refuse-trump-torture-426012
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/17/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-torture-works/
The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/contra-donald-trump-torture-does-not-work/463293/
The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/10/donald-trump-ted-cruz-torture-republican-sleep-deprivation
The Hindustantimes: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/torture-works-trump-says-as-south-carolina-primary-looms/story-ajGSN7mmv6ic9ghiDjE3MJ.html
(and the list goes on and on and on worldwide)

Trump did make the speech and thought it a great little story, not realising it had been debunked.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/19/politics/donald-trump-south-carolina-john-pershing/

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-hails-torture-mass-killings-pigs-blood-ammo-sc

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/trump-pigs-blood-sister-chapel-hill-victim-barakat.html?referer=https://www.google.ie/

AbusesToilets

Black Swan wrote: »

"Torture works," states Trump several times during an interview (Bluffton, South Carolina CNN). If elected he would bring back waterboarding and worse, and the worse part he emphasized. The US military does not want torture reintroduced, because if their personnel are captured, the enemy, whomever they happen to be at the time, may act in kind using Trump Torture policy as justification.

A vote for Trump, is a vote for torture.

While I would certainly agree that torture is not something that the US should support, if US personnel are captured by non-state actors, such as the Taliban or ISIS, they are likely to face torture and worse regardless of the US's actions.

The media likes to portray any interrogation techniques beyond basic questioning as torture, choosing to overlook the nature of the persons being questioned. They are not uniformed members of a recognised military, they are suspected terrorists. They aren't subject to the treaties that cover armies at war, and are unlikely to treat US personnel as such.

oscarBravo

AbusesToilets wrote: »

While I would certainly agree that torture is not something that the US should support, if US personnel are captured by non-state actors, such as the Taliban or ISIS, they are likely to face torture and worse regardless of the US's actions.

The media likes to portray any interrogation techniques beyond basic questioning as torture, choosing to overlook the nature of the persons being questioned. They are not uniformed members of a recognised military, they are suspected terrorists. They aren't subject to the treaties that cover armies at war, and are unlikely to treat US personnel as such.

...none of which makes torture acceptable.

Dressing it up as "enhanced interrogation" is a nice Orwellian/Cheneyian argument, but that doesn't make it not torture.