a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

Lol adam

update: denmark is still reeling from reports of americans expressing confusion or no opinion on roland emmerich's 2016 space alien sequel independence day: resurgence. clearly the movie is going to be a huge bomb, but why?! how could this happen?! we could check back when the trailer comes out, but i mean, why bother.

Amazing that a person who's husband was president and has been also in national politics for 20+ years is more well known than the senator of Vermont.

I wonder if the DLC is paying gabbnebb for his weekly street team work here every saturday

― Οὖτις, Sunday, September 27, 2015 1:20 PM (46 minutes ago)

just gabbneb or every other hillary fatalist itt?

HRC is offering a bigger chance of winning and a bigger base in congress to do whatever she wants to do / defend against vetos. Sanders is offering warm air, calibrated mostly to resonate with wealthy educated strawmen.

― Frederik B, Sunday, September 27, 2015 1:18 PM (50 minutes ago)

you don't say

"whatever she wants to do" = drones on Americans who voted for Sanders in primaries

What I object to is that somehow in Bernie's case it is seen as a weakness. Just seems like singling him out for something every candidate does, often blatantly, because of his economic focus. As if appealing to wealthy educated wouldn't help any presidential candidate who wanted to be treated well by the national media. As if HRC was not a millionaire Yale graduate. Do you think the poor, uneducated are funding/doing these polls?

again, most ppl who vote do not FOLLOW politics blow-by-blow. They have a few months to hear of Sanders.

If someone wants to point out a time when Sanders blatantly did some quid pro quo for a private company or screwed over the public good then by all means put up a link. I agree this is stuff we should be aware of.

About polling, I have as much faith in that as I do a third Bush presidency.

We won't know if Sanders' campaign theme of "income inequality" does or doesn't resonate with voters of color until after Iowa and New Hampshire are out of the way. Two whiter states would be hard to find. That would make South Carolina the first battleground for non-white votes and Clinton is going to play well there. However, it is traditional for presidential candidates to tailor their message to suit whatever part of the country they are campaigning in. Bernie has more than enough time to sharpen his message between now and next March. So far, Clinton's only clear message is: I am Hillary Clinton.

Just dusted off this 1987 Trump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQWXaH4kTs8

Same guy, yet not, totally surreal. Especially his absolute refusal to divulge his net worth.

Actually in this one, around 16 min in Trump starts sounding like current Trump, less blustery but subbing Japan for China before he supports George Bush, but still familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmNN2MCJ-7U

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/news/a36707/back-to-the-future-2-donald-trump-biff-tannen/

jfc @ "a vote for Bernie is a vote for Jeb" and "HRC is offering a bigger chance of winning and a bigger base in congress to do whatever she wants to do"

i guess it was only a matter of time till the "realists" showed up

we could've created this thread in 2000

I wonder if the DLC is paying gabbnebb for his weekly street team work here every saturday

― Οὖτις, Sunday, September 27, 2015 1:20 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wonder if you realize that the DLC hasn't existed for more than 4 years, that I've never identified with that organization in any respect (though i have supported a number of quote-unquote new democrats, whether or not allied and especially in the wake of reagan, for one or another reason including my preference for electing democrats over republicans, a preference apparently not always shared by many on the left), that bill clinton, my second or third choice in 1992 until he became undeniable, was never entirely a DLC guy and, like his veep 8 years later, served up a good deal of economic populism, that I supported populist Howard Dean, who was attacked by the DLC, until he fell apart in 2004, that i supported obama over hillary in 2008, and that you've completely failed to address the substance of my remarks.

i like nearly all kinds of democrats to one degree or another, bernie sanders very much included, even though i don't like his lining up with the NRA against the Brady Bill or with Ted Cruz against reauthorization of the Export-Import bank (or with "DLC" Mickey Kaus against open borders), but i actually recognize that this is not simply a democratic country in which the primary decides the president, and as long as we're sufficiently divided that victory in a national election is in serious doubt, i'm not interested in taking unnecessary and possibly stupid risks.

i admit i hadn't "realized" that bill clinton, the guy who gave us NAFTA and deregulation of radio and wall street, was really "serving up a good deal of economic populism."

Both quotes you say 'jfc' at, J.D. was made in order to explain why minorities might not be as enthused by Sanders as white liberals. And yeah, minorities are often 'realists', but they're also the one who'd be hurt the most if Dems lose white house to racist clowns through gambling on the septenugarian socialist from one of the whitest states. imo Sanders is a bit too rightwing and reactionary.

Clinton was chair of the DLC.

frederik, it makes no sense to criticize sanders for being "rightwing and reactionary" and then suggest that HRC is better.

Of course it does. Depends on what HRC is better at. Would she be better as president? Nah, they'd be the same: worthless but still better than any republican. But better as candidate? Yup.

on immigration and guns she is by a consider margin, though to be fair to sanders he has moderated his libertarian anti-gun control stance by saying it might make sense in a place like chicago or los angeles where the demographics are different than in vermont (i'm sure he's talking about age there right), though of course then he recanted that and said that there isn't any kind of gun control law you could write that could have any kind of positive impact and this has been shown in other countries where they've tried it and it's always failed.

Nah, they'd be the same: worthless but still better than any republican. But better as candidate? Yup.

"better as candidate" is the "But I part my hair and gel it sideways" of 2015.

i think, based on their records and their platforms, there is ample evidence to suggest that bernie would be a more liberal president than hillary, fred. (how he'd get along with congress is another issue, admittedly.) anointing hillary the "better candidate" 14 months ahead of the election, and refusing to support sanders because of this, seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. i see no reason not to support sanders until the minute he drops out

I just don't think it matters how liberal the president is at this point. I'm not a 'realist', I'm a cynic...

On the other hand, I'm pretty optimistic about popular movements, which is also why I won't call myself a Sanders supporter while they attack BLM-people on twitter without him speaking out against it.

definitely the job of a presidential candidate to be monitoring the intra-party twitter debates of people who are not remotely representative of voters he's trying to court, right

yeah trump was totally in the right in not responding to that supporter calling the president a muslim

although at least in trump's case it's not like he needs the muslim vote

but hey why bother making any efforts to appeal to or listen to half the voters that voted for obama, if those ppl (yknow, like they have in chicago and los angeles but not so much in burlington or waterloo or nashua) don't realize that they just need to shut up and realize bernie and his supporters know their best interests than it's their loss.

yeah trump was totally in the right in not responding to that supporter calling the president a muslim

― balls, Sunday, September 27, 2015 8:17 PM (13 minutes ago

this is...not the same thing

balls you're kind of weirdly zealous about this anti-bernie thing, whats up

he's a fraud. the argument sets itself up as 'good person who is right on all the issues but can't get elected and couldn't govern vs corrupt person who is wrong on alot of the issues but will get elected and could govern' but really it's 'awful person who is right on a couple of issues and wrong on alot of issues but can't get elected and couldn't govern (beyond maybe passing that 'the weakest gun control laws in the country become the default for the entire country' bill the nra has had a hardon for) vs awful person who is right on a couple of issues and wrong on alot of issues but might get elected and conceivably could govern'. i was gonna compare him to ted cruz and ask if bernie supporters think the best thing that could happen for conservatism and the republican party would be ted cruz winning the nomination except that's not a fair comparison as ted cruz actually does a really good job of exemplifying conservative policy positions and appealing and reaching out to different segments of the conservative base. where and when cruz and sanders positions overlap - and they do, far too much - it's on cruz's turf. and you're right that trump not responding to a supporter crossing a line in attacking the potus and sanders not responding to supporters crossing a line in attacking black critics of his campaign aren't the same thing. the president still has his job while sanders supporters managed to get the guy who wrote about it in the post fired.

What different segments of the GOP does Cruz appeal to besides the 2 percent of "conservatives who want to give Trump/Bush policies a veneer o Ivy League constitutionality"?

breitbart lunatics + heritage foundation 'intellectuals' + liberty university holy rollers + ppl who are fed up w/ being given the option of pressing 2 for spanish + neocons. ie the ppl trump appeals to + (the ppl huckabee appeals to - the ppl kasich appeals to) + (the ppl rand paul appeals to - the ppl cynthia mckinney appealed to) + bill kristol.

i guess you're just not going to convince me that a guy is an "awful person" because he isn't commenting on the behavior of random twitter users. and on balance he's better on the issues than hillary, everyone in this thread knows that. literally no idea what "the president still has his job while sanders supporters managed to get the guy who wrote about it in the post fired" means

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2013-12/enhanced/webdr01/18/19/anigif_enhanced-buzz-5914-1387414313-15.gif

i don't like his positions on gun control or immigration either, believe me. but i'm not a single-issue voter

it means that sanders supporters managed to get the guy who wrote the piece who wrote about sanders supporters leveling racist attacks at blacks on twitter who voice any problems w/ the sanders campaign in the post fired from his job at alternet. seriously at this point the main difference between sanders supporters and gamergaters on twitter is the latter doesn't use deodorant while the former uses that thing w/ the crystal.

k3vin otm

thank god hillary has no shitty annoying supporters on the internet or this would be a really tough decision

Thank god hillary has no supporters

Except gabbneb

yeah she sucks and her supporters suck too, i've spent the past seven years at least rmde on a good day and coming off like richard mellon scaife on a bad day at the various pumas in my facebook feed (did you know we could have had 3% unemployment and gay marriage by groundhog day 2009 if hillary had won?). but at least they don't pretend they're about the moral high ground or a better kind of politics and their idea of minority outreach doesn't take its cues from the 92 perot campaign.

This is the weirdest fucking argument

Alfred otm

^^^OTM

nbc/wsj poll

http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2015_39/1238591/goppoll_d2145a71599587813265ebbf98f05bed.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg
http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2015_39/1238596/dempoll_0c52c2a467181c5a909d9d6505d87b09.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg

huh. that republican poll loses August when Trump had his margin at 40-ish percent, so it looks like his support is still increasing

yeah i don't think nbc/wsj ran a poll in august. it definitely appears at a minimum he's plateaued, i'm not sure what would sink him but i'm not sure what would give him a bump either. presumably everybody's made up their mind about him by now. it is interesting though that the nate silver argument has been to ignore trump because his ceiling is low and gradually as ppl dropped out of the race that support would go to bush or rubio or whoever. even though the main cultural conservative issue driving the carson and fiorina campaigns is different (abortion vs immigration), considering how much apparent antipathy toward anyone who's ever won an election anywhere there is among gop voters i'm not so sure their support would move to rubio or bush instead of trump. i also wonder how much their support is a mirage, if they just don't have the on the ground political skills to transform that support into delegates ie if they're pat robertson 1988.

I feel like these arguments always somehow take place in some alternate universe where there aren't about 75 million Democrats who really like Hilary Clinton and are excited about the prospect of her becoming President.