U.S. Elections: American Hitler 2016

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, she's not. I don't understand how anyone can say that with a straight face. She didn't have any significant achievements that she led on as a Senator, and her time as SoS was at best a mixed bag. She's more qualified than Obama was, but calling her the most qualified ever is laughable. 

And for what it's worth, James Buchanan was probably the most qualified candidate ever, and his presidency was an utter disaster. 

On the one hand, I agree that "qualifications" - i.e. traditional experience in government - are not necessarily a good yardstick for judging presidential candidates. Good presidents can have few qualifications and bad presidents can have many qualifications. And the reality is, most liberals and most conservatives are going to vote for their candidate based upon how closely the candidate's ideology matches theirs. Most liberals are not crossing the aisle to vote for a conservative because the conservative has a lot of government experience. 

On the other hand, experience in government doesn't require that you've done great things that someone agrees with. It just means you've done the job. And Hillary does have real legislative experience and cabinet-level executive experience on both foreign policy issues (as Secretary of State) and domestic issues (from her time as first lady). 

Now, other people may have been in government longer. If you've been in the Senate for 20 years, or served 8 years as a governor of a state - how exactly does that compare to to spending several years as Secretary of State? Does being a governor trade 1 for 1 with being Secretary of State? Does executive experience "trade" with legislative experience? How do you judge exactly how much experience being first lady gives you with a formal, cabinet-level position? I don't know. So I think these kinds of statements - "most qualified" etc. - say more about the speaker than Clinton. But I also think it's fair to say that based upon the traditional metric, she's very "qualified" - for whatever that's worth to anybody. 

[mormont]

 

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, she's not. I don't understand how anyone can say that with a straight face.

Because it's a rational claim with a factual basis, even if you don't happen to agree that it's true.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's in the ballpark of calling a dishonest person the most honest candidate ever.

It truly isn't. Again, that claim is a rational claim with a factual basis, even if you insist on begging the question instead of addressing it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

49 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

On the one hand, I agree that "qualifications" - i.e. traditional experience in government - are not necessarily a good yardstick for judging presidential candidates. Good presidents can have few qualifications and bad presidents can have many qualifications. And the reality is, most liberals and most conservatives are going to vote for their candidate based upon how closely the candidate's ideology matches theirs. Most liberals are not crossing the aisle to vote for a conservative because the conservative has a lot of government experience. 

Well said.

49 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

On the other hand, experience in government doesn't require that you've done great things that someone agrees with. It just means you've done the job. And Hillary does have real legislative experience and cabinet-level executive experience on both foreign policy issues (as Secretary of State) and domestic issues (from her time as first lady). 

True, but if one of your main selling points is that you've accomplished a lot and you're the candidate that gets things done, you'd expect said candidate would actually have a major accomplishment in their record that they took the lead on. 

52 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

Now, other people may have been in government longer. If you've been in the Senate for 20 years, or served 8 years as a governor of a state - how exactly does that compare to to spending several years as Secretary of State? Does being a governor trade 1 for 1 with being Secretary of State? Does executive experience "trade" with legislative experience? How do you judge exactly how much experience being first lady gives you with a formal, cabinet-level position? I don't know. So I think these kinds of statements - "most qualified" etc. - say more about the speaker than Clinton. But I also think it's fair to say that based upon the traditional metric, she's very "qualified" - for whatever that's worth to anybody. 

I'd argue that gubernatorial experience trumps everything else, but that's just my opinion. That said, she is absolutely qualified. And I've never said otherwise. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, mormont said:

 

Because it's a rational claim with a factual basis, even if you don't happen to agree that it's true.

It's only rational if you don't know a lot about previous presidential candidates. I can think of a number of prior candidates who have comparable or superior qualifications. 

For fun, how is she clearly more qualified than say LBJ, or hell, John Kasich? 

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Well, Clinton is, in fact, probably the most qualified candidate ever to run.

I don't understand why people who otherwise appear to be intelligent say this -- no matter how one much leeway one tries to give that statement, it remains either nonsensical or false.

First, the statement makes no sense because the sum total of actual qualifications for President as described in the Constitution are (1) a natural-born citizen of the US who is (2) at least 35 years old and has (3) lived in the US for at least 14 years. In addition, there is an Amendment which says that a person can't be elected President if they had already held the Presidency for longer than 6 years at the time of the election. That's it. There are (deliberately!) no further official qualifications.

Second, let's drop the "official" qualifications and look at the reasons why most people say this. As far as I can tell, this is mainly due to the posts she has held (Senator and then Secretary of State and possibly First Lady). It's true, she did hold those posts -- but what did she actually accomplish there? Her enemies claim that she had made serious mistakes, but even her allies would struggle to point at something truly remarkable that she has done. There have been US candidates whose unofficial qualifications included things like "Negotiated purchase of territory doubling the size of the country." If the qualifications are based on accomplishments, Clinton is nowhere close to the most qualified ever to run.

Finally, even if accomplishments are ignored and we only consider the titles of the posts held prior to the Presidency, the statement is still false. For example, there was once a candidate who had previously held not only the titles of Senator and Secretary of State, but also Major (in the Army), Minister to France, Minister to the United Kingdom, Governor and Secretary of War.

There's just no way to torture that statement into any semblance of truth. At best, it is nonsensical and at worst, it is an insult to the genuinely competent leaders this country once had.

[Fat Mac]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's only rational if you don't know a lot about previous presidential candidates. I can think of a number of prior candidates who have comparable or superior qualifications. 

For fun, how is she clearly more qualified than say LBJ, or hell, John Kasich? 

While I wouldn't argue she's the most qualified ever, since the President's main role is foreign policy so to speak, one could argue Secretary of State is the best training you can have. I would say foreign policy experience is more vital than executive experience (such as being governor, because governors don't deal with foreign leaders and dignitaries). 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Fat Mac said:

While I wouldn't argue she's the most qualified ever, since the President's main role is foreign policy so to speak, one could argue Secretary of State is the best training you can have. I would say foreign policy experience is more vital than executive experience (such as being governor, because governors don't deal with foreign leaders and dignitaries). 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that foreign policy is the main role of the president, though it is certainly near the top. It's also wrong to say that governors don't deal with foreign leaders. It's actually a significant duty for governors of big states. Just to give you an idea, if we made CA, TX and NY independent countries, they'd have the 6th, 11th and 13th largest GDPs in the world. These states, as well as several others, have serious ties to foreign governments, and thus their governors do gain some foreign policy experience. Personally, I believe that having executive experience is the best qualification for being the head of the Executive Branch. 

[TrackerNeil]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's only rational if you don't know a lot about previous presidential candidates. I can think of a number of prior candidates who have comparable or superior qualifications. 

For fun, how is she clearly more qualified than say LBJ, or hell, John Kasich? 

Because she has actual White House experience, both as First Lady and as a cabinet secretary?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Because she has actual White House experience, both as First Lady and as a cabinet secretary?

I have no idea how to actually quantify her experience as FLOTUS, other then to say that it gives her a better idea about how great the pressure of the presidency is. But that said, being a First Lady and SoS wouldn't make her more qualified than the two examples Imo. It's perfectly reasonable to say that Clinton is immensely qualified, but it's a stretch to say that she's the most qualified ever.

[TrackerNeil]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I have no idea how to actually quantify her experience as FLOTUS, other then to say that it gives her a better idea about how great the pressure of the presidency is. But that said, being a First Lady and SoS wouldn't make her more qualified than the two examples Imo. It's perfectly reasonable to say that Clinton is immensely qualified, but it's a stretch to say that she's the most qualified ever.

I'm not sure I'd say "ever", but I suggest she's as qualified than any candidate in the last thirty years or so, and more than most.

[Kelli Fury]

I was married to a Literature professor once, doesn't make me qualified to teach. Let's stick to positions she has held that didn't involve being married to someone, and I agree those are plenty, but First Lady to me is actually a mark against her.

[TrackerNeil]

18 minutes ago, Kay Fury said:

I was married to a Literature professor once, doesn't make me qualified to teach. Let's stick to positions she has held that didn't involve being married to someone, and I agree those are plenty, but First Lady to me is actually a mark against her.

If you yourself had a degree and helped your husband research, I'd consider you at least somewhat qualified to teach. Hillary didn't just hang around the White House and play Yahtzee.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'm not sure I'd say "ever", but I suggest she's as qualified than any candidate in the last thirty years or so, and more than most.

Many of her supporters do say that though. And I'm not sure that she was the most qualified candidate in this cycle, let alone the last 30 years. Kasich was a powerful Congressman for 18 years with some major achievements (even if you and I would disagree with them) and a two term Governor from a major state. 

But even if you limit it to just the nominees from the last 30 years, why would she be clearly more qualified than Dukakis (3 term Governor and 3 term Congressman), Bill Clinton (6 term Governor (although AR does 2 year terms) and state AG), Dole (6 term Senator and Majority Leader of the Senate, 3 term Congressman), Gore (2 term VP, 2 term Senator, 4 term Congressman) and McCain (4 term Senator (at the time), 2 term Congressman)? When I compare that to Clinton being a two term Senator without a major achievement (and her second term was largely her 08 presidential campaign) and Secretary of State, I have a hard time saying she was more qualified than any of them (that's not to say she wasn't as qualified, but I think Gore is clearly the most qualified of the people I listed). 

[James Arryn]

Yeah, the First Lady stuff is kind of unknowable. Surely it's an advantage...but how/how much depends on so many things we have no real way of knowing. My understanding is that she was unusually involved, but how much of that was just the desired optics...?

[Fez]

I think that the outsized policy role she played as First Lady, both of the U.S. and of Arkansas means that they can both count as qualifications as well. Not as important as SoS or a Senator, but still pretty valuable stuff; especially in terms of seeing how things actually get done in the White House. Also, the Senate's a funny place, where even today relationships are vital to getting anything passed and Clinton helped get more than a few things passed that she wasn't an official sponsor of. Not to say she was a Chuck Schumer or anything, but still, she wasn't some sort of backbencher either.

I agree though that she's hardly the most qualified candidate ever, or even in recent memory. 

[Altherion]

45 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Because she has actual White House experience, both as First Lady and as a cabinet secretary?

Which part of her performance as Secretary of State do you believe enhances her qualifications? Her tenure is most famous for the email scandal and Benghazi, but even if we ignore these and focus on the issues which have affect more people, most of her behavior is hardly laudable. Here are what I believe to be the top three:

1) The Russian "reset". The screwing up of the translation was a fairly accurate omen of what was to come of this. It obviously did not go well.

2) The intervention in Libya. This was an unmitigated disaster which resulted in multiple civil wars, the latest of which is currently ongoing. Clinton is lucky American media focused mainly on Benghazi because Libya was and is a serious mess.

3) Low-intensity intervention in Syria. Clinton wanted to ramp it up, but Obama overruled her.

I don't see much in her tenure that makes me think it would be good for the country for her to be in a similar position again, let alone one that is above.

[Shryke]

7 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Which part of her performance as Secretary of State do you believe enhances her qualifications? Her tenure is most famous for the email scandal and Benghazi, but even if we ignore these and focus on the issues which have affect more people, most of her behavior is hardly laudable. Here are what I believe to be the top three:

1) The Russian "reset". The screwing up of the translation was a fairly accurate omen of what was to come of this. It obviously did not go well.

2) The intervention in Libya. This was an unmitigated disaster which resulted in multiple civil wars, the latest of which is currently ongoing. Clinton is lucky American media focused mainly on Benghazi because Libya was and is a serious mess.

3) Low-intensity intervention in Syria. Clinton wanted to ramp it up, but Obama overruled her.

I don't see much in her tenure that makes me think it would be good for the country for her to be in a similar position again, let alone one that is above.

This says so little about Clinton and so very very much about you.

[Shryke]

Anyway, it looked like Mark Pence was confirmed as VP and then Trump's campaign said "No, not confirmed" and that he hasn't even picked yet and no one has been contacted.

Apparently, for the VP announcement he's making tomorrow, he's picking tonight.

I'm not sure what could be more illustrative of the Trump campaign's sheer incompetence.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Shryke said:

This says so little about Clinton and so very very much about you.

I'm not sure he's actually wrong though, even it's mostly BS. I think a lot of Americans across the political spectrum associate her tenure as SoS with Benghazi. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Anyway, it looked like Mark Pence was confirmed as VP and then Trump's campaign said "No, not confirmed" and that he hasn't even picked yet and no one has been contacted.

Apparently, for the VP announcement he's making tomorrow, he's picking tonight.

I'm not sure what could be more illustrative of the Trump campaign's sheer incompetence.

Yep, and apparently Christie is out. Daddy's little girl gets what she wants.