U.S. Politics - Jeb announced yet?

[TheKitttenGuard]

Obama won 52.9% and 51.1% of the vote. Did he have broad-based appeal?

He is referring to Bill Clinton.

[DanteGabriel]

He is referring to Bill Clinton.

Thanks. I can read. Commodore says Clinton didn't have broad-based appeal because he never got more than 50% of the electoral votes. If that's Commodore's criterion for broad-based appeal, then I'd like to see if Commodore thinks Obama, who got over 50% in both of his elections, does have broad-based appeal.

Or, what TrackerNeil said in the post right above yours.

Got it now?

[Swordfish]

Bill Clinton for all his many many many many many many faults, is still loved by a large majority of americans. While he adds some negatives to hil's campaign he adds much more positives just by showing up

I think that remains to be seen. We have no litmus test for how voters will react to those things when they are filtered through the lens of an actual campaign.

And it's entirely possible that once the spotlight is on him, more stuff will come to light.

Voters are notoriously fickle. i think assuming that because he was well liked in that last stint as president, that that cannot change is pretty naive.

We'll just have to wait and see. but there's a big difference between the nostalgia for him as a president before and tolerance of his behavior if he's first man.

I don't really have a good feel for how that will go, and there are away to many variables involved to really intelligently speculate about it, but i think we have already seen some of those cracks the last time he was on the campaign trail for her.

My guess would be that he will be mostly muzzled this time around.

[Mudguard]

And not using the money to make more is fine?

eta: come to think of it, if the companies were actually paying taxes the taxes paid by the individual shareholders could go down, so malpractice either way?

eta: a nagging idea at the back of my mind lead to some searching, and it seems the strict fiduciary duty of a company towards its shareholders an ideology rather than a rule of law. eg http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/how-the-cult-of-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business/

They do use the money held overseas to make more money. They can use it to pay for expenses incurred in their overseas operation, for overseas acquisitions, for overseas investments, etc. They also do bring some of it back to the US if there is a good reasons in doing so, like a good investment that requires more cash than they have in their US coffers. But there is no reason to bring back overseas profits only to park it in a US bank.

No idea what you are talking about regarding lowering the taxes paid by individual shareholders. By shareholders, we are generally talking about people owning common stock, like in Apple. If Apple brings back some money and pays taxes on it, it doesn't effect my personal tax liability in any way.

[Commodore]

Obama won 52.9% and 51.1% of the vote. Did he have broad-based appeal?

it's a semantic argument, but surely the threshold should be more than 50%

look no further than the 2008 primary to see how overrated Bill's coattails are

[lokisnow]

I don't really have a good feel for how that will go, and there are away to many variables involved to really intelligently speculate about it, but i think we have already seen some of those cracks the last time he was on the campaign trail for her.

My guess would be that he will be mostly muzzled this time around.

Bill Clinton is eight years older, a change in his behavior may indicate a change in his disposition from normal aging just as it may indicate muzzling, we don't know.

Just assuming he's been muzzled is jumping to conclusions when it may just be typical for men of a certain age.

[Seli]

...

No idea what you are talking about regarding lowering the taxes paid by individual shareholders. By shareholders, we are generally talking about people owning common stock, like in Apple. If Apple brings back some money and pays taxes on it, it doesn't effect my personal tax liability in any way.

The government needs x money, currently companies pay less than strictly seems fair, if they pay more other parties might pay less. Or, what seems more likely, government will spend the extra cash. Some of that even on things that make life better for everyone such as infrastructure.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I think a lot of Bill's popularity is retrospective. The Clinton years were very good for a lot of people and it was before a lot of the modern terrorism, torture, NSA, etc. stuff came up so people are nostalgic for it regardless of whether or not they voted for him.

That can change once the campaign and anti-Hillary ads start in earnest.

[awesome possum]

it's a semantic argument, but surely the threshold should be more than 50%

look no further than the 2008 primary to see how overrated Bill's coattails are

And look no further than the polls after his 2012 DNC speech to see how much of a boost Bill can give.

Trying to argue that he didn't help Hillary's campaign when she was up against a growing juggernaut I've never seen before in my lifetime in politics is not a good argument.

[The Fallen]

I think people who like Hillary will, at worst, tolerate Bill. Those who wouldn't be voting for Hillary would probably attribute some of it to Bill.

I wouldn't be too worried about Bill being back in the White House. Although I would hope that someone else emerges from the Democratic field so that the White House doesn't pass to another Bush or Clinton.

[Lord Flashheart]

is not a good argument.

This has never stopped Commodore before.

[Swordfish]

I think a lot of Bill's popularity is retrospective. The Clinton years were very good for a lot of people and it was before a lot of the modern terrorism, torture, NSA, etc. stuff came up so people are nostalgic for it regardless of whether or not they voted for him.

That can change once the campaign and anti-Hillary ads start in earnest.

yep.

Bill Clinton is eight years older, a change in his behavior may indicate a change in his disposition from normal aging just as it may indicate muzzling, we don't know.

Just assuming he's been muzzled is jumping to conclusions when it may just be typical for men of a certain age.

I don't know what you mean.

I was just saying that it's my guess that he'll be muzzled by her campaign this time around based on what happened in 2008.

I didn't assume anything, i just made a guess.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Anecdotal, but most of the people I encounter at work are career blue collar guys that like guns and are afraid of minorities and foreigners. They are all pretty hardcore conservative, listen to Rush Limbaugh all day, but... they all love Bill Clinton. Some of them even voted for him, and I've heard them talk about how the Clinton's 'get shit done'. Not sure how prevalent that sentiment is but it seems that at least for a very limited section of the poplulation, Bill Clinton is the rare someone that gets people to vote across the aisle.

It is strangely common. My hardcore GOP friend says he would maybe vote for Hillary

[DanteGabriel]

It is strangely common. My hardcore GOP friend says he would maybe vote for Hillary

Not sure if that says more about Hillary Clinton or the state of the GOP.

[Larry of the Lawn]

It is strangely common. My hardcore GOP friend says he would maybe vote for Hillary

For the voters we're referring to, I think it's a combination of things- I think it's the fact that the economy was growing when Clinton left office. The impact of that cannot be underestimated. The rest I think comes down to the Bubba angle, I think the Lewinsky / skirt chasing stuff actually endears him to your average 30-65 conservative man, makes him seem like a regular guy instead of a politician. They like the idea of him as a moderate. And I think they figure getting Hilary is essentially the same thing.

[TrackerNeil]

It is strangely common. My hardcore GOP friend says he would maybe vote for Hillary

Bah...back in 2008 I heard any number of people on Redstate.org saying that if McCain won the GOP nomination they were voting for Hillary. Within days of McCain locking up the nomination, the conservative memory deletion process (CoMDeP) had been completed and they were all diehard supporters of the senator from Arizona. Most Republicans are going to vote for their candidate no matter how distasteful they find him. (Same is true for Democrats, by the by. It's just the way Americans are.)

(Honestly, if the Iraq invasion, the constant debt-ceiling scares, and the 2013 government shutdown haven't trashed the Republican brand, I don't know what will.)

[Ramsay Gimp]

I think the thing I find most loathsome about her (her warmongering) is appealing to many right-wing males. Even more so in a woman.

She is also perceived as an enemy of Obama, which helps her status among conservatives. Or at least the ones I talk to

[TheKitttenGuard]

I think the thing I find most loathsome about her (her warmongering) is appealing to many right-wing males. Even more so in a woman.

She is also perceived as an enemy of Obama, which helps her status among conservatives. Or at least the ones I talk to

There is not any great difference in the Foreign Policy in the most upper levels of both parties. HRC Iraq War vote was the logical end of Bill's Iraq policies. He endorse Regime Change and many strikes were in the hope that Saddam will be weaken to be overthrown internally. With those strikes being insufficent Right-Wing will push how weak the President is a demand of Escalation.

Today Boehner is trying to get U.S to that stage of spectacular strike which will discredit the Regime in Iran's citizen eyes and lead to a great overall with no consequences. That is what Nentanyahue coming here for. You have harsher sanction intent of doing to Iran what they did to Iraq in the '90s. Ofcourse any response by Iran will be those of the Mad Mullahs who are irrational paranoids.

[ants]

......

Obama made the call to withdraw the troops in Iraq. This gave ISIS the breathingroom they needed. (Would have ISIS been impossible without the Invasion of Iraq? I do not know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the same guys from the iraqi military would have beend supporting them (or a similar group) in Syria to weaken Iran. )

.....

.....

I agree if you say that Bush sticked the knife into the middle east. But the point is, Obama pulled it out and now we have a great deal of bleeding all over the place.

I do not blame Obama for the knife. ....

Um, didn't Bush sign the treaty to withdraw US troops with the Iraqi government? So if Obama had kept the troops there, wouldn't it have meant war with the new Iraqi government?

You've completely missed my point. For the sake of argument, I've already conceded that the US should value Libyan lives. I'm saying that on those terms, the situation now is worse than it worse. One-third of Libyans have fled the country as refugees since Gadaffi was killed, over 7,000 have died. Its worse now than it was before. Gadaffi's continued repression would have been better, so the only reason to say it was right to intervene is the argument that the eventual collapse would have been sufficiently worse than this. And no evidence for that has been presented.

Also, the analogy is that there are two situation where people say we need to do something bad to prevent something bad. It doesn't matter what the status quo is, just that the change makes it worse in both cases.

Of course it matters what the status quo is. The reality is that to get to democracy and a peaceful society, a step has to be the end of the dictatorial regime. The end may not trigger that happy happy outcome - but it can't come about if the regime never changes. So triggering it now brings this stepping stone forward. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it does mean a necessary step has occurred. Now, as we all agree that step involves a lot of risk since the whole thing can go to hell. So if the status quo is good, no matter how necessary that step is there is an argument for delaying it. But if the status quo involves genocide and a lot of death, bringing it forwards makes logical sense.

Medicare is a terrible analogy because there is no guarantee that to be in a better place the current regime has to end. It may not. Also the status quo is currently benign or good. So why stuff it up now for something that may never be necessary?

[ants]

I think the point is sexual harassment doesn't usually involve actual acts of sex. Unwanted touching, yes, but not a sexual act. (which, of course, Clinton claimed didn't happen, "I did not have sex with that woman")

And the main issue is not "the professional relationship", it's the inequality of power and the idea that the person with the power has taken advantage of the person without the power. That's why professors are not supposed to sleep with students and Presidents are not supposed to engage in sexual activity with interns. Saying it was consensual turns a blind eye to the power dynamic. But, as Nestor pointed out, the acts would have been defended as being consensual. Again, that's why people in power are supposed to recognize the power they wield.

I don't want to derail this thread with a topic that could be a thread of it's own. Feel free to respond but I won't say more. :)

This may just be me, but I don't think you understand sexual harassment. Consensual sex may be wrong for a number of reasons (from cheating through to statutory rape), but it isn't sexual harassment. Sexual harassment by its nature is unwanted sexual approaches/innuendo/threats. If you approach someone for sex and they accept, you might commit some other crime or immoral act, but you're not harassing them.

Lol, you don't think the relationship between a starry eyed intern and the President can be compared to the relationship a starry eyed coed has with a handsome/brilliant/sexy professor?

You know nothing....

Sure it can be compared. But unless he was directly inputting into her feedback/career, then it's not the same. A key issue is the conflict of interest.

The way your saying it, any professional athlete/movie star/famous person who had sex with a 18/19 year old is guilty of sexual harassment, because of the power differential. Which is of course, bull. The reality is there are power differentials throughout adult life and relationships. And this is accepted by society. The issue is when one party can't make an informed decision (< 18), there is a conflict of interest, or the attention is undesired but continues. Only the last is considered sexual harassment, even though all are wrong.

Clinton was the POTUS at the time, I imagine it's very difficult to say no to the POTUS if one wants to. The power differential here is enormous and absolutely comprable to a teacher/student power differential. Saying no to the President could easily carry extremely negative consequences if that President were vengeful, noting all slights etc.

The difference in power does not make it sexual harassment. If the person says no and it continues, then it is sexual harassment.