US Election: It's a post-TrumpDay world

[Tywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Honestly, I think Hillary Clinton will face intense suspicion no matter what she does. To some extent, that's baked-in for her, and, I think, for female candidates in general. We like them well enough once they win, but we seem less favorably inclined when they run. 

I agree that it's a baked in feature of hers. That's exactly why she should release the transcripts. If there is nothing in them the story goes away after a few days. But by refusing to release them, she only fans the flames of the crowd whose saying she's hiding something. And have no doubts, this issue will follow her into the general if she continues to refuse to release them. She's better off getting it out of the way now.

[TrackerNeil]

Speaking of "unfavorables", Vox took a nice look at what they mean in terms of winning elections. Turns out, not as much as you might think:

Quote

If you pay attention to the historical data, you'll see that early disapproval isn't necessarily all that predictive — John McCain and Mitt Romney were both less disliked than Obama, and Mike Dukakis had very few haters back in 1988 (perhaps because he was relatively obscure).

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

5 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Honestly, I think Hillary Clinton will face intense suspicion no matter what she does. To some extent, that's baked-in for her, and, I think, for female candidates in general. We like them well enough once they win, but we seem less favorably inclined when they run. 

It's true, the folks at Politico just ran a hit piece on her fundraising as well.

Link

[Kalbear]

Indiana's numbers:

• Demographics: Clinton +6
• Polls: Clinton +4 to Clinton +10
• 538 forecast: Clinton +8 (Polls+ Clinton +10
• Sanders target to stay on track: Sanders +30

I think Clinton will win barely, but will win. 

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It's true, the folks at Politico just ran a hit piece on her fundraising as well.

Link

I brought this up last week.

How is this legal? It makes a mockery out of our campaign finance laws.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I brought this up last week.

How is this legal? It makes a mockery out of our campaign finance laws.

Making mockery of US campaign finance laws, isn't that kinda of conundrum?

Campaign finances are in itself absurd. If you just look at the amount of cash that gets spend every four years by the losing campaigns in the general election alone, then it is hard (at least for me it is) to see how anything Clinton has done would be the final straw that makes mockery of the campaign finance laws/system.

[Tywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Notone said:

Making mockery of US campaign finance laws, isn't that kinda of conundrum?

Campaign finances are in itself absurd. If you just look at the amount of cash that gets spend every four years by the losing campaigns in the general election alone, then it is hard (at least for me it is) to see how anything Clinton has done would be the final straw that makes mockery of the campaign finance laws/system.

You're conflating two completely different things. 

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I brought this up last week.

How is this legal? It makes a mockery out of our campaign finance laws.

I'm sure that someone will be along shortly with a waterbucket to explain to us that this is all totally above board, and this is just an unfair smear campaign by the berniebros and the sexists.  Because Clinton is totally trustworthy you see, so we know she'd never do anything like this, and is like, totally commuted to fundraising for downticket candidates.  Unlike that weasel Bernie who only cares about himself.

Or possibly it's the DNC's fault, and she has no knowledge that it's going on.

Or maybe it's aliens....  

I predict we will find out soon enough.

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Maybe.

But the US campaign finance laws are close to non-existent, imo. So Clinton needing to find and managing to find a loophole, personally I think that in itself is rich. 

Those very weak finance laws contribute big time to those obscene amounts of money spent in every general election cycle. 

Back in 2012 Romney and Obama roughly spent a bit over 2 billion Dollars (combined) on their general election battle (it was a bit less, but not much less; with the money other GOP candidates spent on their primary we are probably easily above the 2 bil. threshold).

So I really have a hard time taking campaign finances serious. I'll spare you the sanctimonious point of taking that two billion and to put it into relation with the economy of third world countries. But to put it into some perspective I think Chrysler had an income of something around 1.3 bil. US $ in 2014? 

 

[Swordfish]

22 minutes ago, Notone said:

Maybe.

But the US campaign finance laws are close to non-existent, imo. So Clinton needing to find and managing to find a loophole, personally I think that in itself is rich. 

Those very weak finance laws contribute big time to those obscene amounts of money spent in every general election cycle. 

Back in 2012 Romney and Obama roughly spent a bit over 2 billion Dollars (combined) on their general election battle (it was a bit less, but not much less; with the money other GOP candidates spent on their primary we are probably easily above the 2 bil. threshold).

So I really have a hard time taking campaign finances serious. I'll spare you the sanctimonious point of taking that two billion and to put it into relation with the economy of third world countries. But to put it into some perspective I think Chrysler had an income of something around 1.3 bil. US $ in 2014? 

 

Pretty sure Chrysler's revenue is closer to 100 billion annually.

[Mudguard]

12 minutes ago, Notone said:

Maybe.

But the US campaign finance laws are close to non-existent, imo. So Clinton needing to find and managing to find a loophole, personally I think that in itself is rich. 

Those very weak finance laws contribute big time to those obscene amounts of money spent in every general election cycle. 

Back in 2012 Romney and Obama roughly spent a bit over 2 billion Dollars (combined) on their general election battle (it was a bit less, but not much less; with the money other GOP candidates spent on their primary we are probably easily above the 2 bil. threshold).

So I really have a hard time taking campaign finances serious. I'll spare you the sanctimonious point of taking that two billion and to put it into relation with the economy of third world countries. But to put it into some perspective I think Chrysler had an income of something around 1.3 bil. US $ in 2014? 

 

I don't think Chrysler's net income is that meaningful, since net income can be less than zero in a down year.  Chrysler's revenue was $83 billion dollars in 2014.  Apple had $234 billion in revenue in 2015, so 2 billion is about 1% of Apple's revenue last year.

Clinton is only paying lip service to campaign finance reform and being tough on Wall St.  I find it extremely unlikely that she will make it a priority to reign in campaign finance or Wall St.

If the Politico report is accurate, Clinton has essentially been laundering money through the DNC and state democratic parties.

[Altherion]

Dominant victory for Trump -- it doesn't matter that Cruz and Kasich collaborate if Trump nets more than 50% as he has done in the past seven primaries. The Republican primary looks over. Clinton also appears to be winning, but even if it is effectively a tie, it doesn't matter (Sanders needs something like a 70-30 victory here and he's obviously not getting it).

[Mudguard]

Yeah, it's going to be Clinton v. Trump.

I wonder what the odds of Trump winning the Republican nomination was when he announced his candidacy.  100 to 1?  Worse odds than that?

[TrackerNeil]

48 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Yeah, it's going to be Clinton v. Trump.

I wonder what the odds of Trump winning the Republican nomination was when he announced his candidacy.  100 to 1?  Worse odds than that?

Some mornings I wake up and wonder if I've fallen into the parallel universe in which Trump gets mere steps from the Oval Office.

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It's true, the folks at Politico just ran a hit piece on her fundraising as well.

Link

Indeed. I mean, it's politico so "unnamed sources" can easily be like 1 or 2 people.

If you really look at what's going on though, the headline is rather misleading. It's basically using the ability to donate to the state party to funnel money back to the DNC and then distribute it back to state parties as the party sees fit to win competitive seats. Basically moving money out of, like, Mass. and into Virginia or something where it's more useful. 

 

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I brought this up last week.

How is this legal? It makes a mockery out of our campaign finance laws.

Cause that's the way the laws are written?

A better campaign finance system would be nice but this is the one that exists and they need money to win races to change the system.

[Shryke]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not nearly as ridiculous as you saying the media will treat "Clinton said nice things to GS employees" the same as them finding pictures of her sleeping with her interns. Seriously, if there is nothing in the transcripts then the story will die in a few days. There are a number of examples of Clinton saying worse things than praising GS employees, and none of them lasted as stories for more than a few days.

BENGHAZI!! didn't die in a few days.

Again, you are still being ridiculous with the implications. "They keep talking about it so something must be there" is shoddy as fuck reasoning.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Huffington Post is reporting Cruz is dropping out.

[davos]

20 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Huffington Post is reporting Cruz is dropping out.

I'm seeing the same thing from multiple sources.  No good way left for the GOP establishment to deny Trump the nomination.  

[Mudguard]

13 minutes ago, Shryke said:

BENGHAZI!! didn't die in a few days.

Again, you are still being ridiculous with the implications. "They keep talking about it so something must be there" is shoddy as fuck reasoning.

No, the reasoning is that Clinton is refusing to release the transcripts because she has something to hide.  Whether this is true or not, who knows, but the only way this assertion can be rebutted is by releasing the transcripts.

Clinton has asserted that she'll release her speech transcripts when the other candidates release theirs.  Soon, it's just going to be Trump.  I doubt that Trump's speeches say anything stupider or more inflammatory than what he's already said in public, so I think there's a reasonable chance that Trump releases transcripts of his speeches to put pressure on Clinton.  Will Clinton then finally release the transcripts?  

There is a perception that Clinton is untrustworthy, and it's a narrative that's pushed by the media.  Clinton's refusal to provide the transcripts, to be transparent, reinforces this narrative.  Trump and the GOP are going to hammer her on this, and the media is going to eat it up.  

Maybe Clinton should release the transcripts after she's officially locked up the nomination but before the general.  I think it's likely that she's said positive things about Goldman Sachs during her speeches to Goldman Sachs, so strategically, it may have made sense to not release them when she was/is running against Sanders.  But against Trump, I don't think these types of statements would really hurt her.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Indiana's numbers:

• Demographics: Clinton +6
• Polls: Clinton +4 to Clinton +10
• 538 forecast: Clinton +8 (Polls+ Clinton +10
• Sanders target to stay on track: Sanders +30

I think Clinton will win barely, but will win. 

This is actually quite alarming to me since Sanders won by some small amount. It's not because the results matter, but because polls seem to have been wrong a lot lately. This is terrifying because it makes me think Donald Trump has a chance of becoming president despite all polls saying he'll lose in a land slide.