U.S. Election: It's Gonna Be a Huge Thread, It's Gonna Be the Best Thread!

[Tywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

I like yours too, except they make me think of Prince, and therefore funky sad.

 

Also, not really, but I LIFT!

Ha. I wasn't sure if you'd crack them.

And if you're sad about Prince, look on the bright side. There's over 37,000 hours of unreleased material in his Vault, and most of it sounds like it was from his prime in the 80's. 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Fez said:

Jeb, not H.W.

Although both Dubya and H.W. have announced that they won't be going to convention or participating in any election events, so they at least aren't fully onboard the Trump train either. Side note: McCain and Romney have also said they won't be at the convention, so right now Bob Dole is the only living past Republican nominee who will be there.

Yeah, I got the impression that the other Bushes wouldn't be endorsing Trump either.

And look at Jeb, trying to position himself to run in 2020.

[Tywin et al.]

Hypothetical Question:

Say Clinton beats Trump, the Democrats retake the Senate and make large gains in the House, but don't take it back (let's say there are now 225 House Republicans). Would this strengthen or weaken the House Freedom Caucus? 

[lokisnow]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hypothetical Question:

Say Clinton beats Trump, the Democrats retake the Senate and make large gains in the House, but don't take it back (let's say there are now 225 House Republicans). Would this strengthen or weaken the House Freedom Caucus? 

strengthen because members of the HFC are unlikely to lose their seats in such a scenario, so proportionally they are now a greater percentage of the remaining house population.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

@Mudguard @Swordfish

Of course you are right, I meant net income in the other thread. Stupid mistake on my part. Happens when you are already on your way to bed while composing a last post and just blindy half assed copy something from wikipedia without much thought. My bad, and thank you for correcting me. Back in the old thread.

Anyway, that the US spend an obscene amount of money on the General election is still valid. Add to that, that a big chunk is basically spent on the battleground/swing states, and it really gets depressing. 

A bit less than 2 billion US $ on an election to be the president of Florida, Colorado, Iowa, NH, SC, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virgina. You can build and staff quite a few schools in the US for 2 billion US $, or do a whole lot of other more or less useful things with that amount of money. 

 

 

[Altherion]

I'm not sure that a non-endorsement coming from Jeb Bush isn't worth more than an endorsement would be. To the best of my Googling ability, there has never been a politician who spent so much money for so little return. Between his campaign and his Super PAC, he spent around $144M which is more than any Republican candidate (not just the non-traditional Trump, but also Cruz and Rubio) despite only staying in the race for the first three states. Only Clinton and Sanders spent more, but of course they each won more than a dozen states whereas J. Bush finished 6th in Iowa, 4th in New Hampshire and 4th in South Carolina. I'm fairly confident that if one picked a random eligible citizen off the street somewhere in America and spent that much money promoting him or her, the candidate would place within the top 3 in at least one of those states.

FiveThirtyEight has an interesting article on "favorability:"

Quote

 

No major party nominee before Clinton or Trump had a double-digit net negative “strong favorability” rating. Clinton’s would be the lowest ever, except for Trump.

...

The good news for both candidates is that we’re still six months from the election. Dukakis was clearly more strongly liked than George H.W. Bush in 1988 at this point in the campaign, and it was Bush who went on to win the election. George W. Bush, in 2000, was also more strongly liked than Al Gore at this point, and the 2000 election ended up being really close. That is, there is time for these impressions to change.

 

 

[Shryke]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

As far as I can tell, McCain is the only living GOP nominee that's come out and said he'd support Trump, and it was a pretty tepid endorsement. And I'm rather surprised he did it considering the things Trump has said. 

John McCain hugged and endorsed GWB. After what GWB did to him.

McCain would support Joseph A. Hitlerstalin if that guy won the GOP primary.

[Shryke]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And if you're sad about Prince, look on the bright side. There's over 37,000 hours of unreleased material in his Vault, and most of it sounds like it was from his prime in the 80's. 

Damn, really?

Shit, that lightens the mood after Trump's "I can't believe y'all are doing this" nomination win.

[Ormond]

Here's an interview with Norman Ornstein, a political scientist who was one of the earlier "experts" to say Trump could well win the Republican nomination, about the reasons why he was right. It says a lot of things people on this board have already said about how the Republican leadership did this to themselves, but sets them out in what seems to me an understandable and nonemotional way.

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/6/11598838/donald-trump-predictions-norm-ornstein

 

[TrackerNeil]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hypothetical Question:

Say Clinton beats Trump, the Democrats retake the Senate and make large gains in the House, but don't take it back (let's say there are now 225 House Republicans). Would this strengthen or weaken the House Freedom Caucus? 

I think a smaller Republican majority empowers the Caucus, because you'd better believe that the Republicans who lost their seats to Democrats are of the more moderate variety. That means that, in regards to must-pass legislation, Ryan must either rely on Democrats (angering his own caucus) or else let the Freedom Caucus gum up the works. An unenviable position, but it's what Speaker Ryan signed up for.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Ormond said:

Here's an interview with Norman Ornstein, a political scientist who was one of the earlier "experts" to say Trump could well win the Republican nomination, about the reasons why he was right. It says a lot of things people on this board have already said about how the Republican leadership did this to themselves, but sets them out in what seems to me an understandable and nonemotional way.

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/6/11598838/donald-trump-predictions-norm-ornstein

 

This was really good, thanks for sharing. It does feel like we have this weird both sides do it thing when in reality that isn't true at all.

[Red Hermit]

I wonder if Trump's silly comments about the debt will be the final straw for business-oriented Republicans.  I'm watching neocons and trumpsters viciously tear into each other in National Review comment sections.  The neocons are saying Trump will turn the U.S. into a giant version of Greece with his irresponsible musings while the trumpsters defend his comments saying defaulting is better than paying interest forever.  Any Republican who questions Trump's insane rhetoric is called an establishment RINO weenie who wants amnesty and needs to fall in line behind Trump or else.

[Fez]

Clinton won the Guam caucus today, ...err... yesterday, ... err... whenever it was; the International Date Line is weird. It was roughly 60%-40%, but they're still counting the last votes to determine which side of 60% Clinton is on, which means she either won the 7 pledged delegates 4-3 or 5-2. Guam also has 5 super delegates, who did in fact pledge to vote for whichever candidate won the caucus, which means Clinton netted either +6 or +8 out of the caucus.

For reference, Sanders netted +5 out of Indiana, which means Guam was technically a bigger victory for Clinton than Indiana was for Sanders.

[Martell Spy]

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/it_s_donald_trump_s_party_not_paul_ryan_s.html

It’s Donald Trump’s Party, Not Paul Ryan’s

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Sooner or later, the House speaker will have to make nice with Trump.

 

 

Quote

Here’s another sop that Trump could offer to get Ryan on board: nothing. Would “nothing” work for Ryan? He came into this believing he had leverage over Trump. He has none, and he’s going to have to change his position in the near future. He’d better prepare himself to accept Trump and all his warts as the symbol of his party, because, whether he realizes it or not, Trump already owns him.  

 

[Red Hermit]

This is why I have little hope that the checks and balances in our government will rein in Trump.  The GOP has shown that it will not stand up to Trump's bullying, even when they acknowledge the damage that he will do.  They fear his base more than anything, they have no control over him.

[The Fallen]

19 hours ago, Shryke said:

John McCain hugged and endorsed GWB. After what GWB did to him.

McCain would support Joseph A. Hitlerstalin if that guy won the GOP primary.

It'll be interesting to see if Rubio and Rafael Cruz will endorse Trump. 

[Maester Drew]

I wonder who the possible running mates will be for Hillary and Trump.

 

On a side note, I hope this cartoon from the New Hampshire primary doesn't prophetic for Hillary's sake 

[lokisnow]

Trump laid out the attack line today that Clinton was "an enabler" of her husbands sexual misconduct. 

Because all women are ultimately responsible for their spouse's infidelity. And also all women are supposed to stand in solidarity with the person their spouse cheated on them with. 

Hope this one blows up in trumps face, but the national media will probably take his side. We had posters I this thread pushing this narrative hard many months ago. It is still as disgusting as it was then.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

I am not necessarily convinced by that Trump owns Ryan article.  There's all this chatter about Romney having met with Bill Kristol to talk about a 3rd party run and all that.  I know that plenty of GOP's will fall in line with Trump, but there seem to be serious, unprecedented signs that not everyone will.  And if even a small but powerful faction got a 3rd party candidate in there it would kill any chance that Trump had of winning the Presidency.  Clinton would win in a landslide, and the non-Trump GOP faction could try to rebuild from there. 

You'd think so... but this third-party strategy seriously backfired in 1980. Of course, there is a lot more partisanship now (e.g. I'm pretty confident that most people in this thread would still vote for Clinton, only more gleefully), but I'm not entirely sure that Americans in general would respond as expected to this transparent collusion by the elites intended to hand the election to an establishment candidate regardless of the candidate's party.

[ThinkerX]

On a side note, I hope this cartoon from the New Hampshire primary doesn't prophetic for Hillary's sake 

Given the recent FBI announcement, I see this as becoming ever more plausible. So...

1 - Democratic Convention crowns Clinton.

2 - A month later, the FBI announces an indictment of Clinton, lays out fairly serious charges.

Does Clinton stay in race despite being seriously tainted?  If she drops out, does the DNC select Sanders - or some nobody in a backroom deal?

If Clinton remains in race after indictment, does this increase Trumps odds of defeating her?

And, should Clinton become POTUS despite indictment, then would subsequent investigation be sufficient grounds for impeachment?