The 2016 US American Election Thread

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I think Gozer is making a strong case here and I agree with him.

I think it's pretty clear that the DNC was acting in concert to get Hillary the nomination. All the surrounding optics look terrible about it and the case Gozer makes appears to be solid evidence of some collusion/corruption between party and candidate.

If there's been one really annoying narrative this election campaign it's been the pointing in Trump's direction every time the discussion turns on Hilary in a negative way.

Democrats are really condescending about it too, it's a very loud "How can you seriously be upset about *insert Hilary Clinton transgression* when HEEE'SSS the other choice??!"

Pretty much everything is shouted down with that. Hilary is so lucky Trump ended up being the GOP candidate (and it looks Democrats aided him in getting the nomination) because any normal candidate and she'd be getting annihilated. What a weak candidate.

Her whole campaign can be summed as her listening to something ridiculous Trump is saying and then turning to the audience with a smile and giving a quick little "can you believe he's saying this?" response.

What an utter joke of an election for the supposed leaders of the free world.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by jayswin

If there's been one really annoying narrative this election campaign it's been the pointing in Trump's direction every time the discussion turns on Hilary in a negative way.

Democrats are really condescending about it too, it's a very loud "How can you seriously be upset about *insert Hilary Clinton transgression* when HEEE'SSS the other choice??!"

Pretty much everything is shouted down with that. Hilary is so lucky Trump ended up being the GOP candidate (and it looks Democrats aided him in getting the nomination) because any normal candidate and she'd be getting annihilated. What a weak candidate.

Her whole campaign can be summed as her listening to something ridiculous Trump is saying and then turning to the audience with a smile and giving a quick little "can you believe he's saying this?" response.

What an utter joke of an election for the supposed leaders of the free world.

Define a normal GOP candidate outside of perhaps John Kasich.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Gozer

The DNC was part of the HRC campaign - that's the basis of my complaint.
They weren't fair arbiters of a selection process.

Which, if you got them off-record, they'd admit.
Political parties aren't public institutions, they are private clubs that can pick whoever they want.
It happens that the party with demographic dominance has become an oligarchy that is getting better and better at calcifying their power - and that has consequences.

The DNC and HRC were fundraising together. I don't see the issue. Did Bernie offer to fundraise with the DNC and got rejected? I have a hard time finding fault with this type of fundraising when senators and congressmen spend 2-3hrs a day cold calling for donations in offices across the street from the capital with set dollar values they have to raise for the DNC. The whole financial election system is broken.

So I come back to did this action give Hillary an advantage that Bernie couldn't access? It's not apparent if he tried to set this type of fundraising up. As later in the campaign using him to build the DNC war chest would have been quite profitable so I'd assume it could have been on the table.

to me and this might be your problem is that the DNC assumed Hillary was going to win and therefore was preparing for the general. This is a substantially different thing funding Hillary to beat Bernie.

[photon]

I don't think she's that weak a candidate, that's just an easy thing to say.

The only difference between the DNC putting their thumbs on the scales for Clinton and other elections or the RNC is hacked emails gave an inside view of how sausage gets made that we normally don't see. EDIT: Bernie was an outsider, political parties are private entities that can run their business however they see fit.

I think most people would agree with the sentiment that there's too much money in politics. This is the first full chance for a whole cycle to go round with the new campaign finance laws, people at all levels seem to agree on one thing; that the rules and interpreting them aren't good for anyone. Maybe we'll see a whole raft of court cases after this to work out the precedents better, who knows.

And Gozer's probably right in that violations aren't being taken as seriously as they should, I mean that paper from the UK straight up tried to give foreign money to the Trump campaign in exchange for influence and they were even told how to do it to make it seem legal. Clinton's campaign at least could smell the trap in that case and didn't return their calls, but no doubt given the lack of certainty on what's allowed and what's not everyone's doing what they think will pass muster. That's not just Clinton, that was everyone except probably Bernie.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by jayswin

If there's been one really annoying narrative this election campaign it's been the pointing in Trump's direction every time the discussion turns on Hilary in a negative way.

Democrats are really condescending about it too, it's a very loud "How can you seriously be upset about *insert Hilary Clinton transgression* when HEEE'SSS the other choice??!"

Pretty much everything is shouted down with that. Hilary is so lucky Trump ended up being the GOP candidate (and it looks Democrats aided him in getting the nomination) because any normal candidate and she'd be getting annihilated. What a weak candidate.

Her whole campaign can be summed as her listening to something ridiculous Trump is saying and then turning to the audience with a smile and giving a quick little "can you believe he's saying this?" response.

What an utter joke of an election for the supposed leaders of the free world.

The help get trump the nomination is a stretch. They chose not to attack him during the primaries and let the racists kill the republicans. That's not really aiding him.

The Hillary vs X is interesting. There was a poll done recently on wether you were voting for your candidate or against the other candidate and Hillaries numbers weren't out of line with other previous elections. I think she'd beat Cruz and Jeb. She would have lost to Rubio and Kasich. Jeb has all the bush baggage and Cruz was almost as unlikable as trump.

Verses a truly generic republican like Kasich she'd have been dead in the water just based on like ability.

I think the you can't vote for Trump argument is valid and should be almost condescending. Watch the 3rd debate how Hillary played him with little barbs. Calls him a puppet and he melts down. It was clinical. Not to mention all the other problems but that guy can't be in the room making nuclear decisions.

Try to make a case for Trump. The best I can do is hope he disinterested in governing and pence / the house passes policy pursuming you like the religious conservative republican wing in charge of policy. That's the best case.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

The Republican nominee also issued a dire -- and baseless -- warning to Americans that a Clinton administration could usher a flood of hundreds of millions of people crossing into the US.

"You could have 650 million people pour in and we'd do nothing about it. Think of it. That's what could happen. You triple the size of our country in one week. Once you lose control of your borders you just have no country folks, you have no country," Trump said, speaking in this Democrat-leaning border state.

Trump also stoked fears about undocumented immigrant crime, warning that continued illegal immigration would result "in the loss of American lives," even though undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than legal US residents.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/30/politi...ism/index.html

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/30/politi...ism/index.html

And now this idiot has shot back up in the polls to within the "margin of terror", as Samantha Bee would say. Well done, America!

[N-E-B]

Kasich would have mopped the floor with Hillary. Unfortunately for him he was too sane and rational of a human being for the GOP.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by N-E-B

Kasich would have mopped the floor with Hillary. Unfortunately for him he was too sane and rational of a human being for the GOP.

There would have been no mopping the floor by anyone. American elections are all about activating the political base and getting your voters to the polls. Just like Republicans refuse to turn their back on a nut bar like Trump Democrats wouldn't turn their back on Clinton. The primaries are all about deciding who is going to excite the base and drive them to the polls. Kasich, as nice a guy as he is, is boring as hell and wouldn't have sold well to get the base excited. Remove the wackiness from the Trump campaign and you likely have a boring election cycle where the policy package is what is going to drive the activation of voters. Frankly, Kasich and the Republican platform is weak in this regard. Facing the spectre of running against the first female presidential candidate the Republicans needed a loose cannon to say stupid #### that would excite people. Unfortunately, they didn't expect Trump to be so uncontrollable. But give Trump credit, he activated the hell out of the base. The downside is he also scared of the moderate Republicans and forced them over to vote for the "other" candidates.

[ernie]

The e-mail thing things to be pivoting pretty quickly to whether or not Comey broke the law.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is redirecting his attention to traditionally Democratic states in the final days of the 2016 campaign in an urgent attempt to expand what for weeks has been an increasingly narrow path to victory.

Following FBI Director James B. Comey’s surprise announcement Friday that the agency would once again examine emails related to Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, Trump and his advisers see a fresh opportunity to make gains in states that most public polls have shown as out of reach. They spent the weekend deliberating ways to seize on what they see as a dramatic turn in the campaign’s closing chapter and scramble the political map following a rough stretch beset by controversy.

Trump held rallies Sunday in Colorado and New Mexico, and he was scheduled to make two stops Monday in Michigan — and visit Wisconsin the day after that.

Clinton, meanwhile, is focused on shoring up turnout and enthusiasm, particularly among minority voters, in such critical battlegrounds as North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. Early voting data from Ohio contains ominous signs of a lack of enthusiasm for Clinton, notably in places such as Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, where high black turnout propelled President Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012.

Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon has settled on three states in particular — Michigan, Wisconsin and New Mexico — where the candidate and campaign will devote more time and money, said four people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal campaign talks. All three states were won by Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Bannon believes that if GOP voters rapidly “come home” nationally in light of recent events, that turnout plus late-breaking support among independents and blue-collar workers could bring new states into play beyond Pennsylvania, Nevada and Colorado — Democratic strongholds where Trump has been campaigning for months and remains behind, the people said.

Democrats and many Republicans remain skeptical that Trump can reach 270 electoral votes with this 11th-hour ploy or any other. But Trump strategists argued Sunday that the race’s fast-changing dynamics and unpredictability give them an opening despite polling and fundamentals leaning in Clinton’s favor.

These advisers privately described Trump’s path to the White House not as a direct shot but as a series of razor-thin upsets in several much-discussed battlegrounds, as well as unexpected bank shots in blue states. All of it would depend on better-than-expected Republican support nationally, they said.

In Nevada, Florida and Colorado — states Obama won — early and absentee turnout has been strong overall and is so far on track to match or exceed 2012 levels, according to available data.

But in Iowa and Ohio, turnout levels have been low. Take Cuyahoga County in Ohio, a Democratic stronghold, where in-person and absentee voting is down by more than 50 percent, compared with a similar period in 2012. That is in part because of the state’s cutback in early voting days, but it does not bode well for Democrats’ efforts to capitalize on their historic strength with the early vote.

Disproportionately high black turnout in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties were important factors in helping Obama eke out a two-point win in that state over Mitt Romney in 2012, said Cornell Belcher, one of Obama’s pollsters in 2008 and 2012.

“You don’t see the sort of energy there this time around as you saw before,” Belcher said. “If on Election Day our electorate is 74 percent white, Hillary Clinton is probably not going to be president.”

In North Carolina, another battleground that Trump almost certainly must win to take the White House, Democratic turnout has fallen compared with 2012 in early voting — although Democrats continue to maintain a significant lead over Republicans. Black turnout has also come up short.

Clinton senior adviser Joel Benenson struck an optimistic note over the weekend, noting that black turnout in early voting on Saturday in pivotal counties in both Ohio and North Carolina exceeded 2012 levels, which he cast as a microcosm of enthusiasm and engagement among that group.

“For voters of color, this is the first time in their life that they’re hearing from a presidential candidate the kind of racially divisive rhetoric they’ve heard from Donald Trump in this campaign,” Benenson said. “That is going to be on the minds of every voter on Election Day.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...1613&tid=ss_tw

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by ernie

The e-mail thing things to be pivoting pretty quickly to whether or not Comey broke the law.

The smear merchants of the left are at their battle-stations this morning.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Gozer

The smear merchants of the left are at their battle-stations this morning.

Somehow, in an election between Clinton and Trump, Bernie Sanders supporters somehow end up being the most embarrassing group.

Just another sign of how utterly effing bizarre this election has been.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Gozer

The smear merchants of the left are at their battle-stations this morning.

As opposed to the smear agents on the right that started this on Friday?

All depends on perspective.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by ernie

As opposed to the smear agents on the right that started this on Friday?

All depends on perspective.

The FBI director isn't a smear merchant.
He is, according to Salon this morning, a 'career long preening partisan hack.'

This guy was held up as a pillar of integrity a week ago.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Gozer

This guy was held up as a pillar of integrity a week ago.

By whom?

I've heard this narrative all weekend from both sides, and I have yet to find an article jerking off Comey for holding a ####ing press conference celebrating himself when he announced the "closure" of the Clinton file 3 months ago.

There are however, many articles from 3 months ago asking why he was so public with everything even prior to Friday's hilariously wtf release.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Somehow, in an election between Clinton and Trump, Bernie Sanders supporters somehow end up being the most embarrassing group.

Just another sign of how utterly effing bizarre this election has been.

Forgive me for tainting your otherwise respectable thread.
I'll find somewhere less dignified to post.

[Resolute 14]

Oh, you are entirely free to keep pouting, Gozer. Doesn't mean anyone is obligated to respect you for it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Somehow, in an election between Clinton and Trump, Bernie Sanders supporters somehow end up being the most embarrassing group.

Ehhhhhh... it's a pretty damned strong field, I'll grant you that... But Trump supporters are still far worse, let's face it.

Originally Posted by New Era

There would have been no mopping the floor by anyone. American elections are all about activating the political base and getting your voters to the polls. Just like Republicans refuse to turn their back on a nut bar like Trump Democrats wouldn't turn their back on Clinton. The primaries are all about deciding who is going to excite the base and drive them to the polls. Kasich, as nice a guy as he is, is boring as hell and wouldn't have sold well to get the base excited. Remove the wackiness from the Trump campaign and you likely have a boring election cycle where the policy package is what is going to drive the activation of voters. Frankly, Kasich and the Republican platform is weak in this regard. Facing the spectre of running against the first female presidential candidate the Republicans needed a loose cannon to say stupid #### that would excite people. Unfortunately, they didn't expect Trump to be so uncontrollable. But give Trump credit, he activated the hell out of the base. The downside is he also scared of the moderate Republicans and forced them over to vote for the "other" candidates.

I agree with you that it wouldn't be a landslide if someone else had been the nominee, but I do think he'd have won comfortably. One of Clinton's biggest boons in this campaign has been Trump taking news coverage away from things that should have put bigger dents in her, and the general sense that as much as she's largely disliked (and outright despised by some) she'd literally have to murder a puppy live on CNN to be worse than Trump is. A relatively boring, traditionally conservative GOP candidate who seems like a likable enough sort of guy, not unlike Romney, was just what they needed in this election.

Of course, that depends on how successfully they could paint him with his past pro-life, anti-planned-parenthood positions. But that's just Kasich in particular. But Rubio wouldn't have that problem, and was probably a more likely mainstream candidate. Paul Ryan probably could have managed in that role, too. Ted Cruz of course doesn't count as a boring, traditionally conservative GOP candidate for obvious reasons.

[photon]

The other thing that stood out in the speech that KFF mentions where Trump talked about tripling the country's population in a week was he's back on advocating for waterboarding again.

"These savages are chopping off heads, drowning people. This is medieval times and then we can't do waterboarding? 'It's far too tough,'" Trump said, mocking critics of the technique used by the CIA in interrogations of terror suspects under President George W. Bush's post-9/11 administration.

Trump has previously called for reinstating waterboarding and "much worse" methods of torture if he becomes president.

"We have to be tough and we have to be smart. And we have to be in some cases pretty vicious I have to tell you," he added.

Another indication that everything Trump says is basically projection, he incorrectly goes on and on about Clinton deleting emails under subpoena while that's basically one of his main tactics in dealing with the legal system.

Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/d...ts-515120.html