The 2016 US American Election Thread

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by 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.

Can you provide an example of another person that had as much baggage as Hillary that has been their party nominee?

Kerry, Gore, Obama, GWB, Romney, McCain - I can't recall them even having half of issues that have plagued Hillary in recent memory.

Oh and the fact that Bernie was an outsider? Give me a break. If you aren't going to entertain the idea of him running for the party nominee fairly, then just say no when he asks to run under your banner.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Bernie knew the DNC rules when he ran, and if he didn't then I imagine we all agree he and his supporters have nothing to complain about. Bernie didn't lose because of the DNC, he lost because the Democratic base of minorities and woman crushed him by a 2:1 margin. It's nice revisionist history to say the DNC stole it from him, but the better revisionist history is he would have lost even worse if not for caucuses, the least democratic way to choose a party leader.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Can you provide an example of another person that had as much baggage as Hillary that has been their party nominee?

Kerry, Gore, Obama, GWB, Romney, McCain - I can't recall them even having half of issues that have plagued Hillary in recent memory.

Oh and the fact that Bernie was an outsider? Give me a break. If you aren't going to entertain the idea of him running for the party nominee fairly, then just say no when he asks to run under your banner.

Not even just baggage, someone just totally uninspiring besides the basic "first woman president" excitement. She's dull, she's an obvious political weather vane and there are the trust issues. She's campaigning against the biggest political disaster in recent memory and she doesn't have him buried 7 days out. Another centrist woman candidate is killing this race right now.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Bernie knew the DNC rules when he ran, and if he didn't then I imagine we all agree he and his supporters have nothing to complain about. Bernie didn't lose because of the DNC, he lost because the Democratic base of minorities and woman crushed him by a 2:1 margin. It's nice revisionist history to say the DNC stole it from him, but the better revisionist history is he would have lost even worse if not for caucuses, the least democratic way to choose a party leader.

Why even waste time with a nomination then? We should just follow our instructions like good little citizens.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Kerry, Gore, Obama, GWB, Romney, McCain - I can't recall them even having half of issues that have plagued Hillary in recent memory.

None of them have had a 25 year ongoing smear campaign against them as a result of playing a central role in two presidencies. The "baggage" is entirely an aspect of her experience. The only way you get "no baggage" would be to select an unknown neophyte.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Parallex

None of them have had a 25 year ongoing smear campaign against them as a result of playing a central role in two presidencies. The "baggage" is entirely an aspect of her experience. The only way you get "no baggage" would be to select an unknown neophyte.

So someone like George W. Bush should have a similar amount of baggage, right? Someone like Al Gore should as well, right?

After all, those fit your criteria of being in the public spotlight for multiple presidencies.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Parallex

None of them have had a 25 year ongoing smear campaign against them as a result of playing a central role in two presidencies. The "baggage" is entirely an aspect of her experience. The only way you get "no baggage" would be to select an unknown neophyte.

A smear campaign. Hilarious. Much of it was rightly deserved, and made worse by her propensity to bend the truth when it suited her.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Why even waste time with a nomination then? We should just follow our instructions like good little citizens.

The DNC is a private organization. They can establish whatever rules they want, and people can decide what they want to do with that, or how they want to feel about it. Bernie knew the rules going in, he accepted them willingly. Not sure what the issue here is. You still haven't acknowledged the real reason he lost, he got crushed by minorities and woman. It is pretty much an impossible hurdle for a potential Dem nominee to overcome not getting that base. Pretty much no rule changes you could make to overcome that fact.

[photon]

I think the extra "baggage" is partly due to how much experience she has, just being in politics means you accumulate things, do more things accumulate more criticism. Coach the most games ever and you accumulate the most losses as well as the most wins.

The question to me isn't if there's baggage, but if there's legitimate baggage. Sure 8 million hearings about Benghazi are baggage, but I'm not sure vexatious investigations are legitimate baggage. Self aggrandizing press conferences by the head of the FBI about an investigation is baggage, but not really legitimate baggage.

She looks average (in proportion) to me as most of the rest.

Obama managed two terms without any major scandal, he's probably pretty low in terms of perceived baggage, and it's not like he crushed Romney.

I'd lean more towards what New Era said, and I think Trump proves it out. Trump being clearly the worst human to ever have run for president, the most extreme candidate beyond what anyone could have imagined, if ever there was someone deserving of repudiation he's it. And people agree, polls show repeatedly that the majority of people strongly disagree with almost everything he says and stands for.

Yet here we are in the final week and the polls are tightening. Not because people are leaving Clinton due to her baggage (her #'s aren't really going down, the tightening is from Trump's #'s coming up). Not because people are protest voting (the polls don't support that narrative either). But because Republicans are coming home and voting for their party.

I don't know for sure and I hate making predictions, but if I was forced to choose if Clinton does win the post mortems will show a good portion of her margin will be due to the difference in the get-out-the-vote efforts by her out-performing the polls (EDIT: Or Trump under-performing).

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by peter12

A smear campaign. Hilarious. Much of it was rightly deserved, and made worse by her propensity to bend the truth when it suited her.

I always questioned what Hilary did as First Lady to be such a hated figure throughout the 90s, but as we see with Michelle Obama, it's really just because she's on the other team.

Obviously not speaking to her stint as SoS and Senator.

[troutman]

Jill Stein takes on "Big Comedy":

https://bogardiner.wordpress.com/201...ive-comedians/
http://www.jill2016.com/oliveremail

Nasty John Oliver.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by troutman

Jill Stein takes on "Big Comedy":

https://bogardiner.wordpress.com/201...ive-comedians/
http://www.jill2016.com/oliveremail

Nasty John Oliver.

This is satire right?

Holy moley.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I always questioned what Hilary did as First Lady to be such a hated figure throughout the 90s, but as we see with Michelle Obama, it's really just because she's on the other team.

Obviously not speaking to her stint as SoS and Senator.

This is a good place to start.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...y_clinton.html

[Drak]

Originally Posted by peter12

her propensity to bend the truth when it suited her.

Sounds like every single politician in history. But hey, it's Hillary so it's worse.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Drak

Sounds like every single politician in history. But hey, it's Hillary so it's worse.

Weak equivocation. Romney and Obama are clear recent counter-examples.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by peter12

Weak equivocation. Romney and Obama are clear recent counter-examples.

Uh huh.

[photon]

Here we go again? Florida with almost 4 million votes in, and the results are...

This weekend, Democrats won by about 15,000 votes out of 473,612 ballots cast. The spread was roughly 41D-38R-21NPA. I am not going to lie – I wish the weekend was bigger for Democrats, but given the number of people who had already voted, and how Dems have cut into the VBM advantage, I am honestly not sure what I had expected.

So with that, let’s see where we are seven days of in-person early voting, and election day to go, about 40% of voters who will vote this year have voted.

Total Ballots cast: 3,731,646

Total Vote By Mail: 1,963,274 (52.7%)

Total Early Vote: 1,768,372 (47.3%)

And by party:

Republicans: 1,509.467 (40.45%)

Democrats: 1,500,937 (40.22%)

NPA: 721,249 (19.33%)

Total Margin: GOP +0.23% (Margin look familiar)

In other words, Florida is currently pulling a Florida.

By the time you watch Jake Tapper or Chuck Todd this afternoon, the odds are pretty high that the 4 millionth ballot will be cast. There is also a chance in-person early voting will overtake vote-by-mail. More likely tomorrow, but it could happen today.

To give some sense of what the last week might look like, we started Monday with about 1.2million Vote-By-Mail ballots, so since Monday, we’ve seen about 2.5 million additional votes. Given that there are 1,345,257 vote-by-mail ballots still sitting on kitchen tables, I assume we will be between 6.5 and 7 million votes in prior to election day. This would put the election at 70% complete before the first poll opens at 7:00 AM on November 8th.

Really quick, the outstanding mail in ballots are roughly 40D-35R-25NPA, with Democrats having 71,388 more sitting on coffee tables than do Republicans.

YO DEMS – WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

After one week, we can state for a fact one thing: this is an election that could come down to small handful of votes. Every vote is going to count, so if you want your side to carry Florida, get to work.

It also means at the rate of early voting, we will have a very good sense of where Florida is by 7:30-8:00PM on election night whether someone is going to win by two points, or whether we are going to be watching people look at ballots with magnifying glasses.

http://steveschale.squarespace.com/b...ays-to-go.html

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Crap. Doesn't that bode terribly for the Democrats? It seems to me that Dems usually dominate early voting. Don't recall why I think that, but that's what I've always thought.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Crap. Doesn't that bode terribly for the Democrats? It seems to me that Dems usually dominate early voting. Don't recall why I think that, but that's what I've always thought.

I think I've heard these are very good signs for the Dems as the Reps were usually much further ahead in early voting in past elections.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politi...ly-voter-data/

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

After all, those fit your criteria of being in the public spotlight for multiple presidencies.

... they weren't part of multiple presidencies. IIRC W wasn't in the spotlight much for HW's single term (nor held any federal role before his own presidency) and Gore wasn't part of the executive (officially or otherwise) before or after his vice-presidency.