2016 USA Presidential election thread I: The warm-up

[tyven]

Chafee dropped out this morning.

This comment went just as ignored as his presidential campaign.

email i may or may not have just gotten from a hill staffer:

Come raise a glass to the hero we deserve, but not the one we need right now.

#getchafed

[6souls]

Ted Cruz purchased 8000 to 10000 copies of his own book to help keep it a best seller. There is a little more to it, but that's the end game.

I guess I should also note that Obama & Mitt have both done the same thing.

[notorious bum]

A YouGov poll that is actually useful:
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/1...of-capitalism/

More Dems have a favorable opinion of socialism than capitalism, a huge change from May when Bernie started campaign.

[D44kpunk]

Ted Cruz purchased 8000 to 10000 copies of his own book to help keep it a best seller. There is a little more to it, but that's the end game.

I guess I should also note that Obama & Mitt have both done the same thing.

scummy as fuck, i've heard of other authors doing similar things. company called "resultsource".

[Cantih]

There's also the fact that, when you compare the volume needed to reach "bestseller" to the population, it's really fucking depressing.
Unless something like Harry Potter drops, it's more a "anything that actually sold this week" list than a bestseller list.

[Xno Kappa]

Meh. The music industry has been doing the same exact shit for decades.

[Gredival]

The argument for Hillary and chameleon Dems

Hillary's detractors, and I've been one of them, have long complained that she is a politician without firm principles. She, her husband and the other Third Way types who've dominated the modern Democratic Party specialize in a kind of transactional politics, in which issues are endlessly parsed to maintain a balance between fundraising interests and populist concerns. It's a strategy that wins elections, but doesn't get the heart racing much.

But there is one overriding principle that does animate and define the Clinton campaign, and that's keeping Republicans out of office. For years, this has been the Democratic Party's stock answer for every sordid legislative compromise, every shameless capitulation to expediency, every insulting line of two-faced stump rhetoric offered to get over: We have to do this to beat the Republicans.

I never bought that argument, for a lot of reasons, but Trey Gowdy made it look pretty good Thursday. Those idiots represent everything that is wrong not just with the Republican Party, but with modern politics in general. It's hard to imagine a political compromise that wouldn't be justified if its true aim would be to keep people like those jackasses out of power.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...0151023?page=2

[notorious bum]

It's what makes the debates so fucking middle-schoolish, like some amateur teen movie shit.

"When I am prez, I will get those no-good Republicans!"
"I'm the most Democratic of the Democrats!"

[Fiye]

Good luck getting some of those guys out. I know some people who just bleed republican red and will refuse to vote for anyone but a republican.

I honestly wonder how hard it is to get into an office.

[Gredival]

7/10 Republican voters consider Trump electable in the general... the highest of all the candidates.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/2015...7a80beeda.html

[Tyrath]

7/10 Republicans need a reality check. But then I could've said that without that poll.

[notorious bum]

unrelated party music companion:

Spoiler: show

[Churchill]

Talk about someone almost as bad as Alinksy.

[Gredival]

Boehner appoints 8 pro-lifers to lead a Planned Parenthood investigation.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/new-gop-l...ned-parenthood

After the Benghazi hearings went so disastrously, I wonder what his end game here is doing this before he goes. Does he want the Freedom Caucus to fall flat on its face again?

[Niiro]

Despite the laughably childish and absurd conduct of the Benghzi hearings you'd have to be a fool to think that they weren't very successful at painting Hillary in a negative light to the majority of people.

That majority of people who didn't watch them at all and just got the recap from Fox News, mind you, which I'm sure painted a very fair and balanced picture.

All these people need to see is "investigation" and "Hillary Clinton/PP/whatever the fuck" and they instantly create their own version of events to justify such an investigation and then proceed to get that false worldview cemented in stone by their biased news source of choice.

The investigation is all that's needed to accomplish the goal of defamation, the actual results of the investigation are irrelevant.

ex: Remember Acorn? Remember how they were found to have done absolutely nothing wrong? And the whole controversy was a right-wing sham?

What ever happened to Acorn I wonder?

[Gredival]

People who watch Fox News aren't going to be voting (D) anyway. I think the hearings got blasted (rightfully) by every other media outlet besides Fox and the WSJ, which is disastrous on the moderate/independent game that you need to win for the general election.

[Niiro]

I'd say you're vastly overestimating the political intelligence of the average undecided voter.

[Tyrath]

I'd say you're vastly overestimating the political intelligence of the average undecided voter.

This. You're silly if you think the hearings didn't hurt Hillary's overall numbers.

[Gredival]

Nah, I'm the guy voting for Clinton because I think Bernie is too honest to herd sheep.

Which means I'm also aware of the importance polling and pandering to moderates, and all the evidence so far indicates that Benghazi was a solid win for Hillary. The 40% that feel the investigation has revealed something are overwhelmingly GOP self-identifiers.

[Mrbeansman]

So are you Bernie supporters really willing to risk two SCOTUS seats? If any lasting change is going to come its going to be from there.