2016 USA Presidential election thread I: The warm-up

[Kanriel]

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.

Firstly, I think beating Hillary will be FAR harder for Bernie than winning the actual election.

Secondly, we've already gone "past the turning point" on climate change. Who knows what another 4-8 years of a corporate democrat could do to our political climate. How the hell are you going to convince people if we have 16 years of Democratic presidencies without any change in regards to student debt / income inequality that the democratic party is the change we need to fix those issues? We need a hard shift to the left to catch the USA up to northern Europe and Hillary won't do that. The R's are already fully primed to oppose her at every stretch, meaning we'll have deadlocked congress unless we vote them out. And Hillary isn't exciting enough to get people to the polls to vote them out. In this respect, it might be better to have a Trump/Carson shit show of a presidency and have a full on shift to the left in 2020 to vote them out and just hope Ginsburg + co. can hold on until then.

Thirdly, I'm in a solid blue state going to the democratic nominee, so even if I don't vote for Hillary in the general (I won't) it won't make any difference in the overall.

[Kyreth]

Ridiculous. If the hearings didn't exist her numbers would be better. They do more damage to her than they do good.

I think the voters in question were already pretty much cemented to their decisions before it even started. This just is another step in the constant efforts to polarize the country's voter base into ever more inane and insane divisions.

I'm waiting for the first party-induced shooting incident to happen. Figure it'll be before 2020.

[Qeomash]

Thirdly, I'm in a solid blue state going to the democratic nominee, so even if I don't vote for Hillary in the general (I won't) it won't make any difference in the overall.

And I'm in a deep red state; I'll write in Bernie if I have to.

[Kanriel]

I think the voters in question were already pretty much cemented to their decisions before it even started. This just is another step in the constant efforts to polarize the country's voter base into ever more inane and insane divisions.

I'm waiting for the first party-induced shooting incident to happen. Figure it'll be before 2020.

What qualifies as a party-induced shooting? Since you said first Giffords doesn't count? Or was that proven to not have any political motivations?

[Kyreth]

What qualifies as a party-induced shooting? Since you said first Giffords doesn't count? Or was that proven to not have any political motivations?

Giffords wasn't shot by a "Republican out to kill filthy Democrats", the shooter was a paranoid schizophrenic who was anti-government, period. He'd have shot Giffords regardless of political affiliation and considered himself an independent.

[notorious bum]

While America has been getting it all wrong with prez candidates to challenge status quo, Guatemala seems to have gotten it right:

A television comedian with no prior political experience won Guatemala’s presidential election by a landslide on Sunday, capitalizing on a corruption scandal that engendered national hostility toward the country’s ruling old guard.

http://time.com/4086607/jimmy-morale.../?xid=tcoshare

[Kanriel]

Giffords wasn't shot by a "Republican out to kill filthy Democrats", the shooter was a paranoid schizophrenic who was anti-government, period. He'd have shot Giffords regardless of political affiliation and considered himself an independent.

Ah, okay. I don't really follow crazy killers out of principle but anti-government crazy person sounds like your common libertarian these days.

But yeah, I can absolutely see that type of killing happening soon. Many others do too, which is why there's a White House petition to get Bernie secret service protection before the election even happens.

[Serra]

While America has been getting it all wrong with prez candidates to challenge status quo, Guatemala seems to have gotten it right:

http://time.com/4086607/jimmy-morale.../?xid=tcoshare

If by getting it right you mean picking someone with no political experience, no relationships with elected officials, and no prior history to build upon, then yes, they got it right.

[Serra]

Firstly, I think beating Hillary will be FAR harder for Bernie than winning the actual election.

I'd love to hear the formal political science training you've had which leads you to this conclusion, or is it a case of "the people on the internet love Bernie, and the internet is representative of America, so he'd easily win if the democratic machine would only let him run."? I mean, it's not like 50% of a random sampling of Americans said they wouldn't vote for a declared socialist, or anything like that.. Oh wait..

[Waraji]

We'll see how viable Bernie's campaign is once Republican's start up the nomination machine. I think once this shit show gets underway, and time again Carson/Trump are topping state nominations, people (the un-polled majority) will start actually coming out to, who knows any actually back a Democrat instead.

[Serra]

Almost forgot.. Weekly polls:

Democrats:
Hilldog is back above 50% while Sanders remains in the mid 20s.

Republicans:
Trump (32%), Carson (22%), Rubio (10%), Bush (7%), and Cruz (6%) round out the top five.

Based on the latest poll: Washington Post/ABC News

[Byrthnoth]

Republicans have not been going after Bernie nearly as hard as they could, perhaps because they hope he will win the nomination. Anyway, The Been is too liberal-sounding for some Democrats. I have zero hope for him in the general.

[Gredival]

I think Rubio dropping out of the Senate race is a gamble on the establishment coalescing around him. He's got the Kochs now that Walker is out, and the only other "adult in the room" candidate that registers above 5% is Jeb who is hemorrhaging.

That gives him a pretty good shot if the cards fall the way the experts think, which is that the outsiders (Trump, Carson, Fiorina) eventually get pushed out. So it's Rubio vs. Cruz (the candidate best poised to take over the outsider voters), which will eventually go for Rubio ala Mittens in '12.

Then again, McCain was in a pretty bad spot too at this point in the 08 cycle and he came back to take the nomination.

Rubio is probably the candidate the Dems least want to face.

[Gredival]

Also relevant to why Rubio is the worst opponents for the Dems, Rubio's campaign management knows how to play hardball.

Campaign manager Terry Sullivan once (allegedly) dispatched interns dressed in prison stripes to crash a Huckabee rally and protest the former governor’s controversial parole record and calls politics a “knife fight." The Rubio super PAC is headed by Warren Tompkins, who was widely suspected of orchestrating the 2000 Republican primary smear that John McCain was hiding a black love child. Rubio’s chief digital strategist, Wesley Donehue, is said to have actively hyped unsubstantiated rumors in 2010 that Nikki Haley had an affair with a local South Carolina blogger

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins...ers#.afOYYRPkb

I have little hope that Bernie can handle that, but at least he has a pollster now.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/firs...campaign/?_r=0

[Sho]

Yeah, Rubio took Walker's place as the least wanted target to face, as long as Kasich continues to do poorly. A Rubio/Kasich ticket would be downright terrifying. Kasich/Rubio ticket even more so.

If Kasich somehow pulls his chestnuts out of the fire, I'll personally have a conundrum voting between him and Clinton in the general.

[Kanriel]

I'd love to hear the formal political science training you've had which leads you to this conclusion, or is it a case of "the people on the internet love Bernie, and the internet is representative of America, so he'd easily win if the democratic machine would only let him run."? I mean, it's not like 50% of a random sampling of Americans said they wouldn't vote for a declared socialist, or anything like that.. Oh wait..

The electoral college is already fairly D-leaning, a lot of people will vote party-line so most blue states will stay blue and red states will stay red. And just about every Republican is as crazy far right as Bernie is crazy far left. The Republican shitshow shows they're not exactly getting fired up around anyone, except maybe Trump, who Bernie can beat based on current polling (he beats Trump better than Hillary does, last I read). So Bernie will bring some extra turnout and the R's will be at their standard turnout, Bernie only needs a couple swing states and can pull it off. Hillary is FAR harder for Bernie to beat. Bernie is even pretty moderate on guns, which I think is the best issue for a leftie to be moderate on, as there are far more pro-gun single issues voters than anti-gun single issue voters.

As well, it shouldn't be hard for the economy to be the #1 issue, and Bernie can sing that song fairly well, he's been doing it for decades.

[Xajii]

The electoral college is already fairly D-leaning, a lot of people will vote party-line so most blue states will stay blue and red states will stay red. And just about every Republican is as crazy far right as Bernie is crazy far left. The Republican shitshow shows they're not exactly getting fired up around anyone, except maybe Trump, who Bernie can beat based on current polling (he beats Trump better than Hillary does, last I read). So Bernie will bring some extra turnout and the R's will be at their standard turnout, Bernie only needs a couple swing states and can pull it off. Hillary is FAR harder for Bernie to beat. Bernie is even pretty moderate on guns, which I think is the best issue for a leftie to be moderate on, as there are far more pro-gun single issues voters than anti-gun single issue voters.

As well, it shouldn't be hard for the economy to be the #1 issue, and Bernie can sing that song fairly well, he's been doing it for decades.

your selective saturation of the internet media is shielding you from the massive population of the country that isn't voting on cnn.com or posting on reddit willing to vote for whoever the fuck necessary to keep a socialist jew out of the white house

[Serra]

That's not entirely correct. If the election were held today, 130 EC votes would be up for grabs, with the Democrats predicted to have 217 secured and the Republicans only 191. Speaking of the Electoral College, it is arguably more democratically leaning (I'd want to take a look at the ten remaining states before making a definitive statement there).

However, the trend with the electoral college is not representative of the general population which is more conservative. While there are more Americans who identify as liberals (up to 24%), there are still more who identify as conservatives (38%).
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180452/li...ervatives.aspx

But, you know, I'm sure this random poll is biased since it doesn't support the narrative of Bernie's supporters.

[archibaldcrane]

Bernie is getting doubled up by Hilldog. Nothing has changed here - barring an actual crippling scandal or a serious health crisis, Hilldog the Inevitable is going to cruise to the nomination effortlessly.

[Serra]

To address the other points though, the primaries are pulling candidates to the extremes -- Hillary having to argue that she's the most progressive (with the caveat that she's a progressive that likes to get things done); the shitshow that is the Republican side. The general election requires candidates to take more moderate stances. Honestly, next to being the incumbent, this was one of Obama's biggest advantages in 2012 -- that the Republican primary had pulled Romney further to the right (and the other candidates had spent months attacking him..). But this is also where Sanders is at a huge disadvantage. Can Sanders moderate himself the necessary amount to appeal to the more conservative population? Given that he is a declared socialist, I personally do not think he can. And this is where, in the general election, a Republican candidate who can come to the center will beat him.

And gun control is a moot issue. It doesn't matter how moderate he is on guns, he's not going to swing that vote away from the Republicans. That D-(?) he got from the NRA does not compare to the A++++++ the inevitable Republican nominee will receive. As far as the economy goes, the Republican nominee just needs to point to the fact that the's a declared socialist. His record with the economy doesn't matter, voters aren't going to do the research. 50% of Americans will hear that and turn on him.