2016 USA Presidential election thread I: The warm-up

[Salodin]

Everything you explained would be wanted by millions of people he's pandering to right now. Unscrupulous yes, but he's making cheddarrrr

[chazzyphizzle]

i wonder where all that money he gets from banks comes from? hmmmm

[archibaldcrane]

Bush keeps peddling this "4% GDP growth" fantasy, and it's finally started to get him in trouble with his "people need to work more hours" line.

[zoobernut]

Bush keeps peddling this "4% GDP growth" fantasy, and it's finally started to get him in trouble with his "people need to work more hours" line.

Just think of how much money these CEO's and business owners can make if people would just cooperate and work extra hours instead of expecting raises to counteract inflation and cost of living increases.

[archibaldcrane]

He was referring to "involuntary part time workers" and just used terrible phrasing, but his gaffe isn't as important as his completely ridiculous 4% growth proclamation.

[Quicklet]

For someone who is supposed to be the experienced adult in the race, you would think he would be more cognizant of his phrasing on this topic. The fact that he said we need to be more productive when productivity numbers have been doing quite well suggests he knew what he was saying and simply changed his position after he realized how badly it played in public.

I, too, think we need to retire the talk about growth and focus much more on wages and labor participation as the most important indicators for a healthy economy. People don't care if the economy is growing at 4% if most of that wealth is going to the top, or when it means we end up in a recession a year or two later because most of that growth was artificial because of things like housing bubble, tech bubble, etc.

[Buffy]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/j...-longer-hours/

[archibaldcrane]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/j...-longer-hours/

*if we have any hope of growing the economy by 4% per year, which we don't

[Xantavia]

Working longer hours would be a great idea. Likely wouldn't affect me or anybody else on minimum wage. Gotta keep employees under 30 hours you know.

[Serra]

Stop talking about real candidates, Trump is being Trump:

Trump also addressed head-on a Washington Post report that said there were illegal immigrants working at one of Trump's hotel construction sites in Washington. And he said he still isn't totally convinced President Barack Obama was born in this country.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/08/politi...ers/index.html

[Anakron]

So I don't usually following elections this early (or politics in general), but is it normal for GOP to have so many candidates? According to wiki, the Democrats have 5, and GOP have 14.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Working longer hours would be a great idea. Likely wouldn't affect me or anybody else on minimum wage. Gotta keep employees under 30 hours you know.

I feel like I should point out that that's the point being made by both the article and Bush. "Americans need to work more hours... at a single job." would be closer to what he actually meant.

Democrats immediately seized on the “longer hours” line, which they called “out of touch.” Bush scrambled to clarify that he was talking about the need for more full-time jobs.

[Andalusian girls]

it's p clear Bush was talking about the 6 or 7 million people stuck working 29.5 when they want to hit 40 and the historically low labor force participation rate (which is only partly explained by an aging demographic)

inartful but those jumping on it are playing cheap politics as per usual

[SamanosukeShiva]

speaking of Bush, holy shit dat super-PAC money

[notorious bum]

Who gives a shit, it's all pointless rhetoric. Jeb ain't fighting the off-shoring, anti-labor, multi-national corporate hydra. Homeboy's SuperPAC just put $100 million in the red kettle.

[Serra]

Democrats: Pretty much the same as last week (Hillary, Sanders, Webb, with Hillary getting over 50% still).

Republicans: Bush and Trump remain at the top (and have made gains); Carson and Huckabee are tied for third; Graham, Jindal, Santorum, Pataki, and Gilmore don't make the cut.

(Based on the latest national poll: Gravis Marketing.)

[Serra]

And Walker is now in:

Scott Walker, the political phenomenon who rose to national fame by taking on unions in one of the most blue-collar states, tweeted Monday morning confirming that he'll seek the Republican nomination for president, just hours ahead of his in-person announcement.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/13/politi...ent/index.html

Probably should have announced a few weeks earlier -- he's down to 5th right now.

[Quicklet]

All that really matters right now is being in the top 10 to get on the debate stage for the first debate, and then being in the top 8 or whatever it is that CNN is using for their cutoff afterward. Given that he'll likely get an announcement bump it's good timing (though unnecessary for Walker) to announce this close to the first debate. It's more vital for someone like Kasich who's at risk of being locked out of a debate in the very state he governs. Just look at Fiorina who was one of the first to announce and has practically no funding and is very unlikely to make the debate. Her candidacy is over already because of the arbitrary debate threshold and we still have half a year before the first primary even happens.

[notorious bum]

http://t.co/uvJAFmurKF

[Ksandra]

Misleading article title is misleading. (Though Jesus was a socialist.)