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The 2016 US General Election

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  • yup, beginning to look like establishment Democrat is in as big a trouble as establishment Republican, though Joe Biden's effusive praise of Bernie might mean even establishment Democrat doesn't like Hilary. It's getting so much fun. Maybe the Washington Republicans and Washington Democrats will form their own party next time. the Repudiems? Cratlickans?
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

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    • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
      yup, beginning to look like establishment Democrat is in as big a trouble as establishment Republican, though Joe Biden's effusive praise of Bernie might mean even establishment Democrat doesn't like Hilary. It's getting so much fun. Maybe the Washington Republicans and Washington Democrats will form their own party next time. the Repudiems? Cratlickans?
      Or, how about: A-holicans?

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      • Originally posted by citanon View Post
        Latest polls seem to show Clinton in trouble in Iowa and NH.

        http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/12/politi...oll/index.html

        NH might be expected since Bernie is from neighboring Vermont. Iowa, though, would not look good.
        Maybe not as surprising as you might think in Iowa. Sanders does better in older, whiter demographics. Iowa Dems tend to be one or both. In Sth Carolina, for instance, Hillary has a lead consistently in the 25-35% range. Haven't seen other states yet. bernie might grab a few states in New England, but I suspect that he will struggle elsewhere.
        sigpic

        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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        • Originally posted by astralis View Post
          GV,



          well, great statesman, mediocre politician.

          most of the current Republican crop aren't exactly statesmen, and they're mediocre politicians to boot. frankly if the Republicans even had a half-way competent statesman/politician, they should be able to take the Presidency.



          Laffer hasn't been an academic since the late '80s/early-90s. he's been making his bucks on the conservative-media circuit ever since. one can argue that Krugman's been making his bucks on the liberal-media circuit, but he's still in the academic world and publishing, which opens his ideas up to criticism and debate.
          You already know I disagree about the "no decent Republicans" line based on prior discussions about demographics. :P
          Rubio and Cruz are quite effective at getting what they want despite party opposition and weak hands. They aren't any LBJs, but they are shrewd enough politicians. I don't know enough to really rate Christie or Kasich, but something tells me they aren't exactly slouches, and, again, Kasich would probably seem like a good statesmen if he ran as a statesmen and not a liberal Republican.

          Laffer is definitely out of the academic game, so on that score I would agree with you. He's been in consulting and politics for about 3 decades, lol.
          That said, he's not some random guy spouting stuff about economics. He's got a PhD from Stanford (?).



          Re: Bernie.
          Bernie doesn't have broad enough support to win. Hillary has locked up practically all endorsements and polls better for the most part. Like BF said, Iowa is White-topia, and Bernie polls really well among the SWPL folk.
          The Dems aren't split like the Republicans at the moment. Practically all support is in 2 candidates, one of whom is the anointed successor to Obama. The Congressional Delegations are in-line.

          But, the fact that the White-topians love #feelthebern so much tells you a lot about the direction of the party over the next decade.
          "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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          • Trump unloads on Cruz

            http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/16/tr...iti-bank-owns/

            :pop:

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            • HRC's emails contained above top secret intelligence.

              http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...ret-ig-n499886

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              • Great, we got an ex-politican turned reality star endorsing an ex-reality star turned politican....

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                • Honestly, who is dumber?



                  Or

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                  • It's a ouroburos come to life.

                    Think that NY tabloid said it best.

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                    • I would say the dumbest person by far is the one that would put the countries sensitive information on her private account while she was the Secretary of State.
                      Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by bonehead View Post
                        I would say the dumbest person by far is the one that would put the countries sensitive information on her private account while she was the Secretary of State.
                        What did the Secretaries of State before her do? No one has ever looked into their private PCs or E-mail accounts when they were in office. What she did was legal at the time. If it was happening today different story.

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                        • Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
                          What did the Secretaries of State before her do? No one has ever looked into their private PCs or E-mail accounts when they were in office. What she did was legal at the time. If it was happening today different story.
                          Putting special access program intel on a private server has never been legal.

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                          • The billionaire former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is thinking about running for president as an independent candidate, US media report.
                            http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35392989

                            Any stitch of credibility?

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                            • Does America need to change how it elects its presidents?

                              Is there a greater democratic show on earth than the American presidential election?

                              Indian polls, where elephants ferry electronic voting machines into the foothills of the Himalayas and pyrotechnics explode at the moment of victory, are doubtless more picturesque.

                              Afghan votes, where women queue at polling stations dressed in sky-blue burkas, and warlords darken the process with their guns and menace, are more epic.

                              British by-elections, with their monster raving loonies and candidates dressed as chickens, take the prize for slapstick.

                              Yet for sheer entertainment value it is hard to beat the "Road to the White House", as it zigzags through the cornfields of Iowa, the snowfields of New Hampshire and so very many airfields that one becomes indistinguishable from another.

                              Surely no other country can rival this electoral blockbuster.

                              Like many good dramas, it is episodic: the Iowa caucus; the New Hampshire primary; Super Tuesday; the conventions; the presidential debates; then, finally, the denouement of election night.

                              Like every good soap opera, it can produce cliffhanger after cliffhanger, as in 2008 when Barack Obama locked antlers with Hillary Clinton.
                              Like all good theatre, it brings together a compelling repertory company. Some characters, like the telegenic Marco Rubio, feel like they have stepped straight from central casting.

                              Others, like Donald Trump, are scene-stealers. And some, like Ben Carson, look like they have stumbled in from a neighbouring film lot, and ended up in the wrong production altogether. And then there are those delightful guest appearances: step forward Sarah Palin.

                              Presidential elections are box office. Just ask the cable news channels, which are attracting record audiences for the presidential debates, staged with the mandatory red, white and blue backdrops and rousing music, usually with a martial drumbeat, that would not sound out of place as the soundtrack for Top Gun.

                              On Facebook, the race was the most talked about subject globally in 2015.

                              With a new instalment every four years, presidential elections have not only become an exercise in the franchise, but an exercise in franchising.
                              The problem is that the greatest democratic show on earth also doubles as the most outlandish.

                              For international onlookers, it can seem freakish and bizarre: a long-running farce populated by cartoonish characters, which works as entertainment but is a poor advertisement for American democracy.

                              Though presidential elections easily satisfy most theatrical requirements, do they meet the needs of a well-functioning democracy?

                              Regardless of the cast, the process itself is easy to lampoon.

                              The race begins in Iowa and New Hampshire, two relatively small states that end up having a wholly disproportionate impact on the outcome.

                              There is an argument to be made that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire take very seriously their civic responsibility, and closely scrutinise each of the presidential candidates.

                              The electors there usefully winnow the field. But both states are 94% white, compared with the national figure of 77%, and could hardly be described as ethnically representative of the country as a whole. Quite the contrary.

                              As well as its geographical quirks, there is the duration of the contest.

                              Modern-day campaigns have become almost two-year marathons.

                              Ted Cruz, the first candidate to declare his candidacy, announced his intentions on 23 March 2015.

                              Because campaigns have become so elongated, money has become even more important.

                              Campaign finance merits a column all of its own. Suffice to say that the 2012 presidential election cost a record-breaking $2bn, and this year's race could cost $5bn, much of that money coming from Super-Pacs (political action committees), which can raise unlimited funds.

                              Come the general election proper, there are the vagaries of the Electoral College.

                              This state-focused system has thrice produced presidents who failed to win the nationwide popular vote - in 1876, 1888 and most recently in 2000, when Al Gore received 543,895 more votes than George W Bush.

                              Nor is that the only foible of the Electoral College. Because more than 40 states are safely Republican or safely Democrat, presidential campaigning is concentrated on a small number of swing states, such as Ohio and Florida.

                              It means that candidates ignore some of the most populous states in the union, like California (Democrat), New York (Democrat) and Texas (Republican), and lavish attention on others.

                              This has a distortive effect on policy.

                              Part of the reason why the US embargo of Cuba remained in place for so long was because of the importance of Cuban American voters in Florida.
                              Likewise, it takes a brave presidential candidate to come out against ethanol subsidies, handouts dear to the farmers of Iowa.

                              As with campaign finance, weighty books could be written on voter suppression, whether it comes in the form of impediments to registration, the purging of electoral rolls, photo ID laws that tend to penalise poorer voters, or the mismanagement of polling stations.

                              The underfunding of elections, especially in urban areas populated by minorities, often creates long queues and long waits, meaning that voters are disenfranchised for the simple reason they cannot cast their ballots before the deadline.

                              Nor is the act of voting uniform across the country, or even within states.

                              Just as registration methods differ from state to state, so, too, do voting methods.

                              This partly explains the confusion over those infamous "butterfly ballots" in Florida in 2000, which confused elderly voters. It was designed by a local official.

                              Chaotic spectacle

                              We, as journalists, play a part in the dysfunction of the process.

                              Covering this chaotic spectacle is always a guilty pleasure, and though we often set out with the noble aim of exploring the issues and of not being fixated by the headlines of the day, it is hard, if not impossible, to resist.

                              It explains why the US networks' evening news in 2015 devoted 327 minutes to Donald Trump, but just 57 to Jeb Bush, 57 to Ben Carson, 22 to Marco Rubio and 21 to Ted Cruz. It's a character-driven, rather than policy-driven, narrative.

                              Thus, we end up producing "horse race journalism," a poll-obsessed commentary preoccupied with who is up and who is down. Social media has exacerbated our worst tendencies.

                              We are part of a process in which sound bites double as policy statements, and slogans become substitutes for nuanced manifestos. And I am guilty as charged.

                              No wonder the process is so off-putting to so many qualified candidates - Colin Powell is an example on the Republican side, the former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, on the Democrat.

                              No wonder so many politicians simply cannot raise enough money to be viable (though some that do, like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, also fail).
                              No wonder voter turnout is so low. In 2012, it was 53.6%. Not since 1968 has it risen above 60%. Of the 34 OECD countries, the US ranks 31st in voter turnout.

                              Perhaps this year's record-breaking viewing figures will translate into higher voter participation.

                              But at the moment the 2016 election feels like one of those instant tests of online opinion to decide who should stay on the island, rather than who should become the most powerful person on earth - a process with an excess of razzmatazz, and a deficit of reason.
                              http://www.bbc.com/news/the-reporters-35365848

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                              • [QUOTE=tantalus;1002360]Does America need to change how it elects its presidents?

                                This has come up every time there has been an election in this country. Election year rolls around, good intentioned people who see the electorate can't vote for what they see as reasonable policy, therefore the system allows for the stupid to rule and must be changed to achieve their results/policy/party. The founding fathers grappled with this, they couldn't agree on what it all meant and were deeply dissatisfied with the whole thing. Yet American Democracy survives a Civil War, racial strife, depression, massive demographic change, immigration, etc. Great nations have great problems, but they endure.

                                George Washington gave American Democracy its greatest strength, step away after two terms. It's about governance not your career. Every president followed it by choice or failure at the ballot box until FDR, and an amendment was passed.

                                Relax Iowa and New Hampshire are not the November Election. Look at the 2012 Iowa Republican winner Rick Santorum. The media will cover Republicans who say stupid things(they do say it) and report on junk poles that show how stupid the average American is. But like the elections of the last 240 plus years America will survive this one.
                                Last edited by Dazed; 24 Jan 16,, 05:08. Reason: Not that bright. Poor writing skills

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