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  • US Presidential Primaries

  • Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
 #167682  by ManaMan
 Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:47 pm
Link.

Cruz beats Trump with Rubio a close third. Clinton barely beating Sanders. Huckabe drops out. Martin O'Malley sticking it out hoping for the VP spot.

Still almost a damn year to go until November...
Last edited by ManaMan on Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
 #167684  by Eric
 Tue Feb 02, 2016 5:50 am
I heard Clinton/Sanders tied in a few places and a coin toss decided Clinton took it lol.

Not too many ways to spin this. Bernie came straight the fuck outta no where to be this competitive with Hilary, it's crazy.

As for Republicans, eh, whatever. Trump finally lost something. See if Cruz/Rubio can take that momentum into the other voting states.
 #167687  by ManaMan
 Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:12 pm
Looks like Martin O'Malley dropped out too.

I wonder when one of the other 97 Republican candidates will drop out?
 #167690  by Julius Seeker
 Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:19 am
Jeb, confirmed, even too stupid for Republicans. He may have shattered the record for most disastrous campaign ever:

http://www.syracuse.com/politics/index. ... _buzz.html

Overall, he just has too much going against him:
1. He's slow, to put it most politely; intellectually lacking, to put it another. He comes off as too much of a bumpkin.
2. He's a Bush. The definition of privileged establishment.
3. His name is Jeb, which is equal to Clivan, and just a small step up from Cletus as far as hillbilly names go.

If the republican base had a head on their shoulders, they would select Rubio or Carson. Those two have a little bit of a chance, at least. Cruz, Trump, and Bush are unelectable. Trump is the most likely guy to get anti-republicans out voting in droves.
 #167695  by kali o.
 Wed Feb 03, 2016 1:04 pm
Julius Seeker wrote:If the republican base had a head on their shoulders, they would select Rubio or Carson. Those two have a little bit of a chance, at least. Cruz, Trump, and Bush are unelectable. Trump is the most likely guy to get anti-republicans out voting in droves.
I agree that Rubio makes the most sense, but Carson would be a clusterfuck. I also think that while Trump would bring out would bring out anti-republicans, he is likely to bring out the anarchists and non-voters. This is the equivalent of a national joke/troll - it could easily catch fire and he could win purely on the lulz.

Go Trump go.
 #167697  by ManaMan
 Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:28 pm
kali o. wrote: I agree that Rubio makes the most sense, but Carson would be a clusterfuck. I also think that while Trump would bring out would bring out anti-republicans, he is likely to bring out the anarchists and non-voters. This is the equivalent of a national joke/troll - it could easily catch fire and he could win purely on the lulz.

Go Trump go.
Yep. Except for the actually cheering him on part. Don't get too cocky, it's only a matter of time before he annexes Canada as "Trumpistan".
 #167700  by Shrinweck
 Wed Feb 03, 2016 4:30 pm
Yeah he's basically the only person other than, say, Bachman or Gingrich that I'd want in less than Cruz.
 #167719  by Replay
 Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:26 am
Hillary apparently "won" literally all six coin tosses in her favor in Iowa, if the system is to be believed. I'm not particularly implying that the Clintons cheat at politics. I'm just pointing out the honest chance of that happening is 1.5625%. (Okay, so...maybe I'm implying that the Clintons cheat at politics.)

As for Trump...I have a hard time buying that one, too, though given Cruz' dirty tactics to pick up Carson's supporters he might have actually taken it "legit"...if that's what you call quietly scuttling your compatriot out of the race by telling all his followers that he's quitting and should vote for you instead. I hate them both, I think the modern GOP remains a shitty stupid violent ignorant mess, and both of them would turn America into a shitty, ruined fascist nightmare, if not an actual nuclear holocaust...but I'd still take Trump over Cruz in a heartbeat. Ted Cruz has all of Trump's bad qualities, PLUS he's beholden to Goldman Sachs, who are a bunch of unpleasant, heartless, soulless murderers who have broken every relevant law in America that we care about and yet running far more of the country than they deserve to be. (On the plus side, everyone in the GOP now hates him for what did, and everyone outside of it hates him because he's a warmongering Wall Street shitbag).

I just don't see any good results coming out of the election, no matter what.

I don't think anyone honest can or will be allowed to win...and if Hillary is America's best option that the country is running to by default or because no one's paying enough attention to notice that is some motherfucking sad shit. She sold her soul a long time ago...everyone wants a repeat of "let the good times roll" from Bill's era...but I'll say it again, Bill looks a lot less stellar than he did after seventeen years of the Glass-Steagal repeal, the rape accusations, the Epstein party, etc. etc. etc. Bernie's still the best - at least he clearly still has some humanity left, and still cares about people to some extent - but I doubt there's any way he can win against a system as rigged as ours is getting.
 #167733  by Zeus
 Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:12 pm
Bernie tied....in Iowa. Let's wait 'til the real states start voting....
 #167739  by kali o.
 Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:21 am
ManaMan wrote:Yep. Except for the actually cheering him on part. Don't get too cocky, it's only a matter of time before he annexes Canada as "Trumpistan".
Pffft. We've beat the Americans once, we can do so again.
 #167742  by Julius Seeker
 Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:05 pm
If the United States decides on a military conquest of Canada, at least elect Bernie Sanders first. I'd be happier with him as the new Tyrant.
 #167746  by ManaMan
 Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:39 am
I renamed the thread from "Iowa Caucus Results" to "US Presidential Primaries" so we can just keep this going as the thread to talk smack about this ridiculous political ritual.
 #167747  by ManaMan
 Wed Feb 10, 2016 10:01 am
New Hampshire Primary Results:

Republicans:
Trump (won) - 35.2%
Kasich - 15.8%
Cruz - 11.7%
Bush - 11.1%
Rubio - 10.5%
Christie - 7.5%
Fiorina - 4.2%
Carson - 2.3%

Democrats:
Sanders (won) - 60.0%
Clinton - 38.3%

Two big surprises:
1. Sanders won big on the Democratic side. I think everyone suspected he would win but this was a landslide.
2. An actual sane person, Ohio Governor John Kasich, won second place in the GOP primary. This is shocking! He believes that Climate Change is real and accepted Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare.
 #167753  by ManaMan
 Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:28 pm
Julius Seeker wrote:That one landed on the chin!
That was a pretty good one. She had a good comeback though. Sanders has little in the foreign policy department.

Here's another good one of Marco Robot.... Rubio getting smacked down by Chris Christie. He was looking to take the lead as the "mainstream Republican" (neocon) but this really knocked him down a peg:



I mean, really, it's a stupid statement: "Obama is trying the make America like the rest of the world with universal healthcare and banking regulation!" The horror!! What's next? The Metric System? Soccer???
 #167755  by Replay
 Sat Feb 13, 2016 12:42 pm
ManaMan wrote: That was a pretty good one. She had a good comeback though. Sanders has little in the foreign policy department.
Please don't believe the hype on that, Mana. He has a clean record at least, which is more than Hillary has.

I don't think you understand that outside of the mainstream Dem fold, Benghazi is still an issue that provokes intense anger. I understand it's all cool these days for a great many traditional liberals to pretend Benghazi didn't matter, or was just a Republican attempt to smear Hillary.

In reality, it was the Democratic version of Iran-Contra. The office was an arms shipping pipeline through Libya to anti-Assadist rebels in Syria, discovered by opposing forces, and then attacked...and denied help once it was attacked, with the office "suicided" due to the extreme secrecy of the operation in the hopes it would all just disappear...even though Stevens and the others could potentially have been saved.

It was a bad call, terribly handled, morally and physically. It cost several American lives, more lives in Libya, and uncountable lives in Syria.

It is the shape and face of the larger set of reasons the world is experiencing a terrible Syrian refugee crisis right now.

And rather than own up to any of it, Secretary Clinton has stonewalled the entire way, deleting two months of official government e-mails, including potentially highly classified material.

No one gave Nixon a pass on the 18½ minute Watergate gap. Why half the nation persists in wanting to give Secretary Clinton a pass on a TWO MONTH gap on an issue where American military personnel actually died is a rather astonishing concept to consider.

Among independents and swing voters, it matters. It matters a lot.

Get outside of this community and see what others are saying about it, outside of traditional liberal establishment media sites, if you don't believe me.
 #167765  by Julius Seeker
 Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:21 am
So Rubio is claiming Canada is part of the US?
America Junior or Soviet Canuckistan, make up your minds!

 #167799  by ManaMan
 Tue Feb 23, 2016 4:36 pm
Replay wrote:I don't think you understand that outside of the mainstream Dem fold, Benghazi is still an issue that provokes intense anger. I understand it's all cool these days for a great many traditional liberals to pretend Benghazi didn't matter, or was just a Republican attempt to smear Hillary.
I honestly haven't paid that much attention to it. I think that most people either a) don't care/haven't heard about it or b) think it's an attempt smear by the GOP to smear her. How many investigations have they had into this already that haven't turned up any wrong doing? I know they made that movie "13 Hours" sensationalizing it. I think though that the angry people you mention are conservative people who already hated her and would never vote for her any way.
 #167800  by Replay
 Tue Feb 23, 2016 4:44 pm
It is not particularly a fiction. Yes, the GOP wants to use it to smear her despite about ten Benghazis taking place on their watch; but no, it isn't made up. Neither is the resentment against her.

On Business Insider, the anti-Hillary comments will frequently be upvoted 70 to 1 or better. Yes, the business world often doesn't like Hillary generally - but BI is considered the major liberal-leaning business publication these days, at least compared to the WSJ and Forbes. If BI's readers are against Hillary by a 70 to 1 factor, the rest of the business world is likely even more against her; and it will matter.
ManaMan wrote:How many investigations have they had into this already that haven't turned up any wrong doing?
You make the mistake of thinking government investigations on politicians are there to unearth wrongdoing. Most are either hitpieces on someone the establishment needs to be discredited, or cover-ups for someone the establishment wants to protect.

I understand not everyone respects my political opinions here anymore; but please listen to me on this...I do know a lot about how the system works, via family experience and other experience.

Image
 #167837  by Zeus
 Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:30 am
ManaMan wrote:Looks like Rand Paul's dropped out now. Too bad. He actually made sense from time to time.
No, he knew how to say the things that didn't make him look like a Tea Party nutjob....but not one that is so crazy he's universally loved by that side. He's kind of like someone who hasn't gone full Tea Party, which is why he ain't so supported (and why Romney chose him to begin with as VP candidate). Make no mistake about it, he makes Dubya look like a socialist
 #167842  by Shrinweck
 Sun Feb 28, 2016 2:26 pm
Paul Ryan and Rand Paul are different people. But your opinion on Rand Paul is still valid. He had some not-so-frightening stances on a handful of things but eh.
 #167848  by ManaMan
 Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:38 am
Shrinweck wrote:Paul Ryan and Rand Paul are different people.
XD

This is true.

They're like the Medicaid and Medicare of politicians. People who aren't political junkies always get the two mixed up.
 #167851  by Replay
 Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:05 am
Do me a favor, Zeusy.

Please don't ever call me "crazy" again until you can tell Paul Ryan and Rand Paul apart. :thumbup:
 #168070  by Shrinweck
 Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:17 pm
Well in his defense as far as politicians go both of them are relatively deep cuts. You don't hear about Rand Paul except for when he fails a presidential bid and other than his recent foray into congressional leadership, you didn't really ever hear about Paul Ryan except for his failed bid as a vice president.
 #168071  by Replay
 Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:45 pm
Shrinweck, if you follow politics, you hear about both all the time. The Speaker of the House is really, really important. And the Pauls between them are one of the currently longest-serving, best-known families in Congress, particularly known by their libertarian stances. They are *not* easy to mix up if you know anything about them. One is pure establishment; the other a critic of that same establishment.

Ryan was famously pilloried by Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, who famously said to him "You are the machine" when Ryan confessed to being a Rage fan - he's a pure centrist, as establishment as establishment gets, as middle-of-the-road as they come, and in some ways a purposeful avoider of controversy - it doesn't help you rise the establishment ranks.

Rand is just the opposite - a strong advocate for libertarianism, free thought, breaking party taboos to speak out, and a strong Constitutionalist, even when it seems immoderate to be one. He's considered an outsider to that same machine (though by now, who knows) who wants to reduce the size of that machine and of all American government.

I understand that being harsh on Zeus is not the way to be, but he's been a pretty fierce detractor of mine on politics here over the years. In response I have rather suggested he doesn't look that deeply at the system. You knew who Ryan and Paul are - so did Mana. It's pretty basic political knowledge. And as policy goes they couldn't be more different, so it matters a lot in discussion.
 #168074  by Shrinweck
 Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:34 pm
I get that but I was mostly referring to knowing them with Zeus being a Canadian as being a tall order. The only two current Canadian politicians I could name offhand are Trudeau and Robert Ford lol

I can only imagine how chopped and skewed coverage of our political process gets out of the country. The shit that actually goes on is horrific enough without the game of telephone that seems to happen when things are explained overseas.
 #168075  by Replay
 Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:08 pm
Yes, good point. I'm sure I wouldn't do well on Trudeau's cabinet members either.
 #168076  by Julius Seeker
 Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:43 am
Shrinweck wrote:The only two current Canadian politicians I could name offhand are Trudeau and Robert Ford lol
That's both of them.
 #168077  by Shrinweck
 Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:58 pm
It's pretty great watching the Republican higher ups finally start to implode on Trump. I can't see it doing anything but helping him, though. Even Mitt Romney... like anyone cares lol
 #168079  by ManaMan
 Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:33 pm
Julius Seeker wrote:
Shrinweck wrote:The only two current Canadian politicians I could name offhand are Trudeau and Robert Ford lol
That's both of them.
Can't forget Stephan Harper!

Canadian political primer:
 #168149  by Zeus
 Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:47 pm
You guys do realize that Hillary just won the presidency this past Tuesday, yes?
 #168154  by Replay
 Thu Mar 17, 2016 8:45 am
Zeus wrote:You guys do realize that Hillary just won the presidency this past Tuesday, yes?
Tell us more, my Canadian pundit friend without an American vote (at least, as far as I know) who can't distinguish between Paul Ryan and Rand Paul.

I so much hate it that you coast through your awareness of politics, Zeusy. I really do.

Yes, I think Hillary has the edge...right now. A lot can happen before November. And the anti-Trump coalition thinking it already has this one in the bag is one of the biggest mistakes you can possibly make.
 #168159  by Don
 Thu Mar 17, 2016 2:19 pm
I've learned from watching the politics prediction sites you might as well go for big. It seems like saying Hillary will win the presidency is at least a 50/50 proposition so the odds are in Zeus's favor and getting to say 'I told you so' later.

This election seems to throw out the idea of that you can just find the one or five polls that most accurately represents voter base and extrapolate that for everything else. I have seen sites claim their model is 99% of accurate and predicted a Trump win for the presidency. Of course, generally speaking US presidential election isn't supposed to be an event with a lot of unknowns and if you've the benefit of hindsight to know which polls actually conducted their sample base correctly it must be pretty easy to get almost everything right. I'm not big into politics so all I can say is that Trump is definitely not the norm people are used to modeling with, so anything can happen with him.
 #168160  by Shrinweck
 Thu Mar 17, 2016 7:04 pm
Trump really appeals to people in the GOP base while also appealing to people who are sick of the way things have been going. He basically alienates everyone else though. When I say it's Hilary's to lose, if she inspires too much apathy by being uncharismatic or having her notable supporters say shit like "There's a special place in hell for women who don't vote Clinton," then she should genuinely crush Trump. It's no mystery that the guy is an incredible misogynist - Clinton should claim basically every woman that isn't squarely in the GOP base. That alone should solidify her victory, but women don't really like her. She needs to work on her public perception but she had ALL THOSE YEARS after losing to Obama to learn how to do this but apparently didn't.
 #168201  by Shrinweck
 Thu Mar 31, 2016 3:55 am
Trump took back what he said about supporting whoever ends up winning the Republican primaries. This probably means he'd run as an independent if he doesn't get nominated. Obviously this would mean Very Bad Things for the Republican party's chances. Trump feels like the Republican National Committee treated him "unfairly."

Cruz took his pledge to support of the nominee away, as well (if it's Trump), although I'm guessing his chances of running as independent are lower.
The pledge, circulated by GOP officials, stated: "I, ________, affirm that if I do not win the 2016 Republican nomination for President of the United States I will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is."
The pledge continues: "I further pledge that I will not seek to run as an independent or write-in candidate nor will I seek or accept the nomination for president of any other party."
 #168203  by Don
 Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:03 pm
I saw this Muslim guy on CNN saying they should all vote for Trump to be the Republican candidate so that they can all vote against him in the presidential election, because if it's someone else they wouldn't have alienated Muslims (or some other faction) enough for this to work.
 #168204  by Shrinweck
 Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:59 pm
I'm guessing Muslims don't really tend to register as Republicans so they can vote in their primaries.

If such a broad group of people (nationalities, languages, races) could actually organize themselves that well I'd be impressed.
 #168205  by Don
 Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:25 pm
Well that's why the guy said it had to be Donald Trump getting the Republican nominee because normally even if a guy totally offended some nationality or religion or whatever people aren't going to go out of their way to try to vote against that guy.
 #168217  by Shrinweck
 Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:31 pm
It's a little odd to me that Trump is now trying to get Kasich to leave the race... Anyone who's going to take the time to actually get out of the house and vote for Kasich sure as shit isn't going to vote for either Trump or Cruz.
 #168220  by Eric
 Tue Apr 05, 2016 1:33 am
He's in a bit of a panic I think, if he can't secure the delegates via votes then the party is gonna decide, and they sure as hell aren't going to pick him.
 #168362  by ManaMan
 Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:20 pm
I think Sanders knows he can't win the primary now. He's just holding on until the convention so that he can try to push the party's platform to the left.
 #168386  by Shrinweck
 Thu Apr 28, 2016 1:07 pm
Boehner called Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh" which is a sentiment I can kind of get behind except that apparently he apparently happily supports Trump. They're texting buddies and golf together. Fucking weird. He has reasons not to like Cruz, though.

Source
 #168392  by Julius Seeker
 Fri Apr 29, 2016 7:02 am
People are quick to forget how terrible a person Cruz really is. Trump wouldn't go to such lengths to fuck with the government... Although that might have more to do with laziness rather than actually having fewer ugly feelings.
 #168393  by Shrinweck
 Fri Apr 29, 2016 5:03 pm
Holy cow... Boehner's line is actually pretty mild compared to what some Republicans have said about Cruz

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you." -Lindsay Graham

"I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."" -Boehner

"We need somebody with experience and there are a lot of good candidates - I like nearly all of them. Except Cruz." -Bob Dole

Source

A Tea Party candidate winning would probably be worse for the GOP in terms of non-extremist ACTUAL conservatives than Trump winning.
 #168394  by ManaMan
 Fri Apr 29, 2016 5:26 pm
Wow, yeah there seems to be a three-way split in the GOP. There's lot of overlap but the frustration of Republicans with the GOP congress not being able to "stop Obama" is causing fault-lines to occur...
1) Traditional conservatives (like Jeb Bush, John Boehner, John Kasich, etc)
2) Tea Party Right-Wing ideologues who want to burn it all down and start over again (Ted Cruz)
3) White-Christian-Nationalists who don't care much about politics but want to keep America white & Christian (Trump supporters)

The third group is the largest & the first the smallest. You can see this in the polls.
 #168540  by ManaMan
 Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:53 am
So looks like the primaries are essentially over. Trump has the GOP nomination and Hillary has the Dem nomination. Both of the candidates are incredibly unpopular with the general population. Republicans have been trained to hate the Clintons for decades, they've been shrouded in a veil of scandals (both real and imagined) and Trump is just an ass who all but angry older white people dislike.

Will some surprise come up and take one or both candidates down? Trump has come under increasing skepticism from Republicans for the stupid crap he says, some even withdrawing their endorsements. Investigations are ongoing into Hillary's private e-mail misuse as well as misc simmering issues: Benghazi, Clinton Foundation donations, etc. Will both candidates make it to the general? If not, who will fill the void?