The Political Junkie™ Thread - USA Edition

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**jasper76**

Looked up the numbers:

2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.

Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Made this post before seeing your reply...I don't pretend to know what is best for the country on this issue, just talking political repercussions here.

The Republicans in Congress have destroyed the GOP brand in my view, and the view of every other left-leaning people I know. This lot of candidates are certainly doing nothing at all to win my vote, and I doubt the people who voted for Obama once or twice are going to be impressed by what the GOP has to offer. Their ideas on immigration are not changing my mind in the least. I live in the mid-Atlantic, where, all things considered, we get along with Latinos just fine and have by-in-large embraced them as out neighbors.

**whembly**

Right.

In 2012 / 14 congressional election.

1) Stop Obamacare!

2) Stop Obama's Executive Immigration overreach!

3) Fix Government spending!

Have the GOP delivered any meaningful campaign promise? Really?

The Brand isn't being hurt by your left-leaning friends jasper... that's not the intended targe. The Brand is damaged and it's the Republican voters are disaffected by the current batch of GOP voters.

Hence why the Trump/Carson/Fiorina is getting a little play now.

**jasper76**

So you think immigration is the issue to use to fix the GOP brand nationally?

I can see it might draw some segment of unaffiliated voters, but I think it will alienate even more, especially and crucially those Latino voters who are otherwise conservative.

**Vaktathi**

jasper76 wrote:
Looked up the numbers:

2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.

Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.

In line with this thought, increasingly I think the Republicans have the problem that in order for a candidate to win the primary election, they have to advocate positions so extreme as to assuredly be defeated in a general election.

Trump is a big part of this, in that he's seized the initiative. This is resulting in candidates having to take positions far earlier than they otherwise likely would have to, and having to take more...extreme positions than they otherwise might. A very bad place for a politician, particularly when they're doing to have to defend those positions outside of their base over a long campaigning season.

**jasper76**

Yeah, the "viable candidates" are now in a weird position of having to support Trump's positions. At some point, some candidates besides Perry and Paul are going to have to step up, grow some gonads, and take the paper tiger down.

**Gordon Shumway**

Well, the GOP could just pass a rule that says "no Trump", in which case he would assuredly run third party and completely destroy their chances. However, if he keeps talking, is is currently doing that anyway.

**BlaxicanX**

Maybe hope will win out and the GOP will just learn from this and quit being political asshats in the future.

I mean... there's always the hope.

**jasper76**

Gordon Shumway wrote:
Well, the GOP could just pass a rule that says "no Trump", in which case he would assuredly run third party and completely destroy their chances. However, if he keeps talking, is is currently doing that anyway.

Trump said as much in the debate that he won't commit to the Republican brand because he has "leverage". When a real-estate tycoon talks about "leverage", there's little mystery in my mind as to what that means...blackmail. I.e. if you don't promise to make things nice for me, I'll run Independent and give this election right over to the Democrats. It's pretty thinly veiled, and the degree to which Republican voters don't care does speak to amount of faith they have lost in their party's leadership.

**Jihadin**

Can say one thing so far. They're not at each other throats bashing, backstabbing, demonizing and all that gooey stuff I've seen in the past.

I'm agreeing with Shep from Fox. Think everyone is burned out with the career politicians and/or the establishment.

Edit

Heck. Trump launching attacks on HRC already like he's already won the nomination. Walker was right during the debate. The target is HRC

**sebster**

CptJake wrote:
Huge difference. The constitution and a couple of centuries of case law make immigration enforcement and funding for the enforcement 100% a Federal issue. It is not really hypocritical in my opinion to demand the Feds step up and do one of the things they are actually mandated to do. Just as with war fighting, immigration is a Fed responsibility.

It is the extra stuff not actually explicitly mandated for the Feds that folks like me want to see pushed down to a level where it makes more sense and/or doesn't require vast and often inefficient federal resource expenditure.

Then you find someone who’s been negatively affected by illegal immigration, and have them take the government to court to make them enforce the existing laws. You don’t just assume the powers and responsibilities of federal government for yourself.

The same applies to any city or state that wants to open up immigration or create a path for national citizens.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:
And, the Hispanic voters (legal ones anyways) are not being counted on by GOP.

A successful GOP presidential run is maybe 50% about winning Republican votes, probably less than that. The big issue is in making sure that people who lean Democrat don’t bother this year. A lot of that is dependant on the Democratic candidate and his campaign team, but a major part is doing nothing to piss off people who lean Democrat.

There’s a hell of a lot of left leaning Hispanics that Democrats would have struggled to get the ballot, that are likely to go now, depending on how Trump's noise plays out and is handled by the rest of the field.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

jasper76 wrote:
Looked up the numbers:

2004 - Bush wins with 44% of the Hispanic vote.
2008 - McCain loses wih 31%.of the Hispanic vote.
2012 - Romney loses with 27% of the Hispanic vote.

Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that the Hispanic share of the vote is increasing, and the white share of the vote is decreasing. And Romney never did anyhjng so idiotic as propose the repeal of the 14th Amendment, iirc.
.this proposition by its very nature will alienate Hispanics to the extreme. So it's up to Jeb and Marco to do some major damage control, and I don't think they are capable of cleaning up the mess without a alienating their base.

A successful GOP presidential run is maybe 50% about winning Republican votes, probably less than that. The big issue is in making sure that people who lean Democrat don’t bother this year. A lot of that is dependant on the Democratic candidate and his campaign team, but a major part is doing nothing to piss off people who lean Democrat.

There’s a hell of a lot of left leaning Hispanics that Democrats would have struggled to get the ballot, that are likely to go now, depending on how Trumps noise plays out.

Yep. And in 2000 Muslim voters were actually voting more than 50% Republican. They’re nowhere near as important a group as Hispanics, but it’s interesting to see how fairly normalised social conservatism actually plays pretty well with more recent immigrant groups.

But that’s been absolutely squandered by Republicans in the last decade, as Republicans have thrown them under the base to whip up more support among white voters.

Republicans have made a lot of really terrible strategic decisions in the last decade. Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.

**Ouze**

Jihadin wrote:
I'm agreeing with Shep from Fox. Think everyone is burned out with the career politicians and/or the establishment.

While I am sure that's so, who is running other than Ben Carson that isn't a professional politician? Carly Fiorina has been a failed political advisor/ failed candidate for office for nearly a decade. Donald Trump has been "running for President" since 1988. The only thing keeping them from being career politicians at this point is their utter lack of success at the polls.

I think we've successfully discussed why the idea of a magical outsider who flies in and fixes all the problems isn't a real thing in this thread previously so no need to belabor that.

Oh, also, I'm sure you guys all heard that Mike Huckabee wouldn't have allowed a 10 year old rape victim to have an abortion, right?

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
Right.

In 2012 / 14 congressional election.

1) Stop Obamacare!

2) Stop Obama's Executive Immigration overreach!

3) Fix Government spending!

Have the GOP delivered any meaningful campaign promise? Really?

The Brand isn't being hurt by your left-leaning friends jasper... that's not the intended targe. The Brand is damaged and it's the Republican voters are disaffected by the current batch of GOP voters.

Hence why the Trump/Carson/Fiorina is getting a little play now.

It’s an interesting list you put up, and I think looking at it closely shows an issue that’s deeper than simply failing to deliver. To look at Obamacare, they did fail to stop it but would anyone claim they could have done more to try? They held it in committee as long as possible, they voted en masse against it every step of the way, and they attempted ever possible court case they could imagine to try and ban it. And what if they had stopped it? Would anything in GOP politics be any different now?

Then consider government spending, where government spending has actually been dragged back significantly. Not just savings through the improved economy, but actual structural cuts. This is barely even known, let alone appreciated by the electorate.

I think it’s more about the messages the goals the party has focused on and the way they’ve sold them. Just looking at your own list, we see frustrated angst, there’s no greater vision translated to policy objectives. And then if we look at how Republicans have attempted to approach those goals, it gets even worse. To take government spending as an example, there’s been a hell of a lot of noise about unsustainability and doom saying, even threats to let the country hit the debt ceiling. But there’s been almost no attempt to provide a grounded alternative plan. The only efforts have been from guys like Paul Ryan, who basically released a con job held together with straight out lies.

Five years of that stuff (and Republicans have been doing it increasingly for twenty years, arguably) and it starts to corrode the party. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this thread, everyone is quick to write off Trump as a blow hard with no policy substance, including Republicans, but is there anything more meaningful coming out of the established candidates?

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
I'm agreeing with Shep from Fox. Think everyone is burned out with the career politicians and/or the establishment.

While I am sure that's so, who is running other than Ben Carson that isn't a professional politician? Carly Fiorina has been a failed political advisor/ failed candidate for office for nearly a decade. Donald Trump has been "running for President" since 1988. The only thing keeping them from being career politicians at this point is their utter lack of success at the polls.

I think we've successfully discussed why the idea of a magical outsider who flies in and fixes all the problems isn't a real thing in this thread previously so no need to belabor that.

It's not that there's a belief that an "outsider" can fix all the problem

It's about punishing the establishment and donor class.

Oh, also, I'm sure you guys all heard that Mike Huckabee wouldn't have allowed a 10 year old rape victim to have an abortion, right?

Desparately trying to rile up some religiousosity street cred.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this thread, everyone is quick to write off Trump as a blow hard with no policy substance, including Republicans, but is there anything more meaningful coming out of the established candidates?

Again... it's not so much there isn't any meaningful plans from the established candidates.

It's just that we don't believe them.

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
Again... it's not so much there isn't any meaningful plans from the established candidates.

It's just that we don't believe them.

This isn’t about a single candidate, or even about the group of candidates running in this primary. Remember the churn of outsider candidates in 2012? It happened then, and it’s happening again because there a core problem in the Republican party today.

Nor is it about trust. Trust what? There is nothing being promised to accept or disbelieve. There’s a lot of noise about individual issues. Most of those issues, like the Iran deal, will be done and dusted by the time the presidency is decided, while the rest, like abortion, won’t be resolved in any of our lifetimes, and certainly won’t be changed by a president. What no-one has given is any kind of framework for how the US should operate as a whole.

Plenty of Democrats fail to do that as well, and I think it’s a major failing of Hillary’s, but at least there she’s got the Democrat brand to fall back on. The difference is there is no Republican brand anymore. The old brand about a mature, steady hand on the reigns of government is just gone. Threats of shutdowns, ludicrous claims about death panels and birther nonsense have wiped that away.

So why not Trump? He’s ludicrous, but is he saying anything that, at its core, is any less ludicrous than Jeb! or Cruz’s stuff?

**Ouze**

I think it's actually ¡Jeb! .

Have you ever noticed his campaign logo and brand seems kind of like the logo/name of an 80's sitcom?

**BrotherGecko**

Honestly I would take an established lame duck president for 4 years over the "punish" the establishment candate that is likely to burn the country to the ground.

I am lucky that my degree will be finished by the time the next president takes office because I'd like the ability to move out of the country incase it gets terribad or badong for 4 to 8 years.

**Ouze**

BrotherGecko wrote:
Honestly I would take an established lame duck president for 4 years over the "punish" the establishment candate that is likely to burn the country to the ground.

Well... a "punish the establishment" candidate is just going to hand the election to the democrats.

Which is in keeping with Trump's inspirational campaign posters, I guess.

**LordofHats**

Ouze wrote:

Seems like the ideal Republican to me

Plenty of Democrats fail to do that as well, and I think it’s a major failing of Hillary’s, but at least there she’s got the Democrat brand to fall back on. The difference is there is no Republican brand anymore. The old brand about a mature, steady hand on the reigns of government is just gone. Threats of shutdowns, ludicrous claims about death panels and birther nonsense have wiped that away.

So why not Trump? He’s ludicrous, but is he saying anything that, at its core, is any less ludicrous than Jeb! or Cruz’s stuff?

Yep. The issue comes down to a mix of the general issue that American politics focus overtly on specific issues with no unifying context (other than the ambiguous "American <blank>" phrases which basically mean nothing), and the Republican parties growing "feth you" attitude. It's really hard for a party to find national support when it spends the bulk of its time pandering to a very ill defined ideal of what America/ns are supposed to be while in complete ignorance of anything resembling reality.

**Vaktathi**

sebster wrote:

Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.

Yup, exactly.

The disciplined, organized slick political machine that was the Republican Party that brought W to power in 2000 is dead and gone. The Democrats haven't really changed, but the Republicans are self-selecting themselves out of electability, cannibalizing each other in the name of orthodoxy and who can be the most extreme, making Barry Goldwater look like a goddam visionary

They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.

Meanwhile the democrats sit there on their short bus eating paste, but they're letting everyone ride and are giving out paste for free

**sebster**

Ouze wrote:
I think it's actually ¡Jeb! .

Have you ever noticed his campaign logo and brand seems kind of like the logo/name of an 80's sitcom?

Somebody should edit one of his speeches, but replace the applause with canned laughter.

**Breotan**

Can we get Charlie Sheen as Trump's VP? That would be a dream ticket.

**sebster**

Vaktathi wrote:
sebster wrote:

Democrats haven’t been too impressive, of course, they’ve just sat there like a fairly inoffensive lump, and just watched Republicans shoot themselves in the foot.
Yup, exactly.

The disciplined, organized slick political machine that was the Republican Party that brought W to power in 2000 is dead and gone. The Democrats haven't really changed, but the Republicans are self-selecting themselves out of electability, cannibalizing each other in the name of orthodoxy and who can be the most extreme, making Barry Goldwater look like a goddam visionary They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.

Yeah, the Republican machine was still mighty impressive in 2000, but the problems were already there, bubbling under the surface. By 2000 we were in to the decline of the Republican think tanks, many of which had been reputable for a long time, but were now putting out more and more dubious work, just to support the conservative line.

It probably wasn’t anything disastrous by then, but from 2006 on the question of what had gone wrong has been answered with ‘not conservative enough’. The gains in the 2010 and 2014 mid-terms ‘proved’ that idea, which meant nothing had to be done to correct the real long term issues.

Meanwhile the democrats sit there on their short bus eating paste, but they're letting everyone ride and are giving out paste for free

Meanwhile Greens and Libertarians are chasing that bus, trying to get on

**reds8n**

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31025556

Does weight matter in US presidential elections?

US presidential hopefuls are making the customary stop at the Iowa State Fair this weekend. That means it is time for a classic campaign moment, devouring some of the fair's signature food.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump chose pork chop-on-a-stick, while Jeb Bush went for a deep fried Snickers bar. Mike Huckabee told reporters his wife had to stop him from overeating in the Iowa Pork Tent.
Humanizing the candidates by showing them indulging in humble fare is a well-known photo opportunity, though it can also be calorically immodest.
Strangely, that is directly at odds with US voters' current preference for trim leaders. In fact, as high-profile names seek the nation's highest office in 2016, experts say their weight could deeply affect their political clout. It wasn't always thus.

Historical legend has it that America's heaviest president, William Howard Taft, once became stuck in a bathtub and required the assistance of six men to free him.
The 27th president of the United States weighed nearly 340lbs (154kgs), but was luckily spared the harsh glare of television cameras during his White House tenure from 1909 to 1913.
Today, a man of Taft's size would have a much more difficult time winning the nation's highest office.

"There's an increasing pressure to conform to supposedly ideal body standards," says Paul Campos, professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder.
But, those ideal body standards are frequently changing.
In Taft's day, physical heft was associated with wealth, high social status and power, Campos, the author of the Obesity Myth, says.
The physical and financial largesse of early 20th Century railroad barons even inspired expressions including "fat cats" and "throw your weight around".
But the end of World War One concluded a period of relative scarcity. Plentiful food meant it became more difficult - and thus more attractive - to be physically trim.
Obesity - before the purview of the upper class - soon became associated with a lower socioeconomic status, Campos adds.
Soon a cult of thinness was born, which exists to this day, University of California, Los Angeles sociology professor Abigail Saguy says.
The author of What's Wrong with Fat? argues obesity has since become heavily stigmatised in American culture, and such negative views can hurt a larger candidate's chances with voters.

"We live in a society in which it is just so deeply ingrained and so taken for granted that it is better to be thin and worse to be fat, in terms of health, morality, attractiveness, everything," Saguy says.
Pop culture, 24-hour news, movies and magazines encourage a "halo effect" around the thin and attractive, she adds. This means voters can ascribe positive qualities to a candidate which they may not in fact possess.
The opposite can also hold true for heavier candidates, who may be unfairly perceived by voters as lazy, impulsive or unhealthy.

That hasn't stopped larger men, including Republicans Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, from having their names bandied about for 2016, however.
According to US media, Christie told a group of Republican donors last September he had shed 85lbs after surgery in 2013, adding it was critical to his long-term political prospects.
After a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, Huckabee went on to lose more than 100 pounds. He even later wrote a motivational book about the experience, titled Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.

Even former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has got in on the weight loss action. The Republican candidate employing a personal trainer and dropping several pounds in a recent push for the White House. He's reportedly on a Paleo diet, but must have made an exception for the deep-fried Snickers.

America's largest leaders by body mass index:
William Howard Taft, served from 1909-1913
Grover Cleveland, served from 1885-1889, 1893-1897
William McKinley, served from 1897-1901
Zachary Taylor, served from 1849-1850
Theodore Roosevelt, served from 1901-1909

ut, according to Saguy, none of these 2016 contenders will face as much scrutiny over their appearance as a female candidate, such as former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should she put on the pounds.
"A fat woman is going to face much more prejudice as a political candidate than a fat man, because we're much less tolerant of fatness in women than we are of men," Campos says.
But the one-time first lady may have a secret weapon: her husband, Bill.
While in office, former Democratic president Bill Clinton was considered overweight and frequently lampooned for his well-known love of fast food.
But, in recent years he has publicly adopted veganism and dropped a sizable amount of weight.

If voters view the Clintons as a "package deal", says Campos, it may well help how people physically view Hillary in her anticipated run for the White House.
With more than one-third of US adults currently considered obese, more voters may be willing to overlook a few extra pounds as well.
In a July 2014 Vanity Fair poll, when asked how they felt about an overweight president, 64% of respondents said it has nothing to do with getting the job done.
But, even with some positive poll numbers, politicians will continue to be conscious of their appearance, strategist Jim Manley says.
The senior director with QGA Public Affairs says he saw celebrated Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy attempt to slim down prior to embarking on every campaign trail.
"I spent 21 years in the Senate, and it wasn't unusual for members to begin to lose weight before they went into an election cycle," Manley says.
"In this day and age, it's a factor that everyone, either male or female, has to be cognisant of."

There's few ...err...... bigger boned ...... top politicians in the UK too.

..also : .. Bill Clinton is vegan ?!?

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
I think it's actually ¡Jeb! .

Have you ever noticed his campaign logo and brand seems kind of like the logo/name of an 80's sitcom?

It's a smart way to brand himself distinctly different that his brother.

Not that it's going to work though.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote:

..also : .. Bill Clinton is vegan ?!?

Yup... since he had heart bypass surgery a few years ago.

**Frazzled**

]Mike Huckabee wouldn't have allowed a 10 year old rape victim to have an abortion, right[/url]?

If you believe individual life begins at conception, then this is consistent as its preventing murder. Your inflammatory comment does nothing.
Tell us more about Planned Parenthood and how they need government money in the age of the ACA.

**whembly**

This will be a meme for the ages...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"like a cloth?"

*groan*

**Frazzled**

whembly wrote:
This will be a meme for the ages...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"like a cloth?"

*groan*

Come on Democrats, lose this creature. This is getting embarrassing now. Its like having a female Nixon running around, if Nixon were an idiot.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Vaktathi wrote:
They're on their way to becoming a regional party at this point.

Ya know, that may not be the worst thing to happen though. I believe it was somewhere in this thread that someone said that this is the natural tendency anyhow (a more Progressive national government, and a more Classical Liberal/Conservative State government)... Obviously, you need a bit of classical liberalism at the top to counter the progressivism, but at the same time, we absolutely do not need "I don't like it, let's shut the whole thing down!!!" mentality going on.

**BrotherGecko**

I was just thinking so you can call me cray cray, but wouldn't repealing the 14th Amendment remove the citizenship of the decendants of those that benefited from its creation?

I mean there wouldn't be anything on paper saying they are citizens.

So would this create a new era of witch hunts? People needing to have rock solid family records or run the risk of being deported. Of course this would only apply to those of western protestant decent mostly and those that took the "right" route to citizenship.

**whembly**

I think discussions centering on 14th amendment repeal is asinine.

It'll never make it through congress/states.

What ought to be discussed are "Anchor Baby" policies.