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 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


I seriously doubt Obama could win a 3rd term. What is your basis for that?

Because most of the country doesn't descend into irrational Obama bashing on a monthly basis

Just last week, Gallup put his approval rating at 47%. And that's just the people who bother answering Gallup. In a general election, compared to anyone else available right now, Obama would probably be a safe bet to win a 3rd term if he were allowed to run again (granted, imo I think that has less to do with Obama himself and more the current Republican field, which is markedly uninspiring).

I'm pro-Obama and I think that the GOP lost 2012 more than Obama won it, and I can see them doing the same in 2016.

Yup... especially if HRC skates the her current email/TS saga...

Unless, Carly Fiorina is the R's nominee. All bets are off then!

No way. The one shot the GOP has is Kasich. Possibly, possibly Rubio (though he would be a better VP pick at this point). Other than that, good luck getting any swing voters or any sort of enthusiasm voters.

Take off your personal like/dislike blinders for a minute and look at the landscape as it really is.

The landscape is who can inspire folks to vote. Simply that...

The GOP is doing a surprisingly goofd job at inspiring folks to vote up to now...just not in the way they want to. They were given every opportunity to tone down by the team at Fox News in the debate, yet they chose, almost to a man, to double-down on female reproductive control, with some of them clearly stating that they don't even want an exception for abortions in cases of rape or life of the mother (which is a pill even most conservatives can;t stomach due to its abject cruelty)

Unless you are surrounded by an echo chamber of religious women, the implications of this failure to adapt (whether principled or cynical) should be quite clear.

And Trump is basically begging for Hispanics to come out and vote Democratic. If the GOP hopes to win the election, they better ramp up the damage control with Hispanics. That might be salvageable. I don't think their standing with women is salvageable without a platform makeover, to be honest. It's too fundamental of a difference to just sweep under the rug and play nice.

Exactly, Fiorina's problem is precisely that. She would depress the GOP (she burned her bridges with the reliably Republican Wall Street, voters Clinton is strangely good at considering her party, and let's face it, she is a woman. In the GOP of traditional values, that would be good for a VP slot, not a prime candidate, sorry to be non PC.) vote and the only thing I can see her running on as of yet is "not Hillary". The traditional values vote would be gone, or divided (stand by your man). And the economic vote would be divided. Both are traditional GOP voters. I don't see her winning any split voters (unless she has some stances on issues I'm unaware of, and Clinton is still >70% with her party. So tell me, other than the rhetoric you like that she says, and her anti Clinton stance, where are her votes coming from exactly? She would be great as a VP nom though.

Didn't she, like, run Hewlett Packard into the ground? (that's what my conservative workmates insist whenever I bring her up).

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Exactly, Fiorina's problem is precisely that. She would depress the GOP (she burned her bridges with the reliably Republican Wall Street, voters Clinton is strangely good at considering her party, and let's face it, she is a woman. In the GOP of traditional values, that would be good for a VP slot, not a prime candidate, sorry to be non PC.) vote and the only thing I can see her running on as of yet is "not Hillary". The traditional values vote would be gone, or divided (stand by your man). And the economic vote would be divided. Both are traditional GOP voters. I don't see her winning any split voters (unless she has some stances on issues I'm unaware of, and Clinton is still >70% with her party. So tell me, other than the rhetoric you like that she says, and her anti Clinton stance, where are her votes coming from exactly? She would be great as a VP nom though.

In recent polls in IA, NH and SC... Trump, Carson and Fiorina combined polled well over 50%.

That tells me right there, that the primary voters are pissed at the GOP establishment.

It's still too soon, but in the general election, things go cray-cray.

The only sure thing, imo, is that if HRC is the DNC nominee... Fiorina in the ticket is the only way the GOP has even a chance at the WH.

All these HRC *bad news* will be *old news* by then... the voters have very short attention span.


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 jasper76 wrote:
Didn't she, like, run Hewlett Packard into the ground? (that's what my conservative workmates insist whenever I bring her up).

Nope. In fact, you could argue her merger* with Compaq solidified HP's footing in the aftermath of the market's tech bubble implosion.

*That merger was one P.R. disaster though.

Wikipedia tells me she was "forced to resign" by the board of HP (and given the magical CEO "golden parachute").

On a shallow note, she is so friggin plastic looking! I think my brain would go into anti-phony spasms if I ever saw her and Clinton debate.

The GOP candidates, and arguably the party as a whole, is following the same horrible game plan from 2012: position yourself as far to the right as possible to win the primary while at the same time alienating the moderates needed to win while "rallying" the base that would have voted for whoever didn't have a D behind the name anyway. Especially if the opponent is Hillary.

Quit throwing away the 30 cents on the ground just to get a a tighter grip on the quarter that is already in your pocket.

 jasper76 wrote:
Wikipedia tells me she was "forced to resign" by the board of HP (and given the magical CEO "golden parachute").

She didn't run HP into the ground so much as she was sitting in the chair when the plane crashed into the runway. To be fair to her, she only worsened a hole HP was already in and took the fall.


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 d-usa wrote:
The GOP candidates, and arguably the party as a whole, is following the same horrible game plan from 2012: position yourself as far to the right as possible to win the primary while at the same time alienating the moderates needed to win while "rallying" the base that would have voted for whoever didn't have a D behind the name anyway. Especially if the opponent is Hillary.

Quit throwing away the 30 cents on the ground just to get a a tighter grip on the quarter that is already in your pocket.

To be fair, I think the GOP is well aware of how demographics have turned against them. The stage for GOP politics today was set by Regan, who realized that to win a Presidential Election all the Republicans needed to do was rally white christian voters and make sure they went out to vote. In 1980, that was enough to win the electoral college and the White House. So the GOP got into the habit of not giving a damn who they alienated or turned off. In fact, alienating some groups (Blacks, Hispanics, Women, Non-Christians) became a valuable tool in making sure the base came out to vote.

The GOP built its entire grand strategy around making sure their base knew how horrible and unamerican and unchristian everyone who wasn't them was and that they wanted the terrorists to win! Now that's coming back to bite them in the ass, because they've been banging that drum so long and had such success with it for 20 odd years, it's hard to turn the boat around. Drumming up the right and getting all of them on their hackles is no longer sufficient to win a general election. The middle has moved further to the left since 1980 and the base has dwindled in size. It's still a huge population, but no longer huge enough that relying on it can win the GOP elections. The opposite in fact. The strategy now backfires in general elections, because the base drumming scares everyone else away. It's even started scaring the base itself away.

Right now though the GOP knows they can afford to lose Presidential Elections. In 2010 they stacked the deck heavily in their favor for Congressional and State politics. It's more than enough to ensure the GOP has a strong and influential role in policy making.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Meh, she speaks a good game (that is to say, a baseline republican game), but she has no experience.

Neither did Obama.

 whembly wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Exactly, Fiorina's problem is precisely that. She would depress the GOP (she burned her bridges with the reliably Republican Wall Street, voters Clinton is strangely good at considering her party, and let's face it, she is a woman. In the GOP of traditional values, that would be good for a VP slot, not a prime candidate, sorry to be non PC.) vote and the only thing I can see her running on as of yet is "not Hillary". The traditional values vote would be gone, or divided (stand by your man). And the economic vote would be divided. Both are traditional GOP voters. I don't see her winning any split voters (unless she has some stances on issues I'm unaware of, and Clinton is still >70% with her party. So tell me, other than the rhetoric you like that she says, and her anti Clinton stance, where are her votes coming from exactly? She would be great as a VP nom though.

In recent polls in IA, NH and SC... Trump, Carson and Fiorina combined polled well over 50%.

That tells me right there, that the primary voters are pissed at the GOP establishment.

It's still too soon, but in the general election, things go cray-cray.

The only sure thing, imo, is that if HRC is the DNC nominee... Fiorina in the ticket is the only way the GOP has even a chance at the WH.

All these HRC *bad news* will be *old news* by then... the voters have very short attention span.


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 jasper76 wrote:
Didn't she, like, run Hewlett Packard into the ground? (that's what my conservative workmates insist whenever I bring her up).

Again, as you said, the election will be decided upon who can excite voters the best. What exactly is exciting about Fiorina other than she has the best one liners against Hilary (whose handlers will be well aware of the attacks coming her way so she will be prepared to swat them aside)? Which positions of hers are attracting voters, exactly? The only candidates as of now who even remotely look like they can get enthusiasm (positive fortes for as opposed to votes against) are Kasich and Rubio. Bush might have been able to, but Trump has effectively exposed his weaknesses (the man has no counter punch).

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Meh, she speaks a good game (that is to say, a baseline republican game), but she has no experience.

Neither did Obama.

And who complains about him all the time?

Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today? I would bet neither side would pick anybody in the field, but who would be your ideal candidate, even if he/she would have no chance of winning?

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today?

I vote for President LeBeouf. His Just Do It platform has won me over;

I'm not sure he'd be able to get past those accusation of cannibalism though.

I should have known better...

What, did you expect us to take an interesting question that may show a lot about peoples political beliefs seriously?

But I'm being super duper serial! I would totally vote for President LeBeouf. If we're gonna put a clown in office, lets at least put someone in office who knows he's a clown

For me as is now known, Bernie.

Hilary and Biden are too tied to past presidents and their pr0-roporate monkey-business as usual

O' Malley took in his full amount pay and extras as much as he could, the rest on the DNC ticket are to me, "Who the hell are you?"


As for the republicans, Kasich blew it with speculations of himself being "King of America", Having grown up and lived a decent chunk of my life in NY I know what a buffoon Trumpenstein is, and Walker Wrecked Wisconsin, the rest are all different levels of just wrong, wrong, and more wrong for America and sound like squabbling kids fighting over who is more popular to be class president.

Comes back to Bernie who does not play that childs' game, and has said what ideas he sees to help fix America and get us at least back on center track by steering us a some leftwards from the hard right rudder we have been in for the last few decades.

Had it been Warren running, I am sure Bernie would have settled in for VP or backed down for her. She is not looking to run, so, we have Bernie with set platform vs all others with they mention, but nothing clear on theirs, just vague circular talk, Hilary is too used to speaking like a lawyer IMHO

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today?

Morgan Freeman with Samuel L. Jackson as VP

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today? I would bet neither side would pick anybody in the field, but who would be your ideal candidate, even if he/she would have no chance of winning?

Colin Powell anyone?

Colon Powell would certainly be interesting.

It's good the Republicans have found a way to avoid getting in the way of the Iran deal. They never should have backed themselves in to such a stupid corner, but at least they’re showing enough to actually get out.

 CptJake wrote:
It seems more folks than just the Rs do not like the deal:

And that should surprise hopefully no-one. Because the general public is always going to support being hard on international rivals. And especially because most of the public is completely fething clueless about Iran’s actual level of power.

That such policies are not often the most effective approach, and sometimes directly counter-productive, is why it is good that treaties are done between national leaders, without the involvement of the general public.


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 whembly wrote:
Elizabeth Warren or Martin O'Malley? Now, there's something there.

The only people who ever mention Warren are Republicans. That's... never a good sign.


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 d-usa wrote:
The GOP candidates, and arguably the party as a whole, is following the same horrible game plan from 2012: position yourself as far to the right as possible to win the primary while at the same time alienating the moderates needed to win while "rallying" the base that would have voted for whoever didn't have a D behind the name anyway. Especially if the opponent is Hillary.

Sure, but that isn’t so much because the candidates are stupid, but because the game right now is so hard for Republicans to play. It’s been the case for a long time that to win the presidency you have to be more extreme to win the primary, then swing back to the middle in the general. But right now the Republican base is so far past crazy that to win the primary you have to push to be slightly right of Ghengis Khan, and that makes swinging back to the centre more or less impossible.

Bush’s 2000 campaign is basically impossible now.


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 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair, I think the GOP is well aware of how demographics have turned against them.

Yeah, they’ve been talking about it longer than anyone else, really. It’s just they haven’t actually managed to do anything about it.

Not that they can really be singled out for that, most organisations and most people can rarely summon up the strength to do anything about a problem that isn’t really costing them right now. It just isn’t human nature to sacrifice now, for a problem that occur sometime in the future.

Heh, Republicans are going to come out of this with a keener understanding of the issues of Climate Change than the rest of us

Right now though the GOP knows they can afford to lose Presidential Elections. In 2010 they stacked the deck heavily in their favor for Congressional and State politics. It's more than enough to ensure the GOP has a strong and influential role in policy making.

Thanks to the long running failure of Democrat groups to get out in non-presidential election cycles, Republicans will remain competitive for some time to come. But whether they can score another 2010 style counter protest win is a pretty open question, and without it’s looks pretty likely they’ll be out of power in the senate a lot more often than not.

The other strength the Republicans have is the House of Reps. But that strength is built on electoral advantages, they’re actually well down in votes cast. Like all gerrymandered structures, when it finally isn’t enough then you lost almost every seat all at once.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/08/31/a-congressman-scares-children-with-talk-of-nuclear-weapons-and-suicide-bombers/

Hillarious.

Well, I guess a few people took it seriously. I would have to say Kerry. Yeah, he couldn't beat a weakened Bush, yeah he was a horrible campaigner, but when it comes to policy, nobody knows it better. He would be able to get republican votes if in office (I think his biggest mistake was not tapping McCain at the time for VP, he would have ran). He is level headed. He is too old to really care about image anymore. He doesn't need to worry about what he will do after his term. And dammit, he is one of the few people, say what you you want about his politics, that actually gives a gak about this country we are living in. He is smart. And he can't be swift boated twice, right? Too bad he is too old.

Ten years ago I would have said Powell as well, again too old. I would still vote for him. Easy decision.

With no whipper snappers left that actually seem to get it, I guess I would vote for Niel de grasse Tyson. He doesn't seem to care about politics, he knows science, and he knows how to explain complex ideas to the masses. He would likely be a horrible president, but so was Reagan, but people are still delusional about him.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today? I would bet neither side would pick anybody in the field, but who would be your ideal candidate, even if he/she would have no chance of winning?

Bill Gates, unless Colin Powell decides to run.


-------------------------------------------------------------
I take it back. I would totally vote for Neil deGrasse Tyson over anyone I can think of, inclufing Bill Gates, but not necessarily Powell.


I would fething !!!LOVE!!! to be given the choice of TYSON v. POWELL, rather than Clinton v Blah...and so would everyone...both sides!

Give the people what they want, just sayin...

 sebster wrote:
It's good the Republicans have found a way to avoid getting in the way of the Iran deal. They never should have backed themselves in to such a stupid corner, but at least they’re showing enough to actually get out.

 CptJake wrote:
It seems more folks than just the Rs do not like the deal:

And that should surprise hopefully no-one. Because the general public is always going to support being hard on international rivals. And especially because most of the public is completely fething clueless about Iran’s actual level of power.

That such policies are not often the most effective approach, and sometimes directly counter-productive, is why it is good that treaties are done between national leaders, without the involvement of the general public.

Of course, after having read the article I linked to, you realized it had NOTHING to do with "the general public's" feelings/opinions, and instead was about people who are much less than "fething clueless about Iran's actual level of power". But don't let that stand in the way of your snarky reply.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Ok, here's an idea. Who do you think alive today (running or not) would make for the best president today? I would bet neither side would pick anybody in the field, but who would be your ideal candidate, even if he/she would have no chance of winning?

#WestWestwing

be worth it for the State of the Union addresses alone.

First Clinton Flack takes the Fifth. I wonder if they will be the first to roll.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/clinton-aide-fifth-amendment-emails/index.html

Great news: the stars and stripes is gone! I've got my Union Jack back

Actually, that's bad news. I'm Scottish independence - I want away from the UK

Back OT. Clinton's emails have dragged quite a few British politicians into the mix as well. Red faces all round.

Still, she thinks David Cameron is an idiot, and Clinton should be applauded for saying that, because it's true!

Seriously though.... who WOULDN'T vote for Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson??

I mean, one's got the voice of God, and the other will set gak straight in a way that everyone can understand.