I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

I love where Clinton reaches for her pen at the 30-second mark and appears to draw a circle or something. I want that piece of paper.

http://i.imgur.com/V0ewmtR.jpg

loool

That circle was the "O" for Obama, wasn't it xxp

For much of the debate, I thought Clinton was fine, and I'm not a fan. But I just hated the way she handled the Obama charge at the end--especially the way she timed it so Sanders' response would effectively forfeit his closing statement. And if you know how innocuous his cover blurb (hardly a foreword) for the Bill Press book is, she's being incredibly disingenuous there.

I think that's Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein!

NYT headline: Clinton Paints Sanders's Ideas as Unrealistic in Punchy Debate

feel like they queued that one up at 5pm and then went out for a night on the town

You don't need to invoke the spectre of Kissinger when Cruz is standing across stage from you

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, February 11, 2016 11:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, you certainly could! Cruz loves the idea of bombing people. May as well point out that the idea of bombing people as a solution to all problems has enormous consequences (such as, you kill a whole bunch of people) and just leads to more horrors. The Iraq War is obviously fresher in people's minds but no reason Sanders can't say, y'know, "as a young man, I watched three presidential administrations drop more and more bombs on Vietnam, and on Laos and Cambodia, more bombs than all the ones used in World War II, and we may have killed over a million people. What we got for it was a tragic end to the war, and a dictatorship in Cambodia, but some politicians in Washington got to pat themselves on the back for all the casualties they were inflicting with their 'carpet bombing.' Well, count me out."

xpost i mean i was thinking more about sanders talking about the US supporting the shah in iran and then about the US history of overthrowing foreign governments. what struck me at that point was, 1) i hear you, i get it. but 2) what i can imagine right now is attack ads clipping the part that is rant-y about the US overthrowing foreign governments and running that everywhere. because if the GOP took obama's words and twisted them into "he's apologizing for america" (which is garbage obvs), think of what they'll do with this material, and there's probably a massive backlog of sanders on tape saying similar. that's what i worry about.

that would work dc! I just mean that cruz is not exactly a closeted warmonger, so you don't need to point to his mentors to "out" that aspect of him

hrc may be in favor of making sand glow from time to time, but she's not boasting of it

xp

She will if she debates Cruz

Yeah, the Sanders-on-tape backlog would be a legit problem - I mean, as his fans have demonstrated, the C-SPAN archives appear to be rich with him ranting at assholes on the floor of Congress, but it'd be easy to make that look like a ker-razy liberal. Or just a ker-razy old man. He's unhinged, he's dangerous, he's foaming at the mouth!

btw my fanfic Sanders debate lines vs. ted cruz obviously need a lot of work but i would also add that when he mentions the politicians in Washington, he should throw in something about how their kids are not over there fighting, etc. etc. think that'd get some applause. just for the record.

xps to daria

ordinarily, i'd have that same worry, but i'm basically throwing most of my CW out the window this election. if cruz or trump attack on those grounds, i think trump can be easily countered because he's so clueless on foreign policy and cruz can, too, but on different grounds (do an update on the LBJ "daisy" ad). i just think given the weakness of the gop frontrunners that sanders' flaws are not fatal (and i think he'll be able to shore them up before a general election).

his greatest strength vis-a-vis that stuff is he won't even try to walk away from it. He has this way of fully and confidently owning his views that is pretty rare, and I think that's a lot of what people respond to.

(basically imo all of sanders weaknesses are even weaker for trump, incl foreign policy, "unreasonableness", anger, backlog of damning video, etc) xp again

btw Clinton has also said she considered the Mubaraks personal friends

Begala says that Sanders' "You're not in the White House yet" line (and the handful of boos) will be the clip that emerges from this. It was awkward, yes--although if you watch the lead-in, Clinton does say "once I'm in the White House" like it's just a formality. Anyway, the Kissinger exchange will be the lead surely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcnv_3GYvk4

I get a vibe that she's not too happy to have to treat him as a serious opponent

a few months ago i'd have said "there's no way in hell trump would ever be nominated" but i suppose we're far past the time when you could say that.. idk i still think this will never happen but if i were to imagine how a general election would play out with a fascist misogynist racist jerk business guy vs a rant-y socialist, well, there's no question which side i'm on but i'm worried that.. it won't be difficult for the GOP to make sanders look like the scarier option

the thing with sanders' flaws and whatever oppo they dig up is, everything is going to seem like news and hashed out through the media and they're going to be the way he gets introduced nationally because he just isn't all that well known right now, while everybody knows who trump is

yeah, that is one concern I have in a Trump-Sanders contest, you can't really "dig up" stuff on Mr. You're Fired/the guy who has gotten 10x the media coverage of every other candidate on either side.

i think others have outlined the weakness of a trump candidacy, but i don't think it's necessary to have an arsenal of oppo research to take him down. if there's a middle of the road candidate trying to decide between the two, appeal to sanders' experience (and trump's entire lack of), attack trump's record of bankruptcies, attack his blatant racism, play his horrific greatest hits on repeat for several months and completely undermine him. he's got very shaky "true" conservative support, many of whom would vote 3rd party or stay home if it was sanders v trump.

i'm just trying to figure out which obama states trump would flip. ohio?

I get a vibe that she's not too happy to have to treat him as a serious opponent

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Thursday, February 11, 2016 10:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

her and her husband have had a sneering disdain for liberals and radicals since their college days, so yes she probably has this sense of peeved déjà vu.

donald trump becoming president is terrifying. (i have visions of him bungling foreign policy so badly that there's effectively a coup against him.) if we get close to a point where it seems like he's gonna get the nomination, i think clinton running on "i can definitely defeat trump, sanders can't" is gonna be hella persuasive.

i'm kind of shockd that a major sex scandal hasn't already rocked trump -- he's a famous womanizer, he's a sneering cad, there's got to be some awful skeletons in his closet, no?

i just think the democrats could run a family of possums stuffed in a gym bag and beat trump, he's a truly awful general election candidate

I missed this joy from earlier

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/ted-cruz-ad-porn-actress-219170

im looking at the 2012 map and there are a few states that were decided by a fewer than 5% margin of victory.

obama's were ohio, florida, colorado (barely), virginia
romney had north carolina

gop would have to swing all those obama states (and keep nc) to win. trump ain't winning colorado.

if cruz is the nominee, it's hard to see him winning ohio. florida, maybe.

Trump or Cruz is not winning Florida.

skimming that paglia thing, i realize she reminds me of this line from the pilot of twin peaks, in re. weathermen:"Diane, if you can get paid to be wrong 50 percent of the time … now that's working!"

The GOP convention is the third week of July. The vote is in November. I feel very comfortable in saying that Cruz or Trump would say a number of things in that amazing span of time to really turn off most of the general voting population, whether or not this country is center right or it isn't.

Of course, George W. Bush took the medal not once, but twice. So, who even fucking knows.

george w. was just bumbling, he'd be the moderate candidate running right now

like, he was a term and a half governor of a giant state and son of a former pres. he was the "compassionate conservative", "uniter, not a divider". ppl liked him. trump and cruz are wholly different political animals.

Trump or Cruz is not winning Florida.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 11, 2016 11:26 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i legitimately trust your judgment on all things florida, so this makes it even more of a shut case for the dems

Trump even tries to show his ass in O-Town, I'ma flatten him with a golf cart

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca_VGjeWEAAplCO.png

makes u think

who do i have to vote for to get the "humanity is doomed but my administration will invent the space ark and colonize distant planets" policy? gingrich?

― Mordy, Wednesday, February 10, 2016 11:45 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

way behind on this, but

http://www.zoltanistvan.com/

http://www.transhumanistparty.org/TranshumanistBillofRights.html

lol @ sady doyle disingenuous deflection

Watched a bit of the debate last night. It's a tough choice on foreign policy, two competing strains of ignorance. Not sure I'm comfortable with either as CIC, though Clinton's potential behavior is more predictable (and more of the same).

BTW, is ISIS really a threat to the US, or just US interests? Because if random small scale shootings are our bar, we clearly have no ability to or interest in seriously curtailing those. But does ISIS aspire to larger scale violence here, that we know of?

The range of presidential behavior on 'foreign policy' in the permanent war economy seems quite limited to me.

Am beginning to see the first outside confirmation of suspicions that tickle the back of my mind every time I pass a gas station. Big Oil is being crushed by the Saudi trade war. Since politics is by this point wholly a subsidiary of capitalism, this has significant implications for the race.

Cruz, for instance, is I believe significantly funded by rogue oil billionaires. If I were a rogue oil billionaire, I'd be really wanting some of that money back right about now.

Long-term, this could also be a boon for environmental policy, as climate change denialism is significantly funded by these institutions. Mind you, that's assuming we can weather the serious national security hazard of continuing to be dependent on Saudi and Russian energy resources...

"he's a sneering cad, there's got to be some awful skeletons in his closet, no?"

people know trump from t.v. but i don't know if they know about all the shady financial stuff/mob ties/federal investigations into his corrupt shit. but maybe they don't care.

DR.MORBZ did you at least crack a smile watching that bernie kissinger moment!!?? i know you hate all these people, but come on...give the mensch some credit for that one...

i liked what i read. i don't watch this stuff!

(there are rep movies in nyc, only reason for living at the moment)

i posted a clip of it above.

one more time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCjQbTEuoDU

"a very good book by the way..."

i love that part.

I've noticed some FOX News types capitalizing the "D" in Bernie's "democratic socialism"

looking forward to the inevitable "Democrat socialism"

Big Oil is being crushed by the Saudi trade war.

Anyone else see/hear/read that Saudi Arabia has been cutting benefits and raising taxes (assuming they had any to begin with) for I think the first time ever? 50% gas tax hike. And (from ... CNN?):

The gas hike is just the beginning. Water and electricity prices are also going up, and the government is scaling back spending on roads, buildings and other infrastructure.
Those cuts might sound normal for any government that is running low on cash. But it's especially problematic in Saudi Arabia because the vast majority of Saudis work in the public sector.
About 75% of the Saudi government's budget comes from oil. The price of oil has crashed from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to around $36 currently. Most experts don't expect a rebound anytime soon.
The Saudi government used its vast oil wealth to provide generous benefits to its citizens. When the Arab Spring rocked the Middle East in 2011, the Saudi king spent even more in an effort to subdue any discontent in the country.

But yeah, back to foreign policy, I don't expect much from the US government, or at least from a Dem administration. Recent Dems seem to have had a flexible/ad hoc foreign policy, for better or for worse. Which is better than the intractable with or without you stance that drives the GOP, which is always for the worse. But I'd really like to hear from Sanders some sort of specifics. When someone asks him about, say, the Syrian civil war, I'd love to hear a strategy or solution (and maybe I missed it) beyond not voting to invade Iraq in 2002. When someone asks how he'd respond to Russian aggression, I want to hear more than stuff about Kissinger. If someone asked him how he'd handle refugees from South America, I'd love to hear a bit more from him than "break up the banks." Obviously the easy way out of these kind of questions is to demote ourselves from super-power/world police/exceptionalist mode and just go isolationist, but I'm not sure any president is prepared to do that.

And would Sanders, if he was elected, prove just as intractable on the world stage as he is on domestic economic positions? He needs to hold firm to his ideals to distinguish himself from Clinton's slipperiness, but that position also sort of boxes him in, doesn't it?