Your 2016 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

Because gabbneb can't do it himself

clinton beats rubio in 5 games

here's Kirsten Gillibrand in Vogue

fp ILE

would elect

Vote Morbz

HRC the inevitable Dem nominee as long as she doesn't run on an "inevitability" platform again.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115482/chris-christie-2013-victory-still-leaves-2016-trouble

I felt like I didn't waste 5 minutes of my life reading about Hollywood preparing to shower HRC with gold bcz of the finish:

“Last time, the community was really split down the middle between Obama and Hillary,” said (Rob) Reiner, a steadfast supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s. “This year I think everybody is going to be rallying around Hillary.”

Asked why, Mr. Reiner said that in addition to Mrs. Clinton’s record: “There is nobody else.”

Forever Meathead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/us/politics/in-hollywood-clintons-a-star.html

lol

Mr. Katzenberg, who joined Mr. Geffen and Steven Spielberg in arranging a $1.3 million fund-raiser for Mr. Obama at Mr. Geffen’s Beverly Hills estate in February 2007, also said he planned to throw his weight behind Mrs. Clinton the next time around.

“If Secretary Clinton makes the decision to run, I expect she’ll have near-unanimous support here,” Mr. Katzenberg wrote in an email. “Hillary represents our best chance to win in 2016, build upon the successes of the Obama administration, and keep the country moving in the right direction.”

"right direction" is apt

In Clinton, New Look at '90s

On the Media had a segment on prez race gabbnebism this weekend

Biden seems to not even be mentioned as a candidate. I wonder who gets to sit down and tell him he will never get the job.

Hillary Clinton's name recognition and fund-raising ability will most likely scare off the majority of her potential competition. There will still be a few other democrats who make the race, but they'll probably be running shoestring campaigns that hope to make a big splash in Iowa & NH to open up the money spigots for them. Nobody but HRC will have a credible national organization unless Obama loans someone else his rolodex and his top campaign aides. If a big name (such as e.g. Cuomo) is looking to enter, they are doing it very, very discreetly.

The republican side will be a free for all and very entertaining.

The republican side will be a free for all and very entertaining.

Also, depressing.

Are You a Scott Walker Conservative? Why Wisconsin’s governor may be Chris Christie’s toughest competition in 2016.
Add his name to the hat I guess.

lot of smartish conservatives been pegging him as a dark horse for a while. anyone ever heard him speak?

wonder what a president biden would actually be like.

BFD, obvs. Also, ice cream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kVBGeQeR4

(I know he cultivates that image to a degree. Crossed my mind, though.)

haha, that's perfect!

I heard him speaking about his 240m worth of self reliance medicaid plan on npr and the dude was as charismatic as an envelope

ie scott walker

Walker is against abortion in all cases. Buh bye.

Bernie does some talkin'

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/27/bernie_sanders_why_i_might_run_in_2016/

More Gillibrand in the NYT today

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/us/politics/new-yorks-junior-senator-doggedly-refusing-to-play-the-part.html

She's a strong VP candidate at worst

"worst" certainly applies to this robot

Man, it hasn't more than a 15-20% chance of happening if that, but great doomsday entertainment would be watching this guy and HRC eat each other alive in the general election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/us/politics/rand-pauls-mixed-inheritance.html

And I think there really would be acts of murder and cannibalism between their supporters.

It's still HILLARY!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-2016-hillary-clinton-has-commanding-lead-over-democrats-gop-race-wide-open/

rising w/ core Republicans

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/far_right_learning_to_love_christie/

i'm kinda excited to vote for hillary

christie's gonna crush the gop field. he's a formidable hrc opponent, too.

that's p much like getting excited about the last Elders of Krypton election

more like getting excited about the most recent elders of zion election

how can you be excited to vote for Hillary?

http://media.tumblr.com/042655ca89c6fb997aebd8e4add3f557/tumblr_inline_mmtk6fBpMd1qz4rgp.jpg

Mordy in regal white coif presents Palin, Christie and Jeb Bush to The Clinton Foundation

obv it will be HISTORY to have a female sockpuppet presiding over endtimes

Dennis Perrin and his jokes.

http://i43.tinypic.com/16hosok.gif

if you meet me in DC i think i can get hold of Dennis, alfred

how can you be excited to vote for Hillary?

I like her personally, I'm excited to vote for a woman for POTUS, I think she'll hew closely to my beliefs about foreign affairs, she's kinda an ass-kicker which I appreciate, etc.

why do you think she is an "ass kicker"?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/1/23/1358956313048/Hillary-Clinton-testifies-011.jpg

idk, she's just a badass. i like her. i'll enjoy voting for her.

seriously dreading this election

Any other candidates with airports named after them? Didn't think so.

every POTUS henceforth will hew closely to yr beliefs about foreign affairs, I read it in Revelations

not least because even though i'm usually a 'hold my nose and vote for the democrat' guy i don't know that i can bring myself to vote for anyone who voted for the iraq war

so you say but obama has been a bit of a disappointment in that area xp

i'm voting whoever cranks up Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. I'm guessing Line N.

also ya know i like voting for a winner

I am not excited about this election.

I'm bored by this thread.

http://youcouldfeelthesky.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/farside-wendell-im-not-content.jpg

it will be interesting to see what kind of policy angles she'll emphasize en route to election, she's got no particular causes or goals that are near and dear to her (afaict). given her history there's little to indicate that she'd go for soak-the-rich populism or addressing climate change, and healthcare's now pretty much off the table, so what does that leave for a legislative agenda? more MOR proto-rightwing shit, I imagine.

http://jennifermeaton.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/yay__its_my_turn.png

finally, an Iron Lady of our own

Sully vs his readers.

generally loathe Sully, but he's right on this point

We've had dozens of mediocrities or just passably competent presidents and only a very few great ones. Presidents rarely leave office as popular as when they entered it. I don't see any reason why HRC would not fit comfortably into this long tradition. I'm willing to bet she'd outshine Gerald Ford, Warren Harding and Franklin Pierce.

i doubt it

we had a couple worse presidents than Warren Harding, like the one who succeeded him.

remember the common 2008 theory that the dangerous flipside to the overwhelming youth support of Obama was that when, inevitably, he ended up disappointing people it might alienate young people from politics?

did anyone ever follow up on that with research on voter enthusiasm (with a focus on young voters with high enthusiasm for obama back then vs. their political involvement now, for example)?

all i have is anecdotal evidence because in the runup to the 2008 election i was in a public policy program with lots of politics nerds, and then immediately moved to DC. i don't really have a good feel for how the average young voter in 2008 feels now.

harding granted amnesty to radicals who had been persecuted during the red scare, signed the first child care legislation ever passed by congress, and tried to pass an anti-lynching bill. he's way overdue for reassessment.

except Aimless, none of those guys moved us closer to extinction through inaction. She would.

(so will anyone else who can be elected)

The historical bias against Grant is due to almost a hundred years' worth of historians dismissing Reconstruction (i.e. he was the only president of the era who really believed it and sent troops to the South when necessary)

Gerald Ford, Warren Harding and Franklin Pierce

these dudes were not facing species-extinction-event level scenarios

depends on how you classify The War Between the States.

Gerald Ford had the codes to WWIII to use at his disposal.

The part where Christie is declared Toast

generally loathe Sully, but he's right on this point

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, February 5, 2014

he's sorta right, but it's a bit unfair. also, she'll make a fantastic candidate, especially if she's savvy enough to pivot left on select issues. of course, she'll become just one more casualty of the coming christie dynasty.

I am not excited about this election.

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, February 5, 2014

I'm bored by this thread.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 5, 2014

what? CHRIS CHRISTIE will soon by president of the united states of america. this isn't exciting?

i don't get it. i don't get it. would you please explain.

pivot left on select issues

this isn't going to happen. nothing in her career suggests it will.

hm. i dunno. she's pretty savvy, and she moves where the votes are.

anyway, CHRIS CHRISTIE will be president, so observe hrc's moves only in an academic sense.

also, she'll make a fantastic candidate

Would love to know why you feel this way.

(other than "she can raise money")

her electoral strategy is going to hinge on peeling away aging white male voters from the GOP, that's where the votes are. which way do you think they tend to lean.

xp

her candidacy is still seen as historic, she'll peel women and aging white male votes from the gop, she's 20x more savvy than everyone, save obama, who's run in the last two election cycles, she's got a great, cutting way in debates, she's deep into details on policy. by no means perfect, but a very good candidate.

i'm not a fan of her centerist leanings, but i prefer her over, say, a president christie.

chris christie is not going to be president for cryin' out loud

sez you

I'd be happy to place a wager against it

i have $100,000,000.00 in invisible monopoly-money, ready to take your wager.

seriously, why do you all think the tide has turned against christie?

Because the GOP donor class isn't giving him dough.

When the money stops, you know a candidate is done.

i've kinda checked out of politics lately, but i thought christie was making peace with the tea-party, and had the establishment solidly on his side. something change?

i realize anything's possible, there's prob a parallel universe where president palin just declared martial law, but christie's still dealing with a pretty major scandal that's not going away any time soon and hillary has a huge fanbase left over from her previous run.

Christie's staff killed an old woman.

Not actually joking.

i actually thought the whole bridge-gate thing had blown-over (unless something shocking is unearthed)

When the money stops, you know a candidate is done.

^^^^

GOP's got nobody, this is Hillary's to lose unfortunately.

He shit in his backyard too many times, and those recipients started wagging their tongues.

Nobody has ever spoken fondly of him, except they were glad he was willing to be an asshole in confronting the teacher's unions.

People think fondly of Hillary but as The Inevitable, it's only a matter of time before someone else in the party gets some play.

And there's a long time for someone to appear.

Would be nice to think of examples where old ladies won big elections. She'll be nearly 70 at the election.

And you know wing nuts will be leaking or demanding her health records.

wingnuts are always leaking.

she'll peel women and aging white male votes from the gop, she's 20x more savvy than everyone, save obama, who's run in the last two election cycles, she's got a great, cutting way in debates, she's deep into details on policy.

you're wrong on almost all these points, imo. women are already a pretty solidly Democratic demo, and idk what her appeal to old white male GOPers is, they probably can still dredge up their hatred of her from previous Clinton administration if they're old enough. Dunno about "savvy", her campaign against Obama demonstrated she couldn't pivot too nimbly against new and challenging threats. don't recall her being particularly "cutting" in any of the debates (feel free to remind me of any quality zings), but being too "cutting" will = "Shrillary!" howls from the peanut gallery. And policy details put the electorate to sleep.

I think her biggest problem is she has no platform to run on besides a) being Hillary Clinton and b) getting shitloads of Dem cash.

Would be nice to think of examples where old ladies won big elections. She'll be nearly 70 at the election.

tbf it happens all the time. in other countries.

He shit in his backyard too many times, and those recipients started wagging their tongues.

Nobody has ever spoken fondly of him, except they were glad he was willing to be an asshole in confronting the teacher's unions.

People think fondly of Hillary but as The Inevitable, it's only a matter of time before someone else in the party gets some play.

And there's a long time for someone to appear.

― anything but a martyr (dandydonweiner), Thursday, February 13, 2014

well, like i said, i've been out-of-the-loop (by design) for awhile. still, a few points.

• the cristie criticisms i've heard before, but they've been around for a long time, and yet he was seen as a 2016 gop favorite

• hrc isn't "inevitable," and she'll downplay that notion this time around. but she is formidable, and the only person that seems likely to rise (from the left, where you'd expect the challenge to arise) is warren, who's amazing, but already said she won't run v. hrc.

I don't think anyone's gonna really challenge Hillary from the left, where is the money going to come from

Warren will get money from me.

I think her biggest problem is she has no platform to run on besides a) being Hillary Clinton and b) getting shitloads of Dem cash.

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 13, 2014

policy-wise, she'll run mostly as obama's successor, but try to distance herself rhetorically. she'll continue pushing on the ACA (in fact, she could move to the left of obama on HCR, in at least subtle ways), she'll be a hawk, she'll push for comprehensive immigration reform, she'll probably endorse a strengthening of the safety net.

i guess the gop opponent will have a platform, but it will be the same retread, dumb ideas they've had for years now (yes, yes, i've heard they're working on an "anti-poverty" policy-package).

It's incredibly sad that we could end up with Bush, Clinton, Bush, (Obama), Clinton (or maybe Jeb?). Just the overwhelmingly lame aesthetics of that could damage HRC...

As far as her relationship with the press and Obama's voters in general, she's learned a great deal from her mistakes and from actually not winning for once in her life. Plus, everyone liked her enough as SoS.

It's incredibly sad that we could end up with Bush, Clinton, Bush, (Obama), Clinton (or maybe Jeb?). Just the overwhelmingly lame aesthetics of that could damage HRC...

― schwantz, Thursday, February 13, 2014

in times of trouble, go with what you know.

Daniel, we know plenty more now about the guy Charles Pierce calls Big Chicken. Elizabeth Drew:

Moreover, the way the Christie administration has distributed Sandy funds is becoming a major scandal of its own. Christie had to fight hard to get the just over $60 billion in relief money approved by Congress. At the time, several members of Congress charged that some of the money would be diverted for projects that had little or nothing to do with hurricane damage. Unfortunately, those critics have already been proven right. Steve Kornacki of MSNBC has exposed more Christie issues than anyone else. Among Kornacki’s stories was a piece on the use of Sandy funds to build a seniors’ apartment complex in Belleville, an inland town barely affected by the hurricane. (The project was on the drawing board well before Sandy hit.)

There have been complaints, meanwhile, that while sections of the shore have been restored, in particular the tourist area, many people with houses on the Jersey shore that were devastated weren’t receiving the funds they deserved; no one knows what criteria were applied for helping people whose homes were destroyed almost a year and a half ago. Another issue that has brought trouble for Christie is that he used some of the federal money to pay for ads – not by the lowest bidder—about Sandy recovery efforts that featured his family in the months running up to his reelection. The company hired to assess the compliance of Sandy projects with the law was suddenly and mysteriously fired the first week of February.

If it turns out that Christie has used the federal relief payment as a slush fund, this has serious implications—not just for Christie and for his state but for any state in the country that has a natural disaster in the future. Christie’s activities are now of national import.

what if hrc doesn't run?

omg. O'Malley v. Cuomo v. Hickenlooper v. Schweitzer v. Gillibrand v. Klobuchar v. Napolitano.

elizabeth warren, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. woo woo woo.

kornacki the christie-killer.

i agree, btw, that if christie used disaster relief as a slush-fund, it goes beyond hurting his political career. it's disgraceful, partly because it proves the right-wing cynics were correct, and could really hurt future disaster relief (which, obv., is urgently needed after a devastating event like sandy).

Plus, Christie hugged a black president in October 2012, a sin for which the GOP has never forgiven him and used as an example of his apostasy because they're stupid.

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/4f12b7a052020467cb2e67106cddcf1a/tumblr_n0ud3fjzCE1qzniimo1_1280.jpg

he looks so happy

a biden vs. christie race would be...something.

Plus, Christie hugged a black president in October 2012, a sin for which the GOP has never forgiven him and used as an example of his apostasy because they're stupid.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 13, 2014

how big a deal is this? i mean, say christie's politics are almost perfectly aligned with the gop base, and his one misstep was the sandy situation (which, of course, includes his hugging pres. obama). is he DOA in the 2016 primary?

say christie's politics are almost perfectly aligned with the gop base

let's stop right there

xps presumably before some kid transferred into his district and took the starting catcher's job

why? it's a hypothetical question. not taking a position either way. i'm genuinely curious about how serious that one moment of bad-optics was for the gop base.

(xp)

xps presumably before some kid transferred into his district and took the starting catcher's job

― mookieproof, Thursday, February 13, 2014

president christie will not stop until he hunts-down that kid and drone-kills him.

Other than defending Muslims, there is no -- none -- difference between Christie and the GOP in 2014.

okay. so exactly how heretical is his "hugging a black president" moment?

i mean, the gop's know about that very public image -- and been upset about the timing -- for over a year now. but that's not what's supposedly stopping or slowing christie.

oh I dunno, used to be pro-choice, "soft" on immigration - there's some light there I think

xp

He lost the election because he hugged this thing and thus showed he was a RINO all along, according to the base.

wait, wasn't christie leading polls of republicans recently as the 2016 favorite? they knew about the "hugging the black president" moment then, and all the other gop contenders were just as high-profile at that time as they are now, but the polls still favored christie v. other gop hopefuls.

i dunno. if his 15 minutes of fame is over, i'll hardly cry about it. i just didn't realize we'd reached that point.

good going, america.

Daniel, watch Chris Hayes, who as I'm typing is reviewing the Sandy allegations.

The hug won't hurt Christie at all. The Sandy allegations are much, much more potent for obvious reasons.

Am so glad Biden has no chance in this thing.

christie's done. hugging a gay black chicago thug muslim kenyan weak dictator didn't kill him but it's part of why nobody really has his back, it's part of why rand paul is able to get traction continuing to attack. this christie thing has made msnbc completely unwatchable btw. john cornyn's tea party challenger has been using a pic of cornyn hugging obama from a photoshopped image of crist hugging obama in their campaign against him. moveon/kos used lieberman hugging bush against him in 2006.

hillary doesn't have a platform yet cuz it's 2014

Daniel, watch Chris Hayes, who as I'm typing is reviewing the Sandy allegations.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 13, 2014

on it (and thanks). but since you and i are the only people watching chris-hayes right now . . .

lol xpost

omg is RAND PAUL gonna be the nominee? hrc v. rand is almost better than hrc v. christie.

this christie thing has made msnbc completely unwatchable btw

dude, it was unwatchable EXCEPT for Kornacki and Hayes. Now it's tedious. But, you know, journalism.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ otmfm

what's really sad there is that kornacki and hayes should switch roles. another discussion for another thread.

I don't see how Rand Paul gets the nomination, even with a solid year to rehab his image

dammit.

Christie's biggest problem is that he is an asshole and being an asshole (especially in this day and age) usually gets in the way of a presidential run. It's hard for an asshole to be consistently telegenic.

And while we're at it, America is not ready to elect a fat person.

http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/william-h-taft/william-h-taft-speaking.jpg

most gop hopefuls are assholes.

• rand paul? asshole
• paul ryan? asshole (can't see how people keep paul and rand/rand and ryan's names straight)
• rick santorum? asshole
• ted cruz? huge, huge asshole

Nice try Alfred but that shit won't fly in These Times.

Rand Paul - slight asshole tendencies, but not perceived as an asshole
Paul Ryan - not widely perceived as an asshole
Rick Santorum - asshole
Ted Cruz - asshole

None of those guys can raise money well, although Cruz is a bit untested.

Jeb Bush - not an asshole, can raise money
Rubio - not an asshole, can raise money
Scott Walker - not an asshole, likely can raise money

Not that many people think Jeb actually wants the job.

lol, the gop is deep in its "wandering aimlessly in the wilderness" phase if it's gonna be rand v. ryan v. rubio. walker, eh, but really no.

that is one motley crew of a primary.

COME BACK, HERMAN CAIN, ALL IS FORGIVEN.

no it isn't

Walker's just not likeable enough to translate to a national stage, imo. He may play in the primaries, but no further.

Of course, John Kerry came close to taking the White House in 2004 and he's a blank piece of paper.

I would love to see the GOP hip-deep in Santorum for as long as humanly endurable in 2016.

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxcpjj9Ndd1qa7bh4o1_500.png

she'll make a fantastic candidate, especially if she's savvy enough to pivot left lie her ass off to liberal idiots on select issues

"Christie's staff killed an old woman" was actually dismissed by the old woman's family, but no lie is too large told on behalf of the party that blows apart Yemenistaniwherever kids with drones.

(kids and old women I bet)

also why will Rodham have to "pivot left" at all? The primaries are going to be a coronation, I thought? Rob Reiner said so.

she'll make a fantastic candidate, especially if she's savvy enough to pivot left lie her ass off to liberal idiots on select issues

yes this is exactly what i meant!

http://rightpunditry.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/liberal_idiot.jpg

I would love to see the GOP hip-deep in Santorum for as long as humanly endurable in 2016.

― Aimless, Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:04 PM

Coffee break's over, back on your heads.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/da777e3e4e60e1cdcce85975f3d1f6f1/tumblr_n1glddKwUN1qdmmiqo2_500.gif

picture of our next president.

twitching.

hm! poll finds republicans resistant to chris christie's presidential candidacy. shocking!

i mean, if christie and jeb are unacceptable, as the poll suggests, then the gop has only clowns stuffed into their traditional clown-car (i guess maybe scott walker mig ... nah, clown).

of course, if hrc (and, absent her, warren) doesn't run, then it could be clowns all around. biden? eh . . . .

and hey, look who has the most support among republicans, including self-described conservatives!

http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i54/2/10/18/frabz-Hi-Im-mitt-romney-i-hate-food-stamps-42e066.jpg

hilary v. mitt would be a fun general-election. two retirees!

well, hrc isn't a retiree, but i can't recall a general election where both nominees didn't have definite, ongoing employment while they ran (even if the employment was an elected political position).

Romney was fun once.

That poll must be delusional. My guess is that Romney finished that election as the most despised Republican candidate--despised within his own party--since Nixon. And even Nixon had undying love within part of the party, even past resignation--don't think Romney had actual support anywhere, except for those two or three weeks post-debate when he appeared to be winning. And that was after they had already tried to hand the nomination to almost everyone in the country.

"handing the nomination to almost everyone in the country" was essentially media-created bullshit suspense.

Don't agree--it was a refection how much they really didn't want to nominate Romney. They did, in the end, because the election was there to be won, and there was a survival instinct that prevented them from conceding it up front with Gingrich or Santorum or anybody else.

But it wasn't the media that lost all those primaries that Romney should have won handily.

the "media" didn't decide on having two dozen debates

romney love is toldja so gloating about the ukraine and some morons floating 'maybe he should run again!' (some of these morons are connected to romney tbf).

The primaries were a dog-and-pony farce. The GOP Big Money was riding Mitt to the end, and his nomination was never in serious danger even given his performance in debates and underwhelming stagger thru the delegate count.

I'm not going to link to an M Dowd column, but she wrote last Sunday "Brace Yourself for Hillary and Jeb," and to me that's the most inevitable of unlikely scenarios.

Just as Hillary clears the Democratic field if she is healthy and runs, a major Romney donor told The Washington Post that “if Jeb Bush is in the race, he clears the field.” Jeb acknowledged in Long Island on Monday, referring to his mom’s tart comment that “if we can’t find more than two or three families to run for higher office, that’s silly,” that “it’s an issue for sure.” He added, “It’s something that, if I run, I would have to overcome that. And so will Hillary, by the way. Let’s keep the same standards for everybody.”

I will spend as many days outside the country as fucking possible that fall.

the most popular presidential last name in recent history against the least popular presidential last name in recent history. exciting!

in Israel?

Dubya's poll numbers have gone up since he left the WH btw

barely, ime bush is still hated in this country and clinton celebrated

also i have no idea who israel would support since they both seem like very pro-israel candidates to me. tbh it's not super relevant to anything except for the fact that on other thread's i talk about israel? you gotta stay on topic bro.

Clinton is a real candidate for the most effectively illiberal president of my lifetime. he's a fucking monster. What my fellow residents think i couldn't give a fuck.

they both seem like very pro-israel candidates to me

all general election candidates since a long time have been "pro-israel." they wouldn't dare to be anything but. netanyahu's insanity notwithstanding.

yeah who was the last anti-Israel candidate, I can't think of a single one

the most popular presidential last name in recent history against the least popular presidential last name in recent history. exciting!

― Mordy , Friday, March 7, 2014

w has made a comeback! the era of "george w. bush, president of the united states of america"-nostalgia is upon us.

Nixon was a total anti-semite but even he was pro-Israel

xp

yeah who was the last anti-Israel candidate, I can't think of a single one

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, March 7, 2014 3:44 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the closest would be eisenhower! carter has become a major critic of israel, but i don't believe that was the case when he was in office. but in any event as long as i've been voting there hasn't been a real strong critic of israel up for the presidency.

and eisenhower was by no means "anti-israel." i dare say we've never had any such thing--no notable anti-israel major-party candidate.

Poppy Bush was in some measures the least kiss-ass

he'll be dead this year

no gambling plz

Klobuchar! Klobuchar! Klobuchar!

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178717/bernie-sanders-i-am-prepared-run-president-united-states

What's Bernie gotten done? Not a whole helluva lot. But I would vote for him in a Dem primary, and even moreso "throw away my vote" on him 32 short months hence.

MS is such a lost cause electorally I'd be happy to give him my vote too.

yeah i'd vote for him easy. i'd prefer someone who's more likely to actually scare team clinton (and i don't think it would take much, not after what happened in 08) but a sanders campaign would make alot more sense than cuomo or whoever. there's this real cw that the grownups are gonna take the party back in 2016 and anything that can disabuse that notion should be encouraged.

bush the elder easily the least pro-israel president (part of what got them to the negotiating table), ike and ford both threatened to remove us support or 'reevaluate' the relationship over dustups though. least pro-israel 'legitimate' candidate is buchanan i'm guessing. thought taft might be in the running but apparently he was a pretty big zionist.

Buchanan never got the nom tho

yeah he won a primary though, i'm just thinking anyone that was remotely in the running, not a larouche type or david duke or whoever. not ron paul.

Lol I forgot he actually won something. High point of his career.

poor George

“Nearly a dozen groups exist solely for the purpose of stopping Hillary Clinton from becoming president. America Rising has proven that they have lots of energy and a solid command of rehashed political rhetoric," Adrienne Elrod, communications director for Correct The Record, told TPM. "If we want to be successful in 2016, we have to put the structure in place now to defend her and make sure her successful record of accomplishments is part of the daily narrative."

Here's an example of the back-and-forth: As the Ukraine crisis escalated in March, America Rising blasted Clinton for her handling of Russia as secretary of state. Correct The Record countered against the right wing's "selective memory" of her tenure. Then America Rising mocked their defensiveness.

"They're trying to be a check on us. They sprouted out as a response to what we're doing," Miller said with what seemed like satisfaction.

Only 31 more months until November 2016.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/america-rising-hillary-clinton

uuuugh

my goal over the next two years is to ignore the 2016 race as much as possible

It seems so damn childish to have these two expensive operations daily taunting one another in their attempt to fill the near-vacuum of worthwhile ideas among DC insiders. But controlling that vapid discourse has real world effects, so injecting a few cross currents into the flow from conservative think tanks at least disrupts the smooth and rapid formation of Koch-dominated conventional wisdom among policy makers.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xyIMGraypEg/TAXBnJnr8qI/AAAAAAAAAVw/EwlKgvd1qgY/s400/alien-vs-predator-whoever-wins-we-lose-paul-ws-anderson-3700999.jpg

man rand taking alot of oppo research hits early - gop trying to nip this shit in the bud before the crazies get a chance to throw some primaries to him in 2016?

rand was never winning any gop presidential primary. he's a nut. but he's kind of an endearing nut, and i hope, when he announces the suspension of his presidential campaign, he goes all "ayn-rand-ian," and calls for total anarchy. like the nincompoop gang from the big lebowski.

like i said, a nut. but endearing.

http://dc686.4shared.com/img/CmO2r5Hz/s7/14176ffda08/Rand_Paul_Republican_Lib_Weed_.gif

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Sunday said he doesn't believe that human activity is behind climate change.

"I don't agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what's happening in our climate," he said on ABC's "This Week." "Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that's directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity, I do not agree with that."

ABC's Jonathan Karl pressed Rubio on his belief that humans don't have anything to do with global warming.

"But let me get this straight, you do not think that human activity, its production of CO2, has caused warming to our planet?" Karl asked.

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That's what I do not -- and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it...

dammit, i'm playing dipshit bingo and i was THIS close, but it feels like there's one thing Rubio forgot to say. what was it...

Except it will destroy our economy," Rubio responded.

BINGO

I would like to mount a serious campaign as the candidate of the Destroy Our Economy party.

"a handful of decades"

rubio is a total lightweight. every time he does something in public he fucks it up somehow.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ so so so otm.

Any Herman Cains on the horizon for 2016? Palin will make an excellent Newt Gingrich one day, although '16's too soon. She'll come back from years in the wilderness, with a fanatical 5% of the party still with her, still high on pit bulls and Joe the Plumber. After causing near-riots at a couple of debates, she'll seize the lead for a couple of weeks. And then, etc., etc.

They're all Herman Cains.

Your phrasing made me think of an alternate ending for Spike Lee's Malcolm X: "I'm Herman Cain!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQbH_0QWJb0

Palin will make an excellent Newt Gingrich one day

The very idea of this is cracking me right up.

Greenwald:

Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

I hope this happens so badly, because I think it’ll be so instructive in that regard. It’ll prove the point. Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.

He's not wrong, but he's also Glenn Greenwald and should be punched in the face.

^^^

why?

seriously why, i'd forgive him a few sins thanks to all he's done to bring out all the info about the US surveillance state.

fight the real enemy, etc.

ok this --

I hope this happens so badly

is really shitty, he wants bad things to happen just so he can have been right along? he does sound like a snotty teenager there.

women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy

i admit that this will probably depress me, i'm already more than sick of all the memes on social media about hillary being a feminist badass from people who probably haven't taken a moment to scrutinize her politics.

it'll be a triumph of identity politics over every other kind of politics

Greenwald has two default positions: self-satisfied smugface and bratty manchild. Neither of them endear even his most salient arguments to me.

The wealth of info he uncovers exonerates the self-satisfaction. He's got a lot to be satisfied about!

which is why we don't need third rate MSNBC Chuck Toddisms from him.

Greenwald has two default positions: self-satisfied smugface and bratty manchild. Neither of them endear even his most salient arguments to me.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, May 12, 2014 6:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these are pretty minor sins compared to everything else he's done. they certainly don't invalidate anything. so you wouldn't want to be alone with him at a garden party; so what?

there's plenty to criticize about GG, he's abrasive and repetitive and long-winded and he said way too many nice things about ron paul a while back, but he's still a fucking hero for so many reasons and 95 percent of the criticism directed at him by progressives is total garbage by ppl who are either arguing out of careerist jealousy (the exiled/nsfw crew) or in bad faith (that wretched sean wilentz piece from a few months back).

i do find it weird and off-putting when GG brags that he and snowden are 'saving the best for last' in terms of timing the release of stories, there's a sort of childish glee there that's hard to imagine coming from past whistleblowers and it sort of hurts the seriousness of his case imo.

But after the cant and sententiousness of so many cable pundits it's refreshing.

yeah, i could care less about GG's personality, but the strategy of "saving the best for last" bugs me too. if "the best" means that it's the biggest govt. privacy invasion of all (maybe i'm off in that assumption), then why wouldn't he want to lead with that story first, to hasten the process of exposing it and fixing it?

i dunno i think it's good that someone who thinks in terms of publicity is in charge of this. the way that revelations from the snowden files have systematically undercut the lies told by officials to explain earlier revelations has been effective.

greenwald is smart and insufferable.

he's not wrong about hillary clinton, but in some ways, i don't care. i do care that HRC is too much of a hawk, and even more of an incrementalist than pres. obama, but i still want her to be president. the only alternative is a gop clown, who would likely be disastrous. and having grown-up in the era of democrats who make you want to hang your head in shame, just based on their personalities (e.g., dukakis), i'm happy with a democratic dynasty over 12 -- 16 years.

well, he did say he wanted her to win.

tho i have my doubts about the wisdom of his 'things should just keep getting worse, so it'll demonstrate how bad things are!' attitude.

Rodham should be punched in the face

having grown-up in the era of democrats who make you want to hang your head in shame, just based on their personalities (e.g., dukakis)

keep that head hanging

unless it's just charismatic [sic] monsters that make you happy

charismatic monsters make me so happy!

http://www.sesameworkshop.org/our-blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/grover_whitehouse.jpg

outrageous. now, statler and waldorf, those are some charismatic monsters.

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/128723/waldorf-hits-statler-o.gif

http://37.media.tumblr.com/4c1aedbd5f1e87d1415bb8912907a122/tumblr_moajjpHWGS1s9dnijo1_500.gif

that's no muppet. that's george w. bush, looking for the third-term that was promised to him.

Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic

I see what GG is going for here, but it seems hard to deny that there is going to be a tidal wave of actually misogynistic opposition to HRC when she's nominated, and it's going to dwarf any opposition to her based on "she likes bankers and war too much"

there's going to be a three-tiered opposition: (a) she's an establishment elitist, too cozy with bankers; (b) Benghazi!, Worse than Watergate!©; (c) an ugly campaign resuscitating every scandal mentioned during the 90s.

on the other hand, she is a semi-charismatic monster, so maybe it's best if rand paul is president.

(b) Benghazi!, Worse than Watergate!©; (c) an ugly campaign resuscitating every scandal mentioned during the 90s.

probably prefer benghazi to 90's scanal mania all things considered

you're getting both, for months and months. so settle in; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

(that's my 50s starlet imitation. been working on it all week)

can we turn off the internet for the 18 months leading up to the 2016 election?

http://macenstein.com/default/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/photo-5-640x426.png

can we turn off the internet for the 18 months leading up to the 2016 election?

― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, May 13, 2014

http://perpetuallite.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/hell-no.gif

probably prefer benghazi to 90's scanal mania all things considered

― Clay, Tuesday, May 13, 2014 12:19 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what, you don't miss discussions of how HRC had Vince Foster killed?

not just vince foster!

maybe, like, 100 -- 300 of the clinton's political enemies. you got to get deep, deep into the underground to get the real info.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/13/politics/rove-clinton-criticism/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

keep it classy, karl

the first comment is the obvious one, but it bears repeating:

Karl Rove is an expert in diagnosing brain damage. He spent so many years so close to George W.

why a Bernie Sanders candidacy would not accomplish a single solitary thing

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/no_bernie_sanders_should_not_run_for_president_why_his_challenge_would_achieve_little/

pore pore pitiful me

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/10/5796396/only-a-rich-person-could-go-as-broke-as-hillary-clinton

Her quotes that were linked in there are really clueless.

Bill worked really hard

we had to buy houses

Watching her with Diane Sawyer I relieved the nightmare. So weird I'm already feeling nostalgia for late '07-era Obama's stentorian platitudes.

In essence, the result of that 2008 near tie vote was that Obama got to go first with the understanding that Clinton would automatically get the nomination 8 years later. What this means is that (barring unforeseen circumstances)there will have been no left wing challenge in presidential races for 16 years and I think that suits the Party and its rich donors just fine. They hate primaries. And since they will have had 16 uninterrupted years of preferred policy, even as the voters get to feel the inspiration of the two historic firsts, why would anyone rock the boat?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com.br/2014/06/that-marriage-of-convenience-was.html

Progressives might have been able to leverage that fierce competition in 2008 but they got caught up in the emotion just like everyone else...

shame on u alfred

I would never use "leverage" as a verb

is there a precedent for a totally uncontested nomination like this?

I would love more than anything for Hillary to get pushed by the left by somebody/something - because she is actually susceptible to pressure - but I don't know where it's going to come from. probably nowhere.

Taft.

she is actually susceptible to pressure

I must've missed this. Anyway, pressure is off once the presidency starts and you can chuck everything you said in the campaign, as BHO has illustrated.

I would love more than anything for Hillary to get pushed by the left off a cliff

Hillary's political m.o. is basically "if that is the way the winds are blowing, let no one say I don't also blow"

First term presidents are susceptible to financial pressure/lobbyists (gotta get re-elected!), second termers aren't susceptible to any pressure beyond the threat of impeachment.

xp

and they're usually hamstrung by the opposing party and their own party's re-election schemes; nothing much ever happens in 2nd terms except on the unpredictable foreign policy front

xp

is there a precedent for a totally uncontested nomination like this?

it's still only 2014, i'm assuming there will likely be some kind of challenger?

Hard to imagine -- even that crazed socialist Bill deBlasio is trying to arrange the coronation for Brooklyn.

I'm hoping for any kind of surprise to unleash that leaden Rodham spontaneity.

no money = no challenger

hillary already has challengers announced and more likely but 2016 for dems looks like an old style gop coronation. 2016 for repubs looks like an old style dem clusterfuck.

edwards was the progressive candidate in 08, seem to recall a good number of fools who bought his war on poverty come to jesus, ignored that previously in his political career (where he'd been exposed as a lightweight already) he'd been a true blue dlc type who wanted to make the democratic party more 'business friendly'. he tried to play kingmaker (it was assumed among other things he wanted attorney general) but other flaws in the man ultimately made him as irrelevant and powerless as the progressive grass roots (he was already as vain).

idk anybody on the left that ever took Edwards seriously

Watching her with Diane Sawyer I relieved the nightmare.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Had the same problem. Before I had any feelings about anybody else, I unequivocally didn't want her to win in 2008. In the six years since, with her largely of out of view, that fingernails-on-a-blackboard antipathy has faded. The first time she let loose with one of her Amy Poehler guffaws in the Sawyer interview, it flared up.

a good number of fools who bought his war on poverty come to jesus, ignored that previously in his political career (where he'd been exposed as a lightweight already) ...

up to here u could be talkin bout the sainted Bobby Kennedy

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/hillary-clinton-vs-russ-feingold-a-wake-up-call-for-democrats/372553/

I would totally vote for Russ but let's be serious

So depressing that we are fucking sleepwalking toward a HRC nomination.

hi!

http://usatelections.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/afp-e-faces-12-clintons.jpg?w=1200

i'd prefer a nominee further to the left, but not sure another democratic candidate would win (maybe warren).

Warren shouldn't run tho, she is needed in the Senate

i agree (at least this election cycle).

feel like people push her because she's the only alternative to Hillary that trumps her "I'll be the First Lady President" angle (which admittedly is going to be just as much of a factor, if not moreso, than Barack's "First Black President" appeal)

also because she's (in her own, understated way) a magnetic candidate, with the potential to be totally presidential. she's maybe a little too fiery and blunt now, but that's partly what i like about her.

in a weird way I don't know any women who are enthusiastic about Hillary the way people were enthusiastic about Obama. there's this sort of measured acknowledgment that on her merits she is not really that great.... but

I knew plenty in 2008. Now? Notsomuch.

my mom is so excited for president hillary

how is Warren more fiery and blunt than any man?

Don't really know that much about any of this at this point (so discouraged), but it feels like these days (especially with evolving demographics) it's more about firing people up and getting them out to vote than it is about appealing to some magical (and idiotic) set of "reasonable" undecided voters. In that case, HRC seems like a not-so-great candidate, esp. If she's not going to fire up women in any big way.

I'm just wondering if some sort of straight-talking liberal (like Warren, but it doesn't have to be her) would actually have success these days. Polls seem to suggest people are more liberal on many issues than they think they are. But I may just be caught in in a bunch of liberal blogosphere horseshit, I dunno.

how is Warren more fiery and blunt than any man?

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 11, 2014

her grilling of the bankers testifying before congress, and of the s.e.c. officials who hadn't brought a single case against those bankers to trial, was especially fiery and blunt (much moreso than the blowhard questions that other representatives ask). it's more that she's blunt, doesn't seem to pander, is a very focused cross-examiner, and carries herself in a way that can all seem sort of "northeastern elitist" to some.

waren is no more fiery and blunt than any man, e.g., richard gephardt, bill richardson, evan bayh, tom vilsack, etc? many, maybe most, recent democratic presidential candidates have overly-mannered, overly-calculated panderers.

why a Bernie Sanders candidacy would not accomplish a single solitary thing

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/no_bernie_sanders_should_not_run_for_president_why_his_challenge_would_achieve_little/

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, June 4, 2014 2:34 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a strange argument for you of all people to accept

Yeah that was a pretty cynical piece. But of course Salon have always been tireless Clinton boosters.

...to put it generously.

It seems far from a pro-Hillary piece (and yes, even farther from being pro-Obama).

There is no reason to suspect, after all these years, Hillary Clinton in the White House will be any better than the Hillary Clinton we have come to know as a hawkish corporate Democrat; if history’s any guide, she’ll be worse.

is Salon pro-HRC these days? I have no idea.

this is a strange argument for you of all people to accept

bullshit, bcz we're done, it's e$$entially fixed, and none of it matters

if anyone on the true anticorporate left managed to win the billion-dollar POTUS auction, they would not live to January 20.

Hope and change!

also Bernie Sanders is a hack who says pretty things

and Hellary is not going to be "pushed" anywhere ideologically, as like her hubby she had her principles lanced in the '70s

Ew @ "lanced."

If Brooklyn gets the Dem convention I am v interested in seeing how deBlasio instructs the NYPD to handle protests, which should be daily and vigorous.

don't you mean vigorou$

hard to $ay

"What is this, Russia? We're not allowed to get rich anymore?" - Paul Begala

http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/06/11/crossfire-clueless-on-israeli-occupation/

Russia has more millionaires than any other country iirc

She could've just said, “I did not grow up even imagining gay marriage and I don’t think you did either. This was an incredible new and important idea that people on the front lines of the gay right movement began to talk about and slowly, but surely, convinced others about the rightness of that position. I was initially reluctant because I didn't know much about it; eventually I began to see how important it was to gay friends. They convinced me I had a moral obligation to support it."

Instead she attacks one of NPR's more annoying questioners.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-gay-marriage-npr-terry-gross

"Well, Terry, Bill and I thought we knew how to count votes at the time -- our pollsters stick to us like flies on shit."

totally dgaf about what she thinks or thought about this issue, since it's totally immaterial now

in the end everybody in the legislature were total cowards, it took the courts to do it

why are you un-American?

force of habit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GemdhewVso

this is a strange argument for you of all people to accept

bullshit, bcz we're done, it's e$$entially fixed, and none of it matters

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, June 11, 2014 8:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if this is true, why bother posting here at all? or even giving a 2nd thought to any of it? i'm sure you can find things to do that are more fun, and i'm sure few of us would miss the constant above-it-all dispatches. it's win-win. i am not being facetious.

that said, i'm the dr. morbius of dr. morbius, since I hold out little hope that you'll stop trolling here. nothing will change. it's all fixed.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/f4abfaed15cf43125e7af995d622d4d3/tumblr_n6yyr4bAWt1rgh197o1_400.gif

what is that behind her? is that a translucent coat of arms?

oh you haven't watched that yet? so many lolz to be had

link?

http://www.56.com/u73/v_MTE1MDcxOTQy.html

am, I AM DONE WITH YOU SPECIFICALLY. BOOM!

NOT ABOVE IT ALL, JUST ABOVE YOU

whatever. you live in new york, right? you should order some russian food at 2 AM. i wish i could do that.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/hillary-clintons-gay-marriage-problem/372717/

That video is incredible.

was struck by this offhand observation, in the middle of the NYT's unjustly admiring profile of neocon blowhard robert kagan:

But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

oh, story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/politics/historians-critique-of-obama-foreign-policy-is-brought-alive-by-events-in-iraq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

I still believe in a place I pour Hope.

Hillary was in Toronto today, speaking to the Board of Trade about how she's not sure if she's running for president, she has to give that some thought, and then over to Indigo for a book signing. Actually would have gone down for the second if it had been summer break.

the fuck outta here with this triangulation bullshit:

Former President Bill Clinton, in a video message to be broadcast this week, says he was “honored and grateful to be among the voices urging” the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, the measure he signed into law in 1996 that barred federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

Mr. Clinton’s remarks will be included in a special program to honor gay rights activists that will be shown on Thursday on Logo TV, a cable channel aimed at gay and lesbian viewers. The special, called “Trailblazers,” will mark the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the marriage act, and will pay tribute to two figures in the case: Roberta A. Kaplan, a lawyer, and Edith Windsor, the plaintiff.

“As marriage equality spreads across the states, the number of people impacted by these two amazing women will only continue to grow,” Mr. Clinton said, according to a transcript of his comments.

defines chutzpah as well as any prez we've had, I'm sure he wd set a new standard for First Spouses too

wow. but the events of 1996 have far exceeded the statute of limitations on the memories of potential voters, so he can say whatever he wants now, pretty much

rmde

i know a lot of ppl who have changed their mind of gay marriage between 1996 and today (like all of the centrist/labor-democrats i know) so i doubt that they'll forgive him bc they forgot what happened in 96 - they probably see him mirroring their own evolution on the issue.

"evolution"

aren't american politics pretty much a history of ppl evolving on various issues? first a cause is championed by a minority - they make a compelling case (here, an ethical one) - and slowly ppl come around to it until it builds steam and policy changes.

also old people die

i'm just saying that in my world of old ppl...

obviously this is not one of the reasons he should currently be serving a life sentence.

The Clintons understand that large numbers of voters who accept gay marriage in 2014 were equally accepting of DOMA in 1996.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/06/24/how-not-to-talk-about-your-money-very-rich-edition/

It's not voters accepting gay marriage in 2014 – it's the sanctimony with which those two affirm their believe in gay marriage when that man signed DOMA in the middle of the night in 1996.

it's amazing they don't break their arms patting themselves on the back that hard

It's easy when yer secretly laughing at the chumps.

not looking forward to another 4-8 years of this shit

Of this thread.

she can be stopped.

(they) (it)

by what?

a primary challenge

but she's the Dem's Bob Dole and John McCain, therefore She's Earned It, according to donors.

primary challenge not going to be permitted

expect the unexpected

starting to think Morbz has an elaborate assassination plot in mind

I am a peaceful man, and do not stoop to my enemy's level except on alternate Thursdays

someone already ahead of that curve:

Arkansas GOP leader resigns after Clinton comment

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The Republican Party of Arkansas says a district chairman has resigned a day after he was quoted saying that Hillary Clinton "would probably get shot at the state line" if she ran for president in 2016.

GOP Chairman Doyle Webb says Johnny Rhoda resigned Wednesday as 2nd District Republican chairman. On Tuesday, U.S. News reported that Rhoda said in an interview that he didn't believe Clinton was popular in Arkansas and that a presidential campaign wouldn't be well-received.

Webb said in a statement that Rhoda was "apologetic" for the statements and that they were an unnecessary distraction for the party.

reminder that a lunatic did in fact shoot the state chair of the democratic party in arkansas six years ago

not looking forward to another 4-8 years of this shit

You do have to give the DNC til 2024 to find a transgendered Latino paraplegic candidate who's willing to kill citizens on American soil without due process.

megalol at political hacks (ie Chris Ciliza) arguing that Hillary will get more out of Congress because of her history of compromise/negotiation. If the GOP still controls the House in 2016 they won't give her any victories either, let's be real now.

"evolution"

― Οὖτις, Monday, June 23, 2014 12:11 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dunno if i'm quite as cynical about this concept as other folks here. i mean, maybe "evolution" is too polite a term, but how else do you describe it when the needle shifts so far in so little time? a LOT of americans went from being reflexively anti-marriage equality to being more-or-less thoughtfully pro-marriage equality from the 1990s to today.

there's no doubt that the clintons' attempt to say that they were against what they were for is pretty rotten, esp. when they don't really need to bother. obama has gotten away with referring to his own personal "evolution" and the clintons would probably be fine doing so as well. but lying is like an instinct to them—instead of being the thing you do when you're backed into a corner, it's the default response.

but in honesty this feels like so much water under the bridge to me. there are plenty of other reasons to find a clinton presidency (or just candidacy) unpalatable.

The difference is that as obviously political Obama's bleatings about "evolution" were he DID endorse some kind of gay marriage years before he became president.

lying is like an instinct to them—instead of being the thing you do when you're backed into a corner, it's the default response.

in other words this

i'd be a paranoid mess if i were hillary clinton, how does she keep her lies and obfuscations straight? does she have a point person to keep track of all that stuff?

how does she keep her lies and obfuscations straight?

This is one of the least palatable features of US democracy. Anyone who sets out, whatever their motives, seeking a position where they have some power to set public policy, has to reckon with a thousand political factors that have nothing to do with what they personally think would be good policy and everything to do with getting 50.01% of the votes cast in any given election, or else they will forfeit almost all power to participate in government and be as impotent as the rest of us. This has been true since roughly 1800. You'd think we'd get used to this wretched state of affairs eventually, but we never seem to.

Didn't realize till this morning there was a makeover underway.

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/perry.glasses.jpeg

hi!

he look smart.

A Texan wearing big black glasses like that? That'll be the day!

if u follow nba basketball this comparison makes sense:
http://yfrog.com/obzrixp:iphone

lol

clearly this is just a ploy so perry can at an opportune moment during the debates throw off his opponents by taking off his glasses and revealing that omg he's beautiful

'kiss me' by sixpence none the richer to be his campaign theme

http://girlswithglasses.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/tara-reid-alone-in-the-dark.jpg

Get ready, 2016!

http://tiborkrausz.com/image/Superman%201.jpg

Bias confession: This reporter’s heart is with Cruz and/or Paul,

as always, the corner's comments are even better than the article.

ANYONE is better than any candidate the DEMS will run...Fat, old, ugly Hillary is thinking about running..She should be running away from the mirror! My cat is a conservative thinker and she could win the next Presidential election. Thanks to Obama, Dems are finished for at least a decade..Thank you Obama, may I have another

a -- ny -- one.

unskewed pollcats

THANKS OBAMA

So how bout HRC and Kissinger as friends?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/09/05/hillary_clinton_henry_kissinger_pals.html

They are both members of the International Power Politics Club. Oh, and former Secretaries of State, too.

homeboy needs to kick it so we can find out how corrupt he actually was.

how does he manage to stay politically relevant? there are lots of other smart guys in dc

how does he manage to stay politically relevant?

That Nobel Peace Prize of his, maybe?

The American political spectrum has moved genocideward.

Fuck you, HRC. And I mean that in the George Carlin "What if" sense.

Heard this miserable interview during my morning shower :((

In six years of subject-heading lunacy in DNC e-mails, this might be my favourite:

✔ Barack ✔ Michelle ✔ Joe ✔ Hillary ❑ Phil

at least we know that Friends of Bill and Friends of Hil are now... FOKs!

David Corn nailed it btw:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-world-order

This WOULD finish her if the Den rank&file stood for anything (or knew who HK was).

The media overwhelmingly play along with the Kissinger-as-respected-elder-statesman charade, for the obvious reason that the 0.1% wholeheartedly agree with Henry's brand of power politics and are eager to see it embraced by the general population as normal and reasonable. And the 0.1% own almost all of the media outlets. Mother Jones is among the very few exceptions.

most of the public have no recollection of kissinger or what he stood for

Sad but true

the majority of those that know who he is only know that he has a funny voice

that a person as wholly evil as Henry K can get a makeover is the sort of thing that makes real cynicism seem appealing

The media overwhelmingly play along with the Kissinger-as-respected-elder-statesman charade, for the obvious reason that the 0.1% wholeheartedly agree with Henry's brand of power politics and are eager to see it embraced by the general population as normal and reasonable. And the 0.1% own almost all of the media outlets. Mother Jones is among the very few exceptions.

― Aimless

Certainly the case during the eighties and early nineties when the likes of Ted Koppel invited him on "Nightline' so often that he was a co-host practically, but he's vanished recently; I wonder if age or fear of getting arrested has done it.

almost certainly it's just old age. his ego appears undiminished.

lol:

At this point, I wasn't working on any remixes - just writing. Deeper and Deeper, Erotica, Rain and Thief of Hearts made up the first batch of songs we worked on together. I did the music and she wrote the words. Sometimes I'd give her some ideas lyrically and she'd go: "Oh, that's good," or "That sucks." I remember when I gave her some ideas lyrically for Vogue and she said, very curtly, "That's what I do."

wrong thread too

God, he and hrc In cahoots worse than I thought.

it's the Cahoots Party

(xpost) Glad you left out the serial comma--not fair to drag god into this unholy alliance.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says his wife, Columba, who has been repeatedly described as skeptical of him pursuing the presidency in 2016, is “supportive” of the possibility. Bush made the comment in an interview with The Associated Press as he campaigned for his son, George P. Bush, who is running for land commissioner in Texas. “As it relates to my mom, my mom’s been around the track … she just believes that it’s something that she doesn’t want my family to go through, although she’s changed her mind on that. So I’m marking her down to ‘neutral, trending in a different direction’ than she was,” Jeb Bush said. As for Columba Bush, he said: “My wife is supportive, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the challenges that this brings. This is ultimately my decision with as much consideration as I can to take into account the people that I really love.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/jeb-bush-2016-bid-columba-bush-111890.html?hp=l5

one thing that's really nice about jeb bush is that i could see myself hanging out and drinking a beer with him. in fact, i can see that with all of the bushes. just all of us hanging out at the bar, having a beer or two, being normal

they seem normal to you because so many politicians are sideshow freaks

oh, i'm just kidding. i'm sure that if you tried to have a beer with jeb bush in a bar it would immediately get very awkward if it wasn't a PR stunt. for some reason whenever i hear about jeb running for something i immediately flashback to everyone talking about how, love him or hate him, you could "have a beer" with GWB, and then proceeding to vote for him in 2004

Really want someone for president who doesn't have the same name as a previous president.

Elizabeth Warren (Harding)?

lol

The only normal Bush is Barbara, and she supports abortion rights except for the conception of her oldest.

But doesn't mind canning the youngest!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/ben-carson-has-a-40-minute-infomercial-that-will-convince-you-hes-not-stark-raving-mad/

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/if-not-hillary-who-1114

the short answer is "whoever can raise a billion dollars from assholes"

@ggreenwald
American political culture, captured in a single headline

George W. Bush likes idea of Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton in 2016

t.co/gRwIGW5LpW

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-usa-georgewbush-idUSKCN0IU1KC20141110?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews

"There are some people that’ll say there’s no way I’m going to vote for somebody with that name. Of course if he were to run against Hillary Clinton then I think the name issue would somewhat dissipate and then people would pick which one would be the leader. But neither one of them has declared and I really don’t know if Jeb is going to run."

still speaks off of badly written cue cards in his brain

And yet, he probably read that quote and thought, "Nailed it!"

O'Hehir is back, on why Resistance Is Futile.

Nothing is to be done. Hillary Clinton cannot be remodeled as a politician or a policymaker at this stage of her career, beyond superficial questions of campaign branding, and is not foolish enough to try. The only plausible way she can lose the Democratic presidential nomination is if she decides not to run, or through the intervention of some unforeseen scandal or crisis. Sanders and Warren probably won’t run, and if they do they will lose. Progressive voters are at liberty to stay home or go Green or flirt with the half-appealing, half-crazy, libertarian jazz-dance stylings of Rand Paul, as they choose. But they can’t stop Hillary....

Where I come down, and it’s a painful landing, is all the way at acceptance, the final stage of the Kübler-Ross process. I honor the rage of people like Doug Henwood, and I sympathize with the ardent bargaining of Katrina vanden Heuvel. But it’s just not worth it. Self-described progressive pragmatists like Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington are right that it’s not worth trying to stop Hillary Clinton — but not because there is any reason to be optimistic about her presidency. (Yeah, I know: SCOTUS and abortion. Fine.) It’s not worth it because presidential elections in general are an irrelevant distraction from the long, hard struggle against money and power and entrenched dark forces that might someday, just maybe, return meaning to American politics — and the 2016 election is more irrelevant than most....

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/15/no_im_not_ready_for_hillary_but_heres_why_resistance_is_futile/

"Yeah, I know: SCOTUS and abortion."

This is always the most outrageous thing about this sort of attitude. I'd call it the pretense that the regulatory state doesn't exist, but it seems instead to be total ignorance of how government works, what it does, etc.

Btw, this thread: oh boy!

Surely you can muster more enthusiastic Hillary-cheerleading than that gabbs

I was expressing enthusiasm for the subject matter. There's no need to "cheerlead" for Hillary (nor any rival team to speak of), though Webb might create a little boomlet for himself if he takes a flyer. O'Malley might have a little appeal, but I have my doubts even he will chance a run. I can see him as Veep, but not sure Hillaryland will, even if he stands down.

My fun for now is with the other side's cattle call. More on that later.

I do hope Bernie runs, purely for the entertainment value. Not that he's Al Sharpton or anything.

More Gillibrand in the NYT today

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/us/politics/new-yorks-junior-senator-doggedly-refusing-to-play-the-part.html

She's a strong VP candidate at worst

― Multiple Miggs (dandydonweiner), Saturday, December 7, 2013 8:27 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Big Fan

why a Bernie Sanders candidacy would not accomplish a single solitary thing

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/no_bernie_sanders_should_not_run_for_president_why_his_challenge_would_achieve_little/

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, June 4, 2014 2:34 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a strange argument for you of all people to accept

― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, June 11, 2014 8:31 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not at all. It's classic Morbsism, which isn''t that different from any other defensively minoritarian counterculture. Accepting even for hypothetical purposes the possibility of winning requires this approach to a) confront the greys and complexities of actual power/responsibility/governance, and b) acknowledge just how marginal is in fact their worldview - they can't win because the fix is in, not because there really aren't enough people out there who agree with them.

she's awful

xpost

you guys can't seriously think that's gabbneb

"entertainment value," all that's left til we destroy the duopoly p much

not because there really aren't enough people out there who agree with them.

you mean the majority who saw no point in voting, mebbe

See what I mean? It's the Silent Majority.

you guys can't seriously think that's gabbneb

"entertainment value," all that's left til we destroy the duopoly p much

― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, November 18, 2014 12:44 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Conclusion-drawing fail(s) again

I'm quite familiar with the VERY DARK greys and complexities of power/responsibility/governance that your sorry-ass party has been insisting are the only form of "reality" since the Third Way came along (and really since Jimmy Carter).

seriously, what do the Dems stand for, besides markets and the Dow? It's hard to paint people as "minoritarian" when they're unhappy with the Party of Nothing.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jim-webb-exploratory-committee-2016

I had zero idea this dip had presidential ambitions.

Well, he's got the "little Mitt Romney face on big Mitt Romney head" tumblr vote sewn up.

now fully qualified

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/28/elizabeth-warren-speaks-israelgaza-sounds-like-netanyahu/

working hard to win my vote

I loved that "new car smell" line from Obama. I'm sure that didn't go over well chez Clinton.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XuZ2ZfRwXs/VH93u1ye7VI/AAAAAAAAAys/GOUZ2yscvBc/s1600/hilary-goldman-sachs-1000%5B1%5D.jpg

yay.

From http://m.thenation.com/article/191457-how-many-ways-can-goldman-give

I posted this on my fb.. READY FOR HILLARY

MoveOn is on the case:

The results are in—with 81.3% of all votes cast in favor, MoveOn members overwhelmingly agree that it's time we urged Senator Elizabeth Warren to enter the race for president.

Elsewhere, that Nation issue is a "Not So Fast Hillary" themed one:

http://www.thenation.com/article/191497/wanted-challenge-clinton

http://www.thenation.com/article/191521/hawk-named-hillary

http://www.thenation.com/article/191529/how-david-brock-built-empire-put-hillary-white-house

With Hillary we would acquire the potent symbol of a-woman-president, but not the potent benefits of a-progressive-president. however, given the political realities of a republican congress, symbolic progress may be about the only progress within reach. I don't think warren has enough of a national presence to be able to ride a popular groundswell into national office.

She only beat fucking Scott Brown in Massachusetts by 7 points. A national candidate she is not, at least for 2016.

can someone walk me thru a political calculus on which backing hillary against rando horrorshow republicans is sensible enough, but having to choose between dynastic heirs in a hillary/jeb election drives one into backing dark horse democrats, etc?

too far to walk

not really getting why one scenario is more sickmaking than the other tho

yes that's why i'm asking, they don't seem to be too far apart. but something about TWO political dynasty candidates is just… like a last straw.

latest in a series (I meant with Jeb vs Rand -- Rand not gonna happen tho -- as the red candidate)

for those who don't follow him:

https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/544869679609942016

I feel like Jeb could just be an anti Hillary mutually assured destruction grenade. Voters might finally revolt if their choices were Clinton and Bush again and some other gop lunatic could sneak in against whoever took Hillary's spot and they could maybe barely win.. I dunno maybe Im thinking too hard about it.

this country's always had political dynasties. albeit not opposing ones that swapped the white house quite this much, which is p nauseating

climate change might make one of them the House of Atreides

both clans obviously Harkonnens come on now

ok (i hate that book)

never finished it myself

George P Bush and Chelsea would probably look cool in latexy scifi costumes tho

yet more torture porn for a country sick of it

to be fair to hrc she's not technically part of a dynasty, there's no real comparison between a ridiculously ambitious power couple and a political family that now stretches five generations.

like chelsea has said she's got no interest in taking political office while george p is already setting the groundwork to be texas governor and inevitably future presidential candidate.

still, the optics do look terrible

Chelsea is totally going to run for office gimme a break

not any time soon, granted

the bushes are actually one of the few major u.s. political dynasties i can think of, in recent history at least

They've definitely surpassed the Longs of Louisiana.

Landrieus
Nunns
Rufus T Fireflys

at the national level - Kennedys, Roosevelts, Adamses

get down to the state level and there's tons

I hadn't been paying attention so I don't know if it's new info, but Jeb's official declaration of interest in the presidency is hugely depressing. Plenty of the people disgusted with a black president will be equally disgusted by the idea of a female president. And he has a name that they've heard before. He should coast to victory.

Hey, I'm a descendant of Daniel Webster, I should probably run in ten years or so. DYNASTY.

Jeb's gonna have some of the same issues Mittens had w the base in the primary, but he doesn't seem as awkward/weird so that's in his favor. I'd put money on him taking the nomination though.

Obama just solved Jeb's big immigration reform problem by giving him a way to dodge and derail and redirect questions about his position. So, yes, the nomination now becomes Jeb's to lose. Christie is gnashing his teeth.

I look forward to this parade of bozos - Christie, Jeb, Perry - trying to dig up dirt on/trip up each other. The resulting nomination will be as revolting as ever but the process will be entertaining.

I do kind of wonder how hard his opponents are going to go after his family record

whether Jeb or HRC wins i srsly think we shd fuck shit up

jeb's big establishment competition is christie who the base hate even more (that's unless romney gets in which is unlikely unless they both flounder and the gop get desperate) while the wingnuts will split the vote between themselves like they always do. that on paper should give him the best path to victory.

but i think his biggest problem is actually that's he not run in a campaign since 2002. he's going to be very rusty and could well end up a paper tiger. one of the reasons hillary did her book tour this summer and campaigned these midterms was to overcome that problem, and 2002 feels like ancient history compared to 2008.

i'd probably put money on walker, as he looks the best person to overcome the tea party/establishment divide, but then again he's a charisma vacuum.

lack of charisma not a huge impediment when you look at some prez nominees, esp the losing ones

Yeah, Mittens seemed like a hapless Home Depot store manager.

my money is on bobby jindal. he is very charismatic

I mean look at Poppy Bush v Dukakis, that was an election where we were up to our ankles in charisma

one of the reasons hillary did her book tour this summer and campaigned these midterms was to overcome that problem

I heard this on the morning shows but nothing I saw looked like she'd shaken any cobwebs.

agree charisma isn't generally too much of an impediment, but with the most wide open gop field in decades it could be easy to get lost in the shuffle. especially when paul and christie and cruz will take up so much oxygen.

Hillary simply doesn't have the common touch - she's always been super-stiff

xp

like I can't picture Hillary speaking convincingly and extemporaneously about anything

her stock portfolio and cookie recipes

she's not a really talented liar like her husband and Obama

p much

Obama is a much more talented and fluent liar than Clinton...and actually Obama's done what he promised to do except close Gitmo.

i.e. neoliberalism with many more sops to progressivism than Clinton accomplished

I would venture that Hillary's chances hinge almost entirely on how well she can motivate enthusiasm among women to vote for her as the first woman president. she has no policies or values that are going to win over a majority, it's gonna be this identity politics aspect that makes or breaks her. it's going to be all about how well she connects with women and whether or not she can unify them as a voting bloc. which, given the actual politics and voting patterns of women and Hillary's shortcomings as a candidate, is not going to be easy.

not closing gitmo is more congress's fault, isn't it?

Alfred's estimation of O pretty otm imo

xp

I don't know where to start with that, but you should talk to my labor organizer friend who remebers O saying he'd be the first prez to walk a picket line in a strike.

I mean, Clinton didn't once beguile me in his glory days – and I don't say it in a sanctimonious way. He looked phony and oozed sincerity that I find repulsive in people and politicians. The only time I got his reputation was at the '12 convention.

i like the idea of an elizabeth warren presidency

sorry, if by some miracle we elected a prez who vowed to "Move the ball" he/she would never live to January 20 and yes I really believe that. Look elsewhere.

(or like me, accept the inevitable)

xp

warren, even if elected, would be forced to the status of a placeholder

idk she seems pretty fucking capable

in any case, she's my candidate. i'm not voting for a clinton. i voted green in 2012 and will do so again if i don't like the candidate.*

* i don't dislike obama as far as democrats go, and don't regret my 2008 vote, but i couldn't abide all the pointless killing

This election will be primetime for third-party candidates.

she seems pretty fucking capable

atm no one can move the senate to do anything in almost any direction, and the house is an even harder nut to bust if you don't have wingnut cred.

yeah that's why she should run for president.

she can do more good in the senate

like take a principled stand against the banks before losing the vote

when the Dems retake the Senate in 2016 she will be in line for powerful committee/legislation-writing positions

Is Jeb Bush Too Liberal To Win The Republican Nomination In 2016?

may god have mercy on our souls

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/silver-datalab-jeb-1.png?w=610&h=916

lol at Paul's disparity between statements and voting record

interesting, in that chart, that rand paul's public issue statements are rated as the 3rd least conservative, and his public voting record as the most conservative by far.

xpost yep

And Santorum's public statement bark outweighing his voting record bite. Interesting chart.

that's why she should run for president

I have no objection to warren being president, but this doesn't change the fact that, without any leverage over congress, she'd be a reduced to a placeholder. just being president doesn't ensure you can accomplish much, unless you can command enough votes in congress.

guys she would never win. never.

why because $$$

maybe she can apologize to wall street the day before she announces her candidacy

in 2016 it would not surprise me

re: chart. what amuses me most is the scale of 0 - 100. if Christie rates a zero on that scale on any category, it lacks a certain granularity at the low end.

only way progressives can have sway over candidates is to pump money into causes and energy into legislators' call centers.

paul is legit terrifying. i wonder how much of the millennial vote he could cut into by being pro-pot and rhetorically (though not legislatively) anti-war

he won't come out as pro-pot

no presidential candidate is going to do that tbh

Except Roland Doobie of the 420 party