Your 2016 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

like i cld see webb just humiliating hillary in a debate, the dynamic of her being a super focused grouped triangulated speaker and him being this no nonsense grumpy man cld be very rough for her

feel like webb would do well w/ building a big enough voting block to win - not sure how his opinions on gun control would undermine his opportunity to reach out to moderate-right voters

p much everyone in the country is receptive to the minor gun controls webb is in favor of, he doesnt need to win any wingnuts

seems like a (really rich, self-funded) 3rd party candidate could be a possibility. perot managed to nab 20% of the vote in 1992. although, if you're one of the 500 U.S. billionaires in 2015, there's not much point in running. just let hillary win and she'll take care of the rich people.

rand running third party wld be such a beautiful dream

he seems a lil too smart to do it but it wld be very cool if he did

I can't see a lefty third-party raising enough money, and frankly it would just guarantee a GOP win soooo

"so what" is the finish there

POTUS costs a billion dollars if u haven't noticed. no nonshits need apply.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAPN4OwXEAA7oGi.jpg

"Rand Paul under investigation for alleged connection with thousands of teens over Snapchat"

loool

heh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAL_UnPUMAEuTup.jpg

their shd be a snapchat primary debate where the candidates have to share their nudes

weird to see anyone still blaming obama for pulling out of iraq, as if just continuing to do what bush had done from 04 to 08 would have made much difference; you still get an unstable nightmare no matter when you do it and i haven't heard a single remotely convincing alternative scenario. the problem was knocking off saddam in the first place.

obama's foreign policy has been terrible but that doesn't make him much different from any other president post-1969 (at one point i would've said 1947 but i've mellowed a bit, haha).

Idk obv hindsight 20/20 but wouldn't a more graduated withdrawal have been better? In the end we are going back anyway.

yeah I'm more interested in what Mordy thinks made Clinton *better* apart from the Oslo photo op. Bubba was fortunate to be president at a time when Russia had basically abdicated from its role as a geopolitical enemy of the US, and the Middle East was firmly under the boot of various tinpot dictators. But when he was confronted with a crisis, he hardly performed heroically - I always thought it was gross that the impeachment vote in the Senate just happened to coincide with the day the US started dropping bombs in Bosnia

xp

At the very least we could've saved some airfare

In the end we are going back anyway.

haha no

I assume you've noticed that Obama can't get his expanded war powers through congress at the moment

I'm not an expert in Balkan politics by any means but a generally explosive region seems to have calmed substantially since the NATO intervention?

my understanding is obama was in favor of a more gradual withdrawal but the iragis werent into it

I'm not an expert in Balkan politics by any means but a generally explosive region seems to have calmed substantially since the NATO intervention?

well duh the real question is why it didn't happen sooner

in retrospect the most clintonian foreign policy moment was when he attempted to bomb osama and every republican accused him of doing it to distract ppl from the lewinsky episode

they were all who tf is osama bin labbern

well duh the real question is why it didn't happen sooner

i'm sure there are very complicated answers to this but at least re clinton it is bc overwhelming airstrikes forced yugoslavian forces out of kosovo? i'm not sure if like Rambouillet is in effect (maybe de facto + not de jure?) but NATO interventions played a pretty serious role from what I understand. I'm sure Sanpaku will be about shortly to correct me.

"Constitution was made by christians directed by God."

God directed that each slave would count as three fifths of a person?

sounds more progressive than the god of leviticus tbh

but not the god of Morbs

clinton also gets some credit for kicking indonesia out of east timor, about which (east timor in general, not so much clinton's role in it) war nerd wrote about this week

That Constitution tweet was made by a Mormon kid on a mission trip, but it seems divinity of the constitution is a thing many in the LDS church believe?

it seems divinity of the constitution is a thing many in the LDS church believe?

I recall this being a big talking point when I visited the Mormon Tabernacle as a teenager

Mordy I just don't think it's that much of a stretch to regard Bosnia or Rwanda as bearing parallels to some of Obama's challenges. Clinton's performance does not seem measurably more successful or ethical, in both cases cynical realpolitik and lack of options resulted in a lot of deaths. Obama's tenure has been marked by a higher number of conflicts than Clinton's, but he's hardly to blame for that.

it's not that he's hardly to blame, but that the relationship between an admin's foreign policy + conflicts in the world at large is too opaque to make any definitive conclusions. i think there's certainly a case to be made that some of O's policies /may/ have emboldened eg Putin in Crimea or China in Senkaku or Iran in Syria to take actions they may not have otherwise. Or maybe not. I know that he hasn't helped.

i'll admit that i'm more inclined to give presidents more credit + blame for things like the economy or the state of world affairs than they deserve - but by that rubric i probably overpraise obama's role in the domestic economic recovery so it probably evens out

yes mormons have cobbled together this idea that the signers of the constitution are modern day biblical heroes from god knows where. they made a movie about it iirc. i had to take a course at byu called "american heritage 101" that flew with a lot of that + john stossel specials etc.

also "ballif" is a (presumably conservative) moneybags name in utah. that "kid" is likely a returned missionary and insufferable but if anything the mormons know how to turn on their cherubic aryan starpower when "called upon", kind of a trip to see it on twitter. xps

ha i love how crazy mormon theology takes place in relatively recent american history so much better than that old ass holy land bs

you'd think such modern day biblical heroes would've written in some nice words about polygamy

what domestic economic recovery, btw? Two Americas still.

I didn't know until about a month ago that Jeb is a Catholic.

lol: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/scott-walker-aide-fires-off-154708296.html

poor lil gop apparatchik. godspeed in your future endeavors.

omalley, nice

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2015/03/20/prevent-another-crash-reform-wall-street/25057735

hillary constitutionally incapable of saying that

ha - love the three strikes thing

"Former Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland is a possible Democratic candidate for president"

come on

there is no god but Hil

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/us/politics/ted-cruz-to-announce-on-monday-he-plans-to-run-for-president.html?_r=0

I thought he was ineligible, destined, after a triumphant homecoming, to be our Prime Minister one day, but I see he became a naturalized citizen in 2005.

It will be an issue at some point. Maybe just for a single news cycle, but someone will make a stink about it.

Cruz 2016 "your world is on fire"

Hahaha yes this is happening.

http://i.imgur.com/U36DKpM.jpg

Let us dance in the flames.