Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

as the establishment candidate hillary also has resources + allies (and enemies of course) from throughout her career. i also think she'll be more palatable to moderates and i think sanders is a relatively unknown quantity that might be extremely vulnerable in a general election race. hillary has been attacked throughout her career (also apparently this impresses no one but me, she is vastly more experienced) so we more-or-less know what to expect; all not to mention that she's married to one of our nation's most popular recent presidents and served as SOS for another (maybe not as popular and more divisive but i think she's right to try to run on Obama's legacy). otoh sanders might be able to GOTV due to enthusiasm among the youth + far left voter base.

in fairness hypothetical head-to-head polls this far in advance have like zero validity. i (cautiously) support sanders and i accept that running him in the general election is a risk xxxxl

ultimately i think that a lot of "pragmatic" clinton supporters are seduced by the same cult of personality that sanders supporters are accused of falling for. they think that clinton, by virtue of her experience, will somehow be able to wrestle useful legislation through congress, or be BFFs with more world leaders, or use executive power to do some meaningful work. my feeling is that any democratic president is going to surround him/herself with capable people to run the various parts of the executive branch, but that sanders would be better by some degree when it came to actual decision-making

(nb this is not my case for hillary, just some stray thoughts about why i think she'd be a stronger candidate in the general. i happen to like her for a number of reasons beyond her electability.) xp

i don't have video to hand but (via twitter) i see palin's speaking right now on her son's domestic assault charge? and blaming it on PTSD and/or obama? i think this is happening at a trump rally?

as the establishment candidate hillary also has resources + allies (and enemies of course) from throughout her career. i also think she'll be more palatable to moderates and i think sanders is a relatively unknown quantity that might be extremely vulnerable in a general election race. hillary has been attacked throughout her career (also apparently this impresses no one but me, she is vastly more experienced) so we more-or-less know what to expect; all not to mention that she's married to one of our nation's most popular recent presidents and served as SOS for another (maybe not as popular and more divisive but i think she's right to try to run on Obama's legacy). otoh sanders might be able to GOTV due to enthusiasm among the youth + far left voter base.

― Mordy, Wednesday, January 20, 2016 2:42 PM (6 seconds ago)

certainly, for moderate and conservative voters her track record as senator/SOS/bill's wife is a great selling point

they think that clinton, by virtue of her experience, will somehow be able to wrestle useful legislation through congress,

not as long as the GOP as currently constituted controls the House. Absolutely nothing is going to pass.

or be BFFs with more world leaders,

maybe. she does like some shitbags.

use executive power to do some meaningful work

Another maybe, and not one I'm all that excited about, beyond the fact that she would be unlikely to repeal Obama's climate change-related efforts. (tbf Bernie would probably be about the same on this count).

Surely the blame for any PTSD suffered by Palin's progeny can be placed squarely at the feet of their mother.

if, through some miracle, the GOP nominates Cruz and Trump runs third party, then by all means the best candidate to unify the party, exploit the ensuing electoral catastrophe for the GOP, and possibly recapture Congress would be Hillary. but idk so many hypotheticals there (and even in that best-case scenario I don't think the Dems could actually take the House)

Every time one of you mentions how experienced HRC is I go back to the number of stories, real or leaked by miffed staffers, about how Sanders' popularity caught her offguard. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, you lost in 2008 to a guy whose hold on the affections of the electorate sure didn't look quixotic in the weeks before Iowa. I know administrations aren't campaigns, but how can you NOT expect a challenge?

not being snarky to anyone in particular

how on earth

https://twitter.com/dick_nixon/status/689850640722456577

HRC is clearly not a great politician (or doesn't have amazing campaigning instincts more precisely) but you can't deny that she has a tremendous wealth of experience. Whether that translates to things like good, effective policy is a good/different question.

pretty evident that it does not. She seems to be frozen in 1995.

she has experience selling weapons to the middle east, so there's that

it's undeniable that HRC has experience, but her lack of notable accomplishments as senator or secretary of state is equally hard to deny

She's manifestly a terrible politician.

as long as we're talking big picture, i find myself being almost totally unexcited by this race. the GOP clown car berlusconi-style bigot parade is compelling stuff but i have close to zero strong opinion on the dem side.

i don't have any real faith in or respect for hillary. her record as flotus, senator and secstate are all pretty bad imo, either good ideas bungled or bad ideas pursued expediently or crises left to fester because of paranoia (not an uncommon political problem, granted). i didn't want a trip thru the gutter of 90s politics in 08 and i still don't. i don't have any trust that she'll surround herself with competent people.

all that said, i just don't buy bernie's pitch. his core idea is that an activated, energized dem+independent base -- a mass popular movement -- will break the gridlock and allow his ambitious legislative plan to work. i think he's wrong! just flat wrong. i have doubts the party or the country will go for an old jewish socialist, but i guess we'll see.

i agree that sanders' plan for political change is naive, and i think he's channeling a lot of anger + frustration on the left but a lot of the finer details of the policy stuff (in financial reform, healthcare, gun control, etc) seem more superficial than hillary's stated policies.

why is palin back now

because... she's not dead?

it's just funny to be in a situation where you want traffic on your website but you don't really want people to put too much stock in what you're saying yet

doesn't matter in 538's case. liberals and 'centrist' Dems in particular absolutely cannot get enough of meaningless morsels about The Prez Auction from midterms on.

see you in April! or not.

xpost To that extent, Sanders is kinda the Trump of the left. Don't just tell us what we want to hear, give us some idea of how you hope to actually achieve these things.

has anyone asked hillary about reparations

iirc she gets a pass because she's 'not a radical' or something

all that said, i just don't buy bernie's pitch. his core idea is that an activated, energized dem+independent base -- a mass popular movement -- will break the gridlock and allow his ambitious legislative plan to work. i think he's wrong! just flat wrong. i have doubts the party or the country will go for an old jewish socialist, but i guess we'll see.

― goole, Wednesday, January 20, 2016 3:05 PM (8 minutes ago)

i'd honestly be surprised if either bernie or his closest advisors actually believed this -- it's just so obviously impossible. (if by some miracle he were elected, i don't doubt that he'd realize his more ambitious goals are pretty impossible to achieve and he'd probably settle into just being a relatively liberal president. which is probably all we can hope for.) but, as you (and mordy) allude to, it's an important selling point for prying votes from hilary.

i can't wait to see the programs Pragmatic Hillary gets through a Congress that loves her so much

i'm really surprised that none of the democratic candidates are running on the We'll do the best we can but republican gridlock will make substantial progress pretty much impossible Platform, that seems like a real motivator

i know right

haha, i totally forgot that this happened:

http://www.jebbush.com

lol

i'm really surprised that none of the democratic candidates are running on the We'll do the best we can but republican gridlock will make substantial progress pretty much impossible Platform, that seems like a real motivator

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, January 20, 2016 2:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i take your point. in a way, bernie's plan of mass engagement is closer to a real solution -- electing as many marginal-district dems to congress as possible.

but we saw how that worked before! we already know the limit. we're all old enough to remember 08 and 09... and 10

yeah, but that's the naivete of his supporters, not sanders, right?

i can see criticism of sanders' supporters for naively buying into the probably impossible ideas, but not criticism of sanders for running on that platform. like it or not, politicians try to motivate people to vote for them by laying out their vision of what they would ideally achieve, not what they are most likely to achieve. if sanders' strategy was to talk about what can realistically be accomplished with a GOP-dominated house, he'd be at like 1.0234% in the polls right now. and he may not end up winning, but at least he's pulling clinton to the left.

so it may be annoying to see a bunch of college kids fooled into thinking that if only sanders were president everything would be fixed, but shit, those kids might be trump supporters if they grew up in different circumstances.

and with possibly my first ever disparaging of "the kids", i hereby announce my intention to retire and move into the woods

I was one of those college kids when Obama ran

has anyone asked hillary about reparations
--mookieproof

Yes at the same time and she dodged it basically.

and he may not end up winning, but at least he's pulling clinton to the left.
--Karl Malone

Debatable at this point.

my feeling is that any democratic president is going to surround him/herself with capable people to run the various parts of the executive branch, but that sanders would be better by some degree when it came to actual decision-making

― k3vin k., Wednesday, January 20, 2016 7:42 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadly recent experience with the obama administration shows any new dem president will staff themselves with establishment retreads and the status quo wont budge.

Debatable at this point.

dunno, i think we're just getting started, it's january 20

A couple things:

It seems like Sanders would help on GOTV efforts on the dem side, which might help swing congress back toward dem. Even more importantly, he's not going to motivate GOP voters to come out to vote against him like Hilary will.

Sanders is the ONLY candidate with a net positive favorability rating.

sadly recent experience with the obama administration shows any new dem president will staff themselves with establishment retreads and the status quo wont budge.

so wait, you're saying that avowed centrist Barack Obama ran a centrist campaign and then staffed his administration with centrist thinkers? HOW SHOCKING, WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY PREDICTED THIS

Im pretty sure candidate obama ran against the imperial bush presidency and pretty much embraced it wholeheartedly once in office.

to the right of W on surveillance, whistleblowers and global AIDS funding

yes, obama will go down in history as the hitler of aids

far to the right of W on establishing enormous marine reserves

I wonder what the 'welcome to the presidency' boot camp is like where the CIA and NSA, et al lifers scare the fucking shit out of whoever wins and they explain all the horrible things they do to keep the status quo

I wonder what the 'welcome to the presidency' boot camp is like where the CIA and NSA, et al lifers scare the fucking shit out of whoever wins and they explain all the horrible things they do to keep the status quo

Bill Hicks (stand-up comedian, died in the 90s) had a bit about how they take newly elected presidents into a dark room and show them the Kennedy assassination, filmed from an angle nobody's ever seen before, and just ask, "Any questions?"

my only hesitation with bernie as president is that he'd be so utterly ineffection due to republican stalemates nothing would ever happen, he'd lose relection or not run due to age, and then a republican will come in and blow the world up in 2020.

that's true of anybody though. the only reason obama could pass ACA is because the world was shook by the financial crisis.

bernie prob won't get much of anything through congress, but i don't think HRC with all her "experience" will do any better. any dem who ends up being president will prob look more like obama's last couple years than his first couple years -- executive orders and good speeches.

I'm at the same place goole is, it sounds like

(many xposts)

Jeb Lund:

Blaming Track Palin’s problems on Obama’s policy is just trading in the old Stabbed In The Back myth, repurposed from Weimar Germany by way of Vietnam, to synonymize an antipathy for the policy and strategy for which troops died with an antipathy for the troops themselves. (Let’s also not forget that neglecting the VA has been a bipartisan sin.) And whatever insufficiency of warmongering Obama has manifested over the years has never been paired with anything short of voluble, frequent praise for service members.

Even if Palin’s assertions were true, that’s a weird way for PTSD to manifest, so furious at a policy that it leads someone to lash out in the home as opposed to expressing anything at the source of the anger. Is it related to all troop withdrawals and just to Obama? What about other policy makers? And why didn’t this come up earlier? Was Track Palin drunk and shirtless at the Palin’s 2014 pier-six brawl because of Obama too?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/jan/20/presidential-election-2016-campaign-coverage-trump-palin-live#block-569ff592e4b0e5eaffebb920