I've had people say it's a hardening, actually ~ US presidential election 2016 part 9/11 never forget

Hillary, in particular, is a shockingly sympathetic character. She was not born a monstrous political personality. She's a tragic figure.

Serious question: Is there a rich white male politician who the GOP elite could outwardly loathe, like to the point of fantasizing about their deaths, as much as they do either of the Clintons (Bill was poor, Hillary a woman) or Barack Obama?

well not since FDR maybe

I'm imagining if Bloomberg had thrown his hat in the ring, it would have gotten pretty ugly.

Guess I should have added "Christian" in there, huh.

I think if Al Gore had been elected president he'd have gotten it just as bad.

So Iago, what do you think now that Assange destroyed Hillary? Wow, that was surely dangerous information he gave, huh?

aw man don't summon him

Yeah, that makes him seem infinitely more entertaining and less boring to read than he actually is

I don't think the GOP elite hates any of these guys for personal reasons, they basically turn the hate machine on strategically. GOP elite would support a poor black female president if it meant they got what they wanted.

the base, otoh...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/04/trump-backers-feel-played-as-wikileaks-fails-to-come-through-on-october-surprise/?postshare=3061475583962364&tid=ss_tw

RCP average moving in the right direction at last - interestingly the 4-way average is looking better relative to the 2-way average, which may indicate that some Johnson- and Stein-inclined voters are getting nervous and becoming more reconciled to voting for the (bad and hated) major-party establishment choices.

Sorry, or maybe not. Actually Johnson and Stein's graphs still look pretty flat - so it may instead be that undecideds are hesitantly shuffling over to Clinton as things get realer and closer.

xpost yeah, but he's still forecasting around Ross Perot 1996 numbers which, frankly, at this point, usually is when third parties find their chances start to decline, especially after first debate.

I'm still skeptical that he can hit 8 percent, but I'm really curious as to how much noise this really is. Stein seems to be declining at a quicker rate.

I really hope Johnson misses 5%, don't want that fucker getting government funding (not that a Libertarian is getting elected any time soon but I just want to see less bumper stickers)

(which is to say - maybe his support is actually solid and not a mirage)

they look flat because they're on a scale from 1-100, but both have lost ~1/5 of their support over the past month (9 to 7.5 for johnson, 3-2.5 for stein), which in the context of a close two-way race adds up to a significant amount of new floating voters staying home or voting clinton (or voting trump i suppose lol)

Why do Trumpists even care about the possibility of revelatory emails or classified info or whatever? Why get yourself worked up now about the absence or presence of solid factual info? Just start another whispering campaign about Shrillary being secretly part dog and having a love child with Tim Kaine.

Well, they could always campaign on the policies...lol

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-hillary-clinton-holds-national-lead-over-donald-trump-n658721

well this is interesting - 26k registered voters, but the biggest gulf seems to be between male voters who have, and who have not been married.

Married men broke for Trump 52 - 35, "never married" men favored Hillary 51 to 28.

is this cos Hillary reminds male voters of a nagging wife?

How many of the married men category are divorced? Just curious

don't think they surveyed that :/

Trump also winning the vote amongst people who have lost chunks of their frontal lobe in boating accidents

ahahahah that Assange announcement

it was literally nothing

Married men broke for Trump 52 - 35, "never married" men favored Hillary 51 to 28.

is this cos Hillary reminds male voters of a nagging wife?

― Neanderthal, Tuesday, October 4, 2016 8:06 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, didn't you hear? Male Clinton supporters are low-T and probably couldn't satisfy a woman and so are naturally unmarried.

never married is for the most part just another way of saying young voters

And once again, in typically misguided fashion, this new stupid 'low-T' slam would probably be more effective against the people spouting it (just a hunch I have that Trump supporters are probably panic-stricken about projecting their masculinity as loudly and proudly as possible) than the people they're trying to insult.

it's science

I just wondered if perhaps Assange is getting hints from the Latin American embassy where he resides that perhaps he shouldn't try to get the xenophobe elected...

"Such a cozy setup you have here, Senor Assange. It certainly would be a shame if you suddenly had to say adios, and leave the warm embrace of Ecuadorian hospitality."

ahahahah that Assange announcement

it was literally nothing

― frogbs, Tuesday, October 4, 2016 9:14 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just looked it up. Apparently he'll be publishing some things this week?

Or not!

he's such a charlatan

ahahahah that Assange announcement

it was literally nothing

― frogbs, Tuesday, October 4, 2016 9:14 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It was a press co turned fundraiser.

he reminds me of anonymous sometimes

bombastic empty threats etc

I do totally believe him that he's going to be publishing something once a week leading up to the election. That nebulous and value-free threshold should be easy to cross.

It's also quite stupid. If he had something so important as to turn the tides of the election he would bring it out on it's own, not as one part of a ten week drip of nonsense.

Have we talked about this? Another wrinkle in the Trump Foundation story: it appears Trump may have had donations issued from the Trump Foundation to conservative groups he was personally courting as far back as 2011.

“It was a quiet donation that came with a simple cover letter,” Smith said. It read: “Great meeting with you and your wife in my office,” dated May 6, 2011. Enclosed was a check for $10,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

That check is one of at least several donations to suggest Trump used his private foundation, funded by outside donors, to launch and fuel his political ambitions. Such contributions, if they were made solely for Trump’s benefit, could violate federal self-dealing laws for private foundations.

From 2011 through 2014, Trump harnessed his eponymous foundation to send at least $286,000 to influential conservative or policy groups, a RealClearPolitics review of the foundation’s tax filings found. In many cases, this flow of money corresponded to prime speaking slots or endorsements that aided Trump as he sought to recast himself as a plausible Republican candidate for president. (...)

Multiple Trump campaign aides did not respond to requests for comment.

Man, maybe it's just hindsight talking, but it's hard for me to imagine feeling comfortable cashing a check from a Trump-fronted charity. Red flags and alarm bells and shit.

TBF, if Trump thinks he is the only one qualified to save the country, then maybe he thought funding his political ambitious via his foundation *was* being charitable.

Serious question, if Trump loses, will he share his secret plan for defeating ISIS with Hillary Clinton for the good of the nation

Alex Jones called Julian Assange a 'Hillary buttplug'. I really shouldn't feel so much schadenfreude, but lol.

xpost Well, it wouldn't be a secret, then, would it? And could he really trust her not to blab its details to ISIS?

xxpost Certainly. I mean, we may not agree with his vision, but he's ultimately running for president because he genuinely cares about the country and wants to see it thrive. He'll no doubt feel chagrined about losing in the immediate aftermath of the election, but I have confidence that he'll put his baser feelings aside and share his ideas with President Clinton for the greater good of the country.

Or, no, sorry, he'll probably just stand outside of the White House gates with both middle fingers extended, shouting "WRONG. WRONG. WRUUUUUUUNG." until he's lost his voice completely.

Maybe Trump will move to Canada!

UKIP will probably need a new leader by then.

hah, the first thing I thought of when I saw that link Doctor Casino just posted was The Family Leader (barf) and sure enough, it's a main point of the article

There is absolutely no reason Trump would give any of these organizations money unless he was courting their support in the presidential race. Am I supposed to think he was traveling around and was so enamored with this group of religious conservative dickheads in northwest Iowa that he decided his foundation should cut them a donation? Pretty sure his lifestyle directly conflicts with about 2/3rds of the shit they say.

I'm suddenly remembering a number of months ago, when I jokingly predicted that Trump's presidential run and the basketing-up of undesirables was just an extended sales pitch for condos in some remote underground bunker city every sensible American would wanna move to in the event of a Clinton presidency, and the degree of cunning and planning and forethought involved in even an idea that dumb now seems so far beyond anything Trump is capable of. But I guess if Trump has demonstrated one consistent facility, it's in convincing others to overestimate him as anything more than a reactive, leathery, sociopathic void with basically no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

His lifestyle directly conflicts with giving people money just because they agree with him.

The illegal donations hardly seem worth it when he could donate the money himself. Given the size of Trump's fortune, the foundation is pocket change. I wonder if he just gets a kick out of skirting laws here and there.

They don't need an underground bunker. A lot of this support is from areas that are already remote, have lost industry, and anyone living there already thinks that they're in the real America. Or they're in suburbs and feel closely allied with rural areas and feel like there's something inherently wrong with urban life.

I can't remember which republican leaders said it, but there was a conversation leaked a few years ago that was basically "fuck em if they can't figure out how to move" about people living in rural areas that have had serious issues with economic blight.