The Next President is...

[FLEA]

5 hours ago, Prozac said:

Wasn’t my first choice by a long shot. BUT he’s currently beating the incumbent from his basement. My (unsolicited and worth every penny you paid for it) opinion is that a LOT will hinge on his choice of running mate who will likely be the Dem nominee in 2024. A potential Biden Admin will face the massive economic downturn wrought by coronavirus and a bad choice could turn into a successful Tucker Carlson campaign next cycle. God help us all. 

I think we all need to remember from the last election that polling is heavily flawed and doesn't reflect the actual outcome of the election. 

[ItnStln]

Vote by mail almost always requires a signature match between the signature on the mailed in ballot with one on file.

When I registered to vote it was done electronically and I never signed anything. So what's there to compare my signature to?

[SurelySerious]

8 hours ago, drewpey said:

Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s an — a very important meaning.

I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times. All of a sudden, I’m president of the United States. You know the story. I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say, ‘This is great. But I didn’t know very many people in Washington. It wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody, and I have great people in the administration.”

You make some mistakes. Like, you know, an idiot like Bolton. All he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people.

And? I don’t care about the things the Dems can’t control, I care about the thing they do, which is their nominee. And they fielded 17 robots with exactly the same view on nearly everything (that are unlikely to appeal to anyone slightly right of center), a socialist hack who scares the moderate Democrats, and a guy who they can’t bring outside. 

[jrizzell]

Vote by mail almost always requires a signature match between the signature on the mailed in ballot with one on file.
Read this about how the process works in Utah, a heavily Republican state that has successfully conducted all-mail elections for several cycles now, following in the footsteps of Washington and Oregon who have done so for decades. 

I like the Utah model; but I think part of the challenge will be that each state has its own process. It’s the same issue we have with in-person voting. Some states are all electronic, some in person with bubble fill in, some states use the paper push out style. We’ve become accustomed to finding out results fairly quickly on election night. I’m not looking forward to the chaos that will ensue when we can’t get results within weeks of the date.

Devils advocate; let’s say we do massive mail-in voting. Do we really think that the Democrats will accept results of a Trump victory...they haven’t accepted 2016

[brickhistory]

Remember all the gnashing of teeth about "diversity" and "change?"

Yet, the final one standing (barely) is a really old white guy who has been in DC for 40 years doing...well, what exactly?

And if one of his selling points is that he'll only do one term, I'm not thinking that's a strong one to make.  And the DC leviathan will literally ignore him and kneel to his VP pick should he win.

[SurelySerious]

11 hours ago, Prozac said:

Wasn’t my first choice by a long shot. BUT he’s currently beating the incumbent from his basement. My (unsolicited and worth every penny you paid for it) opinion is that a LOT will hinge on his choice of running mate who will likely be the Dem nominee in 2024. A potential Biden Admin will face the massive economic downturn wrought by coronavirus and a bad choice could turn into a successful Tucker Carlson campaign next cycle. God help us all. 

The VP candidate choice does have a lot riding on it in many people’s mind. Unfortunately, from my perspective, he’s started his consideration with the 17 assembly line robots that were in the primary. 
 

Hah, I can’t imagine what whackos rise from the woodwork for the next Republican candidate, but I think if I’m the Democrats, Tim Scott is what I’m maneuvering against. 

Edited July 31, 2020 by SurelySerious

[nsplayr]

Only 2 of the people on Biden’s short list of 6-9 ran for President this cycle, and that seems about par for the course for nominees in the past. And as one of the forum’s few resident Democrats I guess I just don’t agree that the primary this year featured 17 robots + 1 socialist but 🤷‍♂️ ok.

I think Kamala Harris will be picked and support that, but a former competitor for the top job actually hasn’t been selected for VP by either party since Edwards in 2004 so we’ll see.

In terms of a post-Trump GOP, who knows, first things first...but I would watch Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley in the top tier and I wouldn’t totally discount Pence either.

A lot depends on what happens in Nov obviously, both the absolute outcome as well as the margin. If Trump wins, then moot. If he loses close I would expect more trumpiness from the next nominee. If he loses big I expect everyone in my top tier above to suddenly forget they ever knew the guy and pivot back to more typical GOP politics going forward.

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, jrizzell said:

I’m not looking forward to the chaos that will ensue when we can’t get results within weeks of the date.

Devils advocate; let’s say we do massive mail-in voting. Do we really think that the Democrats will accept results of a Trump victory...they haven’t accepted 2016

Welcome to 2000! We didn’t know the winner until a SCOTUS ruling in December.

To answer your question, yes.

There’s one very famous person who very consistently sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2016 election before it took place, the legitimacy of the popular vote count after it took place, and the future legitimacy of the 2020 election, to include trial balloons about delaying it. That person is not a Democrat.

Democrats are still mad about the electoral college granting the GOP two presidencies out of the last 5 elections when they didn’t receive the most votes, and many want to get rid of it, but that’s different that saying they, “(sic)...didn’t accept the election results.” Hillary and Pelosi et al were on the dais when Trump took the oath of office.

Edited July 31, 2020 by nsplayr

[jrizzell]

Democrats are still mad about the electoral college granting the GOP two presidencies out of the last 5 elections when they didn’t receive the most votes, and many want to get rid of it, but that’s different that saying they, “(six)...didn’t accept the election results.” Hillary and Pelosi et al were on the dais when Trump took the oath of office.

Democrats are STILL mad that established process we use to elect our President didn’t favor their candidate...makes sense. There is a remedy, amend the Constitution. And if you think that 70 representatives purposely skipping the duly elected individuals inauguration, and then calling him an active Russian agent for three years is “accepting” results; then I would wonder what you think them not accepting results would look like.

[SurelySerious]

34 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

And as one of the forum’s few resident Democrats I guess I just don’t agree that the primary this year featured 17 robots + 1 socialist but 🤷‍♂️ ok.

When I was looking down the list of candidates on the ballot in the spring on issue X their positions were all the same. Then again on issue Y. And Z, and so on. It was disappointing. 

[nsplayr]

59 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

When I was looking down the list of candidates on the ballot in the spring on issue X their positions were all the same. Then again on issue Y. And Z, and so on. It was disappointing. 

What kinds of issues would you like Dem politicians to support?

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, jrizzell said:

...then I would wonder what you think them not accepting results would look like.

Massive and total obstruction of all legislation, mass resignations of officials and coordinated worker strikes, violent street battles, staging a coup, etc. All kinds of stuff like that has take  place in other democracies all around the world. Thankfully that’s not the case here.

Edited July 31, 2020 by nsplayr

[ItnStln]

22 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

Voter fraud is real. I was part of a group that found cases of it for my first job after college, and it sounds like it’s still going on. https://www.foxnews.com/us/4-la-men-admit-to-skid-row-voter-fraud-scheme-da-announces

But Voter ID is a poll tax or some kind of nonsense...

This

[Blue]

2 hours ago, nsplayr said:

What kinds of issues would you like Dem politicians to support?

Timely question for me, as this as recently become a hot topic of discussion on the homefront.

Stumbled upon this in Quora of all places, which I think captures what a lot of folks think.  Not all encompassing by any means, but you get the idea. 

Quote

“How can Trump voters be convinced to not vote for him in 2020?”

Easy—give us someone better to vote for.

Not someone “better” by liberal standards, of course—you thought Hillary was “better” and probably think Warren or Harris would be “better,” but we wouldn’t think so.

• Give us someone better by our own standards.
• Give us someone who will care more about America’s global interests than about the “global community’s” interests.
• Give us someone who will tell the international community what America intends to do, rather than asking, “Mother, may I?”
• Give us someone who will sharply distinguish between legal and illegal immigration, and shut down the latter to the best of his (or her!) ability without prioritizing the hopes and dreams of non-Americans above the laws of America.
• Give us someone who robustly defends all our constitutional rights, including the right to bear arms, the right to freely practice our religious convictions in the public sphere (not merely behind closed doors), and the right to say things that others may find offensive.
• Give us someone who will respect the Separation of Powers in fact not merely in rhetoric.
• Give us someone who believes that the market is a better judge of economics than the government.
• Give us someone who believes that the government’s powers and duties are those defined in the Constitution, not “making society better in any way possible.”
• Give us someone who believes that taxation is a necessary evil which takes our money from us, rather than believing that taxation is a tool of social policy which represents our “fair contribution” to the societal collective.
• Give us someone who will appoint judges who believe that Congress and the amendment process are the ways to change laws that need changing, if the text of the Constitution doesn’t make them invalid—not litigation and judicial fiat.
• Give us someone who has no interest in identity politics, and who sees average Americans as free individuals capable of deciding for themselves what’s best for them—not as unsophisticated rubes who need to be “shown the light” by Washington elites.

Give us all those things, in the package of a man or woman who doesn’t act like an impulsive, foul-mouthed fratboy… and we’d be happy to dump Trump.

But give us more of what you tried to give us two years ago… and we’ll take a boorish ally over a scornful opponent.

Again.

 

[brickhistory]

[Negatory]

56 minutes ago, Blue said:

Give us someone who believes that the market is a better judge of economics than the government.

Was with you til this. The DJIA only reflects a small minority of the economy and doesn’t relate to how the majority of people are actually doing.

[SurelySerious]

2 minutes ago, brawnie said:

Was with you til this. The DJIA only reflects a small minority of the economy and doesn’t relate to how the majority of people are actually doing.

How are they doing?

[Negatory]

7 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

How are they doing?

Highest unemployment rate in recent history and stock prices are hitting records. Not a great indicator.

Edited July 31, 2020 by brawnie

[SurelySerious]

40 minutes ago, brawnie said:

Highest unemployment rate in recent history and stock prices are hitting records. Not a great indicator.

What economic indicator would you use, and how does the DJIA relate to the free market being a more sound judge of economics than the government since the DJIA is only 30 companies and not the entirety of the concept of the free economic market of capitalism?

[nsplayr]

6 hours ago, Blue said:

Timely question for me, as this as recently become a hot topic of discussion on the homefront.

Seems like they’re a fundamental misunderstanding here. All the things you listed sound like fairly standard GOP policies boiled down to their most positive-sounding values statements. Which is fine...if you want better Republicans then vote for them in the primary!

It’s not the job of the Democratic Party to “win over trump voters.” It’s their job to win elections and enact the policies they ran on, based on the values they personally believe in and the party in general supports. That can be accomplished without wining a single solitary person who voted for Trump in 2016, although obviously it’s easier if you peel away some small percentage of the people who did in key states.

I have no expectations that most Republicans would be all that interested in higher taxes on the wealthy, addressing climate change in a robust way, etc. I’m not mad about that necessarily, I just don’t vote for them. So it’s silly to hate on the Dems for listening to the people who vote for them and supporting more liberal policies than you, a conservative, support.

I’m happy to have a detailed discussion about policies that actually poll really well with  a broad swath of the public...it’s a specific interest of mine to get the “low hanging fruit” things enacted rather than see the parties spend political capital on unpopular policies like reparations or building the wall or some of the other silliness that a minority of people agitate about.

A quick list of examples that all poll >60% among US adults is: universal background checks, legalizing marijuana, letting people buy into a Medicare and Medicaid, a $15 minimum wage, and creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are already in the country.

Edited August 1, 2020 by nsplayr

[dream big]

For the love of god, PLEASE keep touting the ‘polls’ that have Biden ‘ahead.’  Please make the same mistake you did in 2016 to include insulting Trump voters; gosh you Dems never learn! 
 

Also please pick Harris as your VP, the hag who slept with the mayor of SFO to get ahead, not women privilege at all.  Now, trump is no saint, but between Biden who can’t put a sentence together and Harris, you no longer get to bash Trump for being ‘unpresidential.’ 
 

 

[Day Man]

58 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

A quick list of examples that all poll >60% among US adults is: universal background checks, legalizing marijuana, letting people buy into a Medicare and Medicaid, a $15 minimum wage, and creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are already in the country.

I'm with you on all of the above except for the bolded...curious of your thoughts/rationale behind it. 

BTW thanks for posting and providing a generally minority (for here) viewpoint.  

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, dream big said:

For the love of god, PLEASE keep touting the ‘polls’ that have Biden ‘ahead.’  Please make the same mistake you did in 2016 to include insulting Trump voters; gosh you Dems never learn! 
 

Also please pick Harris as your VP, the hag who slept with the mayor of SFO to get ahead, not women privilege at all.  Now, trump is no saint, but between Biden who can’t put a sentence together and Harris, you no longer get to bash Trump for being ‘unpresidential.’ 

I mean if the weatherman says there’s a 15-20% chance of rain and it rains, do you never trust the weather again? Some folks were too certain of a Dem victory in 2016, but relatively low probability events do happen sometimes! The national polls were very accurate in 2016 and while some state polls got the absolute outcome wrong, there weren’t egregious misses in terms of what % wrong they were.

I have no problems with Harris and am familiar with her background. GL trying to smear her, she is tough.

WRT to Biden, I’m pretty impressed that y’all are making the same mistake we did last time with Trump. We set the expectations very very low and he didn’t clear them by much but he managed to keep it relatively together on the trail and in the debates, minus the grabbin’ em by the pussy audio.

If y’all keep saying Biden has dementia and then he gets in TV and does fine, it’s gonna backfire. He just gave a speech I saw part of the other day and he did fine.

Edited August 1, 2020 by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, Day Man said:

I'm with you on all of the above except for the bolded...curious of your thoughts/rationale behind it. 

BTW thanks for posting and providing a generally minority (for here) viewpoint.  

I’m sorta ambivalent on $15 min wage. It would obviously help put money in the pockets of working people, which is very good for an economy driven by consumer demand. On the other hand large jumps all at once do cause problems. The Fed min wage, along with many many other government program payment numbers, should be pegged to chained-CPI or similar and then automatically raise or lower with inflation.

If you don’t do that, inaction ends up being an affirmative choice to devalue current programs which is not what congress usually intends. See the pilot bonus and flight pay issues where they were the same from like 1990 - 2017 even though a lot of the value had been lost to inflation. In principle the AF didn’t value pilots any less, but in practice they absolutely did; same goes with all these other programs.

If you had to hold my feet to the fire I’d say I support a higher fed min wage so long as we chain it to CPI from here in out so it doesn’t become an issue again in the future. Seems like the historical high water mark adjusted for inflation would be IVO $12 in today’s dollars so maybe that.

Happy to post in good faith from the Dem POV...echo chambers don’t help any of us and I enjoy most of the perspectives here and in my squadron, which are more conservative and/or libertarian than my civ friends and family.

Edited August 1, 2020 by nsplayr

[Clark Griswold]

9 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

I mean if the weatherman says there’s a 15-20% chance of rain and it rains, do you never trust the weather again? Some folks were too certain of a Dem victory in 2016, but relatively low probability events do happen sometimes! The national polls were very accurate in 2016 and while some state polls got the absolute outcome wrong, there weren’t egregious misses in terms of what % wrong they were.

I have no problems with Harris and am familiar with her background. GL trying to smear her, she is tough.

WRT to Biden, I’m pretty impressed that y’all are making the same mistake we did last time with Trump. We set the expectations very very low and he didn’t clear them by much but he managed to keep it relatively together on the trail and in the debates, minus the grabbin’ em by the pussy audio.

If y’all keep saying Biden has dementia and then he gets in TV and does fine, it’s gonna backfire. He just gave a speech I saw part of the other day and he’s did fine.

I'll take that bet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lr_lhMh9-Q

Trump has "rhetorical flourishes" also granted but Biden does not have stamina, for short periods and not repeatedly, he is coherent but like many older folks I have known he can't keep it up for extended periods of time.  Not a personal slight on him, it happens to all at some point in later years but that is the way I see it.

On the election, Trump and the Republican party, TC summed it up pretty well if you are not a Dem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS-bsetu01w