The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

Bernie is fucking up left and right. He read a newspaper article titled "Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president" and conflated that with Clinton's actual remarks. She did not in fact say he was not qualified to be president. But Bernie returned with

“She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote-un-quote, not qualified to be president,” Mr. Sanders said. “Let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton, I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds.”

He added: “I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don’t think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement.”

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Not only did he get the facts wrong, this is a pretty thin skin for somebody who thinks he is gonna go up against the repubs in the fall. He can dish out the 3 Pinocchio suggestions that she is corrupt, but can't take any questioning that goes beyond the generalities of his campaign stump speech. Bernie is now doing many of the desperate things that made me so dislike Clinton in 2008.

Recently I heard Bernie say in a speech that change doesn't come from the top down. And yet that is precisely what he is proposing. We are supposed to elect him because all other politicians are corrupt and somehow from the top he is going to change all those corrupt pols in congress and statehouses. Uh huh. What he means is a two-step fantasy process: first elect him and then be so inspired that we proceed to oust all other politicians. Yeah right.

Bernie started out as a message candidate. He didn't expect to win but he wanted to promote his message about reforming inequality, the role of money in politics, etc. It was a good message and I very much approved of what he was doing. Somehow as his support increased during the campaign, the emphasis shifted from promoting the message to promoting and electing the candidate. The difficulty was the message was well grounded (though not terribly detailed) but the candidate wasn't. Power in the American system of government is a matter of strength in numbers. It requires unity and solidarity. It's a team sport. When you elect a democrat president you are not just getting that candidate; you get the candidate and his democratic party team. But Bernie is not a team player, he is a lone hot-dogger. If you elect him you just get Bernie. So his original message about inequality etc morphed into a very strained case for electing president a person who is a solo act. How that's supposed to work is filed away under the rubric of 'revolution' rather than actually explained.

Ya know what?...it's now business as usual for the democratic primary and those competing to win. Each candidate is now fighting with the usual historical level for this point in the cycle. If history is any barometer it'll escalate.

Yeah...some of it gets on my nerves but the fact remains .... we've seen this movie before. It plays every four years and yet...many of us, me included, still react sometimes as if it's the first time it's played in theaters.

Like previous races/fights the candidates started with feeling each other out and the longer the fight goes on the bloodier it will be.....but.....once the primary is over 'the enemy of my enemy will be my friend'.

In the meantime.....feel free to feel the Bern!

Gunky said:

Bernie is fucking up left and right.

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♫ To the tune of winning the last seven out of eight states, what a fuck-up! This is like when clinton heard that bernie called her a liar when it was greenpeace, not bernie and they weren't lying anyways.

Let the games begin!

With Clinton politicizing the Sandy Hook shooting, I can't support a candidate that does that. It literally makes my stomach turn.

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New York (CNN)Hillary Clinton's campaign is taking new steps to try and disqualify Bernie Sanders in the eyes of Democratic voters, hoping to extinguish the argument that he is an electable alternative for the party's presidential nomination.

As Sanders took a victory lap following a 14-point triumph in Wisconsin, Clinton took fresh aim at the Vermont senator as part of a three-part strategy before the New York primary on April 19: Disqualify him, defeat him, and unify the party later.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-democrats-unity/index.html
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“That is what was thrown at me,” Sanders said. “Now, the other thing is that I believe the Clinton campaign told CNN, and I quote, that their strategy as we go into New York and to Pennsylvania, I guess, is quote, disqualify him, defeat him and unify the party later.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-...anders-clinton-qualified-attack-media-221673?
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Magic9 said:

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Speaks volumes!!!

There is no justification whatsoever for this blatant attempt to score cheap political points by insinuating that Bernie Sanders was callous about the deaths of children. And the fact that this tweet came after weeks of Hillary Clinton’s incessant whining about being bullied only adds to the outrage.

This upsetting tweet is even worse than the political sucker punch Clinton launched during the first Democratic president debate on October 13, when she attacked Bernie Sanders on gun control only moments after he generously chose to not address her e-mail scandal.

Between the October 13 sucker punch and yesterday’s tweet, it should be clear to all voters that the only bully in the race between Sanders and Clinton is Hillary Clinton.

I can tolerate listening to attacks arguing that Bernie Sanders is unrealistic and naive…but I will not tolerate attacks arguing that Bernie Sanders does not care.
If there is any candidate in the 2016 presidential race who cares about the people, it is the U.S. Senator from Vermont.

Hillary looks worse every time she lashes out. Between her and the democratic leadership's conduct in this primary race, the only thing that keeps the democrats from looking worse is the ongoing trainwreck that is the republican party atm. If bernie had better name recognition in the southern/red states, it would be a very different race now. It also seems to me that the only hope the republicans have is trump vs. hillary.


Meanwhile, bernie keeps on truckin' along with his simple message of fairness and peace.

CarolKing said:

There is no justification whatsoever for this blatant attempt to score cheap political points by insinuating that Bernie Sanders was callous about the deaths of children. And the fact that this tweet came after weeks of Hillary Clinton’s incessant whining about being bullied only adds to the outrage.

This upsetting tweet is even worse than the political sucker punch Clinton launched during the first Democratic president debate on October 13, when she attacked Bernie Sanders on gun control only moments after he generously chose to not address her e-mail scandal.

Between the October 13 sucker punch and yesterday’s tweet, it should be clear to all voters that the only bully in the race between Sanders and Clinton is Hillary Clinton.

I can tolerate listening to attacks arguing that Bernie Sanders is unrealistic and naive…but I will not tolerate attacks arguing that Bernie Sanders does not care.
If there is any candidate in the 2016 presidential race who cares about the people, it is the U.S. Senator from Vermont.

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Wait a minute. Bernie just misquoted Clinton and claimed he was quoting her. He claims she is unqualified to be president because, uh, there is a super pac supporting her and she is prohibited by law from coordinating with it... or something. You figure out how that makes sense. But never mind, Bernie is a saint who can do no wrong. Saint Bernie of the Sparrows. And if he has consistently been on the wrong side on gun control, well, Hillary is a bully for pointing that out!

Some saint. He couldn't even resist fibbing about riding on the subway. He hasn't been on it since before the metal tokens disappeared a decade ago!

What Clinton actually said regarding the Sanders interview with the New York Daily News
was "he hadn't done his homework" on issues like breaking up the banks. And for a candidate whose whole candidacy is built around a small number of issues, the interview revealed a surprising lack of depth on those issues. Yes Bernie has been consistent about a number of issues. On the other hand he has not kept himself well informed on those issues. On the bank breakup, he clearly had not thought much about the actual mechanisms to be used. This is not my interpretation - read the interview. He was like a deer in the headlights. He is not terribly well informed about how Dodd-Frank works, Glass-Steagal and a lot of the details of the economics he glides over with such facility in his speeches. He reminds me of Rubio. Good with memorized licks but stumbles all over the place whenever the question departs from the talking points.

mr-sanderss-shocking-ignorance-on-his-core-issue

Bernie's escalation was not because Clinton said he is unqualified - she didn't. Bernie escalated his attacks on Clinton because that interview was devastating and he badly needed to change the subject.

Both voters in each party are looking for change. They are tired of the status quote. Things looks like they are shaking up whether we like it or not. I think it's about time.

We will see how things will shake out come this summer. No matter who ends up as prez people are tired of the same old bullshit.

CarolKing said:

Both voters in each party are looking for change. They are tired of the status quote. Things looks like they are shaking up whether we like it or not. I think it's about time.

We will see how things will shake out come this summer. No matter who ends up as prez people are tired of the same old bullshit.

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The same old bullshit is having Congress balanced close to 50-50 and repubs obstructing anything but a super-majority. We are now at a moment of historic weakness among the repubs, who are almost certain to nominate someone who will loosen their hold on both houses of Congress. This is the moment where an empowered democratic party can pass legislation on climate change, on voting rights, on reducing college tuition, so many things. Go democratic team, right? Nope, now you want the moralizing, absolutist independent! Because he is going to unite and lead the dems in congress, right? And they are all endorsing him, right? Holy shit.

Sanders supporters aren't all Democrats a lot are Independants so he attracts a wider range of voters. He also will attract some Republicans, those that don't know where else to go. Republicans have such a lousy choice I can see them drifting towards Sanders but not Clinton.

CarolKing said:

Sanders supporters aren't all Democrats a lot are Independants so he attracts a wider range of voters. He also will attract some Republicans, those that don't know where else to go. Republicans have such a lousy choice I can see them drifting towards Sanders but not Clinton.

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You are talking about the presidential vote. I am talking about what happens after the vote. The person is in office. Are we going to have a dynamic democratic party pumping out the infrastructure improvements, fixing the ACA, etc? Who is equipped to make that happen: the person getting the endorsement of damn near all the dems, or the independent who says they are all corrupt? Do you want FDR or Jimmy Carter?

Obama had the endorsement of all the dems, and it led to unprecedented gridlock. Just sayin'.

GE has been in business for 124 years, and we’ve never been a big hit with socialists,” Immelt wrote snarkily. “We create wealth and jobs, instead of just calling for them in speeches.” He also wrote, “We pay billions in taxes, including federal, state and local taxes.”

Immelt’s op-ed was shared on social media by Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and a leading critic of Sanders’ economic proposals, and other supporters of Clinton.

Sanders had argued that GE has shut down “many major plants in this country” and has been guilty of “sending jobs to low-wage countries.” He added that GE is “doing a very good job avoiding the taxes.”

Indeed, GE has been doing a very good job “avoiding the taxes.” How good? In 2014, GE earned $5.8 billion in profit in the United States. The top statutory corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 35 percent. The actual rate GE paid on its 2014 profits? 0.9 percent, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

Over the long term, it gets even better for GE – and worse for the rest of us. From 2010 to 2014, GE earned $33.5 billion in profits and paid taxes at a rate of negative 4.3 percent. It didn’t simply pay no federal taxes; it got $1.4 billion out of the federal treasury.

It is the kind of tax gamesmanship that has proven to be a key factor in maintaining GE’s healthy stock price. That became clear, Institute for Policy Studies senior fellow Chuck Collins recently wrote, when in 2011 the group US Uncut helped pull off an April Fool’s Day prank that led to the Associated Press reporting that GE was swearing off hiding its profits in offshore tax havens to avoid taxes. In the hour between the release of that story and the discovery that it was a hoax, GE lost $3.5 billion in market capitalization.

The drama that GE has been in the center of regarding the relocation of its corporate headquarters is typical of the lengths GE will go to avoid paying taxes, but grab for the government benefits those taxes would pay for. The company announced in January that it was moving its longtime Connecticut headquarters to Massachusetts after Connecticut acted to close a loophole that allowed GE and other multistate companies to hide profits from one state in affiliates in other states. The state had also cut $350 million from its budget, with the programs being cut including early childhood programs, environmental conservation and medical services in prisons and jails, according to a news report, and had retreated from an earlier business tax increase. Nevertheless, it moved to Massachusetts, taking for itself a package of state and local tax giveaways totaling at least $150 million.

The Bern has been using kid gloves to answer Clinton....

The guys on the other side of the isle are starting to roll out the hit parade.
The rhetoric will only become shriller on the way to Nov.

Msek said:

The Bern has been using kid gloves to answer Clinton....

The guys on the other side of the isle are starting to roll out the hit parade.
The rhetoric will only become shriller on the way to Nov.

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Truth is we have little to fear from the repubs. The democratic candidate will be running against Trump - massive rout where the dems gain control of both houses - or Cruz - ditto, or who else? Ryan, Kasich? Eh.

Now give them a socialist to run against and Cruz's chances start to go up. Maybe even Trump. Sanders has never taken any hits in a national setting. So far he competed against Vermont dems and repubs and Hillary, who treated him with kid gloves.

I'm glad your excited Gunky, enjoy the process, Nov will come too soon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-daily-news_us_5704779ce4b0a506064d8df5

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/sanders-ending-tbtf/

it can't come soon enough

I think after New York the democratic race will quiet down. The repub side entertainment will continue till the convention picks which clown!

This is a very good read that goes in depth of campaign finance.


The high court's decision was prompted by a dispute over an anti-Clinton movie that conservative activist organization Citizens United wanted to broadcast during the final weeks of an election.
"Wouldn't you know that Hillary Clinton has become one of the greatest beneficiaries of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision," Citizens United President David Bossie said. "It is an irony that is not lost on me."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-citizens-united-helping-clinton-win-white-house-n551226


Full version (more detailed)
https://www.publicintegrity.org/201...nited-helping-hillary-clinton-win-white-house


Companion piece of some of the groups providing funding.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/07/19528/inside-hillary-clintons-big-money-cavalry

grokit said:

Obama had the endorsement of all the dems, and it led to unprecedented gridlock. Just sayin'.

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Unprecedented gridlock" 99% started by the Republican party legislators and philosophers who met on inauguration day 2009 and entered into a (very successful) cabal to obstruct Obama for their power, against the greater needs of America

Two years later the wave of Republican created Teahadists swept into power to blow up America's treasures

Everyone needs to see clearly that the Republican mindset is REGRESSIVE

It is great to be able to vote for your positively inspiring candidate
You MUST vote against the greater evil, or evil will spiral upward in power

America is F.U-ed up because Republican ideas have been in power for 30 years
Where Reagan's piss-on-you policies have been tried in real world experiments in the states, the philosophy has failed
See Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, N.C. etc
Some economic failures, others moral

It took the black President to cause the party of 'the southern strategy', to change their minds about long held political beliefs

When Bill Clinton said lets pass some Republican ideas, they said "Good!"
When Barack Obama said let's pass some Republican ideas, they said "That's not our idea"

gangababa said:

...It is great to be able to vote for your positively inspiring candidate
You MUST vote against the greater evil, or evil will spiral upward in power...

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If they truly feel strongly about this, then maybe Hillary supporters should start considering supporting Bernie.
If all do, then the matter of his unelectability is off the table.

I think many, if not most on this forum(or any open minded, intelligent observer) would agree the Republicans are regressive, but it's difficult to continually be told we must vote against the Republicans at all cost, but to vote for their Democrat who happens to act most like the Republicans.

As I said many pages back on this thread, I don't understand the deep seated Hillary love. I can understand some admiration for her, but the die-hard commitment baffles me.

We agree, the Repubs need to be voted against, so come and join us on the peaceful road to that goal.

Adobewan said:

If they truly feel strongly about this, then maybe Hillary supporters should start considering supporting Bernie.

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How bout because we aren't interested in the "revolution" Bernie is trying to sell us? We are looking for incremental change which is the stuff that is, you know, possible, not a utopian fantasy with a lot of promises that will never come to pass.

The monsters that must be slayed are on the Republican side. But those who want Hillary want her because she is a realist and not promoting smoke and mirrors.