The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

"For young voters, the foundational issues of our age have been the Iraq invasion, the financial crisis, free trade, mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, police brutality, debt and income inequality, among others.

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...e-right-about-hillary-clinton-20160325?page=2

gangababa said:

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"

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They're not just racist, but misogynistic as well; hillary would fare no better with these ass-hats.

Adobewan said:

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues."

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So vote Republican, or create your own party like the Greens. But don't try and turn MY party into a search for ideological utopia that will never happen because that is NEVER what mainstream Democrats wanted or expected. Most of us know that change comes slowly and wishing for it is not any more likely to work than clapping to bring back Tinkerbell.

I'm not delusional enough to think that Bernie will be able to accomplish everything on his agenda. A few of them would be nice, it's a start. This is a 10 year plan, which is relatively quick.

There are plenty of Democrats that welcome his ideas. Hillary Clinton is a polarizing figure. Why the democratic establishment thought that she would be their main candidate that they would endorse is beyond me.

Plenty of Bernie voters I'm afraid will end up writing his name on the ballot rather than vote for Hillary if she ends up being the democratic presidential candidate. I'm not willing do that.

If bernie wins it's HIS party. Just because the neo-cons took over the republican party doesn't mean that the neo-libs will take over the donkeys. The democrats have a longstanding anti-war mentality, if anything it's mainstream democrats that need to do some soul-searching and find a path back to fairness and peace.

This below is from the Huffington Post and is just part of the article. I don't think it would be Bernie's party. What about a party of the people. I'm sure Hillary has NY bought and paid for. Maybe Obama did a lot of the same things far as money goes. We are in a different era now. The American people don't like that.

It is no wonder that the wealthy owners of the New York Times and Washington Post and other media organs have reacted to Sanders’ insurgency with such fury, emptying their stables of talent each day in an effort to run him down and exterminate him politically. It’s like watching the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, standing in the window of her castle, arms outstretched, sending her flying monkeys hurtling through the sky on a mission to destroy her would-be destroyers.

Just recently, the day after Sanders crushed Clinton in the Wisconsin primary by 13 percentage points — his seventh win out of the last eight caucuses and primaries — the New York Times published a front page article on the results that included only a single, one-sentence reference to Sanders (falsely claiming that the race in Wisconsin had been “close”). That was all. Every other word in the 1500-word news story was about Ted Cruz’s victory over Trump in the state.

In a normal election year, the fact that an avowed “democratic socialist” was routinely winning Democratic contests in states like Washington, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Wisconsin, or that he was raising far more money, from small individual donations, than an establishment candidate drawing on the vast resources and connections of her national party, would have been huge front page news.

cybrguy said:

So vote Republican, or create your own party like the Greens. But don't try and turn MY party into a search for ideological utopia that will never happen because that is NEVER what mainstream Democrats wanted or expected. Most of us know that change comes slowly and wishing for it is not any more likely to work than clapping to bring back Tinkerbell.

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So how do you take ownership of the democratic party?

cybrguy said:

But don't try and turn MY party into a search for ideological utopia

Click to expand...

Sing it with me....to the tune of' I'll Cry if I want to':
It's MY party and I'll TRY if I want to, TRY if I want to....
You could TRY too if you vote for the Jew

I agree that Bernie isn't going to get 100% of what he stands for .... but neither is Hillary. I believe, as is the case in most negotiations, that if you shoot for 100% you stand a good chance of getting 50% in compromise. 50% of Bernie's positions would be equal to well over the 100% Hillary won't get.

It's not just the Utopian vision - I don't agree with some of Hillary's positions. Such as continuing with the ACA and legalizing MJ. IMO...She's not going far enough in terms of legalization and I prefer a single payer healthcare approach.

We must all be old mofos here because we keep repeating ourselves.

I like this pope too

With Catholic votes in play, Sanders plans Vatican visit
WASHINGTON | By James Oliphant and Megan Cassella

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will travel to the Vatican next week, setting up a possible meeting with Pope Francis that could serve to broaden his appeal to Catholic voters ahead of crucial nominating contests in a series of Northeastern states.

Like the Pope, Sanders has made the economic inequality and the plight of the working class a central tenet of his message. His scheduled April 15 visit to Vatican City, where he will give an economic address at a conference, will come just days before Democrats in New York vote in their state primary.

The following week will bring contests in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, all states with large populations of Catholic voters.

In an interview on MSNBC, Sanders, who would be the first Jewish president if elected, described himself as a "big, big fan of the pope," who leads the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. Speaking to reporters in New York later, Sanders said he hoped to meet with Francis.

"The pope's schedule is determined by the Vatican but I would certainly be enthusiastic about that," said Sanders, 74, the Brooklyn-born son of Polish-Jewish immigrants. "... I think there is a possibility but that has not been scheduled.

Sanders' victory earlier this week over Hillary Clinton in the Wisconsin primary marked his sixth win in the past seven contests against the former secretary of state, sparking renewed talk of Clinton's political vulnerability despite her substantial delegate lead.

The announcement came after the Vermont senator this week saying Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, was not qualified to be president.

After heavy criticism from Clinton's campaign and other Democrats, Sanders backed off Friday morning in an interview on NBC's "Today."

Asked if Clinton was qualified for the presidency, Sanders replied, "Of course."

"On her worst day, she would be an infinitely better president than either of the Republican candidates," he said, referring to New York developer Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.


more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0X51Q6?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Bill Clinton isn't doing Hillary any favors. He gets too defensive of her, maybe it's guilt. He was speaking yesterday with the black lives matter people in the audience, they were protesting against Hillary. Bill was pissed off with them. He's apologizing today.

I've seen him do this before. He wants to be back in the White House just as much as Hillary.

Edit
A lot to be said for retirement and enjoying grandchildren.

I remember Jimmy Carter. He didn't get much accomplished but he had a good heart. A lot of what happened during his presidency was timing on his part. Some of it not so much. There were things going on beyond his control too.

Bernie Sanders is a whole different person and now is a different time in history. There are different things that are going on now.

I am beginning to think it is no coincidence that Bernie gets a lot of the under 45 group. People that age are too young to remember Jimmy Carter's presidency.

By the way I think it would be hard to find a single Clinton supporter who would not vote for Bernie if nominated. Bernie's supporters on the other hand...

Gunky said:

I am beginning to think it is no coincidence that Bernie gets a lot of the under 45 group. People that age are too young to remember Jimmy Carter's presidency.

By the way I think it would be hard to find a single Clinton supporter who would not vote for Bernie if nominated. Bernie's supporters on the other hand...

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I fear you may be right....some millennials and of course the independent crowd might just abstain without Bernie to vote for. I think the registered Dems will vote for whoever wins the primary.

@Gunky you don't understand people are tired of the Clintons. I was a big Bill Clinton fan. I loved him even after the Monica Lewinsky problem. I never thought that he should be impeached. He made a stupid mistake.

Folks don't like Hillary Clinton and would rather have another option. The DNC is having a hard time understanding that. Maybe they promised her this after she lost to Barack Obama and bowed out gracefully.

I don't understand why she got the golden ticket to be their pick?
She left being Secretary of State under a cloud.

Edit
Bernie off to see the Pope. Both with the same idea of income and equality.
His ideas can't be too far fetched and rediculous if he got an invite and Hillary didn't .

cybrguy said:

So vote Republican, or create your own party like the Greens. But don't try and turn MY party into a search for ideological utopia that will never happen because that is NEVER what mainstream Democrats wanted or expected. Most of us know that change comes slowly and wishing for it is not any more likely to work than clapping to bring back Tinkerbell.

Click to expand...

Are you saying Republicans weren't responsible for the mistakes Adobewan is discussing? Because there is only one party that has a hope of dropping the people responsible for the Iraq war, and that is the Democrats. The Republicans have defined themselves by the unequivocal support for military action, so there is no option there. The Green party is throwing away your vote. What's wrong with trying to sway your party so that it represents an ideal instead of voting for the same war mongers that decided to Invade Iraq and Libya, and now have their sights on Iran.

@CarolKing - Folks don't like Hillary is a understatement but ..... the disliked seem to be the choice candidates for some reason. I was talking about this just yesterday....Here's the roster:
- Trump - Disliked
- Cruz - Even his dog won't play with him
- Hillary - Nuff said

And yet...they are the front runners

I understand how it got this way but I'm getting tired of the 'best house in a bad neighborhood' approach. Seems to me the likable peeps, except for Bernie, were shown the door early. Perhaps they were too nice.

CarolKing said:

@Gunky you don't understand people are tired of the Clintons. I was a big Bill Clinton fan. I loved him even after the Monica Lewinsky problem. I never thought that he should be impeached. He made a stupid mistake.

Folks don't like Hillary Clinton and would rather have another option. The DNC is having a hard time understanding that. Maybe they promised her this after she lost to Barack Obama and bowed out gracefully.

I don't understand why she got the golden ticket to be their pick?
She left being Secretary of State under a cloud.

Edit
Bernie off to see the Pope. Both with the same idea of income and equality.
His ideas can't be too far fetched and rediculous if he got an invite and Hillary didn't .

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How can you say "Folks don't like Hillary Clinton" when she has received millions more votes in the primaries than Bernie? The fact is so far folks like her better than Bernie. She has received more primary votes than any other candidate, including Trump. Bernie supporters are having a hard time understanding that. As for her being promised anything - conspiracy theory with no basis whatsoever. She lost 8 years ago and could still lose this time.

As far as likeability is concerned, I am starting to find Bernie wearing thin. He calls himself 'We'. In this recent spat over 'unqualified' he was overly hasty about rushing in to hit back before he even understood what Clinton actually said (or possibly he was just being devious and trying to change the subject from his disastrous interview). He came off petulant and petty. If you go back to the New York Daily News link I posted above, on that page you can listen to the audio from the interview. It isn't good. He's almost incapable of getting off the podium pounding stump speech. When he does he sounds unprepared. If you want to break up banks, what are the criteria for breaking them up? What constitutes too big to fail? Size, asset to indebtedness, what? He had no criteria. This was all to be determined. You know, if you are running a campaign for president of the United States around a very few issues like this, you should jolly well have fleshed it out a bit more than a righteous sounding slogan.

Like the repubs, Bernie appeals to resentment, in his case resentment of the rich, the economically powerful. Now I resent the rich with the best of them but somehow I don't see that (class warfare) as a basis for a campaign, as the central framing of the issues. The wealthy and their political abettors deserve plenty of opprobrium but moralizing about capitalism is kinda old. Get on with devising policies (real policies, not angry slogans) to rein them in; demonizing them and appealing to resentment may not be the best way to go.

Don't get me started on that tool of a pope. He canonized Junipero Serra. Who's next, Pol Pot?

"A Few of Your Friends Are Feeling Bernie"


Edit*

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/break-up-the-big-banks

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/u...-knows-something-about-breaking-up-banks.html

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

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-too-big-to-fail_us_569fd359e4b0875553c2a298

With Hillary Clinton's notarity you would think that she would be doing better than she has so far. She is more well known than Bernie Sanders but yet he attracts huge crowds. He has stirred enthusiasm with the younger voters.

Hillary is different in terms of her being a female but she is the same like all the rest of the establishment candidates that have run for president in the past. Folks want someone who isn't part of the regular establishment. People are willing to gamble on a unknown type of candidate.

Edit
Ivanka Trump has scarfs that are made in China that she sells. They were recalled yesterday because of being highly flammable.

Trump complains about everything being made in China. Maybe Ivanka's scarfs need to be made in America not China. I haven't heard very much about this?

CarolKing said:

With Hillary Clinton's notarity you would think that she would be doing better than she has so far. She is more well known than Bernie Sanders but yet he attracts huge crowds. He has stirred enthusiasm with the younger voters.

Hillary is different in terms of her being a female but she is the same like all the rest of the establishment candidates that have run for president in the past. Folks want someone who isn't part of the regular establishment. People are willing to gamble on a unknown type of candidate.

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Trump attracts huge crowds and stirs enthusiasm too.

People want a different outcome, but their prescription - new outsider president - represents a failure to understand why things have been stuck. We were not stuck because we didn't have a charismatic, brilliant, activist, progressive president in office; we did. We have been stuck because the two parties were very nearly evenly matched in congress and the repubs decided that though they weren't strong enough to pass their own agenda, they were plenty strong enough to block the democrats agenda. This time, because all the plausible republican nominees are extremists we have a chance to change the dynamic and put one party in charge of both the executive and legislative branches. That actually is how you change gridlock in the real world. Can you believe it? Trump and Cruz, poison or bullet? The stars have aligned. But just on the verge of triumph, now you want an executive who is an independent? Why oh why? We were just about to have everybody playing for the same team and rowing in the same direction and you want this guy who rows off in his own direction? Ai Chihuahua!

Has Clinton released her health care plan yet? I know she supports Bernie on prescription drug reform (he filed legislation before she supported it),

According to Clinton's December policy brief: "In the coming months, [Clinton] will provide full detail on her plans for delivery system reforms that drive down costs."

It's getting late in the primary season to not have a detailed plan in place.

"Hillary will continue to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) against Republican efforts to repeal it. She'll build on it to expand affordable coverage, slow the growth of overall health care costs (including prescription drugs), and make it possible for providers to deliver the very best care to patients."

How is she going to do this?

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/30/disappearance-hillary-clintons-healthcare-platform

Once you publish a position you have to spend time and effort explaining and defending it and repositioning after a declaration is problematic too. The headaches just multiply with every plan that a candidate commits to, so many candidates are overly vague or just silent on many positions. Same as it always was.

This just happened last night. What is hillary so ashamed of?

Hillary: "I’m the most transparent candidate in US history"


Clinton team blasts reporters with noise machine during Hillary fundraising speech

This is our DEMOCRATIC front runner.

Blasting reporters with noise machines. HOW IS THIS ACCEPTABLE?

Reporters outside a Colorado fundraiser for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were unable to listen in on the Democratic presidential candidate's remarks after staffers blasted a static noise machine in their direction.

Clinton, who was holding a fundraiser Thursday evening in Colorado, was speaking outside at a private residence. Just when she started to speak, according to CBS Denver's Stan Bush, campaign staffers directed a speaker spewing out static noise at reporters hanging out across the street.



https://twitter.com/StanBushTV/status/718237718191480833
https://twitter.com/StanBushTV/status/718241724057915393
https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersFor.../hillary_turned_on_a_static_noise_machine_so/
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016...ise-machine-during-Hillary-fundraising-speech
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/c...ng-hillary-fundraising-speech/article/2587996
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/07/c...ock-reporters-from-hearing-fundraiser-speech/

Gunky said:

The stars have aligned. But just on the verge of triumph, now you want an executive who is an independent? Why oh why? We were just about to have everybody playing for the same team and rowing in the same direction and you want this guy who rows off in his own direction? Ai Chihuahua!

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Why oh Why you ask? Voting and politics 101....I don't agree with some of Hillary's policy positions and Bernie's positions are closer to my own. The likability and trust factors are just added-value.

If you like Hillary's positions better than Bernie's then you should vote for Hillary. I value my vote and won't vote for someone who's policies don't appeal to me. Isn't this the basis/reason for voting?

I'm not sure why supporting/voting for the candidate who represents my druthers is such a tough concept to understand.

Gunky said:

Trump attracts huge crowds and stirs enthusiasm too.

People want a different outcome, but their prescription - new outsider president - represents a failure to understand why things have been stuck. We were not stuck because we didn't have a charismatic, brilliant, activist, progressive president in office; we did.

Click to expand...

This Young Turks video covering the Panama Papers offers some illumination on why the average Joe/Jane might be a tad tired of incremental change.

In 2008, Clinton supporters attacked Obama supporters for being too idealistic. Now they're attacking Sanders supporters for being too idealistic and for not supporting Obama. Clinton supporters try to frame the Sanders supporters as being blind fanboys (the same criticism they had of Obama supporters), when in reality it would appear that the Clinton supporters are the ones who are dead set on Clinton as a candidate, and are blinded by that desire.

It just seems really dishonest to attack Sanders for having a cult of personality, while maintaining support for Obama, who had an extreme cult of personality during the 2008 election.

Like the repubs, Bernie appeals to resentment, in his case resentment of the rich, the economically powerful. Now I resent the rich with the best of them but somehow I don't see that (class warfare) as a basis for a campaign, as the central framing of the issues. The wealthy and their political abettorsdeserve plenty of opprobrium but moralizing about capitalism is kinda old. Get on with devising policies (real policies, not angry slogans) to rein them in; demonizing them and appealing to resentment may notbe the best way to go.

Click to expand...

It's better to resent the ultra wealthy than to resent the other side of the political spectrum. The ultra wealthy make up the top 1/10 of 1%. Republicans represent ~50% of voters. The fact is that Clinton is way more of a party insider than Sanders, and that's why there are lots of independents voting for him. Clinton panders to people who see the Republicans as the biggest thing stopping progress, Sanders panders to people who see big corporations as the biggest thing stopping progress.

If you only see social issues I can see why you would blame the Republicans, but if you are like me, and think America's greatest sins are what we do to other nations, not what we do to our own people, then you probably see big corporations as a bigger threat than the Republican party. Hell the Republican party is dissolving before our eyes, but big corporations are thriving now more than ever.

My take on it is that the ultra wealthy and powerful use a divide and control strategy to maintain their wealth. They use their extreme wealth to influence politics so that the people are divided, and see each other as a bigger threat than the wealthy. I don't think the ultra wealthy are especially evil or bad, but I think that they are self serving, like the rest of us, and use their power to serve themselves within the confines of the law. The ones which break the law are made examples of so that the people think the system has checks (some of the high profile tax evasion or fraud cases for example).