The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread
- Thread starter CarolKing
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
The “Objective” Media’s Disrespect for Political Parties and Hatred of Partisanship Created The Trump Effect
Trump voters are frustrated. That’s plain as day. Marc Fisher at the Washington Post has a good writeup with quotes from Trump voters, and they show a profound frustration with the lethargy of the political system. Some of Trump’s voters are conservatives who are upset that the GOP establishment hasn’t delivered on its promises to end Obamacare, throw out all the immigrants, etc. Some of them are low-information voters upset over stagnant wages and economic immobility who have bought into some of the misleading conservative rhetoric on those subjects.
But all of them share a belief that an outsider like Trump could singlehandedly fix whatever it is they’re most concerned about and “make America great again.”
It’s easy to make fun of these people. But it’s also hard to blame them. It’s not just the Fox News effect. The traditional media shares a huge amount of the blame.
As Martin Longman correctly notes, the principal reason for the lethargy of the government and its inability to solve basic problems lies in the way Congress operates and the way the Constitution is set up. There was a period from the 1920s to the 1980s in which, by historical accident, racist and populist Southern Democrats could make common cause with socially liberal Northern Republicans to craft consensus public policy. That uncomfortable and unjust alliance is thankfully broken now, but left in its place is a country starkly divided on policy and cultural lines. Republicans and Democrats have very different, diametrically opposed visions of what is wrong with the country, and their policy solutions usually move in directly opposite directions.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), America’s system of checks and balances prevents either side from making much progress even after it wins elections. Unless one party has the White House, over sixty Senators, a sizable majority in the House and a working majority on the Supreme Court, truly transformative change is simply not going to happen. Since people are getting frustrated and want transformative change, they’ll seek out increasingly unusual solutions and candidates.
It should be the job of a functioning press to elucidate this for voters. The press should clearly explain that Democrats want to do X, Republicans want to do The-Opposite-Of-X, and that in almost all cases compromise is impossible because it would be schizophrenic to try to do both. If one person wants to break a fever by sweating it out and the other person wants to cool it with a cold bath, you can’t “compromise” by putting them in lukewarm water. That would be stupid. And yet, that’s all too often what mainstream pundits and journalists ask for: cooperation, compromise and an end to “bickering”, as if the disagreements involved were mere childish spats for power rather than deep and abiding disagreements about moral imperatives and the nature of economic and social realities.
Mainstream pundits feed into public malaise by pretending that government fails to deliver on its promises because politicians refuse to be adults and make “moderate” policy (as if there were any such thing), rather than because political parties and their adherents have very different ideas about what the country should do. And in almost all cases, the press adamantly refuses to pick sides in terms of who is actually right about the policy disagreement, because that might constitute a shocking lack of objectivity. But the alternative is worse: a press that not only refuses to elucidate the basic facts that allow voters to understand whose fixes are right and whose are wrong, but fails to even inform voters about why things are broken in the first place.
Which in turn leads a huge number of voters, understandably, to reach out in frustration to someone—anyone!—different. It could be the brash and abrasive real estate magnate, or the weird soft-spoken brain surgeon, or even the angry Jewish socialist. Someone who will break through the clutter and just make things happen.
That’s totally understandable. And the press deserves the lion’s share of the blame for failing to educate voters about why it’s so hard to make things happen in America. If they did, maybe we might be able to get the structural changes to government we need, rather than pretend that we just need to elect the right person to fix everything.
Trump voters are frustrated. That’s plain as day. Marc Fisher at the Washington Post has a good writeup with quotes from Trump voters, and they show a profound frustration with the lethargy of the political system. Some of Trump’s voters are conservatives who are upset that the GOP establishment hasn’t delivered on its promises to end Obamacare, throw out all the immigrants, etc. Some of them are low-information voters upset over stagnant wages and economic immobility who have bought into some of the misleading conservative rhetoric on those subjects.
But all of them share a belief that an outsider like Trump could singlehandedly fix whatever it is they’re most concerned about and “make America great again.”
It’s easy to make fun of these people. But it’s also hard to blame them. It’s not just the Fox News effect. The traditional media shares a huge amount of the blame.
As Martin Longman correctly notes, the principal reason for the lethargy of the government and its inability to solve basic problems lies in the way Congress operates and the way the Constitution is set up. There was a period from the 1920s to the 1980s in which, by historical accident, racist and populist Southern Democrats could make common cause with socially liberal Northern Republicans to craft consensus public policy. That uncomfortable and unjust alliance is thankfully broken now, but left in its place is a country starkly divided on policy and cultural lines. Republicans and Democrats have very different, diametrically opposed visions of what is wrong with the country, and their policy solutions usually move in directly opposite directions.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), America’s system of checks and balances prevents either side from making much progress even after it wins elections. Unless one party has the White House, over sixty Senators, a sizable majority in the House and a working majority on the Supreme Court, truly transformative change is simply not going to happen. Since people are getting frustrated and want transformative change, they’ll seek out increasingly unusual solutions and candidates.
It should be the job of a functioning press to elucidate this for voters. The press should clearly explain that Democrats want to do X, Republicans want to do The-Opposite-Of-X, and that in almost all cases compromise is impossible because it would be schizophrenic to try to do both. If one person wants to break a fever by sweating it out and the other person wants to cool it with a cold bath, you can’t “compromise” by putting them in lukewarm water. That would be stupid. And yet, that’s all too often what mainstream pundits and journalists ask for: cooperation, compromise and an end to “bickering”, as if the disagreements involved were mere childish spats for power rather than deep and abiding disagreements about moral imperatives and the nature of economic and social realities.
Mainstream pundits feed into public malaise by pretending that government fails to deliver on its promises because politicians refuse to be adults and make “moderate” policy (as if there were any such thing), rather than because political parties and their adherents have very different ideas about what the country should do. And in almost all cases, the press adamantly refuses to pick sides in terms of who is actually right about the policy disagreement, because that might constitute a shocking lack of objectivity. But the alternative is worse: a press that not only refuses to elucidate the basic facts that allow voters to understand whose fixes are right and whose are wrong, but fails to even inform voters about why things are broken in the first place.
Which in turn leads a huge number of voters, understandably, to reach out in frustration to someone—anyone!—different. It could be the brash and abrasive real estate magnate, or the weird soft-spoken brain surgeon, or even the angry Jewish socialist. Someone who will break through the clutter and just make things happen.
That’s totally understandable. And the press deserves the lion’s share of the blame for failing to educate voters about why it’s so hard to make things happen in America. If they did, maybe we might be able to get the structural changes to government we need, rather than pretend that we just need to elect the right person to fix everything.
Chill Dude
Well-Known Member
Yeah, you're right, but Clinton is more of a politician and will take the middle ground on cannabis in her campaign. Now, if she wins the election I'm sure she'd be open to talking cannabis off the schedule 1 list. There's really no reason to continue the schedule 1 classification since science and common sense dictate that it should be declassified. That said, kudos to Sanders for speaking out on this issue. What I like about Sanders is he sticks to his positions whether or not it's in his best interest politically. Not true with most politicians..
She takes too much money from big pharma in one hand, while pointing at them and calling them the "enemy" with the other hand IMO..
I don't think big pharma want's MJ off the schedule 1 list. I do realize taking money does not always mean you are bought, but when it looks like a duck.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/257234-clinton-brings-in-most-big-pharma-money-of-2016-field
Hillary Takes Millions in Campaign Cash From ‘Enemies’
Clinton named the drug and insurance industries among her “enemies,” but has accepted millions in donations from them.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/14/hillary-takes-millions-in-campaign-cash-from-enemies
I will still vote for the nominee.
I don't think big pharma want's MJ off the schedule 1 list. I do realize taking money does not always mean you are bought, but when it looks like a duck.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/257234-clinton-brings-in-most-big-pharma-money-of-2016-field
Hillary Takes Millions in Campaign Cash From ‘Enemies’
Clinton named the drug and insurance industries among her “enemies,” but has accepted millions in donations from them.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/14/hillary-takes-millions-in-campaign-cash-from-enemies
I will still vote for the nominee.
grokit
well-worn member
Isn't rand paul also in favor of federal "deschedulization"?
Or do you just mean candidates with a chance of winning
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
I'm quite sure Hillary understands how critical MJ use (especially medical) and mor importantly the MJ business are to her base, and while she cozies up to the pharma industry to help get campaign cash I doubt there will be a visible quid pro quo.
Her posturing at least is far from Pharma friendly...
http://www.policymed.com/2015/09/hillary-clinton-unveils-new-plan-for-lowering-drug-cost.html
If you listened to what she said in the debate it was all positive after the first word. Take that "No" out of her response and it was nearly impossible to separate it from Bernie's.
There are virtually Zero legitimate arguments to keep MJ in schedule 1. As long as she doesn't have to campaign on it, it will more than likely be overturned in her first term. Maybe her first year.
Her posturing at least is far from Pharma friendly...
http://www.policymed.com/2015/09/hillary-clinton-unveils-new-plan-for-lowering-drug-cost.html
If you listened to what she said in the debate it was all positive after the first word. Take that "No" out of her response and it was nearly impossible to separate it from Bernie's.
There are virtually Zero legitimate arguments to keep MJ in schedule 1. As long as she doesn't have to campaign on it, it will more than likely be overturned in her first term. Maybe her first year.
Bernie Gets It Done: Sanders' Record of Pushing Through Major Reforms Will Surprise You
What kind of experience does Bernie Sanders have? Let's take a look.
By Zaid Jilani / AlterNet
October 17, 2015
“I'm a progressive, but I'm a progressive who likes to get things done,” Hillary Clinton said at the first Democratic debate, in response to a question from moderator Anderson Cooper about whether she defines herself as a moderate or a progressive.
The implication was that progressive Bernie Sanders is too far to the left to accomplish anything—all of his ideas are pie-in-the-sky. You have to be able to find the bipartisan, “warm, purple space” as Clinton said earlier this year, to get anything done. Slate's Jamelle Bouie was super-impressed by this rationale, saying Clinton has “skilled use of bureaucratic power.”
The problem with this narrative is that it is completely false. Not only has Sanders gotten a lot more things done than Clinton did in her own short legislative career, he's actually one of the most effective members of Congress, passing bills, both big and small, that have reshaped American policy on key issues like poverty, the environment and health care.
The Amendment King
Congress is not known to be a progressive institution lately, to say the least. Over the past few decades, the House of Representatives was only controlled by the Democrats from 2007 to 2010, and a flood of corporate money has quieted the once-powerful progressive movement that passed legislation moving the country forward between the New Deal era and the Great Society. Yet, as difficult as it may be to believe, a socialist from Vermont is one of its most accomplished members.
Bernie Sanders was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1990, and many immediately doubted his efficacy. “It is virtually impossible for an independent to be effective in the House,” said then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM). “As an independent you are kind of a homeless waif.” Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), today an outspoken advocate for Hillary Clinton, said Bernie's “holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”
As if things didn't look bad enough, in 1994 the Republicans swept into power in the House of Representatives, dashing the hopes of many that Congress could do anything progressive whatsoever. But Sanders was not content with tilting at windmills. He didn't want to just take a stand, he wanted to pass legislation that improved the United States of America. He found his vehicle in legislative amendments.
Amendments in the House of Representatives are often seen as secondary vehicles to legislation that individual members sponsor, but they are an important way to move resources and build bipartisan coalitions to change the direction of the law. Despite the fact that the most right-wing Republicans in a generation controlled the House of Representatives between 1994 and 2006, the member who passed the most amendments during that time was not a right-winger like Bob Barr or John Boehner. The amendment king was, instead, Bernie Sanders.
Sanders did something particularly original, which was that he passed amendments that were exclusively progressive, advancing goals such as reducing poverty and helping the environment, and he was able to get bipartisan coalitions of Republicans who wanted to shrink government or hold it accountable and progressives who wanted to use it to empower Americans.
Here are a few examples of the amendments Sanders passed by building unusual but effective coalitions:
I thought this was an interesting article.
I'm holding out hope that Bernie can win the primary election. His campaign seems pretty strong considering how little funding he has received compared to Hillary. He has a large and growing fan base (admittedly, myself included). There's polls showing that a majority of Americans are distrustful of Hillary.
What kind of experience does Bernie Sanders have? Let's take a look.
By Zaid Jilani / AlterNet
October 17, 2015
“I'm a progressive, but I'm a progressive who likes to get things done,” Hillary Clinton said at the first Democratic debate, in response to a question from moderator Anderson Cooper about whether she defines herself as a moderate or a progressive.
The implication was that progressive Bernie Sanders is too far to the left to accomplish anything—all of his ideas are pie-in-the-sky. You have to be able to find the bipartisan, “warm, purple space” as Clinton said earlier this year, to get anything done. Slate's Jamelle Bouie was super-impressed by this rationale, saying Clinton has “skilled use of bureaucratic power.”
The problem with this narrative is that it is completely false. Not only has Sanders gotten a lot more things done than Clinton did in her own short legislative career, he's actually one of the most effective members of Congress, passing bills, both big and small, that have reshaped American policy on key issues like poverty, the environment and health care.
The Amendment King
Congress is not known to be a progressive institution lately, to say the least. Over the past few decades, the House of Representatives was only controlled by the Democrats from 2007 to 2010, and a flood of corporate money has quieted the once-powerful progressive movement that passed legislation moving the country forward between the New Deal era and the Great Society. Yet, as difficult as it may be to believe, a socialist from Vermont is one of its most accomplished members.
Bernie Sanders was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1990, and many immediately doubted his efficacy. “It is virtually impossible for an independent to be effective in the House,” said then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM). “As an independent you are kind of a homeless waif.” Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), today an outspoken advocate for Hillary Clinton, said Bernie's “holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”
As if things didn't look bad enough, in 1994 the Republicans swept into power in the House of Representatives, dashing the hopes of many that Congress could do anything progressive whatsoever. But Sanders was not content with tilting at windmills. He didn't want to just take a stand, he wanted to pass legislation that improved the United States of America. He found his vehicle in legislative amendments.
Amendments in the House of Representatives are often seen as secondary vehicles to legislation that individual members sponsor, but they are an important way to move resources and build bipartisan coalitions to change the direction of the law. Despite the fact that the most right-wing Republicans in a generation controlled the House of Representatives between 1994 and 2006, the member who passed the most amendments during that time was not a right-winger like Bob Barr or John Boehner. The amendment king was, instead, Bernie Sanders.
Sanders did something particularly original, which was that he passed amendments that were exclusively progressive, advancing goals such as reducing poverty and helping the environment, and he was able to get bipartisan coalitions of Republicans who wanted to shrink government or hold it accountable and progressives who wanted to use it to empower Americans.
Here are a few examples of the amendments Sanders passed by building unusual but effective coalitions:
- Corporate Crime Accountability (February 1995): A Sanders amendment to the Victims Justice Act of 1995 required “offenders who are convicted of fraud and other white-collar crimes to give notice to victims and other persons in cases where there are multiple victims eligible to receive restitution.”
- Saving Money, for Colleges and Taxpayers (April 1998): In an amendment to H.R. 6, the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, Sanders made a change to the law that allowed the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to make competitive grants available to colleges and universities that cooperated to reduce costs through joint purchases of goods and services.
- Holding IRS Accountable, Protecting Pensions (July 2002):
I thought this was an interesting article.
I'm holding out hope that Bernie can win the primary election. His campaign seems pretty strong considering how little funding he has received compared to Hillary. He has a large and growing fan base (admittedly, myself included). There's polls showing that a majority of Americans are distrustful of Hillary.
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Gunky
Well-Known Member
I like Bernie's views and in many ways his positions are closer to my own than Hillary. On the other hand I watched hours of that Benghazi testimony and was powerfully impressed with Hillary Clinton. She is competent, articulate, diligent, well-informed, highly experienced, brilliant really. She ran circles around those repub committee members. She would make a very good president.
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
I have no serious problems with Bernie, certainly not anything I couldn't live with. But I don't believe he can be elected to national office. And if you run him for President and he DOES lose, we have a Republican in the White House, and I'm not sure we survive that as a nation right now with this Republican party at this time in history.
And lets not forget what happens to America for the next 30 years or so when 2 (at least in the coming 8 years) more conservative Supreme Court Justices are added to the court.
I'm afraid selecting Bernie right now would be a huge and dangerous mistake that the whole world would end up paying for. Not because of who he is, but because his chances of winning are just not good enough. And the consequences could be devastating.
And lets not forget what happens to America for the next 30 years or so when 2 (at least in the coming 8 years) more conservative Supreme Court Justices are added to the court.
I'm afraid selecting Bernie right now would be a huge and dangerous mistake that the whole world would end up paying for. Not because of who he is, but because his chances of winning are just not good enough. And the consequences could be devastating.
lwien
Well-Known Member
There's all this talk about ISIS wanting to bring the world back to 800AD.
In the whole scheme of things, it seems like the Republicans would like to bring the US back to pre-civil war days, eh?
I was watching Fareed's Zacharia GPS show yesterday on CNN and he made a statement that ALL of the Republican candidates, with possibly the exception of one, do not believe in evolution, but if they do, they say that they don't to appeal to their constituents. Either way, it's like......WTF ???
Might as well say that you believe that the Sun rotates around the Earth.And Ben Carson says he doesn't believe in evolution either and his a fraking doctor who practices medicine which is based on biology which is based on evolution. Just boggles the mind.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Sadly, if your criteria for choosing a candidate to vote for included a requirement for them to tell the whole truth all the time there would literally be no American candidate (that I know of at least) to vote for. No one, including Bernie and even Lawrence Lessig tells the whole truth all the time. At best you would have to allow "truthiness"...
If only people who out and out bald face lie to their constituents during their candidacy (IE. Scott Walker "I have no interest in going after the unions") were never reelected it might give folks some faith in the process, but that just isn't reality.
If only people who out and out bald face lie to their constituents during their candidacy (IE. Scott Walker "I have no interest in going after the unions") were never reelected it might give folks some faith in the process, but that just isn't reality.
grokit
well-worn member
Otoh; with such a weak republican field and a divided constituency that's so sick of its "leaders" that it's ready to nominate a carson or a trump because it hates the idea of another bush or even a cruz that maybe now is the time to run a real statesman--one that has no patience for the bs that has become american politics. Because I think there are still some reasonable conservatives out there that would actually vote for sanders over trump, or a rubio/bush/cruz etc. that favors more bail-outs and trickle-down tea party bs.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
If these were "normal" times, and the whole repub party had not fallen completely off the right edge of the political world I would be more willing to risk the future on a harder to elect "principled" candidate. But the potential downside of THIS republican party is SO EXTREME that I am just unwilling to take the chance at this time. Talk to me in 4 years. If Hillary doesn't produce than we can talk. In the mean time, The concept of "President Ted Cruz" is SO frightening to me that I would do nearly anything to prevent it.
Gunky
Well-Known Member
Not just Cruz! They're all bozos.
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
I agree. But I think he is the one who wins after Trump, Carson and Fiorina drop away and folks get a good look at Rubio. All the noise is keeping people from seeing him, and his competitors haven't yet reminded the voters that he helped create the Immigration Reform bill that we Dems like.
His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
What about Pataki or Graham? Neither were on my radar till the last debate. I thought Graham showed some real promise and Pataki also.
I can't shake the gut feeling that the front runner republicans are really just caricatures of themselves and who they represent. While many of them worry me if they were to take office....the one that really makes me nervous is Carson. When I look into his eyes I just see crazy......
I can't shake the gut feeling that the front runner republicans are really just caricatures of themselves and who they represent. While many of them worry me if they were to take office....the one that really makes me nervous is Carson. When I look into his eyes I just see crazy......
Gunky
Well-Known Member
I am beginning to wonder if the nominee won't be Trump after all. He is still just as bad as ever but none of the others beside Carson have any real popular support. Carson I think can be dismissed out of hand - too nutty. Yes there are tales that Cruz plans to swoop in when Trump and Carson fail and grab their supporters, but have Republican voters really taken a close look at Cruz yet? He is very unlikable. He has an odd, whiny, fey sort of voice. Not even repubs want to see his face on their TV screen often for several years. He is an habitual liar. Ever since Palin that is no longer regarded as a problem for repubs, but still... He is disliked by his colleagues in the Senate and all but a few bomb-throwers in the House, in other words most republicans in Congress think he is a jerk and a demagogue. How such a person gets the nomination will be a quite a trick.
For some reason I no longer feel any concern about Rubio. He's young, green, all bluster and pompous platitudes; slick but about an inch deep. Clinton would make such mincemeat of him in a debate.
For some reason I no longer feel any concern about Rubio. He's young, green, all bluster and pompous platitudes; slick but about an inch deep. Clinton would make such mincemeat of him in a debate.
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lwien
Well-Known Member
The only thing that is regarded as a problem for Republicans is sanity.
CarolKing
Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
After Sarah Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate and George W. Bush as a 2 term president anything is possible. That's why the sain people need to make sure that they vote.
If the candidates running for the Republican presidential ticket can't handle questions from a moderator how will they answer questions from the American people? Do they want their questions cherry picked by themselves? Ive never heard such a bunch of whiners. They are even making a big deal of the heat, nobody wants to look like they're perspiring?
The Rupublican Party needs to take a good look at themselves and make some positive changes to be more intuned with the majority of the American people. Even more tuned in with their own party. What a bunch of wing nuts that are running for president and Ted Cruz is the nuttiest.
If the candidates running for the Republican presidential ticket can't handle questions from a moderator how will they answer questions from the American people? Do they want their questions cherry picked by themselves? Ive never heard such a bunch of whiners. They are even making a big deal of the heat, nobody wants to look like they're perspiring?
The Rupublican Party needs to take a good look at themselves and make some positive changes to be more intuned with the majority of the American people. Even more tuned in with their own party. What a bunch of wing nuts that are running for president and Ted Cruz is the nuttiest.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Lessig drops out of presidential race
By Daniel Strauss
11/02/15 12:59 PM EST
Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig abandoned his Democratic presidential run on Monday, capping a candidacy that failed to get any real traction at all.
Lessig, an outspoken academic who had been a vocal proponent of campaign finance reform, said he was dropping his bid for the White House in a YouTube video.
The Harvard academic didn't raise a notable amount of money and failed even to get into the Democratic presidential debates. He acknowledged as much in his announcement.
"Now from the start it was clear that getting into the Democratic debates was THE essential step in this campaign," Lessig said. "I may be known in tiny corners of the tubes of the internets, but I am not well-known to the American public generally."
In order to raise the discussion of campaign finance reform in the 2016 election, getting into those debates was key, Lessig acknowledged.
"But last week, we learned that the Democratic party has changed its rules for inclusion in the debate," Lessig said. "But unless we can time travel, there is no way that I can qualify."
Watch Lessig's video here.
By Daniel Strauss
11/02/15 12:59 PM EST
Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig abandoned his Democratic presidential run on Monday, capping a candidacy that failed to get any real traction at all.
Lessig, an outspoken academic who had been a vocal proponent of campaign finance reform, said he was dropping his bid for the White House in a YouTube video.
The Harvard academic didn't raise a notable amount of money and failed even to get into the Democratic presidential debates. He acknowledged as much in his announcement.
"Now from the start it was clear that getting into the Democratic debates was THE essential step in this campaign," Lessig said. "I may be known in tiny corners of the tubes of the internets, but I am not well-known to the American public generally."
In order to raise the discussion of campaign finance reform in the 2016 election, getting into those debates was key, Lessig acknowledged.
"But last week, we learned that the Democratic party has changed its rules for inclusion in the debate," Lessig said. "But unless we can time travel, there is no way that I can qualify."
Watch Lessig's video here.
grokit
well-worn member
...Got screwed by the dnc
Gunky
Well-Known Member
The campaign finance situation brought about by the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision started an avalanche of abuse. Jeb Bush has turned gaming Citizen's United into an art form. First he put off declaring his candidacy for months while he campaigned and directly raised hundreds of millions for his super pac.
Then he declared his candidacy and on paper anyway, had to cut off contact and could no longer communicate/coordinate with the pac. No problem! Any time the campaign needs to signal to the pac where to spend, they just leak internal campaign memos to the press. It makes Citizen's United into a total sham. His campaign separated into two parts which pretend not to coordinate.
Then he declared his candidacy and on paper anyway, had to cut off contact and could no longer communicate/coordinate with the pac. No problem! Any time the campaign needs to signal to the pac where to spend, they just leak internal campaign memos to the press. It makes Citizen's United into a total sham. His campaign separated into two parts which pretend not to coordinate.
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cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Good news for Kentuckians you want their poor to just die off rather than bother them.
They elected the wacko for Gov who promised to kill their medicaid expansion and their highly efficient and effectively working version of Obamacare.
Go republicans, slap those poor folk. Make America proud.
They elected the wacko for Gov who promised to kill their medicaid expansion and their highly efficient and effectively working version of Obamacare.
Go republicans, slap those poor folk. Make America proud.