The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

[CarolKing]

Bernie Sanders has terrible name recognition in states where he hasn’t advertised or campaigned yet; meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has universal name recognition everywhere. Realizing this, the Clinton camp pushed hard to rack up the early vote in every state where early voting was an option. They did this not primarily for the reason we’ve been told — because Clinton performs well among older voters, and older voters are more likely to vote early than other age demographics — but rather because they knew that early votes are almost always cast before the election season actually begins in a given state.

That’s right — in each state, most of the early primary voting occurs before the candidates have aired any commercials or held any campaign events. For Bernie Sanders, this means that early voting happens, pretty much everywhere, before anyone knows who he is. Certainly, early voting occurs in each state before voters have developed a sufficient level of familiarity and comfort with Sanders to vote for him.

But on Election Day — among voters who’ve been present and attentive for each candidate’s commercials, local news coverage, and live events — Sanders tends to tie or beat Clinton.

In fact, that’s the real reason Sanders does well in caucuses.

It’s not because caucuses “require a real time investment,” as the media likes to euphemistically say, but because caucuses require that you vote on Election Dayrather than well before it.

Edit
In the meantime whack jobs are taking over the Republican Party. What are moderate republicans to do - vote democrat. Don't tell anyone.

Uh oh Hillary has her yellow powerhouse Nehru jacket on today.

 

[cybrguy]

I guess its time to take another look at Joe McCarthy, the KKK and the John Birch Society. Apparently condemning them was a big mistake. Now that the Republican party wants to bring them back into the fold, all we need do is elect Republicans and we can have that white anglo christian America they promised us.

Well, we may have to eliminate some folk...

Sen. Joseph McCarthy's (R-Wis) at a March 9, 1950 session of a hearing on McCarthy's charges of Communist infiltration in the state department. McCarthy,...
AP Photo/Herbert K. White
Republican support for McCarthyism is sometimes literal


Exactly three years ago this week, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) he’s been compared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that criticism “may be a sign that perhaps we’re doing something right,” which seemed like a curious response given the context.

Asked specifically, “Is McCarthy someone you admire?” Cruz wouldn’t answer. “I’m not going to engage in the back and forth and the attacks,” he replied.

Three years later, this has come up again, but this time it’s not with the senator himself, but rather it’s one of his national security advisers. TPM noted yesterday:

Clare Lopez, a national security adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) presidential campaign, earlier this month said the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) was “spot on” about communists infiltrating the United States government in the 1950s.​

As Right Wing Watch discovered, the Cruz adviser compared Americans’ lack of preparedness for Muslims trying to infiltrate the government to communist spies during the Cold War.

“We can go all the way back, of course, to the time of the Cold War and back to the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s when communists, you know, the KGB, infiltrated our government at the very highest levels,” Lopez said. “And then, like now, we were unprepared and in large measure unaware of what was going on, at least until the House Un-American Activities got rolling in the 1950s with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who absolutely was spot-on in just about everything he said about the levels of infiltration.”

Oh my.

There was a point in the not-too-distant past that both parties considered McCarthyism and the former senator’s legacy to be a scourge to be avoided forevermore.

But as Republican politics has shifted to the even-further-right, conservatives have begun to rethink their attitudes on McCarthy. Missouri’s Todd Akin, for example, compared himself to McCarthy two years ago, and he meant it in a good way.

In 2010 in Texas, conservative activists rewriting the state’s curriculum recommended telling students that McCarthy was a hero, “vindicated” by history. Around the same time, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) endorsed bringing back the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In conservative media, headlines such as “It’s Time to See Joe McCarthy For the Hero He Was” are not uncommon.

As we discussed a couple of years ago, when the political world considers how much the Republican Party has changed over the last generation, look no further than those who’ve decided McCarthyism wasn’t so bad after all.

 

[lwien]

^^ It's that old saying.............."What comes around, goes around."

 

[cybrguy]

Early voting here in Illinois in person is available from about 40 days out to election day. You can mail in a ballot by mail 40 days out, or 45 if you are military or overseas.

 

[cybrguy]

I can't help but be stunned at how juvenile Trump and Cruz have gotten. I just never could have imagined that people might really act this way while running to be President of the United States.

But even a greater disappointment is that this behavior hasn't eliminated them from the race. That anyone could actually cast a vote for either of them for the highest office in the land crushes my belief and trust in my countrymen. I don't know quite how to express it. Disappointment just can't adequately capture the depth of emotion involved...

 

[CarolKing]

I for one am glad that Cruz and Trump have been in a stupid fight about their wives today. It just shows how petty and dumb the republicans are. This my wife is better than your wife shit only makes me laugh. This will be perfect to bring up during the presidential debates. The democrats couldn't have scripted this any better.

I thought Trump would be trying to "act" more presidential at this point.

Meanwhile the democrats are talking about what's going on in the Umited States and in Belgium and the world.

WTF does the United Nations do? Do they not get involved in terrorism? It seems to me that they really don't accomplish much.

 

[lwien]

The democrats couldn't have scripted this any better.

Yup. The Repubs have given the Dems sooooo much ammunition that I bet the Democratic campaign managers in charge of tv advertising must be scratching their heads trying to figure out which piece of ammunition that keeps getting thrown at them to use. There's just wayyyy too many choices and each one of them are golden.

It's funny. I was watching FoxNews today and they kept throwing up the polls, including their own showing Trump and Cruz losing big time to both Hilary and Bernie by over 10 points and the only thing that the anchors kept saying was............"How could this possibly be true?"

 

[Gunky]

I can't help but be stunned at how juvenile Trump and Cruz have gotten. I just never could have imagined that people might really act this way while running to be President of the United States.

But even a greater disappointment is that this behavior hasn't eliminated them from the race. That anyone could actually cast a vote for either of them for the highest office in the land crushes my belief and trust in my countrymen. I don't know quite how to express it. Disappointment just can't adequately capture the depth of emotion involved...

Trump can probably be defeated pretty easily - his negative ratings are huge - but the approx 10% of the population that has been voting for him in primaries exposes how poorly our education system is working and how left behind a segment of our population has become. Fixing that is not gonna be easy.

Come to think of it, people who think Cruz is acceptable are also a problem... ugh!

 

[lwien]

That anyone could actually cast a vote for either of them for the highest office in the land crushes my belief and trust in my countrymen.

I felt the exact same way when Bush was voted in for his second term.

 

[cybrguy]

So did I, but (I can't believe I am saying this) but this is an order of magnitude worse. I didn't/don't like George Bush and think he was a terrible President, but I had no compelling reason the believe he was a terrible human being. Wrong, yes. Ignorant, yes. But human garbage, not really.
That is not the case, however, with the 2 repub front runners who appear to be greatly lacking on the humanity quotient. There were things that Bush wouldn't say. There appears to be NOTHING that Trump will find over the line. There IS no line for Trump.

 

[Gunky]

If you get a chance, check out David Brook's column in the NYT today on the post Trump GOP and especially the accompanying reader comments for an absolutely hilarious read. Brooks, who has gone from denial to delusion, doesn't realize it but he has been cast into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the things he babbles now become fodder for rich rejoinders and some very amusing schadenfreude.

 

[grokit]

No matter who we elect, we will get the leadership we collectively deserve. If we elect an ignorant leader, it will be because we are ignorant ourselves. If we elect a confirmed partisan warmonger, it will be because we desire endless war and partisanship. If we elect an independent public servant that says we need a genuine populist movement in order to get beyond the partisanship to get some real change enacted, it will be because we desire to enact real change. I for one think the status quo needs to change or be left behind.

 

[Nooky72]

Donald Trump as "Schmuck," inspired by the equally-handsome Muk.

This Year's Presidential Hopefuls Make For Some Adorable Pokémon Characters


HillarFree, the Hillary Clinton-Butterfree crossover.

 

[Magic9]

New Tulsi Gabbard ad ahead of a probable 3 state sweep by Sanders on Saturday.

 

[BeardedCrow]

 

[Gunky]

"Then stop giving their money to people who work zero hours a week." That isn't what is happening. Their labor is creating more and more capital, but since their salaries don't go up, all the increases go to the top. Meanwhile the top are continually given lower and lower taxes. Money is not migrating from the working class to the poor; it goes upward, not downward. The trillions in tax benefits given to the wealthy make all the food stamps and poverty programs look like peanuts. Stop blaming poor people for being poor, for being given substandard education, housing, and job opportunities, for being paid wages that never rise.

 

[lwien]

"Nearly 20.000 support petition to allow guns at Republican National Convention"
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/03/2...ublican-national-convention.html?intcmp=hpbt2

We already know that the majority of the GOP are off their fucking rockers. This is just the cherry on top.

 

[cybrguy]

"Nearly 20.000 support petition to allow guns at Republican National Convention"

I would think very seriously about signing that petition...

 

[macbill]

There is much nostalgia for the USA of the 1950s: people forget that under Eisenhower, marginal tax rate for the wealthiest was 90% - each additional dollar made over a certain amount only yielded the taxpayer $.10. I wish we could go back to that.

 

[CarolKing]

It's interesting the GOP forgets about that. Taxes were way higher for the wealthy back then. People didn't like Ronald Reagen that much when he was in office. There were a lot of haters out there. He screwed up the country is what I remember. The deficit went sky high. The GOP has a fuzzy memory.

 

[Gunky]

 

[lwien]

It's interesting the GOP forgets about that. Taxes were way higher for the wealthy back then. People didn't like Ronald Reagen that much when he was in office. There were a lot of haters out there. He screwed up the country is what I remember. The deficit went sky high. The GOP has a fuzzy memory.

Yeah, it was called.......Reagenomics.

 

[cybrguy]

Well, it doesn't look like the discourse is getting any less coarse...

Cruz and Trump Camps Spar Over Salacious Rumors

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/517321110​

I don’t know if this is a thing or not. I mean, it seems a little excessive to accuse Sen. Ted Cruz of having had five affairs. At first, I thought it was just confined to the National Enquirer making some salacious and unsubstantiated allegations, although they’ve broken real stories before. Then I saw that the whole thing had spilled over to CNN and was being openly discussed on the air by partisans of the Trump and Cruz campaigns. What was really noteworthy was that the Trump partisan accused the Cruz partisan of being one of Tailgunner Ted’s paramours.

Kate Bolduan, co-anchor of “At This Hour,” hosted a discussion between Amanda Carpenter, the former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz, and Adriana Cohen, a Boston Herald columnist and Trump supporter.

Bolduan asked Cohen if she thought the two Republican presidential candidates should drop their increasingly personal and ugly feud over one another’s wives — when the conservative columnist redirected the conversation toward rumors of Cruz’s infidelity.

“Absolutely, I think we should move on,” Cohen said, “and where we should move to is the National Enquirer story that has reported that Ted Cruz has allegedly had affairs with at least five mistresses — including, you’ve been named, Amanda.”

Carpenter’s raised her eyebrows in shock, as Bolduan interrupted.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s moving on at all, Adriana,” she said, as Carpenter uttered a single sarcastic laugh.

Cohen said the Texas senator should issue a statement either denying the rumors or admitting they were true, and she again pointed out that Carpenter has been identified in the unconfirmed reports.
“You were named, Amanda,” Cohen said. “Will you denounce this story or will you confront it?”
​

Amanda Carpenter did deny the rumor and referred people to her lawyer.

Just when you think the Republican primaries can’t get any more disgraceful and brutal, we get this. For all I know, there is absolutely nothing to these rumors. But, if that’s the case, the story is how the Trump campaign is taking this smear campaign to eleven. Consider what Gabriel Sherman reported back in October when the Enquirer was accusing Ben Carson of brandishing his surgical scalpel “like a meat cleaver!”

Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker have been friends for years. “They’re very close,” said a source close to the Enquirer. In July 2013, Trump even tweeted that Pecker should become CEO of Time magazine, which at the time was being spun off from its corporate parent, Time Warner. “He’d make it exciting and win awards!”
​

It does reek of Roger Stone, don’t you think?

 

[CarolKing]

Just got back from doing my duty as a voter. I went to my Democratic Caucus, just got back.

In my area most the voters were for Bernie. There were probably 500 people at the caucus location and they only expected 150, so awesome turnout. In my little precinct there were 28 votes for Bernie and 4 votes for Hillary. It looked like the other groups that were there were favoring Bernie too. We were broken up into neighborhoods.

All the votes need to be turned in by 2:00 to the main WA Democratic organization. I'm lucky where I go to caucus is only 3 mi from my house and I stood in line for 2 minutes.

I sure didn't want to spend 2 hours of my Saturday morning talking politics and voting but I felt I needed to go.

There was a woman that said she was a former prosecutor and she was for Hillary because she stands up to the NRA and Bernie doesn't.

I said I would vote for Hillary if I have to during the general election. My vote was for Bernie because of the stance on the Iraq War and his stance about not getting involved in other countries problems. We don't need to be the policeman of the world. He also isn't in the back pocket of Wallstreet. He represents the American people. All or most of his money comes from the American people not from large corporations.

Edit
Really how many woman would want to have sex with Ted Cruz? Bill Maher talked a little about it last night. He was funny.

 

[grokit]

It was rubio that pushed the rumors;
I'm no fan of cruz but fuck that little weasel:

"The truth behind the rumor-mongering, however, is a little more complex. A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruz’s opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months now—and that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears.

"For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications’ representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article."


Larry flynt weighs in;
says cruz would be even more dangerous than trump:

"Turning to former rival Marco Rubio's ludicrous attempt to boost his flagging campaign by making jokes about the size of Trump’s penis, Flynt said there might be something there.

“I definitely think there’s a lot of truth there. Not necessarily in relation to a man’s fingers, but the kind of cars he drives and the kind of buildings he builds, it all has to do with trying to compensate maybe for a lack of manhood. Trump’s probably got a 3-inch dick,” he stated.

"According to Flynt, he believes the Democratic Presidential candidate will be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and that she can defeat both Trump and Cruz. But he warned that Cruz may be a greater threat to the country because, unlike Trump, he believes every word he says."


I really wanted to go and caucus today but am not well enough.