Election 2016

[Darth Crater]

So, there's about a year left until the presidential election, and a few months till the primaries. Probably too early to speculate, but that's never stopped anyone before.

On the Democratic side, it's going to be Hillary. There's not much question. Sanders doesn't have a broad enough base to win, O'Malley has even less support, and the other two have dropped out already.

For the Republicans... not so clear. Bush looked like a sure thing six months ago, but now he's basically sunk. Carson and Trump are leading polls, but I'm not sure they'll hold up in the actual primaries. My money would be on Rubio winning a comfortable victory over Cruz, but a lot could change yet. (Another debate next week, 8 candidates on stage - details here.)

What do you guys think? Who do you want to win? Who do you believe will win?

(Oh, and let's try keep this one civil, yeah?)

[FaiL.?]

I'm not sure you are correct with saying that Hillary will win for the democrats. She doesn't have as much support as she used to have, and many people either don't care for her or are annoyed by her. I feel that Sanders is going to have a larger support group in the coming year, but that's just my opinion. For the republicans, there's no way in hell Trump will get in. Sure he has large support, but not enough to get the presidency. He's far too racist and extreme to rule the entire nation. Don't take my work on that, as I am a democrat. But I was offended when he mentioned deporting immigrants. My entire family is British, and we reside in the USA, so we wouldn't like that.

[Duel of Fates]

Fail, are you and your family legal immigrants? Trump was referring to illegal immigrants. Big difference. And his statements have not been racist. If the liberals have nothing to counter with, they label their opponents as racist. It taints the character of the individual without merit. Sad really.

Hillary winning? Hope so. I will be nice and point out that she should be prosecuted for her mishandling of top secret communications while serving as the Secretary of State. I am not even going to go into her personality and the lack of trust the American people have for her.

I am pretty disgusted with the whole process, and am reserving my pick.

Oh Btw, hi all. Long time no see.

[Darth Crater]

I'm not sure you are correct with saying that Hillary will win for the democrats. She doesn't have as much support as she used to have, and many people either don't care for her or are annoyed by her. I feel that Sanders is going to have a larger support group in the coming year, but that's just my opinion. For the republicans, there's no way in hell Trump will get in. Sure he has large support, but not enough to get the presidency. He's far too racist and extreme to rule the entire nation. Don't take my work on that, as I am a democrat. But I was offended when he mentioned deporting immigrants. My entire family is British, and we reside in the USA, so we wouldn't like that.

The logic on Sanders breaks down like this.

The Democratic party can be (over)generalized as a coalition of three groups. White liberals, moderates (sometimes called "blue dog" democrats), and minorities. Sanders has appeal among the liberals, especially young post-cold-war ones. But to the moderates, he's too far left. And for some reason that nobody can figure out, he has zero traction among minorities (handily disproving that whole "votes for handouts" narrative, but I digress...). That leaves him with a natural cap of about 1/3 of the votes.

Plus, he's an Actual Socialist. Given how much everyone panicked about SOCIALISM!!! through Obama's terms, when he was just a moderate Democrat, many people are convinced Sanders has no chance in the general.

Finally, endorsements by politicians usually correlate with primary success. Hillary has tons of endorsements, and Sanders doesn't.

Fail, are you and your family legal immigrants? Trump was referring to illegal immigrants. Big difference. And his statements have not been racist. If the liberals have nothing to counter with, they label their opponents as racist. It taints the character of the individual without merit. Sad really.

Hillary winning? Hope so. I will be nice and point out that she should be prosecuted for her mishandling of top secret communications while serving as the Secretary of State. I am not even going to go into her personality and the lack of trust the American people have for her.

I am pretty disgusted with the whole process, and am reserving my pick.

Oh Btw, hi all. Long time no see.

I agree that Democrats are too eager to call racism. There's definitely quite a bit out there (spread through both parties and all layers of society, even if it's most visible in the South), but the left-wing propaganda bubble can be every bit as bad as the right-wing version.

To my knowledge Hillary did not handle classified information on her email server. Further, it was State Dept policy to have the server, and Colin Powell did the same thing. However, I haven't followed the issue in detail for the past month or two.

However, you do raise the issue of how electable she ultimately is. I'd rate her chances of presidency at 55% or so at this stage, but mostly that's because she could trample at least three of the Republican frontrunners with her eyes closed. If someone with political experience makes it through, though, I could easily see it going either way.

[FaiL.?]

Welcome back DoF.
I agree with many of your views, and have tremendous respect for both of your opinions. I guess it boils down to a paranoia among my family (yes, we are legal immigrants) as to what could happen if a man such as Trump was elected. I believe that he would have the tenacity and might to turn the American economy around, but I fear that that would be it. He has not yet demonstrated any clear beliefs on key subjects that appeal to me. Quite frankly, I believe that the Republican 'scene' is a mess, and completely incoherent. Out of curiosity, have either of you seen the recent CNN interview with Dr. Ben Carson? I believe it came out on the morning of 11/7/15. Would be worth a listen to.
I do agree that many liberals are a little too quick to hit the 'racism' button, but I feel that Trump's remarks regarding Mexico and his 'wall' as insanity.
Once again, I respect and acknowledge all opinions here, and I would like to here the thoughts of my compatriots.

[Hobo]

I hate all the candidates personally. Hillary is too slimey and I don't trust her to hold her word about anything, Sanders acts like an apologist, and the republicans are a pack full of retarded monkeys. Also I felt throughout all the debates I watched they all say the same things about the same issues over and over. Immigration...Middle class...Education...Middle East... It wasn't very inspiring in my opinion. At least Trump threw in China for a change of voice frequency.

[(SWGO)DesertEagle]

Welcome back DoF.
I agree with many of your views, and have tremendous respect for both of your opinions. I guess it boils down to a paranoia among my family (yes, we are legal immigrants) as to what could happen if a man such as Trump was elected. I believe that he would have the tenacity and might to turn the American economy around, but I fear that that would be it. He has not yet demonstrated any clear beliefs on key subjects that appeal to me. Quite frankly, I believe that the Republican 'scene' is a mess, and completely incoherent. Out of curiosity, have either of you seen the recent CNN interview with Dr. Ben Carson? I believe it came out on the morning of 11/7/15. Would be worth a listen to.
I do agree that many liberals are a little too quick to hit the 'racism' button, but I feel that Trump's remarks regarding Mexico and his 'wall' as insanity.
Once again, I respect and acknowledge all opinions here, and I would like to here the thoughts of my compatriots.

Government prejudice against legal immigrants is not a thing anymore as far as I know. A citizen is a citizen as far as anybody is concerned.

I think Hillary has major legal and image problems. She is the best candidate for the democrats, but I don't think she is likely to win. Sanders is very liberal, too liberal to win, but Hillary is probably just as liberal (she isn't as loud about it). I don't really know any of the other candidates other than that they have little chance to win the nomination.

On the other side, I used to really like Trump (about time somebody stopped being so terrified about speaking his/her mind), but I'm sorta souring on him. The whole flip-flopping thing pretty much torpedoed John Kerry's chances a few cycles ago, and it might hurt Trump too. Plus I'm not sure how conservative he actually is. Carson is interesting (he has a definite shot to get the nomination, not sure about the election), and Cruz is even more interesting. I really do like Cruz pointing out the silliness in the media and his display of personal fearlessness. Think about it, he stood firm on the government shutdown issue not long ago and he's actually still a strong candidate for nomination. People seem to want someone to stand up to vested interests. I think he has a decent shot at the nomination, but I'm really not sure about the election. It would certainly be a very polarizing election cycle if it was Cruz versus Clinton (very conservative versus very liberal), so who knows what would happen.

I really wanted to see Rick Perry in this, but he dropped out. Might be a good thing, not sure if he has the iron in him to drive through the process.

Jeb Bush is not going to win the nomination or the election because his last name is Bush. The country adamantly does not want another, and his performance so far has been very poor. His attacks on Rubio were pretty lame as well.

Speaking of Rubio, I don't know too much about him, he seems a bit quiet. Seems clean, might have a shot.

Notice that all the top Republican candidates are not part of the party 'establishment', that tells you something about what republican voters think about republican leadership (i.e. it stinks, would somebody please stand up for your principles instead of cowering in fear over a lashing in the media which you get anyway?). This is supposed to be the Republican party, not the French Surrender Party.

At any rate, this is going to be a very interesting but highly bitter election cycle.

My prediction is Carson versus Hillary assuming she doesn't have legal problems (who knows), otherwise it will be Carson (or maybe Cruz) versus Sanders. Trump seems to be losing steam, I think that process will continue. Cruz is my 2nd pick for nominee, but Carson should have an impact among POC and steal votes from the Democrats. Cruz I think is too conservative to win, though he would be the one I would most want to see in the president's office. He is a senator however, and no senator has ever become president.

In the former case, I have no idea who would win, but in the latter it's pretty safe to say the Republicans would win. I think the Republicans have the definite edge this cycle regardless of how it goes

[Darth Crater]

Cruz I think is too conservative to win, though he would be the one I would most want to see in the president's office. He is a senator however, and no senator has ever become president.

"16 Presidents previously served as U.S. Senators; only 3 immediately before election as President." I think he'll be fine on that front.

Your'e right that Hillary has a consistently liberal record. She's also gone left of Sanders on the gun issue. We will see how that plays in the general.

I can't agree with you on Carson's chances, though. He has no political experience, and a history of saying embarrassing or obviously false things in public speeches. He was a genius as a surgeon, but sadly that doesn't translate to competence in other areas.

You've touched a bit on the conflict between "establishment" Republicans and the radical wing (I think it's now the Freedom Caucus?). How do you think that'll play out in this election cycle and beyond? Will we see a fundamental shakeup in the party structure, or is it likely to get resolved quietly and peacefully?

[Sketchup]

[(SWGO)DesertEagle]

Cruz I think is too conservative to win, though he would be the one I would most want to see in the president's office. He is a senator however, and no senator has ever become president.

"16 Presidents previously served as U.S. Senators; only 3 immediately before election as President." I think he'll be fine on that front.

Your'e right that Hillary has a consistently liberal record. She's also gone left of Sanders on the gun issue. We will see how that plays in the general.

I can't agree with you on Carson's chances, though. He has no political experience, and a history of saying embarrassing or obviously false things in public speeches. He was a genius as a surgeon, but sadly that doesn't translate to competence in other areas.

You've touched a bit on the conflict between "establishment" Republicans and the radical wing (I think it's now the Freedom Caucus?). How do you think that'll play out in this election cycle and beyond? Will we see a fundamental shakeup in the party structure, or is it likely to get resolved quietly and peacefully?

I was wrong about senators not becoming presidents, I remember now that the statistic was about speakers of the house, not senators (the obvious example would be President Obama lol).

I think there might be a shakeup, the GOP badly needs to stand for something other than "we don't like it, but we have to vote for it anyway because of the media". It's pretty much now or never, there has never been a better shot at this.

Carson is somewhat the Jimmy Carter of this election I think, republican voters want somebody that is not a politician, so he might win, but eh, I dunno, you have a point.

Lindsey Graham was interesting at first, he has probably the best view of how to handle the situation in Syria (you have to go in and fight, stop dancing around the point), but nobody wants to hear that (and maybe it's a bit too extreme) so he is never going to get nominated.

If Ted Cruz wins the nomination there will almost certainly be a massive shift in how the Republican party works. If Trump wins, there will be a somewhat different shift (less to the right than with Cruz). Carson I don't know.

I've been watching for a Ross Perot for awhile now, I think there will be one, the Democrats might be desperate enough to try it. My first guess was Cristi (why does the media like him so much, that was a red flag), but I'm watching Trump now.