Election 2016

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 3:53 pm

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]

I'm going to say that was a little too close to wishing death on someone.
[/TGFBS]

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Oct 03, 2016 11:37 pm

http://www.politicususa.com/oe9XX

Trump! Always exceeding expectations!

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 12:47 am

Ancient History wrote:http://www.politicususa.com/oe9XX

Trump! Always exceeding expectations!

What I see wrote:http://www.politicususa.com/?404-Page-Not-Found

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 1:03 am

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/03/ ... trong.html

I think he was referring to this? First thing there when I clicked the link.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 7:51 am

Trump didn't exactly say that veterans with PTSD weren't strong; he said that veterans who didn't have PTSD were strong. It's a step or two removed from outright taunting veterans with war related disabilities. Just, not big steps.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 9:44 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don ... 55eab4148d

Really, Hillary Clinton doesn't need to say anything. Just keep letting Trump talk.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 10:33 pm

I think you're wrong there. Anybody likely to swayed against Trump by him saying ridiculous nonsense has likely already jumped ship. In fact, just by getting more media exposure he seems to gain slightly by being a nutjob. The polls have been a history of him creeping up until Hillary has a big media event - the DMC and the first presidental debate - and then she splats him back down. If she can knock it out of the ballpark on Sunday then she can build a nigh-unstoppable lead - but if she falters it could turn into a very close race indeed.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 11:00 pm

The problem I see is that the inherently anti-substance and/or pretending conservatives have substances media basically guarantees that the standards are so low only Trump could fail, and maybe Trump might actually succeed.

Now, because Trump went on a crazy racist rant and then talked about how fat Rosie O'Donnell is, he lost the first debate, but even though literally everything he said in the first 20 minutes was substanceless lies and idiocy, the punditry class declared him the victor for the first 20 minutes.

Likewise Pence is the "winner" of the VP debate, because even though everything he said was a bullshit lie, or something that would actively destroy the country, he said it with style, and Tim Kaine interrupted too much and his jokes were too preplanned.

So now, we go into the next two debates knowing:

1) Fox news hosts one, and will cut Trump's mic when he starts to say the wrong kinds of dumb things while asking "WHAT ABOUT THE EMAILS?" 5000 times.

2) If Trump manages to be wrong about everything, but only say racist things about blacks and hispanics, and not say any new terrible things about women, and only say the old terrible things he already said, then he will still be declared the "winner" and everyone will just talk about how great he did and how bad Clinton did for a week.

So yeah, I'm not optimistic that Clinton will get a bounce from the second or third debate.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 1:18 am

I would not expect a big bounce from the second debate. There's probably not a lot of room left to grow; part of her post-convention lead was Donald Trump failing to rally his party, but that ultimately happened anyway. She's still underperforming with young voters relative to Obama, but she's also not going to say anything at the second debate that changes that, so whatever. I do think Hillary Clinton is going to be declared the winner of the second debate, if only because there's no way Trump doesn't get roped into another Rosie moment. This is going to come up during the debate, and Trump is going to say something stupid about it, because he is pathologically incapable of not taking the bait.

The best case scenario for the third debate is that she comes off as composed and presidential while the moderator is blatantly trying to hammer her, and the resulting media coverage is entirely about how well Clinton did with one of the worst debate moderators of all time. Though if I were Clinton, I would have loved to have this story break the day after the Fox News debate. It would be nice to have something to stop the bleeding and immediately make the news coverage about how terrible Trump is. I assume they have an ace up the sleeve for exactly that, though.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:56 am

I'm curious- how much is the position of moderator just ceremony? When I was listening to Kaine/Pence, all I could think of was that if I were moderator I'd be very tempted to declare the debate over and let them squabble like children as they clearly wanted to while I went to get a drink.

I suppose the real question is "what, other than the court of public opinion freaking out, would actually happen if a moderator said 'you know what? We're done here. You fucks can't hold to the rules, so I'm going to go get a drink, and you two can continue with this bullshit'?"

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:02 am

Prak wrote:I'm curious- how much is the position of moderator just ceremony? When I was listening to Kaine/Pence, all I could think of was that if I were moderator I'd be very tempted to declare the debate over and let them squabble like children as they clearly wanted to while I went to get a drink.

Moderators have a lot of leeway, but their principle responsibility is to manage time in debates. The moderator for the VP debate was generally given very poor reviews for losing control of the conversation and not keeping the candidates on task.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:14 am

Prak wrote:I'm curious- how much is the position of moderator just ceremony? When I was listening to Kaine/Pence, all I could think of was that if I were moderator I'd be very tempted to declare the debate over and let them squabble like children as they clearly wanted to while I went to get a drink.

I suppose the real question is "what, other than the court of public opinion freaking out, would actually happen if a moderator said 'you know what? We're done here. You fucks can't hold to the rules, so I'm going to go get a drink, and you two can continue with this bullshit'?"

Moderators in real debates don't suck tremendous dick, but in presidential debates, they basically all decide that because people (Republicans) are so full of shit, that you would either have to pause the debate every sentence to correct them, or you can just let them lie up a storm, and sort of just force out approximately equal talking time.

I would fucking kill for a moderator that just asked Trump some question we know he will lie in answer to (as opposed to the ones we know he will non-sequitur) and then cut his mic and point out his lie, and the quote some source showing his lie, and then ask him the question again, and then cut his mic when he lies again, correct him again, and then repeat, until eventually you make it clear that you are actually going to correct blatant lies and blatant refusals to answer the question.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:35 am

Yeah, cutting mics would be a nice start.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:43 pm

Conservatives would count how much the mic got cut on each side, declare the moderator to have a liberal bias, ignore all the lies their side said, and walk away even further entrenched in their beliefs.

GreatGreyShrike · Post by **GreatGreyShrike** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:48 pm

DSMatticus wrote:I would not expect a big bounce from the second debate. There's probably not a lot of room left to grow; part of her post-convention lead was Donald Trump failing to rally his party, but that ultimately happened anyway. She's still underperforming with young voters relative to Obama, but she's also not going to say anything at the second debate that changes that, so whatever. I do think Hillary Clinton is going to be declared the winner of the second debate, if only because there's no way Trump doesn't get roped into another Rosie moment. This is going to come up during the debate, and Trump is going to say something stupid about it, because he is pathologically incapable of not taking the bait.
[...]

I was reading elsewhere that Clinton has some potential to grow less by taking voters directly from Trump, but more from taking them from people who have polled to be voting Johnson or Stein. Independents have been polling unusually high this year, and Hillary has a lot of potential to induce people to vote strategically against Trump by voting for her. What's your take on Hillary's chances of grabbing more than Trump out of those groups?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 1:28 pm

RobbyPants wrote:Conservatives would count how much the mic got cut on each side, declare the moderator to have a liberal bias, ignore all the lies their side said, and walk away even further entrenched in their beliefs.

Anyone who is currently thinking of voting Trump was always going to and always will - you cannot convince them with logic, reason, chicanery, appeals to anything, or mind control powers. In general, the debates aren't to swap people from Skub to Not Skub or vice versa, but to sway the undecided. In this election, this is double-super the case, because the people who decided they think Trump has his finger on the pulse and knows how to run the country are immune to thoughts.

So you don't even care about "entrenching the beliefs" of his supporters. What you do care about is reminding your own team how important it is that they go out and vote, and getting "I'm going to vote Independent and throw my vote away (or not vote at all and still complain about the winner), because Trump is an asshole and I just can't trust Hillary" people to decide "Okay Trump is such an asshole I need to vote for the biggest opponent just to make sure he does not end up in control."

On an only slightly related note, has Bush Senior actually been in a twitter war with Trump, or is that just someone else making an account under his name and Trump taking the bait?

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:54 pm

I don't think Fox can actually get away with cutting Trump's mike. Doing that offends the liberals (who rightfully view it as interfering to help Trump), the Trump supporters (who are here to hear what Trump has to say) and the Schadenfreude crowd (who also want to hear Trump, but for the opposite reason). Nobody else watches the debates.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 3:42 pm

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 3:56 pm

Kaelik wrote: I would fucking kill for a moderator that just asked Trump some question we know he will lie in answer to (as opposed to the ones we know he will non-sequitur) and then cut his mic and point out his lie, and the quote some source showing his lie, and then ask him the question again, and then cut his mic when he lies again, correct him again, and then repeat, until eventually you make it clear that you are actually going to correct blatant lies and blatant refusals to answer the question.

Shit son, I would kill for a moderator that asks Trump to name the three branches of the U.S. government and describe how a bill becomes a law.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:51 pm

I have yet to meet a person who is planning on throwing their vote away or not voting that will be convinced to change that by these debates. Hillary is seen as just as bad as Trump and there is no argument I can bring up to sway them ( at least none that I know). To them voting for a candidate they don't want is agreeing with what they see as a system that is failing. Better to vote for a candidate they do want because that's how Democracy is supposed to work or outright refuse to participate because regardless of who wins they don't feel their going to be represented anyway. I really don't see anything Clinton can do or say that will actually shift their attitudes at this point and with all this talk of Tim "losing" to Pence there's not much I see changing with the VP picks. I know that a bunch of people here in Indiana from both parties don't really like Pence but not enough of those on the Right actually hate him enough to cross over to Hilary.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:06 pm

On third party candidates, protest votes and strategic voting:

I am an adult, old enough that I had to compromise my principles to vote for Gore over Nader -- and I live in a swing state, so my voting choice is pretty obvious this time around.

However the Electoral College is a thing -- and if I did not live in a swing state, the odds of my vote influencing the Presidential election would be so vanishingly small that it would quite possibly be more influential to "waste" my vote on a hopeless third party candidate in hopes of shifting the dialog and drawing attention to positions more aligned with my own viewpoint than that of either major party candidate.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:30 pm

MGuy wrote:Better to vote for a candidate they do want.

Anyone who actually thinks they want Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is ignorant, deluded, or should have been voting for Trump in the first place (the people who really do support Gary Johnson's policies).

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:07 pm

Kaelik wrote:
MGuy wrote:Better to vote for a candidate they do want.
Anyone who actually thinks they want Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is ignorant, deluded, or should have been voting for Trump in the first place (the people who really do support Gary Johnson's policies).

Hey. Jill Stein at least was ban tablet computers and cell phones because they cause brain cancer and outlaw childhood vaccination because vaccines cause autism. Trump wouldn't come close to doing that.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:25 pm

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/13 ... rong-again

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 8:54 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:On third party candidates, protest votes and strategic voting:

I am an adult, old enough that I had to compromise my principles to vote for Gore over Nader -- and I live in a swing state, so my voting choice is pretty obvious this time around.

However the Electoral College is a thing -- and if I did not live in a swing state, the odds of my vote influencing the Presidential election would be so vanishingly small that it would quite possibly be more influential to "waste" my vote on a hopeless third party candidate in hopes of shifting the dialog and drawing attention to positions more aligned with my own viewpoint than that of either major party candidate.

I was kind of hopeful that Trump being Trump might convince some traditionally red states, like mine, to actually become battleground states, but traditionally red states loathe Clinton even more, so the map looks about the same as it always does. Given that my vote won't be counted anyway, I have seriously considered actually voting for the Giant Meteor, or maybe throwing a vote behind Gary Johnson even though I don't want him to win, just to register a protest vote against the system as it is. Either one would be more meaningful than voting for Hillary in a state that will never, ever give electoral votes to Hillary.