US Presidential Contenders

[Buster's Uncle]

For a change? 

And yeah; I've decided not to waste my time proving that I can find more websites that pretend impartiality and say otherwise than von can find hit sites making outlandish claims about this.  You can find someone pushing any piece of crap you care to on the innerewebs, and that's all that would prove.

-We can all waste our time far more profitably taking dumps on The Pig and Mrs. Clinton...

[Buster's Uncle]

...At any rate, I intended to be posting an article about a Republican senator denouncing torture, not, y'know, start a discussion on the senator...

[Lorizael]

Additionally, "John McCain is a traitor" is not a counter to the argument that we shouldn't torture people.

[Buster's Uncle]

-Which we really, really shouldn't.  Torture is for the weak and evil, and I do not accept that the US has to be either.  Screw those terror nuts and let's be better than them, or what's the damn point?

If you don't love what America tries to stand for, I'd argue that you don't really love America...

[Buster's Uncle]

[Buster's Uncle]

-Rusty, how are you leaning with Rand out?

[Rusty Edge]

I spent  about 10 days of the last two weeks in the Palmetto State.

I was exposed to a lot. Ultimately it tended to re-enforce my views.

Carson isn't cut out to actually be president any more than Rand was. Maybe that's why we haven't had any medical doctors become presidents. Something to do with disposition. Good with decisions, not good with dealing with other egos.

I really like and respect Jeb Bush and his Dad as people. While Jeb's brother makes me laugh when he makes a self-deprecating jokes, he and his Mom get on my nerves in short order. I really don't want another Clinton or Bush as president because I think that the USA is dangerously close to becoming an oligarchy. I think he would have made a much better president than George W., but please, no more Clintons and Bushes, or Kennedys, for that matter.

Cruze is the shrewdest Theocon ever. He always takes more of a divide and conquer than a consensus building approach. A demolisher rather than a construction guy. The Federal Government is his enemy. Thing is, if he ever becomes president, he'll be responsible for making the government work, and his career has been  more about stopping the government, and his campaign has been about repealing things, so that is the kind of mandate he would have, if any. Revoking all of Obama's executive orders, Obama care, and gay marriages. I've said before that his idea of abolishing Obamacare ASAP is scarey to me, since he has no plans for replacement, and the previous system no longer exists in total. Kinda like scrapping the new lemon you're driving before arranging alternative transportation, or putting the wheels back on the old car and getting it on the road again. The way he reads the establishment clause is = Christianity is the established religion of the land, and Congress shall make no law which offends it. 

Rubio is the best speaker/campaigner/candidate in the race, but his inexperience and his adamant adherence to the failed NeoCon interventionist domino theory scare me too. He'd have us fighting Russia, Iran, Syria, and ISIS at once in short order. Imagine the death, destruction, debt, and blowback from that. Or a president wrapping himself in the flag and saying, you can't criticize me without aiding and comforting our many enemies, we're at war! I need more authority!

[Sleezebag] reminds me of an elementary school braggart and bully with ADD. He has trouble completing an answer to a question without changing the subject. He lacks detail and substance. He tends to say things like America sucks, things will be different when I'm president, I have a plan, trust me. When somebody ( journalist or politician ) criticizes that, he goes ad hominem. When somebody goes ad hominem against him, he threatens to sue. When somebody beats him, he says no fair, they lied and  cheated. When somebody checks his facts or pins him down, he weasels.

Sure, I think he's a great deal maker, and he could do better than many of the deals and treaties we have in place. I understand that it makes no sense to show your hand before negotiating. But as often as he says trust me, I get along with everybody, trust me, I have a plan, trust me, I'll make them pay, I'm beginning to think he's  bluffing. I automatically distrust somebody who frequently tells me to trust them. The other problem is that he sounds like he wants to tear everything up and start over. If he doesn't honor an existing deal, how long will other countries honor deals with him, or with us after he's gone?

He claims he won't issue any executive orders. That's hilarious. That's what he does know how to do.


If we're lucky, we'll get Kasich. His state is diverse like America, he tries to represent everybody, and he governs them very well. He has the best resume by far. He's a consensus builder and he gets things done, and he's fiscally responsible. He's positive. He's improving as a candidate. I just don't see him surviving the Republican primary process.

I still have hope that he might get the nod as VP, or perhaps a cabinet post, even in a democratic administration.

So, I guess Kasich is my guy now.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, Kasich's nine terms in the House and 2 hitches as a Governor makes him the only Republican running who meets my minimum qualification standards, so good on him for that.  Rubio needs to pay more dues first and get some executive experience, but could have a real future if he does (and doesn't run again first - you only get two chances before you're a loser).

I see Bush is out - fingers crossed that that'll help the party establishment unite behind not-Pig, not-Cruz now that the one they wanted isn't an option.

[Buster's Uncle]

Some lengthy comments follow...

Hillary Clinton, winning women, takes Nevada in victory over Sanders
Yahoo! Politics
Liz Goodwin, Andrew Romano and Daniel Klaidman February 20, 2016



Hillary Clinton beat out rival Bernie Sanders to win the Nevada caucuses after a frenetic final blitz of campaigning, denying Sanders a golden opportunity to capitalize on his early momentum and raising questions about where else he can win in the weeks ahead.

“Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other,” Clinton said at her victory party in the Caesars Palace casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Clinton went on to outline the problems facing the country, from “crumbling classes” in South Carolina to the toxic water in Flint, Mich. “Americans are right to be angry,” she said. “But we’re also hungry for real solutions.”

Sanders outspent Clinton 2 to 1 on TV ads in the state, and managed to build up his campaign operation to rival hers in size. But Team Clinton, which had been in the state since April under the direction of Barack Obama campaign alum Emmy Ruiz, was better organized. Clinton’s  female-focused outreach strategy  in Nevada paid off, with exit polls showing Clinton winning among women by 16 percentage points, reversing the embarrassing New Hampshire trend of women choosing Sanders. Clinton once led the state by large margins, but a poll last week showed she and Sanders in a dead heat. The former secretary of state  canceled a campaign rally in Florida this week  and spent an extra day campaigning in Nevada.



Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucuses in Nevada, where she campaigned actively to secure a victory. (Photo: John Locher/AP)


Her high-profile surrogates, including actress Eva Longoria and Cabinet member Tom Perez, flooded the state and held multiple events every day, out-campaigning Sanders’ team.

“We knew that the race was going to be tight, and we wanted to make sure that we left nothing on the field,” said Jorge Neri, Clinton’s Nevada field organizer.

Female voters who flocked to a casino caucus site Saturday morning said they liked Sanders but ultimately sided with Clinton, in part because they believed she would understand their issues better than Sanders.

“First of all, she’s a woman; she will understand a woman’s needs,” said Fernanda Breciado, 55, a housekeeping supervisor at Caesars Palace who was voting during her lunch break. “She has the support of the greatest president,” she added, referring to Bill Clinton.

Jennifer Palmieri, a Clinton spokeswoman, said Hillary’s performance with women was good news. “It’s one state, it’s one race, but that’s pretty good,” she said. “We understand we have work to do with white men.”

The state brought out tension between the two candidates. On Thursday, an exhausted-looking Sanders and Clinton crossed paths at a town hall focused on immigration issues in Las Vegas. Clinton took a poke at Sanders’ earlier criticism of Obama and her husband. “Maybe it’s that Sen. Sanders wasn’t really a Democrat until he decided to run for president. He doesn’t know what the last two Democratic presidents did,” she said as the crowd booed. In  an interview with BET  later, Sanders suggested Clinton was heaping praise on Obama merely to pander to black voters.



Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, gesture in front of supporters after she was projected to be the winner in the Democratic caucuses in Las Vegas on Saturday. (Photo: David Becker/Reuters)


Eleven miles away from Clinton’s victory party on the Las Vegas Strip, Sanders’ supporters reassembled at the Henderson Pavilion, site of  the Vermont senator’s final pre-caucus rally  the night before, to cheer on their candidate. Campaign officials originally planned to start the program at 5 p.m. local time, suggesting that they believed the caucuses would be close and the votes would take a long time to count. But Clinton was declared the winner at about 2:30 p.m., and Sanders wound up speaking earlier than expected. About 400 supporters, who were still streaming in when Sanders took the stage, clustered near the front of the 2,444-seat amphitheater waving “A Future to Believe In” signs.

“You know, five weeks ago we were 25 points behind in the polls,” Sanders said. “We’ve made some real progress.”

Sanders accepted his defeat, but it was hard to ignore the notes of defiance and even defensiveness in his remarks. He “applaud[ed]” Clinton’s campaign for being “very aggressive” — not exactly a compliment. He warned that Clinton’s “very wealthy and powerful super-PAC — a super-PAC that receives lots of money from Wall Street and special interests” would be coming after him in the weeks ahead. And he repeatedly argued that “momentum” was more important than victory.

“What this entire campaign has been about is the issue of momentum,” Sanders said. “Taking on the establishment is not easy. … It is clear to me and to many observers that the wind is at our backs.”

If Sanders could have pulled out a victory in Nevada, it would have gone a long way toward silencing critics who say he can only win among white voters, and lacks the broad appeal to be the party’s nominee. Entrance polls found that black voters went for Clinton 3 to 1, and while the same polls showed Sanders outpacing Clinton among Latinos, it’s likely those results were misleading.

In an email to backers, Sanders argued that even in losing Nevada, he had proven he could do well among a diverse pool of voters. “Nevada was supposed to be a state ‘tailor-made’ for the Clinton campaign, and a place she once led by almost 40 points,” he said. “But today we sent a message that will stun the political and financial establishment of this country: Our campaign can win anywhere.”



Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters at a rally in Henderson, Nev., after rival candidate Hillary Clinton was projected to be the winner in the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Saturday. (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)


That claim will be put to the test in the coming weeks as the Democratic nominating contest first moves on to South Carolina — where black voters typically play a decisive role and where Clinton leads Sanders by an average of 24 percentage points — before heading into a rapid succession of March primaries and caucuses widely thought to favor the former secretary of state.

“I’ve always believed March was going to be Hillary Clinton’s month,” David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and a current Clinton supporter,  said this week. “The Texases of the world, the Georgias of the world — they become very important. Michigan becomes very important on March 8. And then March 15 is, I think, the most important day on the calendar — those large Midwestern and Southern states (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio), where I think she will do very well.”

As the results came rolling in, top Clinton backers began to tout Nevada as a game-changer. “This victory had to overcome the momentum Sanders got in New Hampshire and the spin from the pundits,” said Robert Zimmerman, a Clinton fundraiser and Democratic National Committee member. “It really speaks to Hillary Clinton’s message and also the strength of their campaign organization.”

But in an interview with Yahoo News after Sanders’ speech, senior adviser Tad Devine disagreed, pointing to Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota and “the Midwest” as contests Sanders could win going forward.

“I think [Nevada] proves that they are not in total meltdown,” Devine added, referring to the Clinton campaign. “And it proves that we can begin to coalesce a winning campaign coalition in America. This is just the beginning.”

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/hillary-clinton-winning-women-takes-nevada-in-233933736.html


I said (on the first page of this thread, IIRC) before the real campaigning began that it was Mrs. Clinton's race to lose, and that we'd probably better reconcile ourselves to four years of her and the intolerable non-stop bad-mouthing against that comes with her.  I am disappointed in this outcome, but hardly surprised.

I will say that she, in a patchwork sort of way, meets my minimum qualification standards.  Between her multiple extensive roles in the executive branch and her hitch in the Senate, she's undeniably had the chance to get a sound feel for how Washington works, and spent so much time in and around the Oval Office as to constitute a very credible, or better, substitute for gubernatorial executive credentials.

I think it would be entirely like Mr. Sanders to stay in there fighting all the way to the convention, long after he's lost (again, I think he never ever expected to have this much success, running for a Perot effect instead, which he should definitely get) but I predict, moderate-to-high confidence, that he'll be out of contention well before the primaries get to NC - and I'm going to put on my shoes and vote for him anyway.  I reckon I know what HE stands for.

The biggest (credible) knock on Mrs. Clinton is that she's a political opportunist with no real convictions.  I'd quibble that her real problem is that she's a terrible, too-obviously-calculating campaigner with a tin ear for affecting normal human emotions in public.  I gather that the origin of the irrational-seeming-in-its-intensity hatred of her on the right was some remarks she frequently made early on campaigning for Mr. Clinton - the "two for the price of one" stuff.  Okay, she wasn't the candidate, and so that was out of place in a real sense, and I get that (though any good feminist could point out that the First Woman President is going to be a woman who "doesn't know her place" and SCREW YOU, PATRIARCHY) but, I dunno; the First Lady is a package deal with the winning candidate, and she was indeed, once installed as 'co-president', the most working, effective, First Lady since Mrs. Roosevelt.

That problem with her being a terrible campaigner v. soulless opportunist of poor character is a difference that ends up making no difference - whether she has no real convictions or not, I don't actually know what she really stands for, thus my shoes going on to go lodge a protest vote at the first opportunity.

But see - Kasich's not going to get it on the other side, barring a miracle, and we're going to be stuck with yet another battle of the weak midgets this presidential cycle.

At least she's (arguably) qualified...

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - and in case it isn't obvious, I'd totally post the equivalent article on the right -I'm not pretending my biases aren't on my sleeve in this thread, but still- if only it wasn't so very wall-to-wall full of a certain someone in regard to whom I refuse to be part of the problem by talking about him non-stop, which is what he wants more than anything.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yo Elok - this is from half the thread ago, but some abortion and death penalty conversation happened, and RE: God and Mammon, here:

You'll find my stance on pretty much EVERYTHING religiously based is it shouldn't be against THE LAW. 

Against my personal religion/code/etc DOES NOT mean I should advocate that it be against THE LAW.  My belief in my right to practice my own religion is only as strong as my belief in YOUR right to practice YOURS.  Therefore I have no qualms being, sometimesl literally, devil's advocate in defending someone's right to do something I might find "sinful".

I believe I tried to more-or-less say that a few posts up.  If you're convicted that something's wrong, persuading others of it is your moral duty - and far more effective than laws, frankly, if you pull it off.

This has been the FUNDAMENTAL error of the political church people for my entire political adulthood.  They harm the church by making themselves obnoxious - pissing the cost of their moral activism away dabbling in affairs that are Caesar's not God's, and thus doing their duty wrong.

[Rusty Edge]

On the Democratic side, my contempt for The Shrew is well know. I think she's one of the most disingenuous people I've ever seen, even among lawyers and politicians. Her denial of health care benefits to the hundreds of people working on her health care task force staff while insisting that health care was a universal right is a classic example.

I think I saw the real Hillary on the news lately, while she was telling an Arkansas anecdote and imitating a dog "Arf! Arf! Arf!" .  I could tolerate that Hillary, because I think she was speaking from her heart at the moment, and not from her script or lawbook.

While Bernie is usually a ranting grumpy old guy, I think he is genuine. As I've said before, I think he is quite right about Citizens United. Corporations aren't people.

Of course, I also think he's delusional. His Wall Street tax will simply drive the US financial markets to Canada, or the Bahamas or someplace. Then where does he get his money after he's shooed away the golden goose?

I found this interesting- http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20160219-catherine-rampell-why-bernie-sanders-plan-is-like-magic-flying-puppies-with-winning-lotto-tickets-tied-to-their-collars.ece

Well, if Bernie could have his way, how many people would ever finish college if it were free? Many say it was the best time of their lives.

The minimum wage is the one I've been pondering mostly.  If they appear to have the votes for that, I'll be investing in automation and robot companies, because I expect a boom in machines replacing people once the cost of labor is doubled. Of course there will be increasingly more commission and contract service workers, rather than hourly employees. More jobs will be exported.

For that matter with no immigration/border control, I expect a lot of labor will be contracted to bilingual guys with strictly Spanish speaking crews, much the way WalMart managed to get their stores cleaned at below cost.

I also envision a transformation in food service. Fast food will be ordered on a touch screen with a credit card reader. No more cashiers. Your bag will slide down the chute.

Sit down dining will make the most of tech savy Gen X and Y. They will reserve a numbered  table, order food, and pay for it before they arrive, all from their phones. The dining room will feature separate service carts for clearing tables, setting them, and delivering food. Kinda like airline food service, a few servers handle lots of customers..

I suppose people will just stay in college until they are eventually qualified for a job in demand, like robot repairman.

[Unorthodox]

I also envision a transformation in food service. Fast food will be ordered on a touch screen with a credit card reader. No more cashiers. Your bag will slide down the chute.

Over 20 years ago, I was working at Burger King.  I was in management training, a lead closer, and one of the fastest in the business.  They attempted this exact thing in the local college.  A "Mini" store.  Touch screen ordering, card only payment, pared down menu to make it "easier". 

It was an unmitigated disaster.  Customers got their own orders wrong, then got upset when they were made how they ordered.  People kept grabbing just whatever come down 'the chute', not looking for their specific number, etc. 

Now days, everyone is used to touch screen navigation.  Would it be any better? 

[vonbach]

For that matter with no immigration/border control, I expect a lot of labor will be contracted to bilingual guys with strictly Spanish speaking crews, much the way WalMart managed to get their stores cleaned at below cost.

And Walmart strip mined towns of businesses and jobs doing this. No Borders, equals no country.

I suppose people will just stay in college until they are eventually qualified for a job in demand, like robot repairman.

Or they'll get their jobs taken from them by some H1B visa right off the boat from Pakistan and have 200,000k in debt from college
for nothing. Theres a reason [Sleezebag] is stomping all over the other candidates. People are sick of this.

[Rusty Edge]

I know a convenience store chain in the Mid-Atlantic that has been doing touch screen made to order sandwiches since the late 1990s. Well, a little history.

They started as a self-service gas station with a Deli counter instead of service bays. One person at the cash register and two behind the  Deli case. They sold Gulf brand gas at the lowest prices. They grew slowly, buying and converting stations that couldn't compete  the volatile gas prices of the 80s.

Then, they started building stores from scratch. They got so busy that they decided to make them more convenient, and offer drive -up windows to compete with the fast food places. Disaster! People only got what they needed, instead of buying every overpriced snack that caughtt their eye.

They re-grouped. Still the low priced quality controlled gas, but now under their own brand name. They set out to have the cleanest and best repaired bathrooms ( bigger & better than McDonalds. ) The bathrooms had the president's hotline number on the doors, so the employees busted their butts keeping them neat and clean.  These are at the back of the store, and to get to and from them you have to pass the beverages coolers, Deli& grill with touch screens, snack aisles, krispy cremes, coffee, and finally registers/wall of cigarettes. The gas and bathrooms draw people, the displays and scents make them buy. $$$

So, I guess the Deli evolution trained the customers to the touch screen system. I just sort of assumed that it won't be long before McDonalds turns their cash registers around, remove the cash aspect, and lets the customers press the icons for themselves. Grocery chains and Big Box hardwares are already training people in self service checkout here.