Presidential Race 2016

[Lihu]

7 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

The smart Evangelicals will hold their nose and vote for Trump because they know if Hillary gets into office she will load the Supreme Court with ultra liberal justices that will ensure no rulings will be made in their favor for quite some time.  

The way I see this election, it's not about who is POTUS for the next four years as much as it's about who gets to replace Justice Scalia and any other justice positions that are vacated over the next four years.  

Exactly.

[saevel25]

13 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

The way I see this election, it's not about who is POTUS for the next four years as much as it's about who gets to replace Justice Scalia and any other justice positions that are vacated over the next four years.  

I agree. This is why they should probably confirm Merrick Garland. 

Honestly, the guy is not a liberal. He's a centrist moderate judge. Probably more inline with Roberts than Sotomayor. He was elected to the 11th DC court by the senate in 1997 by a vote of 76-23. Though all the "no" votes came from Republicans. A good number of Republicans at the time voted yes for him. 

I honestly think he would be a better candidate than anything Hillary would throw out there. 

I hate the logic that, "Let the people decide". That is total BS by the GOP. 

 

[Dave2512]

Nobody I know including people in politics are considering 2016 the year of the SCOTUS. 

 

[newtogolf]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I agree. This is why they should probably confirm Merrick Garland. 

Honestly, the guy is not a liberal. He's a centrist moderate judge. Probably more inline with Roberts than Sotomayor. He was elected to the 11th DC court by the senate in 1997 by a vote of 76-23. Though all the "no" votes came from Republicans. A good number of Republicans at the time voted yes for him. 

I honestly think he would be a better candidate than anything Hillary would throw out there. 

I hate the logic that, "Let the people decide". That is total BS by the GOP. 

 

Garland is much better than anyone that Hillary will nominate, it's a question of how confident the GOP is in Trump or someone else from their party winning.  Roberts is a bit of a disappointment for the GOP, especially his vote on Obamacare so I think that's what is causing push back on Garland.  

I'm not much of a gambler so I'd take Garland and hope we win and get to put one or two of our people on the court over the next four years.  

[Groucho Valentine]

4 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I agree. This is why they should probably confirm Merrick Garland. 

Honestly, the guy is not a liberal. He's a centrist moderate judge. Probably more inline with Roberts than Sotomayor. He was elected to the 11th DC court by the senate in 1997 by a vote of 76-23. Though all the "no" votes came from Republicans. A good number of Republicans at the time voted yes for him. 

I honestly think he would be a better candidate than anything Hillary would throw out there. 

I hate the logic that, "Let the people decide". That is total BS by the GOP. 

 

I agree with this as well. Unless something truly wacky happens Hilary Clinton is the next preseident. And at that point GOP is going to be wishing they had Garlard when they see who she throws up. That whole "let the people decide" is a bunch of crap. The people elected Obama... 

[Golfingdad]

4 hours ago, newtogolf said:

The smart Evangelicals will hold their nose and vote for Trump because they know if Hillary gets into office she will load the Supreme Court with ultra liberal justices that will ensure no rulings will be made in their favor for quite some time.  

The way I see this election, it's not about who is POTUS for the next four years as much as it's about who gets to replace Justice Scalia and any other justice positions that are vacated over the next four years.  

I agree with the premise that it doesn't make sense to abstain from voting because neither candidate is your ideal.  I feel like you would still always prefer one to the other and, therefore, it would make sense to cast a ballot.

But I think you're overstating the Supreme Court issue.

A)  Of the nine current members, no President has appointed more than two of them. (W, Clinton and Obama)  Worth noting that they were all two-termers.  Of course, this is assuming that the current (sounds like quite moderate) nominee doesn't get confirmed before next January.

B)  The oldest (83) and third oldest (77) judges are the two nominated by Bill Clinton.  2nd oldest (79) was nominated by Reagan.  So there's a decent chance that any liberal judges that she nominates would have to replace liberal judges.

C)  Lastly, she needs Congress' help so unless Dems take that over during an upcoming election as well, then she's not going to be able to get any "ultra liberals" through a Republican Congress anyway.

[bplewis24]

22 hours ago, Lihu said:

Sure it does. As a corporation, Trump has to keep some secrets out of his corporate competitor's eyes. That could ruin his business empire.

He's transparent because we pretty much know how he will act given the TV shows he's had, his personal attacks on Obama, his golf, pretty much everything. His personality is an open book, how can you not know what he feels at any given moment? I'd rather have that than someone who hides behind a perfect mask.

Any corporations Trump is affiliated with (either as a stakeholder/shareholder, board member, or both), would still retain their "secrets" if he released his personal financials. 

And how is being transparently ignorant and unqualified better than somebody who isn't transparent but may or may not be qualified?  

9 hours ago, Braivo said:

I don't think they are going to rally around HRC as much as people think. They see HRC as the establishment that they want to destroy. If Sanders endorses HRC full on it exposes him as a fraud in his anti-establishment policies. Trump will get some Sanders voters, no doubt. Others will simply stay home, very few will become vocal supporters of HRC. 

Polling and recent history says otherwise.  There was a poll recently (I cannot find it, but I believe it was on Vox.com) that showed that around 80% of Bernie supporters were going to vote for Hillary, which wasn't too materially different from the amount of Hillary supporters who were willing to vote for Bernie.  And while this contradicts some polling from earlier in the campaign cycle, people tend to forget that this happens every election cycle: during the heat of the campaign, voters stubbornly reject the alternative choice in the primary.  Does anybody here remember PUMA?  Those were the Clinton supporters from '08 who claimed they would "never" vote for Obama.  Guess what?  The vast majority of them fell in line too.

8 hours ago, newtogolf said:

The smart Evangelicals will hold their nose and vote for Trump because they know if Hillary gets into office she will load the Supreme Court with ultra liberal justices that will ensure no rulings will be made in their favor for quite some time.

This is an odd statement.  What rulings do "smart Evangelicals" want?  I would think "smart" evangelicals would recognize how much damage the GOP is doing to their cause right now by trying to fuse religiosity in matters of the state.  Our country was founded specifically to avoid this, and for good reason.  Of course, I'd be wrong .  Evangelical voters vastly prefer the GOP, even if it's misguided.

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Honestly, the guy is not a liberal. He's a centrist moderate judge.  

I hate the logic that, "Let the people decide". That is total BS by the GOP. 

Exactly, on both counts.

3 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

But I think you're overstating the Supreme Court issue.

A)  Of the nine current members, no President has appointed more than two of them. (W, Clinton and Obama)  Worth noting that they were all two-termers.  Of course, this is assuming that the current (sounds like quite moderate) nominee doesn't get confirmed before next January.

C)  Lastly, she needs Congress' help so unless Dems take that over during an upcoming election as well, then she's not going to be able to get any "ultra liberals" through a Republican Congress anyway.

Still, the SCOTUS issue is huge, because it is going to cause a political shift.  And, especially if Garland isn't confirmed before the next term, it's very possible that what used to be 5-4 for conservatives could now end up being 6-3 for liberals (while Merick Garland is indeed more moderate, the right has shifted so far right over the past decade that being "moderate" is effectively far left of the Republican base).

And as far as the congressional map goes, the Dems were already in a good position to take back the senate (the same way Republicans were in a good position to take it in 2014) before Trump was the presumptive nominee.  There's no telling yet, but it's possible the math may be even better for Dems if Trump has as big a negative impact down-ticket as some folks think.  This (senate) issue is the real reason why some GOP insiders are exploring a third party independent run.  Everybody knows that won't win a presidency.  But they desperately want to hold onto the Senate and seek to limit the negative down-ticket impact of this party fragmentation.

[newtogolf]

9 minutes ago, bplewis24 said:

This is an odd statement.  What rulings do "smart Evangelicals" want?  I would think "smart" evangelicals would recognize how much damage the GOP is doing to their cause right now by trying to fuse religiosity in matters of the state.  Our country was founded specifically to avoid this, and for good reason.  Of course, I'd be wrong .  Evangelical voters vastly prefer the GOP, even if it's misguided.

Evangelicals are social conservatives that want to protect their family values and right to practice their religion which is currently under attack.  They also tend to support the 2nd Amendment and are pro-life, which are core principles of the GOP.  

Most of the democrat views are anti-evangelical, seems you might be a bit misguided on which side stands for what.  

[Braivo]

Anyone catch the Megyn Kelly / Donald Trump interview last night? Thoughts? I saw bits and pieces, will watch the entirety tonight. 

[Dave2512]

1 hour ago, Braivo said:

Anyone catch the Megyn Kelly / Donald Trump interview last night? Thoughts? I saw bits and pieces, will watch the entirety tonight. 

I watched, too much fluff to be honest. She's trying to grow her brand and no punches were thrown despite months of reported bad blood. Felt like I was watching Oprah.

[Elmer]

1 hour ago, Braivo said:

Anyone catch the Megyn Kelly / Donald Trump interview last night? Thoughts? I saw bits and pieces, will watch the entirety tonight. 

I could not bring myself to watch such hard hitting journalism. Instead I chose to spend the time banging my head against a concrete wall!

[Dave2512]

20 minutes ago, Elmer said:

I could not bring myself to watch such hard hitting journalism. Instead I chose to spend the time banging my head against a concrete wall!

It was brutal hey Donald what's your favorite movie. Pretty sure they exchanged friendship bracelets.

[Elmer]

12 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

It was brutal hey Donald what's your favorite movie. Pretty sure they exchanged friendship bracelets.

This is nothing more than a replay of Palin or Romney. Neither of who would go on any other network for serious policy interviews.
While trump does call into other shows, he is on for 5 minutes, which is enough time for him to say "great" 5 times
"The best" 7 times
&
"Me" 20 times.

he will never sit down with a policy wonk for serious debate about his platform.
Then again no politicians do that any more!

[Braivo]

1 hour ago, Dave2512 said:

It was brutal hey Donald what's your favorite movie. Pretty sure they exchanged friendship bracelets.

Heard she gave him her phone number and seemed pretty proud of it. 

[Gunther]

7 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Heard she gave him her phone number and seemed pretty proud of it. 

Yeah, I didn't watch it cuz I had heard it was a puff piece.  All power to him, however, he does seem to be quite adept at mending intra-personal rifts.  Even had a meeting with Lindsey Graham last week and cleared the air.  

He is a charming dude, I just wish he had thicker skin, like GWB, so those rifts wouldn't happen as frequently as they do.

[Dave2512]

Trump's tweet about the missing plane was odd. 

[Elmer]

On 5/19/2016 at 10:16 AM, Dave2512 said:

Trump's tweet about the missing plane was odd. 

His insistence at a stump speech that it is terrorism is incredibly un-presidential.
Just because you think something, the process has to work and you have to abide by the facts.

There is nothing like playing the terror card when you have zero information as to the cause of death for 66 humans!

[newtogolf]

4 hours ago, Elmer said:

His insistence at a stump speech that it is terrorism is incredibly un-presidential.
Just because you think something, the process has to work and you have to abide by the facts.

There is nothing like playing the terror card when you have zero information as to the cause of death for 66 humans!

He's not POTUS and has no additional insight or obligation than you or I so he's free to comment as he sees fit.   

So if it does turn out to be terrorists that caused the plane to crash will you still contend he's playing the terror card?