US presidential elections

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Morning all,

So after the win in Iowa for Ted Cruz last night where do we see this going?

I'm thinking Clinton v Rubio. Lots of twists and turns still to come though.

dyrewolfe wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:This has to be the biggest joke of an election ever.

sad sad sad

And yet you see the supporters of both candidates rallying feverishly behind them, as though they are God's gift to America, hanging on their every word and cheering to the rafters when they attack the other person.

Where are the sceptics, asking where the politics have gone in this election?

I would imagine everywhere in the US, it's just that "ranting rimjob rallies round republican" is a better headline than "bloke talks common sense with mates" so we don't see it over here.

Just a thought

This is democracy in action. We should all be proud. These two people have been chosen through the democratic process as being the best two Americans available to be the peoples President. If one imagines one or both as evil incarnate then one has to blame the people because democracy allows the people to make a choice. People that knock this process are against democracy and are hence evil doers and worse than Putin and other evil doers (please add your own list of evil doers here) rolled up into one to make one very evil cookie pie.

The problem with democracy is not the people who do the voting.... it's the people who choose to put themselves up for a Vote. There is always a Vanity there when you ask your fellow citizens to vote for you. The vanity might be a small 'v' in the beginning, and it might be outgunned by a vacuous word like 'vocation' instead. But as time floats by, that Vanity rises to the top and the act of being voted for becomes the only goal - the endless yearning for Validation.

So really, democracy's problem is the letter 'V'.

SecretFly wrote:The problem with democracy is not the people who do the voting.... it's the people who choose to put themselves up for a Vote.  There is always a Vanity there when you ask your fellow citizens to vote for you.  The vanity might be a small 'v' in the beginning, and it might be outgunned by a vacuous word like 'vocation' instead.  But as time floats by, that Vanity rises to the top and the act of being voted for becomes the only goal - the endless yearning for Validation.

So really, democracy's problem is the letter 'V'.

I hope that's a reference to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACUpr5GvVsE

Trump maybe the GOP nominee but the majority of the members didn't vote for him....

Trump won most of the "open" primaries......

Cruz did better in the closed primaries...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Trump maybe the GOP nominee but the majority of the members didn't vote for him....

Trump won most of the "open" primaries......

Cruz did better in the closed primaries...

Thus proving the point and leaving poor voters always to ponder the vexatious question: "Just which venomous slick f**ker do I vote for?"

McCain beat Romney in 2008 because of the open primaries..Sanders pushed Clinton close also..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAw7H2Ar5M&t=1s

profitius wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAw7H2Ar5M&t=1s

Great in-depth summation of the crazy super-logic of getting Trump elected.  Many of the very reasons why I'm still chanting 'Trump for Prez!' - the fun of seeing the meltdown in the chattering classes of knowing frowns and petulant righteousness.  Please fates, let it happen.

SecretFly wrote:

profitius wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAw7H2Ar5M&t=1s

Great in-depth summation of the crazy super-logic of getting Trump elected.  Many of the very reasons why I'm still chanting 'Trump for Prez!' - the fun of seeing the meltdown in the chattering classes of knowing frowns and petulant righteousness.  Please fates, let it happen.

Its the most logical video I've seen on it!

Trump is level in the polls in Utah....

To put that in perspective....

2012........... Romney 72.8%...........Obama 24.8%
2008........... McCain 62%..............Obama 34%

He has no chance.........It is going to be a landslide never seen since Reagan v Mondale in 84...or Johnson v Goldwater..

SecretFly wrote:

profitius wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAw7H2Ar5M&t=1s

Great in-depth summation of the crazy super-logic of getting Trump elected.  Many of the very reasons why I'm still chanting 'Trump for Prez!' - the fun of seeing the meltdown in the chattering classes of knowing frowns and petulant righteousness.  Please fates, let it happen.

Very odd! There's a section in there (I didn't watch until the end) where he says he likes pr!cks, because they're honest. Weird that; they say he's honest when he's about as honest as Pinocchio. Somehow though, it's only evil man-hater Hilary who's the liar.

Hopefully, Truss is right and Trump is heading for the biggest loss in an age. Hopefully, after that, he'll have the IRS crawl up his nether regions re. his lack of income tax payments etc and some women will pin a sexual offence charge on him. Oh, and hopefully his current wife will divorce him and take him to the cleaners and/or do a nasty public exposé of his little secrets.

Poor old Trump....It seems he must have had a very good debate because the usually decent WSJ poll has him...

1 point up in the swing state Ohio...and he's got NC down to just 4 points behind...

That would be manageable without seemingly every female in the big Apple calling him a Perv at the moment..

If Kasich was the nominee he'd be choosing the WH curtains by now..

The GOP should declare a day of mourning..

navyblueshorts wrote:

Hopefully, Truss is right and Trump is heading for the biggest loss in an age. Hopefully, after that, he'll have the IRS crawl up his nether regions re. his lack of income tax payments etc and some women will pin a sexual offence charge on him. Oh, and hopefully his current wife will divorce him and take him to the cleaners and/or do a nasty public exposé of his little secrets.

Well everyone is a liar - so no, we're never going to uncover any guy or woman running for public office who has never lied.  
I suppose his point was that when Trump feels like saying someone is an idiot he just blurts out a few common words that everyone uses when annoyed - he doesn't wait a few days for his speech writers to come up with something cutting yet diplomatic. He doesn't wait around for a series of specialist lawyers to look over what he wants to say or wait for them to give him the thumbs up.  His approach is more off-the-cuff, more natural, more free-form and yep, it gets him into a lot of trouble. But whatever the naysayers believe, that refreshing honesty of approach has gotten him to where he is in the race when a lot of other smooth conventional candidates found that a big section of the American public is tiring of rehearsed stuff and false/affected conventional delivery.
Indeed, as the show went on you noticed that the other candidates, in order to struggle on, were forced to concede that they had to start talking bluntly and directly too, just like the guy they hated.  In order to compete with him it was they who had to adapt, not him.  But they weren't natural at it - he is.

SAFE America will vote for another Conventional, auto-cue President.  Even the alleged feverish Liberals will again vote for extreme conservatism when they pick a seasoned old Political Pro like Clinton.  
And we'll be back to normality - we'll be back to dead speeches for four years that nobody ever really listens to, back to regal frowns to the right and to the left so as to keep reading that auto-cue in a naturalistic way; back to the back-pat for the visiting Prime Minister or Head of State, and back to the finger pointing at something in the distance (knowbody ever knows what it is) as the photographers take their 'Presidential' shots of those walks across the bloody lawn.

Oh and back to all the lovely interesting wars, that madman Trump had no part in creating or sustaining.

Trump's biggest problem is media bias......NBC, ABC and MSNBC are so in the tank they refuse to show anything that puts Clinton in a bad light.....Same with the print media...

The top 10 biggest newspapers in the USA..Wall Street Journal, NY times, Washington Post, LA Times etc...Have 10 million readers between them........They are all Democrat supporters.....Anti-Trump anyway..

Wikileaks has exposed some pretty controversial statements Hillary has made about the religion..

The media apart from Fox has ignored them completely...and Fox is a joke..

22% of Americans are Catholics.......

If Romney had been a Democrat and Obama Republican.....He'd have won the last election..

If Trump wins there will be civil war in the US and strained relationships with nations around the world whose politicians have already made statements about him being a racist, woman abuser.  Left wing activists in the US, including the media and various celebrities, will be rallying every single perceived minority group to rise up on marches, demonstrations and random riots.  I can see the police taking the brunt of it.  University campuses will go hysterical and their will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week media coverage of his racism and woman hating.  There will be action, reaction, more reaction and a spiralling crisis of disorder, resulting in curfews and the army on the streets.

Nore Staat wrote:If Trump wins there will be civil war in the US and strained relationships with nations around the world whose politicians have already made statements about him being a racist, woman abuser.  Left wing activists in the US, including the media and various celebrities, will be rallying every single perceived minority group to rise up on marches, demonstrations and random riots.  I can see the police taking the brunt of it.  University campuses will go hysterical and their will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week media coverage of his racism and woman hating.  There will be action, reaction, more reaction and a spiralling crisis of disorder, resulting in curfews and the army on the streets.

Don't be silly..

Nore Staat wrote:If Trump wins there will be civil war in the US and strained relationships with nations around the world whose politicians have already made statements about him being a racist, woman abuser.  Left wing activists in the US, including the media and various celebrities, will be rallying every single perceived minority group to rise up on marches, demonstrations and random riots.  I can see the police taking the brunt of it.  University campuses will go hysterical and their will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week media coverage of his racism and woman hating.  There will be action, reaction, more reaction and a spiralling crisis of disorder, resulting in curfews and the army on the streets.

So the intelligencia of human-rightdom won't accept the Democratic choice of the People? The similarities keep coming with auld Brexit

Trump will be President elect......For two months......

Plenty of time for people to get used to the idea.....

As there is more chance of seeing Elvis running naked through Times Square....Than Trump winning..

Guess it isn't something worth worrying about.

Current betting odds.  Hilary Clinton about 1/7.  Donald Trump about 5/1.  Which means that they believe Hillary is > 97 % likely to win and Trump < 3 % likely to win.

Trump becoming US President would be as Earth-shaking as Alan Sugar becoming Prime Minister.

Fortunately it seems about as likely (at the moment).

Come on, you all know it would be the best Reality show evah. It would be a bit like US President goes to the Playboy Mansion. I can envisage Trump meeting Putin on the steps of the White House in his quilted red dressing gown, with Miss June and Miss September on either side.

And you're all wishing that away? What a bunch of greyscale philistines you lot are!

Trump needs to use his Wife more and be more apologetic.......Show humility..

Arnie had similar groping problems and his Wife (Shriver) at the time was terrific....."It's not the man I know and if it's a problem don't vote for him etc"...You can't beat a Woman standing by her Man..

Though it did help Arnie his Wife being a kennedy.....No one tries it on with them !!.

Bill Clinton had a pop at Ted in 2008 (Supported Obama)...........and apologised to him soon after when the Kennedy machine started payback....

The last debate Tuesday has to be a Hail Mary for Trump.......He should apologise and say I'm not perfect.... BUT.... My opponent is running on a third term of Obama... and what do we have..........

Capital investment is historically weak.....
Been a decline in real household family income.....
More Americans on food stamps...Nearly 20 million more than under Bush...
Labor participation is down...
Black inequality has risen..
Home ownership has gone down......

The President's Golf handicap has gone down.....

Has to get it on the economy it is his only chance and Slim is leaving already.......

Has to try to put the sexual stuff to bed.....

Needs to get his Wife out there..

Trump can't be worse than Berlusconi ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4adsftWSfW8

You can guarantee that the 'creatives' of this world - the cartoonists, the gag-line writers, the late night talk show hosts, the news satirists etc - whatever they say in public, however they frown at his OTT pronouncements, they want Trump to win and they'll all be voting for him.  He'd be a gravy train for them.

Watched Mock the Week last night and I think (started nodding off) they mentioned Trump's tax returns issues and how having declared a near $1billion loss he hasn't had to pay tax for nearly a decade.

Why pay Tax when you don't have to....

The system is the problem not the people that use it...

Agree with Pr4wn that Sanders would be the only one to make a go of getting people to pay their fair share..

He was too radical though...Things have to change gradually...

But he only lost 53 to 47....So there is hope of change.

One thing for sure it's gridlock for 8 years no matter who wins..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Why pay Tax when you don't have to....

The system is the problem not the people that use it...

Agree with Pr4wn that Sanders would be the only one to make a go of getting people to pay their fair share..

He was too radical though...Things have to change gradually...

But he only lost 53 to 47....So there is hope of change.

One thing for sure it's gridlock for 8 years no matter who wins..

I'm sure that will form part of his State of the Union Address when he becomes President...oh, wait....

He has been up front about it so far..

Saying he uses the system....

Only defence he has

If his own company has lost a billion, is he really the man to help balance the budget?

My wife and I watched a bit of the two debates last night.

A few comments:
1 - The format of the first 'debate' was appaling. One lengthy diatribe after another. Great for the writers of speeches, but not good for moving the discussion forwards. 2nd debate format was better, although I still feel there are too many rules.

2 - Trump comes across as a petulant child, and at times as coherent as one - he loses the thread of what he is saying more than I do.

3 - Hillary just seems like a run of the mill politician. Will probably make at best an OK President. Lacks the warmth of her husband or Obama (or even GWB).

Agree with Dave's comments - while Trump may not have gone outside of the tax laws, the fact that he lost virtually a billion dollars in a single year suggests he's much less of a business whiz than he has tried to portray.

SecretFly wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

Hopefully, Truss is right and Trump is heading for the biggest loss in an age. Hopefully, after that, he'll have the IRS crawl up his nether regions re. his lack of income tax payments etc and some women will pin a sexual offence charge on him. Oh, and hopefully his current wife will divorce him and take him to the cleaners and/or do a nasty public exposé of his little secrets.

Well everyone is a liar - so no, we're never going to uncover any guy or woman running for public office who has never lied.  
I suppose his point was that when Trump feels like saying someone is an idiot he just blurts out a few common words that everyone uses when annoyed - he doesn't wait a few days for his speech writers to come up with something cutting yet diplomatic.  He doesn't wait around for a series of specialist lawyers to look over what he wants to say or wait for them to give him the thumbs up.  His approach is more off-the-cuff, more natural, more free-form and yep, it gets him into a lot of trouble.  But whatever the naysayers believe, that refreshing honesty of approach has gotten him to where he is in the race when a lot of other smooth conventional candidates found that a big section of the American public is tiring of rehearsed stuff and false/affected conventional delivery.
Indeed, as the show went on you noticed that the other candidates, in order to struggle on, were forced to concede that they had to start talking bluntly and directly too, just like the guy they hated.  In order to compete with him it was they who had to adapt, not him.  But they weren't natural at it - he is.

SAFE America will vote for another Conventional, auto-cue President.  Even the alleged feverish Liberals will again vote for extreme conservatism when they pick a seasoned old Political Pro like Clinton.  
And we'll be back to normality - we'll be back to dead speeches for four years that nobody ever really listens to, back to regal frowns to the right and to the left so as to keep reading that auto-cue in a naturalistic way; back to the back-pat for the visiting Prime Minister or Head of State, and back to the finger pointing at something in the distance (knowbody ever knows what it is) as the photographers take their 'Presidential' shots of those walks across the bloody lawn.

Oh and back to all the lovely interesting wars, that madman Trump had no part in creating or sustaining.

All very good and I agree with a lot of it. It's the implied (not by you) fact that Trump isn't a liar, but Hilary is that I find ridiculous.
You're right re. the less PR-filtered style. If nothing else, he may convince others to be more genuine. Trouble is, a genuine Trump is an A-hole. You can be genuine and off the cuff without being an utter berk. The GOP better start rehearsing for the next time.
As for wars and Trump, fortunately we'll never know, but it's the fact is it not, that Trump didn't speak against Iraq (despite what he claims - another lie) and I think the planet has dodged a bullet re. future conflicts, with Trump nowhere near being C-in-C of the world's most powerful military.

SecretFly wrote:Come on, you all know it would be the best Reality show evah.  It would be a bit like US President goes to the Playboy Mansion.  I can envisage Trump meeting Putin on the steps of the White House in his quilted red dressing gown, with Miss June and Miss September on either side.

And you're all wishing that away?  What a bunch of greyscale philistines you lot are!

Actually, that would be quite funny. It's the other stuff that would go with it though.

DAVE667 wrote:If his own company has lost a billion, is he really the man to help balance the budget?

I wouldn't vote for him....The economy and security are his only plus points though..

You want to see if you can find an oddsmaker who will take a bet on whether Trump pays a visit to Ryker Island correctional facility in the next four years...

He's got very personal with the Clintons... and if he has ever done anything illegal in his lifetime....You can guarantee he's up Turd Alley without a paddle....by the time they have finished !!!.

The Economy? Are you serious? The billionaire wants to cut taxes for billionaires, slash red tape (workers' rights), and his business tax cutting ideas will just shove more money into the pockets of the already super-rich.

Other than giving himself tons of money, he doesn't really have a plan at all.

The economy isn't very good......She is running on a third term of Obama ticket...

Home ownership down..
Nearly 20 million more Americans on food stamps...
Family income down...
Less Americans in work etc....
National debt has risen from 11 trillion to 19 trillion..

Get my drift ???

Trump needs to say "Can we afford four more years of Obama"........

Rasmussen poll....

10 0ct 2016.....Clinton 45 - 38 Trump.....

Latest poll.......Trump 43 - 41 Clinton.....


LA Times also has Trump ahead...

Trump won the last debate big it seems...

However polls were taken before these new sex scandals....

Kind of shows how poor Clinton is she can't kill this joke off completely...

Probably says more about what Donald would actually have to do to lose his core support

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Rasmussen poll....

10 0ct 2016.....Clinton 45 - 38 Trump.....

Latest poll.......Trump 43 - 41 Clinton.....


LA Times also has Trump ahead...

Trump won the last debate big it seems...

However polls were taken before these new sex scandals....

Kind of shows how poor Clinton is she can't kill this joke off completely...

The esteemed BBC reported a new headline story where a woman said Trump touched her vagina about thirty years ago:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37658316
looking at the story it seems they have edited it to remove the word vagina.

The dark secret of sexual assault (regarding Donald Trump from the BBC):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37639640

US Election 2016: Trump 'groped woman like an octopus' - another story from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37639839

Trump 'started kissing me open-mouthed' - another story from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37662037

These are only some of the stories headlined by the BBC over the past two days.  It has gone on and on - How Trumps says he grabs women by the Cat, how that makes him condone sexual assault etc etc.

Maybe it is just overkill - and people begin to glaze over and suspect maybe the media are exaggerating and being unfairly biased.  

Anyway the BBC are reporting the latest polls have Clinton 9 points ahead.

There has been close to zero articles on policies and policy difference from the BBC it seems - at least none that have been headlined.  It has been predominantly about Trump from hair implants, to islamophobia, to misogyny and now sexual abuse. .... and the British taxpayers bankroll the BBC to produce this stuff.

To be fair to the BBC it's not as if we're getting much policy from the candidates. All it has been is Bitching

These sex scandals have coincided too well with the Clinton wikileaks...

Clinton seems to have every Base covered....Very formidable lady.

She hasn't been campaigning this week..No doubt she is being schooled on how to look human for the final debate.....

The average American voter - what will they base their decisions on?  Policy differences or something else?  Do the two candidates have to give any detail to policy ... do they have to publish a manifesto.   Donald Trump says he will get Mexico to build a wall, will carefully vet all Muslims heading to the US, will ask foreign nations receiving defence support from the US to substantially contribute to US costs, will renegotiate all trade deals to prevent jobs leaking from the US, will scrap obamocare.  Hillary will maintain the status quo as far as I can tell - maintain the Obama policy, assuming he had a policy.

Trump saying the Election is rigged...

It's bollox....but it's a smart play..

When 80 percent of the media is against you play the victim card...

Can't do any harm.

I hope this campaign at least is the death knell of this marathon election procedure. You could take six monhts off it at least, truncate the damn thing and stop this bloody circus every four years. Much much too long and people get bored with the 'policy' differences so move quickly into the entertainment 'juicy' stuff - the personal bedroom antics and salacious histories.
And yeah, that can be fun for a while too - but this is torture now, and it always is. It doesn't matter who the candidates are, this damn system has to be truncated, sharpened up and completed in a much quicker time frame.

SecretFly wrote:I hope this campaign at least is the death knell of this marathon election procedure.  You could take six monhts off it at least, truncate the damn thing and stop this bloody circus every four years.  Much much too long and people get bored with the 'policy' differences so move quickly into the entertainment 'juicy' stuff - the personal bedroom antics and salacious histories.
And yeah, that can be fun for a while too - but this is torture now, and it always is.  It doesn't matter who the candidates are, this damn system has to be truncated, sharpened up and completed in a much quicker time frame.

And it gives ammunition to all those political leaders that like to tell their people that the "great Satan" is corrupt and immoral.  

It also affirms belief in some less than democratic states that "democracy" is a race to the lowest common denominator; breeds weakness; that information has to be controlled / fabricated; journalists restricted or eliminated.

What a load of garbage.......American electoral system has always been viewed as corrupt.....Hasn't been a President yet that hasn't  been bought by special interests or has a saintly background....Maybe not the founding Fathers..

Shock of all shocks the US has corrupt politicians...and as Presidents since probably Andrew Jackson the 7th President back in 1830..

Grant's presidency was a free for all as far as the public purse went..

Harding had the Tea pot dome scandal in the 1920s....

Reagan had guns for hostages..

Kennedy was kicked out of the UK for bootlegging..

US is flawed but it has a bill of rights...and is a decent nation...

Hence why so many want to go there..


ABC News poll..Clinton 47 - 43 Trump..

All this crap and Trump still not dead in the polling..

I wonder how many voters are too embarrassed to tell pollsters they will vote for Trump ... probably not enough to swing the result.  I guess a lot depends on what will happen to the Bernie Sanders support.  I should imagine the young will overwhelming vote for Hillary and all the media stories regarding end of days if Trump gets elected will get them out in numbers to vote.

Majority of students won't vote I imagine..

Sanders ran on student money....Wikileaks have released documents that the DNC screwed him over...Wasserman Schultz the head of the DNC was forced to resign..

The kids will stay home in droves..

Not sure there is a silent Trump vote....Don't forget the GOP are briefing against him too.

Trump now accusing Hillary of taking drugs?

I think he may have completely redefined gutter politics by now.