2020 Presidential Election part III

[92tide]

Yeah, Americans vote in primaries, etc but let's be honest. The nomination ultimately goes to the candidate the party has decided to push...

i get what you are saying, but it's the people who decided it was a good idea, for whatever reason, to vote for trump who are 100% responsible for trump and what has been wrought on our country.

 

[92tide]

My mom called and told me my dad got a absentee ballot registration. He has been dead for 22 years.

in what state does she live?

 

[92tide]

I don't get this. Do you just have a gut feeling about Biden's health or do you know something I don't? Why in the world would you think that Biden's health is worse than the clinically obese Donald Trump?

I've stated this before, but from afar you can only judge a person's health by their body shape, skin tone, demeanor, mental acuity, and gait. To my knowledge, Biden has shown no signs of poor health since the primaries started. Trump is obese, orange, and clearly leans forward when walking and standing.

IMO, Trump is physiologically older than Biden, who stands tall and walks well.

biden is also completely capable of handling the job of president.

 

[92tide]

Trump and his "wife" both test positive for COVID19.

i knew he would try to get out of the debates

 

[Bamaro]

That’s pretty much my point.

Trump has set the bar so low that Maggie, my British Shorthair cat, could throw catnip at a dartboard and do better.

The fact that any previous president would be better isn’t an answer to the the question. The question is, given the multi-generational opportunity, a cartoonish buffoon of a Republican candidate, Biden is the best the opposition can come up with? Really?

In all seriousness, I think Biden’s health is so fragile, that the real question is Harris vs. Trump....which would not bode well for any of us. Look for a desperate Trump campaign to play that card soon.

Sounds like you are grasping at straws.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

The question is, given the multi-generational opportunity, a cartoonish buffoon of a Republican candidate, Biden is the best the opposition can come up with? Really?

1) a number of capable people refuse to run for President - for many different reasons
2) for better or worse, the Democrats went with "among the candidates running, this is our best chance to win," and I would also note that he did get the most votes
3) whether "better" candidates could be found under a system not in use or another way is academic, unknowable and ultimately irrelevant - we have what we have
4) what you argue above is the argument we always have: should we go with our ideal candidate who crosses off all the boxes or is it more important that we simply get the incumbent outta there?

In all honesty, it could be argued that once again a candidate a little more towards the center won the nomination because a couple of candidates hard to the edge of the party split the votes that if only one of them had run might well have gotten the other nominated (in this case, Warren/Sanders singing the same tune as Rubio/Cruz four years ago).

5) In every single Presidential election, people complain about the candidates. Every. Single One. I can find you newspaper articles from 1956 showing the great unwashed complaining about the candidates - which that year were Eisenhower and Stevenson, two of the most qualified men to ever seek the office. None of us now would mention those two in the same breath with Biden-Trump, but you CAN find such articles or editorials or letters to the editor saying the exact same thing about "this is the best we can do?"

In all seriousness, I think Biden’s health is so fragile, that the real question is Harris vs. Trump....which would not bode well for any of us. Look for a desperate Trump campaign to play that card soon.

You may be right, but Biden (at this point) isn't the one with Covid-19 who is over 70 and quite overweight and using drugs.

 

[92tide]

1) a number of capable people refuse to run for President - for many different reasons
2) for better or worse, the Democrats went with "among the candidates running, this is our best chance to win," and I would also note that he did get the most votes
3) whether "better" candidates could be found under a system not in use or another way is academic, unknowable and ultimately irrelevant - we have what we have
4) what you argue above is the argument we always have: should we go with our ideal candidate who crosses off all the boxes or is it more important that we simply get the incumbent outta there?

In all honesty, it could be argued that once again a candidate a little more towards the center won the nomination because a couple of candidates hard to the edge of the party split the votes that if only one of them had run might well have gotten the other nominated (in this case, Warren/Sanders singing the same tune as Rubio/Cruz four years ago).

5) In every single Presidential election, people complain about the candidates. Every. Single One. I can find you newspaper articles from 1956 showing the great unwashed complaining about the candidates - which that year were Eisenhower and Stevenson, two of the most qualified men to ever seek the office. None of us now would mention those two in the same breath with Biden-Trump, but you CAN find such articles or editorials or letters to the editor saying the exact same thing about "this is the best we can do?"




You may be right, but Biden (at this point) isn't the one with Covid-19 who is over 70 and quite overweight and using drugs.

i imagine for some people there will never be an acceptable dem candidate beyond a hypothetical. and as you mentioned above (and i heard exactly the same thing from tons of folks in our industry), biden was that hypothetical, until he became the nominee.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Let me add this - you look back now and can say, "Carter was a good guy and not a great President, Reagan" - well there's variations of thoughts there.

But in 1980, look at the candidates:

Reagan - no explanation necessary
Bush 41 - former Congresscritter, Ambassador to China, CIA director, party chairman, great war record
Dole - Senator, highly influential in his own party, great war record
John Anderson - maverick liberal (even for that time), helluva great debater, old school GOP, great war record
John Connally - former Dem turned Republican, kinda viewed as a shady TX guy, got shot with JFK
Howard Baker - Senate Minority Leader, moderate, the guy who asked "what did Nixon know and when"
Phil Crane - hard right guy from Illinois, known as "the Kennedy of the right"

Jimmy Carter - former GA governor, President, peanut farmer
Ted Kennedy - long-serving Senator at the time, member of the most famous political family of the time
Jerry Brown - CA governor who was all over the place, not really liberal but not really conservative (Brown had no political core other than "I should be in office")


So there you have 3 (eventual) Presidents running of varying success, another guy who won the nomination and lost (Dole)......and what did the voters and press of the time say?

"We don't like any of these candidates, and we wish someone else would run"

Other than Crane (who was the best debater not named John Anderson on the GOP side) and Connally's shiftiness, that GOP field was probably the best one they ever produced in terms of qualifications.

And it still wasn't enough for some people. Reagan is an extremist who'll start WW3, Bush is a wimp, Dole is mean, Anderson is too far to the left, Connally is a crook, etc.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

i imagine for some people there will never be an acceptable dem candidate beyond a hypothetical. and as you mentioned above (and i heard exactly the same thing from tons of folks in our industry), biden was that hypothetical, until he became the nominee.

Always

"Hey, if the Democrats don't blow this by nominating candidate X, I'll vote for them."

They nominate candidate Y.

"Oh, they blew it, now I have no choice but to vote for the guy I was already gonna vote for."

 

[selmaborntidefan]

The only thing that would have made me at least pause is if Biden had chosen either Hillary or Warren as his running mate. I would still have voted for Biden if he chose Warren (but not The Entitled One, I'd have gone third party since I'm in TX anyway). As I said weeks ago - Kamala Harris is not my ideal, but sometimes you go to the prom with the girl who is willing to go rather than stay at home and hear about it later.

(For those who forgot, Klobuchar was my candidate early in the process, and for whom I voted in the primary).

 

[B1GTide]

The only thing that would have made me at least pause is if Biden had chosen either Hillary or Warren as his running mate. I would still have voted for Biden if he chose Warren (but not The Entitled One, I'd have gone third party since I'm in TX anyway). As I said weeks ago - Kamala Harris is not my ideal, but sometimes you go to the prom with the girl who is willing to go rather than stay at home and hear about it later.

(For those who forgot, Klobuchar was my candidate early in the process, and for whom I voted in the primary).

I would have voted for Biden with Sanders on the ticket. America can withstand a single presidency of left wingers. Another 4 years of Trump could destroy our republic forever.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I would have voted for Biden with Sanders on the ticket. America can withstand a single presidency of left wingers. Another 4 years of Trump could destroy our republic forever.

You know what's funny/sad?

I used to just throw off that "just shut up" when too many folks went that route. "If so and so wins, it's the end of society!" But remember that my entire assumption was that his own party had a line SOMEWHERE that they'd never allow anyone to cross. The GOP of the Watergate and Iran-Contra eras sure did.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I would have voted for Biden with Sanders on the ticket. America can withstand a single presidency of left wingers. Another 4 years of Trump could destroy our republic forever.

That's another thing - for all the fearmongering, the reality is that NOT MUCH to the hard left would even be accomplished.

The night Bill Clinton won, I was a terrified 23-year old who really believed what Rush Limbaugh (and others) were saying - we now had a left-wing socialist President with a Democratic majority in both houses and here came the higher taxes, bigger deficits, and socialized medicine.

Then I sat back and watched him and his party flop around like fish out of water, and I will admit it was pretty damned funny to see. It was like they got to the election as this unified, great force - and the moment the votes were counted, all hell broke loose. The night the GOP won both houses, I felt a huge sigh of relief, and it had nothing to do with the Contract With America so much as, "he ain't gonna be able to do anything except start a war now anyway."

Then I did a lot of reading and learned this was the normal modus operandi in DC. I read a lot of history of politics and campaigns and governing and discovered this same thing happened with Jimmy Carter. He had bigger advantages in both houses than Clinton did, but Congressperson A didn't like this part of the budget, George Meany and the unions didn't like another part, this Senator wanted a provision for this or else he wasn't voting for it - and so on and so on.


And then after just a bit of reading and looking, I learned this happens every single time regardless. It only happens intra-party less now because the two parties are more liberal/more conservative and they've all gotten rid of the vast majority of the moderates over the last 30 years.

 

[Im_on_dsp]

How a crease in Biden's shirt spawned a debate conspiracy theory

Before the first Presidential debate, a baseless conspiracy theory inundated many Americans: that Democratic candidate Joe Biden might wear a secret earpiece to assist him in his debate against President Trump. Biden did not. But a video of a crease briefly forming on Biden's shirt has some...

www.cnn.com

What are the stupid people going to do with their time after this election is over?

 

[TexasBama]

I read a lot of history of politics and campaigns and governing and discovered this same thing happened with Jimmy Carter. He had bigger advantages in both houses than Clinton did, but Congressperson A didn't like this part of the budget, George Meany and the unions didn't like another part, this Senator wanted a provision for this or else he wasn't voting for it - and so on and so on.

I don't think Carter helped himself bringing in his Georgia mafia

 

[Jon]

How a crease in Biden's shirt spawned a debate conspiracy theory

Before the first Presidential debate, a baseless conspiracy theory inundated many Americans: that Democratic candidate Joe Biden might wear a secret earpiece to assist him in his debate against President Trump. Biden did not. But a video of a crease briefly forming on Biden's shirt has some...

www.cnn.com

What are the stupid people going to do with their time after this election is over?

global warming denial, anti-vax, flat earth, 9/11 truth

you know, the usual

 

[92tide]

I don't think Carter helped himself bringing in his Georgia mafia

georgia can screw up a two car funeral. it has always been so, it will always be so

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Texas governor sued over move to restrict counties to one dropoff box...

Lawsuit

 

[TexasBama]

Trump aides reportedly think he'll 'face a harsh judgment from voters' after COVID-19 diagnosis

The latest Speed Read,/speed-reads,,speed-reads, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at The Week

theweek.com

 

[TexasBama]

Texas governor sued over move to restrict counties to one dropoff box...

Lawsuit

Just heard on NPR Harris County also looking at a lawsuit.